News Briefs

Whataburger announced today that Chief Executive Officer Ed Nelson will be retiring at the end of 2024. In a seamless transition, Debbie Stroud, currently EVP and Chief Operating Officer of Whataburger, will step into the President and CEO roles effective January 1, 2025. 

With a distinguished career spanning two decades at Whataburger, Nelson joined the company in 2004 as Controller. He was promoted to Chief Financial Officer in 2008, President in 2019, and CEO in 2020. Under Nelson's leadership over the past five years, Whataburger has successfully expanded into 16 new states, opening more than 250 new stores.

Executives on the Move

Nelson and Stround are the latest restaurant executive on the move.  Checkers, Red Lobster, Chick-fil-A, Bloomin' Brands, Panera Bread, Papa Johns,  Starbucks and Chipotle Mexican Grill are a few of the brands with executive changes in the past few weeks.  Read more.

"Ed's passion for the Whataburger brand has been unparalleled, and he has expertly guided the company to new heights, embodying the drive and resilience Texans are known for," stated Matthew Rose, Chairman of Whataburger. "We are deeply grateful for Ed's leadership and commitment to our mission, and we wish him our very best in his retirement."

Reflecting on his time with Whataburger, Ed remarked, "Leading this company has truly been one of the greatest joys of my life. The incredible individuals and Family Members who make up our team are a blessing, and I am proud of what we have accomplished together."

From CEO to COO

In a seamless transition, Debbie Stroud, currently EVP and Chief Operating Officer of Whataburger, will step into the President and CEO roles effective January 1, 2025. Stroud joined Whataburger in early 2023 and is a seasoned executive with more than 30 years of leadership experience in the restaurant and retail industry. Previously, she served as SVP, U.S. Retail Operations at Starbucks Coffee Co., overseeing the regional vice president team with responsibility for more than 10,000 retail stores across the country. Prior to her five years with Starbucks, she spent 27 years with McDonald's, where she served in key financial and operational roles.

"Debbie has brought a wealth of knowledge and a strong vision for operational excellence and high-quality made-to-order food to Whataburger. We are excited for her to extend her energy and passion for building great teams and delivering extraordinary hospitality to customers across our expanding operations," added Matthew Rose.

"I am honored to be selected as the next CEO of Whataburger, a family-founded, beloved brand with a strong legacy and fan base," said Stroud. "Working alongside Ed and our dedicated leadership team has been an extraordinary experience. I am eager to realize the bright future ahead for our company, our 51,000 Family Members, and the communities we serve."

As Whataburger embarks on this new chapter, the spirit of Texas will continue to guide its path forward, with a promise to uphold the values and traditions that have made it a beloved staple. "We are dedicated to ensuring that Whataburger continues to resonate deeply with our customers in Texas and beyond, allowing them to embrace our brand as passionately as we do," affirmed Debbie.

Seventy percent of consumers would take their business elsewhere after just one frustrating experience with AI-supported customer service,  according to a new survey from Acquire BPO, a provider of customer experience and business process outsourcing.

As companies increasingly turn to AI-powered customer service to reduce costs and increase efficiency, they risk alienating a large portion of their customer base if the customer experience is compromised. Companies only have one shot at getting it right, underlining the importance of mapping out a strong AI deployment strategy.

The 2024 AI in Customer Service Survey was conducted for Acquire BPO by the third-party survey platform Pollfish to explore consumer sentiment insights and how companies can proactively map out their AI customer experience strategies. Pollfish surveyed the experiences of 600 U.S. consumers aged 18+ who contacted a company for support issues over the past year.

Key findings include:

• Consumers are 2.5X more positive about their experience chatting with humans versus AI-powered bots.
• Half of consumers feel negatively about companies relying more on AI for customer support, citing downsides such as the lack of personal touch, decreased accuracy and longer resolution times.
• Consumers are willing to put their money behind their preferences, with 57% of chatbot fans saying they’ve chosen a service or product because they knew it offered chatbot support, and 72% of those with a human preference saying the availability of human customer support factored into their buying decisions.
• Many chatbot fans would rather complete an unpleasant or inconvenient task instead of speaking to a human customer support agent, with 29% saying they’d rather file their taxes, 29% saying they’d rather help a friend move out of a 6th floor apartment with no elevator, and 26% saying they’d rather clean the toilet.
• 40% of consumers are confident in AI’s ability to handle simple issues as well as a human, and 49% said they’d feel more comfortable using AI-powered support if they had the ability to switch to a human agent at any time.

To maximize AI’s benefits while avoiding its pitfalls, Acquire BPO advises that companies use it judiciously for the right tasks–and do the same for human agents as well.

• Don’t be afraid to use AI to address simple requests. 40% of consumers were confident in AI’s ability to handle simple issues as well as a human, presenting an easy opportunity for companies to streamline a portion of their support workload.
• Use AI to reference past issues–but don’t go too far in predicting future issues. 61% of survey respondents liked the idea of AI remembering past issues in order to streamline future contact with customer support, however 50% responded negatively to AI being used to predict problems before they happened.
• Use AI to escalate issues. 55% of consumers responded positively to knowing that AI could detect frustration with sentiment analysis and help route them to a resource or human agent to help with more complex issues.
• Provide clear paths for customers to request a human agent. 49% of customers said they’d feel more comfortable using AI-powered support if they had the ability to switch to a human agent at any time.

"Unlocking the power of AI is essential for companies to gain a competitive edge, however the future of exceptional customer service requires striking the right balance between AI and human support,” said Scott Stavretis, CEO of Acquire BPO. “By carefully mapping out an experience that blends AI and human support seamlessly, brands can meet customers where they are and deliver consistently outstanding service across all touchpoints."

Visit the 2024 AI in Customer Service Survey at Acquire BPO’s website for the complete survey results.

Bikky, a customer data platform built exclusively for multi-unit restaurants, announced a partnership with Marugame Udon USA, the fast-casual Japanese restaurant.

Marugame has since grown to more than 1,200 locations globally. More recently, the brand has been expanding in the US and has 15 locations in California, Hawaii, and Texas. As they continue to rapidly scale, it's become critical for their team to make the right marketing, menu, and operational decisions - all backed by data.

“Bikky has honestly saved us hours in figuring out what’s working and what’s not,” says Janna Esguerra, Marketing Analyst at Marugame Udon USA. “We’re excited to better use our customer data in our marketing and menu efforts as we scale.”

This announcement comes at a time when the restaurant industry finds itself at a crossroads. While total sales are expected to rise 10% in 2024 and surpass $1 trillion for the first time, the operating environment continues to get tougher. According to the National Restaurant Association, 45% of restaurant operators expect competition to increase. Additionally, more than 95% say higher food and labor costs will be an issue for their business this year.

Despite the broader cautious outlook for restaurants, Bikky enables Marugame to more easily navigate this environment. With a CDP, Marugame can now access the behavior of the 2.5 million guests they’ve served since 2020 - a 10x increase over their digital guests.

Fully accessing their customer data is critical for Marugame as they continue introducing new menu items to consumers. With Bikky’s guest and menu analytics tools, the brand could easily see how new items affect new guest acquisition, retention, average check, and overall sales. With clear data on how different items contribute to success, Janna and Marketing Director Kristin Yi are now brainstorming new additions to the menu, including their specialty beverages and shareable add-ons.

“Every restaurant - whether they have 15 locations or 1,500 - needs the right data partner to help them navigate this new, more complex operating environment,” says Bikky co-founder and CEO Abhinav Kapur. “We’re proud to partner with a global brand like Marugame Udon, bolstering their U.S. expansion efforts with data to drive higher ROI on every menu, marketing, and operational decision.”

The fastest-growing, most innovative restaurants look to Bikky for unprecedented insight into how their decisions directly impact consumer behavior and top-line sales. Marugame Udon USA is the latest fast-growing brand to adopt its groundbreaking customer data and analytics platform alongside others, including Dave’s Hot Chicken, Robeks, Eggs Up Grill, and Bojangles.

To learn more about Bikky, visit https://www.bikky.com.

IDeaS, a SAS company and global provider of hospitality revenue management software and services, announced IDILIQ Hotels & Resorts has selected IDeaS G3 RMS to automate revenue management and optimize its pricing strategies across its portfolio of Spanish luxury resorts.

IDILIQ Group — pioneers of the resort-based concept — designs, develops, and manages residences in the most sought-after holiday destinations in Europe and the U.S. The Spanish division of IDILIQ operates five luxury resorts across the country, with a total of 900 rooms. Previously, IDILIQ relied on manual revenue management using generic spreadsheet software. The implementation of IDeaS G3 RMS across its Spanish portfolio introduces a sophisticated solution that empowers a more connected, actionable strategy across its organization’s commercial team through a seamless integration with their properties’ Central Reservation System (CRS).

Benefits experienced by IDILIQ since implementing IDeaS G3 RMS include: 

• Strategic Efficiency: The requirement for manual data entry to gain valuable insights and guide data-driven pricing strategies has been removed.
• Intelligent Rate Management: IDeaS G3 RMS continuously analyzes external market and property data to optimize room type and class pricing for maximum profitability.
• Data-Driven Decision Making: The ‘What-If’ analysis tool allows IDILIQ to visualize potential outcomes to ensure the team makes the most profitable changes.
• Smarter Discounting: Establishes automatic discounting rules, freeing up staff to focus on strategic initiatives that enhance the guest experience

IDILIQ’s new level of forecasting and pricing distribution power provides valuable insight into revenue strategies while avoiding manual data entry errors. Rate shopping and analytics, continuous room pricing and optimization, and What-If analysis save the team time while optimizing room type and room class bookings.

IDILIQ will also be able to take advantage of Additional Priceable Product functionalities within the G3 solution, which give managers the power to program criteria for rules-based automatic discounting.

Alex Cibelli, head of commercial at IDILIQ Hotels & Resorts said: “Automating our revenue management systems has been a game-changer. As soon as the solution was set up, we were able to leave it to do its job without constantly adjusting it, making it easy to adopt. The Group Evaluation Tool module has been extremely useful to our teams in Spain and has given operators crucial insights into how to optimize the acceptance and pricing of group bookings. 

Many solutions on the market provide rate shopping and analytics, but G3 RMS ability to ‘understand’ the consequences and automatically reflect the change in demand on suggested room rates matched the level of automation we were looking for. The opportunity to set discounting parameters in the system so that we can set room prices without diluting revenue has been another important time-saving benefit for our teams.

With the head office in the UK and offices in Spain, IDLIQ required a solution that works across a centralized team, while also giving access to the sub-regional offices. Using IDeaS GM3 gives general managers oversight of the revenue management process without continual interaction with the RM team.”

Michael McCartan, area vice president, EMEA, IDeaS, said: “We’re delighted to welcome IDILIQ to IDeaS. Great revenue management not only ensures the commercial success of a hotel but improves the guest journey, which is extremely important to IDILIQ. We’re looking forward to supporting their growth in a meaningful way.

Cloudbeds, the premier hospitality management platform, is set to usher in the era of ‘decision intelligence’ for the hospitality industry at its upcoming Passport User Conference on October 23, with the unveiling of Cloudbeds Intelligence.

Cloudbeds Intelligence, a new AI and machine learning layer built into the platform, is designed to supercharge all functionalities of the hospitality management system and break down departmental silos, delivering unmatched decision-making intelligence for revenue managers, marketers, GMs, operations staff, and more.

The innovative platform layer implements causal AI using rich datasets within the Cloudbeds platform and from partner data, which will allow hoteliers to better understand and forecast property performance and take actionable steps to boost revenue, optimize time and costs, and improve the guest experience. Cloudbeds Intelligence unlocks real-time, data-driven decision making for hoteliers across every area of their business, a first of its kind in hospitality.

Adam Harris, Co-Founder and CEO of Cloudbeds, said: “At our Passport User Conference next month we’ll show the industry how AI and machine learning are moving from buzzwords to the backbone of smart decision-making in hospitality. Cloudbeds Intelligence will become the new, revolutionary ‘brain’ of our platform, tearing down those age-old silos and giving hoteliers a unified view of their property’s revenue and operations. We can’t wait to showcase how decision intelligence will help hoteliers boost profitability in ways they’ve never imagined.”

The virtual conference’s product keynote will highlight a variety of future capabilities powered by Cloudbeds Intelligence and demonstrate how the new layer will enhance the platform’s functionalities across hotel revenue management, marketing, guest personalization, and operations.

This major announcement follows the hiring of AI and machine learning visionaries Amit Popat and Nikhil Shah, in a strategic move to accelerate the company’s ongoing commitment to innovation and growth.

Cloudbeds’ Passport User Conference, now in its second year, draws thousands of hoteliers around the globe to explore the latest hospitality tech innovations and learn about industry news and trends. This year’s virtual conference will feature a product keynote, live workshops with experts, fireside chats with industry influencers, and featured partner showcases with the latest tech innovations.

The World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC) today launched its 2024 Economic Impact Trends Report, which has revealed the U.S. as the world’s most powerful Travel & Tourism market, contributing a record-breaking $2.36 TN to the nation’s economy last year.

Despite the slow return of spending from international travelers, the U.S. keeps pole position, with almost double the economic contribution of its nearest rival.

Following a record-breaking year for Travel & Tourism, the sector continues to be the backbone to many country economies, while supporting millions of jobs globally.

The latest report from the global tourism body reveals China as the world’s second most powerful market with a GDP contribution of US$1.3 TN in 2023, underscoring its impressive rebound, despite the late reopening of its borders.

Germany secured the third spot with a US$487.6 BN economic contribution, while Japan, which in 2022 was in 5th place, jumped up to 4th position, contributing US$297 BN.

The United Kingdom completes the top five contributing US$295.2 BN.

France, the world’s most popular destination retained its sixth position with a contribution of US$264.7 BN, followed closely by Mexico at US$261.6 BN, showcasing its continued appeal as a major tourist destination.

India came in eighth, rising from a previous 10th position, with US$231.6 BN, marking a notable improvement and highlighting its growing influence in the sector. Italy and Spain complete the top 10, contributing US$231.3 BN and US$227.9 BN, respectively.

However, over the next decade, WTTC predicts China will become the biggest Travel & Tourism market with India moving up to 4^th position.

These shifts illustrate the dynamic nature of the global Travel & Tourism sector, with emerging markets gaining ground and traditional powerhouses maintaining their strongholds.

The report also highlights the countries experiencing the highest annual growth rates in their Travel & Tourism contributions to GDP.

In 2023, China’s sector surged led with an astounding year on year growth of 135.8%, while other Asian countries, such as Hong Kong SAR, Malaysia, and the Philippines recovered soon after the removal of travel restrictions.

Julia Simpson, WTTC President & CEO, said: "As we look forward to a record-breaking 2024, it's clear that Travel & Tourism is not only back on track, but also set to achieve unprecedented growth.

“We will continue to prioritise sustainability and inclusivity, ensuring that this growth benefits everyone and protects our planet for future generations. The sector's resilience and potential for innovation continues to drive us forward.”

According to the report, many key destinations will profit from a surge in international spending this year compared to pre-pandemic levels, with Saudi Arabia, up 91.3% compared to 2019%, Türkiye (+38.2%), Kenya (+33.3%), Colombia (+29.1%) and Egypt (+22.9%) leading the way.

Globally international visitor spending is set to grow by nearly 16% to reach US$1.9 TN, while domestic tourists are projected to spend more than ever before, reaching US$5.4TN, an increase of 10.3% over 2019 levels.

Travel & Tourism investment grew 13% in 2023 to reach more than US$1TN, with a return to pre-pandemic levels anticipated by 2025.

However, high interest rates around the world could create challenges for future investment. It is therefore crucial that the public and private sectors work together to innovate to ensure the continual strengthening of this vital sector.

The report also highlights the sector's commitment to sustainability, showcasing the decoupling of growth from greenhouse gas emissions and the increasing opportunities for women, young people, and marginalised communities.

Technological advancements, particularly in AI, are expected to further enhance the travel experience and drive future growth.