Organized by EquipHotel and MKG Consulting, the Braintrust Tech and Services workshop brought together several influential figures from the hospitality industry to discuss the current and future challenges of the sector. Georges Sampeur (Chairman of the Boards of Pierre & Vacances, Center Parcs & B&B Hotels), Mak Abdelkafi (Senior Sales Director at Mews), Maxime Letessier and Benoît Piel (Co-founders of Korner Hotels), and Greg Naidoo (Chief Evangelist & Development Officer at Mews) shared their experiences and insights on technology, customer relationship management, and the challenges of productivity and recognition.

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Georges Sampeur, Chairman of the Boards of Pierre & Vacances, Center Parcs & B&B Hotels: Rethinking Revenue Management and Customer Recognition

Georges Sampeur posed the provocative question: does revenue management kill "Return Management"? According to him, many current tools, strictly focused on sales optimization, fail to value the customer relationship. These transactional solutions maximize revenue but overlook who is behind each transaction. This purely technological approach, centered on the business's needs, creates tension with the customer, who often feels neglected and unrecognized.

For Georges Sampeur, priority must be given to customer recognition, an essential element for fostering loyalty. The real driver of loyalty is not price but the ability to understand and anticipate customers' specific needs. "The main reason a customer stays loyal is the recognition of their needs and expectations," he emphasizes. Georges Sampeur sees artificial intelligence as having potential to improve this recognition, but only if it is used with genuine care for the customer.

Regarding new technologies, he reminded the audience that hotel teams have often been excluded from technology decision-making processes. The imposition of new tools, without involving employees, has led to resistance and frustration. According to him, innovations should serve to ease administrative tasks, allowing teams to reconnect with a more human and direct relationship with customers.

Mak Abdelkafi, Senior Sales Director at Mews: Three Challenges to Optimizing Technology in Hospitality

Mak Abdelkafi identified three key challenges for the hospitality sector regarding technology: profitability, user-friendliness, and flexibility of solutions. Regarding profitability, Mak Abdelkafi pointed out the difficulty of precisely measuring the return on investment (ROI) of technological tools. While new technologies automate certain tasks, they also require deep reflection on the potential gains in operational efficiency.

The second challenge is team adoption. Mak Abdelkafi stresses the need to provide simple and intuitive technological solutions to ensure employee buy-in, citing the transition from GSM to smartphones as an example. "Resistance to change is a barrier, and it’s imperative to design tools that ensure continuity for the user," he explains.

The final challenge is technological flexibility, enabled by APIs, which allow hotels to seamlessly and scalable connect different cloud solutions. This flexibility gives hoteliers the freedom to adapt their solutions to meet the changing needs of the market, all while relying on more stable and secure systems.

Maxime Letessier and Benoît Piel, Co-founders of Korner Hotels: Technology at the Service of Decentralization and Autonomy

Maxime Letessier and Benoît Piel of Korner Hotels shared their vision of a hospitality industry where technology facilitates centralized management while preserving team autonomy. Korner Hotels has implemented a 100% digital customer journey, from booking to check-out, using a suite of internally developed no-code tools. This model allows small hotels to improve their profitability by optimizing functions typically centralized.

The use of no-code tools is a key enabler for Korner Hotels as it allows employees to take ownership of the tools and improve team autonomy. They describe a process where the user is at the center of the product approach, with a dedicated team focused on developing custom tools to meet the specific needs of employees. This strategy also facilitates the identification of weak signals and the generation of reports for investors and staff.

Greg Naidoo, Chief Evangelist & Development Officer at Mews: The Future of Hospitality, a Marriage Between Technology and Human Connection

Greg Naidoo closed the workshop by offering an optimistic yet realistic view of the future of hospitality, emphasizing that technological transformation is imperative for the industry. He sees the gradual migration to the cloud and the adoption of artificial intelligence as opportunities to create unmatched customer experiences. Naidoo reminded the group that despite the increasing automation, hospitality remains a service industry where human contact and personalization are essential.

Greg Naidoo also stressed the importance of summarizing customer information in a single line to streamline the work of teams who interact directly with guests. According to him, the "guest experience" starts with a warm welcome and attention to the specific needs of customers. To achieve this, it is crucial to transform the information gathered about customers into actionable and easily accessible knowledge.