News Briefs

Nonius, an active member of Hotel Technology Next Generation (HTNG) for more than a decade, is proud to announce that its Co-founder and CTO, Leonel Domingues, has been selected for a seat on the esteemed HTNG Vendor Advisory Council (VAC).

With a longstanding involvement in HTNG, Nonius reaffirms its dedication to hospitality tech.

The HTNG VAC stands as a robust and insightful council of the American Hotel and Lodging Association (AHLA). The AHLA boasts more than 32,000 member properties, forming a vast representation of the entire hotel and lodging sector globally.

Leonel’s dedication and unparalleled expertise in the hospitality technology arena makes him a valuable addition to the HTNG Vendor Advisory Council. He will work alongside other industry pioneers to deliberate and formulate strategies for the challenges within the hospitality sector. Their combined expertise will empower AHLA members to leverage technology more effectively, discover new growth avenues, and shape the industry’s promising future.

The VAC represents the collective interests of technology vendors caring for the hospitality industry to unlock global business potential. The VAC strives to surface thought leaders, elevate workgroup outcomes, increase awareness of American Hotel & Lodging Association (AHLA) initiatives, strengthen Allied membership engagement, and educate the hotelier community on industry-wide technology advancements.

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. 

Chipotle Mexican Grill is testing an automated digital makeline in collaboration with Hyphen, a foodservice platform designed to help restaurant owners, operators, and budding chefs move their business forward by automating kitchen operations. Bowls and salads are created by an automated system that moves the entrées through the bottom makeline where ingredients for the order are dispensed automatically. In tandem, a Chipotle team member can leverage the top makeline to create burritos, tacos, quesadillas, and kid's meals for the same digital order.

How It Works

1. Digital orders would be placed via the Chipotle app, Chipotle.com, or third-party platforms.  
2. If the order included a bowl or salad, those entrées would be routed to Hyphen's automated system. The bowl traverses along the bottom makeline and positions itself under the specified ingredient container. The intelligent dispensers dynamically portion each ingredient into the bowl. If the order included burritos, tacos, quesadillas, or kid's meals, a Chipotle team member would use the top of the same makeline to create those entrées.
3. The completed bowl or salad would be raised from the bottom makeline and revealed at the end of the makeline through an opening in the countertop. A Chipotle team member would place a lid on the entrée and add any final items such as chips, side salsas, or guacamole to the order.
4. Completed orders would be placed in their designated pick-up area: in-restaurant pickup shelves, walk-up window, or Chipotlane.

Employee & Guest Experience

Approximately 65% of all Chipotle digital orders are bowls or salads, so the cobotic digital makeline has the potential to free up more time for employees to service the front makeline and deliver exceptional hospitality, while simultaneously increasing capacity for digital orders during peak periods.

The new digital makeline could also help enhance digital order accuracy, improving the guest experience.

• 71% say the ability to integrate with other systems is driving their POS purchase decisions, according to HT’s2 2023 POS Software Trends Report.

"Chipotle's new digital makeline built by Hyphen embodies our commitment to leveraging robotics to unlock the human potential of our workforce, ensuring an elevated dining experience for our guests," said Curt Garner, Chief Customer and Technology Officer. "Our goal is to have the automated digital makeline be the centerpiece of all our restaurants' digital kitchens." 

Chipotle's Investment in Hyphen

Chipotle invested in Hyphen as part of Cultivate Next, the company's $50 million venture fund that intends to make early-stage investments into strategically aligned companies that further its mission to Cultivate a Better World and help accelerate its aggressive growth plans. As a people-first company, Chipotle is seeking opportunities that will elevate the human experience for its teams as well as increase access and convenience for its guests. Investments may include innovations in farming and supply chain, advanced robotics, alternative proteins, and more.

Through Cultivate Next, Chipotle also invested in Vebu, a product development company that works with food industry leaders to co-create intelligent automation and technology solutions. Earlier this year, Chipotle and Vebu unveiled the Autocado, an avocado processing cobotic prototype that cuts, cores, and peels avocados before they are hand mashed to create the restaurant's famous guacamole. 

image courtesy of Chipotle

BEONx, a leading travel technology company dedicated to revolutionizing revenue strategy and achieving sustainable profitability for hotels, is pleased to announce that has become the first Revenue Management System (RMS) to incorporate a dedicated module for tour operation. 

The BEONx Tour Operation Module innovatively enables resort accommodations to optimize tour operation distribution.

Vacation hotels play a vital role in the travel industry and rely primarily on tour operators to drive bookings. However, effectively managing is difficult due to the diverse budgetary and strategic requirements of each tour operator contract requirement and other segments pricing strategies.

For this reason, hoteliers struggle with the lack of a comprehensive revenue management tool, resulting in the loss of inventory control, the possibility of human error from manual processes, significant time consumption due to manual reports, and profit erosion as a result of a limited focus on Total Revenue and reliance on legacy systems. These obstacles hinder the industry's effectiveness and profitability. 

Cayetana Fernández, VP of Product at BEONx, said: "We are thrilled to introduce the BEONx Tour Operation Module, a revolutionary solution designed to resolve the unique challenges vacation hotels face in optimizing due to their heavy reliance on tour operators. Resorts face challenges in optimising distribution and outperforming tour operation competitors. With our new BEONx Tour Operation Module, hotels will effectively manage its inventory by leveraging advanced systems and AI algorithms, empowering resorts to attract direct reservations, increasing efficiency, and achieving long-term profitability in the dynamic hospitality industry."

BEONx's TourOperation Module is poised to revolutionize the way vacation hotels manage their tour operations. This innovative solution addresses the intricate challenges faced by vacation hotels in managing tour operators (TOs) efficiently and profitably.

• Simplicity in complex revenue management: Intuitive tools to optimize room pricing across different outlets and points of sale, providing a visual summary of contract conditions and sales status.
• Cohesive inventory control: The module allows for controlled allotment management, incorporating release dates, cancellation monitoring, and adherence to contract conditions.
• Strategic forecasting: Efficiently forecast transient and group demand based on allotment filling, enabling smarter decision-making.
• Time & cost savings: Automation and streamlined processes reduce manual efforts, freeing up staff in group departments.
• Empowered revenue management: With pricing managed seamlessly, the revenue manager can focus on strategic decisions and enhance profitability.

Cloudbeds, the hospitality management platform powering more reservations and happier guests for lodging businesses around the globe, announced the expansion of its in-platform payment processing solution, Cloudbeds Payments, to 36 countries globally, allowing tens of thousands of hoteliers to reduce operating costs associated with payment fraud, chargebacks, manual reconciliation, and human error. The expanded solution is designed to reduce friction for guests in the payment process through new payment method options and e-commerce features such as Pay by Link.

With this update, Cloudbeds Payments now services the United States, Canada, Mexico, most of Europe, Australia, New Zealand, and Singapore. The global expansion of services will also include the ability to add regional payment methods, such as Interac in Canada, OXXO in Mexico, SEPA in Europe, as well as various “Buy Now, Pay Later” (BNPL) options. Cloudbeds also plans to release a new Tap to Pay feature in its upcoming mobile app, allowing hoteliers to instantly take contactless payments via a mobile device while on property. 

“At Cloudbeds we understand the unique pain points facing the hospitality industry and the frustrations of dealing with large payment gateway providers,” said Chad Brubaker, Senior Director of Product at Cloudbeds. “We’ve expanded the Cloudbeds Payments solution to further address industry-specific issues and empower hoteliers and hosts to hold a stronger position in the payment processing space that traditionally favors card brands and banks.”  

Cloudbeds Payments takes security protection one step further by using machine learning and A.I. technology to identify potential high-risk credit card transactions. Credit cards with a high-risk score will be automatically denied, helping hoteliers more easily protect themselves against fraud.

Hotelbeds has launched its new group brand, HBX Group to lead the B2B TravelTech company into the next phase of its evolution.

Two years on from its shift to being a leader in the TravelTech space, the company is today establishing itself as a global travel ecosystem player, introducing new product lines to meet the needs of the end consumer as they seek a frictionless end-to-end travel experience.

“As we continue our transformation as a world-leading TravelTech company, HBX Group simplifies our structure into four distinct brands under our new umbrella,” said CEO Nicolas Huss. “We have completely rebuilt our tech stack over the past year to support this shift and better serve our clients and partners by improving our reliability and number of self-service tools to maintain our market position.”

HBX Group will go to market with a collection of best-in-class B2B solutions, each with a clear proposition and market focus that meets the needs of its growing and diverse client base across more than 190 global markets. These are:

• Hotelbeds, who cater for the specific needs of hoteliers, tour operators, airlines and online travel agents
• Bedsonline, exclusively serving the retail travel segment bringing together all the travel products they need to complete and serve their travellers’ needs
• Roiback, the HotelTech partner for independent hotels and chains seeking growth through direct channel solutions
• TravelStack, providing all products, services and solutions to businesses looking to enter into the lucrative travel arena

HBX Group will also be vastly simplifying its brand architecture, to provide a much clearer and streamlined experience for all partners. As a result, existing product brands including last minute travel and Carnect, will continue to operate but will eventually be fully integrated into the HBX Group ecosystem. Hotelbeds’ long-standing flagship event, the MarketHub, as well as its innovation hub, the TravelTech Lab, will also be endorsed by HBX Group.

Technology Rebuild

HBX Group will be underpinned by new technology, which has been re-engineered in just under one year. The new HBX Group transaction platform is an open-source relational database management system emphasising extensibility and SQL compliance, allowing for more effective use of data and unlimited scalability. This complete re-platforming, re-architecture and new cloud based infrastructure enables HBX to have a global, cloud-based modern tech stack on which to build its future ecosystem strategy.

The technological transformation effectively futureproofs the company, with further functional changes easier to implement and benefits reaped by agents through easier access to more accurate data, reduced downtime and quicker responses. 

The company has refactored all visible channels – including its websites – which are now device agnostic. The changes are driving tangible increase in booking conversion and have been achieved for a capital expenditure of €11 million.

Ecosystem creation

HBX Group is an ecosystem player within the world of travel. By combining the company’s four pillars – making up the “X” – technology, data, product and people, HBX Group is better-placed to support its clients and partners by offering the full scope of travel products, including ancillary services, and selling them in one package. It also encompasses the multiplier effect businesses that choose to work with the Group will benefit from.

“Being an ecosystem player enables us to provide our customers with interconnected products and services, which complement each other and which, when combined and sold seamlessly together, gives our clients what they want, when they want it.” adds Nicolas Huss. “It also streamlines the buying process while enabling clients to upsell ancillary products, enhancing their business and providing frictionless travel to the end consumer.”

Supporting the transition into an ecosystem player, Hotelbeds’ accommodation, mobility and attractions sales teams have been brought together as part of the new Group infrastructure, enabling them to cross-sell all product lines and streamline client relationships as they will now have one point of contact for all sales activity.

New fintech solutions

As part of the evolution to HBX Group, the company will introduce fintech products in 2024, including travel insurance, payment solutions, and multi-currency solutions. These products will be embedded into the company’s core business to offer its clients and partners these services across their total business volumes.

The size of these opportunities is already large and growing. For example the travel insurance sector alone is currently worth €15 billion and is expected to grow to €99bn by 2030, according to research by Spherical Insights & Consulting.

“As travelers increasingly seek the connected trip experience with all aspects of their travel included in the same ticket, we must ensure we’re meeting this need through travel insurance and associated financial products,” added Nicolas Huss. “We have offered hotels since our inception in 2001, later adding car hire, transfers and attractions. Financial services are the natural next step in our business development and one our clients have asked us to provide.”

Learn more about HBX Group at hbxgroup.com.