News Briefs

GiftAMeal, an innovative cause-marketing program that turns customer photos into meals for local families in need,  announces strategic integrations with industry leaders Olo, Incentivio, Lunchbox, Thanx, Ovation, and Performance Foodservice. These integrations open new avenues for restaurants to engage customers, drive social impact, and enhance the dining experience.

Typically, to participate in GiftAMeal, guests simply scan a QR code to launch the program, take a photo of their food or drink order, and GiftAMeal makes a restaurant-funded donation to a local food bank to help provide a meal to a family in need. For its community impact, GiftAMeal was presented with HT's Industry Hero Award at MURTEC.  Guests are then invited to share their photo on social media to provide additional meals. Over 700 restaurants are involved and over 1.5 million meals have been provided so far. 

These new integrations provide the ability for GiftAMeal to seamlessly integrate into a restaurant’s tech-stack in a plug-and-play manner. See all integrations here: giftameal.com/partnerships

Olo Integration

At the end of their online ordering experience via Olo (NYSE: Olo), customers can be given a prompt with a button to launch the GiftAMeal experience in a branded, mobile-friendly web-view.

Incentivio, Lunchbox, Thanx Integrations

Restaurants that utilize Incentivio, Lunchbox, and Thanx now have the ability to add a GiftAMeal button within their white-labeled mobile apps. This keeps the customer in the restaurant’s ecosystem, and adds a socially-conscious element to their apps to complement their loyalty programs.

• WATCH: Hospitality Technology's Industry Heroes Awards at MURTEC

Ovation Integration

Patrons can now launch the Ovation guest feedback survey at the end of their GiftAMeal photo-sharing experience, enabling restaurants to gather valuable insights. Similarly, patrons can launch the GiftAMeal experience at the end of their Ovation interaction, promoting social responsibility.

Performance Foodservice Partnership

Through the partnership with Performance Foodservice, GiftAMeal becomes a OneSource partner, offering a custom solution tailored to the needs of their client restaurants.

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.

Subway  unveiled MVP Rewards, a refreshed loyalty program launching September 9 in Canada, the U.S., and Puerto Rico. The new and improved program gives Subway guests the MVP experience with more ways to earn, more perks, and more earning power as customers ascend from Pro to Captain to All-Star status tiers. Consumers can earn points by ordering their favorite sub in Subway restaurants, on Subway.ca or the Subway app.

MVP Rewards replaces Subway MyWay Rewards. All 30 million MyWay members across North America will be enrolled in the new program, and their unspent tokens will automatically be converted into points, giving them a head start on reaching status and earning MVP Rewards' best perks. New members will receive 250 bonus points when they join**.

"Subway fans are the best in QSR and to thank them for their loyalty, we're giving them the star treatment as MVP Rewards members," said Mike Kappitt, Chief Operating and Insights Officer at Subway. "Consumer input helped inform our refreshed loyalty program to create a best-in-class experience. MVP Rewards gives our guests more of what they love from Subway, with a few hidden surprises baked in, so every guest feels like an MVP and comes back to Subway more often for their favourite subs."

As part of its loyalty refresh, Subway made the program easier for guests to sign up, earn and redeem points, as well as advance from Pro to All-Star. Besides craveworthy signature subs and meal upgrades, members at the Captain and All-Star tiers will soon have access to special Subway merchandise and members-only VIP exclusives:

For a complete overview of Subway MVP Rewards and Subway's new loyalty program benefits, visit Subway.ca/rewards.

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."

Omni Hotels & Resorts is pleased to announce the appointment of Vince Parrotta as its new Chief Operating Officer. With over 40 years of operations experience, Parrotta brings a wealth of expertise from his previous role as President, Hotel Operations - Americas at Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts. This strategic move comes as Omni embarks on its first brand refresh in over a decade, aiming to provide elevated guest experiences amidst significant growth to its diverse portfolio.

In this newly created position at Omni, Parrotta will oversee hotel operations as well as related brand and guest experience roles.

“The timing is right for us to add a COO to our leadership team as we double down on our commitment to elevating our brand and elevating the guest experience," said Omni President Kurt Alexander. "Vince’s tenure leading operations for Four Seasons with a keen focus on quality ensures he will immediately be a key resource for our brand.

Known for his dedication to service excellence, Parrotta has a proven track record in operational management. During his 24-year tenure at Four Seasons, he held leadership positions across the country including Scottsdale, Jackson Hole, Aviara, Las Vegas and Chicago.

The appointment of Parrotta is particularly significant as Omni Hotels & Resorts has committed $1.5 billion in portfolio enhancements over the next five years and as it amplifies its focus on training and service.

Omni Hotels & Resorts remains committed to delivering exceptional customer service and attracting top talent like Vince Parrotta. With this strategic addition to the team, the brand is poised to reach new heights in the hospitality industry.

Thanx, a loyalty and digital guest engagement platform for restaurants, launches Thanx Stored Value enabling consumers to preload funds to pay for future purchases through a new partnership with Ansa. This solution allows consumers to pay in-store with Apple Pay or Google Pay using merchant-specific stored value funds, thus completely eliminating the need for new hardware. Ansa is a digital wallet platform founded by leading payments industry experts previously from Adyen and Affirm, offering ‘wallet-as-a-service’ technology.

The first Thanx customer to offer this capability is Urbane Cafe, a 32-unit West Coast chain specializing in chef-crafted sandwiches and salads. Caprice Kindgren, Urbane Cafe Director of Marketing, said, "We know that our top guests would love to be rewarded for adding funds to their Urbane Cafe app and we're excited to lock in their loyalty. Thanx Stored Value and Ansa help us deliver for our guests without having to add any hardware in-restaurants.”

Consumers can also use Thanx Stored Value funds to pay for app- or web-based digital purchases. Whereas typical stored value solutions require dedicated hardware investments to manage in-store payments, the Thanx+Ansa solution eliminates cumbersome barriers for brands and consumers, enabling seamless integration with any POS provider capable of accepting Apple Pay. Additional benefits of Thanx Stored Value include increased customer retention and revenue as consumers who prepay are more likely to return for subsequent purchases and upfront cash flow as stored value balances are immediately available to restaurants when loaded. Starbucks, for instance, has been reported to maintain a prepaid balance of approximately two billion dollars. 

Consumers can easily load and manage funds through an intuitive in-app experience and merchants will have the option to incentivize preloads with bonus offers at the time of loading or accelerated loyalty point accruals when paying with preloaded funds.

“At Thanx, all of our digital experiences are thoughtfully designed and purpose-built to drive customer lifetime value. Thanx Stored Value is yet another tool for our customers to increase guest engagement and grow incremental revenue. In many ways, what we’re offering is superior to anything else on the market today; better economics than gift cards, no new hardware to manage, truly point of sale agnostic, and best of all, no need for consumers to even open an app to pay in-store” says Zach Goldstein, CEO and Founder of Thanx.

“Thanx is the leader in helping restaurants achieve growth and profitability, and at Ansa, that’s our mission as well,” says Sophia Goldberg, CEO and co-founder of Ansa. “We couldn’t be more excited for every business to make their most frequent customers their most profitable with branded, easy-to-deploy digital wallet technology.” 

To learn more about Thanx Stored Value, visit www.Thanx.com