News Briefs

 Actabl, a hospitality software company dedicated to empowering hotels with actionable insights to drive profit, announced a partnership with  Avalara, Inc., a leading provider of cloud-based tax compliance automation for businesses of all sizes, to usher in a new era of efficiency, cost savings, and empowerment within the hospitality industry through tax reporting and data management.

Innovative Solutions: Streamlining Tax Compliance for Hotel Businesses

The partnership between Avalara and Actabl consolidates revenue and tax data from various business systems, streamlining tax compliance processes through automation. In the hotel industry, daily tax-related activities involve handling data from various sources, making it a labor-intensive and error-prone process. Actabl recognizes the need for automation, not just for cost savings but also to address the severe labor shortage in the hospitality sector. Hotel management companies can leverage ProfitSword's data consolidation and send it to Avalara, automating their tax compliance and reconciliation processes.

The integration allows hotel businesses to seamlessly compile data, automate tax return preparation, and file returns using monthly transactional data. This groundbreaking partnership introduces technological innovations that streamline tax compliance, freeing up valuable time and resources for hoteliers.

“Automating compliance has taken a load off my shoulders each month – I’m confident that property registrations are being completed properly and monthly reporting is prepared accurately and filed on time,” said Trisha Campbell, Regional Controller at Valor Hospitality Partners. “The Avalara team has been so helpful in setting up our tax profile and has improved our business processes. The integration with ProfitSword further streamlines the process by automating the flow of transactional data for recalculation and reporting by Avalara. The reconciliation has enabled us to make upstream adjustments for an increased level of compliance and reduced audit risk. With ongoing staffing issues, automation lets us effectively utilize existing personnel. Between the finance team and the on-property accountants, we’re saving about 5-6 days per month across our hotel portfolio, reducing risk and setting us up for scale without adding headcount. I’d recommend Avalara with ProfitSword by Actabl to hotel management companies looking to streamline their compliance.”

Oliver Hoare, General Manager of Lodging at Avalara, expresses enthusiasm about the collaboration, saying, "Tax compliance is one of the most onerous factors impacting hotel management groups and their ability to operate and scale efficiently. Avalara’s partnership with Actabl allows hotel management groups to divert their aggregated data via ProfitSword to Avalara. It’s a win, win, win – an enhanced feature for Actabl, increased speed to market for Avalara, and it gives ProfitSword customers a vastly simplified route to automation”.

"We recognize the challenges that hotel operators and hoteliers face, particularly regarding tax reconciliation and compliance," said Actabl's Chief Revenue Officer, Jason Luo. "Our groundbreaking partnership aims to address our customers' needs by providing a comprehensive, user-friendly platform for enterprise-wide monthly tax reconciliation and compliance filings and substantial time savings for our customers' accounting and finance teams. We are pleased to add another valuable tool to drive value and operational excellence in the hospitality industry."

Enhancing Tax Efficiency and Accuracy Through Integration

Navigating the complex world of hotel industry tax compliance involves dealing with manual tasks prone to errors and audit risks. Tasks such as calculating tax rates and filing accurate returns demand meticulous attention, and any misstep can result in compliance issues, financial consequences, and intensive audits.

By integrating with Avalara for Hospitality, hotel businesses can access accurate real-time tax calculations, regularly updated tax content repositories, and comprehensive visibility into overall compliance through advanced reporting tools. Tedious tax returns preparation, filing, and remittance processes are automated using Avalara, reducing the risk of audits, effectively managing tax-related jurisdictional notices, and providing a centralized online portal for seamless compliance management with heightened transparency.

This integration signals a meaningful advancement in automating tax-related processes for hotel businesses, ensuring enhanced efficiency, reduced manual workload, and minimized risk of human error in tax compliance.

Actabl's Focus for 2024: Expanding Offerings with Current Customers

As part of Actabl's strategic vision for 2024, the partnership with Avalara aligns to expand offerings to current customers, providing them with comprehensive solutions to navigate the evolving landscape of the hospitality industry.

As Actabl and Avalara embark on this new partnership, they invite hotels to consider the integrated solution as a digital-first approach to automating and streamlining processes, boosting productivity and efficiency while cutting costs, thereby positioning hotel businesses for future growth. 

Domino's Pizza Inc. introduces its new and improved loyalty program. 

Domino's Rewards offers loyalty members even more opportunities to earn and redeem points across its corporate and franchise store locations. Domino's enhanced rewards program allows customers to:

• Earn points for less
  • Loyalty members will now earn 10 points on every order of $5 or more
• Redeem points for even more menu items – and earn free Domino's after just two orders
  • Members can redeem a variety of points for more menu items:
    • 20 points: A free dipping cup, a 16-piece order of Parmesan Bread Bites or a 20 oz. drink
    • 40 points: An order of Bread Twists or Stuffed Cheesy Bread
    • 60 points: A medium, two-topping pizza; pasta; Oven-Baked Sandwich; or a 3-piece order of Chocolate Lava Crunch Cakes
• Earn more rewards
  • Loyalty perks are now even better, as members will have exclusive access to member-only deals, special discounts and opportunities to earn bonus points!

"We are thrilled to give the brand's loyal customers additional ways to earn free Domino's items more often," said Mark Messing, Domino's vice president of digital experience and loyalty. "At a time when most brands are scaling back their loyalty programs and making it more difficult to earn and redeem points, Domino's is doing the opposite. We want to make it easier to reward our customers and give them more options so they can get rewarded faster."

Marketing a LTO 

From now until Oct. 22, 2023, rewards members can take advantage of a limited time offer to redeem 20 points for a free order of Domino's new Pepperoni Stuffed Cheesy Bread, which is normally a 40-point redemption, in celebration of the product's recent launch. 

HotelIQ – a business intelligence (BI) and analytics platform, which gives hoteliers access to accurate, consistent property data across siloed business operations, facilitating collaboration to identify new revenue opportunities –  is excited to announce the launch of a revolutionary new feature in the company’s Decision Cloud solution: Enterprise View Dashboards. The six new dashboards – Market Segments, Booking Channels, Room Types, Pick-Up, Pace and Forecast & Budget – will elevate multi-property data aggregation and analytics to unprecedented levels, ultimately leading to improved commercial performance.  

Designed for intuitive use, these dashboards offer users a comprehensive overview of a hotel group’s entire portfolio, allowing for both a broad panorama and a deep dive into granular details using HotelIQ Smart Search. This dual approach enables users to uncover valuable insights that were previously hidden in complex data sets. enabling users to filter data at the rate code level.

Each dashboard is expertly designed to cater to different aspects of multi-property management, offering varied perspectives and detailed analytics. Recognizing the unique needs of different organizations, HotelIQ offers three customizable filter slots; users can tailor these slots to highlight the information most crucial to their business, be it Brand, Region, Owner, or other key metrics.

"The HotelIQ Enterprise View Dashboards mark a significant leap forward in multi-property data analysis," said Apo Demirtas, CEO & Founder of HotelIQ. "Empowering our users with panoramic overviews and customizable filters will transform the way they analyze and interpret data, especially across multiple properties, resulting in improved commercial outcomes. By offering nuanced insights and a user-friendly interface, these dashboards empower hoteliers to make informed decisions, optimize strategies and stay ahead in a competitive market."

Whether managing multiple properties, analyzing performance across regions or optimizing business strategies, HotelIQ Enterprise View Dashboards provide hoteliers with the data necessary for informed decision-making, leading to increased overall profitability and operational efficiency.

Hotelbeds, part of HBX Group, has formed a new team in the U.S. focused on casino hotels. With more than 300 such properties across the country, the group aims to offer strategies and solutions tailored to the iconic gaming hubs of Las Vegas, Atlantic City, Reno, Lake Tahoe and Biloxi.

“We are always striving to be the partner of choice and forming this new team not only enables us to support casino hotels’ reach through data-led insights on traveler demographics but also attract customers from new source markets around the world when gaming hotels need the business,” said Lauren Atlass, Hotelbeds’ Vice President for North America. “Partnering with some of the most prominent gaming hotels in the U.S. also expands our offering within the leisure industry growing our portfolio helping us to meet the needs of even more travelers.”

As the entertainment capital of the world, Las Vegas and the country’s other gaming hubs attract both domestic and international travelers, keen to experience all the cities have to offer. According to the American Gaming Association, the economic impact the U.S. casino gaming industry is more than $261 billion, while it also supports 1.8 million jobs.

To further support this new business sector, Hotelbeds has appointed Gianna Rivera as Head of Strategic Partnerships for North America. Gianna brings a wealth of industry experience and expertise to the role, having served as Group Vice President of Distribution & Connectivity at Wyndham Hotels & Resorts and as Deputy Vice President in Sales at Accor Hospitality. She is also a HEDNA board member.

Hotelbeds will use its extensive booking data gained from its 195 global markets to assist its hotel partners in more effectively targeting the right customer helping both the properties and also travel advisors grow their businesses. In addition to its new range of U.S. casino hotels, Hotelbeds also offers tailored ancillary services, including car rental, global transfers and experiences across the country.

Tock, the reservation, experiences, and events platform for the hospitality industry, announced its latest innovation today, Multi-Experience Tables, to help restaurants drive greater profitability across the dining room. This new feature allows Tock customers the option to offer guests a unique experience, while simultaneously marketing the same table for a different experience or standard reservation.

"Today's guests are more intentional in seeking out unique and personalized experiences when dining out," said Matthew Tucker, Head of Tock. "Our restaurant partners are very creative in the experiences they offer on Tock, and have learned to turn every square foot of their dining room into a monetizable experience. With Multi-Experience Tables, restaurants now have even more ways to experiment with what appeals most to their guests. This is something our partners have been asking for and we are proud to be the first to bring this to the industry."

Nearly a decade ago, Tock revolutionized the hospitality industry by introducing prepaid experiences. Today, Tock has generated over $2.25B in total revenue for its partners through experiences. The introduction of Multi-Experience Tables now makes it even easier to assign various experience options to a single table, allowing a restaurant to maximize what sells best.

Among Tock's many restaurant partners using experiences is Ella Elli, a California-meets-Mediterranean restaurant in Chicago that offers highly sought-after wine experiences. "Our experiential offering has grown into an integral part of our brand, allowing us to extend our reach beyond the traditional dining experience and offer new ways to drive consistent sales during a time and day when our restaurant was not even open otherwise," said Dan Harris, Vice President of Food and Beverage at Ella Elli.

Riana Mondavi of Charles Krug Winery, another Tock partner, touts the benefits of Multi-Experience Tables: "The addition of Multi-Experience Tables creates a platform that allows us to stay creative. We can offer a range of experiences from the everyday wine tastings to specialized food and wine pairings, allowing us to stay top of mind with our guests. Now, we get to see what appeals to our guests at any given time and learn more about what works best, without taking away things we know they love. It's the best of both worlds."