Latest / The Modern Hotelier / #292: Connecting Data to Elevate Guest Experiences | with Jeff Bzdawka
Transcript
- The Modern Hotelier #292: Connecting Data to Elevate Guest Experiences | with Jeff Bzdawka === David Millili: Welcome to a special HITEC Modern Hotelier, the most engaged podcast in hospitality. Make sure to subscribe, like, and follow, and let us know in the comments what you think about today's episode. Steve, who do we have on the program? Steve Carran: Yeah, David, excited for this one. We have on Jeff Bzdawka, the CEO of Hapi. Thanks for sitting down with us, Jeff. How we doing this morning? Jeff Bzdawka: Doing great. Doing great. Appreciate the time. David Millili: All right, cool. So Jeff, we're gonna dive in, we're gonna go through what we call a lightning round. We're gonna get to know you better, your career, and then we're gonna dive into some industry topics. Sound good? Great. Jeff Bzdawka: Look forward to it. David Millili: All right. So when you were young, what did you want to be when you grew up? Jeff Bzdawka: How young? Let's say, yeah David Millili: So when Jeff Bzdawka: I was young, a funny thing happened on my way to becoming a dentist. Going into this was high school years. I was in a junior academy of medicine. I was set, I was gonna be an oral surgeon. Wow. And I took a part-time job working at a McDonald's, and I really enjoyed the service industry. And a friend said, "You should check out the hotels." And, rest is history. My dad wasn't happy when I came home and said- Yeah ... "I'm going into the hotel business"- Yeah, instead of a doctor. David Millili: Yeah, so a free dental care. Yeah. So what do you wish you were better Jeff Bzdawka: at? Could you imagine me over your mouth? Yeah Open wide, please. David Millili: So what's something that you wish you were better at? Jeff Bzdawka: Oh, something I wish I'm better at. Time management. Okay. And managing everything, and now with the pace of change and things getting even more frenetic- David Millili: Yeah Jeff Bzdawka: doing a better job in time management. David Millili: Okay. And what's a luxury you can't live without? Jeff Bzdawka: Oh, my Coke Zero. David Millili: Okay Jeff Bzdawka: That's all it takes. I'm a simple person, so a Coke Zero. David Millili: All right, so if you could have a superpower, what superpower would you like to have? Jeff Bzdawka: Being able to foresee the future and really, you know, there's a big buzz here at HITEC and people trying to determine what to do with AI, and we're still experimenting. What is gonna happen a year from now, two years, five years from now? It would help us better position to care for the industry. David Millili: Okay. And give us something that's on your bucket list. Jeff Bzdawka: On my bucket list, I've always wanted to do a safari. Oh. And the safari along with the gorilla trek- Yeah ... that's on my bucket list. Sounds Steve Carran: like fun. Jeff Bzdawka: Yeah. That's awesome. The only barrier there is my wife, but, we'll have to work through that. Steve Carran: So Jeff, now we're gonna go through your background a little bit, what makes you tick. So you and I are both Wisconsinites. Really? I didn't know that. You grew up in the Oak Creek area. Correct. Is that correct? Jeff Bzdawka: That is correct. Steve Carran: So how did growing up in Wisconsin, besides being a Packer fan, shape you into who you are today? Jeff Bzdawka: Well, you just said it right there. It's the Packer fan through and through. Vince Lombardi, one of the greatest football coaches- Yeah ... and a great leader. And, I enjoy his books, and really that was foundational, but I think part of it is also Midwestern culture. I think it tends to lead itself more to hospitality, so that is really... Yeah that and the cold winters. How about yourself? Where did you grow up? Steve Carran: Beaver Dam, Wisconsin. Okay. All right. So I agree, the Midwest kinda niceness. Jeff Bzdawka: Yeah ... Steve Carran: Kind of work hard mentality- Jeff Bzdawka: Yeah ... Steve Carran: Kinda shapes me into who I am. Jeff Bzdawka: Exactly who I am. David Millili: Very good. So you went to UW Stout, got your degree in hospitality and tourism. What attracted you to hospitality at that young age? Jeff Bzdawka: So, one thing I probably need to slightly correct you. And, the chancellor of Stout would be upset if I didn't do this. They've recently renamed. They're now UW Stout Polytechnic. And, so that hands-on experience- piece, itself. And it really, it comes back to, Starting in hospitality when I was in my late teens. The general manager of the Hyatt Regency Milwaukee took me under his wings, and that really helped build my passion for hospitality. It's all about caring for people and that people connection. So yeah, that was it. It was my early part-time jobs that made me switch from dentistry to hospitality leadership, and here I am- Here you are ... maybe five years later. Steve Carran: Yeah. That's awesome. So this was a really fun fact I found out, and in 2022 you were inducted into the HFTP International Hospitality Technology Hall of Fame. Jeff Bzdawka: That's a mouthful, but yes. Steve Carran: Yes, yes. You, and you're the 50th inductee- I think at the 50th HITEC or maybe that's- Jeff Bzdawka: No, I don't think it was the 50th HITEC, It was, Steve Carran: okay ... but it, it, yeah. The 50th inductee. We'll just run with that. Jeff Bzdawka: Yeah, okay. Steve Carran: Can you tell us about that and really what it meant to you? Jeff Bzdawka: Well, I think first off the bar that year was relatively low. There were two qualifications: you had to be named Jeff, and you had to be 6'4. Jeff Edwards was the co-inductee that year. And it really was more of a reflection on the great teams and the great companies I've had the opportunity to work with and for. You know, having worked both as a hotelier, and I consider myself a hotelier first and foremost, but then also being able to work with hospitality tech vendors. I worked for Pegasus many years ago, Travelclick, Noland, and now Hapi. That really gave me an interesting perspective to be able to do some really cool things with a great team of people. So really that recognition, while it meant a lot to me personally, it was more a reflection of the great people I had the opportunity to work with. Steve Carran: That's great. That's great. So now we're gonna dive into your career- Jeff Bzdawka: And just a quick fun fact. Steve Carran: Yeah. Jeff Bzdawka: Hapi is the only hospitality tech provider that has two inductees, Luis Segredo, our co-founder- and me. Steve Carran: No kidding. Jeff Bzdawka: So there's a little fun fact for you. David Millili: Fun. That is a great fact. Steve Carran: Yeah. Especially at a HITEC right now. Jeff Bzdawka: Exactly. So- Steve Carran: So that's great. Now we're gonna dive into your career, how you became the CEO of Hapi. So you started your hospitality career with Hyatt. Jeff Bzdawka: Correct. Steve Carran: And then you moved to the technology side at Homestead Guest Studios, Pegasus, and Travelclick. What did those early chapters take away from those early chapters that you still take with you today? Jeff Bzdawka: Yeah, that's a great question, and actually before I did Homestead, I ... A funny thing, back to funny thing happened on my way to becoming a dentist, a funny thing happened on my way to becoming a general manager for Hyatt was they didn't have a position available for me at the time, so they said, "Jeff, take a temporary six-month assignment training Hyatt general managers and revenue managers at the time they were called reservation managers on a brand-new central res system Hyatt was rolling out. And that was the pivotal moment for me going from hotelier to hospitality technology, and that's when it really unleashed and helped me identify my true passion: the intersection of hospitality and technology, and how if you bring those together, you can supercharge guest experiences. And, you know, so that started with Hyatt, and then with Security Capital Group as CIO for Homestead Village. And, the REIT markets crashed. I happened to make the right phone call at the right time. Called a good friend of mine at Pegasus and said, "Hey, if you know of anybody looking for a fool like me," and that gave me the opportunity to be part of the startup team for Hotel Clearing Corporation, which is now known as Onyx CenterSource. We built that, and that was my entry into being a tech provider. But it gave me that foundational experience of understanding what happens at property level, 'cause let's face it, that's really where true hospitality lies. So being able to switch back and forth really, I think, helped me in career path progression. David Millili: That's great. So you later returned to Hyatt as a senior global... You had several senior global roles across property systems, field services, hotel operations, hotel technology. What did leading technology at that scale teach you about what hotels really need with their systems and their procedures? Jeff Bzdawka: Yeah, it, you know, recognizing and realizing that once you go out of individual property and dealing with properties at scale and being able to get data out and being able to understand guest behavior at scale- David Millili: Right Jeff Bzdawka: and rolling. So it was really that opportunity to understand and appreciate, number one, what it takes to truly scale technology into the field. And then let's face it, hospitality is a complex environment. You would think heads in a bed, very simple. Right. But you have an owner, you have an operator, a management company, maybe a franchise group, a chain and brand, and recognizing each one of those has a different need and expectation. Managing that and being able to, you know, hopefully satisfy as many as possible, or equally make them upset to the same level, and still get those experiences. Steve Carran: From there, you led Nolen through a successful major transformation, successful exit, and then you came to Hapi. Right. What made you come to Hapi? Jeff Bzdawka: So when we sold Nolen, we knew we were gonna be selling to a strategic, Cendyn acquired Nolen, and then Cendyn at the time, Jack Blaha was CEO, and you don't need two CEOs. So, it was pretty common. I'm very close friends with Lewis Egredo, the co-founder of Hapi, and Lewis got out in front of all of the noise, and he was telling me for the last eight years, "One day you'll come work for Hapi." And sure enough, that's what happened. So it was really, the close personal connection back to that's key in hospitality, but really a belief in what we do and let's face it, we are at a seminal moment in the world and with technology and the industry is. Hapi sits at that right intersection, and again, hospitality and tech being brought together, that's how I landed at Hapi. That's great. And I'm very happy at Hapi. David Millili: That's good. No, good choice. Yeah. Good choice. I know the team. Good choice. Jeff Bzdawka: Yeah. David Millili: So for those who aren't familiar with Hapi, can you share a bit more about what you guys do? Jeff Bzdawka: Absolutely, and, oftentimes people think of Hapi as a middleware company. Right. And that's where we start. It's integration summed up into just four simple words, data transport and data transformation, ensuring your average hotel has 15 to more than 30 operating systems, and they aren't necessarily designed to talk well to each other, and they speak their own language. We really help bring that together so data flows from system to system, and you're able to elevate experiences at property level, but then give chains, management companies visibility into what's going on at property level. So it starts with data streaming, data transport, and transformation. Then we layer on top of that automations. We're doing some real cool things and taking work out of the system, but more importantly, addressing pain points and friction points at hotels so people at the hotels can spend more time caring for guests than heads down, at a computer. We're be- getting more and more into the data intelligence layer, and then putting on top of that a guest intelligence layer that, you know, the holy grail is a golden guest record, so working on that, and then also doing some business intelligence-related work. But really where it starts, data transport and data transformation. Right. Steve Carran: That's great. That's great. So now we're gonna dive into the thought leadership section of the podcast. So you've been really vocal about. Jeff Bzdawka: You want me on thought leadership? Well, I thought I was gonna pull somebody from the hall. I love it. So you've been really vocal about hotels being AI ready versus AI enabled. What's standing in the way, and how is this a competitive liability? Jeff Bzdawka: Yeah, that's a, that's a great question. And, you know, walking around this floor, it's amazing. Everybody's talking about agentic or AI. Some people look like it was an afterthought smacked up, on the booth. But i- it's a oftentimes a part of the challenge. I- it's human nature, a hammer in search of a nail. People get fixated in AI. And what AI is is an amplifier. I- i- and it really, it, is a force multiplier. But what really needs to be put in place in our industry because of fractured siloed systems lead to siloed data, if you do not have that connectivity in place first and foremost, and then the, the data and access to data that is clean and normalized, if you start with AI and layer in AI, you're just gonna get to bad data quicker and bad decisions. So yesterday, along with our new head of product, Jafri Ali, did a expert talk that is helping hoteliers understand that don't start with the AI experience Understand where your data is, the quality of the data, and the accessibility of the data. So in order to be truly AI-enabled, let alone using AI as a differentiator, it starts with the data, and our industry has some work to do there. David Millili: Good. So when you look at an average hotel juggling dozens of systems, what does good actually look like, and what does a hotel with a real-time data foundation do differently on any given day? Jeff Bzdawka: And it really, where it manifests itself, it's, it's not a creation of a dashboard or reduction in the number of systems. It's really how the experiences come to life when you show up at the front desk and it's the fifth time you've stayed at that hotel in the last year, not being asked the question- Right ... "This is the first time you've stayed here." The ability to then be able to deliver you those unique moments that are truly personalized. The industry has been in search of that true personalization for many years. What's exciting about where we're at right now is with proper data and AI, I think we're much closer to being able to bring that to life. So the way, you know, I look at the technology piece, it manifests itself in guest experiences. Well-intended technology can create broken experiences and frustrations. So it's really are the hotels able to deliver upon brand promises and expectations as well as personal expectations. Steve Carran: That's great. So you mentioned connectivity and data earlier. Yep. The industry has invested a lot with integrations and connectivity. Why isn't connectivity enough, and how do hotels make their data actionable? Jeff Bzdawka: Well, connectivity is the first. That's kind of the given and that's table stakes. But then you need to ensure that the data that is flowing is homogenized, if you would. Many hotel chains, even management companies, have multiple PMSes in place that has their own data configuration. A PMS talks to a CRS, talks to a guest experience platform or a loyalty program. And to ensure that it's a common language and that data that is actually flowing is in a common understanding ready for consumption. So it starts with connectivity, then it's access to the right data and quality-related data. David Millili: Thank you. And so the 360-degree guest profile has been the industry's holy grail for. It's really more than a decade. I mean, we can say a decade, it's been forever. And it still hasn't arrived. Steve Carran: It's probably two or three decades, yes. David Millili: It still hasn't arrived. Is that a tech failure, or is it something else, or is it just the industry and the people? Jeff Bzdawka: You know, and technology. I think, you know, part of the challenge is technology wasn't evolved to be able to truly deliver upon those experiences and getting access to the right data at the right time to make those real time decisions. So technology exists, the data exists, now we need to stitch it together. If you look at, you know, it's very easy if you're building a brand-new hotel to put in the newest and latest technology. Part of the challenge the industry has is integrating new with the existing legacy related applications. But I'm really feeling bullish that there is a recognition and acknowledgement that it goes beyond just slapping AI on top that the data needs to be correct. So I'm feeling much better but we've still work to be done there. Got it. Steve Carran: So you recently launched automation around payment processing. Correct. Why are payments a data problem and what does that tell you about the challenges that hotels face with operational data? Jeff Bzdawka: Yeah. Before, early days, the data piece and the accounting was a function of the finance organization, and they had all of the data to be able to process payments. A lot of different things are happening. You have new payment solutions coming into play. You have the virtual credit cards from OTAs. You have buy now, pay later related experiences, and there is a certain level of expectation required from a guest standpoint to support the way I want to pay, and then to be able to provide a seamless connection. To provide you a stat we've recently, and part of what we just announced with one of our automations, is the virtual credit card processing for a major brand. We all know the status of OTAs are a big contributor to occupancy, and most of the transactions have a virtual credit card. The challenge is that virtual credit card is placed in a nondescript place oftentimes in the PMS, oftentimes overwritten by the front desk staff, or the front desk staff doesn't realize that it's there and they ask you, the guest, for another form of payment, and you create these broken experiences and frustrations for the guest. And then what we just rolled out across a few thousand hotels is the automation and took the person away from that processing, increasing accuracy. Prior to us activating this automation, it was just over a 30% failure rate and creating a lot of broken experiences, customer service frustration, lost revenue. The industry loses millions of dollars a year because they can't process it. We took a over 30% failure rate to under 1%. So through that automation ... And that's not replacing people, it's amplifying and it's giving them the ability to spend more time taking care of the guest versus worrying to process a credit card. Steve Carran: So this is part of the podcast where we turn the tables. Let you ask David and I a question. Jeff Bzdawka: All right, so we've been here about a day and a half on the floor. Curious what stands out to you? What is new? What's exciting? What seems to be more puffery? Steve Carran: I think I'm gonna steal your answer, I think. I think we're seeing, like we have been talking about AI so much, but we're finally seeing it in action a little bit more. We still have a long way to go to figure it out, but we're seeing it in more products and have, like, actually actionable items that are being solved. Yes. So that's been some things, and I also saw a really cool door lock where you can just put your Apple Watch to it and that unlocks it. You don't need to unlock it. Jeff Bzdawka: You know, Hapi actually enables those experiences. Steve Carran: That's why I said it. Shame is gone Exactly. But yeah, there's been some really cool things this year, and it's one of my favorite times of the year, obviously. Jeff Bzdawka: Yeah. David Millili: Yeah, no, for me, I mean, this is my 26th HITEC, and so- You don't look that old Yeah, I'm that old. That’s what some people tell me. But anyway, so for me it was, I think it's just, it seems like there's bigger booths here, there's better energy, and it seems like more people, to your point, are looking and more kind of trying to figure out how to actually use AI than talk about it. Jeff Bzdawka: Yeah. David Millili: So this is the first time, wasn't like this last year, but I've already seen like four or five booths where they've got like their URL and it's like right in your face where everybody's like, "It's AI. It's AI." AI. Jeff Bzdawka: Definitely AI forward, and I think we're, we're moving from experimentation to more activation and it is a truly seminal moment. David Millili: Yeah. That's it. All right. Great. Great questions. Well, that does it for another episode of The Modern Hotelier. Jeff, let us know how people can get connected with you, find out more about Hapi. Jeff Bzdawka: Sure. I think you can see right behind us, stayhapi.com is our website, and connect to me through LinkedIn or smoke signals, whatever works. Always happy to respond. David Millili: Great. So that does it for this special HITEC Modern Hotelier, the most engaged podcast in hospitality. If, whether you're watching or listening, we appreciate you and hope to be with you again soon. Thanks for joining us. Jeff Bzdawka: Gentlemen, thank you. I appreciate it. You got it. Always great seeing you. Thank you. Good to see you. David Millili: Thank you Steve Carran: Thank you