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. 

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."

Beekeeper released its 2024 Frontline Workforce Pulse Report. The report surveyed 8,000 individuals to explore trends for frontline industries and details several ways frontline businesses can improve the employee experience amid high inflation and increased rates of attrition.

The report suggests a growing disconnect between frontline workers and management, leading to increased disengagement among frontline workers. This widespread disaffection has drastic economic consequences, including a projected $8.8 trillion in lost productivity and 40% to 50% of workers across frontline industries leaving their jobs for both improved work/life balance and compensation. 

"The pandemic may be in the rearview, but the problems it created for frontline workers haven't gone anywhere," said Cristian Grossmann, Beekeeper CEO and co-founder. "Turnover rates remain alarmingly high across industries, with frontline workers feeling overstressed, undervalued, and often unheard by management. As this year's report makes abundantly clear, solving these persistent problems requires empowering frontline teams with technology that increases communication across the board — improving employee satisfaction, retention and productivity.”

For its report, Beekeeper surveyed 8,000 individuals — including frontline workers, management and Head Office employees — across DACH, the USA and Global. The result is an unprecedentedly detailed picture of the challenges facing frontline work today.

Frontline Worker Challenges: Poor Work/Life Balance, Safety Concerns and More

Per the report, the daily challenges facing frontline workers have worsened significantly in the years since the pandemic. Inflation is a top-line concern, with nearly half of all workers (48%) citing wages falling behind inflation as their number-one source of stress. 

But as the report demonstrates, wages tell just one part of this story. Poor work/life balance has contributed just as significantly to the ongoing Great Migration. High turnover, chronically understaffed shifts, and a lack of shift scheduling flexibility all are leading frontline workers to feel overstressed and underappreciated. According to the report, in industries like hospitality and manufacturing the majority of those who leave do so for a better work/life balance, as opposed to higher pay.

The problems of modern frontline work go deeper than work/life balance, to the very nature of the work itself. Frontline workers are more motivated, and more productive, when they find their jobs engaging and fulfilling. According to the report, a friendly and fun environment is the number-one motivator for frontline workers, in addition to the satisfaction of finishing a job and the opportunities provided for ongoing learning and development. When asked where positive manager feedback ranks, managers put it at number two — while the frontline workers themselves put it at number seven. This is just one disconnect of many identified in the report.

Another notable disconnect: the majority of surveyed Head Office employees (52%) expected frontline workers to cite low morale as their number-one impediment to productivity, but only 15% of frontline workers actually felt this way. A lack of recognition, poor cross-team communication, and understaffed shifts matter much more. The report suggests that clogged lines of communication prevent frontline workers from feeling safe and fulfilled, and severely hurting productivity in the process.

The Frontline Worker Crisis Can Be Fixed — With the Right Technology

In addition to diagnosing the problems currently plaguing frontline work, the 2024 Frontline Workforce Pulse Report  also outlines a clear path forward for businesses. Actionable recommendations are designed to reduce stress and increase productivity among frontline workers.

At the heart of today's worker/manager disconnect are inadequate communication and a lack of insights into frontline needs. Frontline workers and managers who engage in a continuous two-way conversation on everything from expectations and performance to perceived job safety and satisfaction create an environment of trust and mutual respect. Managers need to better understand their teams’ needs to be truly successful in their roles. 

Technology plays a significant role. Productivity tools that blend seamlessly into a worker's daily routine can radically simplify complicated tasks such as onboarding, shift allocation, cross-team collaboration, and learning and development. Beekeeper's mobile-first platform provides every worker with the tools required to sync effectively and efficiently with other teams, to reallocate shifts effortlessly, and to learn new and needed skills thoroughly and promptly. Bringing all communication into a single platform also establishes desperately needed lines of communication, and ensures that every worker feels that their voice is heard.