F&B, M&E, Ancillary Revenue

The role of revenue management is evolving fast. The days of focusing solely on room rates are behind us. Today’s most successful hotels are thinking holistically – monetizing every part of the guest journey, designing offers around guest needs, and running controlled experiments to refine their strategy.

A question that guides our approach when the two of us are working with hotel owners and executives to achieve their financial goals is: What’s your property’s reason to visit? Traditionally, this has been a feeling or a desired emotional outcome, while more recently centralized and structured data from across the guest journey can allow a hotel or brand to quantity this reason to visit in order to use data to guide operational improvements or capex. The acronym for this that we are promulgating is R2V.

Recent changes by Apple are sending a bunch of marketers into a frenzy (again). UTMs might be cut off, attribution windows might shrink, and everyone’s scrambling to figure out how they’ll “track the funnel.” It’s like every year we’re surprised that privacy is making tracking harder, and yet somehow we still act shocked.

In hospitality, the tech can be perfect, the workflows seamless, and the reports dialed in — and yet, things still stall. Why? Because the people meant to power the system were never really trained to use it.

Curbside pickup is a convenient service valued by both consumers and restaurants. Yet, it remains unclear what parts of the curbside pickup experiences matter most to restaurant customers – and how restaurants can deliver better service.

Rising costs, a shrinking labor pool and soaring guest expectations have created the perfect storm for hoteliers. It’s a squeeze that shows no signs of letting up, and it means that hotels are often required to run with leaner teams – while still delivering standout service.

Artificial intelligence is fundamentally transforming the restaurant industry, with personalization emerging as perhaps one of the most significant developments. Unlike basic personalization that might simply remember a customer’s name or birthday, Artificial intelligence-driven personalization leverages advanced algorithms, machine learning, and large datasets to anticipate needs, personalize offerings, and create seamless experiences uniquely crafted for each individual. As reported by Statista the global food service market, valued at $2.52 trillion in 2021 and projected to reach $4.43 trillion by 2028, is increasingly embracing these technologies. So how will AI-driven personalization in restaurants reshape guest experiences over the next five years? What are the current applications, emerging trends, technological elements, and implications for businesses and consumers?

Africa’s transformation story is often centred around infrastructure. Cables, towers, devices, datacentres. However, transformation doesn’t start with hardware; it starts with people, with connections and insights on platforms designed to help companies understand their customers and serve them more effectively. As Mandla Mbonambi, CEO of Africonology, points out, African businesses need technology solutions flexible and agile enough to thrive despite the challenges of infrastructure, and that are localised and capable of growing with them.

For a long time, accommodation, which evolved into hospitality, was a key component of the travel chain. It was an essential link, certainly, but it came at the end of the transportation chain and served as the starting point for the chain of tourist or business activities. This travel chain created – and still creates – a variety of ecosystems with their specialized actors: transport providers, accommodation providers, receptive agencies, leisure sites, restaurants... Solid by nature, yet often rivals, even antagonistic, when it comes to sharing the value chain.

After three decades in hospitality technology, we’ve watched countless operational trends come and go. But AI concierge tools represent something different, they’re not about replacing the human touch that makes hospitality special. Instead, they’re about freeing your team to deliver more of it.