News Briefs

Sustainability management and ESG reporting platform FuturePlus has been appointed by multi award-winning UK hotel and spa company, Barons Eden Group, to help it track, measure and improve its sustainability performance.

Barons Eden operates two award-winning spas that are amongst the biggest in Europe: Hoar Cross Hall, a Hotel and Spa in Staffordshire, and Eden Hall, a Day Spa in Nottinghamshire. While the group has a proud history of caring for the environment and the welfare of its customers, it took the opportunity following the Covid pandemic to renew its focus on company values.

The business has two large, beautiful and historic estates (Both Grade 2 listed) and as a consequence improving sustainability can bring various challenges. Barons Eden Group knew it needed support from experts to take its efforts to the next level.

Having considered signing up with other sustainability programs, including B Corp, it selected FuturePlus thanks not only to the fact that the platform benchmarks sustainability efforts against industry best practices, as well as the UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals, but also that it provides a measure of where a business is now as well as a roadmap with quantifiable measures of where it wants to be. 

Ongoing improvement is important to Barons Eden Group, and FuturePlus facilitates it in a way that is easy to follow, track and measure. Indeed, the business had already started to implement sustainable approaches in various areas, focusing especially on energy reduction, which stood the business in good stead when the energy crisis hit during the pandemic. Since 2019, the company’s head office has been based in a commercial unit in Moreton-in-Marsh which is largely powered by on-roof photovoltaic panels.

As a result of new measures the business has put in place with the help of FuturePlus, Barons Eden Groups expects to drive various sustainability-focused outcomes, including:

• 60% reduction in carbon emissions with installation of new £1.5M biomass plant (Hoar Cross Hall)

• 15-20% reduction in electricity usage with installation of voltage optimisation and advanced metering; data capture of real time usage to identify savings (both locations)

• 10% reduction in water usage with installation of real time metering (both locations)

• Zero waste to landfill and waste reduction targets (both locations)

Following the appointment of FuturePlus, Barons Eden Group launched its new Sustainable Commitment, appointing internal Sustainable Champions to help drive change across the organization. Barons Eden Group was shortlisted in the Pioneer category at the British Renewable Energy Awards 2023.

Mike Penrose, Co-Founder and Partner, FuturePlus, comments: “Working with FuturePlus, Barons Eden has shown an incredible commitment to improvement. The hospitality industry faces various challenges when it comes to becoming more sustainable, especially when properties are on the larger and older side – but we’ve been extremely impressed by the enthusiasm with which the Barons Eden team has grabbed the mantle. Both properties score in the top 5% of all companies using FuturePlus, and Hoar Cross Hall currently has the highest ambition score of any company or property using FuturePlus.”

Steve Clements, Director and ESG Lead, Barons Eden Group, adds: “As an organization, we are extremely proud of the sustainability initiatives and programs we have implemented over the years – but as a board, we recognized that becoming more sustainable was the right thing to do, both for our business and for our customers. Before we started working with FuturePlus, we considered other routes, but FuturePlus stood out for its commitment to regular, incremental improvement. The whole team has been excellent to work with - extremely knowledgeable, responsive and supportive. We are excited for our future projects, which reaffirm our commitment to sustainability in line with the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.”

Shiji, a global hospitality technology innovator, has partnered with IPORT, an award-winning manufacturer known for enhancing the usability of iPads and iPhones, to introduce an all-in-one software solution for hotel restaurants. This collaboration will provide hoteliers with a seamless combination of a tablet and payment device to maximize their F&B operations.

The integrated iOS and payment device solution simplifies guest service for hotel restaurant servers, providing them with an effortless tool to cater to their guests' needs. As a certified Apple partner, Shiji and IPORT guarantee exceptional performance and reliability. Hoteliers can choose from multiple device options, including iPad Pro, iPad Mini, and iPhone, ensuring flexibility and compatibility with their operations.

“IPORT products are built around modularity and flexibility that empower our hospitality customers to do more with the iOS platform. We are thrilled to partner with a leading iPad and iPhone cloud PMS and POS platform provider like Shiji,” said Chris Lawson, Head of Partnerships, IPORT. “We look forward to innovating with Shiji in disrupting legacy, monolithic providers who have limited the industry from harnessing the power of iOS and mobility. The future is bright, and the possibilities are endless with IPORT, iOS, and Shiji.”

"The partnership with IPORT is a significant milestone for Shiji in our commitment to provide innovative technology solutions for the hospitality industry," said Ryan King, Senior Vice President of Shiji in the Americas. "By combining our expertise with IPORT’s hardware solutions, we empower hoteliers to streamline restaurant operations and deliver exceptional guest experiences. This collaboration represents another step forward in our dedication to driving success in the Americas, and globally."

The tablet and payment device solution seamlessly integrates with multiple payment gateways, allowing hoteliers to choose the system that best suits their needs. By simplifying the payment process, it reduces operational complexities, minimizes errors, and saves valuable time and resources for hoteliers.

GauVendi is advancing its disruptive approach to rethinking inventory, which has already been successfully implemented in the GauVendi Sales Engine, towards an open, feature-based inventory platform.

GauVendi started in 2020 with an innovative AI-driven booking experience that provides accommodation providers with a comprehensive solution for hyper-personalized sales and fulfillment automation. It was mainly deployed as a stand-alone solution. With this evolution, accommodation businesses and technology providers can now explore new avenues in sales, distribution, operational efficiency, and marketing of inventory. They benefit from highly automated processes without major system overhauls.

"We aim to offer every operator the opportunity to distribute their inventory in a scalable manner, much like it was previously only possible through personal sales - and all of it fully automated," says Markus Müller, CEO, and co-founder of GauVendi. "With the open API interface, all technology providers can now sell relevant and customizable inventory through their platforms. Our solution acts as an additional layer integrated into the existing tech stack, enabling differentiated sales and automation without significant changes to the current system landscape," adds Müller.

GauVendi's platform is the only one worldwide that provides a feature-based language and a dynamic product management system with its approach. The open API approach ensures seamless integration with other technology providers. Feature-based inventory can be transformed into relevant and tailored accommodation products using the AI recommendation model. The result is a transparent guest experience right from the booking process and significant time savings during reservations through intelligent and optimized room assignments.

The newly established inventory management platform and the associated new products and solutions were developed based on experiences gained from implementing the Sales Engine with existing hotel customers, their achieved results, and the acquired data. The new data structure enables the introduction of advanced automation possibilities, including dynamically optimized and intelligent room assignments using AI (Reinforcement Loops), going far beyond the largely manual and limited assignments used until now.

In today's era of personalization, the data structure in the form of categories for inventory management has proven to be inadequate. It lacks information about individual room features in data formats, making it challenging for operators to fulfill guest requests without significant manual and operational efforts. Any inquiry about specific room characteristics is handled offline and requires manual processing. Monetizing these features is also not possible, and the lack of personalization reduces the competitiveness of accommodation businesses compared to others.

Müller adds, "These problems are a thing of the past with the use of GauVendi. The results our customers achieve with our current solution validate this: significant increases in room revenue, considerable time savings through new automation features, a reduction in phone and email inquiries, and better guest reviews and check-in experiences."

WOWorks, the parent company behind a collection of better-for-you restaurant brands, including Saladworks, Frutta Bowls, Garbanzo Mediterranean Fresh, The Simple Greek, Barberitos Southwestern Grille and Cantina, and Zoup! Eatery, announced its partnership with BigZpoon, a renowned provider of innovative food-ingredient based analysis technology solutions for the restaurant and hospitality industries. This strategic alliance aims to assist guests in navigating any WOWorks restaurant menu, enabling them to make informed meal choices that align with their dietary preferences and restrictions.

With approximately one-fourth of American consumers implementing dietary and nutrition guidelines for their meals, as per Statista's Global Consumer Survey, WOWorks recognizes the growing demand for personalized dining options. Through its collaboration with BigZpoon, WOWorks is introducing a personalized and interactive allergen and nutrition menu technology tool empowering guests to select menu items that meet their nutritional needs and preferences. Furthermore, the integration includes a real-time nutrition calculator that accurately tracks the dietary details of chosen meals and alerts guests when their nutrition goals are exceeded.

"As awareness about the impact of food on our lives continues to grow, a larger percentage of our guests are mindful of what they choose to consume," said Kelly Roddy, CEO of WOWorks. "Whether it's reducing meat intake for environmental reasons or minimizing carbs for personal health, diners are increasingly seeking nutritional information from restaurants. We always encourage our guests to customize our signature menu items or create their personalized meals to suit their lifestyle preferences. It brings us great pleasure to provide a digital tool that significantly enhances the accessibility of allergen and nutrition information in a convenient digital format."

Unlike many restaurants offering static PDF formats for nutrition information, BigZpoon's innovative technology leverages guests' individual preferences and filters the entire menu of each WOWorks restaurant. This ensures guests are presented with food options aligning with their specific criteria. The AI-driven software not only guides guests through a personalized menu experience, but it also removes items containing allergens or do not meet their desired preferences, creating a stress-free dining experience. BigZpoon's menu system seamlessly integrates with the existing ordering systems at all WOWorks restaurants, allowing guests to efficiently place online orders and take advantage of third-party delivery services.

WOWorks franchise owners come from different backgrounds, including multi-brand franchisees; varied business ownership backgrounds, such as construction, hotels, and fitness; former professional athletes; and military veterans. The company has franchising opportunities available in 49 states (all states excluding Hawaii) and offers 25 percent off franchise fees for veterans and first responders.

Brera Serviced Apartments has drastically reduced workload and ensured optimal pricing by transitioning to automated real-time rate control with SIHOT and IDeaS. 

With a continuously growing portfolio of apartments, manual pricing and restriction control was leading to challenges for the Brera team in maintaining profitability and optimizing operations amid expansion. Benefitting from the direct two-way integration between SIHOT.PMS and IDeaS RMS, Brera Serviced Apartments now has visibility of future demand for more strategic decision‐making.

The integration between SIHOT and IDeaS has transformed the approach for Brera, with SIHOT.PMS delivering in-depth data and IDeaS' revenue management system (RMS) providing pricing agility, enabling the accommodation business to swiftly react to changing market conditions. 

“Due to the industry's rapid growth, manual pricing is no longer an effective or reliable strategy. The effect of our investment has been cumulative, as our hotels are recording higher rates while taking a hands‐off approach to setting them," said Amelie Nussdorfer, Revenue Manager at Brera Apartments.

Through the integration, Brera gains a deeper understanding of customer behavior to recognize demand patterns, contributing to more effective marketing strategies and personalized guest experiences. The Germany-based serviced apartment company is now able to define more specific market segmentations, at a granular level, and dissect each segment's performance to understand where revenue is attributed. 

By automating manual tasks, Brera manages its rates more effectively, balancing the need to attract long-stay guests while capitalizing on short‐term booking opportunities and high-demand periods, and the  team are able to redirect their time to strategic initiatives, resulting in a more efficient use of resources. 

"Thanks to our flexible platform, SIHOT can handle the different rate structures offered by IDeaS and provide the data needed to work with them. The integration of SIHOT and IDeaS has brought about a fundamental change in how the Brera team handles data," said Carsten Wernet, Chief Executive, SIHOT. "Brera has now automated manual and labor-intensive data management tasks, increasing efficiency and providing them with actionable insights. We're continually exploring with our partners how we can further improve the efficiency of our PMS data to help our hotel customers maximize their commercial potential.”

365Villas, the vacation rental management software provider, has launched WhatsApp as the most recent addition to its unified messaging capabilities for professional property managers. 

WhatsApp joins a full suite of direct and channel-based communication tools available through the 365Villas Integrated Communications Manager, including Airbnb Messenger, SMS, as well as direct and channel-based email. It means property managers don't have to log into separate platforms to view and send WhatsApp messages, including automated communications around bookings, pre-arrival messages, and check-out reminders. 

The addition of WhatsApp will also help property managers overcome the problem of being unable to harvest the email addresses of guests who book through channel managers, whose obscuring of email addresses often limits the ability to communicate with guests about their current booking, and follow-up regarding future stays. Property managers will now be able to ask for this information from within the guest messaging tool. The use of WhatsApp will also aid guest communication in countries like Thailand, Bali, India, and Brazil, where email use is much less common. 

The unified inbox leverages the same integrated architecture implemented across the platform, which means small actions by property managers trigger many more automated tasks across the workflow, saving time and resources. 

With meticulous software development methodology, each action a property manager undertakes sparks a chain reaction of connected processes, revolutionizing the property management experience and delivering productivity gains of up to 300%. 

Dave Payette, founder and CEO of 365Villas, said: “Our unique approach to integrating email and other communication mediums with the rest of your business workflow means more tasks can be automated and managed simultaneously than legacy platforms. This saves our customers time, eliminates costly errors, and ultimately improves their service quality and response times, with the end result being a better experience for guests.”

For more information on 365Villas full suite of integrated solutions for vacation rental property managers, visit www.365villas.com