HT-0322

PLUS: HT-NEXT Recap Hotel Visionary Awards RTN Members Tackle KPIs

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MAKING

MAGIC

HAPPEN Tech budgets are increasing — with integration, mobile transactions, and digital engagement leading the way.

SPRING 2022 VOL. 26.1 WWW.HOSPITALITYTECH.COM

COLLABORATE. CONNECT. CONVERGE.

As a member of Converge Technology Solutions, Datatrend Technologies continues to provide guest experience & data center solutions, now with enhanced capabilities in Advanced Analytics, Application Modernization, Cloud, Cybersecurity, Digital Infrastructure, Digital Workplace, Managed Services, and Talent Solutions.

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SPRIN G 20 22 Vo l . 1 6 . 1

CONTENT This month on www.hospitalitytech.com

FEAT URES & CASE ST UDIES

• 3 Best Practices for Introducing Tech into the Hotel Ecosystem

• 5 Recruiting and Retention Tips to • FIFTEENTH ANNUAL

Overcome Staffing Shortages

•

• How to Curate Your Restaurant’s

Tech Stack For Major Growth in 2022

• Video Walls: Five Considerations for Hospitality Venues

• How First-Party Data Enrichment

Supercharges Restaurant Customer Retention

• How Can Hospitality Companies Respond

C O V E R S T O R Y PAG E 8 Robert Firpo-Cappiello, Editor-in-Chief, Hospitality Technology, and Jungsun (Sunny)

to Phone Call Answer Rates Dropping?

Kim, Ph.D., Associate Professor, William F. Harrah College of Hospitality, University of Nevada, Las Vegas

EXCLUSIV E RESEA RCH

2 0 2 2 R E S TA U R A N T T E C H N O LO GY S T U DY:

Customer Engagement Technology Study: Powering Hospitality’s Recovery

MAKING MAGIC HAPPEN

What do hospitality customers really want from technology? After more than a year of disruption, the human touch — assisted and augmented by innovative solutions — is more in demand than ever. This annual report, now in its 10th year, gives an in-depth look at how consumers are redefining “value.” https://hospitalitytech.com/ customer-engagement-study-2021

Tech budgets are increasing, with integration, mobile transactions, and digital engagement leading the way.

DEPARTMENTS: 4 EDITOR’S NOTE 5 HTNG CHECKS-IN 6 NEW HORIZONS 42 RTN TABLESIDE

2022 Lodging Technology Study: Redefining the Guest Experience Our 2022 Lodging Technology Study is a mix of clearly articulated pain points — shrinking budgets, labor concerns, and the residual effects of nearly two years of a global pandemic — and an unabated enthusiasm for innovation, especially where guest-facing technology is concerned. https://hospitalitytech.com/ 2022-lodging-technology-study

32 EVENTS

39 AWARDS

Highlights from HT-NEXT 2021

2021 Hotel Visionary Awards

More than 300 hotel IT executives came together Dec. 14-16 at the Fairmont Princess Scottsdale to network, listen to educational sessions and have some fun!

This year, HT honored Choice Hotels International as the 2021 Enterprise Innovation Winner and Loews Hotels & Co. as the 2021 Customer-Facing Innovation Winner.

W W W.T W I T T E R .C O M / H T M A G A Z I N E

E-N E WS L E TTE R

The HT Alert is delivered every Tuesday and Thursday to your inbox, making it the most reliable source for IT news and trends. Manage your subscriptions at www.hospitalitytech.com

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HOSPITALITY TECHNOLOGY (USPS 0016-745, ISSN 1520-491X) is published 4x frequency per year March, June, September and December by EnsembleIQ, 8550 W. Bryn Mawr Ave., Ste. 200, Chicago, IL 60631; (973) 607-1300.

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What Does Magic Mean to You? The word magic keeps coming up here at HT. Whether we were planning our in-person Multi-Unit Restaurant Technology Conference (MURTEC), analyzing data for our annual Restaurant Technology Study, reviewing entries for award programs such as RTN’s Start-Up Alley or HT’s Top Women in Restaurant Technology and Industry Heroes, or recapping last December’s HT-NEXT conference, it became clear to us that technology is now going well beyond “surprise and delight.” Magic is our MURTEC 2022 theme, and this issue takes a deep dive into why that is.

HT’s 2022 Restaurant Technology Study: Making Magic Happen (page 8) delivers fresh, strategic insights from restaurant operators representing more than 50,000 locations and $7.7 billion in annual revenue. Although budgets remain tight, the vast majority of restaurants plan to increase spending in 2022, with an emphasis on, yes, magic: Meeting guests everywhere they prefer to order, pickup, and pay.

“Highlights from HT-NEXT 2021” (page 32) recaps our December lodging tech conference, presented in partnership with the American Hotel and Lodging Association’s HTNG. You won’t believe the experiential IoT presented by keynote speaker John Padgett, President of Princess Cruises and Chief Experience and Innovation Officer at Carnival Corp. Turn to page 39 for our Hotel Visionary Awards, presented at HT-NEXT and spotlighting two extraordinary innovators.

Read all about the Restaurant Technology Network’s new KPIs Workgroup — focused on identifying key metrics for driving innovation and ROI — and how restaurant operators and solution providers can get involved (page 42). And take a peek at HTNG’s 2021 TechOvation Award winner (page 5).

We would like to know how you define magic for your business: An unforgettable experience? A speedy transaction? Or that intangible “Wow!” factor that bridges online and off-line? As always, my digital door is open (rfirpo-cappiello@ensembleiq.com) and I look forward to hearing what you think!

Robert Firpo-Cappiello EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD

RESEARCH ADVISORY BOARD

Karen Bird CIO, HOA Brands

Mike Blake CEO, HTNG

Simon Eng VP of IT, CTF Development Nelson Garrido Senior VP Information Technology, Thayer Lodging, Brookfield Hotel Properties Michael Hassel Dir. IT, Momofuko Holdings Ted Hopcroft Vice President of Technology and Professional Services, Americas iT, Marriott

Corey Kline EVP of Technology, Noodles & Company Rocky Lucia Dir. IT, Fireman Hospitality Group Brian Pearson CIO, Mendocino Farms Sandwich Market R. P. Rama VP Technology, JHM Hotels Joe Tenczar VP, Information & Technology/CIO, Sonny’s BBQ

Natasa Christodoulidou Professor California State University Cihan Cobanoglu, PhD School of Hotel & Restaurant Management University of South Florida Daniel J. Connolly Ph.D. Professor of Business Administration Drake University Russell Dazzio Chairman, R&R Hospitality

Mehmet Erdem Assistant Professor, UNLV Hotel College

VICE PRESIDENT & PUBLISHER Abigail A. Lorden alorden@ensembleiq.com EDITORIAL EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Robert Firpo-Cappiello, rfirpo-cappiello@ensembleiq.com SENIOR EDITOR, RESTAURANTS Anna Wolfe, awolfe@ensembleiq.com SENIOR EDITOR, HOTELS Michal Christine Escobar, mescobar@ensembleiq.com SALES SENIOR ACCOUNT EXECUTIVE Katherine Ware, kware@ensembleiq.com ACCOUNT EXECUTIVE Noell Dimmig, ndimmig@ensembleiq.com EVENTS VICE PRESIDENT, EVENTS & CONFERENCES Megan Judkins, mjudkins@ensembleiq.com MARKETING VICE PRESIDENT, MARKETING & BRAND ENGAGEMENT Darren Ursino, dursino@ensembleiq.com BRAND MARKETING MANAGER Molly McLoone, mmcloone@ensembleiq.com ONLINE MEDIA VICE PRESIDENT, DIGITAL PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT & AUDIENCE Jason Ward, jward@ensembleiq.com ART & PRODUCTION EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT, OPERATIONS Derek Estey, destey@ensembleiq.com DIRECTOR, DIGITAL OPERATIONS Whitney Gregson, wgregson@ensembleiq.com CREATIVE DIRECTOR Colette Magliaro, cmagliaro@ensembleiq.com ART DIRECTOR Lauren DiMeo, ldimeo@ensembleiq.com DIGITAL OPERATIONS MANAGERS Michael Loi, mloi@ensembleiq.com Lindsay Martin, lmartin@ensembleiq.com SENIOR PRODUCTION MANAGER Pat Wisser, pwisser@ensembleiq.com AUDIENCE LIST RENTAL MeritDirect Marie Briganti 914-309-3378

SUBSCRIBER SERVICES/CUSTOMER CARE TOLL-FREE: 1-877-687-7321 FAX: 1-888-520-3608 contact@hospitalitytech.com

Lee Holman Lead Retail Analyst, IHL Consulting Jungsun (Sunny) Kim, PhD Assistant Professor, William F. Harrah College of Hotel Administration, UNLV Fred LeFranc President & CEO, Results thru Strategy Barry N. Shufeld Senior Managing Director – BNS Associates, LLC

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8550 W. BRYN MAWR AVE. STE. 200 CHICAGO, IL 60631 PHONE: +1 773-992-4450 FAX: +1 773-992-4455

CORPORATE OFFICERS CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER Jennifer Litterick CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICER Jane Volland CHIEF HUMAN RESOURCES OFFICER Ann Jadown EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT, CONTENT Joe Territo

ShiftGenius by UniFocus Crowned 2021 HTNG TechOvation Award Winner Hospitality Technology Next Generation (HTNG) crowned ShiftGenius by UniFocus the 2021 HTNG TechOvation Award Winner during the HT-NEXT 2021 Awards Program.

This awards program continues HTNG’s tradition of showcasing leading innovations in hospitality technology and recognizing hoteliers leading the industry in utilizing new technologies to revolutionize the guest experience.

ShiftGenius by UniFocus allows managers to identify staff options to fill shift needs based on rankings or groupings, including seniority, skill sets, and cross-utilization across one or multiple properties. ShiftGenius provides managers realtime visibility into availability, overtime, and other work rules as employees pick up and swap shifts.

“On behalf of the entire UniFocus team, we are honored to be selected as the 2021 HTNG TechOvation winner. We take great pride in the continual innovation we bring to workforce management for the hospitality industry during this time of in-

creasing workforce challenge issues. With an eye toward the future of workforce management and the recent acquisition of the Knowcross operational task management system, we look forward to delivering more industry firsts that empower hotel businesses across the industry with the ability to provide unparalleled guest service.”

The two TechOvation finalists were Hapi/DataTravel with product Hapi Guest, and Oracle Hospitality with product Oracle Hospitality Integrations Platform (OHIP).

Hapi Connect integrates guest data into Salesforce in real time, allowing one to innovate faster using multiple Salesforce Clouds to make more impactful guest connections along the entire journey. OHIP offers hotel operators and integrators access to all of the capabilities OPERA Cloud has to offer by allowing operators and integrators design, build and release integrations in a matter of days to accelerate time to market and reduce costs. HT

Kevin Carey (COO, AHLA); Chris Durso (National Sales Director, UniFocus); Michael Blake (CTO, AHLA); Robert Firpo-Cappiello (Editor-in-Chief, Hospitality Technology magazine) 5 • S P R ING 2 0 2 2 • W W W.H O S P I TA L I T Y T EC H.CO M

Supporting Women and People of Color-Owned Businesses Supporting another’s success won’t ever dampen yours.

Transforming the shape of the corporate world means change at every level − and that includes buying! Supporting women and POC-owned businesses makes our communities stronger and promotes equality. With only 38.2 percent of businesses owned by women and people of color, the support of a large organization can make or break their success and the positive impact they bring.

THE ISSUE: LACK OF FUNDING Women and POC-owned businesses are less likely to receive venture capital funding compared to their counterparts. According to a study

by Crunchbase, the percentage of venture capital funding received by women business owners fell from 2.8 percent to 2.3 percent in 2019. Additionally, Black and Latinx business owners received just 2.6 percent of venture capital funding in 2020.

These businesses rely mostly on consumers to keep their doors open. Buying with these businesses not only keeps them up and running, but provides jobs for women and BIPOC.

GROWING INTEREST Major brands and personalities are already advocating for more support, and bringing the lack

of funding these businesses face into the public eye. Serena Williams, a recent guest at NEW’s 2021 Leadership Summit, created an early-stage venture capital fund, Serena Ventures, and has provided funding for women and minority-owned businesses. The organization has funded more than 50 companies in a multitude of industries.

Rihanna and H.E.R have provided funding for Partake Foods, a vegan cookie company owned

by Denise Woodard. According to Forbes, Woodard is the first woman of color to raise $1 million for a food startup, and her business is scaling quickly. And designer Tory Burch has created the Tory Burch Foundation to help female entrepreneurs succeed. The foundation has already granted roughly $25 million to woman-owned startups.

THE BENEFITS ARE CLEAR Businesses built by under-represented groups offer unique goods and services created from fresh perspectives. But supporting women and POCowned businesses means so much more than a unique business opportunity − it means doing the right thing, and building a thriving network of diverse businesses around the country that offer fresh opportunities to these communities. HT

Sarah Alter is president and CEO of the Network of Executive Women, a nonprofit learning, leadership and gender equality advocacy organization of 13,500 members (representing nearly 900 organizations), 300+ national and regional corporate partners, and 22 regional groups in the United States and Canada. NEW advances gender equality and diversity in the retail, consumer goods, financial services and technology industries.

SAVE THE DATE

NOVEMBER 2-4, 2022 MERITAGE RESORT, NAPA, CA

THE INTERSECTION OF BUSINESS & TECHNOLOGY

REGISTER NOW FOR $195 WITH CODE MARAD195 Qualified restaurant operators, register for your $195 pass.

Technology solution/service providers are eligible to attend through sponsorship.

LEARN MORE AT WWW.MURTECSUMMIT.COM

PRESENTED BY

2 0 2 2 R E S TA U R A N T T E C H N O L O G Y S T U D Y

MAKING

MAGIC

HAPPEN Tech budgets are increasing, with integration, mobile transactions, and digital engagement leading the way.

BY ROBERT FIRPO-CAPPIELLO, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF, HOSPITALITY TECHNOLOGY AND JUNGSUN (SUNNY) KIM, PH.D., ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR, WILLIAM F. HARRAH COLLEGE OF HOSPITALITY, UNIVERSITY OF NEVADA, LAS VEGAS

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UNDERWRITING PARTNERS:

ACADEMIC PARTNER

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The technology to keep your dinner rush, rushing.

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• Stay up during a power outage with LTE failover.

• Use Cox Business Wi-Fi to securely gather guest analytics and connect with POS systems and cooking robots.

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Let’s connect.

Your Cox Business restaurant specialist is ready to clock in.

Michael “Micky” Barrera michael.barrera@cox.com 623-382-2981

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When Hospitality Technology began surveying restaurant operators for our 24th annual technology study last December, we immediately noticed a change from last year: an uptick in the response rate, greater enthusiasm for emerging technologies, and a significant reported increase in spending.

Our hypothesis:

After two years of disruption, we’re not the only ones expressing cautious optimism for our industry. The National Restaurant Association’s (NRA) “2022 State of the Restaurant Industry” forecasts the foodservice industry will reach $898 billion in sales this year. To be sure, adjusted for the significant rate of inflation, that’s still down by around 11 percent compared with pre-pandemic sales.

But the upward trend is most welcome, with NRA also projecting the foodservice workforce to grow by 400,000 jobs in 2022.

Here, HT’s 2022 Restaurant Technology

898B

$

The foodservice industry will reach $898B in sales in 2022.

—National Restaurant Association

RESTAURANT IT BUDGETS REMAIN TIGHT (Percentage of revenue spent on IT)

Modest Investors 21%

of IT budgets <.99% of revenue Midrange Investors

47%

of IT budgets 1% - 1.99% of revenue

13%

of IT budgets 2% - 2.99% of revenue

8%

of IT budgets 3% - 3.99% of revenue Heavy Investors

11%

of IT budgets 4% - 5.99% of revenue

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C A S E

S TU DY:

White Castle optimizes payment transactions

With a solution that matches its own passion for delivering exceptional customer experiences, White Castle brings efficiency and security to its drive-thru and beyond.

Not every 100-year-old, family-owned business embraces innovation quite the way White Castle does. But innovation is in the brand’s DNA — it launched in 1921 as the first fast food hamburger chain in the U.S. Today, the Ohio-based QSR operates more than 360 restaurants in a dozen states, and its burger-centric fare (most notably the Original Slider) has inspired a fanatical following. Innovation continues to drive the brand’s success: It launched online ordering in 2011 and an app in 2012.

The challenge of pivoting to drive-thru Because White Castle is all about what Susan CarrollBoser, Vice President of Technology, calls “creating memorable moments,” the brand faced a major challenge when the pandemic hit. “We had to drive those memorable moments to the drive-thru,” Carroll-Boser says. Pivoting to drive-thru included AI-driven initiatives such as vehicle recognition, voice recognition, and menu optimization, while, in the kitchen, a pilot program was testing out Flippy, the “robot on a rail” manning the french-fry station.

But relying on drive-thru also meant more focus on contactless card payments and other digital transactions — drive-thru customers expect payment acceptance to be nearly instantaneous. And of course consumers have concerns about cybersecurity. White Castle required a payments and security solution that satisfied the new appetite for quick and easy drive-thru transactions.

A solution that ensures efficiency & security To navigate new challenges, White Castle did not need to look further than its existing payments partner of more than 14 years, U.S. Bank Payment Solutions powered by Elavon.

“We had a chance to change platforms,” says Carroll-Boser, “but we stayed with U.S. Bank Payment Solutions. They are adaptable to whatever the current environment is, and they truly understand our brand, our size — we’re big enough to be enterprise-level, but we’re smaller than a lot of our competitors. We ‘fight

above our class,’ and our partners support us in that.”

White Castle requires speed and continuity. “We’re open 24/7, with no downtime,” says Carroll-Boser, “and digital payments, especially contactless transactions, are dominating our industry. U.S. Bank Payment Solutions keeps up with the current popular payments that customers want.” With restaurant customers eager to adopt a range of digital payments such as contactless cards, money transfer apps, digital wallets, QR codes, text-to-pay, and more, U.S. Bank Payment Solutions partners with platforms including Apple Pay and Google Pay, to test new initiatives to make sure they’re working optimally.

For White Castle, U.S. Bank Payment Solutions’ payments and security solutions deliver efficiency, ROI, and customer satisfaction. “Their solution integrates with our POS, but keeps all the PCI data control on the U.S. Bank Payment Solutions software,” says Carroll-Boser. “And U.S. Bank Payment Solutions created a backend for us so that we can reconcile transactions end-to-end.”

Solid results Thanks to U.S. Bank Payment Solutions’ innovations, White Castle has increased validated security, speed, and payment acceptance. There have been an array of recent wins: Payment processing speed is 20 percent faster. Reboot time for software updates is now down to less than a minute. Integration with loyalty via White Castle’s app is tighter than ever, allowing for the seamless uploading of customer data. And when it comes to customer experience, White Castle’s satisfaction with U.S. Bank Payment Solutions in the areas of efficiency, security, and adoption of new payment methods gets passed on directly to the “cravers” who can’t get enough.

“U.S. Bank Payment Solutions’ improvements in business continuity and processing compared with some of our peers is stellar,” says Carroll-Boser. “And they are continually making it better.”

S P O N S OR E D

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Study: Making Magic Happen delivers data-driven insights for a restaurant industry navigating health and safety, rising costs, supply delays and shortages, and hiring and retention challenges.

WHO WE SURVEYED Respondents to this year’s study represent more than 53,000 restaurant locations across the U.S. 59 percent of respondents identified their restaurants as full-service, 50 percent answered quickservice/fast-casual, and 7 percent selected restaurant management firm — with some selecting more than one of the three categories. The ownership models of respondents’ companies include independent/non-franchised restaurant operator (65 percent), franchisor (28 percent), and franchisee (7 percent).

Respondents are IT decision makers and gatekeepers.

When asked to identify their roles, respondents

1.97

%

The average restaurant IT budget in 2021 was just 1.97% of revenue, slightly down from 2% in 2020.

ALLOCATION OF IT BUDGETS

65%

Maintaining existing solutions

25%

Rolling out and implementing new solutions

10%

Research & Development

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Front of house.

Back of mind.

Elevate your customers’ dining experience with fully managed digital solutions from Hughes.

DIGITAL MENU BOARDS • GUEST WI-FI • VOIP • NETWORK SECURITY PCI COMPLIANCE • STORE NETWORK • CLOUD CONNECTIVITY

Hughes.com/MSP

48%

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reported their primary job function as IT/Technology (41 percent), owner/operator (28 percent), corporate (17 percent), marketing and digital (9 percent), and restaurant operations (5 percent).

Restaurants participating in our study represent more than $7.7 billion in annual revenue, with 9 percent reporting 2021 revenue of $1 billion+, 6 percent reporting $500 - $900 million, 9 percent reporting $100 - $499 million, 26 percent reporting $50 - $99 million, and 50 percent reporting under $50 million.

FINANCIAL OUTLOOK The best way to summarize restaurant tech’s 2022 financial outlook is: There’s room for improvement. And, our data suggests, there is also rising enthusiasm and commitment to making it happen.

The bad news, which isn’t really news at all, is that 2021 spending was tight. Most respondents (47 percent) reported that their organization’s overall IT budget for 2021 was 1 percent to 1.99 percent of their total annual revenue, followed by less than .99 percent (21 percent of respondents),

73

%

of restaurant IT budgets will increase in 2022.

HOW RESTAURANTS RATE THEIR OVERALL TECHNOLOGY COMPARED WITH COMPETITORS

Innovator

7%

Early Adopter

44%

Late Adopter Laggard

41% 7%

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2 percent to 2.99 percent (13 percent of respondents), and 3 percent to 3.99 percent (8 percent of respondents).

The weighted average of IT budget percentage in 2021 is 1.97 percent, which is slightly lower than that of the previous year. This finding indicates that companies’ overall IT budgets were slightly lower than that of the previous year, and this likely represents decreased revenue due to the pandemic, resulting in a decrease in IT-related expenses to increase profits or minimize losses.

Looking at how restaurants allocated IT budgets over the past year, we see a heavy emphasis on maintaining existing solutions, the top category at 65 percent, up from 54 percent the year before — not surprising, given tight budgets and uncertainty throughout most of calendar 2021 and a desire to get the most out of existing assets. Rolling out and implementing new solutions was next, at 25 percent (down from 31 percent the year before), with research and development holding steady year-

Only

of restaurants consider their data/analytics strategy for customer insights to be very or extremely effective.

RESTAURANTS RATE THE EFFECTIVENESS OF THEIR DATA/ANALYTICS STRATEGY (Percentage of respondents answering very or extremely effective)

Food quality/safety

48%

Menu performance

35%

Website analytics (e.g., traffic and log-ins)

34%

Promotions

32%

Pricing optimization

30%

Social media analytics

29%

Inventory/supply chain

28%

Workforce hiring, training, and retention

27%

Guest-check analytics (e.g., upselling)

27%

Customer insights (e.g., profiling/analysis)

19%

Employee productivity

19%

Sales and service prediction/optimization

19%

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Learn more at SynergySuite.com C A S E

S TU DY:

Shipley Do-nuts finds efficiency & ROI with SynergySuite As Shipley pursues aggressive growth, coordinating data and operations across hundreds of stores is essential.

Shipley Do-Nuts is growing. The Houston-based chain — founded in 1936 and wildly popular in Texas and Louisiana for its 60+ varieties of do-nuts and its savory kolaches — has experienced 26 percent unit growth since 2018. But that’s just the beginning. Currently spanning more than 330 units in 10 states, Shipley is poised to grow another 90 percent over the next five years, already expanding across the Southeast — including Maryland, South Carolina, Georgia, and Oklahoma, and expanding its presence in Colorado.

Shipley is even introducing its own brand of coffee. The brand has come a long way since its founding more than 85 years ago, when do-nuts sold for a nickel a dozen.

Of course, exponential growth can pose challenges. Upgrading the venerable brand — and its hundreds of franchisees — to the most effective technology solutions has been a game changer, says Kerry Leo, Vice President of Technology, Shipley Donuts. “We’re implementing a new POS platform at all shops, incorporating revenue management and online ordering.”

A back-of-house solution SynergySuite, a cloud-based back-of-house solution, has helped Shipley manage its growth and coordinate operations and data among company shops and franchisees. “Our franchises were fragmented, using lots of different solutions. We needed a tech partner we knew was going to be stable, a solution we could build from the ground up that was easy to use. SynergySuite allows us to quickly plug in pre-built tools and build analytics,” says Leo. Enterprise restaurant brands need a single BOH solution that offers easy, fully integrated tools. For operators at both the franchise and corporate levels, accurate, real-time data provides the information

“Enterprise restaurant brands need a single BOH solution that offers easy, fully integrated tools.” necessary for making well-informed decisions in day-to-day operations as well as big-picture strategy.

Hospitality Technology’s 2022 Restaurant Technology Study: Making Magic Happen underscores restaurants’ desire for integration, mobility, and analytics maturity. SynergySuite allows operators to leverage mobile devices for operations and training, enhancing everything from food prep to safety and compliance.

Moving forward “Our franchisees are now using SynergySuite to access data in real-time, about every 15 minutes,” says Leo. “This allows each shop to see its own P&L, to take into account labor trends and inventory, and to manage like a business. At the same time, we’re able to monitor data across units for bigger trends and business intelligence.” SynergySuite has accommodated the needs and schedules of each franchisee, turning on modules one at a time when they need to.

“SynergySuite gives us a good baseline to assess ROI — where we are, where we’re going,” says Leo. “We can now get into a customer data platform, a loyalty platform, and really understand what our biggest sellers are. We can do competitive analysis among franchisees, and segment by geographic regions.”

SynergySuite’s intelligent, integrated BOH tools have helped Shipley Do-Nuts unlock agility and efficiency as the brand enjoys rapid growth.

S P O N S OR E D

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over-year at a modest 10 percent.

But here is where things start to look up: An extraordinary 72 percent of restaurants report that their IT budget will increase in 2022, including 22 percent reporting that they plan to increase their IT budget by more than 10 percent. Only 26 percent report that their budget will not change, and only 2 percent report that their budget will decrease. In Strategy (page 16) and Investments (page 26), we take a deep dive into where those extra IT dollars may be deployed.

STRATEGY As noted above, a significant majority of restaurants plan to increase IT budgets in 2022. Our survey digs into some of the strategic goals and related factors that may be fueling budget increases.

How restaurant brands perceive themselves in relation to their peers can have an impact on goals and investments. It is noteworthy that only 7 percent of operators rate themselves as leaders when it comes to overall technology innovation, with 44 percent rating themselves early adopters — leaving nearly half of respondents feeling they are either late adopters or laggards. We see a similar breakdown when respondents were

“Top strategic goals reflect restaurants’ ongoing efforts to bring customers into the digital ecosystem and gain insights into expectations and habits.”

TOP STRATEGIC GOALS FOR TECH INVESTMENT IN 2022 (Restaurants were asked to identify their three top strategic goals)

Improve digital customer engagement

59%

Improve business analytics

41%

Improve employee productivity and retention

39%

Reduce costs

35%

Support revenue-generating opportunities

35%

Improve eCommerce/Omni-Channel

31%

Enhance payment & data security

30%

Increase and drive off-premises business

17%

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Restaurant Ecosystem

20%

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ORDER ACCURACY

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decrease in number of servers needed per shift

QUICKER TABLE TURNS min

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TOP CHALLENGES FACING RESTAURANT IT DEPARTMENTS (Restaurants were asked to identify their top three IT challenges)

Difficulty integrating with legacy systems

59%

Lack of sufficient IT budget

52%

Lack of skilled technology resources in-house

43%

Difficulty measuring ROI for technology

37%

Rising customer expectations for technology

24%

Security & privacy concerns with adoption of new technology

13%

Impact of COVID-19

13%

asked to rate themselves on other factors: In regard to using technology to aid COVID-19 safety and general cleaning practices, 59 percent rate themselves as leaders or close followers.

Regarding use of data/analytics, 50 percent rate themselves as a leader (13 percent) or early adopter (37 percent), which is slightly higher than the percentage from the previous year’s survey, 46 percent.

But in order to gain more insight into restau-

rants’ data/analytics strategies, we asked respondents to rate the effectiveness of their own strategies in several key areas. That data delivers a sobering snapshot of what we believe is one of restaurants’ most critical initiatives — leveraging a variety of data to help make predictions that

“We believe the industry is evolving toward a more expansive view of technology, one that views tech initiatives not as a cost center but as a revenue generator.”

59% of restaurants identify difficulty integrating with legacy systems as their top IT challenge.

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OFF-PREM INVESTMENTS (Percentage of restaurants who have adopted or plan to adopt in 2022)

Online ordering for pickup (13% adding for the first time)

91% 78%

Third-party delivery partnerships (6% adding for the first time) Curbside pickup (13% adding for the first time)

74%

Catering sales (8% adding for the first time)

74%

In-house delivery, also known as owned or native delivery (4% adding for the first time)

46%

Ghost Kitchens (15% adding for the first time) Drive-thru (2% adding for the first time) In-car ordering, i.e., ordering food using a platform pre-loaded in cars (6% adding for the first time)

can enhance everything from customer satisfaction to inventory, pricing, and workforce. Data/ analytics areas that restaurants consider very or extremely effective include food safety and quality, menu performance, website metrics, and promotions. But there is no area of data/analytics where more than half of operators report that high level of effectiveness. Perhaps most significantly, only 19 percent of restaurants consider their strategy for customer insights — arguably the most essential component of a data strategy — to be very or extremely effective.

We asked respondents to identify their top three strategic goals for 2022. The top two responses, improving digital customer engagement and improving business analytics, reflect restaurants’ ongoing efforts to bring customers into the digital ecosystem and gain insights into expectations and habits. While improving digital customer engagement also ranked number one on last year‘s strategic goals, improving

34% 30% 23%

of restaurants have either adopted or plan to adopt online ordering.

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ADOPTION OF TECH FEATURES THAT CUSTOMERS DEMAND (Percentage of restaurants that have adopted or plan to add in 2022)

Free Wi-Fi (4% plan to add for the first time)

87%

Ability for customers to pay via mobile device (24% plan to add for the first time)

81% 78%

Ability for customers to preview menus & nutritional information (7% plan to add for the first time)

77%

Ability for customers to order via mobile device (19% plan to add for the first time) Your restaurant offers an alternative to a paper/physical menu (9% plan to add for the first time) Cashless tipping options (13% plan to add for the first time) Your restaurant has a mobile app (19% plan to add for the first time) QR codes are provided at the table to access menus via a customer’s mobile device (19% plan to add for the first time)

business analytics has risen in importance significantly — no doubt reflecting the attitudes demonstrated in the data table titled “Restaurants Rate the Effectiveness of Their Data/Analytics Strategy” (page 16). Improving employee productivity and retention has also risen significantly as a top strategic goal, as restaurants face the most serious hiring and retention challenges in a generation.

As a counterbalance to strategic goals, we also asked respondents to identify their top three IT challenges. The top answer, difficulty integrating with legacy systems, speaks to a number of challenges, including tight budgets and the

PAY

74% 70% 69% 66%

desire to leverage existing assets to the extent possible. This is a refrain we have heard all year: Legacy and integration challenges are holding us back. Other top challenges identified by operators are really part of the same problem: lack of sufficient budget and lack of skilled technology resources.

Difficulty measuring ROI for technology was ranked a top challenge by 37 percent of respondents. We believe the industry is evolving toward a more expansive view of technology, one that views tech initiatives not as a cost center but as a revenue generator.

81% of restaurants have adopted or plan to adopt mobile payments in 2022.

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Key Takeaways OUR 2022 RESTAURANT DATA CONTAINS AN ARRAY OF INSIGHTS AND STRATEGIC CONCEPTS. HERE ARE SOME OF THE MOST IMPORTANT LESSONS.

Despite tight budgets and uncertainty, the restaurant industry is still enthusiastic and committed to implementing innovative technology.

Challenges such as legacy and integration, labor, and lack of data analytics maturity are holding many restaurants back.

As auto technology becomes even more integrated into drivers’ lives, there are opportunities for restaurants to reach customers in transit, with in-car ordering, offers, upsells, and deals.

We continue to see widespread adoption of mobile transactions, including ordering and payment, the development of mobile apps, and the ability to preview menus and nutritional information.

Guests expect magic — not just fabulous new tastes and dining experiences, but all the ways in which behind-the-scenes technology makes it all seem effortless.

INVESTMENTS We begin our exploration of 2022 investments with off-prem solutions. Over the past two years, drive-thru, curbside pick-up, and delivery have soared to the top of restaurant tech’s to-do list. For many brands, the pivot to offprem became not only a lifeline during the height of the pandemic but also a catalyst for extraordinary growth in the digital space, including contactless transactions, mobile ordering and payments, and digital engagement and data/analytics. As health and safety concerns appear to be returning back to pre-pandemic levels, we surveyed restaurant operators about their off-prem plans.

“Even a small percentage of restaurants switching suppliers represents potential millions in investment.”

The most heavily adopted solution is online ordering for pick up, but our data suggests that a significant chunk of restaurants, 13 percent, are adding for the first time.

The ranking of off-prem solutions looks very much like our data from a year ago, with solutions such as third-party delivery, curbside, and ghost kitchens remaining essential to growth. An exception is the rise of in-car ordering — as auto technology becomes even more integrated into drivers’ lives, there are opportunities for restaurants

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RESTAURANTS PLANNING TO CHANGE TECH SUPPLIERS IN 2022 POS

24%

Inventory Management

22%

Workforce Management

20%

Payment Security

17%

Kitchen Management

17%

Networking

15%

Business Analytics

13%

Kitchen display systems

11%

Contactless Payment

11%

Accounting Systems

9%

Server handheld tablets (i.e., Mobile POS)

9%

System Integration

8%

Reservations/Wait Time Systems

6%

CRM/Loyalty

6%

Mobile Printing

to reach customers in transit, with offers, upsells, and deals.

We also asked restaurants to report on their adoption of tech features that HT’s 2021 Customer Engagement Technology Study suggests are preferred or expected by restaurant guests. Free Wi-Fi, a favorite among consumers and topping our list, has been adopted by most restaurants at this point. More noteworthy is the widespread adoption of mobile transactions, including ordering and payment, the development of mobile apps, and the ability to preview menus and nutritional information — and renewed enthusiasm for QR codes to access menus and other information.

Finally, we asked restaurant operators about plans to change tech suppliers in the coming year. Data around this topic can often be a bellwether of the industry at large, and this year is no exception. As we noted above, challenges such as legacy and integration, labor, and lack of data analytics maturity are holding many restaurants back.

In this final data table, we see plans to change tech suppliers in point-of-sale, workforce

2%

24% of restaurants plan to change POS suppliers in 2022 — and another 15% plan to upgrade with a current supplier.

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“Magic is that satisfying intersection of reliability and wow that keeps us coming back for more.” management, analytics, and much more.

It is worth noting that even a small percentage of restaurants switching suppliers represents potential millions in investment.

This year’s data suggests that, despite enduring budgetary pain points, the restaurant industry recognizes that customers expect magic — not just fabulous new tastes and dining experiences, but all the ways in which behind-the-scenes technology makes it all seem effortless. Magic is that satisfying intersection of reliability and “Wow!” that keeps us coming back for more. HT

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HIGHLIGHTS MICHAL CHRISTINE ESCOBAR, SENIOR EDITOR – HOTELS

During HT-NEXT 2021, more than 300 IT executives came together to network, listen to educational sessions and have fun at the Fairmont Princess Scottsdale. The three-day event allowed many industry peers to connect with each other for the first time since HT-NEXT was last held in person in April 2019. Here are just a few highlights of some of the key sessions that took place during HT-NEXT 2021.

Scan here for in-depth coverage of all the sessions at HT-NEXT 2021!

DAY 1

The Rise of Experiential IoT Day 1 began with a highly anticipated presentation by John Padgett, President of Princess Cruises and Chief Experience and Innovation Officer at Carnival Corp.

He provided a deep dive into why Carnival Corp., specifically its Princess Cruises brand, decided to implement a brand-new set of technologies to completely redefine the guest experience aboard their ships.

During his presentation, Padgett explained in detail not only how its OceanMedallion technology works but also the company’s thought process behind its creation.

“Our cruise ship is a 160,000-ton mobile device,” Padgett explained. “We wrapped it with an operating system, and every single guest experience that exists on that ship is simply an application on that mobile device. Everything sits on a ubiquitous platform. This is completely different

More than 300 hotel IT executives came together Dec. 14-16 at the Fairmont Princess Scottsdale to network, listen to educational sessions and have some fun!

from anything that exists now in the hospitality industry because hospitality companies — for the most part — employ a variety of systems that exist in their own verticals and are not built around the guest experience.”

This shift in mindset, however, allows Princess Cruises to deliver true personalization and frictionless experiences which in turn encourages guest loyalty and larger spend. In fact, Princess has even gone so far as to add their xIoT to beaches, shuttle buses, and other on-shore spaces where their guests may go to ensure the frictionless experience continues with them wherever they travel.

“Remember,” Padgett admonished attendees, “there is no limit to the amount of information people will share with you as long as you make the experience worth it. You need to provide them with value.”

Cryptocurrency & Hospitality As cryptocurrencies gain popularity, hoteliers have been wondering what this means for the hotel industry. To get the conversation going, HT brought on stage a panel of experts to discuss this topic including: Bo Friddell, President of Sunrise Salvador; Craig Nazzaro, Partner, Nelson Mullins; David Khalif, Head of Operations, Viridi Funds and Ron Tarro, Managing Director, SalientVoice Ventures.

To begin, Friddell explained why his hotel in El Salvador accepts Bitcoin.

“When someone pays me in bitcoin, I can see

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John Padgett, President of Princess Cruises and Chief Experience and Innovation Officer at Carnival Corp., kicked off HT-NEXT.

Our cryptocurrency experts discussed how Bitcoin and other currencies could become mainstream in the near future.

all of the transactions from his wallet. I can see if a customer is brand new to our hotel and brand.

I can also see if they’ve stopped using our brand and have begun using our competitor’s brand.

This gives me the ability to then market to that customer aggressively to try and win back their loyalty,” he explained.

Plus, most guests who prefer to pay with Bitcoin also tend to spend significantly more on property, he added.

But can this form of payment work for hoteliers here in the U.S.? According to Nazzaro, the answer is complicated.

“To do what Bo is doing in El Salvador in the U.S. is possible and already being done,” he explained, “But the regulatory burden on the hospitality industry is quite large.”

For example, regulators in the U.S. view cryptocurrencies in a myriad of different ways. The IRS views it as a property and taxes it as such, the SEC as a security, and the CFTC as a commodity. This can make it extremely difficult for companies in the U.S. to want to do business in cryptocurrency.

Plus, there are some strict regulations that vary state to state in how companies can pay employees in cryptocurrency. In many states, companies are not allowed to pay more than 25 percent of a staff member’s wages in cryptocurrency. And in many other states, you can’t pay a staff’s wages in cryptocurrency at all, Nazzaro added.

issues facing Choice Hotels and the hospitality industry as a whole.

“The hospitality industry is being attacked at an alarming rate, and it’s only accelerating,” Stead explained.

According to Stead, there are a few key ways that hotel brands are becoming compromised.

The first is email phishing scams that contain malicious attachments or links.

“Just last week we saw a brand new version of this, where hackers are actually breaking into a vendor’s email system, finding an email chain to a hotel that discusses payment for some service or product, and sending a follow up email that contains some type of fake invoice or a malicious link to compromise the hotel’s systems,” Stead explained.

Internet facing remote desktops that are not protected via a firewall and companies that rely too heavily on VPNs – many of which have major flaws – are two more ways that companies can easily become compromised.

“A lack of multifactor authentication is another major issue facing many brands today,” Stead added. “If you aren’t using that across the board today, you need to start now. Once we added MFA, we were able to solve a lot of security problems within our organization.”

Cybersecurity: A Franchise Differentiator During an fireside chat, Jason Stead, Senior Vice President, Chief Information Security Officer for Choice Hotels International sat down with Patrick Dunphy, VP, Technology & Information Management at AHLA to discuss cybersecurity

ForWard @ HT-NEXT: Women at the Top The last session of Day 1 was a hit with attendees who listened to four hotel tech executives discuss how they’re working to improve diversity and encourage females in hotel technology within their own organizations.

Dayna Kully, Co-Founder, 5thGenWireless, moderated this panel and asked panelists how the industry can encourage more women to choose the

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Deborah Gilboa, MD, kicked off the second day of HT-NEXT by discussing work stress and how to retain employees.

Attendees learned how some hotel tech industry executives are helping promote divirsity within their companies.

hospitality technology industry as a career.

Kathy Hatala, Director of Sales, Blueprint RF, discussed the importance of doing outreach to females attending colleges nearby and creating mentoring programs with these students. Benefits to this approach include: mentees often have jobs waiting for them as soon as they graduate, and executives are kept up to date on the most innovative technologies within their industry.

Page Petry, Principle, PD Petry Consulting, added that there is a need to educate young females on hotel technology careers even before they get to college, aiming to connect with students when they’re in high school.

Kully then turned the conversation to the recruitment process itself, asking her panelists how hoteliers can recruit a more diverse group for IT careers.

Jeff Bzdawka, CEO, Knowland shared a very real problem his company just recently faced.

“Since joining the company as CEO a few months ago, we’ve hired 12 new people, but not a single female applied for any of our open positions. ... It really has made us look at how we’re recruiting applicants to ensure we get a more diverse group,” Bzdawka said.

When Bzdawka took a look at their own recruiting firm, he found that it was a 100 percent white male firm.

“That’s a problem,” he noted. “Since discovering that, we added a female-led recruiting firm because we believe our recruiting partners need to have the same values as us.”

and painful stressors facing the hospitality industry and how employers can retain staff members.

Gilboa noted that the reason why people stay at their job — even if the job isn’t the best fit, doesn’t pay the most money, etc. — is because of the people they work with and the people they work for. So, if employers want to retain staff they need to create excellent relationships between managers and staff.

To help attendees do this, Gilboa provided some important strategies for managers to follow.

First, ask employees “How are you?” and then take the time to really listen to their response.

Second, learn how to properly respond when a team member expresses their honest opinion: express gratitude, use empathy and find a way to tie your response to the company’s mission.

To tie it all together, Gilboa recommended a response along the lines of: ‘Thank you for telling me how you’re feeling. You’re struggling and I can see that. Remember, our mission as a company is X, so let’s brainstorm ways we can accomplish our mission while solving this problem.’

DAY 2

The Prescription for Recruitment, Retention and Recovery Day two of HT-NEXT opened with Deborah Gilboa, MD, talking with attendees about the persistent

IT Leadership Panel: Tech Initiatives That Drive Revenue Gilboa was immediately followed by the IT Leadership Panel, a perpetual favorite of HT-NEXT attendees. This year’s panel featured Dan Kornick, CIO, Loews Hotels & Co.; Brent Haines, VP of IT Product Development and Services, G6 Hospitality and Ramki Srinivasan, CDO and SVP Digital, IT and Contact Centers, Great Wolf Resorts, and was moderated by Robert Firpo-Cappiello, Editor-inChief of Hospitality Technology magazine.

Some key pieces of information to come from their discussion included: Srinivasan noting that at one point Great Wolf Resorts was short 2000 employees. To help engage

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A perpetual hit with attendees, the IT Leadership Panel offered attendees key insights into how Great Wolf Resorts, Loews Hotels & Co. and G6 Hospitality are using tech to benefit their brands.

Attendees packed the room to hear how they can use their technology expertise to help organizations like ECPAT-USA and the FBI stop human trafficking.

with and hire staff, the brand allows prospective staff members to apply for jobs via text messaging.

“Our workforce is made up of younger kids for the most part,” he explained. “We need to be where they’re at. They don’t have time to fill out an application on a computer so we made it easy for them. Plus, all of our training is digital and online for this same reason.”

Kornick revealing that Loews Hotels moved all of its on-property systems to the cloud approximately two years ago and shut down its data centers.

“We used to not update our systems for years,” he said. “Now we do it monthly and sometimes even weekly. That has been really important to us because it allows us to focus on driving the guest experience and revenue.”

In the future, Loews is focused on how it can harvest guest data from siloed systems and then bring that data together in meaningful ways.

Haines discussing the importance of the user interface not just for guest-facing applications but for applications being used by owner operators. For example, the company implemented a new RMS approximately five years ago but only 40 percent of owner operators were using the system to its full potential. After feedback revealed that owner operators didn’t find the RMS to be user friendly, G6 Hospitality redesigned it.

“We went from a worksheet view to a calendar view and created some templates and simplified the workflow to be more of a guided process which allowed our owner operators to leverage some more of the complex capabilities of the system. Within 45 days of the new user interface rolling out, our adoption rate of the RMS went up to 80 percent. We consider that a real success story.”

with an amazing group of panelists brought together to discuss how technology could be used to help stop human trafficking from happening within hotels.

Larry Birnbaum, Principal Consultant, Xenios Group, moderated the discussion with panelists Robyn Conlon, Partner, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Lori Cohen, Chief Executive Officer, ECPAT-USA and Rosemarie Vesci, FBI Supervisory Special Agent, U.S. Government.

Birnbaum then asked the panelists what they thought hotel technologists could do to prevent trafficking from happening on their properties.

Conlon discussed the need for hoteliers to develop a risk assessment for each of their properties. Hoteliers can use external data sources such as social media layered with internal data sets such as the CRS, training, observations, guest Medallia systems, etc. to paint a profile of each hotel property and discover which properties are likely to be at higher risk for human trafficking.

“For example, do you have hotel properties that are close to an airport, have easy access to a highway, have high turnover in property managers, have a large amount of staff that haven’t been trained on the signs of trafficking, etc.,” she explained.

Vesci added that the need for accurate and detailed records is critical for the FBI to bring these cases to trial and get traffickers incarcerated.

“Traffickers might make the reservation under one name but check-in under another. Or they use a trafficked person to reserve the hotel room.

The FBI needs phone numbers, copies of driver’s licenses, and more to ensure we can prosecute the right person,” Vesci explained.

She also begged attendees to improve video camera footage in hotel lobbies, hallways, elevators and more.

How Can Technology Stop Traffickers?

Attendees of the day’s third breakout were met

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Day 3 of HT-NEXT began with AHLA CEO Chip Rogers moderating a panel of CEOs from Apple Hospitality, REIT, Best Western Hotels & Resorts and Choice Hotels International.

Jason Stead, SVP, CISO for Choice Hotels International spoke with Patrick Dunphy, VP, Technology & Information Management, AHLA on cybersecurity issues facing his brand and the hospitality industry as a whole.

“I can’t tell you how often hoteliers are using low-quality cameras which prevents us from being able to identify perpetrators or their victims,” she noted.

Cohen also asked technologists to look into transactional details as a way to signal red flags to hotel staff. For instance, is someone reserving multiple rooms next to each other and also requesting that they be on the ground floor or next to a stairwell? Are they paying cash for the rooms? Do they refuse housekeeping but are constantly requesting new linens and towels?

Are they asking for a lot of additional key cards?

All of these details, especially when combined together, could indicate something nefarious is happening in those rooms. If technologists are able to create a system that could keep tabs on these types of details and then report it to hotel staff or management, this could be extremely helpful.

guest loyalty to their predictions for 2022. Staffing and labor shortages yielded some thoughtprovoking comments from the panelists.

Pat Pacious, CEO, Choice Hotels International, began with the question that is on everyone’s mind: “Where are the workers?” According to Pacious, some analysts are predicting that the labor force participation rate might return back to the 1970s as many individuals choose to take early retirement and more women stay at home permanently to take care of their family.

“If this comes to pass, the labor strain could be around for quite a while,” he noted. “So it comes down to automation. What can we automate to help out the staff we do have on property?”

Pacious gave the example of on-demand housekeeping. While the guest adoption rate is north of 80 percent, the company still needs to find a way to tie these on demand requests (or lack thereof) into software so that managers and owners can plan ahead for how many housekeepers will be needed on any given day.

Justin Knight, President & CEO, Apple Hospitality, REIT, agreed, noting that his company — and the industry at large — is competing with Amazon and other large retailers for workers. So, Apple Hospitality is using online channels to find people either via social media or online recruiting.

For Larry Cuculic, President & CEO, Best Western Hotels & Resorts, one of the hardest parts is overcoming the “bad reputation” the industry acquired during the pandemic.

“At its worst point, our industry lost 3 million jobs, and we’re still down 1.5 million. What we’ve found is that when our current employees recruit friends and family members to work at our hotels, we have much higher retention rates. That means that we have to help our hoteliers learn how to be an employer of choice for which consumers want to work,” he added. HT

HT-NEXT Awards: Hotel Visionaries + TechOvation Live Competition Day 2 ended with HT-NEXT’s ever-popular awards ceremony! To read about the TechOvation Competition and who won, head over to page 5. Hospitality Technology also used this time to announce the winners of its 2021 Hotel Visionary Awards: Choice Hotels International won in the Enterprise Innovator category while Loews Hotels & Co. won in the Customer-Facing Innovator category.

DAY 3

Real-Time CEO Perspectives The final day of HT-NEXT kicked off with an amazing panel of hotel CEOs from Apple Hospitality, REIT, Best Western Hotels & Resorts and Choice Hotels International. The panel was moderated by Chip Rogers, CEO of AHLA. Rogers talked with panelists on a variety of topics, from

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2021 HOTEL VISIONARY AWARD WINNERS Every year, HT honors a select group of lodging companies for outstanding achievement in delivering technological excellence. This year, HT was proud to honor Choice Hotels International as the 2021 Enterprise Innovation Winner and Loews Hotels & Co. as the 2021 Customer-Facing Innovation Winner.

2021 ENTERPRISE INNOVATION WINNER: CHOICE HOTELS INTERNATIONAL In 2021, Choice Hotels launched a new revenue management system called ChoiceMAX to help franchisees optimize their pricing structure and increase revenue production. ChoiceMAX automatically and continuously adapts to changes in the market using real-time data to ensure hotels are always priced competitively.

Additionally, the product’s mobile-first, userfriendly platform gives franchisees the power to access the information they need to make decisions from anywhere. Furthermore, as labor shortages continue to impact the hotel industry, ChoiceMAX helps free up owners’ time to focus on running their hotels and filling critical positions while maximizing ROI. Some of the key capabilities of ChoiceMAX include: an optimization window of 365 days, rates that are updated four times per day, competitor shopping two times per day, customizable real-time alerts, and automated delivery and implementation of pricing decisions.

To date, 93 percent of pricing recommendations from ChoiceMAX have been accepted by properties and the reception of ChoiceMAX among franchisees has been overwhelmingly positive.

2021 CUSTOMER-FACING INNOVATION WINNER: LOEWS HOTELS & CO. In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Loews Hotels & Co. accelerated the implementation of a variety of guest-facing technologies, all housed within a guest portal.

The portal provides guests with a variety of amenities. For instance, guests can opt in to a “Chat Your Service” program which allows guests to communicate via text message with the hotel’s on-property team. The portal provides guests with the option of ordering food from more than 40 different outlets for delivery or pickup, and it has become the replacement for all traditional paper-based materials such as the in-room compendium, dining menu, outlet menus, arrival details, and more. Guests have complete access to this portal without ever needing to login.

Instead guests can access it via the Wi-Fi landing page, the in-room television, a QR code found in the guestroom or at front desk, or a key packet insert. It is also texted to all guests after they check-in at the PMS. Since implementation, more than 70 percent of guests opt-in to the guest portal. Food orders through the portal has helped compensate for a lull in restaurant reservations due to the pandemic. In fact, this aspect of the portal accounts for more than 50 percent of all mobile orders and has brought an increase in revenue of more than $200k in 2021 alone. HT

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By Anna Wolfe, Senior Editor - Restaurants

Restaurant Technology Network’s Newest Workgroup Tackles KPIs The greatest minds in the restaurant technology industry are working together to define these standards.

There’s a seat for you at the table!

Restaurant Technology Network (RTN) has launched a new workgroup to identify, collect and catalog Restaurant Technology Key Performance Indicators (KPIs).

RTN Workgroups are where tech vendors and restaurants work together to solve common industry problems. Last year, the RTN workgroups released the Open API Framework and the Menu Synchronization Standard. Both are available online.

The RTN KPI workgroup is working to identify, collect and catalog technology KPIs for restaurants to best align with today’s priorities and tomorrow’s possibilities.

Below, some of the members of the RTN KPI workgroup explain how this initiative will help all restaurants and share some of the areas that are ripe for standards.

The Need for Standardized Metrics “There are currently no standards for KPIs, and while large enterprises have the ability to create KPIs for themselves, smaller companies could benefit from a library of predefined metrics,” said Christoper Sebes, Partner, Results Thru Strategy.

“Many small business owners may not know where to start or how to define KPIs. As employee and consumer expectations continue to rapidly evolve and flex, this is the perfect time for our industry to align on key metrics that result in real-life actions that benefit restaurants of all sizes and types,” said Ben Pryor, Head of Innovation, SpotOn.

Labor “As the restaurant industry labor force continues to shrink and change on a fundamental level, some of the most complex and dynamic KPIs will fall under the labor category.

Whether we focus on rising wages, turnover ratios, or labor cost, the ability for operators to glean real insights as rapidly as possible will be critical to staying ahead of the everchanging tide of regulations and market shifts,” said David

Dittenber, CEO of BYOD.

Leading Indicators “I am excited about leading indicators, which are variables that can help identify long-term trends and possibly predict successful future outcomes of business processes,” said Phil Crawford, CTO of CKE Restaurants.

Marketing “How restaurants recruit and retain customers is undergoing a dramatic shift in the age of food delivery, third-party ordering apps and social media. I’m excited to dive into marketing KPIs, as what may have been tried and true in the past could be completely different today,” said David Gosman, Global Industry Strategist, HP.

Future Metrics “KPIs have been around since we have been consuming data. Some of them are perfect in their simplicity, and others may be incomplete or misleading, because they didn’t account for a data set that didn’t exist last year. I am excited to be a part of this workgroup that will challenge the normal and seek to navigate better business decisions in this tumultuous sea of data,” said Joe Tenczar, Co-Founder, Restaurant CIOs. “While restaurants share many common operational processes, each brand has its own unique way of defining itself in the eyes of the customer. As such, I encourage operators to participate. There is so much that we can learn from each other,” said Tim Tang, Director, Hughes. HT

All restaurants and RTN vendor members are welcome to attend upcoming meetings on alternate Thursdays at 11 a.m. Central. Register to join this important workgroup by scanning the QR Code or sign up here: https://tinyurl.com/mr2n6bb3

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