Latest / GAIN Momentum / Choose Your Hotel Tech Partners Wisely | with Damien Cazabonne

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Choose Your Hotel Tech Partners Wisely | with Damien Cazabonne · GAIN Momentum

• ​GAIN Momentum episode #63: Choose Your Hotel Tech Partners Wisely | with Damien Cazabonne === Adam Mogelonsky: Welcome to the gain momentum podcast, focusing on timeless lessons from senior leaders in hospitality, food service, travel, and technology. I'm joined by my co host Zoe Koumbouzi And here we have our special guest today. Damien, did I pronounce that right? Cazabonne? Damien Cazabonne: Cazabonne. Adam Mogelonsky: from Mews. He is the leader of, he is the global manager of Marketplace Partnerships. And we're going to be talking about strategic partnerships in hospitality today. Uh, let's start first with Mews and giving us a brief history of the company, which has accelerated literally zero to a hundred over the past 10 years. Mews. Tell us how you've gotten involved and just the history of how the company's really growing. Damien Cazabonne: Cazamon. Well, first of all, thank you very much, guys. It's a pleasure to be with you today. Uh, so really happy to talk about partnership and about Mews. So, yeah, very good question. And, uh, zero to a hundred, maybe it's even more than a hundred actually, but yeah, I get the point. Um, so Mews, as you know, was, was, uh, firstly developed, in Europe and rapidly expanded, first of all with independent properties and rapidly we saw product, um, product feed for other segments. Also the regions. The first expansion was made in, in, uh, Western Europe, principally and rapidly, also into North America, where we're growing. Also at a very fast. based at the moment now globally serving more than 6, 000 properties and pouring more than 6, 000 hotels in the world in more than 85 countries. We'll also give an ID and, uh, and, uh, to people to have some data. And, um, yes, I think that Mews is really a succeeding at the, at the moment, let's say, and for the. 12 past years because of the approach that we have into really solving a problem. So I think this is something I can, I can develop definitely, but this is where Mews is expanding also in terms of this product approach and this vision from our founders and, uh, and leaders, Matt and Richard, that are really driven to solve some solutions and really focus on the guest experience. Well, very good question. And yes, Adam Mogelonsky: Okay, so let's unpack that a little bit more here because changing a PMS or updating it is very tough to do. So what is that problem or problems that you are solving for that has driven the growth? So Damien Cazabonne: definitely an important software. So making this decision can be a tough one to do. I think that first of all, if we look back at the context and the history of our industry, while this industry has been stuck kind of for, for a long time, for decades or even more with the same big players, with the same of same kind of old school mindset, you know, and really open to change, not really open to innovation. So I think it's where Mews is really, um, making a boom and changing everything is into this innovative side and looking forward, being able to solve main challenge, which is around, the operation in a hotel and the guest experience, which, which goes kind of together. Because finally, what you, when you think about that, if you don't look at, um, the trends at the market at being innovative, you can miss something. And as we know, unfortunately, our industry in this regard is a bit kind of delayed, if I may say this way, um, in terms of innovation and looking forward. And it's where Mews is really, um, helping. So the main challenge is to help hotelier to do their job. And what is a job in hospitality is connecting humans. It's creating experiences and it's exactly what we are focusing on from the vision to the product, to the solution we bring to our consumers, customers. Well, it's definitely where we focus. We'll try to improve the operations by impacting also the final. consumer in hospitality, which is a traveler. So our main focus is around the traveler, and we take steps behind that to make sure that a hotelier and a staff is able to engage with this customer more. We can talk about the disengagement of the screen, which we try to do is exactly the opposite of a social network, such as Instagram or TikTok. We don't want the staff to be on the screen. We want him to spend the less time possible on the screen to be able to connect more with this person. And instead of asking, a passport, a credit card, or whatever, and spending 15 minutes during a check in on your computer, we want it to take 30 seconds to be able for you to talk about your property, to check how the guest is feeling today, how was the travel, if they need any tips in the other rounds, or whatever, or maybe offer an upsell. This is definitely where we are focusing. Adam Mogelonsky: your role is the global manager of marketplace partnerships. What's a day in the life look like for Damien? Damien Cazabonne: That's a good question. When you say the word partnership already, you know, you can, you can feel like I can talk for hours for sure. Um, Well, as you, as you, as you mentioned, I'm leading the team, um, of Marketplace Partner. So I have teammates a bit in Europe and also in North America. Uh, so first of all, my main priority every day is definitely to bring them the support they need. This can look like a very basic answer, but it's true as a manager, I want them to be able to perform and do their job. So I'm, I need to make sure I'm driving them the right way. I'm answering their question and we are all on the same boat towards the same goal. Talking about this goal, I think it will come to the second point, which is the fact that as a company, of course, when you belong to a company and you really want to have an impact here, well, definitely you have to look at your actions. And how, make it again. So yes, I'm leading, I'm leading the Marketplace Partner Team at Mews. Um, and have different teammates across different regions in Europe and also North America. So my first goal as a manager is definitely to support my team. Supporting my team means that I want to bring them the right support, making sure that we are driving the right initiatives, and we are contributing the right way to Mews growth. This is the first goal. Behind that, for sure, to make sure that we drive the right initiatives, we have to make sure we adapt to the strategy of the company. Because as a team inside a corporate company, we have to look at the ways we impact the growth of this company. So my second, I would say, main responsibility every day is to make sure that all the action, all the strategy for the day, for the week, for the month of the upcoming year is lead leaning toward a new strategy and the global picture. And of course, as you can imagine in the landscape we have at the moment with. consolidation, past fragmentation, all the new technology happening, the new needs, the new markets or whatever, we have to also make sure that we have, we are up to date and we are updated about the trends and we take the right actions out of that. So for example, um, we are looking at new verticals we can look at as a partnership. We are looking at the new expansion or new segment we want to conquer and make sure that we have the right partners for this. We are looking at the last, latest. Trends, let's say, regarding the category of partners that emerge or exist. I think one good example would be definitely partners focusing on technology vendors, focusing on sustainability. Nowadays, we know that it's a big topic to control our carbon footprint, to control it, to be able to manage our system internally in terms of energy. We see growth trends around this. So we have to make sure that we are partnering with the right people. So there is definitely one side is a team focusing on partner management. And looking at the partners we already have in our marketplace to see how we can grow together. And there is a different side, which is more on the partner development, looking at tech vendors that are not integrated to Mews, or we don't have a partnership with at the moment, looking at assessing them, assessing the interest to go there, and trying to partner with them. Adam Mogelonsky: Okay, so you mentioned a lot there. We can go back to sustainability because that's a great emerging area. First though, what we're seeing in hospitality technology is this consolidation towards all in one systems and everyone saying, Oh, we can do it all. We can do it all. It's all in one database, etc. And yet, partnerships are essential for Developing your tech architecture or your ecosystem of technologies. And Mews has always had a partnership first strategy. So how do you reconcile these two different outlooks on where do you take your company within this industry that has, for a long time, depended on various technologies talking to one another and seamless guest experience. Damien Cazabonne: We can spend hours talking about this. I love, I love this topic. Definitely. I think it's really an all in one versus marketplace partner of flexibility that we talk about, which is probably not the right vision because the kind of mantra of one size fits all doesn't work at all here. Why? Because we are all different. When I say I, here, it should be our, our hoteliers. They all have different expectations. They are all running different operations, different stuff, different type of businesses or, or guests, for example. So we have a lot of different expectations. And I have a question for you, Adam, to kind of illustrate it the right way. And it's going to be. Should be at least a good image. When you book a travel on the personal side, and you want to book your next trip during summer for two weeks, are you more the kind of person who book through a two operator, everything all included, transport, accommodation, food activities? Or are you more on the other side, looking at every single kind of vertical of topic independently and booking everything independently? Adam Mogelonsky: Well, first off, the assumption you have there is that I have time to take a summer holiday. Damien Cazabonne: That's good. That's Adam Mogelonsky: Yeah. Number two is I'm, I'm a Virgo, so I'm. Looking at everything individually, I drill down before I book any hotel, I drill down to see when the hotel was last renovated, because my assumption is that a lot of hotels that haven't been renovated or built within the past 10 years are using outdated technology. And therefore, I can't even trust if their Wi Fi nodes are up to snuff for delivering emails. And doing things like this. I'm a unique case. Let's leave it at that. Uh, Zoe, maybe? She's, maybe offer a different opinion. Zoe Koumbouzi: I, yeah, I'm not as unique as you, Adam, in that sense, but I definitely don't book all in one. No, I'm, I'm more of a, um, sort of spontaneous person. So I like to have things that just happen last minute. So some things I'll put, book in advance and some things I will literally leave them until the day. Yeah. Mixed bag. Damien Cazabonne: it. Get it. Get it. And I think I'm more leaning toward Adam here on the personal side, looking at everything, every single metric. But I think this is a good illustration. In our case here, we see that we like to do everything independently. Why? Because maybe we have higher expectations and we like to be at the top. If on every single kind of activity or Rias, as, as you say before, you have very specific expectation from hotels. That's fine. Some people will book, um, to, uh, to operator, they will book everything included. Is it wrong? Is it right? It's also right. It's just a different approach. And now, if you look at all in one versus the flexibility of a marketplace, this is the same. Look at your expectation, who you are. Maybe an all in one system will facilitate having only one contact, one support, and making sure that all your systems are embedded together. But maybe, you won't benefit of the expertise of every single vertical, and in this case, every single system. So again, nothing is right, nothing is wrong. It just depends on your expectation, your operation, and who you are, basically. So this is how I kind of illustrate this example of this, this comparison. Adam Mogelonsky: Right, so the, the term there that everyone's using these days is best of breed. And how do you, as the manager who's overseeing this and deciding who to partner with, how do you evaluate tech partners to determine if they are in fact the best of breed? Damien Cazabonne: that's a very good question. And so we have, uh, we have a lot of different metrics, as I was mentioning before, when it's about a new partnership. Well, first of all, I should, I should begin with the context. We have 1, 100 partners on our marketplace right now, meaning that we have Almost 1. 2K tech vendor on our marketplace. In terms of category, if we look at what's been done in the past and what's done so far, we have probably between 10 and 90 providers of each different category, from RMS, channel manager, guest experience, uh, service, or whatever you can think about. So we probably have it. So if I look at new partners, first of all, We look at something in terms of solution, which is really meeting an expectation, meeting a product gap, meeting a real pain from our industry. This is on the product side. So this is something we can assess. Also, this would be a bit more reactive, but in terms of proactivity, Mews is also, as you mentioned before, expanding at a really fast pace at the moment. Maybe we can enter new countries, new segments, specific, um, chains with specific needs. So that's going to be also a more reactive approach we take to understand exactly what's missing in our marketplace and making sure that we can partner with the right players for this specific strategy that we have. On one side, if I look at the 1, 000 partners we have on the marketplace, how do we evaluate the partners that are kind of on the top for X reason versus other partners? we are constantly looking at it and it's, a challenge because managing 1, 000 partners, it's impossible. So we have to make choices. This is clear. And the choices have to be made based on metrics. So now, right now, we've, we've been releasing this week, a new integrated pointer program, um, with new metrics that we want to set up because. When you talk about this, this partnership, this collaboration between two vendors in B2B, the final user of this B2B collaboration is also a business. So it's a kind of B2B to be, if I may say, a bit different than vendor agreement, let's say a relationship, but we have to look at the benefit for the final user, which is here, the hotel. So how do we look at this? We look at customer centric metrics, making sure that we meet some joint value proposition, and we are able to offer high end joint value proposition. So this joint value proposition, we are talking about technology, it definitely goes first through the API. through the integration. We have to make sure that the integration is strong. And some very simple metrics that can show that are the SLAs, the kind of velocity of the integration, the cases submitted, the number of customers together. We can also assume, basically, that having a thousand of customers with a partner, uh, and having this common customer database, it shows something credible to the industry. Oh, they have this amount of customers, Okay, that should be strong here. They should deliver good joint value proposition and the technical side should follow. Then we are looking to, really look at the commercial metrics also. We are growing. We are all businesses and a business, the goal of a business, let's be very honest, is to be profitable. So we look also at the commercial growth. How are these partners benefiting and supporting the growth of Mews? These are metrics that we kind of try to implement, but always on top of the customer centric ones, because we have never to forget our goal, which is to solve the pain and to really answer some expectations from the market. So the first is. is really customer centric with Mews. And on top of this, who is best supporting the growth of Mews? That would be kind of very high level, the kind of big metrics we look at at the moment. Adam Mogelonsky: You know, Richard Valtr has used this term, which is that Mews is a triple platform. And you, you talk about customer centric, customer centric, and then the whole idea you mentioned earlier about how Mews is designed to be an anti social media. We don't want people looking at embedded in this, in this screen. We want them to be get to be guest facing. So I'm wondering if you can color the whole idea of partnerships and the Mews UI, a user interface, or in this case, the end user interface to talk about how. The platform that you're developing, as well as all those partnerships, can actually benefit housekeepers, runners, uh, front desk clerks, et cetera. Damien Cazabonne: definitely. So it's a very interesting point. Yeah, Richard is always bringing some, some new vision on the table, which is very nice. I love it. And triple platform, definitely at Mews we have some great example and we can really talk about this because finally, as I was saying at the beginning, who do we want to impact positively here in, in our industry, in the hospitality industry, or travel one, is definitely the traveler. the guest. So this one should be a main focus for everyone. When you develop a solution, what is a pain you are looking kind of to manage here? What are the expectations you are trying to solve? So definitely the guests should be the first one. How do you impact the guests in a human? in a really human, area. It's giving to the staff, as I was mentioning before, more tools and more ways to engage with this person. So instead of giving more and more to use, we do the exact opposite. We give more with less, less time spent on the platform. And finally, who is it going to impact? The operation of the hotel, meaning numbers, meaning also general managers. So a good example I can give. And it can be made through partnership as it's also made in house with Mews. But an example I love is about housekeeping. I love this example because as a guest on the personal side, or even on professional one, traveling for business, what I suffer is when I write early. in a hotel. I like to do my check in and someone is not even able to tell me if the room is clean or not. This is for me, in 2024, this is a real pain. This is a real pain. And I love that Mews already have a system inbuilt which allows this automation between the rooms, between the floors, and the front desk. Meaning that in real life in real time, you can see if the room has been clean because our housekeepers will have access to an app on their phone and are able to talk to tag what the study of this room, if it's clean, if it's inspected, if it's ready to go, whatever in live in the system, you can see it from the front desk and know if the room. What the statue of the room, meaning that the guest arriving two hours before you already know what the statue of his room is, meaning that you have to approach this here. Either you want an amazing guest experience and according to your policy, according a bit to your vision, you will offer it for free. So you directly impact the experience of these guests. Either you look also at the revenue you generate and Mews will provide you the tools to do some upselling and offer this room as an upsell. when the person is checking in. So you have kind of different approach. And again, what we give to Hotelier is a choice, is the ability to really put in place their strategy thanks to our system. So this is how we see it. Talking of partners is the same. If you want, as you mentioned before, the best in breed in this case with housekeeping, partner probably with the top in class partners in the industry on housekeeping. And we have some great case study on the web that I really invite you to check. with some amazing metrics. With one partner, we were able to decrease by more than 90 percent the call happening between the front desk and the rooms, meaning that they don't have to call to check the status or ask a question because they have everything in the system. That can be the add ons that have been, um, upsell already to the guests during the check in. That can be some specific, uh, requests from the guests. Or because you're also focusing a lot in loyalty and you have good CRM in place, you're able to know what a guest is expecting when he arrives in the property and you are able to deliver it. So you can have all this information really synced in real time and you are able to do whatever you want with it toward the guest. Adam Mogelonsky: You know, it's very interesting you talk about that 90 percent reduction of calls and you extrapolate that out across 365 days going forward. And that's a very meaningful number. Not just in terms of labor savings, but that whole idea of liberating labor to do real experiences. And it's highly quantifiable, but that's one of many automations that can occur that together add up to something very meaningful. Damien Cazabonne: Exactly, completely agree. And when you look at it on, again, we are talking about the triple platform impact, impacting the guest, impacting the staff, impacting also the operation, maybe general manager or the overseeing everything in terms of business. And you can relate these metrics to proper number because this 90 percent prediction, you can definitely track it or identify it as a number in terms of. in time. You can link this time to the cost per hour of an employee at front desk. And you can see the reduction of the impact it has on, on the bottom line of, of your, um, P& L, for example, meaning that you have a direct correlation. And we are talking about housekeeping here and this kind of, real time status that you have available, but with check in, it's exactly the same. Offering an online check in, it can decrease your, check in time. a physical one by three to six minutes. Also, other case studies, we have a wonderful one in Europe with some properties where we were able to decrease by six minutes, every check in six minutes. If you multiply this per a number of room, a hundred room at 70 percent occupation during the year, we are talking about probably 35 to 40 check in a day. If we consider a two night stay. I mean, the time you get here, we are talking about dozens of K of euros, not say a hundred of K of euros, you will just one, get back, I would say from, from desk agents and, and, and staff, basically, but all this time, hotelier can also be spent in creating the guest experience instead of decreasing the stuff you have. So this is where, when I say. We try really to meet the expectation of Hotelier, bringing from our solution, um, the features and the product or solution they expect, but also bringing our partners on board to make sure that we will have an impact. And this is really the vision and the passion of news is really providing, um, uh, providing the solution that meets your expectation, I'd say. Adam Mogelonsky: A vendor marketplace of over a thousand different vendors that can tie into Mews. And this whole idea of providing solutions to hoteliers. suppose I'm an independent hotelier, guide me through the process of saying, well, I want Mews and I want to work with your best and breed that's available in my, in my territory. How do I navigate this 1000 plus marketplace and go through the API development and API maintenance? Help me. Damien Cazabonne: Yeah, I will help you. First of all, I would like to ask, when was the last renovation to get an idea of your property? Just kidding. Definitely. That's a very good question. And, um, again, Mews, we, we have a quite wide marketplace with, with one more than 1000 players on the marketplace, but across the industry and the globe, we have thousands of players. So it's even harder for a property looking to change everything. Hey. Where do I start? I mean, I had a podcast. I think you had the chance to talk with, um, Ira Vuk, also, uh, an important player of our industry, very insightful. So, love it, Ira. Thanks for the, for the time last time. but Ira also has, has very good, uh, I love, I love her approach about segmenting the different kind of tools between the operation, between the guest experience and the revenue side. And I think it's also part of the history of our industry in hospitality. I think like if we look at decades, uh, in the past, first of all, we didn't have any system. So first of all, we had the first system coming on, which were around the operations, meaning PMS, probably. And then we started kind of increasing and spreading more, knowledge and more technology around that. So we began to have, okay, I can manage my operation. How do I get more revenue? Well, I need distribution to get more people. Okay. How I'm making sure I get revenue out of these people. revenue management system. Oh, these people are coming. How do I make them happy to increase their lifetime value and make them come back? CRMs, guest experience, et cetera, et cetera. So I think we all already have to look at it and look at who you are. It's funny to say that, but finally, the first question is, who are you? And I want you to tell me who you are. And it's also, About you to think about that because you have, you don't have to look at the best case study of the world here because they might not feed your expectation. It's like buying a car. I'm sorry. I'm a car guy, but like buying a car before to say, Oh yes, I love luxury car or sport car. That's amazing. But who are you? Oh, I'm a family of seven. Maybe I'm sorry, but you like it, but it doesn't work. So don't look at what's the best because the best might maybe might not be the best for you. So what I would encourage, encourage to do is first of all, look at who you are in terms of segment, property, customer type. What are the kind of facilities you have? These kind of things. Look at your occupancy. Look at the occupancy versus your competitor in the region. Maybe this kind of stuff. It will give you an idea of who you are really in depth with maybe some metrics. Then the next question, thanks to this metrics, what do you want to achieve? are solving a problem. What's your problem? And in life, we are always kind of, we are taught about asking questions. You do business school, you get in a company and discovery. How do you do discovery? How do you ask the right question? The pain points. Okay, that's fantastic. But we should be told also from our childhood to be able to express ourselves better and to express ourselves with clear vision or where we want to go. Back it up with metrics to be able when I ask you, Hey, what do you want to achieve? Look, my checking time is five minutes. I want to decrease it to three. Um, in terms of ancillary revenue, I would like to 300%. Okay, that's straightforward. I can already spend more time helping you and showing you how we'll do it and not spending so much time on the discovery side. So I would say, have a clear vision in mind of what you want to achieve and bag it up with data. What is really what you want to achieve? Look at resources, time, money. People, what are you able to do now? And what are you willing to invest there? Okay, I want to increase, uh, my, I don't know, my revenue by, uh, 50 percent for next year. Do you have an RMS? Oh, no, it's too expensive. Mm, yeah. Again, let's look at the metrics. Let's look at what it can achieve. And then let's see the final piece, you know? So this would be my recommendation. Look at who you are. Look at why you want to, what you want to achieve and the real pain points. And then it's about, looking at definitely the providers. So then we get into the technology and we, we, we look at who should I use here. And here it really depends on your expectation first. And I would highly recommend to looking also at the credibility of the solution or how it will answer your needs, but also on the security side, the compliance side. Something it's. Sometimes it's something which comes at the end, you know, Oh, I didn't check about compliance. I didn't check about the last kind of, easel they get or whatever. And this should be something more and more important. Looking at the world, looking at all the, the data compliance we have, the taxi, the regulation in each country. This should be also top of mind to look at this side, the security side of a provider and the robustness of this provider. I don't know if I answered the question. I, I might, I might have said a lot of, uh, insight here, but I think it kind of drives the right, uh, my, my vision, at least. Zoe Koumbouzi: Yeah. Adam Mogelonsky: You went into incredible depth. Zoe Koumbouzi: going to say, I think it's, it's clearly evident from the way you're speaking, Damien, that the client, in this case, the hotelier just really takes front and center of everything that you do. It's, it's so refreshing to hear. And, uh, I think you could add coach to your title as well, right? So to your work title, because It sounds like you're having some really interesting conversations with hoteliers, not just a transactional situation, but getting into the nitty gritty of who they are, what their use cases, what their ecosystem is. And I really think that that approach for, for longevity in business in general is, is just the absolute right way to go, right? Because it, it generates trust. And we, we're living in an age where trust is really the new currency. And I think that that is. Going back to the very first question in this podcast, which was why has Mews grown from zero to a hundred or a thousand? the trust in what you're doing and the approach. It's, uh, it's very interesting to hear you talk about it like that. Damien Cazabonne: Thanks a lot. And yes, I mean, um, yeah, I love what you say. Do we think thanks for this. And definitely I tend to do a comparison, which can sounds a bit crazy, but Mews is not a product. It's not a solution. It's a vision. It's literally, in my point of view, as an insider at Mews, really, uh, it's a vision that, that you, you belong to. Meaning that, uh, Hotelier looking at Mews specifically, uh, I would say it's a bit, if I may say this comparison, it's a bit like Apple. Are you going to buy a phone when you go to an Apple store? No, you are going to enter in a community, you are going to kind of, be able to access this community and access this service belong to this vision that Apple has with us. It's kind of the same. You don't look at the product. You really look at your operation and are changing the whole operations. It's not a product you subscribe and it will do the job. It won't. It won't. I'm saying it twice now. You have to put efforts on these. You have to really want to solve the pain point to belong to this vision with Mews and to put efforts on these that may require changing some of your operations, but for good only. Adam Mogelonsky: So to unpack two points and to challenge you a bit, you mentioned you ask a hotel who they are, and then you set a specific goal saying, I want to increase ancillaries by 300%. And my first thought there is that reminded me a lot of my specific area of expertise, which is luxury hotels and wellness, where wellness is a foremost way to increase that ancillary by 300%. But increasingly, what I'm seeing is less so pure field driven answers to that question, who am I as a hotel, and more so using data to determine who you are based on what the market says, what your guests are telling you and so on. So to challenge you on that front, how can hotels use integrated systems and databases to discover who they are? And to evolve who they are. Damien Cazabonne: An amazing question. That's an amazing question. And here it's definitely linked to technology. because we can also jump in, in a topic which is around the CDPCRM and collection of data, which can be very linked because the data you collect from outside from your guest, it's also linked to the data you collect inside from your operations, right? so I think you have to make sure that your system are able to deliver you a kind of visibility on what's happening, meaning we can talk about business, um, uh, BI tools definitely and proper to one, collect this data. Both internally and externally, being able to show this data in a proper way. It's nice to collect a hundred data points, a hundred thousand data points a day. What are you doing with this? Nothing, because I don't have the dashboard. Okay, so you have a problem here and having data. it's about three steps. Collecting, having the visibility of this data, and third, being able to action this data. It's nice to see that your check in has increased by 30 percent from a month to another one and you're doing bad in this. What are your actions? Do you have the resources for that? Do you have the technology that can support that? These are the questions you should ask yourself. When you want to increase ancillary revenue, for example, a very good example, and very good, um, a very interesting vertical in luxury for sure. A lot of facilities, ability to provide some very nice services. How do you really put this at the service of the guest? Do you have the technology to support your operation? Are you able during a check in, for example, to provide some offers to your guest? Are you able before the guest arrives to offer him some upselling options, for example? Instead, are you able to deliver him a proper way to book More services in your hotel, how many times you arrive in a hotel, and now they try to have, for example, a guest app in place, you scan the QR code, it doesn't work, it doesn't load, you can open everything, but you cannot book anything. And it doesn't make sense. What is the final point? Increasing your ancillary revenue. How do you get that? By your guest bookings. It's right. Make it simple. Make it simple. And a topic where I could spend hours, even if I'm absolutely not an expert on, but I love it, I'm fascinated about it, is the payment side. Because payments, it's not something else. It's not something to collect the money at all. Payments is part of the guest experience. And I would love to give you a personal example and a personal experience that happened to me two months ago, I think. I went into a very nice properties. Very nice property in the south of France, part of the soft brand. Um, very luxurious stuff, you know, uh, when you arrive, very nice welcome, please sit for the check in, uh, do you want to drink something, whatever. So very like nice experience, not the kind of queuing to do the check in, you know, having to give your passport and stuff. But, so we had this very good welcome and we are very happy with my wife. And soon they asked me, Oh, I see that you didn't provide your credit card so far, you didn't pay. So let's process to the payment. Okay, already it kind of creates this little friction of, I have to pay, you know? And then they asked me to open my phone because they were going to send me a link. And through this link, I could enter the data of my credit card to make the payment. And I was I was shocked. And we can, we can talk about credit card provider, who it was, how they process and do it differently. Fine. But the problem here is not who the provider is, is just the guest experience. I arrived at this night property. It's a 10 welcoming, in terms of human connection. And now they asked me to open my phone, to connect to internet, to enter my credit cards. I was coming from an hour and a half driving. That's fine. Imagine you are coming from Australia to Europe or to US after 15, 20 hours travel. And the first thing they ask you is to connect to internet. Maybe you don't, because you don't have the SIM card. So you need to ask the credential to connect to the Wi Fi. Then you have to look for your card, which is maybe in a travel, in your coat, in a pocket, or wherever. And after this exhausting trip, the first thing you have to do before even to begin your experience is this painful process. And this is why payment is so important in our industry and contributing so much to this guest experience to make it flawless and make sure that it's embedded in the system and in the whole guest experience to avoid this kind of frustrations. Adam Mogelonsky: There's a lot to unpack there. Uh, go ahead, Zoe. Zoe Koumbouzi: No, I just think, you know, payments is something that I hadn't had any insight on probably until about six months ago. Um, and now I'm starting to hear it more and more, and it is just astoundingly gray area in the technology space, right? It's kind of, it's weirdly not a hundred percent owned by, by one or the other. So I feel like it's this low hanging fruit. in terms of revenue, in terms of operations. I mean, you are at the hotel, but even before you get to the hotel, what happens, you know, when you're booking and you get it, it times out for whatever reason, a large amount of people will just go and book somewhere else. They're not that loyal, depending, it might be Adam and he's done his research and he's set on that hotel. But if it was me, I'm more capricious, you know, I'll go somewhere else if the payments don't work. If it's difficult, I'll go somewhere else. So I think it's a really interesting point that you brought up. And psychologically, which is something that you kind of mentioned there, luxurious, comfortable experience. We don't want to be reminded that we're paying for it the whole time. We kind of want to be in this dreamland of, I'll pay for it later, you know? So I think it's such a, such good point that you brought up with a great personal experience there. Yeah. Payments want to watch. Adam Mogelonsky: So just to unpack that a little further, this was you arriving on site and them wanting payment for the entire stay or just an incidental charge to have your card on file? Damien Cazabonne: No, no, no, not even. It was definitely paying for the whole stay. So again, I think what you are, trying to unpack here is, is what the final process, because we know that, uh, we have some system as we provide also, uh, at Mews that can. Use tokenization, meaning that the card will be stored in the cloud in a very safe way with high compliance around that to be able to process any payments afterwards, and you just have to show your card once. So you just capture the data and then you can, the hotel can charge whenever they have to make a payment, they can directly process there. But no, here it was really a different payment for every services. So first you pay for your booking and you stay, then if you have additional charges during your stay, you pay at the end, like old school style. And it was not smooth at all or modern at all, you know. Now, which is amazing, is like when you can capture this credit card during the, even the booking. So you make sure that you won't even have as a guest or traveler to take out your card or your wallet from your pocket because they have captured this data. Whatever extra charges you make during your stay, it will be charged or at your checkout on your card. And that's it. There is never this friction, as you mentioned, to kind of, you're in a luxury property. And every time you go to the bar, you go to wherever, you have to take your card again or take it off again, um, during the checkout. But this is where I think we have a huge gap in the industry. And I think it's partly made of the mindset that payment is something apart. It's the low hanging fruit and it's something which is a side. Let's think about operation, guest experience and payments on the side. Adam Mogelonsky: It's exactly as you said, as you both said, is that payments are part of the psychological interpretation of a hotel. Particularly at the luxury end, where we're talking about the fantasy. And you want to be brought in, you want to sit down. Oh, can I get you anything? A refreshment. And then you have this, this, payment that has to happen, which is, it destroys the veneer. And another part of that, that you've briefly touched on where hotels can innovate is also this whole idea of a transactional departure or checkout. Where the last interaction that a guest has with the hotel is, Oh, yep, we've settled your folio. Here's your receipt. Bye. Right. And there's, there's a better way to end that experience to endear yourself for. Future loyalty offerings. So is, is Mews doing anything on that front? Damien Cazabonne: Definitely, definitely. As I was mentioning, uh, so we offer our, our own solution in this regard, which is completely embedded into our system difference with integrated, meaning that it's part of the product, meaning that whatever happens has an impact. Because if we think again about the triple platform, we're discussing before impacting GM and operation, final numbers, impacting staff, impacting the guest. When here you have the full picture on payments also, because one. As we said before, in terms of emotional and feeling or psychological side as a guest and the consumer, not having to take out your card will definitely create something in your head where you are maybe more open to spend more indirectly, meaning that you will spend more and you will do it in a smooth way where you will be happy even to do it. So far, the guest experience, rising. Nice. Now, let's look at the stuff, how many hours during the night during on the morning or whatever, are we dedicating to payments, collecting payments, doing the balance at the end of the day, making sure that everything fits together in the most system, probably, I'd say, two to five hours, depend on the property, depend on the number of check in, check out during the day, stuff like this, if you have an old school system. So here, if you can decrease that, not even decreasing, but cut it, literally, because you provide all the operation, you provide the ability to have settlement rules and kind of break down the payments, however you want, before the booking, three days before the check in, after check out, whatever you want. Automatically, you do create a huge workload on the staff. And then what's the impact? Final numbers, revenue generation. You have a guest who is willing to spend more. You have your staff, not having to do this kind of workload and spending time on the screen again, meaning that you can either spend more time with your guest, either you have an impact also on your label costs. And finally, everyone is happy here. From the guest to the general manager. Um, going through, through stuff, you know, so this is where, uh, I think payments Is key, uh, nowadays, and we, we have the big gap, definitely. Adam Mogelonsky: Yeah. One other area that has always baffled me is the payment at a restaurant, a dining experience where it's the server goes by. Are you ready to pay? Interaction number one goes back, gets the ped, puts it on the table. Number two, then comes back to authorize the payment through the ped. Number three, and then that's a track transactional ending to that experience. Then the guest goes, why can't that be reduced to one experience? And it can just be part of an ongoing conversation. Damien Cazabonne: Completely agree. and here, I, I, I'm sorry we deviate a bit from the, from the topic and partnership here, but I think it's also very interesting because, um, we acquired three years ago a POS, so point of sales, which is a system used in, in retail and restaurant, you know, property. Um, and of course this system has been really, um, developed to fit Mews as a vision and also as a product. And for example, this vision you just, or this experience you've just discussed now, it's exactly what we try to target here. And what we provide now is even the ability to charge, to tap your card on the terminal, your room card on the terminal, and it will charge. your restaurant bill directly on your room, meaning that with the tokenization we have, it will charge directly this extra from the restaurant on your room and your credit card, let's say, just because you tapped your room card directly on the terminal. So these are things that we try to improve and we try to think forward in this regard. Adam Mogelonsky: Very cool. So to circle back. Way at the beginning of our conversation, you mentioned sustainability as an emerging area of technology for partnerships and integrations. What are you seeing as those emerging areas of technology providers for hospitality that hotels should be conscious of when. Looking at their vendor partnerships and also putting on the roadmap for development. Damien Cazabonne: you have to look at different areas, first of all, the kind of core systems that you need to operate. I think it's very important to look at it now, if we look at the trends currently and what's going on in the industry, what are the emerging categories of, of, of solution existing? Um, I would definitely go sustainability is a good one and an amazing one perfectly, um, with the trends going on also the global warming, it's something which is very serious. Being able to control your energy spend, meaning also the impact and your carbon footprint on the planet, I think is very important. So it's very important to be able to track it, but it's also important to have the system that can operate it. If we think about this, having the ability to control, for example, the AC when your room is empty or the light or stuff like this would be a great, new technology that exists and they are definitely raising. Another one in the past years, as I was saying before, uh, we had The operation side with PMS and all these tool, uh, managing the properties rising decades ago. Then it was more about the distribution side with revenue management, with CRMs and also provider. And now we really see an increase around guest experience because our industry is again. And hopefully, finally would be the word evolving and in transition between, okay, I've been doing this for 30 years, so I don't know why I'm going to change it if it worked. This mindset is still happening quite a lot and way too much, but we also see a rising of, hey, what can I do better? And the better is all is is often seen as guest experience. So Right we see is around this, these guest apps, for example, are all kind of system that help connecting the property with a guest directly, as I was mentioning before, the upselling, uh, before the stay, the in stay app to be able to book, uh, more services from the hotel and stuff like this. So it's definitely the category which is increasing and that have. Finally, a direct impact also on your numbers and on your balance at the end of the month. This would be the two main ones where, um, we see this kind of wave at the moment, and which is amazing because it's also sure that the mindset of our industry is changing slowly. So opening some new doors for everyone, I guess. Adam Mogelonsky: So to finish off here, we have this whole idea of a unified guest profile. Where you can know about your guest and then there can be recommendations based upon that. Or ways for people to quickly see what a guest dossier is. And then put the phone, put the screen away, and then actually converse with the guest and help them out. Where do you see the hotel technology ecosystem, or landscape of vendors being in the next two years to work towards that unified guest profile? Damien Cazabonne: That's a really good question. And as we were seeing before, technology. is definitely here to help without technology and without the right tools and the right ecosystem, because looking at the tools independently, it's something, looking at the interoperability of the system is something different. So looking at a best of breed system is nice, but are you making sure that this system are connected the right way? They are able to have the right kind of data flow between each other, pushing or pulling data to ways if it's needed in this case, then we talk as we discussed before, collecting this data properly. being able to see this data the way you need to see it and being able to action it. So I think the real opportunity, um, on the industry, when we look at the consolidation happening with some providers merging and getting together and stuff like this, will give opportunity to have more embedded system, definitely, meaning a better data flow and better transition of this data, meaning that we'll be more and more able to kind of action also meaning an impact on the guest experience and something that, A good example I could have, for example, to link absolutely everything. If we are able to know more, not only about hospitality, but the travel journey of the guest, which is kind of what Google is developing with their super app, just to give an example, and being able to know what time is a flight. When will they need maybe a taxi to get to the airport from home? When do they arrive and land? Well, you will be able to already collect a certain amount of data, which will allow you to improve your guest experience, impact also the sustainability and the cost. Because if we look at the full picture, being able to know when the plane is going to land, if you know that this guest is arriving directly to your hotel for check in, it will allow you to know when maybe you need to turn on the AC. And not having for 10 hours before, or just putting it when the guest is arriving. It's summer in Arizona, I don't know, in South of Spain, it's 40 degrees Celsius outside. And, and it's too hot. So this kind of stuff will impact your numbers. the operation, but also definitely impact the guest experience. So I think this is where we have an opportunity, is not only to look at our industry hospitality, but look a bit above this and look at the travel industry, how we can have this interconnectional system, making sure that we collect this data, we improve this guest experience. And finally, the final point, point what it is, is definitely improving the lifetime value of the customer. Because what we want, it's nice to focus on one journey and in the span of the journey of these guests. But finally, what you want is to make these guests come, come again, meaning working on, on your loyalty program, being able to have these data to work on your loyalty program. If I'm going only on holidays in summer and some system are able to know it, well, no one will send me, for example, a holidays offer for winter, just an example. So it's the ability to know. More you guessed, but as a traveler in it, rather than as a guest in the property for one or two nights. I don't know if it makes sense, Adam Mogelonsky: No, it makes perfect sense. And if hotels had a seamless. Always on integration with flight data. There's so much you could do to improve the end to end travel experience, um, airport or airport arrivals, you know, shuttles on demand. But also you mentioned earlier, you know, a guest arriving from Australia versus one from within Europe, you would know you would have a good reason to know if they are going to be jet lagged or not to thereby determine what you're going to upsell them on onsite recovery experiences. Right. Simple example, but the context, right, of, of who the guest is, where they're coming from. Do they arrive? Are they arriving at noon or 9 PM? Right. Uh, you know, don't sell them a lunch offer at 9 PM. So to speak. Damien Cazabonne: if we turn it around, if we do the opposite, offer, uh, offer them a lunch if they arrive at 12, because maybe your room is not ready, you know? So there's so much opportunities in this space to kind of know more about the travel in its whole and looking at all the different data where you can have an impact on guest experience and on ancillary revenue. Because again, we are a business, you know, Zoe Koumbouzi: Yeah. I think all these applications are just fascinating of what we can do. And the thing I'm, I'm thinking about when you're saying all these strategies is, I don't think that's scalable without AI, right? We absolutely need AI to get in there and be an AI agent and go, all my guests that are arriving from Australia at a certain time, upset, you know, like we need that automation. It's we're reliant. Damien Cazabonne: if anything. Zoe Koumbouzi: Yeah. It's interesting. Yeah. Damien Cazabonne: AI is the topic from the past years. I try to not bring it too much because I feel like everyone is talking about that. But I mean, it's fine. Adam Mogelonsky: it 54 minutes without mentioning AI. Damien Cazabonne: We shouldn't be proud of that. But, but yeah, AI, I mean, it's like talking about internet at the beginning of the century, you know, everyone was talking about that and now we don't even talk about this because it's everywhere, every time, all day long, you know, so it's just embedded in our lives here. Um, and AI, it will be the same, definitely, as you mentioned, um, it's good to know that you have people arriving from Australia, from US or whatever, but what about if his data could be collected and actioned. even without the intervention of the human here and telling you, Hey, today, according to the prioritization of the room cleaning, well, you should do this one first because the guy will arrive from Australia at 10 a. m. and he will be completely jet lagged. So maybe you have an option to offer him something. And the last one should be the guy who has a flight landing at 8 p. m. Because this guy will not arrive before 8 p. m. So this AI implemented the right way. After we collect and analyze the data, we'll be able to action it and to remove again a step, improving the guest experience, decreasing the workload on the staff. Yes. Let's finish with a touch of AI. Zoe Koumbouzi: a hundred percent, and I think it's all about AI agents. It's not just the, it's not just the technology, it's just somebody to tell us what to do. That's the dream. Damien Cazabonne: Correct. And I mean, if we push it on the other hand to, again, add on top of this in AI, the future is definitely made on travel agent, but mainly a kind of personal concierge also about AI. Why I'm not able to set up my system and he knows me perfectly. And I'm able to tell him, Hey, I want to have a trip in April. I have one week. Tell me where, when this is my budget. This would be fantastic because he will take exactly your expectation. He will know you better than you know yourself, maybe. And he will be able to make you your perfect expectation. So I think the landscape will completely change from even the OTA and the distribution side with AI also, because having this kind of. personal concern, you won't have to get into even internet because the recommendation will be made by the AI. The way we look for an accommodation now, probably going to, Expedia or booking, looking at features, sometimes going to the website of the hotel years, whatever. Well, this will tend to disappear slowly according to technology and how fast AI will be implemented in the travel sector. Adam Mogelonsky: Well, as I see it is the OTAs. They have a ton of aggregated data, so they're going to be hard to displace, but where hotels can really get ahead is the. better integration of all the data in their various data silos across not just the PMS and POS, but everything else that ties into them. And then from there developing your own, uh, small language model in a lot of ways to actually build insights, then business models upon. That data that you have, that is your first party or, or data, data that's collected across various data flows. So, you know, just to open it up for one final question here about agentic AI is what is Mews doing to help. Really propel that underlying layer of, uh, data extraction into a data lake and then transforming that data into something that is actionable first, first for insights or learnings or developing of a model to then act upon and develop some sort of rule based, rule based, AI driven oversight that can, you know, propel the Australia versus versus Europe guest Damien Cazabonne: Yeah. Yeah. That's a really good question. I love it. And we are doing quite a lot because again, as I was mentioning before, um, so Mews is definitely going through a product expansion with more and more product offering. Um, but when we, when we have this product expansion, uh, we definitely try to embed it in the product as much as possible, meaning that we make sure the entire. Connection between system. It's not even interconnection in the same system. Finally, meaning that this data is actionable and at least is collectible very quickly, and it's also actionable in the background. Same happens with our partners. Our API is an open API, completely transparent. We try to have the best connection possible with our top partners, meaning that we are also able to get absolutely all data that can get to our partners, according to the need of the system. What we do, for example, one of the latest releases we had, I think it was in 2, 3 or 4 last year, is like we implemented AI already in the system, and we are already able to collect the preferences and what the customer Like from the previous, stay and able when they come back to implement this note in the note of the new booking, in the note of the guest to make sure that, hey, these guests like to have this, this, and this. He arrived at this time or whatever. So we are, we are able to, uh, to use AI in this sense to implement a simple note when he's coming back to the property to make sure that the front desk agent or the housekeeping, again, don't forget about this. is able to action on it and know exactly the preferences of these guests. So this is already some touch that we put and we have a lot of developments coming in this regard, of course, to again, impact the guest experience, decrease the workload on the staff and have an impact on the revenue. Adam Mogelonsky: one solution at a time. Damien, thank you for a full hour discussion. This has been great. I encourage everyone to look at their technology partnerships and consider really what can you do with each partnership, each system to really enhance the guest experience. Thanks. Damien Cazabonne: Thank you very much. It was a pleasure. Bye guys. Zoe Koumbouzi: Thank you, Damien. Take care.