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The HotelTechInsider podcast interviews the top leaders at the convergence of hotels, travel and technology. Guests include founders, executives, top hoteliers and industry organization leadership. Find all of the episodes at hoteltechreport.com
Don't be afraid of doing it because, like, I was never into tech stack. I was neither into tech. And I was one of the last ones at my school to have a computer, I remember.
Speaker 2:From Hotel Tech Report, it's Hotel Tech Insider, a show about the future of hotels and the technology that powers them.
Speaker 3:Today, we're talking with Tini Dijklin, the hotel director at Hotel Oderberge, a 70 key hotel in Berlin. In this episode, Tini walks us through the Tini tech stack. We cover foundational software like the PMS, as well as some interesting and valuable add ons. You won't want to miss this one, so let's dive in. Well, thank you so much, Tini, for being on the podcast today.
Speaker 3:I'm really looking forward to chatting with you. And to get things started, I would love for you to introduce yourself and tell us a bit about your hotel.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Thank you, Adrienne. I'm very happy to be on the podcast today. I'm the hotel director of Hotel Oderberge, which is a boutique hotel with 70 rooms in the heart of Berlin, Prenzlauer Berg, a quite trendy district. And actually, the hotel is just part of a company which basically consists of a language school and three hotels.
Speaker 1:So Hotel Oderberge is here in Berlin. We have another small property on the East Coast in Osedom. It's called Villa Bleichroder. And then we have the language School, which has another 48 studio apartments. I'm responsible for the part of the hotel.
Speaker 1:I'm basically the hotel director. I'm also director of sales, revenue, distribution, so everything that has to do with the rooms section. I'm not responsible for the F and B part. I have colleagues who are doing this, but I have enough work with all the fields. And yeah, I'm always open to new things.
Speaker 1:I think we get more in detail into that later on, I think. But our tech stack changed a lot in Corona. So we did the PMS change in the middle of the thunderstorm of Corona five years ago. That was in 2020. And then after changing the PMS, we added a lot of more tech tools.
Speaker 1:And yeah, I'm happy to talk about this. Thank you for having me.
Speaker 3:Absolutely. Well, let's jump right into it. I understand that you have a signature tech stack, and I would love for you to walk me through the vendors you use and also why you chose them.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Actually, the name came up. I thought this is so funny because it goes well with my name. So it's the Tiny Tech Stack, we call it. And I can just say that I chose those tools.
Speaker 1:So they're my particular opinion. Doesn't mean they're the best on the market. They're just the best on the market for me. So I think the tech stack you choose is very personal because for every area, there's so many options, like at least, I don't know, five options for each area that you could choose. So I think nowadays, the tech stack became really personal because it's really my signature.
Speaker 1:So I chose this, and that's exactly what I would recommend for anybody having, of course, a hotel of my size. You know, I wouldn't recommend this maybe to a hotel with 500 rooms. They have other needs and concerns. But like for a boutique hotel in a city, I would really recommend this. But of course, there are other options.
Speaker 1:Well, the first thing to start with, so that's really like the base, is of course the PMS. It's the heart of the tech stack. And when I started in this hotel ten years ago, we had the self built PMS, which was from the language school. It had all the language data, the students, the teachers, and all this. And then we added this hotel with 70 rooms.
Speaker 1:And of course, the system got slower and slower and slower, and then it didn't work anymore at all. So it was like a really, really old fashioned and no online payment. And I can't even imagine how we worked for this five years ago. But then, fortunately, we decided to change the PMS and we did a big selection. We had different vendors here in house and we decided for Muse five years ago.
Speaker 1:So nowadays they're really popular and they always voted on your site for best PMS, I think now, I don't know, two, three years in a row. So they're really, really famous, but five years ago they were not so famous yet. But we were already really convinced that was really the best PMS for us. And I'm so happy that we chose them and did the life goal or the change of the PMS really in the middle of Corona. That was really awful because Corona itself was already awful for everybody in hospitality.
Speaker 1:You knew all the hotels were closed. You didn't know if you could keep on going, we're ever gonna open again. And it was really hard times. And we chose to, in these different times, to also change the PMS on top. But actually, it was good because the hotel was quite empty and so happy that we did it.
Speaker 1:I think we wouldn't have survived without Muse or a cloud based PMS because just this way, we were able to cancel reservations from anywhere, even the hotel was closed or do payments and refunds and everything, not having to be on-site. So that was really the base and the first step.
Speaker 3:What about Muse made you choose that system? Were there features you liked?
Speaker 1:So I would say it's a sexy tool. So it's really intuitive. Looks nice, but it doesn't only look nice, it also works really smoothly. And the workflows are just intuitive. So you can just put a person here, a new front office agent, you can put them here.
Speaker 1:And, like, within a day, they can do check-in, check out, invoice, invoice changes, booking products. And with an old, complicated system, you would need, like, two weeks to explain to a person until they are first allowed to do the first check-in by themselves. It's really nice to use and intuitive. And the best part is that it has all the open APIs that you can add all the other tools for the tech stack. Because with the old PMS that we had, of course, they didn't have any APIs, so I couldn't add anything.
Speaker 1:I heard about so cool tools that we could use, but we couldn't because we couldn't add them. And with Muse, it's so nice that you don't pay for extra interfaces. It's just like open. And of course, what you have to know, and I think it's very important to know that Muse doesn't know or have everything, but you need to add different tools for whatever needs you have. Muse is a PMS and it's a really great PMS with open APIs for different tools.
Speaker 1:But I think you cannot ask of a PMS to be already to have everything and be able to do everything. You will need to add some extra tech, but that's what I like about it.
Speaker 3:So what have you added on top of Muse? What are some of those integrations?
Speaker 1:So we added so many things that I divided them into themes. So the first theme is like prices and revenue, of course. So the first one, which goes without saying, but I'm saying it anyway, it's of course a channel manager. But remembering five years ago before we had Muse, we didn't even have a channel manager. So I was doing the prices for all the OTAs and the website for every day of three sixty five days per hand.
Speaker 1:So I cannot even imagine anywhere how that was. It was a lot of time that I was using for this. So of course, the first thing of all, if I have to cancel all the interfaces, the only one I would, of course, have to say is SiteMinder. We have SiteMinder as a channel manager to connect to the different OTAs, and the connection is really good. And yeah, I set it up five years ago or then for the new property at the East Side like it was two years ago.
Speaker 1:You set it up once and then it's working flawlessly and really no need to do anything. If you want to change, you can change things, but it's really just going quite well by itself. Actually, what's interesting that Muse is now adding they're a little bit trying to undercut the channel managers because they're having direct integrations now with, for example, booking.com and Expedia. But they didn't have when we started with Muse. So we connected everything with SiteMinder.
Speaker 1:But when we started, they didn't have Expedia or Booking direct connections. But now they do have. So you can actually save the money for the channel manager if you only use Expedia and booking.com. But as soon as you also use other OTAs, then, of course, you need the channel manager to sell as many rooms as possible on the different OTAs. So that's the first four prices and revenue.
Speaker 1:Then since about one year, we have an RMS for making the prices. Because even now that I didn't have to do the channels anymore, I still had a lot of work with doing the prices. Because actually it's really hard to do by hand for all the days, you cannot be everywhere or maybe I was on a Saturday at home and there was like that a concert would be in Berlin or something and then the prices went up and then I had to react even on the weekend but now I have this RMS. It's called Room Price Genie. I'm really happy about it.
Speaker 1:It's really nice for hotels of our size because it's also very intuitive. It's not too complicated. You don't need like three months to set up all the rules. It's really easy, nice. And yeah, for me, it's also sexy, this tool, because it's just so nice and intuitive and so good to use.
Speaker 1:I would really recommend. And then I go on with the revenue to get some extra revenue. I always recommend to have an upsell tool, which shows Upsell Guru, which is put into the presale message. And then the clients, they can choose if they want, for example, extra breakfast or a parking space or some flowers on the room or whatsoever. Actually, you could also do the room type upsell.
Speaker 1:Like if they booked a comfort room, they could get a junior speed. But we are not doing this because we have so many different room types. We have 11 room types already, and then it would be a little bit too much. So it may work for anybody else. For us, it doesn't.
Speaker 1:But we do the upsell for the rooms.
Speaker 3:And are the prices for the upsell items, like parking, for instance, that's just a static price that Mhmm. Like, you enter that price once. You're not
Speaker 1:Exactly. Yeah. In that case, as it's only products, it's a static price. So there's a fixed price for breakfast or for parking. What is nice that people who already have breakfast included in their rate, they do not get the breakfast offered, for example.
Speaker 1:So it's a little bit personalized. But what they do have, if we would do the room upsell, they could, like, bet on, like, how much they would like to pay for. Like, some airlines also have this that you can bet on how much you want to add for the upgrade. And then also for extra revenue, we have voucher card as a voucher tool, which is really nice. We started this also in corona times because this way we were able to get some extra revenue without having people stay here because you just sell the voucher.
Speaker 1:And as we all know, at least one third or almost half of the vouchers never get redeemed because the people just forget about it. So, yeah, we have the revenue without them staying here. And this is really nice. We have, for example, vouchers for our pool because I didn't mention we have a really big pool in a big, big swimming pool hall, which was built in nineteen o two. So it's a really nice event to be here swimming.
Speaker 1:And, also, we have a midnight swim. So you can go, just you and your favorite person, two people from 10PM till midnight, alone in the pool with nice lights and music. And, yeah, it's really nice things. You can just, like, sell events on voucher card and even do some marketing like this for your venue.
Speaker 3:Were all of these systems implemented after you implemented news?
Speaker 1:Yeah. So it was of we are talking about a timeframe of five years. So of course, you cannot add 20 tools at the same time. So Muse was the first thing together with SiteMinder that was already there at the beginning. And VoucherCard was also quite fast.
Speaker 1:But then, I don't know, I think you cannot really do more than one or two tools per year. I think you should maybe give the also the team and the staff some time to adapt to the new tools. So I I wouldn't do it more than one every six months, to be honest. So you will need some this tech stack was built over the last five years. And also we tried now I'm getting to the guest relation tools.
Speaker 1:What's really nice that you can also so Muse, as I said, is the base. But then the tools that you add on Muse, you can change, of course. So you're doing contracts for one year or two years. And what I like so much is that you can just try if you like them or if they are well for you. And if not, not, you just cancel and try another one.
Speaker 1:So this is really plug and play, I would say. It's your tech stack, so you can try as many as you like.
Speaker 3:And in Muse then, does the staff enter like comments about the guests? Like if someone in the restaurant learns about an allergy or a favorite type of wine or something, like they would make a note in the guest profile and that can be pulled into an email.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. In the guest profile or or maybe they said, oh, they absolutely don't like Room 306. Please never again give Room 306 or so on.
Speaker 1:And then in the next arrival, it's already displayed as an information of the guest. So the guest profiles are actually getting richer, I would say. So we get a lot of more information. Before, it got lost somewhere in the system, and now it's really getting put all together. And so we got really good information about the guest.
Speaker 1:And then we also have Trust You as a customer reputation management system because it helps us to get all the reviews together, and then we can answer them directly in the tool. So it's it's really helping a lot to get because we get a lot of reviews on all the different channels, TripAdvisor, Booking, Google, Expedia, whatsoever. And then it's so nice that you can have them all together. You can see your scores. You can see where you need to improve or what's going well.
Speaker 1:You can put also for the housekeeping team, can say your aim is to have nine point zero for this year for housekeeping as the review score. And so you can really work with those scores. And for the person who is replying to all the reviews, it's also easier to have it all together in one place. And also here, we are not because the thing is, you have to pay actually, of course, for every tool that you're using, and the better you want them to have or to be, the more you pay. So there's also an option to have an AI on the reply of the reviews.
Speaker 1:And I think this is also great that you don't have to answer everything again every day by yourself, but you can also get AI help, which saves a lot of staff time. Yeah, that's about the review tool. And then what I would also count into guest relation management system is our we have digital information in the rooms with better space. We have tablets in the rooms. So the in room tablets with all the information about the hotel, the guests find the times of breakfast, of the pool, restaurants nearby, or events going on.
Speaker 1:And they can even watch TV or newspapers in the tablet. That's a really nice add on. And also the tablet is saying, hello, mister da da da, when the check-in is done. And what we added recently, I think like two years ago, is the better energy with the tablet. So the tablet is actually talking to the heater via Wifi.
Speaker 1:So it's connected and it's also connected to Muse. So we were able to save a lot of energy and a lot of money thanks to this because we were so as it's connected to Muse, like the heater knows if it's gonna be a check-in today or not, if the room is occupied or not. And depending on that, the temperature goes up or down. And then when the check-in is done at reception, there's like a boost of heat. While the person is walking to the room, it's going up.
Speaker 1:And the guests can also change the temperature on the tablet, of course, within parameters you put in there. But it's really nice that if a room maybe for some reason is not occupied for three days, then you're not heating there because Muse is telling the tablet and the tablet is telling the heater about the status of the room.
Speaker 3:Can guests also communicate with the staff through the tablet?
Speaker 1:There's a button and they can ask for an extra pillow or tell us something and they can communicate with the reception by tablet, yes. And now coming to guest communication, some of my favorites at the end. One, of course, is the chatbot that we really love. We implemented, I think, now three years ago. And we have Dialogue Shift as the chatbot on our website, and it really helps so much.
Speaker 1:So you see, I'm having a cold because the winter started here in Berlin. And I really don't like the winter, and that's why I spent normally January or February or maybe both in Madera Island, on Madera Island. And so I was implementing I remember this so well. I was implementing this tool in December. And then I went for my stay working abroad on Madera Island.
Speaker 1:Thanks to all the tech tools, it's possible. So I'm so happy and grateful for all our tech tools because I can be in the summer, the sun, in the wintertime. And then I came back and I was like, is our telephone broken? There's something wrong with the telephone. We're not getting any more calls.
Speaker 1:I'm going crazy. What's the matter? We have to call the IT department. And then it turned out, I cannot tell you numbers because I actually asked the IT department if they could, like, track how many calls we had before per day. And now, unfortunately, they can't.
Speaker 1:But just from the feeling, it's unbelievable how much less telephone calls we are having. It's unbelievable. So the team really loves it. And the people do start the conversation with a chatbot. And normally, I think 98% of the conversations from the chatbot are done by itself, and only 2% of the chatbot doesn't know something, they're like diverted to the team.
Speaker 1:And what we will try now, we need it because the new thing now is telephone AI, also from the chatbot, from DialogShift, but we couldn't do it so far because our telephones were not up to date. So first, we had to change the whole telephone IT setup with the hardware and everything and make new contracts. And now we're ready for the next step to have telephone AI in the winter. But I'm already using also from the chatbot is the DialogShift email AI. So all the information that's in the chatbot, so it's getting more and more intelligent over the time because with every question and every answer, of course, it learns more and more.
Speaker 1:And now I love so much the email AI. So if I have, for example, a complaint or also with yeah, even I'm doing it internally with my colleagues here in the language school. Think that they're not even aware that not me who's answering, but it's the AI. So it's really saving so much time even for complaints. If you don't use the answer completely, you can still change something.
Speaker 1:But it's really, for me, a game changer to use AI in the email communication.
Speaker 3:How do you continually evaluate your tech stack? Like how do you make sure every tool is still working for you, working the way you intend it to work? Is there a point where you would replace a tool if it's not working? How do you keep that feedback loop going?
Speaker 1:Actually, I have to say I keep using the tools also myself. So basically, almost all the tools, I use them in my daily business. Or if a staff member has a question, I'm looking Actually, I'm doing too much in the tools myself. I know I have to delegate a little bit better. That's one of my not so good points.
Speaker 1:I need to delegate more. But as I'm still inside the tools, as I set them up, if somebody has a question or wants to change something, I'm doing it. So I would say I'm kind of like the digitalization manager who's having still to do with the tools. And then if I see, of course, that something is not working anymore, or maybe I find out that we're not really using it anymore, it would be more not that it's not working, but that the question is, if they all cost money, I have to say this, because some hoteliers heard about, oh, you're having so nice tools. I would also like them.
Speaker 1:And then they were like, oh, but I have to pay each and every one of them? I'm like, yeah, you have to. I'm always surprised every end of the month about all the invoices I get. What you have to check, because they will keep on working, but what you have to check if you really use them and if there's still a return on investment for you. I mean, it doesn't make sense if you pay €500 per month for one tool and then the outcome is not so great, it's maybe just one hour per month, then you should maybe think about either changing it or getting rid of it.
Speaker 1:And then also the support, like if the colleagues tell me, oh, we wrote to them so many times, they don't respond. I think that's really important to have a good support, good return on investment, and they don't stop to function or malfunction. But maybe you hear what can happen that because where I hear about the tools and where I get to know the names is in the networking events that I'm taking place. So here we have, for example, we have a muse regulars table where we meet with different muse hotels or then the ladies revenue table, as we not only have few ladies in tech, in hotel tech, we also have few ladies in revenue management positions. So we created a ladies revenue table in Berlin.
Speaker 1:So we meet and we also talk about tools. And also we have a boutique regulars table where I meet other GMs from other boutique hotels. And there, of course, we talk about the tools and we say, oh, did you hear about this? This is really great. Oh, no, this is I wouldn't take this.
Speaker 1:It's really a lot about reputation or information inside the network evenings, I would say.
Speaker 3:We talked all about your current tech stack, but I'm curious to know what's on your wish list? Is there like a new Muse integration that you're thinking of adding?
Speaker 1:Yeah. Actually, I'm always so happy when I have one more tool done. So Flex skipping was the last one. I was like, tick, it's done. But of course, we have to get ongoing and get better every day.
Speaker 1:So the next steps actually would be to have a POS from Muse because we do have a point of sale system for the F and B outlets. We do have one, but it's a little bit outdated. It also has an integration to Muse, which I set up five years ago. It's called Hypersoft, but we're thinking about changing to the POS of Muse directly because the interface is a lot better. And also, you can do digital ordering with QR codes from the table.
Speaker 1:So you can just be at the table and the client can order with the telephone and do the order. And they also can pay for the QR code that's on the table. So that would also save a lot of staff time. So that's actually the next thing we're thinking about. And then we have the project because I told you that we have the language school.
Speaker 1:And so the Hotel Oderberger is basically digitalized and in a really good status. But now the management or the owners asked me to put all this TxTag also in the language school. So that would be my work for next year to digitalize also the language school. They want to change the check-in for mobile check-in and self check-in. So I'm actually talking now to some key companies.
Speaker 1:So they also have integrations with Muse. So we want to do the mobile key possible, and we want to have the self check-in possible for the students. And, yeah, basically, that's it for the plans for next year. So we're never getting a board in here. So we're always aiming for new features and new, yeah, things.
Speaker 1:But but, like, the basic tech stack here in Oderbergh, it will stay the same because I'm very happy about it. And yeah, just the POS and then on for the new projects. And we're also having a new building coming up in 2027. The owners will build a new building. Then we will also implement the tech stack.
Speaker 1:So yeah, never getting bored.
Speaker 3:Well, still have a couple of minutes left. I know you mentioned that you're very happy to be a woman in this space where there are not a lot of women. I'm curious if you have any advice or recommendations for a woman who wants to move up in the hotel tech space, what advice you would offer.
Speaker 1:Well, the advice would be just do it. I mean, don't be afraid of doing it because, like, I was never into tech stack. I was neither into tech. And I was one of the last ones at my school to have a computer. I remember a long time ago.
Speaker 1:And it's not hard. As I said, the tools nowadays, they're really easy to use. They're so intuitive and that you don't have to have like tech university degree in order to use them. I mean, if you can use WhatsApp on your phone, you can use any of those tech stack tools. And so I would say, just go for it.
Speaker 1:Just do it. Don't know why. Like today, we had a meeting with the key providers and it was all men in the room. And I was the only woman. We had two meetings.
Speaker 1:It was the same situation twice. And I was like, why am I the only woman here? But I don't know. Just do it and don't be afraid of it. And it's not yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's really hard to say. I don't know why. Men, they always or a lot of times they think, oh, I can do it. I'm so good. I can do it.
Speaker 1:And the women, they are more critical about themselves. They may be afraid. Maybe I cannot do it so well, then I will rather not do it. So my advice is you can just do it, be brave, and we should be more women out there in the hotel tech world.
Speaker 3:Thank you so much for walking me through the Tech Stack. It was great chatting with you. I really appreciate all of the advice and best practices that you shared.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much.
Speaker 2:That's all for today's episode. For listening to Hotel Tech Insider produced by hoteltechreport.com. Our goal with this podcast is to show you how the best in the business are leveraging technology to grow their properties and outperform the concept by using innovative digital tools and strategies. I encourage all of our listeners to go try at least one of these strategies or tools that you learned from today's episode. Successful digital transformation is all about consistent small experiments over a long period of time, so don't wait until tomorrow to try something new.
Speaker 2:Do you know a hotelier who would be great to feature on this show, or do you think that your story would bring a lot of value to our audience? Reach out to me directly on LinkedIn by searching for Jordan Hollander. For more episodes like this, follow Hotel Tech Insider on all major streaming platforms like Spotify and Apple Music.