TOP NEWS

🍴 Ama, an all-day restaurant in Washington, D.C., opened in early-June near Navy Yard and Capitol Hill. The establishment transitions from a morning coffee and pastry spot to a focaccia and sandwich hub during the day, and in the evening, it becomes an aperitivo bar and dinner venue. Led by Johanna Hellrigl and Micah Wilder, the restaurant aims to efficiently serve the community's daytime dining needs. Ama features a diverse, seasonal menu with Italian roots, including Ligurian seafood and Alto Adige comfort dishes. The beverage program, managed by Wilder, boasts housemade bitters, cordials, and a unique cocktail menu served with an exclusive seltz gun sourced from Milan. Ama emphasizes customer lifetime value and staff well-being, adding a 3.85% health and wellness charge to bills for employees' benefits and commits to sustainable practices.

🏨 In the hospitality industry, hotels face challenges with consistent revenue due to fluctuating occupancy rates and market conditions. Locally Negotiated Rate (LNR) contracts offer a solution by providing a stable revenue stream and building corporate client relationships. LNR contracts are special pricing agreements with corporate clients, guaranteeing a minimum number of room bookings and often include benefits like room upgrades. These contracts help hotels manage cash flow, forecast occupancy, and improve guest loyalty and operational efficiency. Implementing LNR contracts requires identifying target markets, researching competitors, creating attractive proposals, and negotiating terms. A well-structured LNR contract includes clear room commitments, a flexible rate structure, guaranteed amenities, provisions for renewal and extensions, and performance metrics. Future LNR trends include dynamic pricing, personalization, system integration, sustainability, and adapting to remote work. Effective implementation requires researching potential clients, assessing hotel capabilities, staff training, and regularly updating contracts to stay competitive.

🔎 Yum! Brands plans to expand voice AI in Taco Bell drive-thrus by end of 2024. Daniel J. Connolly suggests integration with core systems is crucial, and Robert Peterson of Oracle views voice AI as a standard UI evolution. Courtney Radke and Lee Holman discuss efficiency and regional training needs. Surveys report potential for reduced errors and faster service, but franchisee cost concerns remain. Data privacy and security highlighted by Connolly and Peterson. Robert Dawson raises additional deployment questions. McDonald's had previously abandoned AI due to accuracy and customer satisfaction issues.

📌 Valor Hospitality Partners, under the leadership of their regional director, prioritizes guest experience, training, and service quality. They conduct biannual inspections and audits, encourage staff to predict guest needs, and value personalized service. The guest experience in the hotel industry has evolved, with a shift towards personalization and technological integration, including AI, AR, and VR. Valor strives to stay ahead by monitoring trends and guest feedback, aiming to provide unique, satisfying experiences.

🏨 A luxury hotel stay is enhanced by seamless technology integration, where settings like lighting, temperature, and entertainment are automatically adjusted upon arrival and throughout the stay. Advanced smart home systems trigger a "grand welcome" scene, with motorized shades, ambient lighting, and preferred music or sounds activating when a guest enters their room. Customizable control options and personalized settings tied to a loyalty program remember guest preferences, ensuring a tailored experience across the hotel's portfolio, creating a sense of true hospitality.

📦 Hoteliers should spend 80% of their time on revenue-generating activities and 20% on converting revenue to profit. Key strategies include understanding guest motivations, providing unique guest experiences, expanding revenue streams through offerings like coworking spaces and personalized recommendations, and maximizing revenue per guest with AI personalization. Digital presence optimization and using revenue management systems are vital. Profitability is enhanced by streamlining operations, fostering innovation, cross-functional teams, employee training, automating routine processes, and energy efficiency measures.

💾 Stayntouch, a hotel technology provider, released UpsellPRO for Attribute-Based Selling (ABS) to help hotels market room features separately during booking. A partnership report with NYU's Tisch Center showed half of respondents with over a month booking window would pay more for ABS. Experts highlighted the benefits of ABS for hoteliers, including better booking control, increased upselling, and dynamic pricing. Insights suggest ABS enhances guest preference insights, satisfaction, revenue, and engagement with hotel services. Leaders in hotel tech and consulting shared their thoughts, emphasizing the importance of industry consensus and the potential of ABS to revolutionize hotel profitability.

📊 The RTN community, formed five years ago, aimed to simplify integration in the restaurant industry. It has since established three main data standards: RTN Menu Synchronization, RTN Transactional Data, and RTN Customer Record Data Standards. The standards are designed to allow systems to consistently access and exchange data. RTN's Object Model Repository now makes these standards more accessible by providing visual attributes and enabling JSON or XML message generation. Industry leaders like Jim Clagett from Jack in the Box, Russel Cotter from Chipotle, and Shelly Rupel from Devour acknowledge the positive impact of these standards. These efforts are likened to the "Rosetta Stone for Business and IT" and the "DNA for application integration." Sandy Angel of AHLA relates over 20 years of similar work in the hotel industry. Christopher Sebes and Robert Peterson, both RTN Industry Champions, emphasize the ease of building integrations with these standards. A case study with Cacy Bedoka-Merrifield from Jack in the Box and Del Taco demonstrates the practical benefits of the Object Model Repository for standardizing menu data.

🔔 Stayntouch, a leader in cloud hotel PMS and guest-centric technology, introduced UpsellPRO, enabling hotels to market room features individually during booking. Partnering with NYU SPS Jonathan M. Tisch Center of Hospitality, they found that roughly 50% of respondents with over a month booking window would pay more for ABS. The panel, including experts Flo Lugli, George Roukas, John Burns, Klaus Kohlmayr, and Nichole Dehler, discussed ABS benefits like expanded booking control, increased visibility for upselling, and enhanced personalization. ABS offers insights into guest preferences, creating opportunities for higher satisfaction and revenue. The industry, influenced by the airline's unbundling approach, seeks a unified definition of ABS to avoid consumer dissatisfaction and an overload of choices.

🍴 Thomas Straker plans to open a second café-style eatery in Notting Hill at 60 Golborne Road. The UK Government, with the Employment (Allocation of Tips) Act received in May last year, will enforce new tipping measures in October 2024. John and Desiree Chantarasak are set to open AngloThai, a 50-cover restaurant in Marylebone this autumn. Turtle Bay's '4 days at the Bay' initiative has seen a 'phenomenal' response, improving 90% of staff well-being. Philip Warren's Native Burger opened in Launceston, offering a 20-cover space with nine burger options.