Innovation

🏨 14:00 – 15:00 BST, hosted by BHN editor Eloise Hanson, in partnership with Agilysys. Online and free event. Focus on hotel brands shifting from selling rooms to curating guest journeys. Topics include integration into the experience economy, elevating ancillary services, smart technology for personalized offers, and staff's role in revenue strategy. Target audience: hotel owners, investors, C-suite executives, technology and service providers. Expert speakers to be announced.

🎪 TRYBE and Bookboost announced a new partnership in May 2025, revolutionizing how hotels manage spa and activity bookings. By integrating TRYBE's booking software with Bookboost's CRM, hotels can sync guest preferences directly into their systems. This enables hotels to enhance the guest experience with personalized services based on spa, leisure, and activity data. TRYBE's Ricky Daniels and Bookboost's Willem Rabsztyn highlight the potential for improved marketing strategies through enriched guest insights and automated campaigns.

💻 RMS partners with Breezeway to enhance property management. The integration allows hospitality operators to automate tasks via RMS's interface, saving approximately 40 hours monthly and potentially boosting revenue by $20,000 annually. Key features include AI-powered guest messaging and automated cleaning schedules. Adam Seskis and Jeremy Gall highlight the partnership's focus on operational efficiency and enhanced guest experiences. Breezeway joins RMS's tech ecosystem, aiming for growth and excellence in hospitality operations.

💻 Navan's new analytics feature launched in May 2025 offers over 100 travel data insights, aiding finance teams in optimizing travel spend. Available in the U.S., this tool partners with ThoughtSpot's Agentic Analytics Platform. It provides dashboards for real-time analytics, automating notifications when spending limits are reached. Early adopter DRW praises its transformative impact. Navan plans a global rollout at no extra cost, enhancing decision-making efficiency for travel and finance teams.

🏢 Direct Travel, Inc. and partners released "The Perfect Trip Index: The State of the Managed Travel Experience," surveying 195 global travel managers. Key findings: 41% report inconsistent service, 36% cite poor tech functionality. Issues with Online Booking Tools affect 64% for exchanges/cancellations, 13% support NDC changes. 73% prioritize global content, 63% seek better TMC-OBT integration. Manual expense issues persist, with 55% wanting automated receipt capture. 62% demand centralized meeting logistics platforms, and 45% desire AI-powered search results.

🥗 Since August 2024, Salad House has enhanced guest satisfaction and business performance using Ovation. Over 2,500 dissatisfied customers returned, driven by real-time feedback. They received 160 surveys per location monthly, increased Google star ratings by 0.2, and gained 28% more public reviews. Same Store Sales rose by 9.7% year-over-year. Ovation's AI tools and mobile-friendly surveys provided critical insights, maintaining a 95% customer retention rate, crucial for operational efficiency and franchisee coaching.

💻 In the USA, hotel staff turnover costs average $5,864 per hire, according to Cornell University's School of Hospitality Management. Modern Property Management Systems (PMS) with intuitive UX/UI can reduce onboarding time from weeks to days, improving retention and job satisfaction. This empowers staff to focus on guest service, reducing turnover and enhancing experiences. Automation handles repetitive tasks, supporting staff without replacing their decision-making. This approach creates agile, loyal teams, enhancing service quality.

🥤 Coca-Cola is revolutionizing beverage services with Freestyle dispensers, gathering real-time data on consumption, preferences, and upkeep. This innovation aids restaurants in cutting syrup waste and optimizing inventory. Enhanced customer experiences include QR code-enabled drink selections. Coca-Cola's collaboration extends to digital marketing, offering personalized mobile or kiosk promotions, co-branded loyalty app campaigns, and QR code-enabled games, surveys, or deals on menus and cups, enriching customer engagement and loyalty.

💰 Cendyn, on May 2025, in Austin, Texas, partnered with Loyalty Juggernaut (LJI) to enhance hotel loyalty programs. They integrated Cendyn's CRM with LJI's GRAVTY, aiming to create a unified loyalty engagement ecosystem. This platform helps hotels improve efficiency, personalize guest relationships, and reduce reliance on generic loyalty systems. Chris Egan from Cendyn and Shyam Shah from LJI highlighted the system's ability to reward guests automatically based on their interactions, enhancing customer engagement and brand loyalty.

🌍 Travel trends for Summer 2025 highlight increased exploration amidst economic uncertainties. 77% of global travelers are eager to explore, and 48% plan to spend more than in 2024. Top destinations: Hurghada, Sharm El Sheikh, Tokyo, Dubai, Bangkok, Alicante, Nice, Malaga, Rimini, and Dubrovnik. Families prioritize cultural exposure, with 85% using AI for planning. Group travel gains traction with 20% of travelers; Gen Z leads with 33%. Unique stays rise with a 10% increase in searches, favoring riads, villas, and tented camps.