Unveiling Innovation: Highlights from HITEC’s 2024 E20X Competition
Startups Showcased at Hotel Technology Forum in November!
Love a good startup story? You’re in luck! This year, Hospitality Technology will be hosting a Startup Super Session at Hotel Technology Forum! Our Startup Super Session brings together a handpicked selection of startups to present their cutting-edge products and services. Curated for their ingenuity and impact, these brands will showcase the most exciting new concepts in technology. This session is a must-attend for anyone looking to stay at the forefront of innovation! Register now!
Every year, HITEC's Entrepreneur20X (E20X) competition shines a spotlight on the exciting world of hospitality technology startups. These ambitious companies present their innovative ideas to a diverse audience and a panel of judges, including hospitality CIOs, angel investors, and industry experts. Startups play a crucial role in driving industry innovation, making it essential for hotel IT executives to stay informed about the latest advancements. At Hospitality Technology, we're excited to share our insights from meeting and interviewing this year's E20X participants, highlighting the new technologies that are capturing the industry’s attention and shaping the future of hospitality.
People's Choice Award: H2O Connected
A new water-saving technology for hotels has emerged, designed to tackle the hidden issue of toilet leaks, which can severely impact both costs and guest satisfaction.
"Hoteliers have a lot of toilets,” said Susan Springsteen, President. “Until we came along, they really didn't have the ability to identify, detect, diagnose, and quantify all the different ways a toilet can waste water and sabotage their net operating income."
H2O Connected offers hoteliers an IoT device that installs in toilet tanks within seconds without any tools and remains out of sight. It detects various types of leaks, sends urgent alerts to maintenance staff, and generates weekly work orders. In fact, the technology is so specific, it will tell maintenance which room number has a leaking toilet, which part is broken within the toilet, how much water the toilet is wasting per day, and what tools/parts maintenance needs to bring to be able to fix it.
And with its user-friendly dashboard accessible via smartphones or PCs, hotel management can easily monitor and manage water usage. The system promises a positive return on investment within 11 to 14 months, demonstrating significant savings and efficiency.
“Hoteliers have a multiple challenges and problems they have to manage every day, and the waste of water and the unnecessary, huge operational expense that generates doesn't have to be one of them. It's an easy fix!”
Judge’s Choice Award: Folio
Folio, the “Amazon for hotels,” is a modern procurement platform that allows hotels to link up their existing suppliers, order supplies, and process invoices, says Kate Adamson, Co-Founder. Unlike traditional methods, Folio is supplier agnostic and aims to streamline the procurement process for hotel operations.
The idea for Folio originated from the founders' experience working in hotel lobbies. They observed inefficiencies in how hotels managed restocking and inventory, which often involved desktop systems and paper checklists. Folio aims to address these issues by providing a mobile-friendly solution that allows staff to place orders from their phones, offering convenience and flexibility.
"The main difference between us and an industry standard is that they punch out into various websites. We centralize all your catalogs, so you can price and product compare across suppliers," Adamson explains.
While Folio aims to make the procurement process easier for the business, it has the added benefit of addressing the labor shortage within the industry. How so?
“Instead of always recruiting, hoteliers can focus on retaining employees. By making their lives easier, and their job easier, the most talented employees will want to stay,” she adds.
Affixify is a tech selection platform for hoteliers designed to streamline the tech selection process for hotels. Affixify allows hotels to log into the platform for free and build a comprehensive requirements list, including a list of integrations they require from the vendor. Affixify then uses an algorithm to match hotels with the best vendor options based on their specific needs.
“Affixify will actually show what percentage match the vendor is to the hotel based on their requirement list,” says Jasmine Seliga, Founder and CEO. “This is really important because it gives hoteliers a starting point for their vendor selection process, which has historically been a common pain point for hoteliers. On the flip side, vendors have been frustrated for a long time because they pour so much time, effort and money into marketing and don’t get back any qualified leads. So, Affixify helps them out too!”
To keep things honest, Affixify will validate all the features a vendor says they have, ensuring that hoteliers can trust that the match made by the platform is indeed a good match.
Away Together is a mobile application designed to enhance communication and engagement for hotel guests. Developed by a husband-and-wife team – Melanie Brewer, CEO and John Beuchert, COO -- and inspired by a rainy vacation experience, the app aims to improve guests' stays by offering a platform for real-time communication and updates. Guests scan a QR code upon arrival to download the app, which is white-labeled for each hotel, providing information such as pool hours, menus, and event details.
When the hotel experiences changes that will affect guests, the hotel can push those notifications out to guests and let them know: “The beach BBQ has been moved from beach one to beach three due to nesting turtles,” or “Don’t let the rain keep you in your room! We’re hosting Taco Tuesday and hide-and-seek for the kids in the hotel lobby.” Additionally, hoteliers can push notifications about activities and other upsell opportunities. For example, “We had a massage cancellation at the spa this afternoon at 2 PM. We’re offering a 20% discount to anyone who would like to take that reservation.”
The app also enables guests to connect with each other within a geofenced area, promoting safe and secure interactions, without exchanging personal contact information. For example, if guests connect at the swim up pool, they can stay in touch throughout their stay via the app. Or if a guest needs a partner or group to participate in a particular activity (tennis, golf, etc.), they can connect on the app with those on property with similar interests.
Bon App is a point of sale (POS) system designed for all types of food and beverage establishments, distinguished by its focus on both management and customer needs. The system offers management tools for accounting transactions as well as QR code ordering and payments for F&B customers.
“What makes us unique is how we’re extremely user-friendly,” says Genevieve Sykes, Co-Founder. “Most POS systems are very expensive, they take weeks to get set up, it’s complicated for employees to learn how to use, etc. Our system can be set up in 20 minutes and is very intuitive to use.”
Additionally, BonApp helps hoteliers that are looking to cut costs and increase margins. With QR code ordering, F&B outlets cut labor costs, reduce order errors, increase tipping, streamline the ordering process and reduces employee turnover. As an added bonus, it reduces fraud whether that’s from staff members stealing from the cash drawer (up to $800 a night!) or giving away menu items for free without charging friends and family.
Directful’s technology provides hoteliers with a fully autonomous AI marketing platform created for the hotel industry to enhance customer retention and reduce dependency on online travel agencies (OTAs). By integrating its AI analytics engine with a hotel’s PMS, Directful can accurately predict when guests are most likely to book. At that moment, the AI will send an automated but highly targeted text message that encourages guests to book direct with the hotel. This innovative approach ensures high engagement rates, as 98% of text messages are read within five minutes.
“A hotelier’s biggest asset is their existing customers, but hoteliers have a really hard time retaining their customers,” says Sevket Seyalioglu, Founder and CEO, Directful.com. “In 2019, it was estimated that 70% of guests would never return to a hotel they stayed at. In 2024, that number has risen to 80%. But it doesn’t have to be that way.”
Yipy is a standards management software designed to streamline the process of maintaining and auditing hotel standards. Adam Tuttle, Co-Founder, had the idea for Yippy when he began a consulting company that helped hotels better their service delivery through standards training.
“I wanted to leave my clients with a tool that would show them all the standards I had just taught to their team members and allow them to do standards testing, track employee performance, etc. But there wasn’t a solution on the market, so I decided to create one!” Tuttle explains.
Yipy offers a digital platform where hotels can import and manage various standards, including those from Forbes, AAA, brand-specific requirements or even government requirements. The software assigns each standard to a specific workflow to enable comprehensive audits and performance tracking.
Users receive real-time updates when standards change and can generate detailed reports to assess both individual and organizational performance. Yipy also has an alert system in place to notify users of new or failing standards, enhancing operational efficiency and compliance management.