Steak n Shake will offer PopID Check In and PopPay on its self-ordering kiosks in select locations in the Orlando market, with plans to expand to more than 300 corporate locations. PopID Check In is an opt-in service that enables consumers to scan their face to automatically sign into their loyalty reward account and see their past orders, making the ordering process as convenient as possible. When a guest checks in with PopID, they also have the option to use PopPay to automatically complete their payment.

• 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.

“Our partnership with PopID is a key part of our effort to provide guests with a fast and seamless ordering experience," said Keith Correia, Chief Information Officer. "When using PopID Check In, a guest does not need to use their phone or take out their wallet as part of the ordering process. They will automatically be checked in for loyalty rewards, and they can choose to make an automated payment with PopPay. A guest can even see their past orders and quickly reorder their favorite menu items. Ordering at Steak n Shake has never been easier or more convenient.”

In addition to enhancing the guest experience and improving order throughput, PopPay helps to reduce fraud and offers lower payment processing fees.

For electric vehicle owners in British Columbia, Tim Hortons is now fueling road trips in more ways than one.  The company has announced the expansion of its electric vehicle charging station pilot launched earlier this year in Oakville, Ontario, by unveiling six new charging stations at restaurants throughout  British Columbia.

Tim Hortons announced the pilot in February in an effort to study the technology, its usage and opportunities.

"We have been thrilled with the results of the pilot so far.  Usage of the charging station in Oakville has surpassed our expectations and we received many calls with requests to expand the pilot," said Paulo Ferreira, Senior Director, International Strategic Restaurant Design and Building Standards, Tim Hortons. "With more than 3,300 eligible restaurants across the country, we continue to look for opportunities to expand the pilot and contribute to the EV infrastructure."

The BC expansion, supported by the Province of BC's Community Charging Infrastructure Fund and Koben Systems Inc. (KSI), placed charging stations strategically in Nanaimo, Langford, North Vancouver, Burnaby, Abbotsford and Coquitlam to create paths within the province, allowing guests to travel from restaurant to restaurant strictly on electric power.

Tim Hortons offers charging stations as a courtesy to guests at six locations.  As of March 31st, 2013, Tim Hortons had 4,288 system-wide restaurants, including 3,453 in Canada, 808 in the United States and 27 in the Gulf Cooperation Council. 

Duetto has reported an increase in hotel revenue tech investment in the first half of 2023.

The cloud-based software-as-a-service provider has enjoyed a 30% increase in business in the first half of 2023, compared to new hotel subscriptions in H1 2022.

Notable new signings in the year's first half have included Pierre et Vacances, Deutsche Hospitality, Apex Hotels, and GCH Hotel Group.

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Duetto’s results mirror those of its Duetto Outlook & Trends 2023 Survey. In early 2023, Duetto surveyed the global hospitality industry and found that more hoteliers are investing in tech. The Duetto Outlook & Trends 2023 Survey showed that 82.3% of those surveyed were now using a revenue management system (RMS), up from 67.6% in the 2022 survey. Of those not using an RMS, 71.4% planned to invest in revenue management technology in 2023, up from 50% in 2022.

50 percent of hotels say their operational technologies are somewhat or significantly better than their competitors', according to HT's 2023 Lodging Technology Study

Looking back on tech investment in 2022, 72.2% said their hotel tech spend had either increased or stayed the same. Looking ahead, 60.8% expected their hotel tech spend to increase in the next three years.

New hotels onboarded with Duetto in 2023 are already seeing positive results:

• “The way rates, restrictions, and rules can be managed with Duetto is literally a  Game Changer. Easy to set up, use and control, there are almost no boundaries. You just use your imagination and determination. Duetto isn’t just bringing us to the next level, it takes our Revenue Management to an entirely new dimension.” - Christian Fischer, Head of Revenue Management, Bold Hotels.
• “...Duetto is truly a weapon against your competition, giving you a detailed analysis of your data, smart pricing models and what we were really impressed about is that they take feedback from their customers very seriously.” -  Linh Hoang, Hotel Manager, The Yacht Hotel by DC.

Duetto is exhibiting at HITEC Toronto booth 1334..

SWIPEBY is rolling out a whole set of AI-driven features in its holistic direct ordering platform that will use the power of AI to improve customer interaction, upselling purchases, making reviews more manageable and powerful, and improving marketing within.

This is geared towards local businesses that have traditionally fallen behind enterprise organizations; they now have an advanced tech engine working for them without needing technical expertise or large time commitments, the company says. 

Earlier this year, SWIPEBY rolled out its Snapshot AI tool for restaurants to quickly and easily generate food photos based on menu descriptions. Now SWIPEBY with AI includes a suite of AI features across multiple business functions. Upselling and cross-selling, reviews management, remarketing are the first AI-driven features to be released.

• SWIPEBY Edda functions as a customer-facing AI Guest Assistant. Edda provides a human-like interaction with a customer that makes useful suggestions for additional items the customer may want to purchase. 
• SWIPEBY AI Review Consultant means a business never misses the opportunity to respond to a review. SWIPEBY’s 5-star Review Management tool, released in 2022, helps increase stellar reviews for its operators. Now SWIPEBY with AI expands upon that by keeping track of all new public reviews and crafting an appropriate response using business data, such as current promotions and specials. 
• SWIPEBY Deep Reviews Insights is a monthly AI-driven report that provides an analysis of public reviews and an easily digestible summary from vast amounts of public data. It provides insights that would typically require an expensive consulting firm. 
• SWIPEBY AI Remarketing significantly upgrades SWIPEBY’s current remarketing engine. 

SWIPEBY Edda, AI Review Consultant and Remarketing are available now for select SWIPEBY operators. Deep Review Insights is in beta with social media management and pricing recommendations expected to be rolled out in July. Other AI features will be released on a biweekly to monthly schedule. 

Due to the popularity of AI and high impact of features, SWIPEBY has opened a waitlist for businesses interested in taking advantage of the capabilities. Those interested in joining the list can complete the form found at https://swipe.by/.

Nevaya has launched NevayaOne, the latest addition to its in-stay digital experience platform

The product’s technology removes the need to install in-room hardware or replace smart hotel TVs allowing for infinite scalability.

NevayaOne uses the cloud to offer a SaaS interactive TV and personalized guest content streaming service to hotels around the world. Brands including numa and Bob W are already using and enjoying the benefits of NevayaOne across their portfolios.

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NevayaOne gives hotels the ability to enable guests to stream their favorite apps to the in-room TV, as well as offering a fully-interactive TV platform, driving brand loyalty and promoting additional services and facilities, all fully customisable to individual hotel brands. 

The product can be installed in any hotel with no upfront costs and, in most cases, no need to upgrade existing WiFi. While other solutions may come with hidden costs, including hardware and energy costs, as well as adding to hotel staff workloads when it breaks, NevayaOne is managed remotely by Nevaya’s team, meaning that experts are always available for support. 

Hotels will also be able to understand guest behaviour better through the NevayaOne analytics portal, as well as creating intuitive and frictionless guest experiences via the NevayaAPI.

The company will continue to support its Chromecast product, which is approved by Google for use in hospitality. 

Payment request platform Prommt and a member of Oracle PartnerNetwork (OPN) has today announced it is available on Oracle Cloud Marketplace and can be integrated with OPERA Cloud via ORACLE Hospitality Integrations Platform (OHIP). This integration aims to empower hotels using ORACLE Hospitality OPERA Cloud Property Management System (PMS) to offer an enhanced streamlined payment process for the collection of advance bookings, outstanding balances/accounts receivable, and guest payments for events. In addition to this, it will help reduce card fraud and chargebacks, as well as payment operations and card processing costs, while providing rich reporting and alerting capabilities, enabling any potential problems to be addressed quickly.

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Prommt is an innovative paytech solution that is revolutionising the way enterprises request, collect and report remote customer transactions with the ability to send secure, branded payment link requests to their customers. Customers can pay by card or bank, with confidence. Oracle Cloud Marketplace is a centralised repository of enterprise applications offered by Oracle and Oracle partners. By integrating Prommt to a hotel’s ORACLE Hospitality OPERA Cloud PMS system, reservation staff can easily send payment requests, directly from the platform, providing the payer with a 3D secure checkout. The system will then update the payment status once it has been processed by the hotel’s payment gateway, all of which is managed by the Prommt platform. 

Prommt is already integrated with many of the world’s leading payment gateways and utilised by hundreds of hotels across Europe, including many 5-star properties and resorts. It is also PCI Level 1 compliant, adhering to GDPR and UK Data Protection Act 2018 as well as other local regulations.

A large majority of hotels take payments over the phone, leaving them susceptible to fraud, particularly when sensitive card details are transmitted and stored insecurely. Recent studies estimate that up to 86 percent of total chargebacks could be cases of intentional or unintentional friendly fraud and that 49 percent of guests who cancel travel bookings and other reservations do so through chargebacks. Prommt’s secure pay-by-link offering integrated with OPERA Cloud via OHIP will help hotels to mitigate against this and boost their profitability whilst simultaneously ensuring their customers’ sensitive banking information is secure.