GauVendi is advancing its disruptive approach to rethinking inventory, which has already been successfully implemented in the GauVendi Sales Engine, towards an open, feature-based inventory platform.

GauVendi started in 2020 with an innovative AI-driven booking experience that provides accommodation providers with a comprehensive solution for hyper-personalized sales and fulfillment automation. It was mainly deployed as a stand-alone solution. With this evolution, accommodation businesses and technology providers can now explore new avenues in sales, distribution, operational efficiency, and marketing of inventory. They benefit from highly automated processes without major system overhauls.

"We aim to offer every operator the opportunity to distribute their inventory in a scalable manner, much like it was previously only possible through personal sales - and all of it fully automated," says Markus Müller, CEO, and co-founder of GauVendi. "With the open API interface, all technology providers can now sell relevant and customizable inventory through their platforms. Our solution acts as an additional layer integrated into the existing tech stack, enabling differentiated sales and automation without significant changes to the current system landscape," adds Müller.

GauVendi's platform is the only one worldwide that provides a feature-based language and a dynamic product management system with its approach. The open API approach ensures seamless integration with other technology providers. Feature-based inventory can be transformed into relevant and tailored accommodation products using the AI recommendation model. The result is a transparent guest experience right from the booking process and significant time savings during reservations through intelligent and optimized room assignments.

The newly established inventory management platform and the associated new products and solutions were developed based on experiences gained from implementing the Sales Engine with existing hotel customers, their achieved results, and the acquired data. The new data structure enables the introduction of advanced automation possibilities, including dynamically optimized and intelligent room assignments using AI (Reinforcement Loops), going far beyond the largely manual and limited assignments used until now.

In today's era of personalization, the data structure in the form of categories for inventory management has proven to be inadequate. It lacks information about individual room features in data formats, making it challenging for operators to fulfill guest requests without significant manual and operational efforts. Any inquiry about specific room characteristics is handled offline and requires manual processing. Monetizing these features is also not possible, and the lack of personalization reduces the competitiveness of accommodation businesses compared to others.

Müller adds, "These problems are a thing of the past with the use of GauVendi. The results our customers achieve with our current solution validate this: significant increases in room revenue, considerable time savings through new automation features, a reduction in phone and email inquiries, and better guest reviews and check-in experiences."

Brera Serviced Apartments has drastically reduced workload and ensured optimal pricing by transitioning to automated real-time rate control with SIHOT and IDeaS. 

With a continuously growing portfolio of apartments, manual pricing and restriction control was leading to challenges for the Brera team in maintaining profitability and optimizing operations amid expansion. Benefitting from the direct two-way integration between SIHOT.PMS and IDeaS RMS, Brera Serviced Apartments now has visibility of future demand for more strategic decision‐making.

The integration between SIHOT and IDeaS has transformed the approach for Brera, with SIHOT.PMS delivering in-depth data and IDeaS' revenue management system (RMS) providing pricing agility, enabling the accommodation business to swiftly react to changing market conditions. 

“Due to the industry's rapid growth, manual pricing is no longer an effective or reliable strategy. The effect of our investment has been cumulative, as our hotels are recording higher rates while taking a hands‐off approach to setting them," said Amelie Nussdorfer, Revenue Manager at Brera Apartments.

Through the integration, Brera gains a deeper understanding of customer behavior to recognize demand patterns, contributing to more effective marketing strategies and personalized guest experiences. The Germany-based serviced apartment company is now able to define more specific market segmentations, at a granular level, and dissect each segment's performance to understand where revenue is attributed. 

By automating manual tasks, Brera manages its rates more effectively, balancing the need to attract long-stay guests while capitalizing on short‐term booking opportunities and high-demand periods, and the  team are able to redirect their time to strategic initiatives, resulting in a more efficient use of resources. 

"Thanks to our flexible platform, SIHOT can handle the different rate structures offered by IDeaS and provide the data needed to work with them. The integration of SIHOT and IDeaS has brought about a fundamental change in how the Brera team handles data," said Carsten Wernet, Chief Executive, SIHOT. "Brera has now automated manual and labor-intensive data management tasks, increasing efficiency and providing them with actionable insights. We're continually exploring with our partners how we can further improve the efficiency of our PMS data to help our hotel customers maximize their commercial potential.”

365Villas, the vacation rental management software provider, has launched WhatsApp as the most recent addition to its unified messaging capabilities for professional property managers. 

WhatsApp joins a full suite of direct and channel-based communication tools available through the 365Villas Integrated Communications Manager, including Airbnb Messenger, SMS, as well as direct and channel-based email. It means property managers don't have to log into separate platforms to view and send WhatsApp messages, including automated communications around bookings, pre-arrival messages, and check-out reminders. 

The addition of WhatsApp will also help property managers overcome the problem of being unable to harvest the email addresses of guests who book through channel managers, whose obscuring of email addresses often limits the ability to communicate with guests about their current booking, and follow-up regarding future stays. Property managers will now be able to ask for this information from within the guest messaging tool. The use of WhatsApp will also aid guest communication in countries like Thailand, Bali, India, and Brazil, where email use is much less common. 

The unified inbox leverages the same integrated architecture implemented across the platform, which means small actions by property managers trigger many more automated tasks across the workflow, saving time and resources. 

With meticulous software development methodology, each action a property manager undertakes sparks a chain reaction of connected processes, revolutionizing the property management experience and delivering productivity gains of up to 300%. 

Dave Payette, founder and CEO of 365Villas, said: “Our unique approach to integrating email and other communication mediums with the rest of your business workflow means more tasks can be automated and managed simultaneously than legacy platforms. This saves our customers time, eliminates costly errors, and ultimately improves their service quality and response times, with the end result being a better experience for guests.”

For more information on 365Villas full suite of integrated solutions for vacation rental property managers, visit www.365villas.com 

Global research* commissioned by communication technology company Communications Specialist Ltd, reveals that senior executives at high-end, luxury hotels expect the sector to make more use of technology to help reduce costs and improve the overall customer experience.

Over the next five years, some 94% of those interviewed expect hotels to make more use of virtual tours to develop a digital environment for people to picture themselves in – 32% anticipate a dramatic increase in their use.  When it comes to the sector’s use of QR codes, 30% of those interviewed expect a dramatic increase in the hotel sector’s use of them, and 68% anticipate a slight rise.

Around 86% anticipate an increase in the hotel sector’s use of apps available to guests to access more services (22% anticipate a dramatic increase), and 88% expect hotels to make more use of self-checkout and technology for ordering room service and paying at the dining table or bar (34% anticipate a dramatic increase in their use by the hotel sector).

When it comes to artificial intelligence chatbot ChatGPT’s impact on the hotel sector, 16% believe it will have a very positive impact on improving the overall experience of guests, and 74% believe it will have a slightly positive impact.  Just 2% think it will have a negative impact.

Kevin Buchler, Chief Marketing Officer at Communications Specialist Ltd, said: “Our research shows that many hotels are embracing the latest technology to enhance their proposition, and ensure customers have the best possible experience with them.  It has the potential to further customize customer experiences, speed up service levels and also reduce costs.”

Communications Specialist Ltd provides sales support on hotel radio communication systems as well as training, fitting and commissioning of equipment, systems amalgamation, on-site instruction, maintenance and the provision of spare parts internationally to many luxury hotels around the world.

Its team of radio system experts have more than 35 years’ experience and will support and help resolve complex network issues on-site or remotely.

* Communications Specialist Ltd commissioned the independent research agency Pure Profile to interview 50 senior executives at luxury, high end hotel chains with annual revenue of $4 billion based in Asia, Africa, Europe, the US and South America

Mexico’s Park Royal Hotels & Resorts announced its partnership with Duetto, a software as a service provider of revenue strategy solutions.

The resort specialist will onboard 11 properties onto the Duetto platform, optimizing the rates for nearly 2,000 rooms throughout Mexico, the US, Puerto Rico, and Argentina.

With more than 30 years of operations, Park Royal Hotels & Resorts is regarded as a leader in vacation experiences across the Americas. The company operates four distinct brands:

•  Grand Park Royal Luxury Resorts 
•  Park Royal Beach Resorts 
•  Park Royal City 
•  Park Royal Homestay 

The revenue leadership team at Park Royal will now optimize room rates using Duetto’s Open Pricing methodology, through its GameChanger revenue optimization application. This will enable them to price unlimited segments, channels, and room types in real-time and in line with market demand.

The team will also benefit from streamlined reporting, and easier forecasting and budgeting, through Duetto’s business intelligence tool, ScoreBoard.

“To improve when offering prices for each market segment, personalizing our discounts, and being more assertive when making a forecast are some of the values we are looking for with Duetto. We believe that there are many opportunities and together we can achieve them,” said Rafael Sandoval, Commercial Director, Park Royal Hotels & Resorts.

“The breadth of the Park Royal property portfolio, with its multiple brands, means that the team needs an intelligent revenue solution to maximize opportunities and drive efficiencies. We are delighted they chose Duetto,” said David Woolenberg, CEO, Duetto.

Duetto already partners with many hotel brands operating across Latin America, including Grupo Posadas, Grupo Hotelero Santa Fe, and RCD Hotels.

Atira Hotels, one of the hotel industry's top hotel management, hotel investment and hotel development companies, has partnered with DailyPay–the leading provider of on-demand pay. Through the partnership, Atira Hotels adds the financial wellness benefit of DailyPay to its robust employee benefits package, providing employees the opportunity to access their earned pay as they earn it to pay bills, spend, save, or invest on their own schedule.

“Our employees are the backbone of our operations and it’s always our priority to provide them with as many resources as they can to be their best selves both in and outside of the workplace,” said Hanan Neau, Director of Human Resources at Atira Hotels. “Adding DailyPay to our employee benefits package was essential in providing a powerful financial wellness benefit.”

Based out of Chicago, Illinois, Atira Hotels operates over 20 franchise brands in 10 states across the United States, including Hampton Inn, Courtyard by Marriott, and TownePlace Suites. Atira Hotels prioritizes employee well-being to provide its guests with the best customer experience. Among its many employee benefits, Atira Hotels offers on-demand pay, financial education, 401(k) match, medical, dental, and life insurance plans, and an employee hotel discount.

According to a recent DailyPay user survey, 48% of users say they are more motivated to remain with their current employer because they offer DailyPay. More so, 67% of users say DailyPay has helped them reduce financial stress.