Eagle Eye Networks, the global leader in cloud video surveillance, today launched V3 of the Eagle Eye Video API Platform, which is used by Eagle Eye developers, resellers, and technology partners worldwide. The new API is comprehensive, built for faster implementation of video applications by developers, and builds upon the API foundation of V1 and V2.

Since its founding in 2012, Eagle Eye has been committed to an open platform with a comprehensive RESTful API accessible by all, and extensive camera support. With the launch of API V3, Eagle Eye continues its platform investment for developers to easily create applications leveraging and integrating cloud video surveillance.

“Over the past 11 years, we have learned many lessons about what is needed in a cloud platform for broad video surveillance applications, AI, and operating at scale,” said Dean Drako, CEO of Eagle Eye Networks. “We have incorporated developer feedback, developer requests, integration needs, and large customer requirements to make V3 of our API that delivers even more.”

Eagle Eye will continue to support its V1 and V2 APIs for the foreseeable future, but recommends all new development be done on API V3.

Used by thousands of enterprise organizations across the globe, the Video API Platform and mobile and web software development kits (SDKs) bring cloud video surveillance and AI capabilities to developers for faster development and integration with video surveillance. The API allows resellers and business owners to build custom solutions. Some examples include:

• Hotel management applications integrating video surveillance for accessibility and business management.
• Entrepreneurs developing applications and launching their business on the Eagle Eye Video API Platform speeding their time to market.
• AI experts integrating their AI analysis for customers to obtain their AI expertise.
• Central station software directly taking video feeds and AI from the Eagle Eye Video API Platform.

Some key benefits of the Eagle Eye Video API Platform include:

• Secure OAuth-based cloud authentication to 8,000+ IP camera models with just a few lines of code, including Axis, Bosch, Hanwha, Mobotix, IPro, Vivotek cameras
• Cloud-based AI and video analytics with a simple API call
• RTSP support for recorded and live video
• Easy media integration (HLS, RTSP, MP4)
• 2-Way Audio for bi-directional voice communications
• SDKs for faster integrations on Web, Android, iOS
• Accelerated time-to-market for integrated solutions

Modern RESTful API

Technology partners say the V3 Video API Platform offers benefits beyond technical ease of use.

“Eagle Eye’s newest Video API Platform is feature-rich and developer friendly, which streamlines even complex integrations, allowing us to bring groundbreaking new capabilities to market in record time,” said Chris Brown, CEO of Immix, a provider of central station and security platform software. “The platform also improves our ability to serve our customers and expedite the onboarding process for their customers, most notably end users with very large camera counts.”

Eagle Eye is exhibiting products and discussing initiatives that demonstrate the power of AI + Cloud for 2023 and beyond for security practitioners, resellers, and tech partners in Booth 3925 at the GSX show Sept. 11-13 in Dallas. Demos and meetings with Eagle Eye experts may be scheduled in advance using this link.

Knowland, the world’s leading provider of data-as-a-service insights on meetings and events for hospitality, reports overall U.S. meeting and event volume for August 2023 was up 21 percent over August 2022. This data is sourced from Knowland’s sales intelligence platform designed to help hoteliers build and protect a hotel’s revenue base.

Las Vegas shined among the top 25 markets with 44 percent year-over-year growth for event volume in August. The leading industry segments driving its growth were National Association and Technology. With the excitement over The Sphere at The Venetian and the Formula 1 Las Vegas Grand Prix in November, Transportation and Construction have emerged as the top 2019 comeback industry segments for 2023, with a 366 percent and 250 percent recapture of 2019 meetings and events volume year-to-date, respectively. The average number of attendees for Vegas was 439, and the meeting space used was over 12,000 sq ft.

• Year-over-yearcomparison – August 2023 event volume increased 21 percent over August 2022.
• Top five markets (by event volume growth) – Las Vegas led with National Association meetings, followed by Technology. The following four markets, Nashville, Los Angeles, Seattle, and Chicago, rounded out the top five growth markets for year-over-year volume growth. Below is additional insight into the top drivers for these markets.
  • Las Vegas: National Association, Technology, Entertainment/Media, Training/Education, Wedding.
  • Nashville: National Association, Technology, HealthCare, Manufacturing, and Training/Education.
  • Los Angeles-Long Beach: Education, Training/Education, Technology, Charity/Non-Profit, and Wedding.
  • Seattle: National Association, Technology, Wedding, Education, HealthCare.
  • Chicago:  National Association, Wedding, Technology, Education, and Healthcare
• Top markets (by percentage growth) – The top overall U.S. markets by year-over-year growth in meetings and events were Greensboro-Winston Salem, NC; Michigan South; Mobile, AL; Madison, WI; and Norfolk-Virginia Beach, VA.

About the Data: This data is provided to help hoteliers still building momentum gain insight into the top locations selected by today’s meeting planners. This information about the leading industry drivers provides a clear picture of those groups that are returning to the meeting and event space. Insights presented are a result of the analysis of meetings and events data acquired through Knowland data collection and aggregation methods, including field reporting and automated methods of customer and non-customer data collection in primary, secondary, and tertiary markets, as well as its large historical database.

Cloudbeds, a hospitality management platform powering more reservations and happier guests for lodging businesses around the globe, announced the worldwide availability of Whistle for Cloudbeds, the company’s award-winning guest communication platform.

Integrated directly with the Cloudbeds Platform, Whistle for Cloudbeds gives properties the tools to drive incremental revenue, increase guest satisfaction, streamline internal operations, and deliver more meaningful contact and customized interactions throughout the entire guest journey from discovery to post-stay.

In addition to guest messaging and communication capabilities, Whistle for Cloudbeds provides hoteliers with high-impact features that help to simplify internal workflows and increase staff efficiency, including:

Unified inbox supporting multi-channel messaging
Whistle for Cloudbeds customers can now receive and send guest messages from Booking.com and Airbnb and no longer have to log into the OTA extranet to keep track of guest communication.

Multi-language and multi-currency support
Whistle for Cloudbeds now supports multiple languages and currencies. Guests will be able to see the guestbook, digital registration card, and upsell marketplace in 29 languages and 160 different currencies. Property staff will also have the option to view and operate the platform in 11 different languages.

Multi-property support
Hotel group owners and operators can now access a centralized overview of all guest communications across their properties. Whistle for Cloudbeds customers will be able to see multiple properties’ inboxes within a single dashboard.

Whistle for Cloudbeds unlocks the opportunity for all lodging businesses to offer best-in-class guest engagement that can increase staff efficiency more than 50% and nearly double their upsell revenue.

Anthony Gutierrez, General Manager at The Pearl, a Cassetta Group hotel, says Whistle for Cloudbeds has impacted the property’s guest experience substantially. “The ease of access to support from our front desk team, the ability to request any number of things from your phone really takes a lot off of the guests’ plate. They don't have to call or come down to the front desk. It makes it a really seamless experience for them," says Gutierrez.

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