Hospitalitysales opnieuw definiëren voor een digitaal tijdperk

the Future of HospitalityYou name it. Related to sales, I've probably done it. And what should I think of as, like, b to b sales and hospitality? What what kind of sales is it like? Can you give me some examples?

Douglas AbbottYeah. So, you know, it it depends on the client that you're working with. So the... For b to b sales and hospitality, it's... It really is driven by the client. So whether you're working with travel agencies or you're working with a meeting planner or corporate travelers, they, they have different ways of negotiating, different ways of contracting, and then getting those rates available out there. But overall, all of those segments, it's a really traditional, almost old fashioned relationship sell. So people do business with people that they like. Yeah. And, and you find that that's actually one of the challenges with the technology that's come along. Mhmm. And not even cool not even cool technology, just going from selling relationship selling in a pure, like, old trade shows and conferences and that kind of selling to go into a digital footprint. Yeah. So how do you create what we call proximity?

Douglas AbbottIf you know your clients are spread out, nobody's working from the office anymore, so you can't just rock up to a a building and say, hey. I wanna talk to somebody. Exactly. Because nobody's there. Yeah. They're all at their home working remote. So how do you, in a digital world, create that proximity so that you can build the relationship to the point that somebody will be comfortable and ask for, an RFP or, you know, check space meeting? So, yeah, it's that... That's one of the biggest things that has changed over my career is that we've gone from this old traditional selling to this digital footprint.

the Future of HospitalityYeah. That's, that's, of course, the thing that everybody in sales kind of had that challenge. But Yeah. But, like, I'm kind of curious, like, what what does, in your opinion, make hospitality sales different than sales in other industries?

Douglas AbbottYeah. I, you know, I don't know that hospitality sales is that different than industries. Sales is sales. Yeah. It's a process. You've gotta find who you want to purchase your product. Right? Yeah. You've gotta get them, not features and benefits, but rather you've gotta solve their problem. And you've gotta bring them along on their journey and then work them through to where they're... Where to them, it's their idea. Like, oh, yeah. I really do need this thing. Whatever it is, this widget is gonna solve every problem that I've got. Exactly. So in that regard, I don't think hospitality sales is any different than any other sales. But there is... Hospitality sales is a little easier in that you really... When you ask somebody, do you travel? It's either a yes or no. You know? It's not like, oh, do you use a computer or do you use email or, you know, like Yeah. It's, you know, it's easy to weed people out because they don't travel. Yeah. That's a that's a good one. Exactly.

the Future of HospitalityAnd like like you said, also, saw on your LinkedIn profile, like, sales is constantly shifting and evolving. Of course, you said a little bit about this now. But can you give me some examples of, like, the the past few years, like, the past five years? What what did what did happened in hospitality sales that made that shift?

Douglas AbbottYeah. Well, you know, if I go back, I can remember I can remember before we had... I'm touching my laptop right now. But I can remember before we had laptops, before we had cell phones, going and visiting clients in person. Like, you would call on a landline and schedule an appointment Yeah. Weeks out. Like, hey. I'm gonna be in New New York City in three weeks. Let's get together for lunch. Let's get together for dinner. I mean, it was, it was definitely a different world. We were not connected like we are now. Yeah. And I think that, and people had more time. Yeah. People had more time to talk to vendors and under... And to to see the pitch and and think about it.

Douglas AbbottAnd the speed that we're working at now, it is it is... It's mind blowing. It's mind blowing. But Yeah. But at the same time, we're way more connected to our clients, but we're also connected to our colleagues. So one moment, I'll be, you know, interacting with a customer, a prospect, and at the same time, I'm interacting either with somebody on my team or somebody, you know, of my boss trying to, you know, work out a question that they've had. I mean, it's really... We are really tied together. Yeah. And that can be good because it can keep everybody really collaborative. But at the same time, it can be really... You can feel like you have your hands tied behind your back because you have to... You you feel obligated to check-in with so many different people about something when... In the olden days, you just went out there and and just did it. Close it. Yeah. Yeah. Just close it. Just bring it home. Yeah. You're not home. Exactly.

the Future of HospitalityNow so many people are involved in the sales process, and everyone... Everybody wants to say something about it. So that makes it... Digital world makes it on on one hand, like, closer, like you said. But on the other hand, that's also the challenge that, like, everybody can say something so easily. Yeah. Yeah.

Douglas AbbottAnd the one thing we've seen in hospitality sales is we've really... We've moved to this commercial scenario where it's a combination of marketing and sales Mhmm. And revenue management altogether trying to figure out what's the right target audience, how do you warm that audience up, what's the right pitch, And then how do you bring it through to the end? And, ultimately, somebody has to service those customers when they arrive at the hotel. And this commercial approach, it's it's good. It's it's what's evolving in hospitality. But if you're not really comfortable with your discipline, so whether you're the revenue manager or the marketing person or the salesperson, if you're not really well trained and really settled in what you bring to the table, it can be unnerving.

Douglas AbbottBecause all of a sudden, instead of people being in their swim lanes, everybody's in there together, everybody's got an opinion, and sometimes it is... The the person with the loudest voice is the opinion that gets heard. Yeah. And that's not that's not fair. But that's that's where we are in hospitality.

the Future of HospitalityYeah. That's, but most of the time in sales, I don't know if in hospitality as well, the the person with the loudest voice is the salesperson. So that should be like that should be good. You're right about that. At least the bushiest one is the salesperson. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Cool. Cool. Okay. So cool. And in regards to trends in hospitality in, hospitality sales, What do you see, like, as as trends in the past years, and and what do you see, like, as trends in the upcoming years? Because a a lot of things are now going faster than before because of a lot of things that I can talk about. But I want to hear from your side, like, what do you think is, like,

Douglas Abbottthe next big thing?... Trends... So some of the trends I've been seeing over the last few years. So this this whole, decentralization of the clients. Right? People aren't working in offices as much, and so it's harder to get close to them, which then means you have to really go online and really develop a digital footprint. So stuff like we're doing here, developing thought leadership that you can put out into either LinkedIn or wherever your clients are so that you can really start to build that relationship with them. So that's that's a trend that is... Has been going for a while. COVID really brought it to a head.

Douglas AbbottAnd some clients are going back to the office, so there's some, you know, reversal of that. But I think long term, that's gonna be less and less. I think people have realized you can do the work from anywhere for for the most part. Exactly. Another trend that I've been seeing, and now I just lost my train of thought.

the Future of HospitalitySee, I was doing some wrong with that one.

Douglas AbbottI don't have the other one. I was like, oh. Yeah. Decentralization of the customer. Okay. You have to edit all this stuff out. Problem. No problem. Well,

the Future of Hospitalityhell. I really had... I had a good one there for you. Let's just keep talking. Like like, what That's okay. It'll come back. Is there some trend that makes it, like, more, like, hospitality focused that you can say, like, okay. This trend is, like, something that you think in hospitality sales will be bigger than in other industries?

Douglas AbbottNo. Well, not necessarily. I think where I was headed is that more and more people now, because things are starting to move faster, they're really mapping out their sales processes, and they're starting to use automation a lot more. Yeah. And it... But in hospitality sales, I feel like it's just at the very beginning of that, especially in the b to b space. And, really, it's people starting to use LinkedIn and email marketing connected to their CRM Yeah. So that they can really build out kind of a flow for their customers. Yeah. And at least on my end, when people are trying to sell into my business, I'm getting a lot of that in the b to b space. Yeah. And...

Douglas AbbottBut they're... It's obviously clunky. So we're kind of at the beginning, and we need to evolve that and push that along. Yeah. So... And that's not... That's actually a good thing because the more you can cast a wide net and then let the customer determine if they want to continue, then that makes it easier for the customer. Yep. The other thing that I was gonna point out is that... And this has been a trend going on maybe for the last ten years or so because it's so easy to research stuff. Nobody wants to be sold to anymore. Yeah. We're buyers. We're not... We we don't wanna be sold. Yeah. We just wanna purchase it. We wanna be able to go and do research on our own. Yeah. So go to the website, go to the competitor's websites, look at the pricing, look at the features and benefits, and try to get a frame of reference for ourselves. The... And this is this is just in general how people have shifted because so much information is available online. They wanna be able to do that all on their own. And I don't know. Maybe ten years ago, the stat was that 57% of b two b buyers do their research and come to a decision before they reach out to a salesperson because they don't wanna be sold to. Exactly. If you take that trend and you combine it with building out a digital footprint and a real journey for your buying process, you really need to build it out in a way that the customer can guide themselves Exactly. And get all the information that they need so that they, in a perfect world, don't need to talk to anyone. I agree. That's the way it should work. That... That's the that's the funny thing that you said it because it's all about...

the Future of HospitalityAlso in hotels, of course, they they want to go to that self-service kind of way that you can do. You're checking yourself, everything. But also for the b to b sales prospects, they also want to be like the self-service prospect that they can Yeah. They can see all the questions that they have, all the answers of those questions. They can see it online, and they don't want that request for more information button to to... They they want to see it at their own time, and they don't want talk to a salesperson if they can see it online. Like, why should I talk to somebody if they can just... Why do I need to bother? Yeah. That's right. And

Douglas Abbottit's... Part of that is I believe they they genuinely think the salesperson is gonna try to pull a fast one off them, or they're only highlighting the positive stuff. They're not gonna give me something that is a really balanced answer. Yeah. Because not every client is well suited for every product. And a good salesperson will get rid of the clients that they think aren't a good fit. Yeah. That's part of sales. I agree. And the more and more... If you think about it, the more... And this is true in hospitality. More and more transactions are totally digital. So you can, you know, you can buy your sleeping room even with a negotiated rate on there. You don't have to Yeah. Call anyone. You can just do it online. Now you can do it on your phone.

Douglas AbbottThe the RFP process is gonna get more and more like that. It just makes it easier Yeah. For everybody to work and interact and removes friction in the process. Exactly. So if every client is... I'm sorry. If every vendor is set up that way Yeah. As a buyer, I can easily go to five or 10 or 15 and get it all done very quickly. I agree. So that's... But but here's... It's funny in hospitality because here's what we... The risk that we run is that we take hospitality out of the equation. And so if you think about it, some people... People that travel all the time know what they're doing. They know what to expect.

Douglas AbbottAnd when that happens, they wanna be able to be in charge of it. And that's where you see people, like, for the airlines on their apps. Yeah. They wanna be able to manage their check-in and their rebooking and all of that stuff. And that's because they know what it's supposed to be, and they can be in charge of it. Yeah. And that works for them. So you don't necessarily strip the hospitality out. You just enable it in a digital way. Right? And so you have to figure out how do we take personalization Yeah. And embed in that process. Exactly. So whether it's calling someone's name out or highlighting the points they have in the loyalty program or showing their special requests of a high floor corner room near the elevator blah blah blah, whatever it is.

Douglas AbbottThere's gotta be a... There... There's gotta be a way to bring that that experience into the digital space. Yeah. Then you have a whole set of customers who are always new, that haven't been trained yet, and they don't understand how things are supposed to work. And those are the customers that you need people that can hold their hand and guide them through. Exactly. And and I think the challenge for hotels or the challenge for hospitality in general, whether it's air, car, or hotel, is you... We need both. We need to be able to enable the digital experience, make it hyper, personalized, make it super targeted for those people that know what they're doing and are looking for that kind of experience.

Douglas AbbottExactly. And at the same time, you need somebody to answer the phone, somebody to respond in real time to an email or a text chat, somebody that can walk somebody into a hotel and actually check them in and have them sign Yeah. And hand them a physical key because they don't know that you can do all this stuff through another way. Exactly.

the Future of HospitalityThat's gonna be...... Successful in both.

Douglas AbbottThat's... That... And which creates a challenge because all the the companies, the the vendors, airlines, hotels, we wanna push everybody towards self-service. Yeah. I mean, think about other industries, insurance, getting your... Oh, here in... Here where I am, getting your driver's license renewed. It's a self-service online process. Your bank is a self-service online process. Like, there are other industries that are leading the charge, but hospitality will have to catch up at some point.

the Future of HospitalityYeah. So that... That's that's true for sure. But I I think what you mean is that the mindset should be that it's not a black or white thing. We can't say, like, we have to do everything digital. We always have to stay, like, hybrid kind of kind of hybrid. Like, that we say that, okay. The the persons that aren't ready for the digital experience yet, we have to be there for them and and show hospitality in that kind of kind of way.

Douglas AbbottYep. You're exactly right. Because the guest needs to be able to drive

the Future of Hospitalitythe experience that they want. Yeah. It's not the hotel. The guest needs to do the It's not the hotel. It's the guest. If we can put that in the hands of the guest, then it's a win because they can get the experience that they're looking for. Yeah. I think it's kind of the same thing with we are not selling. We're... They don't want to be sold to. They want to buy. So that's also with the guest. They they are leading the road and and Yeah. Leading the way and not the the hotel. And is it true that, like, hotels in your experience, like, are they most of the time, like, a little bit less innovative than than other industries, like, with those industry?

the Future of HospitalityLike, things that you said before, like, email marketing. Not all hotels use email marketing. That that sounds like kind of a

Douglas Abbottlike a... We're both behind curve in terms of using technology and leveraging technology. Even even to the point, I I would say, individual property, so maybe an independent hotel, may be more advanced from a tech stack perspective than many of the chains. And that's part of... I think part of our challenge is the chain... The... At at least in The United States, the chains are so dominant. Yeah. And, they really are built for transactions. They haven't really figured out how to bring that digital experience in and own that. Yeah. And you you saw over the last twenty years where we really lost that booking with... That booking channel to Expedia and other oat... Online travel agencies, third party agents.

Douglas AbbottThey really came in and they inserted themselves, and they were able to deliver value for the customers. Yeah. And the hotels lost out on that. Exactly. So now what the hotels need to do is figure out, okay. Somebody else can own the booking channel. That's fine. But when they get to the hotel, how do we turn that experience into something that's digital, something that's hyper personalized, something that resonates with each guest, and they can decide how much they they go digital or they go old school old school, you know, in person

the Future of Hospitalityand deliver the value that they want. Yeah. That's a that's... I know that's a big big challenge for hotels, and they all want to to... The guest to book directly from their website because you want to start the guest experience from your own hotel and not from booking. That... That's like the the the mindset that everybody... Every hotel wants. Like, they want to start the the experience. But, okay, that's like... They have to deal with it now. Booking is here. Expedia is here, and all the other companies are here, and they're not going anywhere. So Yeah. Yeah. Cool. Now I wanted to ask you something about, like, the biggest lesson that you learned from your role as director at in the... InterContinental.

the Future of HospitalityCan you tell us something about the the things that you've learned, some of the biggest lessons? Well,

Douglas AbbottInterContinental is a really big organization. And the... And my last role there, I was the director of small medium enterprise, which is a a self-service program for small businesses that need negotiated rates. And so what we... The biggest thing that I learned in that role is that in order to be successful in mapping that journey, you have to have a bunch of different people represented at the table. So you need marketing for your upper funnel. You need privacy. You need legal. You need information technology. You need information security. You need you need sales. You need, reporting and analytics. You need all these people, and they all have a little slice of what it means to build that experience out for the customer.

Douglas AbbottAnd it... It's so... In that regard, it... It's not about sales. It's about the experience for that buyer and how they can interact and drive their own relationship with IHG. And because of that, it's... You have to really take a commercial mindset Yeah. To say, I'm representing the business. And, yes, I'm in sales, but at the same time, I'm representing the business for this particular guest journey. And, it's it's definitely a different approach Yeah. A different approach and much, much slower than what you would expect. And that's not a bad thing. It's just you have to go through all of those different scenarios to make sure that what you're trying to build, first and foremost, is something that the customer is gonna fall into and and see value in, but at the same time that it works the way you mean it to work. Yeah. So... That's one of the challenges with self-service is people get excited about self-service, and they'll try it until they have a mistake Yeah. Or they get stuck with something. True. And if the service recovery...

Douglas AbbottIn real life, the service recovery is there. Right? You can call somebody and they can say, oh, just do this or, oh, I'm so sorry for that. Right? Like, that service recovery is more important than than the problem that popped up. Yeah. But when you're totally self-service, it is difficult, and people get frustrated, and then they break away. They're like, well, okay. This this totally... Everything sucks about this, and I'm not gonna try it anymore. Right? But that's the worst. It doesn't... They're not going to try it anymore. That's the worst. Yeah. That's right. They're like, I I just need to talk to somebody Yeah. Which is which is now not realistic. So...

the Future of HospitalityYeah. Yeah. So that's... So, basically, you say that, like, the as a salesperson, you have to, like, get the commercial mindset,

Douglas Abbottand you have to basically not focus on selling, but focus on owning the process of getting each person doing what they're good at in that space. You're exactly right. Because... And if you think about that, instead of focusing on the outcome that you want, which is the sale. Right? Yeah. In the olden days, that's what we all... That... You go straight for the sale. We wanna get the sale. Get the contract. Just get it signed. Yeah. The the the work today is on building the structure and the stages and the steps, the environment Exactly. So that the sale can happen when it's supposed to happen. Yeah. And, really, the customer is in charge of when that takes place.

Douglas AbbottAnd they may come to your website 20 or 30 times. They may download a ton of articles. They may follow you on LinkedIn. And and then all of a sudden in twelve, eighteen, twenty four months, they may actually buy something. Yeah. And that's okay. Yeah. That's just... It's a different mindset today than it than it has been. But if... When you build that, then it's okay because you can do that at scale. So instead of trying to manage 10 or 15 customers to get to the deal Yeah. All of a sudden, you can have thousands of customers in your funnel at different stages Mhmm. And you can monitor them, and you're you're kind of looking at it from afar. You're like, okay. I've got I've got 10,000 in the upper funnel, and that converts at a 1% rate. Okay? All of a sudden, I've got my thousand over here that now are in my middle funnel, and I know that's gonna convert at a 20% rate. Yeah. And then you you take it each step down the way. And it's a cool mindset.

the Future of HospitalitySo just setting up the space, putting everything in funnel, and then you have to, trust the trust the process.

Douglas AbbottYeah. Well, it's kind of like painting for gold or diamonds. Yeah. But we went to, we went to this place. It's in Arizona... It's in Arkansas Arkansas, and it's called, it's called Crater Of The Diamonds. And so you can... It's one place in The United States where you can go and you can actually dig for diamonds. So you dig in the dirt Oh, nice. And then you shake the dirt apart and you, you know, put it in the water and you see what comes out the bottom. And then, of course, we didn't find any diamonds, but it's the same process. Yeah. You take the materials. So you take the customers, you throw them in the funnel, you shake it around, and then the ones that are valuable are gonna stick, and all the rest of the stuff is gonna flow out. Yeah. So

the Future of Hospitalitysame process. Nice story. Nice story. Nice story. Cool, Doug. Another question. I have, like, three more questions. It's it's okay if we have, like, ten more minutes. Right? Yep. I'm good. So what do you think is the biggest mistake hospitality brands make in hospitality sales from from your point of view?

Douglas AbbottYeah. So this one is tough. I think I think it's not leveraging new technologies fast enough. They really have been... My experience... So I can't... I haven't worked at every chain. Yeah. But my experience is they've really not pushed themselves to adopt new technologies. And whether that is as simple as automated emails, b to b marketing, CRMs. There are some chains that do not have a CRM for their global sales. And you would go... You could tip... In this day and age, you're like, really? Yeah. Well... But I know of one that does not have a CRM for their salespeople. Well... And then you're thinking, how can you manage a sales team Yeah. If you don't have a central spot to put all their information?

Douglas AbbottSo... And when you start leveraging new technologies, that's when you figure out how can you move your sales process faster. How can you get your customers through and either out because they're not gonna buy or to a contract faster? And until you get some technology in place, you're not gonna be able to do that. So Exactly. I think that's our biggest relying on that old timey relationship sale.

the Future of HospitalityBut I think also the the hotels that until now, like, didn't close the gap of technology with other hotels. Let's say, ten years before... Ten years ago, a hotel didn't use an email marketing system and now they do. Okay. Then they are, like, not in the lead in regards to technology, but the gap isn't that big. But if you look at what is coming up with AI and automations and that technical tools are built upon each other, then the gap will be only bigger. So if a hotel isn't taking those next steps, like, at this moment, the gap will only be bigger because the technical, let's say, technical hotels that are more like technical led, they will have, like, a huge advantage.

Douglas AbbottYeah. Yeah. You're exactly right. And the the chains and the individual properties that figure out how to use AI... And I say it like that because it... There's not one solution. In some cases, it may be researching customers. In another case, it may be helping helping rewrite emails so that they're more relatable. Like, there there are so many opportunities to use AI to make the sales team more productive and more targeted. Yeah. And when they figure out how to use that, they're gonna be so much more productive and so much more effective. Yeah. And those that don't are gonna be stuck over there wasting all their time doing it the old fashioned way, and they're gonna be like, how are these people running circles around me? Well, they're not doing the work. They're letting AI do the work for them. Yeah.

the Future of HospitalityYeah. And that's that's like... I think that's really, now, even yesterday. It's not like in the future future. That's, like, already here.

Douglas AbbottYeah. It's here. It's here. Exactly right. Well, I don't know. There's a commercial on right now with Apple and their latest release for AI, and there's this guy who's typing an email. Have you seen this commercial? Probably not in not in Israel. So he's he's typing this email to his boss, and it's really, really casual. It's like, hey. This project needs a little jujji. Hollaback. And then he clicks a button, and it says professional. And it rewrites it in a totally professional way. And the boss gets the email and he's like, wow. Like, did Elon write this? Oh my goodness. It's so good. So that that kind of stuff is... I'm not here today. That's not that's not in the future. That's the now. Yeah. That's some crazy stuff. I I love to play with those tools because it always amazes me, like,

the Future of Hospitalityhow fast it can go.

Douglas AbbottYeah. But here's the thing. So... And this is the... I think it's not just sales. It's whether it's marketing, operation, you name it. We need to be able to find those little widgets, those little pieces of AI that can make a difference. And then the trick is to figure out, is it is it more than just a nifty trick? Exactly. And if it is, how do we get it into our process in a way that's truly embedded Yeah. So that we can get either productivity or increased effectiveness at scale. Exactly.... The trick. But if you're not if you're not, curious... Naturally curious Yeah. And you're not testing constantly new stuff, you're not gonna be able to get there because it's not a one and done. It's like, oh, I want marketing. Okay. You know, you're gonna test your email, and you're gonna test your content and test your your,

the Future of Hospitalitysubject lines and all that good stuff over and over and over and over, and AI can help do that. Yeah. AI can, for sure, help do that. But I think one of the the the the challenges that people are, like, having a different mindset that they think that AI should kind of replace the human sales. Yeah. And I think there's, a balance between, okay, what can AI do, but what should always be done by human? Because if you take out the human, you take out, in my opinion, like, the hospitality and sales. Let's... Because this is about hospitality sales. You take out the whole human touch, and then it loses its its its impact. Because I think that human will always make the difference in in each of every aspect, not only in sales, but also in hospitality and for hotels. But how do you look at it? Like, what is the, in your opinion, the the best balance between automation, AI, and technology? And where does the human touch come in and always should be, like, a leading? Yeah. Well, there always has to be human touch for sure in hospitality sales. Actually,

Douglas Abbottnot even in any interaction. There has to be this ability to mimic the human interaction. And McKinsey did a study back in 2017, so it's been a while. Yeah. And they were talking about AI and the impact that it would have on employment. And what they said was if you looked at somebody's job, on average, all job types on average, AI could replace 30% of the work. And what they were really focused on was the repetitive tasks. Yes. So you write an email. When you get a response, you tick this box in the CRM. I'm making this up. Right? But it's it's the stuff that's repetitive that you write down, and that's what you train people on.

Douglas AbbottAnd when you can when you can reduce it to steps a, b, c, d Yeah. And you can put the criteria on those steps, you can automate that. Exactly. And, really, step one is to get it on paper. Step two is to have people follow it. And then step three is to build it so that it runs itself. Yeah. And then that frees up your time to do higher level work. So research or client interaction or whatever it is. Right? Exactly. So some some jobs can be can be replaced by AI, not maybe a 100%, but 90%. Yeah. If you think about your credit card... So when you use your credit card and there's some fraud, some suspected fraud... Like, get emails periodically from Amex, and they'll say, hey. Did you make this charge? Yeah. So you know on the back end of their systems, they have some parameters set. Exactly. And they're like, hey. Doug usually spends about this much, and when it trips over that trigger Yeah. It's like, hey. Send him a note and find out. Yeah. Well, I'm confident that twenty years ago, a person was doing that. Exactly. Right? And they were combing through, and they were pivoting and looking at the data. Oh my goodness.

Douglas AbbottWell Yeah. Now I I would be comfortable to say they have AI that is... If if it's not AI, it's really advanced automation Yeah. Looking at the trillions of transactions that are going to their system. And for sales, we have to think about the same thing. Where is it that we can take it and we can turn it into a step by step process that can be automated, not for us, but for the customer. Exactly. That's what we do. Yes.... Wants that. They want to be able to drive their own ship. Yeah. And in order to do that, they have to have a repeatable process. Exactly. That's what makes it so that they don't have to interact with people, and they can decide

the Future of Hospitalitywhen they wanna interact with people. That's a really nice one. I like that one. And I I also want to add something that I think that people... Of course, you can win a lot with AI. And then, of course, we talked about the repetitive test that you can do, but you can also lose a lot. And what I mean with this one, that if you send an automated email, even if it's made by AI and it looks great to a client of yours that you have a great relationship with, and I don't know, he just had his birthday or something happened. And the email is so automated that it's not, like, relevant for him, he thinks, like, why does Doug send me this email? You can also lose a lot. So I think the the personalization and the repetitive tests should be done with AI, but, like, the hyper personalization and when not to send... Use AI should always be done with... By humans because at the moment, for sure, because we don't know where I will take this next step, but that's my my 2¢ in regards to AI. No. I totally agree with that. I mean, you have to have... The one thing that AI hasn't been able to do yet or at least that I've seen, it really isn't able to

Douglas Abbottempathize. It... You know, you can say, do this. Do do do, but it can't read the room. It can't sense somebody's frustration level. It can adjust its approach based on the input from the customer. It's looking for just those data elements. Yeah. But it doesn't have the con... The context around it that Exactly. That it needs in a... That we we bring naturally to it. Yeah. The emotional connection isn't there. Just a rational data kind of Yeah.

the Future of HospitalityI agree with it. Cool, man. I think we we had, like... Do you have some... Something else you wanna talk about? Some some other question, like, I can keep going. But

Douglas Abbotthow do you think? Well, you tell me. What do you think? Okay. So what do... Oh, you know, you were gonna say... You asked about trends that have been have been going and then, like, forward looking trends. Like, I really think that in hospitality, that the more that AI is enabled, it's going to enable really hyper... Really micro targeting so that you can... Instead of say... Like, today, you buy hotels and airlines, like like, different pieces of a trip. Right? Like, what I should be able to do is say, hey, Siri. Book me a trip to go skiing in February. Yeah. Boom. And it Okay. Oh. --.

Douglas AbbottOkay. Thank you, Sarah. Sorry. Yeah. She was, she was... They're always listening. She knows she wants to ski in there. Now she now now now I'm gonna start seeing ads in my Facebook feed Exactly. About skiing in February. But that's actually what we... Instead of having to go and buy the different components and figure it out, like, can go on this date and that date, and I need a car and all that stuff Yeah. Like, AI should be able to figure all of that out. Yeah. And it should be able to work across any vendor to put that package together

the Future of Hospitalityin real time. Yeah. That sounds like an amazing experience. That's

Douglas Abbottwhat we need. And the companies that can put that together and partner on that are, to me, are the ones that are gonna win. Yeah.

the Future of HospitalityI I totally agree. That that sounds like an amazing experience, and I think... And that that can only be done if you... Of course, you you can start with... From nothing to this. It's like a build on top of your data and in... Integrate tools with other tools. So I think that that's something... You said the keyword there, which is data. Data is the... It all...

Douglas AbbottI mean... Okay. You've got the tech stack. So you've got your your, you know, your core functionality and how all that fits together. But it has to be... The data is the center. It's the core. Yeah. And whether you're inputting data or you're then using it to search and to get to the next step, the data is the... It's the oil of the engine. You know? It is... That's... And that's where the problem exists for a lot of people, a lot of companies, is that their data is siloed. Yeah. And it's also not clean. It's not consistent. I have one client I was working on today.

Douglas AbbottIn or... In in their CRM, they have free form text for the country field. Instead of having a drop down that seems Exactly. United States is USA, no periods, no spaces, they have eight different versions of USA, and we're trying to get emails to go out, like, oh, okay. Yeah. But, you know, who... They didn't know ten years ago that they needed that kind of standardization. But the data element is the most important part Exactly. That will then enable AI. You almost have to go back and reset the foundation around data and how it's handled

the Future of Hospitalityto... In in order to enable AI going forward. AI is all about data. Without data, AI isn't worth anything. So it's not like a Yeah. A smart person sitting there and doing everything. It's it's all about data. Yeah. But I That's exactly The funny thing I think about data is that a lot of hotels, they all want to get more data and more data because it's just in their mindset. It's like, I... It's a good thing to have more data, but most of them don't even know what to do with the data. Right. And I think that there is one of the biggest trends will be that what can you do and what will you do with the data that you have. And that that thing is huge because hotels have so much data, and they don't even know the potential. I think most of them don't even know the potential. I think most hotels don't even know they have data. Yeah. And as I'm talking to them, they're like, we don't... We... That... They'll say something like, we need more business.

Douglas AbbottAnd I'll say, you probably have all of the business that you need. Yeah. Yeah. Just need to go out and get it. And they're, like, dumbfounded. They they don't understand. But what I mean is if you wanna get more business, you start with your current customers. Yeah. Whether that's a guest or a b to b customer, that... If somebody is buying from you already, to get them to buy again is so much easier than going out and trying to find a totally cold prospect and getting them in the door. For sure. And as I as I talk to hotels, they... They're they're just dumbfounded that... Because I'm like, well, you have guest data.

Douglas AbbottYou've got booking data. You've got people hitting your website and filling out forms. You've got data all over the place. Yeah. And then they're like, oh, yeah. I really do have a lot of data. But you're not using it, and you're not using it in a meaningful way. But I think I think the more that people have access to data and access to the right tech stacks, they should ask themselves... This goes to your point about, the the human element. Just because you can build it out and make it work in AI or just with a cool automation series, should you? And in some cases, the answer's gonna be, absolutely, we need that level of scale in order to make it work. Yeah. But then in other scenarios where that you would say, I don't want AI or an automation to handle my most valuable customer. Exactly. Like, the one person that has spent the most in my hotel Exactly. Over the last year, I don't want that... I want that to be truly personal. Exactly.

the Future of HospitalityThat's that's that's what I meant also with the way you can... What you can lose with AI.

Douglas AbbottYeah. Yeah. That's right. And because the... That person, all of a sudden, no matter how good AI is, they're gonna think,

the Future of Hospitalityokay. I'm not important enough for the GM to walk out into the lobby and meet me. I mean, come on. Like, I spent I spent a $100,000 in this hotel last year. You know? Yeah. I want something, exactly. It's like, ten years ago when somebody got a... Twenty years ago, somebody got an email and said, like, hi. First name. People were like, wow. First name. That's personal. Nowadays, they can say whatever they want. You know, it's marketing. So same same thing as It's true.

Douglas AbbottBut it's also... It's it's hit or miss. I got a note yesterday that said, hi, Amy, who is my boss's name, and then went right on talking about get go and everything. And I'm like, they have no idea that they have mixed up Yeah. The two of us in their database, and I'm getting messages that belong to her. But to my email... So it had my email with her first name. I'm like... Yeah. It all gets down to the data. Cleaning the data Clean data is a... Think good. Yeah.