August 12, 2025 • 22 mins
What do you get when a 14-property hotel brand rips out its entire legacy tech stack—and lives to tell the tale? In this episode, Josh Edwards, Operating Systems Manager at Penta Hotels, takes us behind the scenes of one of the most ambitious tech overhauls in the European hotel market.
Takeaways:
• Hear how Penta Hotels saved 175,000+ staff hours annually by replacing outdated systems with a next-gen stack—without sacrificing service.
• Learn how to successfully manage change at scale, from piloting PMS platforms to gaining buy-in from skeptical hotel teams.
• Discover why 25% of guests now purchase upsells, and how thoughtful use of automation and kiosks can unlock new revenue without alienating staff or guests.
Penta Hotels isn’t just any brand—it’s a forward-thinking company that dared to question every operational assumption. From payments to POS, CRM to guest messaging, Josh shares the blueprint for future-proofing your tech without losing your brand’s soul. One surprising insight? Automating card payments alone accounted for the majority of the 175K hours saved.
If you’re thinking about upgrading your systems—or questioning whether bold change is worth it—this episode is for you. Subscribe to Hotel Tech Insider for more insider stories from leaders shaping the future of hospitality.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
And this was such, like, a foreign concept to them
because, like, we're stuck somuch behind all these systems
and all these processes. Like,no. Now you can actually step
away, talk to them, actually askthem why they're here, really
improve that guest experience.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
From Hotel Tech Report, it's Hotel Tech Insider,
a show about the future ofhotels and the technology that
powers them.
Speaker 3 (00:23):
Today, we're talking with Josh Edwards, the operating
systems manager at Penta Hotels.The brand manages 14 hotels
across Europe, and Josh just leda huge project in which he and
his team upgraded the mostcritical operational software.
Penta is saving over one hundredthousand hours per year on
payment processing, and aquarter of their guests now
(00:44):
purchase upsells. There's a lotto unpack in this episode, so
let's get started. Welcome tothe show, Josh.
Thank you so much for being onwith us. To get things started,
I would love for you tointroduce yourself, tell us a
bit about your role, and thecompany you work for.
Speaker 1 (01:01):
Firstly, thank you so much for having me. So, yeah,
I'm the operating systemsmanager for Pent Hotels. We're a
14 hotel chain operating mainlyacross Europe with a hotel in
Asia and a hotel in Russia, butprimarily focused on the German
market, a bit across Belgium andFrance. So for me specifically,
(01:22):
I take care of everything withall the systems that we use day
to day in the hotels. So when wethink about property management
systems, point of sale, keycards, payments, events
management, all of those topics.
But I also have a good wealth ofexperience in the hotels
themselves, having managed theoperation in one of our pet
hotels we used to have in TheUK, but also having the pleasure
(01:43):
to work for Accor as salesmanagement as well.
Speaker 3 (01:46):
As you mentioned to me before we started recording,
you mentioned you've gonethrough some pretty significant
changes in your tech stackrecently. Would love for you to
walk me through what you did andwhy you did it and how it went.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
Yeah. Sure. I mean, it gives me a bit of goosebumps
thinking back how my last sixmonths have looked. But yeah,
sure. So we started this topic agood few years ago.
We, as a hotel chain, had alegacy hotel tech stack, what we
call a legacy hotel tech stackwith, you know, on premise
solutions, solutions that maynot have been updated or are no
(02:22):
longer supported. And weidentified a need that, hey, we
are an innovative company. Wechallenge everything. We're
really good at tackling thingsand taking things on. We wanted
to look at our tech stack, lookat our guest experience, our
guest journey, and basicallywipe the slate clean and just do
a whole refresh.
We took our time with this. Weplanned it and tested some
(02:43):
vendors and really gave somevendors some tough times for
about three years. And thenearlier this year, starting from
the very conceptual stage, thensort of the planning stage from
February through until the May,we actually did the full rollout
of eight different systems. Thatfor us obviously was a whole new
property management system,point of sale, new payments, new
(03:07):
events management. Yeah, crazy.
Speaker 3 (03:11):
It sounds like the decision was kind of percolating
for some time. You knew that thecurrent tech stack wasn't
working well. You wanted anupgrade. Was there a specific
point or like a tipping pointwhere the team was like, we
can't do this anymore? Or whatwas the impetus that made the
change ultimately happen?
Speaker 1 (03:30):
Yeah. So the reason why we initially took so long is
because we wanted to make surewe got it right. We challenged
some vendors really, reallytoughly for quite a long time.
And we were at points wherewe're like, maybe it should be
this one, maybe it should bethat one, because we were
struggling to find what we feltwas the, not the perfect
solution, but the perfectsolution for us. We knew the
(03:51):
challenges that all of thevendors would have at that
point.
We knew what the key points theywould offer and the key features
they would offer. But it alsogot to the point where with our
current provider for ourproperty management system, we
had a deadline where we had toget out of that system from a
contractual perspective and endof life and all of this. So we
got to a point where we knew wewere comfortable. We challenged
(04:13):
sufficiently enough everyone,and we felt that we were in the
best place along with the timeconstraints to say that this
would be the moment to moveforward.
Speaker 3 (04:22):
Can you walk me through that consideration
process for your PMS, forexample? You knew you were in
the market for a new PMS. Howdid you go about developing a
shortlist of vendors? Did you dodemos? What was that shopping
process like?
Speaker 1 (04:37):
So I think going back to the initial drawing board,
the one thing we looked at is wesaid we don't want this to be a
one time transaction. We don'twant to just pick a partner. We
get it, and then that's all weget. The solution is what it is.
It doesn't change.
It doesn't evolve. We're stuckwith what they offer and that's
it. We wanted to make sure itwas a dynamic ongoing process.
We really wanted someone who wasopen. They were reliable.
(05:00):
They were very good with ease ofintegrations. Because the
problem with our legacy PMSproviders, if you wanted to
integrate something, you werewaiting six months for
availability just to actuallyimplement something. And the
process to implement it was alsoso technical. And also the fact
that we are quite a shiftingcompany as well. We come up with
a lot of new concepts and trialunder new things.
(05:21):
We wanted to make sure we founda vendor that could shift with
those alongside us at the sametime. So we sort of searched for
the market, who's sort of theones leading. We, of course, had
heard of Muse as a sort of upand comer going through the
market. We had some sort oflonger term stable, like Oracle
with their Pro Cloud solutionthat had started growing a bit
(05:42):
further, Stay In Touch andApelio. And they all had sort of
different, of course, featuresand quick wins.
Apelio is a great example whereit's a tech stack that's really
good if you have reallytechnical people in house. You
know, they give you a greatfoundation. And then if you have
the right developers and theright technical people inside,
you can build and pretty muchscale it to as far as you want
(06:05):
because it is a base platformthat is then open for you to
just add in whatever you likeVersus someone a bit bigger like
Oracle with Opera Cloud, what wediscovered is they kept the core
concept of their product fromtheir old Opera version five and
obviously turned it into a cloudbased version. What they decided
to do was obviously keep whatthey knew works well as a
(06:28):
product, not so much change likebold changes. They knew it works
well.
They knew they had a greatcustomer base, but they kept
that and built on it. Then ofcourse, we had And Muse, we
decided based on some goodpartnerships a few years ago, we
decided to try a pilot hotel. Ithink when the hotel first
(06:48):
opened in 2022, it was a newhotel, so we wanted to try
something different there causethis conversation about our
guest journey had started. So weknew Muse was this big up and
coming. They were making boldchanges.
They were, you know, callingthemselves the game changer of
the industry for platforms. Sowe tried them and we tried demos
(07:08):
with all of these people. Wepiloted Opera Cloud for a year.
We piloted Muse for three years.But we also did extreme deep
dives with Stay in Touch andAppelio as well.
And yeah, so it really took usto go as deep as possible into
all of these systems. We wentthrough a really extensive RFP
process. I think we had like700, 800 points that they had to
(07:29):
meet. It was really intense. Andthen, in the end, we rolled out
with Muse earlier this year.
Speaker 3 (07:36):
What was it like getting internal buy in on the
decision? Was there somepushback?
Speaker 1 (07:42):
Mixed emotions, I think. Some people who were
heavily invested in the project,obviously, they knew the
in-depth work we went intolooking at all of the vendors.
They knew how granular we wentto see exactly can they meet our
criteria and how much we hadchallenged these vendors back
and forth. But maybe so muchfrom a hotel perspective, they
(08:03):
saw that we're going to makesuch a bold change and we're
going to basically take outeverything they know and love
inside the hotels and basicallygive them everything new, all
these new logins, all these newsystems they have to learn. And
of course, naturally for them,it's scary and it's like, hey,
how are we going to do our dailyjobs when we have no idea how to
use these systems?
So I think that was probably thebiggest challenge from their
(08:23):
perspective.
Speaker 3 (08:25):
And how did you overcome that challenge? How did
you make the teams feel okayknowing that one day they would
log in and everything would benew? How did you set them up for
success?
Speaker 1 (08:35):
I mean, we had to earn their buy in. And I think
the great example we set withthat is there was only so much
we could do leading up to it. Wereally explained the reasons, we
showed them what we did and howwe built up to it. But I think
the biggest fact was that wecame onto property like a lot of
us. I think for the firstproperty there was 25 of us from
a partner and a centralperspective on property just
(08:58):
changing everything.
The fact that we knew it and weknew exactly what it meant and
what it could do and we had theexperience also has us
hoteliers, not just as a centraloffice who decides everything. I
think that definitely helps themthink actually these guys know
what they're doing. They knowthat they've picked something
good, they can justify it. Somaybe actually we can work with
it. And we spent plenty of timeon property helping them through
(09:20):
that process and being like,hey, we can introduce you to
this system.
We're here to support youthrough that. We had the vendors
supporting On Property throughthat as well.
Speaker 3 (09:29):
So as far as timeline, you mentioned the
rollout started in February orso. What did the process look
like over those couple months?Were you going from one hotel to
another to implement?
Speaker 1 (09:41):
It was primarily driven by myself and my
colleague, Aileen, who workswith me. We were doing the
configuration stage and theplanning stage remotely with a
few workshops in between. Butthe first property went live on
March 26. And I think the lastproperty went live on like May
19. So it was a really shorttimeline.
(10:02):
And between us, we had to split14 hotels. And it was very much
like I would be on property forfour days, come home for one
day, focus on what the lastfinal bits are missing for the
next hotel, fly out the next dayto the next hotel, work crazy
hours, but I mean, we knew whatto expect. Right? That's the
nature of such a big change. Itwas so much fun.
(10:22):
Like, looking back, we actuallysaid, we miss it because there
were so many of us on propertythat we don't necessarily get to
spend too much time togetherbecause, we have a lot of remote
workers across Europe. So tocome together and work in such
an intense environment and alsohave a lot of laughs at the same
time, we miss it now.
Speaker 3 (10:40):
In the tech stack upgrade, it sounds like there
were some operational changes.Can you talk about those
changes? Things that aren't justa matter of software?
Speaker 1 (10:50):
Yeah. So I think we didn't necessarily just want to
focus on the guest journey andthe guest experience, but also
the staff experience. One of ourbiggest focuses was in our
current tech stack, everythingis so process driven that they
are literally stood behind ascreen thinking, oh, I have to
click here. I have to do this. Ihave to read this, and I have to
sign this.
(11:10):
And what we wanted, we werelike, how can we implement a
tech stack that really reducesthat manual intervention so that
we can literally say, hey, guys,you can now step out behind the
bar and the reception, which wehave combined for our check-in
areas, and stand with the guestsbecause they have the technology
in place that they can checkthemselves in or they're already
(11:31):
checked in, and you can actuallytalk to them. And this was such
like a foreign concept to thembecause, like, we're stuck so
much behind all these systemsand all these processes. Like,
no. Now you can actually stepaway, talk to them, actually ask
them why they're here, reallyimprove that guest experience.
And that was one of our biggestfocuses.
Speaker 3 (11:50):
Have you seen in the data, has it reduced wait times?
Like, is the check-in experiencenow faster?
Speaker 1 (11:57):
Not necessarily faster, but I think we're
presenting more opportunity tothe guests because it's very
difficult when you're checkingsomeone in to find the
comfortable and appropriate timeto start trying to upsell to
them. Whereas with these kioskswith Muse, they have like a
really seamless integration forroom upgrades and just generic
upsells as well. What we did seeis so far we had some data with
(12:18):
them recently. Actually, I thinkfor those guests who selected
upsells, which was around 25% ofthe guests last month, each of
them would spend roughly, Ithink on average €23 per person
on upsells, which I thinkequated to around 11% increase
on the total revenue that it hadalready spent. So it was a huge
(12:39):
game changer in terms ofupsells.
Speaker 3 (12:41):
So we've talked a lot about the tech stack upgrade. I
would love for you to walk methrough what systems you're
using now. What were thosesystems that were implemented?
Speaker 1 (12:52):
So we had a PMS change that was with Muse. So we
were previously with Oracle ontheir Opera version five
solution and transferred over toMuse for PMS. We also selected
Muse for the point of sale andfor Muse payments as well. We
also then selected Dove as aguest experience platform. We
then also decided to go withThink as our CRM and events
(13:13):
management partner as well.
And one system that we haven'tchanged yet but we are looking
at potential opportunities iswith sort of channel manager
opportunities as well. Soupselling, we were previously
with Oki and we're currentlytesting those possibilities
directly with Muse and also withDove themselves as well.
Speaker 3 (13:32):
Are there also some systems that you did not
upgrade, like revenue managementsystem, for instance? Are you
still using what you were usingpreviously?
Speaker 1 (13:41):
Yeah. So we were using Duetto and we still are.
That's a system we also have agreat partnership with. And I
think, again, that shift fromhaving that legacy integration
where if you try to communicatebetween that revenue management
system and your PMS, you'rewaiting ten, fifteen, twenty
minutes for something to happen.And then that shift where it's
now instantaneous with thisgreat API connectivity, it's
(14:05):
really helped bolster thatrelationship there as well.
Speaker 3 (14:08):
Is there anything on your wish list? Any system that
you don't use but you'reconsidering in the future or
even something that you've seenon the market that just seems
really cool?
Speaker 1 (14:18):
I think one that I met at a recent event was
Govindi. So they basically do acompletely different way of
thinking about inventory andguest personalization so that
they don't just sell roomcategories like on your own
booking engine, for example.They very much look at feature
based inventory. So you don'thave a room category or this is
(14:39):
a standard room. You just have aroom and all of its features
included.
So if I said I wantedspecifically a quiet room in a
corner that has a yoga matinside that's looking at the
ocean, I want that exact room. Idon't want you to give me a room
type that maybe has some ofthose features. And I'm lucky
whether it gets selected for meor not. And I think that's
(14:59):
really cool. We've not deepdived with them, but it's
something we're definitelyexploring.
Speaker 3 (15:04):
That part of your future proofing idea in your
tech stack? Like thinkingthrough how will you incorporate
AI in the future? Or how willyou incorporate things that are
not even on the market yet?Thinking through how you have a
flexible tech stack that willcontinue to serve you.
Speaker 1 (15:23):
Absolutely. I mean, we internally are working on a
project that we can't speak muchabout as it currently stands,
but it's something that we'll belaunching late twenty twenty
six, early twenty twenty seven.And we can't just sit there and
think, let's look at the vendorsas they are now, but how do we
want them shaped in two years?Because flexible the
advancements of AI as they arenow are so rapid. We're like,
(15:43):
can we be bold and can we startasking for really bold things
from them knowing that they'vegot two years to potentially
look and develop these things?
And so that was always the basisof our thinking, not only for
the tech stack overhaul butobviously this big project that
we're also working on.
Speaker 3 (15:58):
How if there's anything you can share on this
topic, but how are you and yourteam using AI currently?
Speaker 1 (16:05):
So at the moment, not to its true advantage, like with
from a guest experienceperspective, we have great
communication with the guestsvia instant messaging. And one
of the benefits with Dove isthat if a guest sends a message,
you've got this initial layer ofgenerative AI that knows
everything about us as a companyand at the hotel in specific and
can answer those and respond tothose. So we see a huge
(16:28):
reduction in phone calls andemails from guests because
they've got this layer alreadythat can answer all of those
questions. There's a lot more wecan do, especially when we want
to look at concepts like smartrooms, not just smart how it
currently is by asking Alexa orSiri to turn on your lights and
turn off your lights, but reallylike, hey, the system based on
(16:49):
AI knows how you like your room,knows how you like your lights,
knows if you like your blindsopen or not, and can already set
the room for you before you'veeven walked in the door. Have
your favorite TV channel ormovie playing and really like
bold solutions like that.
Speaker 3 (17:03):
Just shifting gears a little bit, I'm curious based on
your experience in the industryand your recent experience with
this tech stack change, whatwould you say are one or two
skills or characteristics thatsomeone should have to be
successful in the industry?
Speaker 1 (17:19):
I think one of the easiest ones is adaptability,
right? You cannot have someonewho has these legacy habits and
thinks like, oh, it must onlywork this way because it worked
this way for the last ten,twenty years. They need to be
able to pivot during a systemchange or a system outage or a
huge crunch in staffing numbers.We know across the industry it's
so hard to get staff nowadays.And not only that, they need to
(17:42):
have that mentality and abilityto shift with the dynamics as
they change.
You know, guest needs arechanging so much every day. You
cannot have someone who's justso static in the way they think.
And then not only that, it'svery similar to what we speak
about is they have to bedigitally fluent as well. It
probably was easier if we goback ten, fifteen years when you
(18:02):
had these systems but youweren't so reliant on these
systems. And they are gettingmore technical because there's
so much more you can do withthem.
So everyone needs to have areally good digital knowledge to
be able to really move forwardas a hotelier, I think.
Speaker 3 (18:15):
How do you stay up to date on the latest in tech in
general and tech specific to thehotel world?
Speaker 1 (18:24):
Hotel tech report. That's a great example. You
know, just to pitch it in there.Very active, very active on
LinkedIn and attending as manyevents as possible. Mean, we
went to Muse Unfold in Amsterdama couple of months ago.
That was a fantastic event. Notjust obviously not to sell it to
Muse, but they don't pitch it asa Muse pitch event. They pitch
(18:46):
it as a hospitality and ahotelier's come together. They
spent so little time actuallytalking about Muse. I was like,
is this actually an event forMuse or it's just hosted by them
and you've got so many differentpartners there and so many
people brought together.
So there was so much I learnedfrom that and so many people I
met and spoke to that we gainedso many different insights. So
(19:06):
events like that really help aswell, think.
Speaker 3 (19:08):
Well, last question, which sometimes leads to some
hot takes. What is one thing youbelieve about technology in the
hotel space that your peers orcompetitors might disagree with?
Speaker 1 (19:21):
Well, that's a good question. I think this may
contradict what I've spokenabout, especially when we talk
about AI. But I think theindustry is so rapidly focused
on AI. They're like, let's AIdrive everything, chatbots,
smart rooms, predictiveanalytics, all of these things,
that everyone's looking at AI asa tendency to replace humans
(19:43):
rather than enable them. Butwhat my belief is and what we
focus on as a company as wellis, well, some people try to, is
that the tech really needs tosupport the human service.
It cannot replace it. You know,what we want to achieve and one
of our bold achievements thatwe're aiming for with this new
project that we're working on isto have a tech stack that
completely removes the manualelement. So it's purely
(20:05):
supporting the service that theservice that they're providing
to the guests is there's so muchtime to focus on it rather than
it being completely driven andonly driven by AI. I think it
needs to be a careful balance ofthe two. I'm not saying AI
should replace everything and doeverything for us, but it just
needs to support how we actuallydeliver the guest service.
Speaker 3 (20:24):
Well, before we wrap up, I want to open it up to you
if there's anything else youwant to share or anything else
you wanna cover.
Speaker 1 (20:31):
The only thing I could say for any hotelier is
that listen is if you aresitting there considering such a
bold change and you're thinking,hey, I need to change a system,
look at the bigger picture.Don't be afraid to change them
all at once. It hurts and it'stough during it. And there's so
many hours and mental thoughtscommitted to it, but it makes
such a difference overall. Like,you can do so much more with it.
(20:52):
And I think, you know, somethingas simple as saying, hey, I can
automate all of my payments. Youwouldn't even believe if you
wrote down on paper, and I'dlove for people to do this, how
many minutes on average it takesto charge a card in your system.
Times that by how many paymentsyou've taken over a year and
work out how many hours thatyour team are wasting on such a
process like that. Find a systemthat does that for you and
(21:15):
actually give your staff thetime to focus on other things.
You know, we're talking hundredsof thousands of hours.
It's insane. So just say thepeople go for it.
Speaker 3 (21:24):
Do you know off the top of your head how many hours
of payment processing your teamneeds?
Speaker 1 (21:30):
We looked at it and I think it was something crazy
like one hundred and seventyfive thousand hours across the
portfolio, which was just, Imean, we calculate how many
hours that is, how many peoplethat is, like over a month. It's
crazy numbers.
Speaker 3 (21:42):
Well, great data point to support making the
move. So that's great advice.Thank you for sharing.
Speaker 1 (21:49):
No, you're welcome.
Speaker 3 (21:50):
Well, Josh, it was such a pleasure speaking with
you. Thank you so much forsharing your experience, for
sharing all this great advicewith hoteliers that may be
looking to make a similarchange. So I really appreciate
you taking the time.
Speaker 1 (22:02):
Yeah. Thank you for having me again. It was great.
Speaker 2 (22:06):
That's all for today's episode. Thanks for
listening to Hotel Tech Insiderproduced by hoteltechreport.com.
Our goal with this podcast is toshow you how the best in the
business are leveragingtechnology to grow their
properties and outperform theconcept by using innovative
digital tools and strategies. Iencourage all of our our
listeners to go try at least oneof these strategies or tools
(22:27):
that you learned from today'sepisode. Successful digital
transformation is all aboutconsistent small experiments
over a long period of time, sodon't wait until tomorrow to try
something new.
Do you know a hotelier who wouldbe great to feature on this
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to our audience? Reach out to medirectly on LinkedIn by
(22:47):
searching for Jordan Hollander.For more episodes like this,
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Spotify and Apple Music.
And this was such, like, a foreign concept to them
because, like, we're stuck somuch behind all these systems
and all these processes. Like,no. Now you can actually step
away, talk to them, actually askthem why they're here, really
improve that guest experience.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
From Hotel Tech Report, it's Hotel Tech Insider,
a show about the future ofhotels and the technology that
powers them.
Speaker 3 (00:23):
Today, we're talking with Josh Edwards, the operating
systems manager at Penta Hotels.The brand manages 14 hotels
across Europe, and Josh just leda huge project in which he and
his team upgraded the mostcritical operational software.
Penta is saving over one hundredthousand hours per year on
payment processing, and aquarter of their guests now
(00:44):
purchase upsells. There's a lotto unpack in this episode, so
let's get started. Welcome tothe show, Josh.
Thank you so much for being onwith us. To get things started,
I would love for you tointroduce yourself, tell us a
bit about your role, and thecompany you work for.
Speaker 1 (01:01):
Firstly, thank you so much for having me. So, yeah,
I'm the operating systemsmanager for Pent Hotels. We're a
14 hotel chain operating mainlyacross Europe with a hotel in
Asia and a hotel in Russia, butprimarily focused on the German
market, a bit across Belgium andFrance. So for me specifically,
(01:22):
I take care of everything withall the systems that we use day
to day in the hotels. So when wethink about property management
systems, point of sale, keycards, payments, events
management, all of those topics.
But I also have a good wealth ofexperience in the hotels
themselves, having managed theoperation in one of our pet
hotels we used to have in TheUK, but also having the pleasure
(01:43):
to work for Accor as salesmanagement as well.
Speaker 3 (01:46):
As you mentioned to me before we started recording,
you mentioned you've gonethrough some pretty significant
changes in your tech stackrecently. Would love for you to
walk me through what you did andwhy you did it and how it went.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
Yeah. Sure. I mean, it gives me a bit of goosebumps
thinking back how my last sixmonths have looked. But yeah,
sure. So we started this topic agood few years ago.
We, as a hotel chain, had alegacy hotel tech stack, what we
call a legacy hotel tech stackwith, you know, on premise
solutions, solutions that maynot have been updated or are no
(02:22):
longer supported. And weidentified a need that, hey, we
are an innovative company. Wechallenge everything. We're
really good at tackling thingsand taking things on. We wanted
to look at our tech stack, lookat our guest experience, our
guest journey, and basicallywipe the slate clean and just do
a whole refresh.
We took our time with this. Weplanned it and tested some
(02:43):
vendors and really gave somevendors some tough times for
about three years. And thenearlier this year, starting from
the very conceptual stage, thensort of the planning stage from
February through until the May,we actually did the full rollout
of eight different systems. Thatfor us obviously was a whole new
property management system,point of sale, new payments, new
(03:07):
events management. Yeah, crazy.
Speaker 3 (03:11):
It sounds like the decision was kind of percolating
for some time. You knew that thecurrent tech stack wasn't
working well. You wanted anupgrade. Was there a specific
point or like a tipping pointwhere the team was like, we
can't do this anymore? Or whatwas the impetus that made the
change ultimately happen?
Speaker 1 (03:30):
Yeah. So the reason why we initially took so long is
because we wanted to make surewe got it right. We challenged
some vendors really, reallytoughly for quite a long time.
And we were at points wherewe're like, maybe it should be
this one, maybe it should bethat one, because we were
struggling to find what we feltwas the, not the perfect
solution, but the perfectsolution for us. We knew the
(03:51):
challenges that all of thevendors would have at that
point.
We knew what the key points theywould offer and the key features
they would offer. But it alsogot to the point where with our
current provider for ourproperty management system, we
had a deadline where we had toget out of that system from a
contractual perspective and endof life and all of this. So we
got to a point where we knew wewere comfortable. We challenged
(04:13):
sufficiently enough everyone,and we felt that we were in the
best place along with the timeconstraints to say that this
would be the moment to moveforward.
Speaker 3 (04:22):
Can you walk me through that consideration
process for your PMS, forexample? You knew you were in
the market for a new PMS. Howdid you go about developing a
shortlist of vendors? Did you dodemos? What was that shopping
process like?
Speaker 1 (04:37):
So I think going back to the initial drawing board,
the one thing we looked at is wesaid we don't want this to be a
one time transaction. We don'twant to just pick a partner. We
get it, and then that's all weget. The solution is what it is.
It doesn't change.
It doesn't evolve. We're stuckwith what they offer and that's
it. We wanted to make sure itwas a dynamic ongoing process.
We really wanted someone who wasopen. They were reliable.
(05:00):
They were very good with ease ofintegrations. Because the
problem with our legacy PMSproviders, if you wanted to
integrate something, you werewaiting six months for
availability just to actuallyimplement something. And the
process to implement it was alsoso technical. And also the fact
that we are quite a shiftingcompany as well. We come up with
a lot of new concepts and trialunder new things.
(05:21):
We wanted to make sure we founda vendor that could shift with
those alongside us at the sametime. So we sort of searched for
the market, who's sort of theones leading. We, of course, had
heard of Muse as a sort of upand comer going through the
market. We had some sort oflonger term stable, like Oracle
with their Pro Cloud solutionthat had started growing a bit
(05:42):
further, Stay In Touch andApelio. And they all had sort of
different, of course, featuresand quick wins.
Apelio is a great example whereit's a tech stack that's really
good if you have reallytechnical people in house. You
know, they give you a greatfoundation. And then if you have
the right developers and theright technical people inside,
you can build and pretty muchscale it to as far as you want
(06:05):
because it is a base platformthat is then open for you to
just add in whatever you likeVersus someone a bit bigger like
Oracle with Opera Cloud, what wediscovered is they kept the core
concept of their product fromtheir old Opera version five and
obviously turned it into a cloudbased version. What they decided
to do was obviously keep whatthey knew works well as a
(06:28):
product, not so much change likebold changes. They knew it works
well.
They knew they had a greatcustomer base, but they kept
that and built on it. Then ofcourse, we had And Muse, we
decided based on some goodpartnerships a few years ago, we
decided to try a pilot hotel. Ithink when the hotel first
(06:48):
opened in 2022, it was a newhotel, so we wanted to try
something different there causethis conversation about our
guest journey had started. So weknew Muse was this big up and
coming. They were making boldchanges.
They were, you know, callingthemselves the game changer of
the industry for platforms. Sowe tried them and we tried demos
(07:08):
with all of these people. Wepiloted Opera Cloud for a year.
We piloted Muse for three years.But we also did extreme deep
dives with Stay in Touch andAppelio as well.
And yeah, so it really took usto go as deep as possible into
all of these systems. We wentthrough a really extensive RFP
process. I think we had like700, 800 points that they had to
(07:29):
meet. It was really intense. Andthen, in the end, we rolled out
with Muse earlier this year.
Speaker 3 (07:36):
What was it like getting internal buy in on the
decision? Was there somepushback?
Speaker 1 (07:42):
Mixed emotions, I think. Some people who were
heavily invested in the project,obviously, they knew the
in-depth work we went intolooking at all of the vendors.
They knew how granular we wentto see exactly can they meet our
criteria and how much we hadchallenged these vendors back
and forth. But maybe so muchfrom a hotel perspective, they
(08:03):
saw that we're going to makesuch a bold change and we're
going to basically take outeverything they know and love
inside the hotels and basicallygive them everything new, all
these new logins, all these newsystems they have to learn. And
of course, naturally for them,it's scary and it's like, hey,
how are we going to do our dailyjobs when we have no idea how to
use these systems?
So I think that was probably thebiggest challenge from their
(08:23):
perspective.
Speaker 3 (08:25):
And how did you overcome that challenge? How did
you make the teams feel okayknowing that one day they would
log in and everything would benew? How did you set them up for
success?
Speaker 1 (08:35):
I mean, we had to earn their buy in. And I think
the great example we set withthat is there was only so much
we could do leading up to it. Wereally explained the reasons, we
showed them what we did and howwe built up to it. But I think
the biggest fact was that wecame onto property like a lot of
us. I think for the firstproperty there was 25 of us from
a partner and a centralperspective on property just
(08:58):
changing everything.
The fact that we knew it and weknew exactly what it meant and
what it could do and we had theexperience also has us
hoteliers, not just as a centraloffice who decides everything. I
think that definitely helps themthink actually these guys know
what they're doing. They knowthat they've picked something
good, they can justify it. Somaybe actually we can work with
it. And we spent plenty of timeon property helping them through
(09:20):
that process and being like,hey, we can introduce you to
this system.
We're here to support youthrough that. We had the vendors
supporting On Property throughthat as well.
Speaker 3 (09:29):
So as far as timeline, you mentioned the
rollout started in February orso. What did the process look
like over those couple months?Were you going from one hotel to
another to implement?
Speaker 1 (09:41):
It was primarily driven by myself and my
colleague, Aileen, who workswith me. We were doing the
configuration stage and theplanning stage remotely with a
few workshops in between. Butthe first property went live on
March 26. And I think the lastproperty went live on like May
19. So it was a really shorttimeline.
(10:02):
And between us, we had to split14 hotels. And it was very much
like I would be on property forfour days, come home for one
day, focus on what the lastfinal bits are missing for the
next hotel, fly out the next dayto the next hotel, work crazy
hours, but I mean, we knew whatto expect. Right? That's the
nature of such a big change. Itwas so much fun.
(10:22):
Like, looking back, we actuallysaid, we miss it because there
were so many of us on propertythat we don't necessarily get to
spend too much time togetherbecause, we have a lot of remote
workers across Europe. So tocome together and work in such
an intense environment and alsohave a lot of laughs at the same
time, we miss it now.
Speaker 3 (10:40):
In the tech stack upgrade, it sounds like there
were some operational changes.Can you talk about those
changes? Things that aren't justa matter of software?
Speaker 1 (10:50):
Yeah. So I think we didn't necessarily just want to
focus on the guest journey andthe guest experience, but also
the staff experience. One of ourbiggest focuses was in our
current tech stack, everythingis so process driven that they
are literally stood behind ascreen thinking, oh, I have to
click here. I have to do this. Ihave to read this, and I have to
sign this.
(11:10):
And what we wanted, we werelike, how can we implement a
tech stack that really reducesthat manual intervention so that
we can literally say, hey, guys,you can now step out behind the
bar and the reception, which wehave combined for our check-in
areas, and stand with the guestsbecause they have the technology
in place that they can checkthemselves in or they're already
(11:31):
checked in, and you can actuallytalk to them. And this was such
like a foreign concept to thembecause, like, we're stuck so
much behind all these systemsand all these processes. Like,
no. Now you can actually stepaway, talk to them, actually ask
them why they're here, reallyimprove that guest experience.
And that was one of our biggestfocuses.
Speaker 3 (11:50):
Have you seen in the data, has it reduced wait times?
Like, is the check-in experiencenow faster?
Speaker 1 (11:57):
Not necessarily faster, but I think we're
presenting more opportunity tothe guests because it's very
difficult when you're checkingsomeone in to find the
comfortable and appropriate timeto start trying to upsell to
them. Whereas with these kioskswith Muse, they have like a
really seamless integration forroom upgrades and just generic
upsells as well. What we did seeis so far we had some data with
(12:18):
them recently. Actually, I thinkfor those guests who selected
upsells, which was around 25% ofthe guests last month, each of
them would spend roughly, Ithink on average €23 per person
on upsells, which I thinkequated to around 11% increase
on the total revenue that it hadalready spent. So it was a huge
(12:39):
game changer in terms ofupsells.
Speaker 3 (12:41):
So we've talked a lot about the tech stack upgrade. I
would love for you to walk methrough what systems you're
using now. What were thosesystems that were implemented?
Speaker 1 (12:52):
So we had a PMS change that was with Muse. So we
were previously with Oracle ontheir Opera version five
solution and transferred over toMuse for PMS. We also selected
Muse for the point of sale andfor Muse payments as well. We
also then selected Dove as aguest experience platform. We
then also decided to go withThink as our CRM and events
(13:13):
management partner as well.
And one system that we haven'tchanged yet but we are looking
at potential opportunities iswith sort of channel manager
opportunities as well. Soupselling, we were previously
with Oki and we're currentlytesting those possibilities
directly with Muse and also withDove themselves as well.
Speaker 3 (13:32):
Are there also some systems that you did not
upgrade, like revenue managementsystem, for instance? Are you
still using what you were usingpreviously?
Speaker 1 (13:41):
Yeah. So we were using Duetto and we still are.
That's a system we also have agreat partnership with. And I
think, again, that shift fromhaving that legacy integration
where if you try to communicatebetween that revenue management
system and your PMS, you'rewaiting ten, fifteen, twenty
minutes for something to happen.And then that shift where it's
now instantaneous with thisgreat API connectivity, it's
(14:05):
really helped bolster thatrelationship there as well.
Speaker 3 (14:08):
Is there anything on your wish list? Any system that
you don't use but you'reconsidering in the future or
even something that you've seenon the market that just seems
really cool?
Speaker 1 (14:18):
I think one that I met at a recent event was
Govindi. So they basically do acompletely different way of
thinking about inventory andguest personalization so that
they don't just sell roomcategories like on your own
booking engine, for example.They very much look at feature
based inventory. So you don'thave a room category or this is
(14:39):
a standard room. You just have aroom and all of its features
included.
So if I said I wantedspecifically a quiet room in a
corner that has a yoga matinside that's looking at the
ocean, I want that exact room. Idon't want you to give me a room
type that maybe has some ofthose features. And I'm lucky
whether it gets selected for meor not. And I think that's
(14:59):
really cool. We've not deepdived with them, but it's
something we're definitelyexploring.
Speaker 3 (15:04):
That part of your future proofing idea in your
tech stack? Like thinkingthrough how will you incorporate
AI in the future? Or how willyou incorporate things that are
not even on the market yet?Thinking through how you have a
flexible tech stack that willcontinue to serve you.
Speaker 1 (15:23):
Absolutely. I mean, we internally are working on a
project that we can't speak muchabout as it currently stands,
but it's something that we'll belaunching late twenty twenty
six, early twenty twenty seven.And we can't just sit there and
think, let's look at the vendorsas they are now, but how do we
want them shaped in two years?Because flexible the
advancements of AI as they arenow are so rapid. We're like,
(15:43):
can we be bold and can we startasking for really bold things
from them knowing that they'vegot two years to potentially
look and develop these things?
And so that was always the basisof our thinking, not only for
the tech stack overhaul butobviously this big project that
we're also working on.
Speaker 3 (15:58):
How if there's anything you can share on this
topic, but how are you and yourteam using AI currently?
Speaker 1 (16:05):
So at the moment, not to its true advantage, like with
from a guest experienceperspective, we have great
communication with the guestsvia instant messaging. And one
of the benefits with Dove isthat if a guest sends a message,
you've got this initial layer ofgenerative AI that knows
everything about us as a companyand at the hotel in specific and
can answer those and respond tothose. So we see a huge
(16:28):
reduction in phone calls andemails from guests because
they've got this layer alreadythat can answer all of those
questions. There's a lot more wecan do, especially when we want
to look at concepts like smartrooms, not just smart how it
currently is by asking Alexa orSiri to turn on your lights and
turn off your lights, but reallylike, hey, the system based on
(16:49):
AI knows how you like your room,knows how you like your lights,
knows if you like your blindsopen or not, and can already set
the room for you before you'veeven walked in the door. Have
your favorite TV channel ormovie playing and really like
bold solutions like that.
Speaker 3 (17:03):
Just shifting gears a little bit, I'm curious based on
your experience in the industryand your recent experience with
this tech stack change, whatwould you say are one or two
skills or characteristics thatsomeone should have to be
successful in the industry?
Speaker 1 (17:19):
I think one of the easiest ones is adaptability,
right? You cannot have someonewho has these legacy habits and
thinks like, oh, it must onlywork this way because it worked
this way for the last ten,twenty years. They need to be
able to pivot during a systemchange or a system outage or a
huge crunch in staffing numbers.We know across the industry it's
so hard to get staff nowadays.And not only that, they need to
(17:42):
have that mentality and abilityto shift with the dynamics as
they change.
You know, guest needs arechanging so much every day. You
cannot have someone who's justso static in the way they think.
And then not only that, it'svery similar to what we speak
about is they have to bedigitally fluent as well. It
probably was easier if we goback ten, fifteen years when you
(18:02):
had these systems but youweren't so reliant on these
systems. And they are gettingmore technical because there's
so much more you can do withthem.
So everyone needs to have areally good digital knowledge to
be able to really move forwardas a hotelier, I think.
Speaker 3 (18:15):
How do you stay up to date on the latest in tech in
general and tech specific to thehotel world?
Speaker 1 (18:24):
Hotel tech report. That's a great example. You
know, just to pitch it in there.Very active, very active on
LinkedIn and attending as manyevents as possible. Mean, we
went to Muse Unfold in Amsterdama couple of months ago.
That was a fantastic event. Notjust obviously not to sell it to
Muse, but they don't pitch it asa Muse pitch event. They pitch
(18:46):
it as a hospitality and ahotelier's come together. They
spent so little time actuallytalking about Muse. I was like,
is this actually an event forMuse or it's just hosted by them
and you've got so many differentpartners there and so many
people brought together.
So there was so much I learnedfrom that and so many people I
met and spoke to that we gainedso many different insights. So
(19:06):
events like that really help aswell, think.
Speaker 3 (19:08):
Well, last question, which sometimes leads to some
hot takes. What is one thing youbelieve about technology in the
hotel space that your peers orcompetitors might disagree with?
Speaker 1 (19:21):
Well, that's a good question. I think this may
contradict what I've spokenabout, especially when we talk
about AI. But I think theindustry is so rapidly focused
on AI. They're like, let's AIdrive everything, chatbots,
smart rooms, predictiveanalytics, all of these things,
that everyone's looking at AI asa tendency to replace humans
(19:43):
rather than enable them. Butwhat my belief is and what we
focus on as a company as wellis, well, some people try to, is
that the tech really needs tosupport the human service.
It cannot replace it. You know,what we want to achieve and one
of our bold achievements thatwe're aiming for with this new
project that we're working on isto have a tech stack that
completely removes the manualelement. So it's purely
(20:05):
supporting the service that theservice that they're providing
to the guests is there's so muchtime to focus on it rather than
it being completely driven andonly driven by AI. I think it
needs to be a careful balance ofthe two. I'm not saying AI
should replace everything and doeverything for us, but it just
needs to support how we actuallydeliver the guest service.
Speaker 3 (20:24):
Well, before we wrap up, I want to open it up to you
if there's anything else youwant to share or anything else
you wanna cover.
Speaker 1 (20:31):
The only thing I could say for any hotelier is
that listen is if you aresitting there considering such a
bold change and you're thinking,hey, I need to change a system,
look at the bigger picture.Don't be afraid to change them
all at once. It hurts and it'stough during it. And there's so
many hours and mental thoughtscommitted to it, but it makes
such a difference overall. Like,you can do so much more with it.
(20:52):
And I think, you know, somethingas simple as saying, hey, I can
automate all of my payments. Youwouldn't even believe if you
wrote down on paper, and I'dlove for people to do this, how
many minutes on average it takesto charge a card in your system.
Times that by how many paymentsyou've taken over a year and
work out how many hours thatyour team are wasting on such a
process like that. Find a systemthat does that for you and
(21:15):
actually give your staff thetime to focus on other things.
You know, we're talking hundredsof thousands of hours.
It's insane. So just say thepeople go for it.
Speaker 3 (21:24):
Do you know off the top of your head how many hours
of payment processing your teamneeds?
Speaker 1 (21:30):
We looked at it and I think it was something crazy
like one hundred and seventyfive thousand hours across the
portfolio, which was just, Imean, we calculate how many
hours that is, how many peoplethat is, like over a month. It's
crazy numbers.
Speaker 3 (21:42):
Well, great data point to support making the
move. So that's great advice.Thank you for sharing.
Speaker 1 (21:49):
No, you're welcome.
Speaker 3 (21:50):
Well, Josh, it was such a pleasure speaking with
you. Thank you so much forsharing your experience, for
sharing all this great advicewith hoteliers that may be
looking to make a similarchange. So I really appreciate
you taking the time.
Speaker 1 (22:02):
Yeah. Thank you for having me again. It was great.
Speaker 2 (22:06):
That's all for today's episode. Thanks for
listening to Hotel Tech Insiderproduced by hoteltechreport.com.
Our goal with this podcast is toshow you how the best in the
business are leveragingtechnology to grow their
properties and outperform theconcept by using innovative
digital tools and strategies. Iencourage all of our our
listeners to go try at least oneof these strategies or tools
(22:27):
that you learned from today'sepisode. Successful digital
transformation is all aboutconsistent small experiments
over a long period of time, sodon't wait until tomorrow to try
something new.
Do you know a hotelier who wouldbe great to feature on this
show, or do you think that yourstory would bring a lot of value
to our audience? Reach out to medirectly on LinkedIn by
(22:47):
searching for Jordan Hollander.For more episodes like this,
follow Hotel Tech Insider on allmajor streaming platforms like
Spotify and Apple Music.
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