Latest / The Modern Hotelier / #310: HITEC E20X 2026 Winners | with Mergim Kacija & Josh Ellis
Transcript
- The Modern Hotelier #310: HITEC E20X 2026 Winners | with Mergim Kacija & Josh Ellis === Mergim Kacija: So the usual technology stack is the property management system, the revenue management, the channel manager, the guest communication. So the entire stack is really built into the platform, but the idea is that you have specialist AI agents that perform a lot of the day-to-day responsibilities. David Millili: Welcome to a special HITEC E20X winner episode of The Modern Hotelier, the most engaged podcast in hospitality. Make sure to subscribe, like, follow, and let us know in the comments what you think about the episode. Steve, who are we with today? Steve Carran: Yeah, David. Excited to be joined by Mergim Kacija, the CEO of Stayfull AI. Thank you, Mergim. How are you doing today? Mergim Kacija: I'm doing great. Thank you for having me. Steve Carran: Good. You bet. So can you tell us a little bit about how you got to be the CEO and what you did before StayFull AI? Mergim Kacija: Absolutely. Yeah. So the first 25 years of my career were spent in capital markets and finance, so I worked for larger financial firms and private equity for eight years as well. And then during COVID, I began investing in real estate. I started buying short-term rentals and eventually graduated to hotels. I now own four boutique hotels in New England across three different states, and basically my background is technology and finance, and I got into hospitality during COVID through real estate investing. David Millili: So take us through why and how was the process of going through the competition? Mergim Kacija: Yes, the competition was great. So you apply and submit your application. There's a series of questions and a series of criteria that filter out things like how early stage you are, whether you have customers, and your experience. So I think they're really looking for companies that are going to provide value to the audience and to the community as well. There's eight finalists, and I met with those eight finalists, and we discussed the process. So I felt it was very streamlined and straightforward. There were deadlines for things, and ultimately, the process was pretty smooth. In fact, I was a bit impressed with the whole process throughout because it was much more professional than I thought. They're testing microphones and speakers and things like that. So yeah, I thought it was a very well-run process, and my seven competitors are amazing. I love them. In fact, two of them I'm going to implement in my own hotel, so that was a great pool of candidates, and it was an honor to be in the group. Steve Carran: That's great. So what has the feedback been like since you won E20X? Mergim Kacija: It's been amazing, really. Overwhelming. A lot of investors have come up, a lot of hotels from all over the Caribbean, from Asia. The hotel associations are coming up. It's been really, really good feedback. Really, it's overwhelming to see that people are excited about it. I've had a lot of people come up to me and say, "Thank you for being a disruptor. We really needed this in the travel industry." So those are the comments that really stick with me when people are thanking me, not just to collaborate, but thanking me for my message. So that means a lot to me, and I'm excited to basically be an innovator in an industry where I don't have a lot of experience. I've only been in hospitality for about two years. David Millili: For those who don't know about Stayfull AI, can you tell us about it? Mergim Kacija: Yeah. So Stayfull AI is a property management system for hotels, but it does significantly more. So the usual technology stack is the property management system, the revenue management, the channel manager, the guest communication. So the entire stack is really built into the platform, but the idea is that you have specialist AI agents that perform a lot of the day-to-day responsibilities. So when you go to my hotel's social media, that's run by an agent. When you call my hotel phone, that's answered by an AI agent. Emails are answered by an agent. The rates, the promotions for the hotel, all of these things are run by specialized agents that sit in the platform. The idea came from when I bought these hotels. I inherited a lot of technology that was disparate, didn't speak to each other, and functionally, I didn't feel like I was getting that much value for what I was paying a month. So I took technology that was costing me two thousand dollars a month and created a platform that does all of it for two hundred dollars a month starting. So I'm really targeting independent hotels under 50 rooms that don't have the staff, they don't have the money for resources, they don't have money for a professional revenue manager and a marketing team. So I'm really going long tail to go after the smaller hotels that can really use resources and don't have both the human and actual capital to invest in these tools. David Millili: That does it for another episode of The Modern Hotelier. This is where you get to let people know how they can find out about you and about Stayfull AI. Mergim Kacija: Perfect. Yes. You can find me at stayfull.ai. You can find me on LinkedIn. Basically anywhere on social media is Stayfull AI. Search for AI property management system or AI-native property management system. I should organically find my way in the search, so stayfull.ai. David Millili: We are excited to be here at HITEC 2026 with Josh Ellis, the E20X People's Choice winner. Abra won it. Congratulations. Josh Ellis: Thank you so much. It's great to be back with you guys. Steve Carran: Yeah, absolutely. So for those that might not be familiar with Abra, can you tell us what y'all do? Josh Ellis: Yeah. So Abra is a guest intelligence platform. Guest data lives scattered in a dozen disconnected systems, and it makes it really hard to deliver the kind of personalized service that brings guests back over and over. So what Abra does is we integrate with all the tools in the tech stack, pull all of the guest data that lives in those disconnected systems, put that into a unified institutional memory of every guest, and use that to deliver the kind of personalized service that earns loyalty and drives profitability for hotels. David Millili: So I believe this is the 11th year for E20X. What was the process like for you? Tell us about that journey and how everything was. Josh Ellis: Yeah, definitely. So there was an application process. I believe it was due at the end of April. Had to submit a video. There was a bunch of questions that they asked about the platform and our team. So we submitted that, and then I think it was maybe a few weeks later we got the news that we were selected as one of the eight companies. And then HFTP and the whole team with E20X have just been so amazing throughout the process. When we got here, there was a mentoring session, so we got to meet with some of the previous winners, ask them some questions about both the pitch and our business, and about growing a tech company in this space. So it was amazing. Then we did a rehearsal on Monday, and everything was pretty smooth and flawless from there. I was just so impressed with all of the companies that pitched. Everyone absolutely crushed it. Steve Carran: That's awesome. So since you won the People's Choice, what has the feedback been? Josh Ellis: Yeah. Yesterday was an insane day at the booth. It was pretty nonstop. I feel super grateful that it seemed to resonate with a lot of people. Have several hotel groups that are ready to move forward with pilots or even launching across multiple properties. So definitely as an accelerator for some of the conversations that we were already having, and starting conversations that we hadn't started before that are moving faster than they were happening previously. So yeah, just feel super grateful for the opportunity and the recognition, and excited to see where it takes us. David Millili: All right. So let people know two things: what's next for Abra and how they can get in touch with you. Josh Ellis: Yeah, definitely. So what's next is we had a big week outside of everything that's happened here. We signed our first multi-property group, so we're really excited to be launching with them, and we also signed our first international hotel. So launching with the multi-property group, continuing to support our existing hotels, and expanding Abra outside of the US. So a lot of exciting things there. You can find us online at abrahospitality.com. I'm on LinkedIn, Josh Ellis, and would love to get in touch with anyone who's interested in exploring how they can deliver hospitality magic to their guests more consistently. David Millili: Well, that does it for this special HITEC E20X People's Choice winner. Congratulations, and we wish you all the best. Josh Ellis: Thank you. Appreciate it. Steve Carran: Congrats, Josh. Josh Ellis: Aloha.