This week’s Partner News is highlighted by Vision Hospitality Group receiving two awards at the Marriott Select Brand and Franchise Conference; Maestro PMS and Hapi integrating to streamline salesforce connectivity for Margaritaville hotel in Florida; and Duetto releasing a series of new features and innovations for its revenue intelligence application. Read about all that and more below.
Vision Hospitality wins two awards at Marriott conference
Vision Hospitality Group has received two of the highest honors bestowed by Marriott International at the Marriott Select Brand and Franchise Conference held at Gaylord Rockies Resort & Conference Center in Denver.
For the second time, Mitch Patel, founder/president/CEO, Vision Hospitality Group, received The Partnership Circle Award and the Serve360 Award. The Partnership Circle Award honors companies that share a mutual, long-term commitment to Marriott and fully live its vision by accomplishing stringent performance thresholds including focusing on leaders and associates to create a well-managed, inspired workforce and providing outstanding guest service. The Serve360 Award honors Marriott select-brand franchisee partners who demonstrate a commitment to making a positive and sustainable impact wherever it does business.
Within Marriot’s four distinct coordinates for this program, the award was granted for Vision Hospitality Group’s contribution to the Welcome goals and initiatives which focus on cultural inclusivity through travel and a call to action for human rights with a heightened focus on human trafficking. Vision Hospitality Group first received these honors and awards during the Marriott Select Brand and Franchise Connect Conference in 2018.
Maestro PMS, Hapi streamline salesforce connectivity for Margaritaville hotel
Maestro and Hapi have teamed up to enable independent hotels to make more impactful connections with their guests. By integrating Maestro PMS with Hapi, hoteliers and technology solutions providers can now access and share data with Maestro as well as more than 100 other solutions providers by writing to a single Hapi API with little to no development work on the hoteliers’ end.
Maestro will partner with Hapi to serve as a one-stop shop for all hotel technology integrations; hoteliers will pay Hapi a single annual fee to bundle all requested Maestro integrations, saving operators time and headaches. One benefit of the integration to Hapi is access to Hapi Guest powered by Salesforce to centralize data and personalize each step of the guest journey.
The Margaritaville Beach Hotel in Pensacola Beach, FL, is the first property to benefit from the Maestro-Hapi Guest integration. The hotel can pull single guest profiles from Maestro to develop a 360-degree view of the customer and share that data with Salesforce to build effective, targeted campaigns.
Duetto unveils innovations in hotel forecasting & budgeting
Duetto has released a series of new features and innovations for ScoreBoard, its revenue intelligence application.
The New Forecast & Budget Builder in ScoreBoard enables revenue managers, finance and operations teams to generate forecasts and budgets more quickly and accurately, whether by property, brand or at a corporate level.
“Revenue managers need to quickly and efficiently create forecasts and budgets and share them with internal teams, third-party applications and key stakeholders,” said Darren Koch, chief product officer, Duetto. “The New Forecast & Budget Builder was developed to bring efficiency and agility to their workflow. It allows commercial teams to toggle between high-level quarterly projections and more granular day-level forecasts to deliver unmatched accuracy.”
Nomadix, Telkonet create smart-room experiences for hotel guests
Nomadix Inc.and Telkonet have teamed up to create smart in-room experiences for hotels and their guests. Guests can now use their voices to set Telkonet smart thermostats to their preferences, for comfort and accessibility, via Angie in-room voice assistants. Guests simply ask Angie to set a specific temperature, switch modes to cool or heat, or set fan speeds.
“At Telkonet we work to improve people’s lives,” said Jeff Sobieski, chief technology officer, Telkonet. “Focusing on a building’s energy efficiency is important for the hotelier because it results in economic savings, but equally important it improves guest experience, optimizing in-room comfort for the duration of their stay. As hotels look to optimize their operations, smart in-room technologies are an important factor in driving cost savings, efficiencies and meeting new guest expectations. By partnering with Nomadix, the combined integration of our smart thermostats and the Angie voice assistant reduces energy consumption, improves operational efficiency with truly measurable results and creates a more contactless, personalized experience.”
Angie voice assistants are multilingual, fulfill guest requests, answer common questions about the property and create smart-room experiences by controlling the TV, drapes and lighting, in addition to thermostats. What’s unique about Angie is hoteliers can control 100% of the property-specific answers to guests’ questions for personalization and upsell. These in-room devices work around the clock to relieve associates of simple, recurrent questions, allowing them to focus on high-value services. Angie also upgrades and replaces outdated equipment, including alarm clocks, phones, Bluetooth speakers, advertising screens (on select models) and more.
Virdee connects to onity, enables straight-to-room access
Virdee, a SaaS company delivering digital check-in and virtual concierge services to the hospitality and commercial real estate industries, continues to build a wide-ranging platform of integrations, most recently adding electronic access provider Onity.
Onity’s mobile access locks are Bluetooth-enabled to stay in a ready state, so guests can unlock doors while on the move, without having to stop their stride or touch the phone to the lock.
Through digital check-in and locking-system integrations, hotels can serve today’s evolving guests needs, allowing them to bypass the front desk and head straight to their guestroom. Virdee provides a full contactless experience, empowering 100% of hotel guests to check in via kiosk or their mobile device without ever standing in line at the front desk. The Virdee-Onity integration allows guests to securely access their assigned digital key to unlock their room and other guest access-controlled areas of the property.
Through either a mobile app or kiosk experience, Virdee handles all a hotel’s check-in needs, including ID verification, payment collection and room access. Should a guest need assistance, with one tap of a button Virdee connects them to a virtual concierge that can help walk them through the check-in process. Implementing Virdee’s solution allows owners to increase profitability while providing a safer guest experience than traditional, more manual methods.