At the session entitled ‘HICAP Tech Challenge: What’s hot in hotel technology?’,
five tech companies each had just five minutes to prove that their
services were solutions that hotels needed and that they would have a
positive impact on the hotels that adopted them.
According to the session's host, Siew Hoon Yeoh, editor of Northstar
Travel Group’s Web in Travel (WiT), the companies would be judged on a
range of criteria including innovation, creativity, return on investment
and user-friendliness. Any remaining time after the speakers’
presentations was reserved for questions from the judges.
Moneash Arora, CEO of Unfocus, got the ball rolling. The flexible
workforce management platform offers dynamic staff schedules that
consider guest experience but also values staff needs, especially at a
time when recruiting is a challenge in the hospitality business.
"We’re probably the oldest start-up in the room," Arora quipped as he
fielded questions far beyond the allotted time, a testament to the
interest from the judges.
Next up was FutureLog, represented by Benjamin Krieg, the company’s
area vice president Asia Pacific, who also noted that with 20 years in
the business, they were not a young start-up either.
Krieg was grilled by the judges about FutureLog’s comprehensive
procure-to-pay system ("We manage the data that helps you control
costs") that processes prices from suppliers, manages inventory for
recipes and even produces nutritional information for specific dishes.
The system is used by 2500 hotels in over 15 countries.
Jeff Karlson, chief commercial officer of iOL Pay, made a compelling
argument for solving the problem of cross-border payment fees. He
defined the company as a global merchant of reference, meaning that each
transaction is processed in the cardholder’s country of origin.
He pointed out that today’s system is "built for retail services
in-country" where the purchaser and the merchandise are in the same
place, "but for hotels, it’s simply not that way." Tokenising a hotel
reservation also addresses a series of issues from tracking and privacy.
Saikrishnan Ranganathan, CEO and co-founder of SensorFlow, uses
sensors to collect a wide variety of data to create smart hotel rooms
that manage energy use more efficiently. From thermostats to motion
sensors, balcony door detectors and room parameters that can be
controlled from a guest’s phone, SensorFlow’s solutions promise seamless
guest experiences and up to 30% savings.
The last presentation of the session was from Aiello CEO and
co-founder Vic Shen. Using an AI voice assistant with enhanced
syntactical and linguistic capabilities, Aiello’s virtual concierge is
designed to create a luxury guest experience from information about a
destination to making bookings.
The jury ultimately named SensorFlow as the day’s winner, edging out
iOL Pay. The combination of easy retrofitting, an improved guest
experience and an immediately tangible impact on the bottom line all
worked in SensorFlow’s favour.
After the win, Sai Ranganathan talked about what attending HICAP
meant to his company. "Our primary goal at HICAP is to showcase how
SensorFlow can revolutionise the hotel industry. By focusing on energy
efficiency, hotels can significantly increase their profit margins," he
said.
"One of the compelling aspects of our model is that it allows hotels
to see an immediate return on investment through reductions in operating
costs."
Hotels can choose a subscription model with fixed fees, or they can
pay a percentage of their savings. No capital up front is required.
Ranganathan was also pleased that their technology was recognised by
the hospitality world. "Winning the Tech Challenge validates that we are
on the right track and [the prize] carries significant weight as it
comes from an esteemed panel of industry leaders," he said.