News Briefs

Guesty, a property management software platform for the short-term rental (“STR”) and hospitality industry,  announced the acquisition of Rentals United, a cloud-based top-grade platform to distribute and promote properties across multiple listing sites. The acquisition combines two best-in-class software providers in the STR space to create a robust offering that is unmatched in the industry and opens up new revenue opportunities for property managers. Rentals United will retain its independence and continue to operate as a standalone business with its executive team leading its operations and development. Business will be conducted as usual for Rentals United’s customers and partners..

The deal will unlock a significant opportunity for both sets of customers to scale their businesses with sophisticated, data-driven products, AI-powered efficiency tools, and an extensive distribution network. Rentals United’s platform has been available to Guesty’s customers through its integration marketplace for several years and both companies are long-time industry partners with a shared vision for excellence in the short-term rental industry. 

“We see this as a natural fit for two industry-leading players that harnesses great synergy for STR and vacation rental property managers,” says Amiad Soto, Guesty’s CEO & Co-Founder. “Combining our technologically advanced offering with Rentals United’s distribution capabilities will deliver both an increased volume of bookings and bookings of higher relevancy. We’re very excited about this next step in our journey as we continue to consolidate the market and enhance our offering to best serve property managers.” Yair Holtzer, Chief Revenue Officer of Guesty adds, “This acquisition creates a winning business proposition for all property managers - from individual hosts through to enterprise PMCs - to maximize visibility, distribution and engagement with their prospective audiences. In addition, all Rentals United and Guesty partners will benefit from a more robust platform.”

Established in 2015, Rentals United empowers vacation rental managers to market and manage properties across 60+ listing sites. Its channel manager integrates with 100+ technology providers, offering innovative tools for channel optimization. This includes an AI-powered data platform for property performance analysis and personalized recommendations. The company employs 100 people with offices in Spain and Poland.

“Our acquisition by Guesty, the clear software leader in the STR property management sector, is a testament to our own technical prowess and we believe it will fortify our business and our offering in the long term, for our customers, partners and employees,” said James Burrows, CEO, Rentals United. “We’ve known the Guesty leadership team for many years and we’re delighted to merge our world-class operations as the STR market continues to accelerate.”

Operating in over 80 countries, Guesty is the most advanced, comprehensive, and easy-to-use platform for STR management today. Guesty’s PMS (Property Management System) serves enterprise and SMB property managers as well as individual hosts, providing a full-stack solution with all the necessary tools to manage the entire rental journey, solving some of their biggest pain points. Integrating across all property management functions, the company’s robust software platform helps property managers advertise and manage their vacation or short-term rental properties, delivering unrivaled guest experiences through a highly intuitive user experience and open API capabilities. 
 

This acquisition follows Guesty’s recent $130M Series F funding round led by leading global investment firm KKR. Since 2022, Guesty has acquired marketing distribution solution Staysense, hospitality software companies Kigo and Hirum, and YieldPlanet, a hotel-focused revenue and distribution management platform. Together with Rentals United, these assets elevate Guesty as the category-defining property management platform for the STR and hospitality industry.

NCR Voyix, a leading global provider of digital commerce solutions, and Olo, a leading restaurant technology provider, are expanding their long-standing partnership with the integration of Olo solutions onto the NCR Voyix Commerce Platform.

This collaboration further integrates two open platforms, both with deep expertise serving complex, enterprise restaurants with sophisticated operations, into a unified cloud-based architecture that enhances the guest experience for restaurant brands of all sizes.

• 85% say integrations with other systems is driving POS purchasing decisions, according to HT's 2024 POS Software Trends Survey 

The partnership integrates Olo’s Order, Pay and Engage solutions, which will be instrumental in supporting the restaurant industry’s increasing adoption of digital solutions, simplifying ordering and payments for guests and employees at scale, as part of the NCR Voyix Commerce Platform. Together, the two companies support restaurants embracing digital innovation that better enables them to deliver holistic, exceptional guest experiences through technology and data collection.

“The restaurant industry is transforming from disjointed physical and digital guest experiences to unified, consistent guest experiences across all channels that seamlessly blend together,” said Benny Tadele, EVP & president of NCR Voyix, Restaurants. “Brands that are leveraging the NCR Voyix Commerce Platform are accelerating their transformations and operating at the speed of the consumer, unlocking even greater value in personalization and data consolidation.”

Olo’s ecosystem of 300-plus integrated technology providers proves that collaboration is the best way to help accelerate the restaurant industry’s digital transformation.

“This new chapter of our partnership creates a unified, digital approach to POS transactions and takes restaurants one step closer to making every guest feel like a regular,” said Noah Glass, founder & CEO of Olo. “Today, only 16% of restaurant transactions are digital. This deeper integration with Pay and Engage will arm restaurants with higher volumes of data to cater to evolving guest expectations and drive more personalized experiences.”

Olo Order integrations with the NCR Voyix Commerce Platform are live now. Integration with Olo’s Pay and Engage solutions will be live later this year.

Intouch Insight, a provider of customer experience management solutions in North America, has released the second edition of its Emerging Experience study today in partnership with QSR Magazine. The report, Next-Gen Restaurant Experiences: The Rise of Innovative Locations, is focused on how technology is impacting the customer experience for multi-location QSR brands.

"We have been closely monitoring the latest trends in the technology and new prototypes launched by Quick Service Restaurants since the pandemic," says Laura Livers, Chief Revenue Officer at Intouch Insight. "This year, through our Emerging Experiences study, we wanted to dig deeper into the current performance of these prototypes and technology as compared to traditional experiences."

Driving Speed Improvements

The rapidly evolving quick service sector has seen many brands invest heavily in technology-enabled prototypes to enhance both in-person and digital experiences. This year's study highlights innovative brands that have incorporated features like mobile kiosks, improved drive-thru, AI-powered technology, innovative kitchens, and more to elevate the customer experience.
 

Taco Bell, Checkers & Rallys, bartaco Share the Stories Behind Their Award-Winning Technology Transformations

The results show that innovation experience overall scores outperformed legacy experiences in 7 out of 10 brands’. Some of the key findings of the study include:

• 3 out of 4 Innovation Experiences received higher overall satisfaction scores compared to their legacy counterparts.
• Technology innovations drove speed improvements for digital orders placed for pickup.
• 3 out of 4 innovation experiences' overall order accuracy scores outperformed the legacy experiences. 

“The data suggests that customers have a preference for innovative experiences,” says Livers. “As growth in these digital channels continues to surge, creating consistency across the varied customer engagement points will be critical for success. The brands who measure, learn, and pivot quickly, will be the brands who ultimately come out on top.”

Download the full study here: https://hubs.ly/Q02tjNSr0

Subway completed its previously announced sale to affiliates of Roark.

The acquisition comes on the heels of Subway's three exceptional years of sales growth and positive global net restaurant growth for the first time since 2016. The brand has continued to innovate in 2024, with the introduction of Subway Sidekicks, a hot new menu category, and a fresh lineup of signature wraps, served on a new lavash-style flatbread.

"The entire Subway system is excited that our sale to Roark is complete," said John Chidsey, CEO of Subway. "As we look to our future, our growth journey is far from over. With a continued strategic focus on delivering better food and a better guest experience, our next chapter will be the most exciting yet."

Staying the Course

Looking ahead, the company will continue its work to Build a Better Subway for its franchisees, employees and guests with a focus on ongoing culinary and digital innovation, modernization of restaurants, and strategic international expansion. There are no anticipated changes to the company's leadership team, strategic focus or operating plans.

As one of the world's largest quick service restaurant brands, Subway serves freshly made-to-order sandwiches, wraps, salads and bowls to millions of guests, across more than 100 countries and territories in nearly 37,000 restaurants every day. Subway restaurants are owned and operated by Subway franchisees—a network that includes thousands of dedicated entrepreneurs and small business owners—who are committed to delivering the best guest experience possible in their local communities.

Toast, the all-in-one technology platform built for restaurants, today announced details for its Digital Storefront and Marketing Suites. Toast’s Digital Storefront Suite offers robust website and online ordering capabilities. Toast’s Marketing Suite marries marketing tools with automation technology. Together, the suites create a seamless digital hospitality experience for restaurants, integrate across the Toast platform, and allow restaurants to gather guest data from online and point-of-sale (POS) transactions. This data powers automated, targeted campaigns and custom-tailored guest experiences, fostering an engaging online environment that attracts guests and encourages return restaurant visits and repeat orders.

“Through innovations including our Toast Go^® 2 handheld devices and Toast Mobile Order & Pay^®, Toast technology has streamlined and transformed the on-site guest experience for restaurants of all sizes and types,” said Steve Fredette, President and Co-Founder of Toast. “Our Digital Storefront and Marketing Suites extend that enhanced guest experience online using tools like Toast’s new AI-powered writing assistant, search engine-optimized websites and online menus, promotional offers, loyalty programs, and automated marketing campaigns that work together to draw guests in and keep them coming back.”

Marketing automations in Toast’s Marketing Suite help save time and remove guesswork

Whether increasing online orders or driving in-store visits, Toast’s Marketing Suite can help restaurant owners and operators reach their goals. In fact, Toast restaurants that used gift cards, loyalty, and email marketing offered as part of the Marketing Suite saw 63 percent more sales than Toast restaurants that did not use any of those features¹. A collection of powerful marketing automations and enhancements are designed to make it easier for restaurant owners and operators to generate marketing campaigns targeted to the guests they want to reach when it matters most. Key suite enhancements include the ability to:

• Leverage Artificial Intelligence (AI) to create engaging email marketing campaigns aligned with a restaurant’s brand and marketing goals. According to a recent Toast survey, 72 percent of guests surveyed were interested in hearing from their favorite restaurants via email. Guests also identified promotions and loyalty programs as some of the top content that they want to see². Toast customers can provide simple inputs like campaign goals and desired tone, and the AI-powered writing assistant will generate suggested layout and text for promotional emails. Users can regenerate results as often as they like, review and make edits, and easily send them to their desired audience.
• Create one-click, automated marketing campaigns powered by guest data. From thanking repeat guests to welcoming new ones, restaurants can easily turn on data-driven campaigns that run in the background — so they can save time and focus on running their business.
• Use a powerful recommendation engine that serves timely insights to operators, such as reminders about upcoming holidays and suggestions to use pre-designed campaigns to save time. The Marketing Suite provides real-time performance metrics so owners and operators can track sales driven by each campaign.
• Create targeted promotional offers tailored to users’ business needs, like promoting seasonal specials or discounting excess inventory. Owners and operators can seamlessly promote these offers on their Toast Digital Storefront channels and through email marketing campaigns to their guests. Coming soon, users can also create and promote upsell deals directly through their Toast Guest-Facing Display.

Toast Digital Storefront Suite enables customers to elevate their online presence with new Toast Websites

Part of Toast’s Digital Storefront Suite, Toast’s website builder joins a lineup of powerful digital ordering tools designed to help a restaurant stand out online. A restaurant’s website is one of the top three ways that consumers discover a restaurant, according to responses from restaurant guests to a recent Toast survey³. Toast Websites empowers owners and operators to build and customize a professional website effortlessly, and make updates in seconds. With drag-and-drop functionality and Toast products embedded on-site, restaurants can enhance their online presence and drive traffic via SEO. Key Digital Storefront features include:

• Search Engine Optimization for digital view-only menus, online ordering, and websites, designed to make it easy for restaurants — and the best menu items — to get discovered faster.
• Automatic POS integration that enables seamless updates to digital and online ordering menus when menu item availability or descriptions are updated on the POS. Real-time menu updates enable consistency between online and in-person dining experiences and enhance SEO.
• Customization allows any restaurant to take its in-person dining experience to the web with a customizable online presence with fonts, colors, and imagery.
• Templates and drag-and-drop tools to simplify creating and updating a website. The website is buildable in minutes and allows for easy creation and updates without the need for technical expertise.
• Integrated and embedded Toast products including Online Ordering, Toast Tables, Loyalty, and more in websites built with Toast Websites. Custom branding helps deliver a seamless guest experience whether dining in or ordering takeout.

“It would take many steps to create, change, and update my website and online ordering. With Toast, it’s easy to set it and forget it — I make an update in one place and see changes across my whole tech stack,” said John Mason IV, Owner of IV Hospitality which operates FRESKO Greek Kitchen, a two-location quick-service restaurant group in North Carolina.

The Digital Storefront and Marketing Suites also include additional features including customizable online ordering with advanced data collection and capabilities that can help boost sales, customizable promotional offers to incentivize guests, and new loyalty accrual and redemption capabilities, as well as gift cards.

Customer testimonials are self-reported and are not a guarantee that any other customer will see similar results. Toast does not warrant the accuracy or completeness of any information contained in customer testimonials. Individual results will vary.

This information is intended for informational purposes only and is not a binding commitment. The development, release and timing of any products, features or functionality remain at the sole discretion of Toast, and are subject to change.

¹ Based on Toast internal data from 7/1/23 to 12/31/23 comparing Gross Merchandise Value for roughly 18,000 restaurants on the Toast platform using Toast’s 2023 offerings for gift cards, loyalty, and email marketing, with roughly 13, 000 restaurants on the Toast platform that did not use any of those features. Confounding factors such as restaurant size or location number not accounted for. Individual results will vary.
² To help better understand the restaurant industry, Toast conducted a blind survey of 1,571 restaurant guests aged 18+ in the US who dined at a restaurant, ordered delivery or ordered takeout at least once in the prior 3 month period. The survey was in field from February 14, 2024 - February 21, 2024. Respondents were not made aware that Toast was fielding the study. Third party vendor executing the survey granted incentives to restaurant respondents for participation. Using a standard margin of error calculation, at a confidence interval of 95%, the margin of error on average is +/- 2%. Respondents were asked “Take a moment to think about your favorite restaurant. How interested are you, if at all, in hearing from your favorite restaurant via the following channels?"” 22% of respondents selected email and “very interested” and 50% selected email and “somewhat interested.”
³ To help better understand the restaurant industry, Toast conducted a blind survey of 1,571 restaurant guests aged 18+ in the US who dined at a restaurant, ordered delivery or ordered takeout at least once in the prior 3 month period. The survey was in field from February 14, 2024 - February 21, 2024. Respondents were not made aware that Toast was fielding the study. Third party vendor executing the survey granted incentives to restaurant respondents for participation. Using a standard margin of error calculation, at a confidence interval of 95%, the margin of error on average is +/- 2%. Respondents who indicated that they had ordered from a new restaurant during the prior 6 month period were asked “How did you find out about this restaurant? Please rank up to 5 of the options below in order where 1 = the first place you saw the restaurant, 2 = the second place you saw the restaurant, etc.”