apaleo GmbH · 24 Dec

Hotel tech lists—Hotel Tech Must-Haves for 2020 and What All Hotels Need in Order to Succeed Next Year—are like the sloganned-out t-shirts everyone's wearing to the gym these days. Less Whine, More Wine. Already Planning What I'm Going to Eat After This. I Work Out... Just Kidding, I Take Naps. We kind of love to hate them. Maybe it's because we've been working toward a tech revolution for years now, one that leaves hotels ahead as an industry rather than continually pulling up the rear.

apaleo GmbH · 4 Dec

These days, we tend talk about cybersecurity far less than we talk about melting icebergs or political problems or plastic straws. And, of course. Those are things we can do a little something about; we can make our own tiny dent in the environmental crisis or get out the vote, but cybersecurity is one of those problems that feel far out of most our hands. Yet, we all have important, essential, identifying information flying around the web, apps, stores, airlines, and—hotels. Consumers are relying on businesses to be transparent and secure, and hotels are one of the most targeted industries (just behind retailers) by cyber attackers.

apaleo GmbH · 24 Sep

The hotel PMS has been around for about 50 years. That's HALF A CENTURY. That's as old as the Beatle's last album Let It Be, Walt Disney World, Watergate, and Amtrak.

apaleo GmbH · 12 Sep

Until recently, hotels - and most enterprise businesses, for that matter - had been stuck with one singular approach to their tech: a closed, out-of-the-box solution to manage nearly all their business needs. For hotels, this system was built by the PMS provider. Legacy systems tried to do it all, attempting to cover everything from reservations and inventory to loyalty programs to business intelligence tools and more. These systems use a monolith architecture, a framework in which all pieces of the platform are tied together in a centralized, on-premise, feature-rich system. While rich in functionality, these systems pose a variety of problems - they aren't nimble, they don't connect well to other systems, they are expensive, and many hoteliers don't need (or like) all the features offered.

apaleo GmbH · 4 Sep

The last time you vetted a tech company, you surely received evidence of the company's commitment to customer service. Likely in the form of stats like downtime and call-resolution. The tech company probably said that these stats demonstrated its truly customer-centric philosophy and that its responses to issues would be impeccable. Perhaps they even pulled out a certificate or the name of some customer service award you've never heard of. This kind of proof is not meaningless (though be warned, some of these certificates are paid programs) nor is it enough evidence of a company's commitment to its customers. Anyone can come up with bullet points and certificates at the end of the day, which raises an important question. How do you know if your tech company cares? How do you know if they really have killer customer service?Admittedly, a lot of the companies that have cultivated a cult customer service following (like Zappos and Trader Joe's) have done so as a result of go-big-or-go-home moments, like sending a customer a pizza when the resolution call has gone long or delivering groceries to an elderly customer in a snowstorm. We love these stories as much as anyone, but when it comes to B2B tech companies, the criteria are different. It requires the ideal combo of product, responsiveness, and company culture. Here are a few ways to tell if a tech company truly cares about its service and the success of its customers based on examples from B2B tech companies that are doing it right:

apaleo GmbH · 29 Jul

When it launched in 2007, the iPhone was a derivative of the iPod, designed to "mimic the features of the iPod while allowing for increased functionality" like phone calls and web browsing (HistoryCooperative). The next version, the 3G released in 2009, allowed third parties to create and promote their own apps, effectively turning it into more than a music and phone device. In all the versions after, the sizes have changed, the material has gone stainless, the camera has been remodeled and improved...but these are relatively small shifts.

apaleo GmbH · 20 May

Imagine if every time you wanted to install a new app on your smartphone, you had to call the maker of your phone to ask about it, then schedule a date far in the future for one of their representatives to come to your house, get it working on your phone, and charge you heaps of money in the process. You wouldn't stand for it, right? Then why go through a similar process when working with your property management system (PMS)?

apaleo GmbH · 13 Mar

Someone recently told me that humans spend approximately six months of their lives waiting in line for things. Six full months. Those stats might double for hoteliers, if you consider the long wait times for getting a PMS live and the ridiculous queue for interface installations.

apaleo GmbH · 15 Feb

Let's face it hotel technology isn't a supporting player in the guest experience anymore. It is an essential part of every guest journey, an integral aspect of each step of the guest's experience of a property—before, during, and after the stay. As such, it can make or break those guest reviews and has long-term effects on loyalty. It seems most hotels know this because over half (54%) plan to increase their technology spending this year, according to the 2019 Lodging Technology Study. There's a lot getting in the way of bringing technology to the forefront of the experience, though. In the same report, hotels said their tech strategies are held back by outdated architecture (35%), the effort required for systems integrations (35%), and guests that want more technology than properties can deliver (18%), among other things.