booking channel
How High Labor Costs Are Taking a Toll on the Hospitality Industry
John Smallwood, President of Travel Outlook | May 4, 2022
The real impact on guests when hotels reduce services By John Smallwood, President of Travel Outlook May 2022 Over the last decade, labor costs have risen sharply. After the pandemic, labor shortages are plaguing businesses across the world, and the hospitality industry is no exception. Demand for workers has never been higher, yet universal labor shortages persist, causing problems for hotels, despite a sharp rise in travel. Two years removed from the pandemic; travel is back in a big way. Hotels everywhere are preparing for what is sure to be a record-breaking summer of travel, but they’re doing so with one hand tied behind their ...
Inntopia and AZDS Launch Multi-Product Version of Popular RevRaise Booking Engine
Inntopia | April 12, 2022
STOWE, VT & DENVER, CO- After years of concepting, UX/UI design, and development, Inntopia and AZDS are releasing a powerful update to AZDS’s RevRaise booking engine. By combining Inntopia’s industry-leading ability to aggregate and sell products across multiple systems with AZDS’ track record for delivering innovative, conversion-increasing booking engines, the new integration allows guests to easily and quickly book everything they need for a vacation from a single, intuitive interface without leaving the resort or hotel’s website domain. “We’ve built and continually optimized the luxury hospitality industry’s leading b...
Groups360 Raises $35 Million in Funding to Support Rapid Growth
Groups360 | April 7, 2022
$35 Million Investment from Zigg Capital, Blackstone Innovations Investments, and Fir Tree Partners to Accelerate Growth NASHVILLE, TN – April 7, 2022 – Groups360, a leading platform for booking group travel, today announced the completion of a $35 million funding round led by Zigg Capital and including Blackstone Innovations Investments, and Fir Tree Partners. They join existing investors Accor, Hilton, IHG Hotels & Resorts, and Marriott International. Groups360 provides real-time availability and instant booking capabilities for both hotel room blocks and meeting space, streamlining group travel for organizers, attendees, a...
Kimberly Berry Appointed as Director of Digital Business Development for Bella, The Virtual Hotel Agent, Travel Outlook’s New AI Powered Service
Travel Outlook Premium Hotel Call Center | April 6, 2022
Santa Fe, New Mexico (April 2022): Travel Outlook Premium Hotel Call Center® today announced that Kimberly Berry has been promoted to Director of Digital Business Development at Travel Outlook, overseeing sales and implementation of Bella™, The Virtual Hotel Agent™. Kimberly Berry joined Travel Outlook in 2020 from Hilton Hotels, where she worked as General Manager for three years. Kimberly Berry brings her experience in sales and guest relations in the hospitality industry to Travel Outlook to further improve Bella™ and its practical customer service applications for the hospitality industry. In addition, while working in Hyatt ...
The Automation Generation
Bella™, The Virtual Hotel Agent | March 29, 2022
Why today’s travelers place efficiency ahead of personal connection The hospitality industry has always been a people-centric line of work. Face-to-face conversations with real humans have been the cornerstone of service industries since its inception. A smiling face behind the front desk of a hotel cannot be replaced. Technology, on the other hand, has continually shifted the way guest service representatives interact with travelers and hotel guests. Each generation brings a new disruptive technology that shakes up the way the world does business. With each change, there is resistance, but progress always wins out. In a recent story...
Bella The Virtual Hotel Agent Offers a 100% Accurate Understanding of Guest Needs Through Its New Feature, Precise Guest Insight
Travel Outlook Premium Hotel Call Center | March 24, 2022
Hotel managers constantly strive to anticipate their guest’s needs and concerns as they work to make their hotels more accommodating and inviting. This task was just made easier by the introduction of a new tool provided by Bella™, The Virtual Hotel Agent™. Bella is an advanced AI-powered voice bot that can answer up to 60% of the calls now being handled by front desk staff, simultaneously improving hotel profitability while providing enhanced guest service. Bella represents a creative and effective way for hotels to address post-pandemic staffing challenges, and to reduce fixed payroll expense. Bella’s new tool is called Pr...
Language Barriers in the Hospitality Industry
Travel Outlook | March 8, 2022
How to translate the labor shortage The hospitality industry is obviously a global industry. Hotels connect people from all over the world and bring them together under one roof. Industry insiders understand the importance of having a multilingual staff at all hours. Given recent labor shortages, it is becoming increasingly difficult for hotels to find adequate staffing. Finding a bi or multi-lingual staff member can seem next to impossible. Even before the complications of the last two years, language barriers have plagued hotels for the duration of their existence. For customers, nothing is more frustrating than trying to reserve a r...
Above and Beyond Standard Hotel FAQ Chatbots
Travel Outlook Premium Hotel Call Center | March 2, 2022
How Bella™, The Virtual Hotel Agent™, Solves the Hospitality Industry’s FAQ Chatbot Problems No one enjoys speaking to IVR (Interactive Voice Response) systems, but we do so when it’s necessary. In today's digital world, interacting with IVR systems seems to be an increasingly necessary evil. But what if there was a next-generation voice bot that did away with the common frustrations associated with IVR systems? What if a voice bot could be as functional as an FAQ chatbot? That’s where Bella comes in. Bella is a virtual call center agent powered by artificial intelligence that is designed specifically for the hospitality industr...
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