News Briefs

SPB Hospitality announced today the appointment of Josh Kern as Chief Executive Officer. He was named interim CEO in August of 2022. SPB Hospitality encompasses a wide array of brands in the casual, fast casual, quick service and fine dining categories, as well as bars and breweries. 

Kern steered the company’s merger with Krystal, the original quick-service slider concept in the south. Furthermore, he has blended the companies while streamlining costs and launched the first major refranchising effort for the Krystal brand.

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“By fostering an environment that encourages collaboration and open communication, we can leverage the collective expertise and diverse perspectives within our organization to achieve extraordinary results,” Kern said in an open letter to employees and franchisees, thanking them for their continued belief in his leadership. “I am truly honored and excited to lead this incredible team and look forward to a future filled with limitless possibilities.”

Kern noted that his people-first vision for SPB Hospitality remains centered on three core principles: collaboration, innovation and customer-centricity.

Kern joined SPB Hospitality in 2018 as Chief Marketing Officer before taking on the President of Concepts role, overseeing marketing, culinary, beverage, supply chain and information technology. Kern’s other restaurant experience includes serving as Chief Marketing Officer for Cerca Trova Restaurant Concepts (largest Outback Franchise system), Chief Marketing Officer for Smashburger and Vice President of Marketing for Quiznos.

To learn more about SPB Hospitality’s brands and locations, visit www.spbhospitality.com.

For electric vehicle owners in British Columbia, Tim Hortons is now fueling road trips in more ways than one.  The company has announced the expansion of its electric vehicle charging station pilot launched earlier this year in Oakville, Ontario, by unveiling six new charging stations at restaurants throughout  British Columbia.

Tim Hortons announced the pilot in February in an effort to study the technology, its usage and opportunities.

"We have been thrilled with the results of the pilot so far.  Usage of the charging station in Oakville has surpassed our expectations and we received many calls with requests to expand the pilot," said Paulo Ferreira, Senior Director, International Strategic Restaurant Design and Building Standards, Tim Hortons. "With more than 3,300 eligible restaurants across the country, we continue to look for opportunities to expand the pilot and contribute to the EV infrastructure."

The BC expansion, supported by the Province of BC's Community Charging Infrastructure Fund and Koben Systems Inc. (KSI), placed charging stations strategically in Nanaimo, Langford, North Vancouver, Burnaby, Abbotsford and Coquitlam to create paths within the province, allowing guests to travel from restaurant to restaurant strictly on electric power.

Tim Hortons offers charging stations as a courtesy to guests at six locations.  As of March 31st, 2013, Tim Hortons had 4,288 system-wide restaurants, including 3,453 in Canada, 808 in the United States and 27 in the Gulf Cooperation Council. 

“This partnership with APS reinforces our commitment to leverage technology to optimize our operations and assist in creating unforgettable experiences for our guests,” said Ramki Srinivasan, Chief Digital & Information Officer at Great Wolf Resorts. “We continuously explore ways to further enhance the guest experience, and believe the use of cutting-edge technology is a key lever to help us deliver an exceptional experience at our resorts. We are excited about the technological advances and opportunities this collaboration with APS will bring."

FreedomPay, a global leader in Next Level Commerce™, announces a partnership with Visa to integrate Visa’s network tokenization capabilities within FreedomPay’s global identity and tokenization framework. The true omnichannel global tokenization product will provide network tokens across card brands, helping to keep merchants compliant with cross-border and in-region data and privacy regulations, while helping merchants qualify for lower interchange rates for certain Visa network tokenized transactions.

“With the growing number of connected devices, changing consumer behaviors and shifting privacy regulations, the benefits of utilizing network tokens are many. Using the Visa Acceptance Platform, Visa has the scale and flexibility to seamlessly provision them for FreedomPay’s clients around the globe, helping to improve customer experience, improve authorization rates and reduce fraud,” said Bill Dobbins, SVP, Head of Acquiring and Enablement at Visa.

Network tokenization will also help streamline the customer journey, providing a seamless experience across borders and merchant locations. The new capabilities will be integrated into FreedomPay’s larger identity suite, offering a 360-degree view of the customer to the merchant, creating a more personalized checkout experience through data-driven loyalty and incentives.

“FreedomPay is trusted by the largest brands across hospitality, retail, F&B and more to provide repeatable and scalable next level solutions for security, data management and compliance, and to create a personalized and seamless customer journey around the globe,” said David Knowlton, CTO at FreedomPay. “By partnering with Visa for network tokenization, FreedomPay will provide merchants with more flexibility and geographic coverage, including in harder-to-access regions, when managing customer and card data.”

Additional features will also be supported without any changes to the merchant’s systems such as supporting card on file use cases with digital wallet taps as well as token life cycle management.

For the first time hospitality’s newest technology category – the Property Experience Management Solution (PXMS) – will be on display at HITEC Toronto, to be held June 26 to 29 at the Metro Toronto Convention Center. Developed by UrVenue, UV Enterprise is a full-stack technology platform that drives commerce, manages operations, and enhances the guest experience through unified booking and itinerary management for non-room, experience-based inventory.

An iconic, world-renowned hotel will be revealed as the first to pilot the full suite of UrVenue’s PXMS capabilities, including its NEW feature enhancements, during a Press Conference on June 27 at 10:15 a.m. in Booth 2401.

“A unified system for commerce and operations robust enough for an entire property’s experiences had been lacking in the industry until we launched UV Enterprise,” said Deron Pearson, CEO of UrVenue.   “With our newest solutions within UV Enterprise, which we will reveal at HITEC, we are connecting the guest booking journey and elevating the guest experience to unprecedented levels.  Modern travelers now have complete control over how to experience all of their hotel’s offerings outside of the guest room (pools, lounges, recreational activities, restaurants, and more).”

The enhancements debuting at HITEC Toronto were developed after two years of in-depth market and customer research and in conjunction with the hotel to be announced at the show. The enhancements strengthen the pre-arrival and on-property guest experience, while providing a seamless digital booking process and driving revenue opportunities. UrVenue looks forward to introducing hotel operators and industry leaders to this innovative technology at HITEC.

To pre-schedule a meeting with UrVenue at HITEC Toronto, click here. For more information on the UV Enterprise PXMS, visit www.urvenue.com.

Maestro PMS is making hotel payments easier than ever, thanks to the recent integration with b4’s online payment platform, TransForm. TransForm helps hotels fight fraud and win more chargebacks by ensuring raw credit card data stays hidden from everyone except the cardholder. By passing encrypted credit card data directly into the correct Maestro PMS ledger, hoteliers and their customers benefit from a process that is both more efficient and more secure.

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“Hoteliers should always be looking for new ways to prevent fraud and mitigate losses,” said Steve Miles, COO at b4. “Paper-based credit-card forms are prone to human error and not PCI compliant. The TransForm and Maestro integration eliminates manual data entry, immediately lowering the risk of chargeback disputes. It also streamlines check-in and helps prevent front desk staff from unknowingly accepting fraudulent payments.”

As the need to take card-not-present payments and authorizations continues to grow, various methods of credit card submission evolved. Some cards were collected over the phone and manually keyed in or written on paper. Some required forms to be faxed or emailed with card details in full sight. None of these collection methods are PCI compliant, as they put credit card details in plain view. This leaves the hotel at a higher risk for fraud and in a weaker position during chargeback disputes.

“Guests expect secure and convenient technology when planning a trip,” said Warren Dehan, President of Maestro. “If you don’t enable customers to pay online with confidence that their credit card information is fully protected, they may decide to stay elsewhere. We partnered withb4 to reduce the risk associated with payment processing. When hotels implement best practices and PCI-compliant methods such as TransForm provides, there is a positive impact on the bottom line.”

Additional benefits of this integration include:

• Time saved for hotel staff responsible for billing reconciliation
• Reduced errors through the elimination of re-keying card details from paper forms and emails
• Having a card securely on file enables hotel staff to post additional charges or incidentals
• More transactions attributed to an account give the hotel team more guest data for service personalization and enable more targeted packaging and promotional decisions

“Since adopting TransForm from b4, our hotel’s payment processing has gone from labor-intensive to hands-off, set-it-and-forget-it,” said Nattika Wattanasuttiwong, Director of Operations at the Madison Concourse Hotel and Governor’s Club in Madison, Wis. “This technology has been invaluable for maintaining success despite rising operations and labor costs, something Maestro readily acknowledges through its new integrations. In fact, we discovered TransForm during Maestro’s 2022 User Conference and signed with b4 shortly after. This adaptability to new technology, combined with Maestro’s excellent support team, has helped us improve operations where it matters most.”

“Maestro’s integration to TransForm represents a sizeable shift for online payments by minimizing costs associated with chargebacks and lowering credit card processing fees,” says Dehan. “Through the use of recommended best practices and our joint technology, we will greatly reduce the problems surrounding chargebacks for our hoteliers.”

For a hands-on look at the Maestro PMS / b4 integration, visit b4 in Booth 1232 or Maestro PMS in Booth 1225 at HITEC Toronto, June 27 to 29 at the Metro Toronto Convention Center – South Building.