Innovation

📈 MURTEC Executive Summit: Tech Tides was held October 21-23 at the Fairmont Grand Del Mar in San Diego, focusing on AI, robotics, dynamic pricing in the restaurant industry, providing opportunities and actionable strategies.

💸 Nov 14, 2024 – Booking.com aligns with the Digital Markets Act: removes parity clauses in EEA, enables partners to set lower rates elsewhere, launches Data Portability API for user data control, introduces new data insight dashboards, ceases data sharing with affiliates like Agoda, Kayak, Priceline. ????

📱 Expedia Group, in Q3 2024, enhanced the One Key loyalty program, app features, and customer service. Leveraging AI, over 70% of travelers can now read concise summaries of reviews, assisting with informed decisions and development efficiency. The loyalty program membership saw a 7% global increase year-over-year, propelled by new airline redemption options and Vrbo discounts for members.

💻 Jake Simon and Tushar Agrawal, former Deloitte Consulting employees, founded ConnectedFresh to offer IoT sensor solutions for monitoring critical parameters such as cooler temperatures and energy consumption in foodservice operations. In 2023, the company joined the Techstars Future of Food Accelerator with Ecolab. Clients reported major savings by avoiding losses, with a grocer and a restaurant operator saving $70,000 and $25,000, respectively. Luna Grill reduced ingredient cooling log times from 20 minutes to under 5 minutes per item, saving thousands of hours across its locations. ConnectedFresh's platform uses LoRaWAN-compatible sensors and integrates with facilities management and compliance software to enhance food safety and operational efficiency.

💾 High Hotels, a hotel management firm based in Lancaster, Penn., collaborates with OpsTechPro (OTP) to automate workforce communications for over five years. Leveraging OTP, all 13 hotels in High Hotels' portfolio manage maintenance, engineering, housekeeping, front desk requests, and more. Their goal is to increase workforce performance by hundreds of percentage points within 3-5 months, with weekly monitoring and strategy adjustments. The 2024 Lodging Technology Study highlights the importance of personalized guest experiences and seamless service for guest loyalty, which High Hotels aims to achieve with OTP.