Square launched Tap to Pay on Android for sellers across the U.S., Australia, Ireland, France, Spain, and the United Kingdom. The new technology empowers sellers to securely accept contactless payments with a compatible Android device, and at no additional cost.

With Tap to Pay on Android, Square is making it even easier for new sellers and established businesses to conduct in-person commerce. Using a compatible Android device, a seller simply opens the Square Point of Sale, Square Appointments, Square for Restaurants, or Square Invoices app, enters the sale, and presents their smartphone to the customer. From there, the buyer will see the total they owe along with the familiar contactless payments symbol, and can choose to complete the payment with a contactless credit or debit card, or a digital wallet such as Google Pay.

57% of respondents say enabling new payment options is a  top business driver impacting POS upgrade decisions, according to HT’s2 2023 POS Software Trends Report.

Tap to Pay on Android is powered by Square’s intuitive software which gives sellers a flexible, mobile solution that meets consumers’ growing preferences for contactless payments. Square’s software also benefits consumers by offering them a smooth and straightforward checkout experience, enabling them to see all the information needed to help them complete their purchase with confidence.

Square sellers and new merchants can begin using Tap to Pay on Android today by downloading the Square Point of Sale, Square Appointments, Square for Restaurants, or Square Invoices app on compatible Android devices. For more information, please visit squareup.com/get/tap-to-pay-android.

Union Square Hospitality Group (USHG) is expanding its partnership with loyalty and guest engagement platform Thanx.

Thanx will now deliver sophisticated loyalty and digital experiences for three of USHG’s brands: Daily Provisions, an all-day neighborhood kitchen, Blue Smoke, a barbecue joint, and Marta, a Roman-inspired pizzeria and wood-fired grill.

With the ongoing Thanx partnership, the brands will be able to extend the group’s signature hospitality to more guests across their preferred channels both in-store and digitally. The launch includes a brand-new iOS and Android app complete with a revamped loyalty program and digital ordering experience for Daily Provisions. With the enhanced program, USHG gains insight into purchasing behaviors, enabling more personal communication and stronger relationships with guests.

Additionally, USHG brands benefit from Thanx’s proprietary credit card integrations and CRM-integrated online ordering, which accelerate customer data capture through frictionless digital experiences.

“At USHG, we’re always searching for technology that enhances the hospitality experience,” says Kelly MacPherson, Chief Technology Officer, at Union Square Hospitality Group. MacPherson is a 2023 Top Women in Restaurant Technology Lifetime Achievement winner. “With Thanx, we’re able to find creative ways to reward and build brand loyalty, meet our guests where they are, and create raves.”

Founded by Danny Meyer in 1985, USHG has grown into a multi-brand hospitality powerhouse.

sweetgreen released its first 2022 Impact Report, detailing the company’s ongoing initiatives to build a sustainable food system and responsible business.

The report highlights sweetgreen’s Fiscal Year 2022 progress towards their Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) goals, including their commitments to becoming carbon neutral by 2027 and broadening workforce representation across all levels by the end of 2025.

Sustainability Matters

Sustainability matters to today's consumers and restaurant operators. Two out of three (66%) consumers surveyed feel it’s important that restaurants are open about their practices to limit food waste. According to the National Restaurant Association’s annual What’s Hot Culinary Forecast, sustainability will continue to influence menus and how restaurants make decisions.   Just last week, Chipotle revealed its new sustainable restaurant design.

sweetgreen's Progress

•  Together with  Watershed, sweetgreen calculated the emissions of their menu items and published the emissions data and methodology on their website.
• Introducing carbon-friendly items: The Hummus Crunch Salad at 0.3 kg CO2e is their lowest carbon meal to date.
• Reducing emissions intensity: Since announcing its commitment to becoming carbon neutral in February 2021, sweetgreen has decreased emissions intensity by 12% from their 2019 baseline while maintaining company growth.
• Investing in clean energy: 100% of operations are powered by clean electricity purchased from solar farms in North Carolina certified by Watershed, reducing their Scope 2 emissions to zero.
• Mitigating environmental impacts: 79% of waste was composted or recycled based on restaurants where their partner, Rubicon, manages landfill, compost, and recycling streams.

Business software consultancy, Percipient, announced that hospitality start-up, The Other House, has deployed Sage Intacct. As well as providing intelligence to support the customer experience, track profitability, and expedite operational processes, the platform will facilitate greater transparency around energy consumption and costs, while scaling to support ambitious growth plans for the company. 

The Other House initially used Xero for its accounting needs. However, as it geared up to launch, the executive team needed a platform which would integrate with all key systems, deliver high-level business insights, and support the lifestyle brand’s plans to open 15 sites in the next few years. Having conducted an extensive review process, The Other House selected Sage Intacct based on the fact it was the best system on the market and could efficiently integrate with other best-in-class systems.

Now live, The Other House is benefitting from automation across the entire business. Because of the impressive integration via APIs, business users can view pretty much anything via an easy-to-navigate dashboard, daily, weekly, monthly, or by any other configuration they choose. This unprecedented level of speed and intelligence means that the team is able to distil key data in minutes rather than days.

“Crucially, Sage Intacct can be used by anyone, not just finance, which promotes transparency and allows intelligence to be applied where relevant,” comments Tom Haley, CFO at The Other House. “Our quarter-end accounts are produced at a click of a button and we are able to plot and compare any insight we need to create a comprehensive picture, so that when viewing, say, profit and loss, we can look at the numerous variables associated with that. Sage Intacct delivers truly end-to-end finance, but in reality, it does so much more than that. It allows us to have a high-level business conversation based on statistical insights, which in turn, give us an in-depth understanding and control of our numbers in real-time.”

“Digital is, without doubt, a crucial aspect of any modern hospitality business, and we see it as a competitive advantage. While our app will play a significant role in helping to deliver the Resident experience, it’s all of the intelligence generated in the back office, powered by Sage Intacct, which ultimately delivers the magic.”

Attensi, a global training tech provider, launched a new insight paper, 'The Leadership Delta: How challenging the norm is helping the hospitality & retail industry to train exceptional leaders.' The paper reveals three of the most common and fundamental leadership ‘deltas,’ which they believe are the most difficult to solve using traditional training methods.

Frontline organizations in the hospitality & retail sector have had to face big challenges head on over the last three years, from global shut down to high consumer demand and financial crisis. But according to Attensi, one of the biggest challenges facing the industry is the ‘leadership delta’.

What does Attensi mean by leadership delta?

A leadership delta is a vast gap in knowledge and capability that is exposed when individual contributors are promoted into senior roles where they have responsibility for overseeing multiple areas of the business. One of the reasons this happens is because many of those leading teams within the sector are promoted because they are great at their ‘day job’ -- they are amazing baristas, superstar bar tenders or fantastic store assistants -- but now they find themselves with a new set of expectations and responsibilities. The step up is a giant skills leap. With so much responsibility at the hands of these leaders, Attensi is challenging the industry to look at how leaders are trained within the sector and asking the question: Are you challenging training tradition to develop exceptional leaders and beat the leadership delta?

With a global outlook, the whitepaper identifies three key leadership ‘deltas’ the sector should address:

• Coaching for performance
• Having difficult conversations
• Effectively communicating culture

Greg Hull SVP Commercial Operations US and Global Head of Hospitality & Leisure, said: “In this paper we explore the leadership delta in detail and discuss how organizations can challenge traditional learning methods to give leaders the opportunity to drive performance and become exceptional.

“For every frontline organization, fighting against a backdrop of challenges, understanding and addressing the ‘leadership delta’ in their organization and defining the skills gap they need to close to set leaders up for success is now critical for sustained success.

“There are key takeaways that every organization can take from the learnings of these global organizations, firstly to take the time to better understand the real-life impact and effectiveness of your training, secondly to explore how your team feel about your approach to training and its effectiveness for them as individuals and finally to rethink and reimagine your approach to traditional leadership training. Learning strategies must continuously evolve.”

To find out more, download Attensi’s whitepaper: Whitepaper | Hospitality Industry | Attensi

Nomadix® Inc​. announced it was named a Qualified Vendor for Choice Hotels International, one of the largest lodging franchisors in the world with nearly 7,500 hotels across 46 countries and territories. Nomadix already enables connectivity for hundreds of Choice Hotels with its internet gateway technology. The Qualified Vendor Program brings Nomadix’s extended product portfolio to help every guest feel connected and at home at any of the Choice Hotels properties in the United States.

“We are honored to be named as a Qualified Vendor for Choice Hotels and to bring our reliable and flexible technology solutions to Choice Hotels’ brands from Economy to Extended Stay to Upscale Properties,” said Mike Gray, global vice president of strategic partnerships at Nomadix.

Nomadix complements the Choice Hotels brand with technology solutions focused on quality, affordability and reliability, including:

• Nomadix Networks (Wi-Fi): This portfolio offers a range of wireless access points (with a selection of indoor, outdoor and wall plate options), WLAN controllers and LAN switches, and internet gateways designed to comply with stringent hospitality standards. The overall product line focuses on value for performance, quality and simplicity and offers the latest Wi-Fi 6 technology.
• Nomadix Cloud Telephony (PBX): The solution cost-effectively replaces end-of-life phone systems and meets the latest emergency calling requirements. The service works with Nomadix IP phones, Angie guest room devices and most SIP/IP phones on the market.
• Nomadix Alerts (Panic Button): A wearable 2-in-1 staff safety device that helps safeguard isolated workers from threats and harassment – including fall detection – while providing Wi-Fi analytics as employees roam around the property.
• Nomadix Casting (In-Room Entertainment): This product allows guests to automatically pair personal devices to the in-room TV when they connect to the hotel Wi-Fi and then easily cast their preferred shows and other content from Netflix, Hulu, Spotify and thousands of other popular streaming apps.
• Angie Voice Assistants: The multilingual digital concierge helps fulfill guest requests, answer common questions about the property and combines multiple devices (e.g., alarm clocks, telephones, Bluetooth speakers). Hotels can control questions and responses to assist stretched staff and provide upsell and advertising revenue.

For more information, visit: Nomadix.com.