News & Stories

Milan. In Italy, analogue travellers are rapidly becoming an endangered species. OTAs and customers are using their smartphones to search for information and book transportation, but slowly the devices are also being used for payments. However, hotel receptions still play a fundamental role during holidays.

Bad Arolsen. "Our new hotels will have a digital infrastructure," Alexander Fitz said, CEO of the German H-Hotels Group. For this, the company, which today counts 60 hotels operating under six brands, has created its own "lab": a small 25-room hotel in which in-room systems are tested for their feasibility in practice. And there are some surprises. The lab is the Hotel Brunnenhaus Schloss Landau – which also belongs to H-Hotels Group and is not far away from the company headquarters in Bad Arolsen.

Macao/Berlin. The 4,000-room Sheraton Grand Macao was the reason that Stefan Renziehausen began to think about chatbots. Communication with thousands of guests in such an enormous hotel complex presented a special challenge. For this reason, he developed a Virtual Assistant, which he programmed from the perspective of the hotel – and not from that of a tech-expert. SABAGuestRequest made its début in mid-March in a large hotel in Kuala Lumpur. The VA can answer questions in six languages, take bookings and sound out guest satisfaction. Push messages make lots of things easier.

Augsburg. Innovative, funny and frightening things from the digital world. Today: AI seal of approval / Alibaba's FlyZoo Hotel / Crypto currency for trading / Chatbot on Facebook / Ghost restaurants / E-Textiles on the rise / New Deal for Consumers / Robot judge under test / US law for face recognition.

Berlin. The introduction of Artificial Intelligence and machine learning is revolutionizing jobs in the hospitality industry. Tech-savvy hotel groups are keen on innovation: At Hilton, 20% of the guests' engagement is done via chatbot today. "Automation is a triple win situation for the hotel owner, the customer and the brand," explains Sabre Hospitality Solutions convinced. Customers are ready to pay more if they get personalized service.

Berlin. a&o is part of a segment on the up – the hostel segment. As founder Oliver Winter reported last week in the hospitalityInside interview, the group nonetheless spends around EUR 6 million per year on visibility for its brand online, for instance on Google and Facebook. In the background, it also shells out six-figure sums for digitisation – for AI and algorithms, for Voice Search and Google Home. "We are ahead of our rivals," management says. The details.

Augsburg. Innovative, funny and frightening things from the digital world. Today: Amazon Go supermarket, Ctrip & hotel business, Digital university, HR administration, Hololens 2, Smartphone sales.

Paris. In the world of full-service hospitality technology providers, Accor believes it can make a difference. The French group merged Availpro and Fastbooking to create D-EDGE to make its mark in an industry where concentration has left little room for external players. Competition is fierce in this sector dominated by Sabre Hospitality, Amadeus/TravelClick, Oracle, Travel Tripper/Pegasus, Siteminder, and the like which are all scaling internationally.

Eschborn/Frankfurt. Within the context of the current acquisition of Worldhotels, it is said, among other things, that the members of the cooperation should "profit from Best Western's strong e-commerce presence". In the course of our interview with Marcus Smola, which we prepared anyway, we asked the CEO Best Western Hotels Central Europe also about digitalisation. However, it did not sound so progressive.

Frankfurt. Hotels as sales areas, co-working and digitalisation in all areas – from sales to guest experience: these are the trends that will shape the hotel and tourism industry in 2019 and beyond. Technology provider Sabre and the global consumer trends and insights experts TrendWatching have taken a closer look at these developments in a joint study.