The hotel industry has often been seen as a follower rather than a leader when it comes to technological advances, most notably following in the footsteps of the airline industry which was the first to revolutionise online booking and utilise dynamic pricing of rates. But the pandemic has acted as a catalyst for change, as hotel leaders strive to find novel and modern solutions to gain more than their market share in a now incredibly competitive market.
Borne out of this need to revitalise the hotel technology industry, two young Asian entrepreneurs have developed a novel online platform using cutting edge machine learning, which is already making waves in the industry. “Hotel Cloud” CEO Amit Popat, studied Mathematics at the University of Cambridge, before starting a successful career in the technology industry working for a number of FTSE-250 companies. He says “the hotel industry has really been shaken in these last years, and I felt it was an important moment to help use my experience from other industries to make the hotel industry not just a follower, but a real leader in technological innovation.”
“In times that are so volatile, it’s more important than ever to be able to react to demand quickly and forecast accurately to maximise revenue. We’ve been able to combine new levels of big data to gain an additional understanding of the market, starting right from the top of the funnel when a customer even searches for a hotel. We’ve been able to use every aspect of hotel data in our advanced machine learning and modelling, running thousands of statistical simulations each hour for every hotel, to be certain that we’re able to give the perfect price recommendations at the perfect time.”
Together with co-founder Sandeep Cheema, who also studied Mathematics at Kings College London and led a successful career with over 10 years as a revenue and commercial director of a large hotel group, they combined their experience to develop Hotel Cloud. She says “one of the key challenges hotels face is the response time, with data feeds often being updated just once a day, as hoteliers will spend most of their day preparing, extracting and analysing data for reports. Hotel Cloud eliminates wasted time on preparing reports to allowing hoteliers to focus on the analysis, without overwhelming them with unnecessary charts.”
Launched in the summer of 2020, the company has already grown rapidly, with over 150 hotels signing up within the first year since Hotel Cloud’s launch. This success helped gain the interest of prominent tech leaders, with Amazon announcing Hotel Cloud as the launch partner for their EU Alexa for Hospitality launch.
“We are keen to be a complete data ecosystem for hotels, providing analytics, intelligence, marketing and now Alexa voice all in one place. Giving the modern hotel complete control of their data, and helping to maximise their revenue opportunities at every part of their customers’ journey,” says Sandeep.
As Amazon Alexa’s only current EU solution provider, and together with Amazon’s brand partner Accor, Hotel Cloud successfully deployed the Alexa system at Mercure London Hyde Park in October 2021, with a smart Alexa device in each room. Offering customers a full smart concierge experience, they are able to order room service, request amenities as well as gain personalised and tailored recommendations.
Dr Nikhil Shah, CEO of London Town Group and owner of Mercure London Hyde Park says “Hotel Cloud has been a real game changer for us. It’s given us the ability to stay ahead of the competition in every avenue, from cutting edge revenue management to now enhanced guest experiences. Especially in times where staffing levels are stretched, the Hotel Cloud Alexa system has enabled us to maintain and enhance that personal experience.” And by being accessible as a web-based dashboard, “it is perfect for giving me all the critical financial information I need about my properties backed up with data-driven predictions from unique machine learning algorithms and real-time data feeds I can rely on.”
Amazon and Hotel Cloud will be participating in an exclusive Boutique Hotelier webinar at 2pm, 17th November 2021 to share the story of the Alexa launch at Mercure Hyde Park, and demonstrate the opportunities for hotels.
Join at www.boutiquehotelier.com/join-boutique-hotelier-and-amazon-for-exclusive-alexa-webinar/
