The Modern Hotelier #177: How Contactless Hotel Interactions Improve the Guest Experience | with Tristan Gadsby & Alberto Santana
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Steve Carran: Welcome to a special edition of The Modern Hotelier. We are coming to you from the Dallara IndyCar Factory in Indianapolis, Indiana. We're joined by Tristan Gadsby, CEO of Alliants. Thanks for joining us. Tristan, how are you doing today?
Tristan Gadsby: I'm very good. How are you guys?
David M.: We're great.
Steve Carran: Fantastic. Fantastic. So we have a few questions for you here. So, one thing that we've seen is companies have spent a pretty big budget on contactless solutions. Yeah. Why are so many hotels around the world kind of reviving contactless after implementing solutions years ago? 
Tristan Gadsby: I have some really good question. I, so I think it goes back to COVID. Ultimately when COVID arrived, people suddenly had to really try and implement whatever they could to keep the operations open to, you know, to just make it work. So a lot of very quick decisions were made, you know, around the technologies that they used. Problem with that is we are already a very fragmented industry. We have so many solutions. I mean, I literally look at our clients application lists and they are massive.
It's so fragmented and it's really difficult to actually deliver a great experience when you've got. So many different solutions that you need to try and make work together or integrate or anything else. So for that reason, I think they now started to look at how do you bring all of that together, right? To start actually, you know, delivering a great customer experience. 
Steve Carran: Have you heard of a recent success story from somebody you've worked with on somebody that may have recently implemented a contactless solution? Thanks for asking. So. 
Tristan Gadsby: Yes, we had a press release with Resorts World. So they very much look to reinvent their technology stack. So I think, you know, the number of reasons they run the Hilton Properties in Las Vegas, they wanted to really take a fresh look at how that worked. I think when you start looking at that, you've gotta bring together all the different elements of contactless together and contactless, I think, it is a term that actually means different things to different people. So yes, it's about, you know, talking to the guest after they booked. It's about trying to understand their needs. Why are they coming? It's about then trying to get details from them. What do they want from the stay, you know, and the check-in process.
Right. And which actually doesn't need to be as quite as rigid as it is today. Sure. All the way into actually then accessing the room and no one wants to turn up at a hotel, whether you're a business traveler or you're going to Vegas and you're met by a long queue, no one wants, that's not hospitality.
Right? Right. That's not why we go and stay in a nice hotel. Your welcome should be, you know, a staff member greeting you with a smile or you know, something else. So I think they're looking at it because they want to actually try and achieve. You know what hospitality is all about at the end of the day.
Steve Carran: Absolutely. 
David M.: Alright, so we got another one for you. Why is there an industry shift from the legacy contactless solutions like Bell, I'm gonna get that right, and plastic key cards being ditched for NFC based technologies? Well, first of all, that's easy for you to say, David. I know. Sorry. 
Tristan Gadsby: So we've known each other for a long time. Yeah. So I feel like I can say that. Bluetooth technology is clunky. I mean, a number of times I've seen people fumbling with their phones. Yeah. And in the lift, well, I studied physics at university, so it's a faraday cage. A faraday cage means, you know, fields can't move in or out. So wifi doesn't work in a lift.
So when you're trying to use a Bluetooth key and you're trying to access it, most of the time it's just not gonna work. So NFC technology, which is what the wallet products of, uh, companies like Apple and Google. They all work from that. Um, NFC, well, they use NFC technology, so once you put a key into that wallet, actually, you don't need any internet connection or anything like that.
So I think that's part of it. The other thing is there's been this view in the industry for a while that Bluetooth key, well, first of all, you can't get a Bluetooth key without having the app. Correct? Yep. The app is not the be all and end all of of a guest experience. Guests don't. Hotels think like that.
Guests don't think like that. So the ability to actually send a key to someone on their phone without having them, or the need to download an app is a massive game changer. Yeah. And that a hundred percent. So we call that web provisioning, but that ability to send a SMS or a WhatsApp message and get a key onto someone's phone that just works when you tap it. And I dunno if you've ever used like the subway with, you know, express mode on your, that experience is so great. You just literally, it's amazing. Your phone or your watch, you know, it just, it just works. The first, it was a great story. We, we were testing it in London. We had a hotel in London called Sea Containers, which is a, obviously managed by law.
And we were testing it secretly in the background. And one of our guys walked into the lift at the end of the evening. I just waved this phone at the, uh, thing and it just went bing, press the button and everyone else in the left turned around and went, what the hell is that? Yeah. It's like, I want that.
And I think that's why they're looking at it. It's a, it's all about trying to deliver that seamless guest experience and everyone's trying to do it at last, at last. The technology is there to actually enable it. 
Steve Carran: So, and kind of to that point, so hotels that are using more of a legacy system. How does that impact differ from if they're using a more modern technology like alliance? Not only for the hotel experience, but also for the guest experience as well. 
Tristan Gadsby: So, I mean, the numbers say it all. And, uh, so Doma Carber, who are our partners at Resort World, uh, just publish some of the stats. Uh, so the typical conversion rate was sort of 12 to 14%, I think, something in that sort of region that's gone into the forties now.
You know, it's about the adoption. And once customers love it, you know, once you, once they download that experience, you know, I had a classic example this morning. I couldn't find my wallet, so I had to leave my room without my wallet, but I would never leave without my phone, right? So you always have your phone on you. So let's just make it easy for customers. That's what they use. 
David M.: That's their advice, that's what it should be. 
Steve Carran: Agree. 
David M.: So, also there's a lot of debate about, you know, self-service check-in and how it's a convenient for the guest or it's a taking away from hospitality. What, what do you, what's the experience there and what's your thoughts on that experience and how do you guys make it work?
Tristan Gadsby: Good question. So do you like a queue? No. Right. So there's the first answer. The second answer is it does two things. So first of all, by putting 'em through a digital experience. And actually, if you understand the guests, you can also tailor that pre-arrival experience. That's a really good point. You can make good quality recommendations of things they might like to do or experience.
So we've actually seen revenues increase through the ancillary process because when the person's at checking, trying to fight, you know, they're fighting them systems. They're not thinking about upsell or cross-sell or any of those things. In a cell service experience, you can do that and you can personalize it at scale.
And that's what, you know, a lot of people are talking about. AI reality is not many people are really doing ai, but actually, if AI's got the right data, it can do a really great job of recommending the right things to, to customers. So, so even in that experience, it's great. And then when you get to the hotel instead of the.
The employees fighting the systems, right. They can actually greet you with a smile and show you where to go and do all the things that hospitality actually is meant to be. You know, having captured the credit card properly, having verified your identity and all those horrible things that, yeah. And friction to the process.
David M.: So, well that's great. That's great. Take us out. Yeah. So it's always a pleasure seeing you. I hope you have a continued great HITEC and always a pleasure. Likewise. Can we do this again sometime soon? We will. Thanks. Thank you. Thanks. 
Steve Carran: We are now joined by Alberto Santana, CRO at Alliants. Alberto, thanks for joining us. How you doing today? 
Alberto Santana: I'm wonderful. It's a pleasure to be here with you two gents. By the way. Congrats in watching your videos being senior success. Congrats. Really happy to be here with you folks. Thank you. Appreciate it. Thank you so 
Steve Carran: much. So, Alberto, I have to ask, how is Alliance bringing a new age of contest contactless experience to hotels?
Alberto Santana: So, if you think about it, you're a traveler. You go through TSA, you already went through a line. How many more lines do we have to go through? We don't wanna go through any more lines. So whatever we can do to make that little friction go away, that's what we're working on. We're making it so that let's just, let's just get on this journey.
Let's just start the vacation. Why, why, why? I don't wanna show my id. I don't wanna stop at the front desk. I want to empower people to get to know me, but we wanna get rid of this. You know it, it's transactional part of the relationship and get back to hospitality. That's exactly what we're going after.
What can we do to make that easy? What can we do that's ubiquitous to people? What can we do to involve the Apple Wallet key? Get it right into my phone. I mean, it was the last time you took out a ticket to go to a concert, right? So let's go, let's, let's ride. Let's get rid of that. Let's get on the journey and then let's open up that opportunity to go and have an experience.
David M.: Agree a hundred percent. And so traditionally you guys alliance, you cut your teeth with messaging, you did guest profiles, concierge use cases. So why is it expanding or why have you decided to expand into that contact list, the key solutions and things of that nature?
Alberto Santana: Well, it just makes sense, right? I mean, everything else is a conversation. It like, I don't like the word messaging. I don't really like it. Right. Because I, you know, I go to my, my, my shoe repair guy. I think I told you guys, he, he texts me when my shoes are ready. 
David M.: Right. 
Alberto Santana: You know what I mean? It's like my dry cleaner texts me my, change my oil. They text me, my lawn, dude texts me, that's transactional text. Hey, you owe me money. Yeah, let's send money z me. All right. Whatever. So what we're doing, if you think about it, again, this is just a natural part of the journey. Let's start. Let's have conversations. Let's have conversations that are meaningful, right? And that's not just focused on the booker.
This is a huge problem in the industry. Whoever books the reservation is The Almighty. The Almighty. Nobody cares about the rest of the people. So you can make a reservation right now and say two people. Yeah, whatever, four people. Oh, okay. Whatever. So anything that we can do, again, remove the friction.
Start a conversation, get going, then we're moving beyond that transactional aspect of things and do, and it's just natural again. Again. When was the last time you used a paper ticket to get on a plane? All right. Yeah. Not for like a decade. When do you check in? You check in early. If they ask you for ad, you give it early.
If they ask you for your address verification, you give it early. Anything you can do to get on the journey, that's what you wanna do. Let me get rid of the transactions and let's start the journey. 
Steve Carran: Yep. I love that. So if I'm a Hotelier today. What should I be thinking about to deliver a seamless guest experience in the future?
Alberto Santana: I mean, you have to think about what you're doing today and say, is this the right thing? I think here being a high tech, it's been very interesting. Everyone's talking about what's gonna happen in the future, and everybody's talking about AI and this, that, and the other. That's great. Wonderful. All right.
These are progressions, but what I think is interesting, especially when we heard the keynote talking about how the fact that. You know, they created RA tracks for trains based on the size of two horses. With the two horses, right? Well, if you think of the word reception, all right. If I say res wedding reception, you're like, oh, awesome.
If you think of HITEC reception, awesome. If I say reception, when you go to the front desk, you're like, oh, I gotta show my id. I gotta do this, I gotta do that. Like the word reception isn't the same there anymore. So this is what I'm trying to say. The hotels need to start thinking, well, hold on a second.
Uh, let me get rid of this transactional, and I'll keep using that word because it's all transactional. Let's get rid of this transactional piece and turn everybody into like a little mini concierge, right? Turn everybody into somebody who's there to help me, guide me on this journey. Hey, man, I made a reservation for two adults and two kids.
Let me talk to you about what I can do for families, right? Because right now I make a reservation. It's like, would you like the champagne package? I, dude, I, I have two kids. Like, I mean, do I need a drink? Probably, yeah. But, uh, you know, I'd rather do something fun with the children, right? This is, this is, so they think if we, if we think about it, the more we can do to get rid of those transactions, the more we can do to do special things.
Then we're focused on hospitality. And I get it. Listen, there's, yeah. Various properties or in different markets and what have you, but there's so much to offer. There's so much for a city to offer. There's so much for a, you know, the hotel as being that place where it's like, this is where I'm gonna stay in that city.
Great. Then what are you gonna share with me that's not just the same as somebody else. So we gotta start rethinking rules. We gotta start thinking, rethinking responsibilities. We've been doing the same things for a long time, right? And we get really excited when we charge $10 more than somebody else.
And it's like, what if you found out that it was my birthday, I would spend a hundred dollars more. Right? It doesn't make any sense to me. Again, I think times are changing. And by the way, I don't know if you've tuned into anything right now, but if you watch a commercial right now, what is Airbnb talking about? Experience. It's experiences, right? I can't, you can't put a sporting event on anything and not hear the same thing. How do we get that? Well, you can't do it unless you find out more about why people are coming somewhere. So let's open that door. 
David M.: Let's make that happen, right? A hundred percent. You've covered so many great friction points that you guys are solving and fixing. What did we miss? Is there something we missed in this conversation? Other things? Oh my gosh. Do we have time? 
Alberto Santana: My favorite one? No, my favorite one is the extra guest in the room. Right? So I'll go back to that because I think it's important listen, most reservations are under my name. 
David M.: Yeah. 
Alberto Santana: We saw a statistic recently. I think it came out of HNLA. It says 82% of travel is being booked by women. Okay. Wow. In the Santana household. Listen, I have very little to say, unless it's a boys' weekend, right? Of what's gonna happen, where we're gonna go.
I get to pick dinner because I'm good at it, right? But everything else is in my responsibility. Meanwhile, there's two adults who's the other adult, so who's getting marketed to afterwards? I am, well, I'm, I, I barely had anything to do with it. I just had a name on a reservation. We gotta open up that part of it and say, what can we do with the rest of the names on the reservation?
If I came for an anniversary, who else was part of the anniversary? If I came for a wedding, who else was part of that? And let me tell you, let me just add something else. 'cause again, we're here at HITEC. We're here live, by the way. Again, awesome event. Super cool. Can't be with in Indianapolis Speedway.
David M.: Yeah, 
Alberto Santana: It's pretty cool, right? Yeah. Yeah. Really good. I don't know about you. I used to speed a lot and you know, I like it. Yeah, I get that problem. Maybe I still do, but it's neither here nor there. But I mean, we're here at HITEC. Every hotel that we're staying at probably has the group code HITEC.
How many of them tried to reach out to say, Hey, why don't you come in a weekend earlier? Hey, why don't you stay a little bit later? It hasn't happened. Why not? So we're missing these opportunities to connect with people when they're doing something that we know what they're doing. Right. Let's get back to, let's get back to that, or let's start that 
David M.: Great point.
Steve Carran: It's no secret. AI is a buzzword. Oh, we talk about it pretty much every podcast. Yeah. How do you see it not only affecting hospitality, but the contactless experience in the future? 
Alberto Santana: There's so many ways to think about this, and I like the word AI because, I mean, but think about it. It's even being broken down further.
Right? Generative ai, agentive ai. So I think when it comes to the agentive aspect, it's all right, well go out and find me the last time they were here. Am I matching this profile? Do I have their id? Do I know who this is? Hey, let's de-dupe this person. Once I take their last name and I get their, 'cause, I mean, come on.
We have like the same, oh yeah. I mean, I'm, I'm Alberto Santana 5,000 times over, even sometimes with hair, sometimes without, right? So if you think about it, the more we can use the adjunctive part of it. To scrub data to do things. I think that's gonna change a lot. And I think the other one is to serve up and make people more powerful, make the staff more powerful.
Okay. Someone asks you a question, how do I answer this question? I don't think we always can respond automatically. I don't know that that's actually the best answer. If I look up, Hey, show me the best, you know, food in Indianapolis, who's, who's curating this list? I don't know. I think that we can probably put it on a rack somewhere, right?
Yeah. Serve it up and let the hotel decide, Hey, these are the places that I like, these are my peeps. Let me send you to these places. So I think that what we're gonna keep seeing is that aspect of the journey. I also feel very strongly outside of, let's take it outta the hotel's hands and put it in the people's hands.
I have points with every major brand. I have points with, God knows what else, right? How do I make a decision of what's the best value for me to travel? And if you think about it, I mean, we're live, we're here in the states. You have a financial planner, we have a financial planner. All these websites, you're serving up what you have in your 401k.
What do you have in stocks? What do you have in insurance? And it's giving you information on that decision. I think if I serve off my point somewhere and I wanna travel to Indianapolis to be saying, Hey man, your best value is to use these points with Americans, these things over here. And then it puts it in the consumer's hands to decide.
So I, that's why it's an interesting question. What are hotels doing well. What is travel doing? Right? Right. What is travel doing? There's so many ways, and it's moving really fast, right? It's moving really fast to find where the puck is going. I think it's small potatoes now compared to where we can be going.
David M.: Well, we appreciate the time. Go enjoy yourself. Yeah, enjoy the night. Enjoy HITEC and it's always a pleasure to see you. It's great to see you, Vince, as well. Have a great one. Guys. 
Steve Carran: Thank you much.