The Modern Hotelier #81: Helping Hoteliers Deliver Exceptional Guest Experiences | with Alliants
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Steve Carran: Welcome to another episode of The Modern Hotelier. We are live here at Truist Field in Charlotte, North Carolina at the GAIN VIP event and today we have Tristan joining us from Alliants. Tristan, welcome to the show. We are happy to have you, my
Tristan: much. It's great to be here and nice to be in such a, Beautiful surrounding.
Steve Carran: Absolutely, absolutely. So, Tristan, we're gonna start this off. Tell us a little bit about yourself. Where did you grow 
up?
Tristan: up? I grew up between the UK and the south of France. So I had a very, very lucky childhood. Playing a lot of sport, not like this. I played cricket, so slightly different. The ball bounces that, [00:01:00] you know, it's a bit more difficult than baseball.
We find baseball a little 
basic at times. A little easy. 
Yeah, so don't sit, don't later
on, you know,
it might, It might 
Steve Carran: be better. We'll watch ya, 
we'll 
Tristan: I've said that.
Steve Carran: What 
did you, how did 
growing up in, in between France and Europe, uh, not London? 
Tristan: Uh, actually near Winchester. Winchester and
Steve Carran: and Paris, France. How did that shape you into who you 
Tristan: I think I was, you know, constantly, my dad was an IBMer, so I was constantly being moved. IBM stood for I'm being moved, uh, in those days. So, you know, we were moving all over the place. Uh, so I was constantly dropped into new schools you know, new cultures. And actually, it really helped sort of, you know, me develop being able to very quickly make friends with people, understand, you know, understand hospitality, actually.
Yeah. Coming back to where we are today, but it really is an important skill to try and you know, figure out how to assimilate in a new environment.
Steve Carran: environment.
Absolutely,
3: Yeah, and how did you, so talking about [00:02:00] hospitality, how did you get into hospitality? 
Tristan: So
it kind of almost happened
a
little bit by accident, 
which I think 
you 
know actually when I talk to a lot of people 
is actually a 
common
theme.
we were actually running a
services So when we started Alliants 15
years ago, We were running,
mostly big 
travel 
And then we started 
to look Uh, and I was very lucky 
to go
and 
strategy 
back in and just fell in love with it. So,
you know, fell in love with the ability to go 
behind the scenes, 
learn what was really happening and trying to understand, you
know, what
really makes a great company like Four So that was, yeah, that was
the moment I think I really sort
of fell in love 
3: a missile pilot like Anthony was, 
Tristan: an And you 
Steve Carran: found 
yourself in a little bit of hot water. Can you tell us, uh, about [00:03:00] what 
Tristan: little bit about that? Uh, yeah, I'm not sure I still admit it these days, but anyway, I'll go for it. Okay. So I used to be in the Air Force and, uh, was training as a pilot and, uh,
on the day of the big, uh, summer ball at our Air Force base, I was, uh, doing a sortie pretty much just before we were about to kick off the party and, uh, I just happened to get total electrical failure, so my radio failed, everything failed, you know, so, but the procedure for that
is you come back to your home base and then fly a slightly lower circuit and wiggle your wings.
to let them know that you can't talk to them and can you have permission to land?
I
may have been slightly, you know, generous with the height allowance, so, uh, as I landed I was met by the station commander, who, uh, gave me a, uh, a telling off, let's say, and, uh, but until the smile cracked in his face and then I knew I was probably going to be okay.
But, uh, it was a good excuse.
Steve Carran: [00:04:00] Sure. It
was a good flyby like 
Maverick. 
at Alliants 
Tristan: Yep. 
Steve Carran: a little bit more
about 
Alliants, what you all do, for the people that might not be familiar, and a little bit more of the history as well, how Alliants got started 
and the background. 
Tristan: Yeah, so we, we started 15 years ago, really, as a services company, and we were, we were doing, as I said,
more broadly in
travel, we were doing what is now called digital transformation. you know, it wasn't called that back then. It was helping people get online, it was helping them distribute. Actually,
we met many years ago when I was working on,
at Travelport, and,
uh,
David was helping us, uh, think through the hotel strategy for, for those guys, and, uh, so we, we started that way, but we were always looking for a product, and, you know, what was the right problem to solve in the industry, and, you know, the more we went on, the more we realized that, you know, the industry was really being held back by all these, you know, systems that were in their silos, and you could never build a picture of a customer [00:05:00] across all of those real silos that existed.
So, so really that's how we started, you know, looking at the product. so we started that back in 2018. we launched, uh, the first beta customer was Jumeirah. Uh, so we, we basically call ourselves messaging first, not a lot of people said mobile first for many years. We actually think messaging is a much better interface for people because first of all, more people have messaging, you know, the top three.
you know, apps on any
download chart are always the messaging apps, so why not use what they've already got on their phone. Doesn't mean you can't help them graduate to an app later on.
and then we started to wrap things around that, so an understanding of each customer that uses it. So not just the primary guests, but a profile of everyone that stays in the room.
A digital itinerary, so you can actually understand what they're doing at any one point in time, and you can Taylor, the itinerary for the, the wife and the husband so they can do separate things. They don't always want to do the same things [00:06:00] all the time. and then into, during COVID, we actually,
launched in
2019 with Jumeirah, but then, uh, obviously we were, our official launch was March, 2020.
Not 
the best best month one. Not the best timing. There's a launch. 
3: So, Yeah. 
Tristan: yeah, literally when COVID started, so we kind of put that on ice for a little bit while we helped, you know, sort of, build out the offering, so, and that's when we started doing a lot more contactless, digital wallet, you know, digital keys, now keys that are web provisioned, so you don't need an app, so, yeah, so I think, you know, uh, That technology has really started to evolve and, you know, as, people like Apple and Google start to invest more in the sector, you know, people like us are able to take advantage of those technologies and, and really help, help towards the goal of that true seamless experience that we're all, you know, trying to aim for.
So, so really that's, you know, that's what we do. We call ourselves a guest experience platform, but it covers really all of those, [00:07:00] different elements.
Steve Carran: incredible. That sounds awesome.
3: Good, so you went through some of them, but take us through all the solutions that you offer to hotels.
Tristan: hotels. Okay, so we would typically lead with something like messaging and messaging and concierge, typically, because
they go 
very well together.
Really the 
aim there is to drive, you know, spend per customer. 
So very 
much looking to,
you
know, how you can use those solutions. If you make it easy for customers, 
it's amazing how 
much more they spend. 
And we've seen 
some amazing stats from You know, customers that actually engage in messaging and you put the right offers in front of them, they'll spend up to 90 percent more than an average customer.
But that's because you make it easy. You engage them, you know, in the process and you make it easy. So, so that's what we, the messaging and concierge go together. very often, and obviously giving each guest a digital itinerary, which is part of that concierge product. And also something we call recommends, which is that sort of pre arrival experience where you showcase, uh, That's really the best the hotel and the local area has to offer, you know, each [00:08:00] of, uh, each of the customers.
So they can build that itinerary,
you know, prior to arrival.
So that's, that's the first bit. Then we have, what we call contactless, which is contactless check in, check out, digital wallet, digital keys. I guess the difference on digital keys is, as I say, they're actually wallet keys rather than the 
David Millili: yeah, 
yeah, yeah. 
Tristan: actually a lot of people have. 
I don't know about you, but I could never make it work in the lift, or elevator, sorry. Yeah, so, you know, I find that extremely frustrating. and the digital wallet essentially tokenizes, so you can tokenize people's card across the whole, uh, portfolio. So, and then, know, so you actually, you can offer that sort of seamless brand experience that, And then obviously behind that we've got a bunch
of AI that feeds into all of those as everyone does these days, but you know, everything from automated responses to suggested responses to helping staff, and then into our insights, modules that really help uncover, you know, what the behavior is.
So[00:09:00] 
how much are
people spending on scuba
diving?
You know, so, which is incredible at some, you know, some of the top resorts, it's absolutely incredible how much people spend on. on some of these things.
Steve Carran: That's great. So, you mentioned you're utilizing AI, you know, that's the hot topic that we've we've about. Yeah. Can 
you 
dive 
a little bit 
deeper into how you are actually leveraging AI? 
Tristan: So, we were very early starters with AI, actually. We,
we used AI back in 2017 to do recommendation engines, so, to build offers for customers. But it was way too early. The market wasn't ready for it. so we kind of put that on
pause.
and then obviously now you've got, you know, open AI and, well, translations, I mean, all of it.
There's so many more applications of AI than you realize, actually, and we've been using a lot of those. So, you know, on the platform about 11 percent of our messages get translated, so because of all the international travelers, you know, people, you've got staff talking different languages, [00:10:00] you know, to the, to the member,
it doesn't. Not necessarily even the local language of the hotel. So about 11 percent of those messages, that's using Translation technology, which is all AI based. So that's one area. Second area is, uh, is really around responses to inbound messages. So what we've been doing for a long time now is suggested responses.
So we use AI, you know, Gen AI models to essentially build those responses and then we've We use something that's getting a little technical, but something called RAG, which is Retrieval Augmented Generation. So we feed very detailed information about certain topics. So that it, it has a higher chance, really, of answering the guest's, query
or
or question, way more specific.
And it, you know, if you look at AI, one of the problems, obviously, is hallucination and, you know, it can
make
things up. So, it puts those guardrails around, around that. So, and you can look at the confidence levels [00:11:00] to make sure that, you know, you, you've got to be pretty confident before you'll auto respond.
Thanks. Otherwise, you could escalate it to humans, and when we do that, we use categorization algorithms to say, that should go to X department or Y department.
so we use it for a number of things. in the background, we're also using it to summarize all the different interactions with customers,
so you can get a snapshot of everything that's happened with a particular customer,
and then obviously in the, in the reporting side, and the bit that probably is.
What's undervalued right now is the sentiment analysis, which is, you can actually see the sentiment of customers real time, so, because as they, you know, engage with you, you can see the intent of, uh, that message, whether it's positive, negative, so you can get real time stats, and we have escalations that kick in when, you know, certain things are obviously below, below the service levels you're trying, trying to achieve.
Steve Carran: yeah,
Tristan: Yeah, we have [00:12:00] confidence levels
behind the scenes that, yeah, so we tune it essentially to say x level is acceptable to auto respond, x level is an escalation, so you can start to see, you know, all of those things. So yeah, and I think the applications are, you know,
going to be many, many more, way more than we've even started now.
We're working on things like, uh, suggested itineraries that take, so,
I mean, we talk about issues with AI,
You've got to have the right data to be able to, and you have to have that foundation to be able to do it. So we're using it essentially with A, an understanding of the customer with their profile and obviously all of their conversation history.
So there's a lot of information that you can glean from that. Secondly, then the context of their stay.
So, cause we have the digital itinerary, we're able to know what they're doing when. So don't say. Hey, suggest a restaurant for tomorrow night when you know they've already got a booking. so you need to [00:13:00] understand the context.
And then the final element is access to content. So not just publicly available content, but also what are all those amazing experiences that the hotel has and the concierge has curated, that you can then start to showcase and match, you know, to each of the guests. So, it's really important to understand all three of those.
so that, that suggested itinerary and responses, are all things that we're, we're working on right now.
Steve Carran: That's
incredible. Well Tristan, we appreciate you stopping by and chatting with 
us for a little bit. 
Uh, this was great
to learn more about you and Alliants and, you know,
I 
hope 
you 
you know, Don't do any flybys
anytime soon.
I'll say that. I
Tristan: I hung up my boots 
a long 
time. 
3: Yeah, yeah, I'd be pretty dangerous these Well, 
that's 
great. 
Thank 
you 
so 
much for stopping by. Thank you, yeah. Thank you, It's great to see you. Great to see you. Finally, yeah, long time, man.
been
waiting long. Yeah. Alright, cool. Great. Thank you, guys. 
David Millili: Now we have Alberto Santana joining us from [00:14:00] Alliants. Welcome, Alberto. How's your first day at high tech 
Alberto: Uh, it's great. It's actually my second day. I was here nice and early yesterday. I wanted to hear from folks, important folks in our industry. hear what people have to say about AI. AI for me, by the way, this whole AI, I like, I like saying it's a lowercase l.
So maybe they're talking about Al, but I don't know 
if 
it's true. I don't know if it's true or
not, but that's
what, 
that's 
what I'm 
going with for now. 
David Millili: You're a pretty popular guy, 
Alberto: I'm a pretty popular guy. apparently. 
David Millili: Alberto, 
where did 
Steve Carran: you 
David Millili: you grow 
up?
I'm 
Alberto: I'm born and raised in Miami, Florida. So you know what that means? My parents are Cuban. So hablo espanol, soy azúcar, you know, things 
David Millili: that. Absolutely. 
How did growing up in Florida kind of shape 
who you are today.
Alberto: That, you know, I love Miami and Miami is a special place to me. When I grew up in the neighborhood I grew up in, people don't believe this, uh, we were like the Cuban family in the neighborhood. Everyone else was, you know, good old Florida cracker and a good Florida cracker. Well, it's, it's a well known term, right?
It's about [00:15:00] the original cowboys with their whips. and growing up in Miami, you grow up in this really interesting way, especially if you grew up the way I did in a Cuban house. I can tell you all the words to Celia Cruz's Abusadora, and I can tell you a little bit about Waylon Jennings as well, or, you know, I can sing Stairway to Heaven.
So you grew up in 
David Millili: this 
very Do you want to take the 
Alberto: Americana world, if you would. I don't want to, no, let me tell you something. Singing isn't my forte. We'll just put it there.
David Millili: Well, the floor is yours if you want it.
Alberto: I appreciate it. I appreciate
it. 
David Millili: how did you get into hospitality?
Alberto: I was really fortunate. So, uh, I actually went to a high school called Southwest High in Miami, Florida. And amongst the graduates there, there was a gentleman named Luis Segreto. Luis Segreto. He started a company called Emtek.
And I know Luis Segreto from back in the high school days. We have a lot of mutual friends. And I used to be in the shipping business, like a lot of people in Miami. And they called me and they go, Hey, we started this company. Uh, what can you, what do you know about hotels? I go, I've parked cars in hotels before, and I certainly enjoy staying there.
And they go, would you like to join our team [00:16:00] here? And I was able to get into this early on, right into the tech part of the business and, and really start the company that created hot sauce, if you would.
4: Yeah, that's great. That's awesome.
Alberto: Oh, it's really exciting. It was an incredible opportunity.
4: That's great.
David Millili: So you're 
a big music guy. 
We've chatted about music.
a few 
times.
what
is A, your favorite music venue? And then B, what's a recent concert that you've been to that you've really 
enjoyed?
Alberto: you know my favorite music revenue. Mu excuse me. Music venue. My favorite music venue. 
David Millili: Did I 
say 
Revinate? 
4: Yes, you said Revinate. We're all 
thinking about that this 
Alberto: about the same thing? . So my, my favorite, uh, my favorite music venue is what I've seen on tv.
I've always wanted to go to Red Rock for a concert. We talked about this once, right? You did. You did. I've always wanted to go there. I haven't been there yet. I like little, small places though. I like a good outdoor amphitheater, but I do like a nice private venue as well. I would say that, uh, the best concert I ever went to, I saw a bunch of Cuban all stars.
I saw Cachao, I saw [00:17:00] Genaroso Humanes, and you may not know who these people are, but these are, these are classics. They did a benefit concert in Miami at a little church called the Manuel Artime Theater. And to me, that was just an amazing place to just watch a great show. I also saw Thievery Corporation there, so that was actually pretty cool.
Yeah, 
David Millili: Yeah, very 
cool. The Sphere, is that on your bucket list as
Alberto: The Sphere is a hundred percent on my bucket list. I got to check it out. Though I will tell you, I like getting immersed in the music. I don't really like to hold up my camera the whole time. I kind of just like to watch what's going on, but I got a feeling that place is going to drive my mind into a different place.
But I'm looking forward to it. I will say
that. 
David Millili: So you guys are expanding, what's driving the expansion in the Americas Yeah, wow, so Alliants has been around for over 15 years now, and we've done an incredible job as a company of being able to do bespoke work for a lot of different, a lot of different really good hotel companies. And we've gotten to a good position right now where we feel what we do from a guest engagement standpoint, the industry's ready 
Alberto: for it.
And so I joined the organization, uh, the, the culture here is [00:18:00] just phenomenal. And I joined the organization because we know this market, I mean, it's,
an important market for brass tacks, right? And it's somewhere we want to continue to grow. And I've been fortunate enough to have always been in this market and really globally.
So we have a good opportunity right here with what we're offering to be able to bring something to the industry that makes people start thinking about taking it personally, right? Because we talk about personalization, but you got to take it personally. And I think there's a lot to be said about that.
So this is a perfect time for us to really come into the market and try to bring a new way of thinking about old problems.
David Millili: and I feel like we see new guest experience software popping up 
all 
the 
time 
and 
you 
know, your 
competitors, there's a lot 
out there. what really
sets Alliants apart 
from 
the rest
of the
guest experience softwares out there?
Alberto: You know, I would say that the one thing is our experience. We, we have a lot of hoteliers that are part of our organization. We've been involved in watching what's happening in the market, looking at, you collecting data and what data [00:19:00] we collect, where. to help give informed decisions to the users at the property level.
You have to make it easy for the people that work there to create a personalized experience. It's one thing to go to a rapport it's one thing to pull out an arrivals report, it's a whole thing. There's so many different ways for us to gather and look at information, but when we can put it in somebody's face, when they can actually interact with this daily, and they're learning a lot about that customer, this is a really interesting moment for us to just
really attack the market a bit differently, if you would.
David Millili: Sure, absolutely. And 
what 
gaps are you seeing
on the guest experience side of 
things,
and how 
are you filling
those gaps?
Alberto: I think right now what we're seeing is that there is an opportunity to collect and communicate with customers at the right time. I think a lot of us, you know, quite frankly, I'm a traveler, right? I spend a hundred and twenty, a hundred and thirty nights a year traveling. And it's not just from a business standpoint, I just enjoy travel.
And what I notice is that we're all paying more for everything. We just, every single one of us is paying more, and as we [00:20:00] pay more, we're expecting more.
We're expecting more. And I think there's a gap right now in terms of, alright, well, I'm booking my room, I'm booking two, three months out, especially if I'm going with my family.
And you're already trying to upsell me something at the booking moment. Right. And I'm like, well, this isn't the right time. I'm already out three grand and I, I haven't gone on this trip yet. Right now, if you, if you catch me though, on the plane, as I'm getting off that plane, if you start telling me, Hey, why are you here?
You're here with the kids, but what are you trying to do? Oh, I'm trying to go hiking. Hey, how about all these other things you can be doing while you're hiking? And you don't even have to ask me about the price. To me, I liken this, like when you go to a restaurant, what are today's specials? Nobody asked the price.
Right? You just go, Oh my God, I really like Gorgonzola. I want the Gorgonzola. How'd you know I like that? I'm interested. I want to take advantage of this. And to me, there's so many opportunities to capture what is it that I'm going on this trip for? What is it that I'm trying to do here? I'm not on a business trip.
I'm with my family. That's a different Alberto Santana. I'm on a [00:21:00] business trip. Again, that's a different Alberto Santana. I'm with the family. It's all about my family. I am secondary to that. So, I have a great little story about it, if you don't mind me sharing. Oh, so, um, I had a call at a hotel once, and, um, they, I had to change the time that I was arriving.
I wanted to tell them, hey, I'm getting there late. I was driving all the way to the Panhandle. I was driving to Destin, Florida. I'm a Miami, Florida boy. I've 
never been to Destin
because It's a long 
drive. It's
a long drive. That's right. And my nephew graduated from Florida State and I said, great. by the way, I'm super proud.
I love FIU. That's my alma mater, right? I love the U because I grew up in Miami, Florida. 
FSU, 
but whatever, 
you know, 
I still, I 
still love it. My nephews go there. That's fine. And 
I'm a big 
fan of Bobby Bowden. Who wasn't anyway. So I get to Destin, Florida. I call them up first. I say, I say, Hey, listen, I'm going to run a little late.
Oh, are you coming in for something special? I go, well, it's my daughter's birthday and we want to, she likes the beach. We want to celebrate at the beach. Oh, what's your daughter's name? And would you like a cake in the room? And I'm like, yeah, that sounds, that sounds amazing. There's [00:22:00] nothing like. I still have the picture to this day.
It says, Happy Birthday, Mariana, which is my youngest daughter's name. And she
walks 
into the room. She goes, Daddy! I got a cake! And I'm like, look at this. By the way, never asked how much it was going to cost. Never asked if I was going to get billed for it. I was like, 
cake? 
Little girl's birthday? Yeah, let's do this.
And that moment, that moment is priceless. I'll never forget it. And shout out to the Henderson Beach Resort for making that happen. And it was somebody who took the time. To ask the question, what are you coming in for? What are you doing? And there's so many opportunities that I think are missed in our industry.
And I, and I think this is a perfect example of somebody capturing a moment like that and making it, making it special, making it 
memorable.
4: It's a great story.
David Millili: I love that. Well, this has been another episode of The Modern Hotelier, live 
from 
Truist
Field
in Charlotte, North Carolina. Alberto, thank you 
for joining us. Now you 
get to go 
and have 
some fun and, Uh, fun.
Alberto: Uh, can I say, I'm looking at this right now and I'm reliving 1997 and LeVon [00:23:00] Hernandez winning the World Series here. And I'm like Castro no happy, but Miami happy. This is, this is amazing right now. yard? Uh, night. I wish I
had that, I wish I had that ability I can you.
David Millili: that. There we 
go. Well, this is Thank you. That was great.