Hotels Don’t Need More Systems: They Need Connected Data

Glenn: [00:00:01] Glenn here. I’m at the Duetto Perform conference. I found the C. E. O. Mr. Zoltan, how are you?

Alex: [00:00:19] I’m great. How are you?

Glenn: [00:00:20] I’m having a ball. Fantastic. Over here, the BGP. Now. It’s a it’s pretty cool, but You know, one of the things that I wanted to talk to you about today is how complex technology is, how it’s giving everybody a freaking giant headache out there and how we need to find some quesi. So one of the things that I’m seeing is we’re having more complications with the tech stack and it’s getting very, very difficult for people to maneuver their way through, particularly in an industry has so much churn to it. Yes. How are you seeing the big picture? And then can you drill it down to a human level for us?

Alex: [00:00:53] Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. So so we’re in a big resort, full service resort hotel right now. This hotel probably has 30 different systems. Yeah. Has a sales and catering system, got prepress systems, housekeeping systems, CRS, KMS, revenue management system.

Glenn: [00:01:10] Yeah. No fault of anybody that just the way it is.

Alex: [00:01:13] Yeah. And each one has an owner and they are making suboptimal decisions with a subset of the data. And it’s, it’s wrecking the industry. To be honest with you. I think it was okay ten years ago maybe.

Glenn: [00:01:25] Well, it was a very different world. It was right. And now technology has moved at such a rapid pace. We need different solutions for an emerging set of challenges that we weren’t thinking about a couple of decades ago.

Alex: [00:01:38] Yeah. So so one of our big things here is we need to stop thinking about top line revenue. We need to be thinking about profit. And in order to think about hotel profit, you need those silo people in those siloed systems to start to communicate together. And what we’re seeing is there’s been two answers out there. One is I’ll just dictate what all the systems are. And and then I’ll do some work on the back side. Okay. We haven’t seen a lot of evidence that that’s work or we’ll put everybody on one system. Right. And it’ll just do everything. But the reality is there’s still workflows. They’re not using the data. I don’t think that they I don’t think this hotel needs more systems. I don’t think they need the brick and replace it. What we’re getting really good at is I don’t want to sell it. The first system. I want access to the data you already have. So how do we pull that data and collectively make better decisions so that the at the end of the day, the hotel can create a better guest experience and.

Glenn: [00:02:39] I my ESP is coming at me. I feel like we’re going to hear the words AI next.

Alex: [00:02:47] So yes.

Speaker 1: [00:02:49] Yeah.

Glenn: [00:02:49] Yes you are.

Alex: [00:02:50] Somebody’s not shy.

Glenn: [00:02:52] Just so you guys know, I’m partnering with Miss Cleo. So you know, if you’re up late night, give us a call. We got all your answers. Her on life problems? Me, I can say, AI, you said go.

Alex: [00:03:02] On. So for the first ten years of this company, we built about 700 integrations. It’s always been a strength of the company. We continue to do it. I think you’re going to see over the next two years, we’ll, we’ll be able to add a zero to the, the weight as we have built AI into almost everything we’ve done, but especially into our R&D and product organizations. That’s where we can say, you know what, you guys, we don’t need to be all the CISOs. We just want to be the brain. And you’ve got all these systems already. Let’s figure out how we can pull that data, how we can integrate it back in, and we can help make the best decision for you.

Glenn: [00:03:45] So practically speaking, what is that going to look like for the vote? Kelly.

Alex: [00:03:49] It looks like a couple of things with the demo we have here is dynamic pricing, which is you have loyalty systems, you have all these systems that in history, what have they bought before? What are they? Whatever. If you could take that data, do something about it real time, and then offer somebody while they’re buying a package that is completely relevant to them at a price point that is very advantageous. You wind up with higher total revenue, better gross operating profit. It’s a win for the hotel. It’s a win for the consumer. This promise of personalized pricing has been a promise for 20 years. We’ve actually been delivering it.

Glenn: [00:04:27] Which is which is amazing to me. And I if whoever’s got the office pool that I’m actually gonna say this, you’re a winner. I think they’re, they’re starting to get to know who I am. For decades, man, it’s like they kept collecting all this information. And then all I would get back are emails that I should go play golf. But I lived in Brooklyn. I don’t I didn’t golf in Brooklyn, so they never understood me. Yeah.

Alex: [00:04:54] You might get a thank you for your whatever you do.

Glenn: [00:04:57] Well, yeah. And yeah, but whatever. And then they just want to survey that they ignore.

Alex: [00:05:01] But this now allows us to. And obviously we we started this in the gaming industry for two reasons. One, is there an industry that knows how to make money using math? So this was.

Glenn: [00:05:12] But let me also say I’m sorry to interrupt you, Alex. The gaming industry was the first group of people that got it. They really made the connection between guest habit and how to turn that into profitability. It might have started because people were rolling the dice and not doing so well, and wanted to give them some shrimp back, but it really matured into something extremely incredible. And one of your founders came directly out of a very smart casino resort.

Alex: [00:05:38] It’s the roots of, of our business. And so for example we do this live in production. We might give a room free away, right? But so the traditional rep power says that’s the worst deal you’ve ever done, like gross operating profit. So that’s probably going to be the most profitable thing that you did all week, because that’s a whale of a casino, right?

Glenn: [00:05:58] But in your world, it might be give this person a room for 200 as opposed to this other room for 250 because the person is spending 250 staying in their room getting DoorDash, the person who’s spending 100 200 is in the bar in the restaurant spending their money, right?

Alex: [00:06:17] All that data exists. We can use it all in real time to create a better deal and experience with a consumer and a better revenue outcome for them, right?

Glenn: [00:06:26] Because as we’re having trouble finding more profitability, the only way forward is to get closer to the customer. We get closer to the customer, give them opportunities to spend money the way they want to fulfill their lives. Exactly right. That is where we got to be.

Alex: [00:06:42] Yep. We got it. Yeah. The the, the, the ancillary to this is where you see it in most hotel websites is if they have packages, the prebuilt packages, the romance packages, right? That a person dreaming what they think the customer wants, the customer will tell you, give them the opportunity to build their own package. Give them a savings associated with it. It’s a win win for everyone.

Glenn: [00:07:06] Yeah. Like if I was to get a romance package, I need separate bedrooms. But you wouldn’t know that unless you got to know me. That’s not me. She requested a separate bedrooms. Let’s get it straight over here. Any final words, Alex?

Alex: [00:07:19] This is it. We are at an inflection point. This is not a gradual change, but we already have customers that are doing this. The the delta between the haves and have nots, as they start to think about moving from revenue bracket bedroom to gross operating profit, thinking about how do I personalize that experience and maximize the value for both participants? It’s going to define the the winners and the losers.

Glenn: [00:07:42] Yeah, it sure will. Now more than ever. Every penny counts. You can’t afford to miss a thing. All right. I don’t want to miss anything. I got to get back into this event. Alex, thank you so much for being here. Like, share, subscribe. I guess it’s time for us to go. Yeah, we got a pal. Ha! Bad joke. See ya. Bye.