News Briefs

World Cinema, the trusted provider of video, digital infrastructure, wireless connectivity, and professional services to guest-centric properties worldwide, announces a new brand identity as WorldVue®. Rooted in the company’s core values and vision, this rebranding is a pivotal step toward realizing its long-term strategic goals and enabling WorldVue to position itself as the most relevant, trusted advisor. The name WorldVue represents a broader perspective, offering a clear vision of the future and emphasizing its dedication to innovation and growth to service every property across the globe.

“In August of 2022, we acquired Hospitality WiFi. Over the past year, we have focused on bringing together our mission to unify both companies as one. We are excited to announce our rebranding from World Cinema to WorldVue!” says Tommy Fatjo, Chief Executive Officer of WorldVue. “This decision was made to better reflect the evolution of the company, our industry and the needs of our clients and partners – all while ensuring a focus on an excellent customer experience.”

Founded in 1974, WorldVue is leading the way in delivering innovative technology solutions that enhance the resident, guest and staff experience. This next chapter aims to position the company as the go-to platform for designing, building and supporting property technologies. As WorldVue, the company’s core values and vision are now even more elevated and support a journey of innovation, collaboration and service excellence. Those values, encapsulated by the acronym CHIRP™ (Coachable, Humble, Intelligent, Responsive, Persistent), define how WorldVue operates internally and externally.

“Our rebrand signifies our commitment to not only staying relevant and adaptable to the ever-changing market dynamics, but also to providing the best solutions for our customers,” adds Robert Grosz, President and Chief Operating Officer of WorldVue. “Since day one, we have rallied around the idea that the world benefits from technologies that allow us to connect with each other to deliver entertainment and information.”

Headquartered in Houston, Texas, WorldVue believes the best way to serve its customers is to champion its employees and trusted contractors. The company is customer-centric, but employee-focused. WorldVue’s team is its differentiator. To stay updated on future announcements and learn more about WorldVue, visit www.worldvue.com.

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."

Toppers Pizza is positioning itself for major growth in several states by creating and filling new leadership roles. The popular pizza delivery franchise is thrilled to announce three exciting changes to bolster its executive team with the promotions of Mac Malchow as Vice President of Development, Matt Martin as Vice President of Operations, and Steve Armstrong as Director of Corporate Operations.

“We’re looking to the future and what we see is growth for our company as we move into new markets,” said CEO Adam Oldenburg. “These additions in leadership were strategic moves that we expect to pay off in terms of future growth and opportunities.”

Starting out as a Toppers delivery driver and marketing intern in college, Malchow has always had two feet in the Toppers culture and continues to grow with the brand. After working through the ranks, Malchow made it all the way to the Director of National Marketing before accepting his current position. An owner of five Toppers locations, Malchow will serve as a key player in development efforts as he leverages his experience in building successful stores.

Martin has spent the last 22 years rising through the ranks at Toppers. Originally, Martin was hired as a delivery driver and has steadily grown his skills and advancement within the Toppers Pizza system. His new role as VP of Operations will have him overseeing both arms of the company - Franchise Operations and Corporate Operations.Martin’s special talent is leadership, and he has fared well throughout his career as a Franchise Training Leader, Director of Training, and Franchise Operations Director. As a Wisconsin native, Toppers’ delicious pizza holds a soft spot in his heart.

As the former Director of Franchising at Panera Bread, Armstrong is bringing his passion for franchises and food to Toppers Pizza. A native of Janesville, Wisconsin, his meteoric rise within the food service industry has made him a powerhouse with a demonstrated history of successful market development, sales and profit growth, and people development. Armstrong recently started his career at Toppers Pizza as Director of Corporate Operations and is excited to continue the popular pizza delivery brand’s commitment to strong company-owned store operations.

 

VAI Resort, a $1 billion, 60-acre oasis featuring a 1,100-room luxury hotel scheduled to open in 2024 in Glendale, Arizona, has partnered with Hapi and Salesforce to personalize and differentiate guest service across the entire resort.

The VAI operating team has selected Hapi Guest, a suite of hospitality-ready tools and configurations built for Salesforce CRM, to power a groundbreaking 360-degree personalized guest experience when the hotel opens next year.

VAI Resort located in Glendale, Arizona less than 20 minutes from Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport and less than 1,000 feet from State Farm Stadium, will be the largest resort in Arizona and a premier daylife, nightlife, and entertainment destination in the U.S. At its core, a $40 million, state-of-the-art VAI Amphitheater concert stage is combined with a hotel tower that transforms into premium concert viewing from room balconies. Other amenities include:

• Konos Island, a 52,000-square-foot beach paradise and the largest party island in the U.S., featuring cabana service, DJ booth, and aerial bar.
• 5-acre swimming oasis with temperature-controlled clear blue water and white sand beaches.
• 12 elevated dining opportunities featuring a range of international cuisines.
• 80,000 square feet of high-end retail shopping and 40 luxury retail destinations.
• 80,000 square feet of flexible meeting and event space.
• 20,000-square-foot luxury spa and fitness center.
• The world’s first Mattel Adventure Park.

VAI Resort will turn to Hapi and Salesforce to deliver elevated, connected and memorable experiences that are orchestrated from booking to arrival and throughout the guest’s stay. Differentiated guest experiences start with guest data and the ability to action the data across all channels. Hapi Guest will seamlessly connect property systems in real time to Salesforce, providing rich, unified guest profiles that can be personalized with intelligence.

While Salesforce is recognized as the global leader in enterprise digital engagement and marketing across many industries, leadership at VAI wanted a partner with deep hospitality expertise to help setup and deploy the Salesforce ecosystem. This includes the many one and two-way integrations to VAI’s operational systems and enhanced hospitality functionality for Salesforce found only in Hapi Guest.

“The epitome of delivering exceptional guest experiences resides in accessible, superior data strategically harnessed by hoteliers.  VAI Resort, as a uniquely integrated entertainment and resort destination, selected Hapi and Salesforce to seamlessly unify diverse experiences, empowering our team to curate impactful memories at each guest touchpoint,” Grant Fisher, President and CEO of VAI Global Development. “These tools enable a cohesive and personalized guest journey, consistent across every area of the resort.”

“We’re proud to be one of the sought after technology partners for what will certainly be an incredibly innovative destination,” adds Luis Segredo, CEO of Hapi. “We look forward to helping the VAI team push the boundaries for providing the most elevated guest experiences across the entire guest lifecycle, leveraging data across all systems.”

BarTrack has joined the Toast Partner Ecosystem. This integration is designed to help restaurant, bar, and hospitality management teams with reports they can use to pinpoint where, when, why and how beverage waste occurs and strategize improvements to profitability and management efficiency.  

BarTrack`s beverage quality management tool uses plug-and-play sensors to measure nearly a dozen beverage-specific variables. BarTack's system helps monitor draft beverage quality and keg levels in real time–data from the sensors, combined with the intuitive BarTrack App and your sales data from Toast’s POS, offers a closer view into the possible causes and impact of waste on the bottom line. 

Toast is a cloud-based, all-in-one digital technology platform. Toast Partner Ecosystem, a curated portfolio of more than 200 partners who deliver specialized technology and services to help restaurant operators increase sales, engage guests, and keep employees happy.

• Tighter integrations with other systems are driving POS purchase decisions for 29% of restaurants, according to HT's 2023 POS Software Trends Report

Equipped with BarTrack’s draft monitoring system, hospitality management teams at bars, restaurants, breweries, and venues can:

• Gain access to insightful real-time data for every draft beverage pour
• View real-time data like keg-levels and quality metrics like temperature, pressure, and line cleanliness
• Categorize waste sources through BarTrack’s trend reporting
• Enable pour-by-pour analysis to identify if issues like foam or unrung pours are related to inventory management processes, equipment, or human error
• Automate inventory management
• Support data-driven decisions for improving operational efficiency, streamlining inventory, and ultimately boosting profits

Bar, restaurant, brewery, and stadium teams can request a demo to learn more about BarTrack’s innovative quality and data technology and Toast POS integrations.