Innovation

📢 In San Francisco last weekend, Toast ads were spotted in the Castro Street Muni station. Within the last week, Toast released a three-minute short starring chef-turned-actor Matty Matheson at Manhattan's Marea restaurant. The marketing campaign by Toast's CMO, Kelly Esten, aims at restaurant people and also seeks to increase brand awareness with the general public. Toast retracted a controversial 99-cent charge in 2023 after backlash from restaurant customers. CEO Aman Narang announced last summer that Toast is expanding from restaurants to grocery and convenience stores. The latest ad involves actors and Marea's executive chef, PJ Calapa, but the waitstaff was not acting.

```html 📢 ``` In a Jan. 23, 2025 podcast episode, Michael Levie discusses innovation in hospitality, advocating for "importing" ideas and cross-industry skills. Supported by Shiji Group, a global hospitality technology leader, the episode encourages implementing ideas for business enhancement and improving guest experiences. Music provided by Bespoke Sound, specializing in Music Identity Design for hospitality brands.

🏨 Sean Seah, SVP of Strategy, Technology and Innovation at Langham Hospitality Group, emphasizes innovation tailored to specific problems in hospitality. Langham plans to grow from 32 to 100 hotels in ten years, focusing on customer experience and digital transformation. CEO Bob van den Oord, appointed in 2023, tasked Seah with disruptive ideas and innovation. Langham's move to a cloud-native property management system aims to centralize customer data for enhanced personalization. Seah is leveraging AI for targeted customer offers and operational efficiency, with pilot projects like Microsoft's AI co-pilot for back-office improvements. The first hotel cloud migration took six months, prioritizing learning and scaling with empathy. The overarching mission is to maintain Langham's luxury essence while innovating at scale, serving property owners, customers, and the team.

💻 The travel and hospitality industry, valued at $5 trillion, dedicates about 7% of its revenue to digital marketing, with giants like Booking.com and Expedia spending $16 billion in 2024, representing 30% to 50% of their revenues. In contrast, hotels typically spend 2% to 5% on marketing. AI platforms like ChatGPT, which achieved 200 million monthly users and 100 million app downloads in over a year, are reshaping consumer behavior. Despite the high cost of AI development, with new models estimated at $100 million, smaller companies are finding opportunities through third-party AI models. OpenAI faced a $5 billion loss in 2024, highlighting the challenge of sustainable revenue models in the AI industry. As AI evolves, incorporating real-time Availability, Rates, and Inventory (ARI) becomes a likely next step, mirroring metasearch advancements. Major companies are integrating AI to stay competitive, but AI's high costs could impact short-term profits. The hospitality marketing landscape is on the cusp of transformation due to AI's increasing influence.

💻 Stable Kernel launched a Data & AI Practice led by Ben Manning, Ph.D., featuring Agentic AI, which enables autonomous decision-making and adaptation. Agentic AI is transforming industries including foodservice and retail by streamlining operations and enhancing customer experiences. A quick-service restaurant (QSR) saw an 80% faster time to market, reducing promotion rollout from 3 weeks to 3 days. For a video-on-demand (VoD) platform, Stable Kernel's solutions scaled operations and forecasted peak demand, supporting competitive market presence.

🥣 Lauren Kennedy and Derek Hannum discussed food safety tech at NRF 2025 in NYC, addressing FSMA 204 compliance for high-risk foods like seafood and fresh produce, effective January 2026. Companies must record Critical Tracking Events (CTEs) for such foods; this is vital as the FDA recalls over 100 million units of food quarterly. The ReposiTrak-Upshop partnership enhances traceability, reduces waste and improves operations. Businesses are advised to prepare now, audit supply chains, adopt traceability solutions, and plan for scalability.

📌 In a podcast recorded in January 2025, Tim and Dan from Revenue Generation discussed the evolving landscape of the hotel industry, focusing on revenue and profit optimization, and the pivotal role of data science and AI. Tim narrated his career journey, starting as a reservation agent in Omaha, Nebraska, progressing through roles at Starwood Hotels and Host Hotels, and eventually founding Revenue Generation. Dan, with a background in revenue management across casinos and multifamily sectors, emphasized the importance of data-driven decisions and highlighted his work in predictive analytics. Both highlighted the need for a single source of truth for data, the importance of understanding and defining data elements, and the role of technology in accelerating decision-making. They stressed the significance of clean data, business intelligence tools like Power BI, and the potential of AI in enhancing revenue management strategies. Summary: Tim and Dan from Revenue Generation, with extensive careers in hotel revenue management, discuss the industry's challenges and the potential of data science and AI for revenue and profit optimization in a podcast recorded in January 2025. They advocate for clean data, strategic use of business intelligence tools, and adopting AI to drive efficient and faster decision-making. For more details from their comprehensive discussion on the future and current state of revenue management in the hotel industry, including the evolving use of AI, listen to the full podcast.

🏨 At Charlestowne Hotels, AI systems are employed to consolidate guest data—such as anniversary bookings or room preferences—into one dashboard, enhancing the personal touch in hospitality without replacing human staff. This AI use aims to accentuate human connection, backed by privacy-respecting techniques like federated learning and differential privacy in line with GDPR. Looking forward, tools for translating guest feedback and analyzing online sentiment will further support staff in providing empathetic, personalized service.

📊 OpenAI integrates real-time web search into ChatGPT, signalling a shift in search and marketing strategies. The focus moves from SEO to Context Experience Optimization (CXO), prioritizing content that meets user intent with nuance and conversation. Marketers face the challenge of building trust through transparent, ad-free, informative content. Digital advertising models may need to adapt as AI-driven search could alter user expectations. Personalization becomes key, with AI tools like OpenAI and Perplexity deepening user context understanding, emphasizing authentic, brand-aligned content over broad reach. This evolution demands value-driven, personalized marketing to excel in the new AI search landscape.