🛎️ Accor lands in Vegas, gamified operations, and TakeUp gets $11M

Hi there, welcome to RemoteHotelier.

In today’s newsletter:

🎲 Accor makes its Vegas debut

🚀 How tech helped a hotel reach 96.6% satisfaction

💸 TakeUp raises $11M

🏨 + 8 hotel deals & developments

🗞️ + 6 hotel tech extra news

#1 Accor makes its Vegas debut.

Accor enters Las Vegas by acquiring Treasure Island. This is aligned with its strategy to expand its Handwritten Collection and enhance its presence in the States.

• This move adds 2,884 rooms to Accor's US portfolio.

• Accor aims to capitalize on its extensive loyalty program to boost visitor traffic to Las Vegas.

• The move could help revitalize Las Vegas tourism in light of declining international visits.

• Casinos are prime targets for hotel tech and perfect playgrounds to test loyalty strategies at scale.

Why this matters: Accor continues its expansion, breaking into another tough market. By growing through both brand and hotel acquisitions, they’re steadily strengthening their US presence. I’m curious to see how they’ll leverage tech at this scale.

#2 How tech helped a hotel reach 96.6% satisfaction.

This 4-star hotel upgraded to a cloud PMS and integrated a staff collaboration tool, boosting communication, engagement, and guest satisfaction while reducing costs and improving processes.

• The gamification features in the staff collaboration tool transformed housekeeping tasks, boosted staff engagement and promoted a collaborative work culture.

• Real-time reporting tools allowed prompt issue resolution, improving process clarity and creating a cohesive work environment.

• Room inspection times improved, payroll costs decreased, and guest satisfaction scores reached a new high of 96.6 percent.

• The successful implementation showcased the significant economic and operational benefits of tailored technology solutions in hospitality.

Why this matters: This case highlights how tech in hotels must work with the staff, and not against them. In this particular case, chances are the hotel team was involved early in the process, which is often the first step toward success when it comes to implementing new tech in hotels.

#3 TakeUp raises $11M.

TakeUp secured a Series A funding round of $11M to expand its revenue optimization tools tailored for small hospitality brands.

• More than 92% of independents still price manually, leaving up to 30% of revenue on the table.

• TakeUp's AI platform offers automated, real-time pricing powered by causal inference models, learning from 38,000+ daily micro-analyses.

• Each property is paired with a dedicated strategist, creating a hybrid model of AI + human support.

• TakeUp’s customer base has grown over 300% in the last 12 months.

Why this matters: This is welcome news for independent hotels, which often lack the resources to keep up with dynamic pricing. TakeUp’s hybrid approach (combining AI with a dedicated human strategist) could hit the sweet spot in hotel tech.

💡 2025 Cloud PMS Comparison Sheet for Hotels

We’ve put together a free, simple comparison sheet with the top 30+ cloud PMS. You can see the best options at a glance and save yourself hours of research.

🏨 HOTEL DEALS & DEVELOPMENTS

• Dusit International expands in Europe via strategic joint venture.

• Zeus International acquires Eretria Hotel & Spa Resort in Greece.

• Marriott acquires citizenM, adding 8,789 rooms.

• Wyndham and Ovolo partner for APAC expansion.

• Capella Hotels unveil luxury travel package with Liv Lo Golding.

• Preferred Hotels partners with DayBlink GPO.

• Hilton faces US revenue challenges in Q2 2025.

• Marriott opens largest AC Hotel in North America.

🔦 IN THE SPOTLIGHT

This hotel company doubled its profits by transitioning to a franchise model, targeting high-yield segments, and optimizing cost synergies.

• They focused on boosting average daily rates and diversifying clientele. 

• Cost synergies resulted in significant savings, increasing gross operating profit from €2.4M in 2019 to €5.2M in 2024.

• This strategy earned them industry recognition, winning the prestigious HAMA Award.

This is a masterclass in strategic asset management, but also a reminder that tech quietly powers much of this transformation. These results are hard to pull off without strong hotel tech behind the scenes. Sometimes profitability can be using the right systems to do more with less.

🗞️ HOTEL TECH EXTRAS

• Jurny and Visual Matrix partner to bring AI automation to 3,000 hotels.

• Ireckonu launches hotel marketing automation tool.

• Travel Curious acquires Redeam in $40M deal.

• Kalibri launches Hummingbird Market for US hotel intelligence.

• Lighthouse joins Oracle Cloud Marketplace for OPERA integration.

• Triptease and Revinate partner to boost direct hotel bookings.

That’s a wrap for today, thank you for reading.

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See you next week!
Jose