Innovation

🚀 Airline industry faces major challenges: flight delays, cancellations, and lost baggage. Traveler sentiment analysis shows record lows in satisfaction. Media sentiment fluctuates sharply, while airline executives' sentiment remains stable. Travelers affected by negative media coverage report 40% lower trust. Amadeus study finds customer experience investment ranked low. PwC reports superior customer experiences can raise ticket prices up to 10%. Customer experience leaders in airlines see five times the stock return compared to laggards over a decade. Urgent need for airlines to prioritize customer satisfaction for service excellence and financial health.

🏡 Park Hyatt New York invests multi-million dollars in enhancements, including a 500-square-foot "Manhattan Suite" atop the 25-story hotel, featuring Rossano Ferretti salon, Spa Nalai, suite upgrades, and a New York-themed experience. The top-floor suite offers two guestrooms with 140-square-foot balconies, combining into a three-bedroom space with 3.5 bathrooms, a living area, wet bar, butler’s kitchen, and private office. The suite boasts 18-foot windows, Le Labo amenities, Toto electric toilets, and AI-powered beds. Salon relocated in June; Spa Nalai reopens in fall, and suites with fireplaces and terraces revamped by January.

🏨 BWH Hotels, encompassing WorldHotels, Best Western Hotels & Resorts, and SureStay Hotels, partners with Canary Technologies to implement an AI-driven Guest Management System. The system integrates tools like Smart Checkout, Mobile Check-In, and Guest Messaging to personalize and enhance the guest experience. Larry Cuculic, president and CEO of BWH Hotels, aims to modernize guest services aligning with today's tech-savvy travelers. Harman Singh Narula, CEO of Canary, emphasizes the necessity of digital touchpoints in hospitality.

📌 Tripadvisor teams up with travel tech specialist DerbySoft to test display advertising for DerbySoft's 6,000 hotel partners on Tripadvisor's platform. This collaboration aims to target location-specific audiences and enhance campaign tracking with incremental measurement. The initiative is in the testing phase, seeking to boost visibility and clicks by reaching consumers further up the purchase funnel, complementing existing products like Sponsored Placements and Business Advantage. Key figures Toni Marti and Christine Maguire express confidence in the partnership's potential to drive hotel success and platform efficiency.

🏨 Hotel guests increasingly use retail platforms for recommendations, mirroring the past role of hotel concierges. In the hospitality industry, there's a shift from just selling rooms to embracing ancillary sales and expanding revenue metrics to RevPAM—revenue per available meter. Despite potential, the uptake of attribute-based selling (ABS) is slow. A key challenge is staffing for these enhanced services. For more details, visit PhocusWire (published on Aug 23, 2024).

💰 On August 23, 2024, a seven-person startup, Otto, led by CEO Michael Gulmann (former Expedia executive), unveiled an AI-powered virtual assistant for business travel booking, designed to assist travelers in booking flights and hotels. Using OpenAI's GPT-4, Otto's chatbot learns user preferences and suggests options based on calendars and specific criteria. It can also process payments, targeting business travelers who manage their own bookings instead of relying on travel management companies.

🚬 OTA's Marnie Wilking reported a 500-900% increase in travel scams due to AI, with a rise in phishing over the last 18 months. At Toronto's Collision technology conference, Wilking urged the use of two-factor authentication to combat phishing. AI helps Booking.com remove fake hotels. Full story on BBC.

🍻 Throw Social in Delray Beach, Fla., debuts a new self-serve tap wall with 20 taps including 7 cocktails, 7 beers, 5 wines, and 1 hard seltzer. Utilizing RFID technology by Pour My Beer, customers use a tap wall card linked to their credit card, charged by volume poured. Throw Social plans a Miami location in Q1 2025 and further expansions to Orlando and Nashville. The concept is part of a broader trend of self-serve technology in restaurants and entertainment venues.

🍽 Grubhub expands its Campus Dining to over 60 schools, reaching an additional half a million students, totaling over 4.5 million served. The expansion includes University of Alabama at Birmingham, University of Tampa, University of Missouri, Howard University, and Tulane University, increasing its reach to more than 360 universities, a 21% increase from the previous year. Partnering with Cartken, Kiwibot, and Starship, Grubhub brings robot deliveries to campuses like the University of Mississippi and University of Houston, now over 20 campuses with hundreds of thousands of robot-delivered orders. Meanwhile, campuses like Ursinus College and the University of Virginia are implementing Amazon’s Just Walk Out technology, allowing contactless shopping tied to meal plans. Sustainable efforts include a partnership with Topanga.io for reusable packaging, with Virginia Tech and SUNY New Paltz newly adopting the technology. Grubhub Campus Dining offers flexible solutions and Grubhub+ Student with $0 delivery fees and other perks for students at partnered schools.

📦 Grubhub's Campus Dining has expanded to over 60 schools, now serving more than 4.5 million students, with a 21% increase from last year. Grubhub now partners with over 360 universities. Automated robot delivery, in collaboration with Cartken, Kiwibot, and Starship, is rolling out to nearly a dozen new schools, adding to the 20+ campuses like The Ohio State University where it's established. Amazon’s Just Walk Out technology is launched at Ursinus College, University of Virginia, and Lindenwood University, allowing students to skip checkout lines. Grubhub+ Student offers $0 delivery fees, 5% back on pickup orders, and exclusive deals. Virginia Tech and SUNY New Paltz are implementing Topanga.io's reusable packaging this semester.