News Briefs

Favor Delivery, the Texas-based on-demand food delivery app, today announced its team of Order-In Experts across Austin, Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston, and San Antonio. Serving as the Chief Tasting Officer’s research team, Favor’s Order-In Experts will cover a variety of cuisines throughout their city – all from the comfort of their home. 

In November 2023, Favor announced the promotion of Chris Flores from Chief Taco Officer to Chief Tasting Officer, continuing his position as the state's beloved taco expert while adding other cuisines to his repertoire – from burgers to barbecue and everything in between. Favor also opened a statewide search to form a team of Order-In Experts to help Flores, a San Antonio native, find the very best dishes and local restaurants across the Lone Star State. Interested Texans were asked to submit a brief form and a 60-second video on why they should be a part of the team. No food critic experience was required – just a passion for adventurous eating and supporting local restaurants.

After carefully evaluating hundreds of submissions, Favor selected seven Texans across the state's largest metro areas.

"With our Order-In Expert team now established across multiple cities, we could not be more excited to explore more cuisines all over Texas," said Chris Flores, Favor's Chief Tasting Officer. "Collaborating with a team throughout the state allows Favor to help more Texans discover the best dishes in their city, while also sharing the stories of the local restaurants behind them and the communities they are a part of."

Wanted: More Order-In Experts 

In an ongoing effort to further expand the team across Texas, the company also announced the reopening of its call for submissions. Interested Texans can visit favordelivery.com/CTO. On top of all review meal expenses covered, Order-In Experts will receive $1,000 per assignment as compensation for ordering in dishes to taste-test and completing a short review and tasting notes form.

The Order-In Experts will work closely with Favor's Chief Tasting Officer to uncover and showcase the cuisines and culture powering each of their cities. Each expert will be tasked with ordering and tasting a variety of cuisines, leveraging their knowledge of their city paired with insights from Favor's recent How Texas Orders In Data Report.

Founded in Austin in 2013, Favor currently operates in more than 400 cities across Texas with over 100,000 Runners (drivers), who have delivered more than 80 million Favors to date.

Selina Hospitality PLC, a global lifestyle and experiential hospitality company catering to millennial and Gen Z travelers, announces recent updates to its executive leadership team.

Gadi Hassin has been promoted to Chief Operating Officer, where he oversees the operational, commercial and financial performance of Selina’s hotel portfolio. Hassin joined Selina in 2020 as Managing Partner of the APAC region where he was responsible for significant regional expansion and operational excellence. As COO, Hassin will leverage his 30 years of experience in the hospitality industry across 4 continents and 7 countries, including time at Hyatt Hotels Corporation, The Ritz Carlton, and the Ovolo Group.

Rafael del Castillo has been appointed as Selina’s first Chief Revenue Officer, where he will be responsible for driving increased revenue performance at Selina’s hotel portfolio. His top two priorities will be to continue the traction to optimize occupancy levels and to grow the food and beverage business. Prior to Selina,  del Castillo held leadership positions at a number of leisure and lodging companies, including managing marketing, sales, and product development at Valentin Hotel Group, overseeing the hotel product team across Latin America at Expedia Group, and leading market strategy for Marriott International Inc. in Mexico.

Emilo Gracia was appointed as Chief People Officer of Selina. Gracia will oversee Selina’s more than 2,000 employee-base, training programs, compensation and benefits, and recruiting of corporate and hotel level roles. Gracia served as VP of Culture & Human Resources at the World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC), where he played a pivotal role in developing strong leadership and coaching cultures in alignment with business objectives. Prior to his role at WTTC, he held key international leadership positions at Michael Kors, Christian Louboutin and Value Retail.

In addition to welcoming new leadership team members, Selina extends its sincere thanks to Lena Katz, former Chief Technology Officer, and Sam Khazary, former Executive Vice President and Global Head of Corporate Development, for their valuable contributions to Selina. Their leadership and dedication were instrumental to Selina's initial growth and development. The existing leadership team will assume these roles and responsibilities.

“We are grateful to Lena and Sam for their contributions, and we are excited to see what the future holds for them,” said Rafael Museri, CEO & Co-founder of Selina. “The promotion of Gadi Hassin to COO reflects his exceptional leadership and operational expertise. We are confident that Selina is well-positioned for continued innovation and success with Gadi, as well as the new additions of Rafael del Castillo as Chief Revenue Officer and Emilo Gracia as Chief People Officer. Our strengthened leadership team is now set and positioned well to keep Selina moving in the right direction.”

Selina Hospitality PLC (NASDAQ: SLNA) is a global hospitality brand built to address the needs of millennial and Gen Z travelers, blending beautifully designed accommodation with coworking, recreation, wellness, and local experiences. Founded in 2014 and custom-built for today’s nomadic traveler, Selina provides guests with a global infrastructure to seamlessly travel and work abroad.

To help restaurants and hospitality businesses increase productivity and make more informed decisions, Oracle NetSuite announced a new NetSuite Connector for Oracle MICROS Simphony. The integration provides tailored functionality for the restaurant and hospitality industry that will help customers reduce costs, centralize data and increase efficiency.

The NetSuite Connector for MICROS Simphony enables customers to connect Oracle’s industry-leading restaurant point-of-sale (POS) solution with NetSuite’s integrated cloud business suite. The integration enables a daily import of core financial and inventory data from Simphony into NetSuite, helping customers to consolidate financial reporting, streamline cash reconciliation, and eliminate the time spent on manual data integrations. 

•  83% say using data to understand guest preferences and behavior is impacting POS upgrade decisions in 2024, according to HT’s 2024 POS Software Trends Survey

“Restaurant and hospitality businesses need to be agile, but disconnected systems can make it difficult to understand performance and customer demands,” said Evan Goldberg, founder and executive vice president, Oracle NetSuite. “NetSuite Connector for MICROS Simphony helps create a single source of truth with visibility into how sales are driving financial performance. By combining the power of Oracle and NetSuite, we are committed to helping our customers take advantage of end-to-end solutions to support growth.”

NetSuite Connector for MICROS Simphony helps customers by connecting POS and finance data to:

• Enhance financial reporting: Close the books faster and improve financial visibility by simplifying the management of multi-concept or multi-location restaurants. With NetSuite Connector for MICROS Simphony, each restaurant location can send separate data to NetSuite, with tender data segmented by tender name and carry over amounts included.
• Streamline data reconciliation: Reduce time spent on manual data transfer and reconciliation with automatic updates from Simphony to NetSuite. With NetSuite Connector for MICROS Simphony, data imports are segmented by dayparts and include detailed transactional data such as totals, items sold, service charges, and discounts.
• Improve inventory management: Eliminate manual data entry and reduce errors by automating the data flow between POS and inventory systems. With NetSuite Connector for MICROS Simphony, businesses can accurately track what items have been sold and make more informed decisions about inventory management and demand planning. 

“Restaurant and hospitality businesses are in a state of constant reinvention, and their technology stack should be making their lives easier, not harder,” said Simon de Montfort Walker, senior vice president and general manager, Oracle Food and Beverage. “With NetSuite Connector for MICROS Simphony, our customers now have an integrated system that is tailored to their industry, removing the need for third-party platforms or expensive customizations. By seamlessly connecting financial and sales data, businesses can now access performance information to help them make faster, more informed decisions and better serve their guests.”

The NetSuite Connector for MICROS Simphony will be available in North America in 2024.

Legrand's Vantage Lighting Controls today announced Vantage Voice. Vantage Voice adds voice control capability to the Vantage InFusionTM System controller through Amazon Alexa and is now available in the Design Center 4.8 software update.

"Many homes are already equipped with Alexa devices and enjoy the option of voice control," said Richard Laliberty, Product Marketing Manager, Shading and Residential Controls, Legrand North America. "As we continue our mission to provide lighting designers and integrators with freedom of design, adding voice control is a natural extension of Vantage's capabilities. Voice diversifies Vantage's control possibilities and expands interoperability, joining the already wide possibilities for lighting control through Vantage keypads and touchscreens, as well as apps and third-party control systems and keypads."

With Vantage Voice, customers can enjoy the convenience of using just their voice to control the Vantage InFusion system — a powerful home automation controller and the main brain of a Vantage system — through Amazon Alexa. Vantage Voice can easily control up to 60 Vantage tasks, and features widespread compatibility, working with IC-II, IC-DIN-II, or IC-DIN-II-LITE InFusion Controllers, and with Amazon Echo devices and Alexa iOS or Android apps.

Available in Design Center 4.8 and up, Vantage Voice provides voice execution of a scene. It simulates a button press to trigger and execute a task. Within the Alexa app, integrators can simplify Alexa scene commands by creating a Routine and group together multiple actions, ensuring that each one doesn't need to be requested individually. Other features include the ability to add/remove scenes to a room or device group and customize command prompts.

To help restaurants and hospitality businesses increase productivity and make more informed decisions, Oracle NetSuite announced a new NetSuite Connector for Oracle MICROS Simphony. The integration provides tailored functionality for the restaurant and hospitality industry that will help customers reduce costs, centralize data, and increase efficiency.

The NetSuite Connector for MICROS Simphony enables customers to connect Oracle’s industry-leading restaurant point-of-sale (POS) solution with NetSuite’s integrated cloud business suite. The integration enables a daily import of core financial and inventory data from Simphony into NetSuite, helping customers to consolidate financial reporting, streamline cash reconciliation, and eliminate the time spent on manual data integrations. 

“Restaurant and hospitality businesses need to be agile, but disconnected systems can make it difficult to understand performance and customer demands,” said Evan Goldberg, founder and executive vice president, Oracle NetSuite. “NetSuite Connector for MICROS Simphony helps create a single source of truth with visibility into how sales are driving financial performance. By combining the power of Oracle and NetSuite, we are committed to helping our customers take advantage of end-to-end solutions to support growth.”

NetSuite Connector for MICROS Simphony helps customers by connecting POS and finance data to:

• Enhance financial reporting: Close the books faster and improve financial visibility by simplifying the management of multi-concept or multi-location restaurants. With NetSuite Connector for MICROS Simphony, each restaurant location can send separate data to NetSuite, with tender data segmented by tender name and carry over amounts included.
• Streamline data reconciliation: Reduce time spent on manual data transfer and reconciliation with automatic updates from Simphony to NetSuite. With NetSuite Connector for MICROS Simphony, data imports are segmented by dayparts and include detailed transactional data such as totals, items sold, service charges, and discounts.
• Improve inventory management: Eliminate manual data entry and reduce errors by automating the data flow between POS and inventory systems. With NetSuite Connector for MICROS Simphony, businesses can accurately track what items have been sold and make more informed decisions about inventory management and demand planning. 

“Restaurant and hospitality businesses are in a state of constant reinvention, and their technology stack should be making their lives easier, not harder,” said Simon de Montfort Walker, senior vice president and general manager, Oracle Food and Beverage. “With NetSuite Connector for MICROS Simphony, our customers now have an integrated system that is tailored to their industry, removing the need for third-party platforms or expensive customizations. By seamlessly connecting financial and sales data, businesses can now access performance information to help them make faster, more informed decisions and better serve their guests.”

Knowland, a provider of data-as-a-service insights on meetings and events for hospitality, and Thynk, provider of the next-generation hospitality commercial platform powered by Salesforce, announced today a strategic partnership to connect the hospitality technology ecosystem better.

The partnership will integrate data from Thynk's hospitality CRM solution with Knowland’s world-class meetings and events database for Knowland and Thynk customers. The collaboration of these two solutions will enable sellers to work smarter and faster while making significant market share gains. By better understanding what meeting and event opportunities to target, hoteliers can optimize the sales process, shorten the sales cycle, and close more deals.

The Knowland and Thynk collaboration will deliver sales efficiency and performance benefits to the hospitality industry in these areas:

• Optimizing data and enhancing quality—When hotels enable the delivery of sales and event data from Thynk directly into the robust Knowland database, the event information is instantly available to supplement market data and enhance account profiles. This, in turn, informs sales teams and improves decision-making outcomes.
• Improving efficiency and sales productivity—By leveraging the combined power of the Thynk/Knowland integration, sales teams will gain seamless access to meeting and event data, ensuring productivity and data consistency for all parties.

Knowland and Thynk will host a joint webinar, “How Collaborative Data Drives New Revenue,” on April 11th  at 11 a.m. ET to showcase the benefits of account-based selling for hotel meetings and events. Register here.

Jeff Bzdawka, CEO, Knowland, said: “Expanding Knowland’s data-driven analytics platform with rich data like Thynk provides is a key pillar for enriching our dataset. As we continue to strengthen our ability to empower hospitality decision-making by delivering actionable account intelligence to fuel growth and profitability, we look forward to improving our clients' efficiency and sales outcomes. The first phase of our partnership will initially integrate data between the Thynk CRM system and Knowland’s world-class meetings and events database.”

Pascal Petit, co-founder and CEO at Thynk, said: “We are very excited to be working with the Knowland team. This partnership represents another important step in our growth journey, including expansion into the U.S. market. Every partnership is unique, and we look forward to combining the power of our next-gen all-in-one hospitality platform with the data leadership from Knowland’s insights to streamline and elevate key sales processes.”