News Briefs

Property management software Hospitable has helped US hosts recover more than $1.2 million in direct booking revenue so far this year — not through aggressive marketing or deep discounts, but by simply following up with guests who almost booked¹.

The bookings — all abandoned at the final step of checkout — were recovered using Hospitable’s Abandoned Bookings feature, first launched in November 2024. In its first week, the tool reclaimed over $36,000 in lost revenue. Now, fresh 2025 data shows that what began as a simple re-engagement tool has scaled into a high-performing, high-value recovery channel — proving that a well-timed reminder can turn hesitation into confirmed stays.

The feature automatically detects when a guest selects dates, enters their details, and then drops off just before confirming — triggering a personalized follow-up email. So far this year, over 300 bookings have been recovered this way, totalling $1.2 million in reclaimed revenue. The average recovered booking value is $3,970 and nearly 70% of recipients engage with the email. What’s being reclaimed isn’t just volume — it’s high-intent reservations that were already in motion, simply interrupted.

This data suggests that many guests aren’t walking away, they’re pausing. That moment of drop-off might come from comparing options, needing more time, or simply weighing up costs — especially in today’s climate of economic caution. But it points to a clear trend: today’s cautious traveler often needs a little extra reassurance to move from intent to action — and small, well-timed nudges are helping hosts recover significant revenue.

For hosts, it’s a reminder that a strong direct booking strategy doesn’t stop at checkout. Whether through visible trust signals, clear policies, or smart follow-ups, supporting guests at the final step can be the difference between an abandoned cart and a confirmed stay.

Pierre-Camille Hamana, CEO and Founder of Hospitable, said: “Today’s travelers are hesitating at the final hurdle. That pause could come from a number of factors, from affordability concerns to simply needing a little more reassurance. But understanding that hesitation, and acting on it at the right moment, is where hosts can move from passive losses to active wins in their direct booking strategy.”

Earlier this year, Hospitable reported that direct bookings had surged 571% across its user base in 2024 — with hosts generating $28.7 million in revenue through their own websites. Now, with the Abandoned Bookings feature capturing high-value reservations that might otherwise slip away, that figure is set to climb even higher in 2025.

Launched in 2016 as a time-saving PMS, Hospitable has evolved into a short-term rental super app that goes beyond traditional property management – automating guest messaging with AI, optimizing nightly rates, managing rental agreements and security deposits, coordinating teams, and powering direct booking websites with built-in payments and property protection.

For more information, visit www.hospitable.com. 

The NYU School of Professional Studies (NYU SPS) Jonathan M. Tisch Center of Hospitality and its Hospitality Innovation Hub (HI Hub), in collaboration with RateGain Travel Technologies Limited, and HEDNA, today announced the release of the second edition of its industry benchmark report, The State of Distribution 2025.

The report, based on insights from over 700 hotel brands and 21,000+ properties across 310 cities, the 2025 report presents one of the most comprehensive views into how commercial teams across the hospitality industry are navigating transformation.

The first edition of the report, launched last year, focused on understanding where distribution teams were headed. However, as most commercial teams have begun integrating revenue management, marketing, and distribution to drive greater efficiency and outcomes, the 2025 edition reflects this shift. Recognizing that distribution is no longer a standalone function but part of a broader commercial transformation, this year’s report explores how these functions are evolving. Furthermore, it captures how this growing collaboration is reshaping team priorities, core capabilities, and the technologies hotels depend on to compete.

The report highlights a widening gap between technological potential and operational readiness. While AI is increasingly shaping the guest journey across platforms, many hotel teams are still in the early stages of activating its full value. Technology itself is widely available, but consistent training, streamlined systems, and integrated workflows remain works in progress. Distribution teams are evolving, often with limited resources, and varying levels of investment in talent development and process automation.

As traveler expectations continue to rise, the ability to align people, processes, and platforms is emerging as a key driver of performance.

Key findings from The State of Distribution 2025 include:

• AI adoption remains early-stage: While interest in AI is growing, it currently ranks lower on investment priorities due to gaps in training, talent, and integration readiness.

• Commercial strategies vary by scale: Independent hotels are expanding teams and actively testing new technologies, while larger chains are focusing on system consolidation and operational streamlining.

• Distribution functions are becoming leaner: Even as the complexity of managing parity, APIs, and content grows, distribution team structures continue to shift as it becomes more integrated.

• Reporting practices are still maturing: 80% of hotels spend up to two days a week on manual reporting, highlighting ongoing opportunities for better tools tailored to distribution analytics.

• System integration remains a focus area: Many hotels, regardless of size, are working to improve data connectivity and break down silos to enable more effective cross-functional collaboration.

Christopher Murdock, HEDNA President and Director of Distribution System Support and Strategy at Accor said, “When we launched the inaugural State of Distribution report, our goal was to close a critical blind spot with the absence of a central benchmarking report for the industry. The response to last year’s report validated the need and enabled us to double down on the effort. The findings should provide a clear business case for expertise and technology investments in distribution.”

Vanja Bogicevic, PhD, Clinical Associate Professor & Director, HI Hub Experiential Learning Lab, NYU SPS Jonathan M. Tisch Center of Hospitality, said, “This year’s report reaffirms what we see every day: hotels are investing in technology, but without investing in people, progress stalls. The State of Distribution 2025 gives hoteliers and educators alike the data to act—spotlighting where training is falling short, where team structures are evolving, and which commercial skills matter most. It’s not just a benchmark for the industry; it’s a blueprint for developing the next generation of hospitality leaders.”

Ankit Chaturvedi, Vice President of Marketing at RateGain, said: “When we launched the survey, we did not expect such an overwhelming response to The State of Distribution. And with over 700 brands sharing their insights, it’s clear that the hospitality industry sees this report as a benchmark for making better commercial decisions.

As every hotel looks to adopt AI across different commercial functions, they first need a unified view of how marketing, revenue management, and distribution are evolving. That’s what this year’s edition aims to provide. Only when commercial leaders understand where each function stands—and how they’re converging—can they make decisions that drive alignment, efficiency, and impact across the entire guest journey.”

The State of Distribution 2025 underscores that technology is essential but without investment in readiness, its potential remains underutilized. For hotels looking to scale, simplify, and stay ahead, success will depend on more than adoption. It will require integration, alignment, and action.

To request an early preview or connect with the research team, visit www.stateofdistribution.com

Appetronix, a rapidly emerging leader in food robotics, is unveiling the next phase of its fully-autonomous kitchen platform, redefining how quick-service restaurants (QSRs) operate at scale. Following the successful launch last week of a fully-autonomous kitchen for Donatos Pizza in Columbus, Ohio, Appetronix announces it is now actively developing two new robotic cuisine verticals: Asian and Mexican, further demonstrating its capability to serve diverse food categories with exceptional quality, speed, consistency, and zero human intervention.

Designed for operational excellence and rapid deployment, the Appetronix kitchen integrates robotics, AI, and advanced systems engineering to consistently produce high-quality meals in high-traffic, labor-constrained environments.

“Our team, strategic partners, investors, and early customers have allowed us to build a next-gen QSR system that’s ready to scale across airports, hospitals, office towers, stadiums, and universities,” said Nipun Sharma, CEO of Appetronix. “We’re enabling top restaurant brands to achieve real estate flexibility and round-the-clock operations—while solving the industry’s labor crisis.”

Appetronix is also proud to highlight the visionary partners, Viam, N49P, and AlleyCorp, who have been instrumental in bringing its current innovations to market and shaping the future of the company’s autonomous foodservice technology:

Viam - The Appetronix system is powered by Viam’s advanced AI and automation platform, which enables real-time food quality monitoring, predictive maintenance, and smart inventory management. For their most recent autonomous kitchen, Appetronix utilized Viam’s complete vision system  to automatically inspect each pizza for sauce coverage and consistency, cheese coverage, pepperoni distribution, and final quality before it’s served.

Their full-stack solution connects hardware, AI models, and APIs to Appetronix’s POS and ordering systems, enhancing accuracy and customer experience. By leveraging Viam’s platform, Appetronix can scale quality assurance across locations without building internal AI infrastructure.

"Viam's work with Appetronix is a great example of the wide-ranging applications of Viam's AI and computer vision technology, " said Eliot Horowitz, Founder and CEO of Viam. "We see huge potential to help drive automation, efficiency and consistent quality in the quick service restaurant space." 

N49P - As the first institutional investor in Appetronix, N49P has played a critical role in strategic planning, technical direction, and financing since the company’s inception.

“N49P has supported Appetronix from the very start, recognizing the team’s exceptional blend of expertise in robotics, software, and food industry insights,” said Alex Norman, Managing Partner at N49P. “Their goal has always been to create a fully automated restaurant that could transform an industry facing significant challenges. Their recent opening of the Donatos kitchen in Columbus is a major step forward in realizing that vision.”

AlleyCorp - A leading early-stage venture firm, AlleyCorp identified Appetronix’s product-market fit and believes the company is on track to achieve unicorn status.

“Appetronix has built not just a product, but a platform that’s solving real pain points in the food industry including labor shortages, consistency, and scalability,” said Abe Murray, General Partner at AlleyCorp. “Their autonomous kitchen system is already proving itself in real-world environments, and we believe they’re on track to become the defining company in food robotics.”

As Appetronix prepares for a nationwide rollout, the company is actively welcoming new investment partners to accelerate its growth. With a foundation of robust technology, a clear use case, and industry-leading backers, Appetronix is poised to redefine how food is prepared, served, and scaled in the QSR world.

Relay is proud to announce the launch of RelayM™, our latest breakthrough in frontline communication technology, debuting at HITEC 2025. This powerful new addition to our product portfolio bridges the gap between Relay+™ and RelayX™. Based on the RelayX design, RelayM delivers enterprise-grade performance in a form factor that is 35% smaller, making it one of the smallest 5G devices in the market.

Engineering Excellence in a Compact Design
RelayM is an engineering marvel. We challenged ourselves to deliver the core performance and functionality of RelayX in a dramatically streamlined package – optimized for the unique demands of hospitality environments. While RelayM is compact, it still integrates critical communication, panic, and location awareness into a single, simplified device. Building on the success of Relay+, RelayM offers an evolved design that enhances usability and effectiveness in day-to-day hospitality operations. A new integrated screen provides instant visibility into channel, connectivity, and battery status.

RelayM's size is particularly helpful for housekeepers and mobile staff, as the portable device can easily be clipped to a shirt or worn on a lanyard. This ensures more consistent use and employee protection, all in one holistic tool that addresses both safety and communication needs. RelayM boasts all the capabilities of our previous generation models and more. This includes the TeamTranslate™ feature that has helped escalate our adoption among more than 4,000 hotels, resorts and casinos nationwide and over a million locations tracked.

A Market Leading Approach to Connectivity
RelayM — like RelayX — maintains three active connections simultaneously at all times, including WiFi 6E plus 5G dual cellular connections. To ensure the strongest and most reliable connectivity, it monitors the signal of each network 50 times per second to automatically select the strongest network. It has a backup for the backup, and virtually eliminates communication dead spots.

This approach is critical for safety and consistent communication, especially in large, sprawling hospitality environments. "There were a number of dead zones in the hotel, where we would lose signal… areas that in the past, our communication would drop. We no longer have dead zones," notes David Palumbo, General Manager of Raleigh Marriott City Center and Relay customer. "Our cellphones, as an example, had dropped in the past but because of Relay, we completely eliminated the dropping of the calls."

TeamTranslate: AI-Powered Communication
Central to RelayM's value is our award-winning TeamTranslate™ feature, recently recognized on Fast Company's 2025 World Changing Ideas list. This AI-powered live translation supports more than 30 languages, enabling instant voice translation with the push of a button without separate apps or devices.

For hospitality's diverse workforce, TeamTranslate creates safer, more productive, and inclusive environments by eliminating language barriers and ensuring every team member can participate confidently.

Performance That Doesn't Compromise

Other RelayM features include:

All-Shift Battery Life: Thanks to the new, larger 1780 mAh battery, with 32% more capacity and 25% longer talk time than before, RelayM can cover even the longest shifts, now with 10-16 hours of usage on a single charge.

Crystal Clear Audio: Features the same high-quality 2-watt speaker as RelayX, providing 50% improved perceived loudness than our previous model. And RelayM's new and improved advanced noise cancellation ensures crystal clear communication even in the most challenging hospitality environments—whether it's over noisy vacuum cleaners, in bustling lobbies or restaurants, or on loud city streets.

Military-Grade Durability: Built to MIL-SPEC 810H standards with IP66 and IP68 ratings. Waterproof, dustproof, and able to withstand 5-foot drops onto concrete.

Setting New Industry Standards
RelayM showcases our commitment to continuous innovation and setting new industry standards. By combining cutting-edge engineering with cloud technology and AI-powered features like TeamTranslate, we're driving the evolution of frontline communication technology.

fidelis hospitality, an owner-managed hotel group operating branded properties across Germany, has successfully transformed its operations using SIHOT’s portfolio of hospitality management solutions.

SIHOT, one of the leading hotel management systems, has delivered a fully integrated tech stack for fidelis to implement back-office and customer-facing digital solutions with ease and convenience.

Since migrating to SIHOT, fidelis hospitality has successfully introduced self-service check-in kiosks, direct online bookings, integrated Electric Vehicle (EV) charging payments, and centralised guest billing. These innovations have helped reduce front-of-house workload, eliminate manual errors, and improve commercial sustainability.

With several branded properties in major German cities – including THE Hotels, Felix Hotels and Ibis – fidelis has saved huge amounts of staff hours and reduced errors in administration and data management.

Recognising the evolving hospitality landscape and the paramount importance of efficient workflows and guest interactions, Maurice Nickelsburg, head of commercial development, fidelis hospitality explained how SIHOT solutions have contributed to his company’s growth and ambitions.

“Things are changing all the time. We now have a good infrastructure to work from. This has put fidelis in a position to discuss adopting new hotel projects – with the plan for these to be fully digital. Now, with SIHOT, we have the solution to plug in and make a success of these initiatives quickly.”

“I’m a fan of having everything in one platform. With a small team, it is time-consuming to monitor multiple partners – this leads to failures and problems. At least with one provider, we know who to call, there is someone to help, and we can collaborate on developments. With SIHOT, we get exposure to new applications and functionality as soon as they are launched, which allows us to evolve quickly.”

SIHOT.PMS acts as a central hub for key integrations, such as SIHOT.POS which consolidates all purchases and guest billing. A further integration with Adyen payment technology provides robust fraud protection, tokenisation, and automation, massively reducing financial errors.

The integration with SIHOT.MOBILE has digitised paperwork for ops teams – such as housekeeping and maintenance – giving live updates on completed tasks in a centralised app. While SIHOT.GO! allows guests to check-in from their phones in advance, saving hours of reception work, along with SIHOT.KIOSK enabling self-check in on arrival.

Carsten Wernet, chief executive of SIHOT, added: “By leveraging the flexibility and customisation of our single platform, fidelis hospitality has optimised security, consolidated guest interactions, and streamlined operations—positioning itself as a leader in the digital hospitality space.”

Find out more about how fidelis hospitality and SIHOT worked together on four core objectives: time and resource efficiency, guest data management, security, and guest-driven digital services. Read the full case study.

Duetto (“Duetto” or the “Company”), a leading provider of revenue management software for the hospitality industry, today announced a strategic leadership transition as the Company enters a new phase of growth and innovation.

After six years of dedicated leadership, David Woolenberg has decided to step down as Chief Executive Officer. David will remain with Duetto during a transitional period to ensure continuity and support a seamless handover. The Board of Directors extends its sincere gratitude to David for his significant contributions in advancing Duetto’s culture, operational performance, and long-term strategic vision.  Under David’s leadership, Duetto scaled its business meaningfully, broadened its geographic footprint, introduced new products and solutions, and expanded the range of clients it serves.

Effective immediately, Alex Zoghlin has been appointed Chief Executive Officer. Alex, a current Duetto board member and most recently the CEO of ATPCO, brings deep expertise in scaling technology businesses across the travel and hospitality sectors. With a strong background in product innovation and a customer-centric approach, Alex is well-positioned to accelerate Duetto’s mission and global expansion.  Alex previously served as the Global Head of Innovation and Technology at Hyatt Hotels Corporation, where he led the transformation of Hyatt’s digital and guest technology strategy. He was also the founder and CTO of Orbitz, where he played a pivotal role in reshaping the online travel booking experience. In addition to his tenure as CEO at ATPCO, where he led the company through a period of significant modernization and growth, Alex has founded and scaled multiple successful technology companies, building a track record of innovation, leadership, and operational excellence in highly competitive markets.

“Serving as CEO of Duetto has been an incredible experience, and I am proud of the strong business we have built — one that is well-positioned for continued growth and innovation,” said Woolenberg. “After six years, it feels like the right time for change, and I cannot think of a better person to take Duetto forward than Alex. His experience, leadership, and deep understanding of our space make him the ideal choice to guide the company into its next chapter.”

“I am honored to serve as the next CEO of this exceptional company and work with our talented teams globally to deliver differentiated revenue management solutions to the hospitality industry,” said Zoghlin. “The hospitality industry is undergoing a period of rapid transformation, driven by shifting guest expectations, increased operational costs, and economic volatility. Hoteliers need more innovative, more robust, and more effective technology solutions to meet their needs. With a powerful product vision, deep customer relationships, and a renewed brand strategy, I’m confident in our ability to guide hoteliers through this evolution and unlock the next phase of growth for the company.”

This announcement follows the successful launch of Duetto’s Revenue & Profit Operating System—a transformative solution designed to unify data, automation, and intelligence across all facets of hotel revenue and profit performance.