Cendyn, a global hotel technology and services company, has teamed up with Glowing, a provider of omnichannel messaging solutions, to revolutionize guest communication for hoteliers. This collaboration aims to streamline and enhance how hotels interact with guests by integrating various messaging platforms into a single, cohesive system.

In today's digital age, guests use a wide array of messaging platforms such as WeChat, Line, WhatsApp, Telegram, Messenger, and Skype. Effective communication through these preferred channels is essential for hotels to engage guests more deeply. Statistics show that such engagement can lead to a 98% read rate for messages and up to ten times higher redemption rates for promotions.

The integration of Cendyn's Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system with Glowing's messaging platform ensures that every guest interaction, regardless of the messaging platform, is synchronized with the guest's profile in Cendyn CRM. This enriched profile allows hoteliers to build stronger relationships with their guests and execute more targeted marketing campaigns. Personalized communications and offers can be delivered seamlessly, enhancing the overall guest experience.

Chris Egan, Chief Product Officer at Cendyn, highlights the power of this integration: “Integrating Glowing’s platform with Cendyn CRM empowers hoteliers to communicate more effectively, tying every message back to their unified guest profile. This first-party data is one of the most powerful assets in today’s world as it puts hoteliers in control of how they communicate their unique products and services to every guest. It creates bespoke guest experiences, strengthening the relationship between a guest and a hotel, which almost always leads to increased revenue.”

Glowing’s platform leverages generative AI to provide tailored messaging recommendations based on individual guest preferences and past behaviors. This technology ensures that messages are crafted in the hotel's unique tone of voice and saved back to the master profile, making guests feel valued and recognized while reducing the workload on hotel staff.

Jasen Lew, CEO of Glowing, expressed excitement about the partnership: “At Glowing, we’re thrilled to announce our partnership with Cendyn, a premier brand in the hospitality space. This close collaboration represents a significant opportunity for the hospitality industry to reach new heights with the guest experience by integrating our globally recognized GenAI messaging platform with Cendyn’s comprehensive suite of products. Together, we are committed to upleveling and completing the customer journey by helping hoteliers deliver exceptional service that defines a successful guest experience.”

This partnership between Cendyn and Glowing is set to redefine how hotels manage guest communications, ensuring more meaningful interactions and ultimately driving better business outcomes. By leveraging advanced technology and a unified approach, hoteliers can now provide a more personalized and engaging experience for their guests, fostering loyalty and boosting revenue.

At HITEC 2024, Hotel Communication Network (HCN) is set to reveal AiMe, an innovative AI-powered in-room tablet that will transform the guest experience in hotels. From June 25 to 27, attendees can visit Booth #3836 at the Charlotte Convention Center to see this cutting-edge technology in action.

AiMe, the AI Concierge, allows guests to request services, communicate needs, and place F&B orders from local restaurants using natural language voice commands in multiple languages. The system uses advanced natural language processing to understand unstructured requests, translating them into actionable tasks that are seamlessly relayed to hotel service systems and staff.

A Seamless Guest Experience

AiMe provides a personalized and efficient service experience:

• AiMe: “Hello Mr. Stevens. I’m AiMe. How can I be of service?”

• Mr. Stevens: “I’d like to order lunch.”

• An ordering screen appears.

• AiMe: “May I verbally take your order or would you like to see the menu?”

• Mr. Stevens: “Yes, please take my order. I’ll have . . .”

Meals are delivered to the specified location, enhancing guest convenience and satisfaction.

Neil Schubert, HCN Product Officer and former Advisory Board member of Hotel Financial and Technology Professionals (HFTP), emphasized the importance of AiMe: “Leveraging technology for room service and service requests is not new, but existing solutions have shortcomings. AiMe addresses these by allowing guests to make requests in their preferred language directly through the in-room tablet, bypassing the front desk and streamlining the process.”

Enhancing Hotel Operations

At HITEC, HCN will highlight AiMe's capabilities, including:

• Interpreting Tone and Escalation: AiMe can recognize guest frustration and escalate requests to managers.

• Granular Housekeeper Location Tracking: Integrates with panic button platforms to provide precise locations of housekeepers in distress.

• Room Status Updates: Housekeepers can update room status via voice or typing, integrated with the hotel’s PMS.

• Replacing In-Room Electronics: AiMe eliminates the need for outdated electronics, including TVs, alarm clocks, and bedside phones.

• Personalizing Experiences: Guests can control room environments and make service requests using natural language commands.

• Broadening App Adoption: Promotes brand app usage, reaching all guests through the in-room tablet.

• Reducing Room Clutter: Eliminates printed materials and QR code table tents, providing a cleaner room environment.

Interactive Guestroom Tablet

The AI-Powered Navigator 2.0 tablet platform offers:

• Modern Interface: Netflix-inspired UI with compelling content in multiple languages.

• Immediate Content Updates: Hotel staff can update guest room devices instantly.

• High-Quality Speaker Base: Bluetooth pairable with USB A&C charging points and HD graphics. The base also functions as a voice assistant.

“We invite everyone to Booth 3836 at HITEC to see AiMe in action,” Schubert added. “This AI-powered tablet ensures 100% guest engagement, enhancing customer service and satisfaction.”

Otelier has introduced several new features and enhanced functionalities to its business intelligence software, IntelliSight, empowering leaders across the hospitality sector to make more informed data-driven decisions.

These advancements elevate IntelliSight from a traditional business intelligence tool to a modern data platform. The platform centralizes information from hundreds of sources and systems across a business in real-time, providing meaningful insights to decision-makers. Leaders in revenue management, operations, finance, and accounting now have access to deeper insights, enabling them to make smarter decisions quickly, improving overall profitability and driving efficiencies across hotel businesses.

“IntelliSight has been rebuilt on a modern, cloud architecture, leveraging best-in-class capabilities developed over several years,” says Niki Johnson, chief product officer at Otelier. “With a focus on integrations with the systems hoteliers rely on most, our team has spent countless development hours improving the capabilities, including normalizing data streams and upgrading the user interface, based on direct feedback from hotel owners and operators.”

Recent enhancements include:

1. New Data Integrations: Otelier has revisited each integration across its suite of products to ensure secure and accurate delivery of critical information. More than a dozen new integrations were built and deployed in the first half of 2024 across accounting, PMS, labor tracking, and guest satisfaction systems, enriching the breadth of data available in each Otelier product.

2. New Revenue Strategy Dashboards: Revenue teams now have a comprehensive look at performance, including dashboards that clearly display indicators like pace and pickup at the rate code, channel, and geography level. Expense data provides the ability to track revenue flowthrough and other profitability metrics. Revenue leaders can edit and create their own dashboards with advanced Power BI visualizations and filtering capabilities.

3. Integrated Data Health Center: The new data quality dashboard allows hoteliers to audit their hotel data quality, providing the ability to identify data loading issues by hotel and data source. Users will be alerted to any data delivery issues, ensuring quick resolution.

4. Partner Program: To ensure Otelier serves the right data for critical business decisions, the company has launched a partner program aimed at enriching relationships with trusted data and software providers. Jennifer Mays, a seasoned product management executive, has been appointed Senior Director of Partner Management to lead this initiative.

Simultaneously, Otelier is poised to lead a transformational shift in hospitality business intelligence powered by the evolution of machine learning and artificial intelligence. AI is a leading initiative on the IntelliSight roadmap. Through a combination of analytical AI models and generative AI, Otelier will soon enable predictive and prescriptive analytics and automation, heralding a new era in hospitality business intelligence.