News Briefs

Seabourn, the leader in ultra-luxury voyages and expedition travel, has announced that its two purpose-built expedition ships, Seabourn Venture and Seabourn Pursuit, will be equipped with next generation Wi-Fi connectivity with SpaceX's Starlink, the leader in Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite technology. The upgraded technology will provide Seabourn's expedition guests with faster service, greater connectivity and more reliable Wi-Fi wherever Starlink's services are available.

Seabourn Venture is the first ship in the Seabourn fleet to offer Starlink's Wi-Fi technology beginning with its May 12, 2023 voyage, just in time for the ship's second Arctic season. The line's second expedition ship, Seabourn Pursuit, will be equipped with the enhanced Wi-Fi connectivity after it launches in the summer of 2023. Seabourn's expedition ships will offer the best available Wi-Fi experience, allowing guests to stay connected with loved ones as they explore some of the most interesting and remote destinations in the world.

"We are committed to providing the best ultra-luxury expedition experiences at sea, and the Starlink partnership will offer a significantly enhanced connectivity experience during our expedition journeys," said Natalya Leahy, president of Seabourn. "From the polar regions to Australia and the South Pacific, our guests will experience a more reliable connection, allowing them to share those special moments and experiences with their loved ones as they sail on Seabourn Venture and Seabourn Pursuit."

"Starlink offers Internet capabilities and functionality to meet growing service demands globally, and I am so pleased that guests and crew members on both of our expedition ships will benefit from this innovative technology," added Kathleen Erickson, Seabourn's vice president of technology.

Beginning May 12, 2023, guests sailing on Seabourn Venture will have access to the enhanced Wi-Fi service on board from the Arctic to Antarctica. The ship will sail on two voyages to British Isles and Ireland in May before kicking off its second season in the Arctic. Between June and August 2023, the ship will sail on a series of 14- and 15-day voyages to Greenland and Iceland, as well as a 23-day adventure through the Northwest Passage. The ship will then head down the West Coast of the Americas before reaching Antarctica, where it will sail between November 2023 and February 2024. In late February 2024, Seabourn Venture will cross the Atlantic, sail up the West Coast of Africa and Europe to be in position for the 2024 Arctic season. 

Wendy's and Google Cloud announced an expanded partnership to pilot an artificial intelligence (AI) solution, Wendy's FreshAI. The technology has the potential to transform Wendy's drive-thru food ordering experience with Google Cloud's generative AI and large language models (LLMs) technology.

Demand for Drive-Thru

With 75 to 80 percent of Wendy's customers choosing the drive-thru as their preferred ordering channel, delivering a seamless ordering experience using AI automation can be difficult due to the complexities of menu options, special requests, and ambient noise. For example, because customers can fully customize their orders and food is prepared when ordered at Wendy's, this presents billions of possible order combinations available on the Wendy's menu, leaving room for miscommunication or incorrect orders. Google Cloud's generative AI capabilities can now bring a new automated ordering experience to the drive-thru that is intended to enhance the experience that customers, employees and franchisees expect from Wendy's. As HT reported last month, one Wendy's franchise, Wenspoke, is expanding its use of AI in the drive-thrus.

"Wendy's introduced the first modern pick-up window in the industry more than 50 years ago, and we're thrilled to continue our work with Google Cloud to bring a new wave of innovation to the drive-thru experience," said Todd Penegor, President and CEO of the Dublin, Ohio-based QSR. "Google Cloud's generative AI technology creates a huge opportunity for us to deliver a truly differentiated, faster and frictionless experience for our customers, and allows our employees to continue focusing on making great food and building relationships with fans that keep them coming back time and again."

Pilot Near HQ

In June, Wendy's plans to launch its first pilot of Google Cloud's AI technology in a Columbus, Ohio-area, Company-operated restaurant, using those learnings to inform future expansions to more Wendy's drive-thrus. The pilot will include new generative AI offerings, such as Vertex AI and more, to have conversations with customers, the ability to understand made-to-order requests and generate responses to frequently asked questions. 

This will all be powered by Google's foundational LLMs that have the data from Wendy's menu, established business rules and logic for conversation guardrails, and integration with restaurant hardware and the Point of Sale system. By leveraging generative AI, Wendy's seeks to take the complexity out of the ordering process so employees can focus on serving up fast, fresh-made, quality food and exceptional service.

Today's update builds upon Google Cloud's and Wendy's long standing partnership to enhance the Wendy's restaurant experience. Since 2021, Wendy's has leveraged Google Cloud's data analytics, AI, machine learning (ML), and hybrid cloud tools to make it faster, easier, and more convenient for customers to access the brand.

As part of a national effort to raise awareness and offer expert insights, Denny's is kicking off a series of summits focused on how companies and individuals can better manage and improve their mental health and wellness.

The first summit is taking place on April 22 at the HPAC Theater in Spartanburg, S.C. The summit will be free to the public and attendees can participate in-person or virtually.

"Denny's has always been committed to feeding people's bodies, minds, and souls, and this summit series perfectly aligns with our holistic approach to wellness," said Kelli Valade, CEO of Denny's. "The COVID-19 pandemic has placed the topics of mental health and personal well-being front and center. Now is the time to think about how we can bring our whole selves to all facets of our lives, including the workplace."

The summit keynote speaker is Dr. Daniel E. Dawes, Senior Vice President for Global Health and Executive Director of the Institute of Global Health Equity at Meharry Medical College. Dawes will discuss the importance of addressing mental health equity and the path forward to achieving a healthier society. Other nationally recognized panelists include:  

• Dr. Shaneeta Johnson, a surgeon, clinician, educator, and researcher at Morehouse School of Medicine and Senior Fellow in Global Health Equity at the Satcher Health Leadership Institute
• Dr. Monique May, a board-certified and licensed family physician best known as the "Physician in the Kitchen"
• Dr. Bennie L. Harris, Chancellor of the University of South Carolina Upstate
• Sharon Lykins, Denny's Vice President of Product Innovation

"Mental health and wellness significantly impact the quality of life of individuals, families, and communities across the Upstate region and beyond," said USC Upstate Chancellor, Bennie L. Harris, Ph.D. "We are thrilled to join forces with a global leader like Denny's to address one of the most critical public health issues of our time."

Journalist Roland S. Martin will moderate two panels, "Mindful Eating," which will address the connection between food and wellness, and "Wellness at the Workplace," which focuses on mental health at work.

A second mental health summit will be offered on October 10 in Nashville, Tennessee.

Today, Withe, the on-demand video interview and virtual hiring event platform that aims to solve volume hiring challenges for enterprise hospitality staffing and recruiting teams, announced the close of its $1.1M USD pre-seed round, led by San Francisco-based Focal. Withe’s SaaS platform is designed for enterprises that hire hundreds to thousands of people at the same time, such as staffing and recruiting teams in the tourism and hospitality industry. With the funds, the company is planning on further expanding its technical team and building its roadmap, alongside its first enterprise customer, Fortune 1000 industry leader, Trueblue, as a design partner.

“Today, it simply takes too long to get qualified candidates in front of great companies. What we’ve created in Withe is a platform that benefits both recruiters and candidates by providing them with an on-demand and seamless experience,” said Daniel Shalinsky, CEO and co-founder of Withe. “This funding will propel the next phase of Withe by enabling us to continue to hire the right people while we expand further into new markets,” said Shalinsky.

Withe reduces interview time by 82%, providing enterprise hiring teams with seamless scheduling and better utilization of their most valuable resource: time. Industry leaders who rely on Withe for virtual hiring fairs experience notable decreases in time-to-hire and improved efficiencies across the board.

It’s no secret that today’s market is competitive when it comes to hiring the best talent swiftly. With post-pandemic recovery efforts and the North American spring and summer tourism season upon us, hospitality brands are looking to fill hundreds, sometimes thousands, of positions at the same time—more rapidly than ever. Withe is confident that its platform will be turnkey for the industry’s volume hiring needs in 2023 and beyond. 

Business at the Hotel Nikko San Francisco is booming, especially since the property secured a spot on Forbes’ 2022 list of the 13 best hotels in San Francisco. With travelers’ eyes fixed on the luxury boutique hotel in Union Square, the hotel’s management team began looking for new financial management tools capable of delivering macro and micro analysis of numerous data sets and assisting with planning for future investments into the property. PVNG enterprise accounting and Targetvue budgeting and forecasting solutions from Aptech fit the bill for their ability to affordably give operators the insight, flexibility and control they desired.

“When we began searching for technology to replace our previous solution, we wanted tools that could drill down into every account and help provide context behind our performance,” said Vincent Rafanan, Hotel Nikko San Francisco chief financial officer. “Budgeting and forecasting was a top priority. Previously, we relied on a standalone system to oversee these processes. Once we met with Aptech, we immediately saw how easy it was to connect Targetvue to the cloud and to PVNG, then share information seamlessly between the two systems. Today, our team is easily comparing and contrasting any scenario from month to month. These tools have been invaluable for digging into last year’s reporting and preparing forecasts for the year to come.”

Targetvue is designed to provide “one version of the truth” throughout an organization. By providing variance analytics, data visualization and version control, this tool helps hotels meet future growth goals by utilizing a single, centrally maintained set of database models. By adopting this user-friendly software, hotels can eliminate the need to correct and recombine multiple spreadsheets for consolidating and reporting.

PVNG elevates hoteliers’ ability to monitor their success. The tool features Accounts Payable, Accounts Receivable, General Ledger, Statistics, Financials, and Bank Reconciliation modules and seamless web browser navigation allowing hotels to upload their accounting data remotely. PVNG can be deployed as a hosted service and also offers OCR invoice processing, a myriad of payment options, drill-down capabilities in financial statements and reports, and the ability to handle single or multi-property accounting.

“We are thrilled to partner with the Hotel Nikko San Francisco and are delighted at the success they are having with Targetvue and PVNG,” said Jill Wilder, Vice President at Aptech. “Luxury hotels like the Hotel Nikko frequently add new services and amenities. This, combined with the wide range of offerings the hotel provides, makes accounting, budgeting, and forecasting all the more complex. PVNG streamlines common daily procedures, while Targetvue eliminates the need to manage budgets across multiple spreadsheets, preserving a single view of a hotel’s true operating potential across the entire organization. These capabilities are helping hotels of any size maintain success and momentum, heedless of the size of their aspirations.”

 

The 531-room Hotel Nikko San Francisco is known for its high-end Japanese-inspired decor, a wide array of amenities, and attention to detail. Located at Union Square's gateway, it is surrounded by retail stores, boutiques, and various restaurants. The property is convenient to San Francisco’s Theater District and is renowned for its 10,000-square-foot health club, the Anzu restaurant, and a glass-enclosed swimming pool.

Craftable, a profit management platform, celebrates one year of partnership with Square, the technology company that makes commerce and financial services easy and accessible. Craftable and its partners Square, Paytronix and 7Shifts will be hosting an activation at this year’s National Restaurant Association (NRA) Conference at McCormick Place (2301 S King Dr) in Chicago, IL on May 21st from 3-5 PM at Square’s booth, #5821.

Last May, Craftable and Square announced a collaboration to provide hospitality operators with full visibility into their operations, connecting purchases with sales data and labor in real-time with Craftable's Foodager, Bevager and Analytics platforms.

To showcase the results of the integration, Craftable and Square recently teamed up to unveil a case study titled “How Square + Craftable helped NYC’s brewery-gastropub manage operating costs.” Utilizing the easy-to-use Square for Restaurants platform, Torch & Crown’s team, led under the direction of entrepreneurs Joe Correia and John Dantzler, was able to efficiently take orders, make menu changes on the fly and keep orders moving through the kitchen. 

After using Square’s seamlessly integrated platform to run their operations, they decreased time spent on invoices by 6 hours and increased touchless payments by 40%. By leveraging Craftable’s integration with Square, they reduced food costs by over 5% and reduced beverage costs by a whopping 12%.

“We are proud to serve the hospitality industry alongside Square, a trusted leader in restaurant technology,” said Samuel Zats, co-founder and CEO of Craftable. “Our tech platforms seek to empower operators within the industry with the financial and business operations data to optimize business practices, allow teams to run more efficiently, and implement strategic tactics to support immediate and long-term growth.” 

Craftable will be debuting its happy hour style activation at the NRA Conference, notably the largest gathering of food service professionals in the Western hemisphere. During the activation, attendees will enjoy an open bar while learning about how the four leaders in hospitality tech–Craftable, Square, Paytronix and 7Shifts–work seamlessly to improve efficiency, streamline operations and provide the data and insights for restaurant and bar operators to improve their bottom lines.