News Briefs

PPDS, the exclusive global provider of Philips Professional Displays and complementary solutions, is delighted to announce a new partnership with DAZN – the world’s leading sports entertainment platform and Europe’s largest football broadcaster – to bring its live and on-demand content streaming services into hotel guest rooms for the first time, exclusively via Philips MediaSuite hospitality TVs. 

Set to be unveiled and demonstrated for the first time at ISE 2024 in Barcelona (Philips Booth 3P500), this latest global partnership strengthens PPDS’ clear and unrivalled mission to deliver the industry’s most extensive and flexible choice of in-room TV entertainment services for hotels, letting guests take full control of their viewing experiences.

Launched in 2016, and headquartered in London, UK, DAZN provides an extensive choice of live sports and entertainment, with top division men’s and women’s football/soccer, professional boxing, MMA, motorsport, wrestling, and tennis hosted on the platform annually.

Available in more than 200 countries – including a strong domestic presence with premium football/soccer rights in Italy, Spain, Germany, Japan, France, Portugal, Belgium, Taiwan, the United States, and Canada – DAZN has amassed more than 60 million subscribers and 300 million monthly users worldwide. Over 1.2 billion hours of content is streamed annually via the DAZN app, which – until now – has mainly been accessible via a range of connected consumer devices, including smartphones, tablets, and game consoles.

The complete package

As part of this exciting and groundbreaking partnership between DAZN and PPDS – a market leader for advanced Android SoC hospitality TVs around the globe – the DAZN app will be available for the first time via hotel guest room TVs, embedded directly onto Philips MediaSuite TVs.  

Developed in partnership, and tailored exclusively for use on the Philips MediaSuite Series – the hotel TV of choice for some of the most recognised global hotel brands, including Accor, IHG, Marriot, and Radisson – the DAZN app will be available for hotels to offer to guests looking to enjoy (for example) the next big Anthony Joshua or Katie Taylor boxing match on the big screen during their stay. 

For hotels wishing to subscribe to DAZN for their guests, there are two initial packages that can be selected depending on their target audience. DAZN Base, which is included in each of the packages as standard, will offer all sports for which DAZN has worldwide rights. This Base package can be added to with DAZN Ultimate – for core territories that have additional rights requirements, for example the Bundesliga in Germany.

Packing a punch 

For more powerful, deeper immersive audio and visual experiences, hoteliers can also include the new Philips Professional Soundbar HAL5023 with a built-in subwoofer, designed and configured exclusively for Philips MediaSuite TVs, which will also be on show at ISE 2024.

Jeroen Verhaeghe, Global Business Development Director Hospitality, commented: “Philips MediaSuite was created to transform what had become an outdated and tired in-room TV experience. Running on Android, we wanted to provide hoteliers with a TV solution that could evolve with the needs of the customer and keeping pace with the trends in the market. This means providing them with what they need to let them take control of how, when, and by whatever means they prefer to consume their content.”

He continued: “We pride ourselves on responding quickly to changes in the market, including implementing new popular apps and services guests crave. We have shown that with our partnerships with the likes of Netflix and Apple TV+ in recent years and, with the popularity and demand for DAZN, we are thrilled to have been selected by their team to become the first global hotel TV manufacturer to offer their fantastic streaming service via Philips MediaSuite TVs.”

Rachelle Peterson, SVP Global Commercial Distribution at DAZN, added: “Here at DAZN, our focus is to ensure our customers have access to the best and widest range of quality content, while at the same time, having the best possible experience through our platform.

“Demand for our services continues to grow exponentially and we are always exploring opportunities to extend our reach further, and to bring even greater value to both new and existing customers, wherever they happen to be – including inside hotel rooms. We’re delighted to have partnered with PPDS, a company that shares our obsession for quality and experience, to debut our DAZN app inside guest rooms for the first time with Philips MediaSuite.”

Jeroen concluded: “If you are on holiday or away on business, the DAZN app on Philips MediaSuites means you can now enjoy all your favourite sporting events on your in-room TV in up to 4K resolution, together with great sound. At PPDS, our philosophy is always to lead from the front. This is demonstrated once again with our partnership with DAZN. The days of having to squint at a small smartphone or tablet display to enjoy quality sports in your hotel room are over. We look forward to demonstrating this great new platform at ISE 2024.”

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. 

ItsaCheckmate's collaboration with Juicer and Sauce Pricing has strengthened its online ordering platform, resulting in AI-guided data-driven pricing solutions. 

These updates expand ItsaCheckmate’s integration marketplace – empowering restaurants to deploy effective and profit-driving strategies by optimizing pricing. Informed by data and fueled by machine learning models, these partnerships allow restaurant brands to ditch the one-size-fits-all pricing model and embrace the power of data with tools tailored to their unique operational challenges. 

Dynamic Power

Dynamic pricing gives restaurants flexibility to adjust menu prices based on multiple factors, including day of the week, traffic, demand, competitor pricing, and more. In addition, this strategy helps adapt to market changes such as item shortages, rising costs, and even weather. Ultimately, dynamic pricing evens out demand variations so restaurants can operate at full capacity more often without an overreliance on discounts and promotions to motivate customers. Unlike surge pricing – which only goes up – dynamic pricing gives restaurants greater control to adjust prices at scale and boost digital sales during slower times with automated, real-time price optimization.

Juicer offers a complete real-time restaurant revenue management and pricing analytics solution. Its delivery revenue management module seamlessly integrates with ItsaCheckmate, allowing restaurants to completely eliminate the burden of managing prices on delivery channels.  

Sauce is the dynamic pricing solution that scales for multi-unit restaurants. With Sauce, brands can leverage customer and conversion data to provide value to guests at more price points, while driving incremental sales across digital channels. Sauce launches on ItsaCheckmate within minutes, allowing  brands to turn online ordering into a profit center while converting more digital orders.  

While relatively new to the restaurant industry, airlines, hotels, and third-party delivery providers have harnessed dynamic pricing solutions for years. The collaborations with JUICER and SAUCE PRICING give restaurants even more ways to maximize efficiency and deliver better customer experiences.  For more information, visit itsacheckmate.com.

Square’s fourth annual Future of Commerce report delves into how consumers are feeling about advancement in automation and generative AI.  The report offers insights on how restaurants are shifting.

In collaboration with Wakefield Research, Square surveyed thousands of business owners and consumers on restaurants, retail, and beauty industry trends across the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom and Australia.

Oh Canada!

Decisively, 100% of surveyed Canadian restaurateurs say they plan to expand their businesses in the next 12 months through offering new products or opening additional locations, and 80% report feeling more optimistic about the future of their restaurants. At the same time, approximately three in four Canadian consumers say they expect to pull back on restaurant spending in 2024.

76% of Canadian consumers would prefer to place their food orders via self-serve kiosks. Customer satisifaction with self-serve ordering is strong; according to HT’s Customer Engagement Technology Study, 55% of consumers are very or somewhat satisfied with restaurant self-ordering technologies such as kiosks.

Canadian consumers are looking for a tech-forward approach from restaurants – 60% are supportive of local restaurants using AI-based tools.

All surveyed restaurateurs in Canada (100%) believe AI could solve some of their staffing challenges, particularly food prep robots (44%), voice ordering technology (42%), predictive ordering and inventory management (40%), and food prep and delivery management (38%).

Other key findings: 

89% of restaurants say they’ll experiment in the coming year with non-core offerings like meal kits, subscriptions, events, and more. Restaurateurs say that right now, 19% of their revenue stems from products and services outside of their core restaurant offerings.

Restaurateurs are not only investing in AI to address labour challenges – more established automation tools are also on the agenda in 2024. 56% of surveyed owners plan to increase their spending on technology and automation tools in the next 12 months, and 76% of consumers want restaurants to invest in at least one area of automation when they’re not at full staffing capacity.

“Automation and AI are going to be key growth levers for restaurants in the coming year, though not in the way you may think,” said Ming-Tai Huh, General Manager of Square for Restaurants. “The vast majority of restaurants will be integrating AI into their operations in small, iterative ways – not through flashy robots but through automation in marketing or kitchen workflows – and these minor changes will add up to saved time and more profit.”

About Future of Commerce

The retail and restaurant surveys were conducted by Wakefield Research among 2,000 retail owners and managers and 2,000 restaurant owners and managers, with quotas set within each survey for 500 respondents per market in the U.S., Canada, the UK, and Australia between October 27 and November 8, 2023, using an email invitation and an online survey.

The consumer survey was conducted by Wakefield Research among 4,000 nationally representative adults ages 18+ in the U.S., Canada, the UK, and Australia, with quotas set for 1,000 respondents per market, between November 15 and November 28, 2023, using an email invitation and an online survey. Data has been weighted. Download the report here.

Oracle announced thatMarriott International has selected Oracle Hospitality OPERA Cloud Property Management System (PMS) and Sales and Event Management as a hospitality cloud platform for Luxury, Premium, Select Service, and Midscale Properties.

“Oracle OPERA Cloud provides an integrated hospitality platform that enables companies, like Marriott, to deliver exceptional guest experiences while supporting increased efficiency and revenue growth across their operations,” said Alex Alt, executive vice president and general manager of Oracle Hospitality. “From upselling to sales and event management capabilities and hundreds of partner plug-ins, Oracle’s security-first methodology and commitment to long-term cloud investments can help properties meet their financial and operational objectives while maximizing customer satisfaction at every touchpoint.”

Built on the high performance and security of Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI), OPERA Cloud PMS will give Marriott properties the ability to streamline their hotel operations and guest-facing product offerings, while centralizing data across Marriott’s global footprint for better guest insights, planning, and customer service. In tandem, OPERA Cloud Sales and Event Management will allow the hotelier to optimize its event space, from meeting rooms to room blocks and catering. 

“Adapting to changing customer needs is essential in our industry. Technology and data platforms like Oracle OPERA Cloud are the backbone of service and empower our associates so they can stay focused on taking great care of our guests,” said Erika Alexander, Chief Global Operations Officer, Marriott International.

Marriott is also optimizing its HR processes and employee experiences with Oracle Fusion Cloud Human Capital Management (HCM) and is scaling its IT with multicloud architectures on OCI and Microsoft Azure.

Stayntouch, a global provider of cloud hotel property management systems (PMS) and guest-centric technology, announced a new partnership with Pivot, the lifestyle operating vertical of Davidson Hospitality Group. Stayntouch will implement its flexible, modern cloud PMS across seven Pivot hotels in the United States. 

Pivot caters to innovative boutique and lifestyle brands that are reshaping the hospitality industry with unique service philosophies and data-driven results. Stayntouch was selected as a strategic partner to seamlessly facilitate the change management of Pivot‘s property management system, transitioning it from legacy to modern cloud technology. This partnership brings the benefit of premier customer service, robust functionality, and comprehensive multi-property management capabilities.

Paula Weissend, regional director of revenue management at Pivot Hotels, said, “Our experience with Stayntouch has been transformative: The system is intuitive and scalable, and the Stayntouch team has simplified resource scheduling and deployment for our properties, even on tight deadlines. The platform's flexibility and comprehensive features are ideal for companies pushing the boundaries of hospitality innovation. Specifically, their multi-property and chain configuration functionalities will significantly aid our team in implementation and portfolio management.”

Reid Webster, VP of strategic growth and partnerships at Stayntouch, replied, "We are thrilled to embark on a strategic partnership with Pivot, sharing their unwavering commitment to redefining guest-centric hospitality. We designed our cloud PMS to facilitate easy scaling and usability for boutique brands, and we are delighted to witness Pivot-operated hotels fully leveraging these capabilities. Our goal is to be a steadfast partner they can rely on, ensuring they gain the maximum benefit from their new cloud PMS."