The Hospitality Industry Technology Exposition and Conference is kicking off in Charlotte, N.C., and companies are announcing new tech innovations that hoteliers will be able to try in the coming years.
Hotel Communication Network
On Tuesday, Hotel Communication Network will debut a new AI-powered in-room tablet that aims to change the way hotel guests request services, communicate their needs and place F&B orders from local restaurants via voice commands in multiple languages. AiMe, an AI concierge, will be on display at HITEC at Booth #3836.
AiMe uses natural language processing to respond to guests’ unstructured requests and creates actionable tasks that can be relayed from the tablet to the hotel’s service system and then to staff:
AiMe: “Hello Mr. Stevens. I’m AiMe. How can I be of service?”
Mr. Stevens: “I’d like to order lunch.”
An ordering screen appears.
AiMe: “May I verbally take your order or would you like to see the menu?”
Mr. Stevens: “Yes, please take my order. I’ll have . . .”
The meal is delivered to the room or a location specified by the guest.
“Rather than sending a text message blindly through the hotel app, a guest needing clean washcloths can now walk over to the in-room tablet and simply ask AiMe for whatever he or she wants in whatever language they prefer,” Neil Schubert, HCN product officer and former advisory board member of Hotel Financial and Technology Professionals, said in a statement. “No more going through the front desk or hotel operator and waiting for the request to be re-entered into the correct system to get to the right department. The data is sent from the tablet to the hotel’s service system and then to the housekeeper or floor supervisor—depending on who is equipped with a mobile device. AiMe can create and close work orders, summon the bell captain, remind guests of important meeting or event times, activate room controls and much more.”
At HITEC, HCN will discuss how AiMe can:
- Interpret the tone of a guest message and identify key words spoken. For example, if a hotel guest is frustrated, the request can be escalated to a hotel manager.
- Provide granular information to pinpoint the exact location of a housekeeper in distress when integrated with panic button platforms.
- Update room status. By accessing a tablet’s back-office mode (which is integrated with the hotel’s property-management system), housekeepers or room supervisors can speak or type updates rather than using room phones with dial codes.
- Replace in-room electronics, including TV applications, voice solutions, alarm clocks and rarely used bedside phones.
- Personalize experiences and drive loyalty by providing added conveniences, like speaking natural language commands to the AI concierge or touching icons on the tablet to control room temperature, lights and 'do not disturb' status.
- Broaden adoption of brand apps. With only 20 percent of travelers having downloaded the brand app, brands can promote use of their brand app using a device that reaches 100 percent of hotel guests. Operators can replace loss-leaders like room services with a digital ordering platform that brings food and beverage to guests from local restaurants. Better yet, it’s all managed by the AI-powered tablet provider.
- Eliminate room clutter from printed compendiums and QR code table tents and inconveniently placed and easily damaged stickers promoting marketing messages and digital tipping.
Features of the AI-Powered Navigator 2.0 tablet platform include:
- Content in any language to encourage users to discover on-premises services and amenities, spending more money on site.
- The ability to update content to the guestroom devices. Hotel teams will not need to rely on a service provider to deliver content management resources.
- A Bluetooth-pairable speaker base with sound, USB A&C charging points and HD graphics. The speaker base also serves as a voice assistant, letting guests request services and amenities, report problems, plus control the room environment by voice command.
Agilysys
Hospitality software company Agilysys has released multiple new hospitality software and technology products, some powered by AI, to help properties lift revenue and lower costs. All will be shown in HITEC Booth #1239 through June 27.
“The innovations we will demonstrate at HITEC 2024 reflect the meaningful investment we have made over the past several years to develop the most modern, flexible, secure and impactful hospitality solutions available,” Agilysys Senior Vice President and CMO Terrie O’Hanlon said in a statement. “Our focus always is creating exceptional technology that empowers staff members to deliver personal and memorable guest service and experiences while also expanding opportunities to capture more revenue and enhance operating efficiency.”
Guestsense.Ai Technology
Agilysys has embedded its AI-powered analysis and decisioning program Guestsense.ai in its point-of-sale, PMS, golf and spa solutions. Hoteliers can use the technology to optimize cross-property revenue and to improve how they offer pricing and amenity availability.
Guestsense.ai uses contextual variables; real-time data on capacity, demand and guest profiles; and user-controlled rules to optimize upgrade and pricing offers, amenity availability, demand forecasting and other elements. Application examples include:
- A Dynamic Upgrade Engine presents room upgrade availability and pricing and amenity add-ons for guests to select as they check-in. Offers are dynamically presented based on check-in time; real-time availability and capacity; staffing status; guest-supplied preferences; guest preferences inferred from past stay behavior; guest status, such as loyalty program membership; and other property-defined rules.
- Dynamic Availability and Dynamic Pricing intelligently manage amenity reservations presented for guests to book, as well as associated pricing, based on contextual variables the property defines. For example, when golf demand is forecast to be high, popular tee times and preferred golf courses can be presented only to course members and loyalty program on-property guests. Amenity prices offered can reflect real-time demand and capacity calculations, such as adapting poolside cabana pricing based on utilization. Likewise, the system can prevent low-revenue and low-margin spa services from being presented in high-demand time periods. The same real-time intelligence guides minimum gap restrictions, which dynamically avoids unbookable gaps in therapists’ schedules by matching service time requirements with booked schedules to present only therapists and services that minimize unsold time.
- Conversational Reservation Booking offers a Generative AI-assisted concierge to guide guests through availability inquiries and booking experiences. Available now in Agilysys Spa and soon in other solutions, this technology enables around-the-clock, end-to-end live booking experiences without additional staff, elevating revenue by making it easy for guests to book whenever they are ready to buy.
Infogenesis (V24) Omnichannel Enterprise POS Platform
The mobility-equipped, scale-ready, omnichannel enterprise POS platform InfoGenesis (v24) is now available to equip customers to sell anything, anywhere to anybody. InfoGenesis combines global enterprise-proven scale with omnichannel reach and flexibility, and protects data through decades-proven, PCI-validated secure transactions.
InfoGenesis (v24) platform options include:
- The newly available IG Fly, a mobile-first, all-in-one ordering, payment and receipt printing solution that lets staff enter orders, accept payment and deliver receipts tableside when dining or by-their-side when shopping;
- IG Flex to extend full POS functionality to mobile tablets for staff members;
- IG OnDemand to help customers place and pay for orders on their own mobile devices anywhere on property;
- IG Kiosk for self-service ordering and payment;
- IG PanOptic Kiosk, an AI-powered self-checkout kiosk;
- IG QuickPay for contactless, cashless payments; and
- IG Digital Menu Board for graphical menu and offer displays updated in real-time to ensure menus and prices are accurate across dining outlets.
Agilysys Guest App Unified Mobile Hub
The Agilysys Guest App provides properties with a brandable hub customers use to research and do everything property-wide on their mobile devices, including: room reservations; reserve times for golf, spa and other amenities; view and accept special offers in real-time; view experience reservations in a unified itinerary; check in and receive digital keys; review consolidated folios; check out and receive receipts.
The Agilysys Guest App is available in the Android and iOS app stores, where it will reflect the property’s brand. An administrator portal provides a content-management system so properties can control branding, experiences presented, images and other elements.
Properties can increase revenue by helping guests understand what is available, to accept special offers and to book experiences property-wide when they are ready to buy. Guests can explore and book options without requiring staff assistance and can see consolidated schedules and folios without having to request that information.
UrVenue
A new tool developed by UrVenue and Club Med will launch this week at HITEC. The Group Itinerary Builder provides a centralized way for hoteliers to build itineraries for groups while providing travelers with a clear view of their itinerary the entire time.
“Demand for group events is on the rise, and along with that comes a desire among travelers for unique experiences, such as tennis, sailing, kayaking, waterskiing, snorkeling, and even flying trapeze,” Tracee Nalewak, UrVenue chief growth officer, said in a statement. “Based on our long-standing relationship with Club Med—pioneer of the all-inclusive concept—we collaborated on a tool that will empower group attendees to explore property activities and review their event schedules in one interactive guest portal complete with itinerary management capabilities.”
The Group Itinerary Builder launched in April at Club Med Cancún. More than 800 group attendees engaged with the solution. The platform was designed as a centralized system for tracking guest itineraries. It gives group travelers more control over their experiences while providing hotels with tools to fulfill rising group expectations. The tool can be adjusted by hoteliers on the fly while allowing group members to track all of their planned group activities through a guest portal.
The Group Itinerary Builder:
- Develops a digital itinerary builder/manager for group attendees to explore and manage resort experiences alongside prescheduled events combining work and leisure activities in one unified itinerary. It provides groups with self-serve information and operators with the ability to service itineraries on behalf of the guest.
- Creates a new, globally scalable module within UrVenue’s PXMS (property experience management system) that displays group event schedules and activities in one unified itinerary.
- Generates a pre-arrival email invite for group attendees to access their personalized guest portal, showcasing their group itinerary and information regarding hotel activities during their leisure time. It also enables real-time messaging by integrating live updates into the itinerary for group attendees.
- Automates manual processes within Club Med’s Meetings & Event sales team and other interfacing resort departments. Additionally, it provides coordination tools through the itinerary builder and manager for staff to assist group attendees.
- Increases revenue through activities and extended stays ('bleisure') by showcasing all hotel activities and excursions to group attendees.
“Group attendees are not as proactively managed by hotels as leisure/transient guests, despite being a significant part of the hotel's customer base,” Vikki Knudsen, senior director sales strategy – meetings & events, Club Med, said in a statement. “They often have to research the hotel themselves because someone else booked it on their behalf. They also are typically not included in pre-arrival communications that share property information, booking links or a hotel app link. Until now, itinerary-building opportunities, especially those considering event schedules and other activities, simply did not exist.
“Now that the Group Itinerary Builder has been successfully implemented and tested at Club Med Cancún, we can begin rolling it out to additional properties in our portfolio,” she said. “We are incredibly excited to start focusing on revenue generation by incorporating third-party excursion bookings and exploring ways to drive incremental room nights with group guests. What we’ve accomplished here at Club Med with our entire meeting and events industry is very exciting. We are on the cusp of a paradigm shift in group attendee management, which will lead to more satisfied customers and significant financial gains for the hotel group segment.”
Silverware
This week at HITEC, Silverware will debut Silverware Pay, an embedded payment-processing solution that is integrated into the company’s point-of-sale ecosystem. Silverware Pay helps food-and-beverage staff to manage the entire guest experience from a single handheld device regardless of on-property location or chip-reader type.
Silverware Pay provides restaurateurs and hoteliers with unique chip readers within a larger environment. Scalability allows the application to grow with client enterprises. Consolidating payment processing within the POS reduces the need for manual reconciliation and administration. Real-time transaction data and reports support informed decision-making with insights into revenue streams and financial performance as they are happening. The platform lets users handle everything on a single device and uses encryption and tokenization technologies to protect payment data and guard against fraud.
Silverware Pay will be on display in Booth 626 at HITEC. Other technologies on display include the Admin Center restaurant management tool, an order notification platform and the Announcer Kitchen Management system.
Duetto
Duetto has launched the BlockBuster group-revenue optimization solution's next evolution with the integration of OpenSpace (which the company acquired as MiceRate in February), its new function-space optimization tool.
BlockBuster helps hoteliers streamline workflows between revenue, sales and catering teams. The evolved product lets hoteliers:
- Balance group and transient bookings using a coherent pricing strategy across segments. BlockBuster provides crucial information, like incremental profit and alternative stay dates, to make transient displacement decisions based on profitability when evaluating group requests.
- Adjust pricing dynamically based on demand, capacity and ancillary spending.
- Automate group wash projections and adjust demand forecast, occupancy forecast and yielding capacity based on user input and situational knowledge.
- Empower revenue teams through automation and collaboration tools.
- Quickly respond to group rate requests while creating a centralized source of truth for real-time quote record-keeping.
OpenSpace provides algorithm-based pricing for meetings and events, including weddings, incentives, and conferences, enabling hotels to dynamically yield all function spaces, including external spaces such as gardens. The solution also includes a booking engine and quotation tool, to help event planners quickly find the space they need for their budget and requirements.
“The addition of OpenSpace, combined with our investment in group management, positions us as a one-stop-shop for hoteliers looking to maximize revenue across their entire property. Now, our customers can leverage Duetto to optimize pricing, manage inventory and streamline bookings for individual guests, groups and function spaces—all in a single, unified solution,” David Woolenberg, CEO of Duetto, said in a statement. “These enhancements will streamline the group booking process, improve internal communication, and ensure a more seamless experience for both hoteliers and their customers.”