EDITION #66
Welcome to RemoteHotelier!
In today’s newsletter:
🤔 This hotel is charging guests to block their phones
🚨 Lastminute.com slashes a quarter of its workforce to fund its AI transformation
💳 Airbnb just presents its first fintech product… and it already looks familiar
📊 This chart shows how much hospitality tech has changed since 2015
🔌 + 2 new integrations
🤝 + 5 new deals & partnerships
🆕 + 6 new product updates
💼 + 3 new jobs in hotel tech
🤔 This hotel is charging guests to block their phones
Credit: YOTEL Hotels
YOTEL is partnering with Bloom to offer guests a one hour phone detox at the hotel bar, by using a physical card that actually locks you out of your apps.
Guests tap their phone against a Bloom card at the hotel bar to block chosen apps for one hour, and need the card again to unlock them.
The program is available at YOTEL properties in Amsterdam, Edinburgh, Glasgow, London City, and Manchester.
Guests who join get a 10% discount on Bloom cards to take home.
This is one of those ideas that sounds stupid until you think about it for a second. You can certainly achieve the same by tweaking the settings of your phone. But that’s the whole point: paying to reduce the friction of doing so.
Suffice to say, this tells you something about how much people actually want to disconnect.
🚨 Lastminute.com slashes a quarter of its workforce to fund its AI transformation
Lastminute.com is cutting roughly 25% of its workforce across multiple countries, blaming the transition to a new AI operating model.
The math is simple (on paper): the company expects €16 million in annual savings starting 2027, and those savings go straight back into AI infrastructure, data systems, and specialized tech roles.
In other words: they’re reinvesting NOW the money they expect to save IN THE FUTURE 🤯
Their first after-hours call was a $20,000 job.
Air Texas was paying $2,000 a month for an answering service that couldn't close jobs.
Their first after-hours call with Podium’s AI Employee booked a $20,000 job.
Now no call goes unanswered after 5PM.
💳 Airbnb just presents its first fintech product… and it already looks familiar
Airbnb just launched an extended cancellation option that lets guests pay at booking for the right to cancel up to 24 hours before check-in and get a full refund.
Hosts are automatically enrolled and can opt out, but they still get paid according to their existing cancellation policies if a guest cancels.
If this sounds familiar, that's because Hopper Technology Solutions rolled out the same concept for hotels not long ago (we covered it here). The difference is, of course, the scale of the distribution.
On top of that, Airbnb has millions of listings and an audience already comfortable buying add-ons at checkout.
Make no mistake, this might sound risky for Airbnb, but they must have crunched the numbers thoroughly already to know that this product will be profitable.
RESOURCES
📍 Next Event: Hotel Data Conference (5–7 August).
📅 See the full hotel tech event calendar.
💼 Check which hotel tech companies offer remote jobs.
💻 Get your PMS comparison spreadsheet.
💸 Get your RMS comparison spreadsheet.
📊 This chart shows how much hospitality tech has changed since 2015
Looking at this chart (if you want to look closer, download the image in the original post and use the zoom) you realize how much hotel tech has evolved in such a short period of time.
The PMS are still at the center, but everything around has multiplied. New categories (that didn’t exist) have emerged. Products that used to be niche now have multiple competitors, and some categories are just subcategories today.
That said, the spark of this growth aren’t only the number of vendors, but also the new connections that used to not be possible, and today are pretty much taken for granted.
My bet is that this wheel will be 2x larger by 2028 🔮
NEW INTEGRATIONS
🔌 Duetto integrates with Triptease: through a new tool called Auto Date Boost, which automatically raises Google Hotel Ads spend when occupancy forecasts drop below a set threshold.
Revenue and marketing teams have historically moved at different speeds. This is a practical way to keep them in sync without adding manual work.
🔌 RoomPriceGenie adds a new integration with HotelTime Solutions: letting HotelTime users get automated revenue management running directly alongside their daily operations, without manual rate updates.
PRODUCT UPDATES
🆕 RoomPriceGenie launches Price Explanations: a new feature that gives hoteliers context behind each rate recommendation, including when their own pricing rules are limiting what the RMS can do.
Busy week for RoomPriceGenie… This new product can also work as a learning tool, helping revenue managers understand the connection between settings and performance outcomes.
🆕 Innspire launches Guest Flows at HITEC: a guest journey product that covers check-in, digital key, AI concierge, F&B, and checkout via SMS, WhatsApp, or browser.
🆕 Revinate introduces Ivy: an AI layer built across its entire platform, trained on 17 years of hospitality data and 1.1 billion guest profiles, currently handling chat resolution and call scoring.
🆕 Inn-Flow expands its back-office platform: with a new procurement module from its Lilo acquisition, an AI inventory tool, and proactive BI alerts for accounting and labor.
🆕 LaCimbali introduces Supera: a new fully automatic coffee platform designed for high-volume hotel environments, combining beverage automation with a fully automated cleaning process.
🆕 Aimbridge Hospitality launches S.P.A.R.K.: a proprietary platform for property site visits, audits, and operational action plans, covering the US, LATAM, Europe, Middle East, and Asia.
DEALS & PARTNERSHIPS
💰 Epos Now secures £90 million in funding: to invest further in AI, technology, and financial services for its locations worldwide.
💰 Chaty AI raises $1.15 million in seed funding: to expand its conversational AI platform for tours, activities, attractions, and operators.
🤝 SalesAndCatering.com and Siv partner: to connect lead response automation with hotel sales and proposal workflows, so sales teams can engage meeting planners before the inquiry goes cold.
🤝 Otherwander Soho selects Apaleo to power its fully digital pod hotel in London: the property runs without a reception desk, using a system where Apaleo handles the inventory automatically.
🤝 Mews is named the sole preferred PMS supplier for Resorts of Ontario: giving more than 100 independent resorts, lodges, and country inns across the province access to its PMS platform.
JOB BOARD
💼 Enterprise Customer Success Manager | Remote (based in Spain/France) | Mews.
💼 Enterprise Marketing Manager | Remote (based in New York, US) | Duetto.
💼 Product Marketing Manager | Remote (based in London, UK) | Canary Technologies.
That’s all for today, thank you for reading. If this was helpful, share it with someone who'd find it useful too:
See you next week!
Jose