Property Champions, Clean Data, Better Hospitality: Belmond’s Formula with Tiago Alves

How do you build a connected tech ecosystem for 42 luxury properties, across trains, safari camps, river cruises, and hotels, in multiple legal jurisdictions?

In this episode of Hospitable, host Rob Napoli sits down with Tiago Alves of Belmond to unpack one of the most ambitious digital transformations in global hospitality. From fragmented PMS systems to a unified, cloud-based platform, with 40+ integrations and an in-house API layer, Belmond’s journey is a masterclass in data unification, change management, and making hospitality tech actually work for people.

🧩 Topics Covered
- From duplicated guest profiles to a single source of truth
- Why Belmond built its own API & integration layer
- The role of “property champions” in driving adoption
- Legal, tax & compliance realities of cloud PMS across multiple countries
- Lessons from delayed go-lives—and what they’d do differently
- How Belmond automates the predictable so staff can focus on guests

If you're leading a PMS migration, building a hotel tech stack, or struggling with data silos, this episode is a blueprint you can’t afford to miss.

📢 Like, subscribe, and drop a comment: What's your biggest challenge in connecting your hospitality systems?

🔗 Learn more: https://www.omniboost.com
🔗 Explore Belmond: https://www.belmond.com

⏱️ Timestamps
00:00 Cold Open: Building a Connected Ecosystem
01:14 Meet Tiago & Belmond’s Tech Award
02:12 “Just Another Tech?” – Why This Project Mattered
03:23 20 Years in Hospitality Tech
04:27 Who is Belmond? A Diverse Luxury Portfolio
05:14 The Problem: Fragmented PMS Databases
06:42 Finding the Right Partner in a Legal Landscape
08:20 Involving Cross-Functional Teams from Day One
10:00 Property Champions & Local Ownership
11:37 Balancing Standards & Local Needs
13:19 Change Management & Tech Aversion
19:03 Delays & Building an In-House API Layer
22:35 Scaling to 40+ Integrations
26:05 Go-Live Realities: Migration & Cleanup
29:06 Owning the Data Pipeline
31:38 What Tiago Would Do Differently
36:26 Automating the Predictable to Free Up Staff
44:18 How to Reach Tiago & Closing Thoughts

Connect
Tiago Alves: https://www.linkedin.com/in/talves
Belmond: https://www.belmond.com
Rob Napoli: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robnap
Rob Napoli: https://www.robnapoli.com
Omniboost: https://www.omniboost.com

Show Produced by: Niranjan Deshpande (Nick), Broken Frames Studio, http://www.brokenframesstudio.com

#hospitalitytech #hotelpms #belmond #cloudpms #hotelsoftware #hospitalitydata #systemsintegration #hospitalityapi #hoteltechnology #dataplatform #aiforhotels #hospitalityautomation #hotelmanagementsystem #pmsintegration #connectedhospitality

Creators and Guests

Host

Rob Napoli

Rob is the Global Head of Brand at Omniboost and US Commercial Lead. He is passionate about sports, travel, and where to find the best whiskey bar in Manhattan.

Guest

Tiago Alves

Director of IT Operations /Regional Director of IT, EMEA and APAC Belmond

What is Hospitable?

Hospitable is a podcast that discusses how to make hospitality MORE human through technology.

Hospitable focuses on discussing the leading challenges facing the hospitality industry and to explore the latest trends, technologies, and best practices that are shaping the industry. Each episode features interviews with hoteliers, restaurateurs, chefs, industry analysts, and other experts who share their insights and experiences on topics such as customer experience, sustainability, innovation, staffing, and more.

Hosted by Rob Napoli

00:01:14:22 - 00:01:30:10
Rob Napoli
Hey, how are you doing? We are back for another episode of hospitable. Today my guest is Tiago Alves the director of IT ops for Belmond Hospitality. Tiago, welcome to the show, my friend. I'm glad to have you on.

00:01:30:12 - 00:01:40:14
Tiago Alves
Hey, Rob. Yeah, thanks. Thanks for having me, really excited to have a chat and see what things going on our hospitality world.

00:01:40:16 - 00:02:00:09
Rob Napoli
Yeah. Well, I'm really excited because, you know, we met, a few months ago at the IHTF and Vila maura. And you had a great talk on the things that you've done with Belmond, kind of the full ecosystem you've created there and connectivity. But also the adoption process, which I'm really excited about, but also want to highlight.

00:02:00:12 - 00:02:12:03
Rob Napoli
There's a pretty cool thing where you all won the resort Tech Innovation of the year award, which is pretty, pretty awesome, right? So, how exciting was that for you and the team and kind of seeing, you know, all the hard work paid off.

00:02:12:05 - 00:02:41:16
Tiago Alves
Yeah, exactly. That's that's exactly the key message. So it's it's the hard work paying off. Obviously we were super excited when we were, nominated for the award, and I was lucky enough to be there, and received the, the prize myself. So all my team was, was jealous. And to be fair, my, my partner on the journey or on the tech that, we won the award with, I was very little involvement.

00:02:41:16 - 00:03:10:19
Tiago Alves
So I just was there literally to collect the, the prize, which was. Yeah, it was was great. But yeah. So I also was very excited. So the all the team was very excited. I think it's, you know, again, like you said, just the hard work paying off, which is really great for us because, you know, seeing this kind of technology that, you know, is used to be seen like, you know, just another tech.

00:03:10:21 - 00:03:23:06
Tiago Alves
It's actually not just another tech. I mean, it's, you know, proving to be something amazing. And it's, benefiting the, the field teams on, on our properties, which is even better. And and the goal out of it for sure.

00:03:23:08 - 00:03:38:01
Rob Napoli
Absolutely. So tell me a little bit, how did you get to, Belmond? Tell me about your your kind of path. You know, you worked in the space before. So tell me, how did you, you know, get into the Belmond. You've been there for quite a little while now, right? About eight years.

00:03:38:03 - 00:04:02:01
Tiago Alves
Yeah, I've been almost nine years here. All my career I've been working in hospitality. Started like 20 years ago, more or less. So I started with my coach Fidelio, then moved to Swisscom. And then when I was at Swisscom, there was an opening at Belmont, in the southeast Asia Division in Beijing, in Thailand, Bangkok.

00:04:02:03 - 00:04:15:10
Tiago Alves
And I applied and, I got the job and, it's been a nice nine year journey with with Belmont, which has been, remarkable and amazing. I'm really happy and proud to to work for for Belmont.

00:04:15:12 - 00:04:27:07
Rob Napoli
I love it. And for those, you know, most of you out there probably have heard of Belmont and know about it, but for those that maybe not know about, hospitality is, maybe give us a little background on Belmont and, you know, the whole thing.

00:04:27:09 - 00:05:02:20
Tiago Alves
Sorry. Yeah. So Belmont is part of the LVMH group. We, it's a hospitality company. So we have, 42 properties around the globe, in different countries, different, regions. Part of these 42 properties, we have 36, hotels. We also have two safari camps. And we also have, luxury trains and luxury river cruises in, in France.

00:05:02:22 - 00:05:13:24
Tiago Alves
So very, very diversified. Yes, yes, a bit of everything. Very diversified. Very interesting. Portfolio. Yeah. Very excited to be here.

00:05:14:01 - 00:05:34:21
Rob Napoli
So we're going to kind of dive in, you know, your role, Director IT Ops. there's a lot of stuff that you all have done and, you know, and your talk was really about how you all created a connected ecosystem and how long it took. It took about 4 or 5 years. So take us back when you were looking, you know, having all these different properties, but not only like your traditional properties.

00:05:34:21 - 00:05:51:16
Rob Napoli
We have the resorts, you have the safari camps, you have trains and cruises, river cruises. When you are going through this process of evaluating tech and creating an ecosystem, where did you all start and how did that come about? And, you know, how daunting was that in the beginning?

00:05:51:18 - 00:06:16:09
Tiago Alves
Yeah. So so I guess it all started because we had all these different properties sitting in different PMS databases, meaning different sets of data, duplicated data, different profiles for the same person. And we thought that, you know, we had enough of it and we wanted to have, a central database, where we could have all of our data.

00:06:16:09 - 00:06:42:13
Tiago Alves
That could be our source of truth for, you know, this journey profiling, preferences, etc.. And also, we wanted a cloud based system, so we wanted to get rid of, you know, the, the server footprint on prem. And we wanted to move to a, a cloud based solution. And, and that's what, you know, pushed us to, to look for, for different partners.

00:06:42:15 - 00:07:29:23
Tiago Alves
Now, it was not easy because, again, we operating in, you know, several different countries with several complicated, different, legal requirements. So we we had to look for all you have to find, a partner. That one was present, in all the countries you operate that second, a system that would comply with all these different legal requirements, but also, a partner or a system that was, you know, seasoned and robust enough to take us from where we were, you know, different PMS, different databases to, to a centralized location where we could really leverage the data that, you know, although was there the data existed but was not organized,

00:07:29:23 - 00:07:35:22
Tiago Alves
was, you know, not in a status that we could use and take advantage of it.

00:07:35:24 - 00:07:57:09
Rob Napoli
Yeah. You know, you highlight, you know, an interesting point where in the world of hospitality tech today and obviously, you know, a little bit of Omniboost because we had a couple of conversations about it. I wish I had met you five years ago as we talked about the project yall did. You know, it's it's really great because there's a lot of awesome systems out there, from PMS to accounting platforms to, you know, all the things in between.

00:07:57:09 - 00:08:20:02
Rob Napoli
And there's a lot of great data that can come from that. The hard part is getting everything to connect, talk to each other, duplicate data, sitting there, owning your data and all of these different pieces to come that that single source of truth, as you said, right across stretching out. We have a lot of duplicate. And so I think that's a scary thing for a lot of people, because there's so much stuff on the market, there's a lot of noise.

00:08:20:02 - 00:08:41:24
Rob Napoli
But understanding how things connect, when you we started this journey to create this single source of truth. Where did you start and how did you start kind of chopping wood, so to speak, on a project like this, where did the base layer come in? You know, you talk about looking at partners, doing it yourself. What did you end up deciding on, and then how did you kind of build and structure the cadence around it?

00:08:42:01 - 00:09:13:02
Tiago Alves
Yeah. And I think it's it's it's a very good, question and a very, good point. So obviously, again, like I said, the beginning of what we wanted or how we started was with a centralized database with a cloud based system. So those were kind of the permissions, right. And again, now to find the right partner, with all the ticked, all the boxes that we wanted, or at least that ticked the majority of the boxes, because I understand that sometimes this is difficult to find.

00:09:13:02 - 00:09:37:21
Tiago Alves
One vendor that ticks all the boxes we have, we know that, so what I believe we were very successful on was to involve the different teams, the different departments. Since the beginning of the project. So was not, you know, a group of people from the corporate office that were deciding where we should go and what system we should pick.

00:09:37:21 - 00:10:00:15
Tiago Alves
You know, we we selected different key stakeholders from different properties, different regions, different departments, so that all of them can give us a little bit of input, even if it's just a small part of the input. But it could be important for, for the overall project. And I think that that's where we were very successful and that's where we started.

00:10:00:15 - 00:10:45:00
Tiago Alves
So we got people involved. Was obviously difficult because some, some of them were in different time zones, etc., but, you know, try to have everyone involved give their feedback, so that we could pick the right player or the right partner for us to, to, to, to move forward. And I think the other thing that was important or that we benefited from this is that as these key staff members were involved since the beginning of the project, you know, since the early stages of configuration, etc., they also gain, an inner knowledge of the system itself and a knowledge that was not only for the corporate team, but the knowledge that would

00:10:45:00 - 00:11:17:07
Tiago Alves
stay on property with their teams. So if, you know, during go live, the teams have an issue, they know that oh, that guy was involved on the project. So he should know or even if, you know, they might point to to the right person that was involved on that part of the configuration. So I think in all aspects was beneficial to have, not only, you know, the top management involved, but even the, the, the field people that work on the system every single day, to provide us some feedback on how we should configure it.

00:11:17:09 - 00:11:37:05
Tiago Alves
Now, this doesn't mean that we would attend to every single request, right? We we still wanted a standardized system, standardized at the base that would meet our goals, but at least, or nonetheless, a system that that would also support, the operations and the field teams.

00:11:37:07 - 00:12:00:02
Rob Napoli
Yeah. I think that's an interesting piece and a starting point. Right. We look at the decision making process and a lot of times, you know, obviously you have the buy in at the top. That's the right the track. And they know that things to be done. But sometimes when you live too far away from the actual problem, it's easy to say, oh, we're going to do this and it's going to stretch and it's going to standardize and it's going to work.

00:12:00:04 - 00:12:26:20
Rob Napoli
But that's from a 30,000ft overview. And so taking it down to the base level, and I think creating the cross-functional team, and I think it's also really good point that you made it. You're not going to tick every box you can. You can check all the boxes in a certain way. But they're not always we tick the way that maybe you thought because there's limitations and you never got connectivity in systems and whatever, but to look at all that from a big picture, pull everything out and say, let's put it all up on the board.

00:12:26:20 - 00:12:48:22
Rob Napoli
We can always remove. It's harder to add halfway through a project, right? So put everything on the board. Is a great is a great way to do that. And thinking about it from the front line all the way up is, is a unique challenge and one that, you know, people always think they do. But it's also hard to do because you need to know who to call in and who to kind of take feedback from.

00:12:48:24 - 00:12:57:01
Rob Napoli
And then how do you analyze that feedback, right? So that, you know, when you take that feedback, how does it fit into the wider schema of what you're trying to to build out? Right.

00:12:57:03 - 00:13:19:24
Tiago Alves
Yeah. And we're talking about, big systems as well. So it's talking about PMS, POS systems. So it the systems that have, major impact on the daily operations on Nortel. Right. And we also know that, you know, there is always an aversion or a pushback when there are major changes happening. Right?

00:13:20:01 - 00:14:03:15
Tiago Alves
So having this property team members also involved on the project to also help us motivating the change. Right. Because the rest of the staff would say, okay, but, we have people from our property involved on the project. So give them more on and the rest of the team is more confidence. And again, these property champions, we call them, property champions would, also help us, from a corporate level, motivate the project and ensure the rest of the team that things are progressing in a proper manner, the right

00:14:03:15 - 00:14:06:12
Tiago Alves
planning in place, etc..

00:14:06:14 - 00:14:33:19
Rob Napoli
Yeah, I think the idea the champion. Right. We talk about this all the time in different areas of the business, but internally. Right. Having a property champion, making sure that across all the countries that you're in and across all the resorts and hotels and other things that somebody's either at the property or from your region is involved, meaning that everyone has a voice and it feels like everyone's being heard and taking their opinions, being taken into consideration of the wider scheme of things.

00:14:33:21 - 00:14:55:20
Rob Napoli
And so having these property champions. So how did you enable the property champions? You know, this project didn’t happen overnight. It took a number of years. So how did you enable the property champions to, you know, feel empowered to bring everything along, provide feedback. What was that cadence like of leveraging these property champions throughout the process?

00:14:55:22 - 00:15:20:14
Tiago Alves
Yeah. So again we try to, we need to select people from different departments and different properties. And we had them participating on the project since the beginning. So the since the very beginning they would know what we are trying to achieve. What were the biggest challenges. And I think they felt empowered. And that was our objective as well.

00:15:20:16 - 00:15:44:08
Tiago Alves
They felt empowered because they saw they realized that their inputs were being heard and that hey could actually somehow, tailor the system to better meet their needs as well on the property level. So it's because we know it's a PMS system. It's not rocket science, but each property or each hotel operates in a different way.

00:15:44:10 - 00:16:18:01
Tiago Alves
Right? Or even if you compare an hotel to a safari camp, things are, different from one to the other. So having the property champions being heard and knowing that, okay, my input is valid and the team is understanding that this is important, even if sometimes they request or impossible for us to do because, again, would fall out of a legal requirement or not, what we wanted to achieve in terms of data consolidation.

00:16:18:03 - 00:16:45:10
Tiago Alves
But let's say they were part of the project. They were heard they could brainstorm with other, peers from, from other regions as well, that not only, again, help them to possibly build a better system, but with all these cross exposure and engagement, they also probably understood, different ways of operate or do things in a different way that could help them on our daily activities.

00:16:45:12 - 00:16:58:12
Tiago Alves
So, so I think, yeah, it's not that we empower them much. They actually empower themselves by participating on on the project was, you know, which was something very nice to, to see to be honest.

00:16:58:14 - 00:17:19:15
Rob Napoli
Yeah. That's that's super cool. I think, you know, it's really easy for you to get focused in your way of doing things, whether it's from because the hotel standard versus the region that you're in, the city that you're in, you know, things the way, the way you run a hotel in New York City is very different than the way you run a hotel in a small beachside town in Portugal.

00:17:19:17 - 00:17:46:09
Rob Napoli
Right. Because the amount of people and the way things are being done so having that kind of cross collaboration also empowered really your teams to, to learn from each other and take best practices, which is sometimes hard to do when you start scaling across the globe. Right? So for them to kind of see that happen and that to kind of naturally come out is a really cool piece of the project that you always think could happen, but you never know if it really, really is going to.

00:17:46:09 - 00:17:48:21
Rob Napoli
And so it sounds like it did, which is awesome.

00:17:48:23 - 00:18:15:02
Tiago Alves
Yeah, yeah. You guys, they kind of build these connections. Yeah. And you know, if they have an issue with, with or with the system, it most likely if it's the same system, most likely other people is having this same, same issue. Right. So they build internally these kind of connections and network that, you know, that even after the go live and doing operations, it helps them.

00:18:15:02 - 00:18:28:19
Tiago Alves
Because if they don't remember something or if they're having an issue, they know, okay, but I know that person from the other region, let me see if they have, the similar issue or if they know what to do to turn it around. So, so yeah, it's it was very positive for sure.

00:18:28:24 - 00:19:03:09
Rob Napoli
Amazing. So as you kick off this project and you had these kind of goals in mind, what were some of the talk me through a little bit of, of what you got going. Was there ever a moment of like, oh, we might have taken off, bitten off more than we can chew or, obviously problems are always going to rise or to do something to stick with talking it through kind of the the project timeline and how things went and kind of where that momentum really carried and maybe some sticking points where I felt like you're kind of running up against a wall.

00:19:03:11 - 00:19:44:18
Tiago Alves
Yes. And it happened for sure. So we actually had a timeline very different than what we, well, we thought about the timeline that was very different than, what the actually, went to be, so we, I think if, if I'm not mistaken, we started this around 2020. Sorry. We started around 2020. And we had more or less a plan to be finalized by end of 2022 or, you know, beginning of 23’

00:19:44:20 - 00:20:16:21
Tiago Alves
We just finalized it, at the end of 2024, so kind of two years, late. And I think this happened, not only, again, because it was a major change, but I don't think it's because we were not prepared for the change. It's one of the the reasons that, you know, I described at the beginning, you know, being able to comply with every single legal requirement in every single country we operate.

00:20:16:23 - 00:20:46:07
Tiago Alves
That proved to be very challenging. Not only because, you know, the partner we, we chose, operate in the majority of the countries that we, are in, but not in all of them. So they actually had to initiate all those developments of, of their legal requirements with the, with the, with the local tax authorities or government, authorities to certify the system.

00:20:46:09 - 00:21:11:04
Tiago Alves
And that, you know, dealing with governments, we know that, you know, sometimes, there are delays that are not predictable. And that delayed a little bit, the project, so that I would say that was one of the biggest challenges, the legal requirements. But, it also helped us in a way, because we realized that, you know, the timeline was, was dragging out.

00:21:11:10 - 00:21:39:20
Tiago Alves
And we really wanted to have, you know, all properties up and running with this system, as soon as possible. So we, we actually started to, to develop our own internal API that would help us to, you know, connect these systems where the integrations were not possible, were not ready, so we could tell the partner, okay, prioritize on the legal requirements and leave the integrations to us.

00:21:39:20 - 00:22:02:19
Tiago Alves
We will develop the integrations. So I understand that not not everyone is is or all the other companies are, lucky. I would say as well that, you know, we had support from the management. We, we, we managed to get, development team in-house. I understand that that's not always possible. And we were very lucky on that, but it helped us.

00:22:02:21 - 00:22:35:22
Tiago Alves
So we had the partner in developing the system, or the vendor development team focusing on, the legal requirements. And then we were focusing on all the other integrations that we built through our API. And interesting enough, 2 or 3 years after we started, I believe, with 5 or 6 integrations through our API, and now we have around 40, so we may, continue to escalate and build more and more and more.

00:22:35:22 - 00:23:10:03
Tiago Alves
And now it's almost one of our, must keep, systems is our own, you know, developing our API, which is great. And again, open the doors for, for for something else, and for other stuff we have now recently went live with our own booking engine, again developed in-house, with our own integrations, making sure that you know, all the fields that we want to leverage, all the data that we want to use, is through the integration.

00:23:10:03 - 00:23:28:03
Tiago Alves
So we don't need to wait on third parties to develop that for us or to be dependent on what data sets they have available for us. So we developed our own, integrations, our own booking engine, and, yeah, we are loving the journey.

00:23:28:05 - 00:23:50:02
Rob Napoli
I love it. That's the interesting piece, right? When you think about the integration, obviously what we do is the integration connectivity and you make a good point about maintaining it and also the mapping piece. Right. There's all kinds of different things that could go wrong. I always like to joke, you know, hospitality at the end of the day it all comes in to have all your systems and you end up in an accounting personally, you know, kind of hospitality, accounting.

00:23:50:02 - 00:24:11:10
Rob Napoli
But anytime we talk about hospitality integrations, it's like 85% is standard out of the box. Right. You know these certain things there's always that 15% that's kind of changing because a resort is different than an independent boutique hotel. The chains are a little bit different than your river cruise. Right. And so you have to kind of find where you can take those assets and have standardization versus a little bit of customization.

00:24:11:10 - 00:24:32:16
Rob Napoli
So it's really cool that you're able to find a way to piece all that together over time and then iterate off that. I think the biggest thing when we talk about connectivity is the iteration of so much changes so fast in hospitality and data and all these things. To understand that, you have to kind of continuously iterate, over time.

00:24:32:18 - 00:24:55:17
Tiago Alves
Yes, absolutely. And our development teams are one of the teams that never stops once they finish a project that is someone else from sales team, from marketing, from brand that come up with another idea and to keep them busy and they're happy with that. So, it's really, really cool to to be able also to be part of the team.

00:24:55:17 - 00:25:24:16
Tiago Alves
I'm not the developer, but you know, I know the work they are doing and it's really impressive. all these integrations that they build in sometimes from one week to, to the other, obviously they're not too complex, but but, having the platform or the bases, there it's just a matter of understanding what you really want and start building it because, all the bases are there.

00:25:24:18 - 00:25:45:22
Tiago Alves
And I think that was also very important. And again, one of the main drivers for, for this, we see some changes that we knew we had the data but was no way close to be to be used. Yeah. Let's build the foundation so that whatever comes after, we are sure that we will be able to to accommodate.

00:25:45:24 - 00:26:05:18
Rob Napoli
Yeah. So as you went through the process and it took a little bit longer than you expected, right. From where you started with the initial premise of the project to where it finished, we're able to hit all the boxes. You were able to tick all the boxes, we're able to get everything implemented that you wanted.

00:26:05:22 - 00:26:23:17
Rob Napoli
And how did it feel when it was like, all right, we're going live. And then when we did all that, was there any kind of oh, shit. Moments at 3 a.m., we wake up thinking something's going to break. Or did everything end up kind of going more smoothly than you expected it to?

00:26:23:19 - 00:26:51:01
Tiago Alves
Well, the first couple of properties that we went live with, obviously was not easy because, again, we were not also even used to the process of the migration itself of from one system to the other. Also, we went from a vendor to a completely different vendor. So my data migration was a no straight away.

00:26:51:03 - 00:27:12:24
Tiago Alves
So we had to find ways to migrate the data, not to lose it. But also in the process doing the as much as clean up as we could do because we didn't want to end up with the same data complexity or mess, if I may say, that we had in the past.

00:27:13:01 - 00:27:36:01
Tiago Alves
So yeah, the first couple of properties were a bit bumpy, during the migration. But then again, we got different people involved, again, from different departments, even for the go lives in migration. So we kind of created a task force and, basically we masteries the process. So by the migration, we knew what to do.

00:27:36:01 - 00:28:09:12
Tiago Alves
We knew more or less how long it would take. So it was easier to plan. Now, yes. even if you plan to the second or to the limit them, there is always something that will fail last minute. Yeah. And but that's it, right. That's technology. You cannot predict everything. But as long as we had, as long as you have a right, process in a very well established process, there is something that comes out of the words a little bit.

00:28:09:13 - 00:28:42:07
Tiago Alves
I'm sure, the rest of the team will be able to adjust. And that's basically what what we did, and but back to the question is if we ticks all the boxes. I don't think so. I think we are still working on it, to be honest. But I think we also knew that it would be impossible for to have everything ready for for the beginning and again, we are, we have only we have the old properties on board.

00:28:42:07 - 00:29:06:00
Tiago Alves
It's only for a few months, ago. Right. So we are still making sure that everything is as we want it. And again, another thing that helped us when, the vendors or the partners that we wanted to integrate with or the different systems coming together, what helped us, it was our own API as well.

00:29:06:00 - 00:29:26:04
Tiago Alves
So whatever the vendors say, well, well, I can do that. And we say, okay, what fields do we need? And we will make sure that we will deliver. And on the other side to say, okay, I need this field so I don't care, how do you send them to me? As long as you send this data to me, we will treat the data we'll send to the other vendor.

00:29:26:10 - 00:29:48:23
Tiago Alves
And that simplifies a lot because sometimes on these processes, what also delays and complicates is having the two vendors or the two systems talking to each other because sometimes they don't reach to an agreement or it takes ages for them to certify the integration. And with our own API in the middle, we took advantage and we said, okay, you don't need to worry.

00:29:48:23 - 00:30:13:01
Tiago Alves
We certify the data. It's our responsibility. If something goes wrong, we take ownership. From one side, you send us the data from the other side. You tell me, how do you want me to send you the data? and helped us, a lot on on the process because. Yes, as much as you choose as, as as much as you pick the right partner, there will always be something that they cannot do.

00:30:13:01 - 00:30:19:05
Tiago Alves
And, you know, I guess it's also fair for them. So, so having our own API helps up the.

00:30:19:08 - 00:30:42:02
Rob Napoli
It's, I mean, it's amazing and you kind of do it, you know, that in your sales pitch a little bit. Right? The idea is that sometimes you have these vendors and you have different systems and they're also they're not perfect products. There's no perfect cross market. So sometimes that's the only send things in a certain way. So that's where having your own kind of platform layer, where you can take the semantics and understanding the semantics, you can take the data and then clean it and maneuver it.

00:30:42:02 - 00:30:57:13
Rob Napoli
Right, which is essentially why Omniboost exists, which is what you built the team to do, because sometimes that's just how it has to be, because it is the nature of IT, right. You could build something, but not everything is going to be able to be perfect and talk to each other, which is where the uniqueness of the connectivity layer comes in.

00:30:57:14 - 00:31:38:06
Rob Napoli
It sounds like you all really found a way to make that possible through the API, which is really cool as you're kind of going through all of these and really putting all this into play right? Hindsight being 2020, it's like I've done these things. What do you wish you had thought of sooner? And, is there anything that you kind of wish that you had, implemented earlier now that you, kind of what, if somebody was thinking about doing something similar.

00:31:38:08 - 00:31:44:01
Rob Napoli
Right. What advice would you give with your hindsight being 2020 to look at our pay attention to early in the process?

00:31:44:03 - 00:32:22:03
Tiago Alves
Yeah. So we didn't start the project with our own development team. So that came into place later. So I believe, well it's my opinion, but I also think, it would be a common opinion within, Belmont once we started to pick all the vendors and what we wanted to take out of those integrations, if we have sort of developing our own API back then, we'll probably probably would meet the deadline that we have established, at the beginning of the project.

00:32:22:05 - 00:32:56:14
Tiago Alves
But also, I think it would simplify a lot, throughout the process because, again, once we or when we went live with the first properties, not everything was ready yet because we knew that we had another 30 to migrate. And we knew that we would, make it better down, down the road. So if we had all these, integrations or our own API, built in since the beginning, I believe that would have been very, very helpful for for everyone.

00:32:56:16 - 00:33:16:04
Rob Napoli
Yeah. Understanding, having that semantics layer, understanding that you're going to need some sort of semantics conversion, layer is going to be is a good takeaway for a lot of people early. And I also think that one of the things that was really cool that you talk about your story is it's really easy to kind of want to do this perfectly right, which I that's why I asked about checking on the boxes.

00:33:16:04 - 00:33:34:16
Rob Napoli
Is that so many times we try to build these big solutions and we try to be perfect, and then it just keeps getting delayed. Sometimes just putting out, getting it started and then iterating as you go, knowing that, hey, it's not 100%, but it's staying close. And then we're going to just learn from it and iterate and taking those lessons.

00:33:34:18 - 00:33:54:07
Rob Napoli
So I really think that could have been really easy to just pause everything. If you don't kind of continue to iterate and learn and kind of continue to just chop away at it, which sounds like y'all took that to heart or just we're going to keep doing this. We're going to not always be 100% perfect, but we're going to get it out, test and iterate quickly and move.

00:33:54:09 - 00:34:18:11
Tiago Alves
Yes, yes. And again, one of the things that motivate us to do our own integration layer was, that was one of the reasons. So we went live with a couple of properties. We knew that down the road there will be integrations with different third party systems. But at that point in time that we went live with the first properties, those integrations were not there.

00:34:18:13 - 00:34:45:04
Tiago Alves
So there were, a certain amount of work that we wanted to automate. And that was our plan and that was what we promised to deliver. But at that point in time was work that was still manual. And you know, what we wanted to achieve kind of somehow went backwards. And now we were kind of doing more manual job than what we were before.

00:34:45:05 - 00:35:09:10
Tiago Alves
So, we had to be patience as well. So with our field teams, and they did that ownership and understand that. Yes. We promised this at the moment we are not delivering it, but we are sure we will, maybe not in the right time frame that you guys wanted. And that's always, a tough conversation to have.

00:35:09:10 - 00:35:32:10
Tiago Alves
Right. So when you promise, you know, that everything will be, nicer and better after migration. And turns out there is some more that sort clicks or, the teams out of their daily busy activities have to do even more then it's not. It's not, something, nice or it's not a nice conversation to have with the teams.

00:35:32:12 - 00:35:55:05
Tiago Alves
And again, I think that's what kind of motivated building our own integration layer because we wanted to to get the properties live, like I said. And so we wanted to have the, the vendors, focusing on the legal requirements, which were really important. So you can leave without an integration, but you cannot live without the legal requirements.

00:35:55:05 - 00:36:25:24
Tiago Alves
Right? You cannot operate, you know, tissue in an invoice if it doesn't comply with all the settings or all the the requirements that the government, wanted to. So yeah, having our own development team helped us, a lot. And, you know, I think down the road we almost ticked all the boxes. I guess my operations team would say there are still more to to be ticked, but, but yeah, we we are definitely getting there.

00:36:26:01 - 00:36:48:07
Rob Napoli
I love that. And as you, you know, went through and put all this in play and you started rolling out and we start off the conversation talking about adoption, getting everyone to kind of buy it and adopt and learn. And it's a lot to do, obviously, during the kind of rollout phase rollout, what was our how did you really work with the teams?

00:36:48:09 - 00:37:09:11
Rob Napoli
from a corporate level, but also locally to to really adopt the new technology, adopt a new way of doing things, knowing that at times it created some more manual work. At times it was frustrating. Obviously, the legal requirements is a huge be something that, we have 85 countries. It's crazy, right? We have to build all that into our integrations and we know how hard that is.

00:37:09:16 - 00:37:18:07
Rob Napoli
So how did you kind of work through that with your teams to really get everyone bought into adopt? All these new changes as you roll it out?

00:37:18:09 - 00:37:46:21
Tiago Alves
So again, I believe that the property champions really played a crucial role on that aspect, because again, they were involved since the beginning of the project. So they knew what our goals. They knew what we were trying to achieve. So when the rest of the team would come up and say, hey, but the promise system, the tool X, Y, Z, and at the moment it just just does the x.

00:37:46:23 - 00:38:13:16
Tiago Alves
What is the y and z? so being someone from the property, telling them that, yes, it's true, but yes, we are working on it and it's going to be delivered taking a little bit longer than what we expected it. Right. But we are working the elbow to get there. And, eventually things, things will be, will be ready for or for everyone else to use.

00:38:13:18 - 00:38:40:12
Tiago Alves
And I think that helped. So it's not it was not just the corporate people telling them that, yes, it's going to be there, which they could thinking, okay, you are just telling that so I keep quiet. But it was some someone from their teams that they knew and that they work every day and, that really helped to motivate the project and motivate change, even, as I mean, we are human beings.

00:38:40:14 - 00:39:04:20
Tiago Alves
I believe that we as human beings have aversion to change. And a natural instinct to to push back on changes. So it's always complicated. It's always difficult. But I think that's why we also pick the right people from the right properties to help moderating and motivating the change, which, again, we knew it was going to be challenging.

00:39:04:20 - 00:39:24:14
Tiago Alves
It was, bigger, big, big system changes of PMS system, everything else on are not all tech wise runs around the PMS system. So we knew that changing it will be very complicated, very challenging. But I think at the end of the day was also successful. So, so we we are proud of it.

00:39:24:16 - 00:39:45:22
Rob Napoli
That's awesome. And sounds like, you thought about putting all the right things in place and knowing that challenges were to come was never be perfect. But if you had the right mentality, communication and having those champions, to be a part of the progress, across the four years makes a big difference in really driving the adoption and growth, which is absolutely amazing.

00:39:45:22 - 00:40:05:12
Rob Napoli
So congrats to you and the team on know the award to everyone on it, but also the roll out and I know it's still early and it's go live, go live right. There's things that could still happen, but really cool to see that all the hard work and success pay off and really cool that you, so willing to share your story and highlight, as we kind of come up the end of time here.

00:40:05:12 - 00:40:25:03
Rob Napoli
I always like to ask this question, what are you most excited about in hospitality tech? As we look towards, 25’, 26’ and the growth of the space, but also kind of how you built. What are you excited about? What are you looking at that you're going to have to, adjust after what you just did for four years, right?

00:40:25:09 - 00:40:30:01
Rob Napoli
Is there anything that you guys are already thinking about in terms of that or excited about?

00:40:30:03 - 00:40:57:16
Tiago Alves
Yeah. So I think one of the trends is AI, right? And we are paying our attention to AI as well. But independent of, it's the use of AI or anything else. I think what we are trying to focus now is, again, we moved and we migrated these systems. It's giving us what we wanted.

00:40:57:18 - 00:41:22:17
Tiago Alves
So now let's focus on how we could improve even more our operations. Is it by automating a report? Is it by, selecting a setting to have this box ticked by default? Because we know that 90% of the times there's a receptionist will go there and take it. So, you know, these kind of things that you may think, yeah, okay.

00:41:22:17 - 00:41:50:17
Tiago Alves
But it's nothing special. But, if you save like ten minutes a day for a receptionist, just by not having them to tick all those boxes at the end of the week is, I don't know, many hours in the end of the year and it's time that they can spend, with the guests and do what they are really good at, which is providing, support to the guests.

00:41:50:19 - 00:42:34:23
Tiago Alves
Meeting what the guests need. And that's how hospitality is about, right? It's work for the guests, basically. So we are a people industry. So instead of having our teams behind the computers, and not spending as much, time with the guests as they should. So that's what we are trying to focus, trying to automate as much as possible or predict, automate the predictable, so that, we can focus on what is really important, which is providing exceptional, journeys and exceptional experiences for our guests.

00:42:35:00 - 00:42:55:13
Rob Napoli
I love that. And, the whole idea behind this podcast, hospitable is right how to make hospitality more human through technology. Right. We still work in a human business, human to human right. And that's what hospitality is. And it's amazing. And that's where these things make a big difference. And, I always talk about something small, right?

00:42:55:18 - 00:43:24:02
Rob Napoli
Whether it's time or doing menial entry, you normally make an error, think about that extra tech or forgetting to do a tech or doing a manual accounting entry. And it's $2 a day, but that's $2 a day over 365 days across 30 hours. That's a big mistake. We don't always think about the cost of a human error, whether it's ten extra seconds here over time or it's a dollar here or a few cents there over time that makes a big difference.

00:43:24:02 - 00:43:45:07
Rob Napoli
And it takes away from that end of the day guest experience and making people feel welcomed at your hotel and experience you want them to have, whether that's super high end luxury to business travel, to kind of a quick in and out you want to still feel when you walk into a hotel that you're getting expected service that you really want, and that's a human interaction, right?

00:43:45:09 - 00:44:17:23
Tiago Alves
Yeah. And again, I think our teams also expect a system that works smoothly. So we don't want to worry about the system. They want to worry about their operations. They won't worry about their guests. And that's why it's very important that you have a stable system, a seasoned system that you can rely on. And that, again, I think it's impossible to say that the system will be up and running with, 24*7, 365 days, a year.

00:44:18:00 - 00:44:42:19
Tiago Alves
But at least the majority of those time, the system is working, the system is providing what it should, and, you know, running as smoothly as possible. So then, you know, the field teams can really focus on what is important. You know, instead of thinking if they, they did the right, process during check in or check out, you know, they know the system work.

00:44:42:19 - 00:44:47:00
Tiago Alves
So they should focus on, on on something else.

00:44:47:02 - 00:45:01:02
Rob Napoli
Yeah, I love that. Well, let's see, I appreciate all the time, I know that it's end of day for you. Middle of the day for me is our times zone differences. As we close this out, if anyone had wanted to learn more about what you're doing, what the team at Belmont is saying, how can they?

00:45:01:02 - 00:45:09:02
Rob Napoli
Where can they learn more information? What's the best way to get in touch with Belmont or you, to learn more about the organization?

00:45:09:04 - 00:45:36:15
Tiago Alves
Well, they can definitely, get in touch with me through LinkedIn. I believe it could be possible, the best or the fastest. Or easiest way. And then depending on, on on the question, I might divert to two different, colleagues or different parts of the business. And, depending as well on the question might need to get some approvals, but rather than that, yes.

00:45:36:20 - 00:45:45:22
Tiago Alves
You know, I'm very happy to, to help reach out to me. And, I'll try to have the, the best way I can.

00:45:45:24 - 00:46:11:16
Rob Napoli
Amazing. Really appreciate that. I'll make sure to link the Belmont website as well as your LinkedIn profile in the show notes. If you're interested in connecting with. Yeah, guys, you gotta do is click the show notes and click on the link and I'll pull up his LinkedIn page. Tiago, thank you once again for the time, energy, the story, sharing with us all the things you're working on and really excited to see how things continue with for you and your team as you continue to to to go live and add new functionality and features.

00:46:11:16 - 00:46:13:17
Rob Napoli
So thank you so much my friend. Appreciate, you.

00:46:13:18 - 00:46:19:11
Tiago Alves
Know, thank you. My pleasure to be here. Thank you for for having me. Yeah. It was a pleasure.

00:46:19:13 - 00:46:35:06
Rob Napoli
Awesome. Well, that is it for this episode of hospitable. As always, be a tier one like rate. Subscribe. All the things, if you are somebody you know would be a great guest on the show, please, reach out to us again. Tiago. Thank you so much. And till next time, stay well.