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The HotelTechInsider podcast interviews the top leaders at the convergence of hotels, travel and technology. Guests include founders, executives, top hoteliers and industry organization leadership. Find all of the episodes at hoteltechreport.com
And you start with one project and second and third, not with the whole. And once you have these two, you then connect the AI as a third step. And only then it can give you the boost you are expecting.
Speaker 2:From Hotel Tech Report, it's Hotel Tech Insider, a show about the future of hotels and the technology that powers them.
Speaker 3:Today, have Martin Venglar, the GM of an apartment hotel in The Czech Republic and owner of a management company which supports 26 independent hotels. And joining Martin is Pavel Dolenzoll, the co founder of an AI and data platform trusted by over 23,000 companies around the world. If you're trying to be more data driven and adopt AI in your own operations, you'll want to hear these real life examples and best practices that you can bring to your business. Thank you, Martin and Pavel, for joining us on the podcast today. I'm really looking forward to chatting with you both and learning all about how you're implementing AI and becoming more data driven.
Speaker 3:To get things started, I would love for you to introduce yourself, tell us a bit about your organizations, bit about your background, and we'll go from there. So Martin, you can go ahead and start.
Speaker 4:Okay. So my name is Martin Venglar and I own the company which is called Nomse. We are based in Prague. We co run 26 hotels at the moment and our main core projects are Apardo Del Swativabje Mezzo in Petz Pozynsko.
Speaker 1:And my name is Pavel. I'm one of the co founders and CEOs of a company called Kibula. We run a data and AI platform called Kibula. We've been doing this for twelve years. Over 23,000 companies have been using us.
Speaker 1:And we are very strong in the hospitality segment, both in Europe and US. I've been working with Martin for the last couple of years on applying data and AI into hospitality.
Speaker 3:So let's start going through your tech stack from the most important piece. So I'm curious in your eyes, what is the most important system or the most crucial piece of a tech stack for a hotel?
Speaker 4:Well, I would say that's definitely a PMS software where we are like working with Hotel Time. And I think those guys are doing a great job and that would be probably the sun of our universe. That's what we are, you know, all orbiting around. And also then I would say that very important piece of tech for the gastro part of our work would be Vento which is also like a part of the Hotel Time Family Solutions. So those would be the two centerpieces.
Speaker 4:And then I would say that in hospitality, I cannot say like in general because I'm for quite some time safe and sound here in Czech Republic, but I would say what's time to time even a bit creepy is how in hospitality we are still living in the year 2000 maybe or something like that. Because since I'm lucky enough to like also to have some sort of a data or as Paul said machine learning background which is obviously AI before it was cool. We know how important is to understand your business data so I would say that another important piece of tech and maybe the one which is the most relevant for this discussion is what people in Kebola are doing. Because what we have in hospitality is a lot of tech, a lot of solutions, most of them not very well compatible with each other. Everyone's doing something great but there's only a very few pieces of tech in hospitality which are able to centralise everything what's happening in our field of work.
Speaker 4:That's where Kebola is coming and they are able to like suck up data from whatever source I give them. It doesn't matter if it's a Google dashboard which where I have my marketing data or if it's like a thousand years old cashier system from one of our supermarkets or whatever, those guys are able to get it to our BI solution and are able to show me whatever I need to do with the data center. So that's great.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Can you expand on that a bit? Like what you use Kabula for versus your PMS and how do those systems interact?
Speaker 4:Okay, so let's start with revenue sources. Okay, because as any other hotel in the world, we have sources for our reservations. Yeah, we have OTAs, we have our direct reservations, we have you know reservations which are sold on the counter and then we have b2b reservations you know like the team buildings, congresses and stuff like that, which most of them are pretty hard to track because the way how it works in our country is that, you know, there's just a little under 11,000,000 of us and in like Czech business we pretty much all know each other I would say, right Paul? So what we do is that like I'm in the hotel game for over fifteen years now and like there's a lot of people from Czech business which like they just pick up the phone and they tell me, hey Martin, we would like to have some sort of a team building, what can you offer? And I'm like, we have this great hotel in Kirken or Shell, we have this and that.
Speaker 4:And so those kind of stuff are kind of hard to track because especially people like me, I'm not a very well organized person. I would say I'm like the sort of a visionary type which needs like 20 people around him to sort stuff out after I'm finished with, you know, creating huge ideas and so on. So then I don't remember where the reservation came from and so on and so on. And there's a team of people which are tracking every single piece of our business. So first the most important thing is where revenue is coming from.
Speaker 4:So that would be like a first important data sample. Then towards that I would say that that's very important to be able to tell acquisition cost of the revenue. Okay so it's either like you are paying to like booking.com to some third party and so on. Or I'm like I invited a few people from some big company over for dinner and so on, it's still the cost of acquisition. So what we are able to do is like with my sales teams it's those guys are doing it very nicely.
Speaker 4:With me it's a very chaotic way how I'm like, you know, sending the information to Kebola and then they are sorting out which acquisition costs which money because if we are talking like you can have a congress or a big team building, those are hundreds of thousands of euros. So like, you know, those are a few weeks of meetings and so on and so on. So that would be first thing. Second thing is, of course, as any other hotel is to be able to have a proper pickup reporting. Okay, so I have some plans, have my budgets, towards week by week we are keeping an eye on how much reservations we have on the books and so on.
Speaker 4:We are comparing towards the plan and towards last year and our marketing is revenue driven. Okay, I don't know if I'm using the proper terms but I'm working with my entire marketing teams based on how we are doing with reservations.
Speaker 1:Also I would say what is interesting about you, you take it to another level. Also like how you do the to dos to your staff, you know, like how you put everything in the task list and then they have WhatsApp groups. They communicate, which is normal, right? People communicate in WhatsApp groups, not in US but the rest of the world. And they kinda like, we help them to put data even from the tasks, you know, ticketing systems, and then send notification to those WhatsApp groups, you know.
Speaker 1:So it's like always on. But like, they are pretty unique in how they think about it and that's what helps them to be the best. Because like Swati Venglar has named the best hotel in the mountains for consecutive three, four years or something like that. And it's definitely one of the most making money hotels, right?
Speaker 3:Super interesting to think about the potential when you connect all these data points. So in your data platform, are you pulling in data from different systems like occupancy from your PMS, payroll from your payroll system. Am I thinking about that correctly?
Speaker 4:Yeah, that's exactly. And that's the thing. Even like my company is managing hotels which are using different platforms, different accounting softwares and so on. And what's most amazing thing about Kebola that it's like fourteen years old now and I was never able to give them data sample which they wouldn't be able to implicate to their platform And it's really cool.
Speaker 1:This is really, you know, I think Martin has one of the best, you know, like really hands on experiences with data AI and automation. But like, if I may offer, you know, like a broader perspective, what I what I see. In every segment, you know, every geography, I now see people coming and screaming, AI, AI, AI. We need AI. We need agents.
Speaker 1:Why? Tell me why. Oh, it's cool. And it's gonna, you know, replace all the people. Right?
Speaker 1:And they're like, okay, so what do you have? People kind of like don't realize that with now Cloth or OpenAI or Gemini, the cost for intelligence is almost zero. Right? The models are more smarter than most of us. Well, specifically me, you know, they are much more smarter than me.
Speaker 1:I can ask them anything and they will provide. Like, so the things that used to be hard, like, oh, give me a financial model for predicting x y z, are now for free almost. Right? Just like nominal cost goes to zero. Every every month gets cheaper and cheaper.
Speaker 1:And that creates a false illusion in most of people that they can just stop the GPT and it's gonna solve all their issues. Well, that might be true if it would know everything about you, if it would know your context, how you run the hotels. Are you running the conference hotels? Are you running weddings? Are you running and in which season and what, you know.
Speaker 1:And if it would have all the data, you know, prepared for it, and if it would have data in the right order. And that's the biggest gap always. Right? So and then people say, oh, yeah, it doesn't work with how it Of course, right? So what is important is like in every segment, we will always see that there are one or two core systems.
Speaker 1:But then it's kind of like if you think it's a nucleus of your data and of your, you know, like insights. Around that are probably now more than dozen systems that you use for timesheets, for, you know, tickets, which are internals, And or systems like energy. You know, how much energy you know you are consuming in the freezer, how much energy you are consuming for x y z, you know, how much energy you're consuming for the lights during the winter, how much you know. So about all of these are kind of like a second layer of data. And then there is a huge tertiary layer of the data which is outside of your daily business.
Speaker 1:And that data is exactly like Google campaigns, you know, your bookings on booking. How do you actually do dynamic pricing on the booking on Airbnb and other systems? How does it go together with your own channel, right? How do you do Facebook campaigns? But not only that, but also, you know, like to Martin's point, you know, like how many visitors actually came to your region in last year, last month, or last week?
Speaker 1:And how do you benchmark with that? You know, what is your, you know, how much of that market did you capture? Right? And all of that, you need to put together. Only then you need to have a meaning into it.
Speaker 1:Not just integrate it, but understand what it means. And, you know, there's one great kind of like north star, and it's the revenue. Right? So like all of that you connect to the revenue. How much did it actually make for you?
Speaker 1:And only then you start to use it on daily basis. And after you've done this, you understand what you want, you understand how you are special. Only then the AI on top of that can make actual sense. And Martin is doing a lot of that as well, but he's got fourteen years of preparing the data, right, and understanding it. It's not only about integrating it.
Speaker 1:We are very good at this, right? But only together with the operator, we can give the data the meaning. And after we have the meaning for the data, then we can connect it to AI. And then, you know, magic can happen. Like, we can then, with AI, give proactively on WhatsApp Alex, right?
Speaker 1:Hey, watch out. This is kinda like strange, and there is some anomaly that you didn't catch. Right? And so, like, I see three step journey always in each market. The first one is you need to connect the data from your systems.
Speaker 1:The first layer, secondary layer, and tertiary layer. Second step, you know, you build an internal system for hospitality for your hotel, and there you start with use cases. Right? You know, like, the system like this doesn't get built in one month. You kinda like need to start with your business questions, with your business use cases.
Speaker 1:And so, like, that's one business question. You build second layer around that and kinda informs what you put in there, how you start. And you start with one project, and second and third, not with the whole thing. And once you have these two, you then connect the AI as a third step. And only then it can give you, you know, like the boost you are expecting.
Speaker 1:So it's kinda like sometimes you go slower to go faster, you know what I'm saying? We as people hate it. We want to go fast, especially Martin and me, right? But, you know, like we've learned. We try to go fast and then we thought, shit, now we need to go back and understand what we need for that.
Speaker 3:I'm curious, for both of you, because you do have a lot of industry experience, what would you say are one or two characteristics that a person should have in order to be successful in the industry?
Speaker 4:In hospitality, you have to like people and you have to love the job and you have to be detail oriented. Because like what I always say to all of my managers, directors and so on, like when you go around the hotel and there is a piece of paper laying on the ground, the day when you don't bow to pick it up is the day which you are supposed to end in the business because you don't care about the detail anymore and you don't love it anymore. So I would say that you need to love the detail and you need to love the people. Everything else is additional. All of this data and tech talk, that's nothing compared towards the passion to like take care of people, the hospitality is the way of life.
Speaker 4:Like all of this which we are talking, that's a secondary thing because you need to like looking forward to every each upgrade of the menu in the restaurant, you need to, looking forward to every each event in the hotel and so on. That's what it's all about.
Speaker 1:I would add one more thing. You need to be curious about why, you know, as in the Polish, you know, guest example. It's the curiosity that drives kind of like everything else, right? Like like you can be great, passionate, everything, you will stay there. If you're not curious, to expand and ask five whys.
Speaker 1:Like, why they stop? Why it's not working? Okay. Why they'll they don't love it anymore? Oh, they, you know.
Speaker 1:So like that, I love that framework of five whys, asking five whys. But you can do it only if you have the curiosity. You cannot teach it to people who aren't curious.
Speaker 3:I just had a couple more questions before we wrap up. I know you both are obviously very tech savvy. Is there a new vendor or a new piece of software that you've seen on the market that looks really interesting and it's on your wish list, but you haven't implemented it yet? What do you see coming up next that looks really exciting?
Speaker 4:Well I think there's need to be a say great thanks to Paul because I wasn't handling very well the meetings or notes and stuff like that. I've been through a couple tools which are used for that kind of stuff. But recently, I started to use Plot. Those guys are amazing. That like, that's a piece of tech which helped me with like note taking and so on, like that's a huge thing for me now.
Speaker 1:This has changed my life by the way as well, because I don't remember things and, you know, again. But on the purely hospitality, I actually love a couple of new things in agentic space. There are a comment that Martin is playing with that a lot, that actually help you to connect your reservations to things like GPT. So you can kind of like increase your direct channels, and also using the agents for dynamic pricing. And for that, you need the data first.
Speaker 1:But Martin is playing with that a lot, and I think this is gonna be really, really, really exciting. Because, like, I love his saying, you know. He says that Martin, can you say your saying about the being the best in the world in marketing and not?
Speaker 4:Oh, I see. Yeah. So what started this idea and we would need an entire podcast for that and we are just playing at the moment. So but the thing is that I think our company in like hotel management and so on, we are doing pretty good. Okay.
Speaker 4:I'm not saying we are the best, like there are much better, bigger players. But I would say that, for example, in marketing world, like optimization of online campaigns and so on, If you will hire my company, I would say that the best is 100% and we are able to give you 75, okay, or whatever, 60% of what would be in the ideal world, ideal campaigns and so on because I think we are doing pretty good. But that costs a lot of money and you cannot afford our services if you are not like a big hotel. And then you have like thousands and thousands of small hotels around Europe and around the whole world. But like what they can do is zero person okay.
Speaker 4:Like what they care about is that they will make breakfast for their clients sometime in the morning and that they will be able to clean up the room sometime and so on. And they will never be able to like forward some sort of a consultation company or management contract company as we are. So how about we like do some sort of automatization for them? Then everyone says like, yeah, but the AI marketing is not good enough. Like people are still doing better.
Speaker 4:Like I'm saying, okay, so you have this like 100%, maybe you are able to find someone like significantly better than we are, so you will get yourself 80% of the ideal stay but it's going to cost you 30% of your revenue. And those guys can do zero. So how about for $200 we give them 15%. We will just do a simple agent which will look towards the occupation and if there is like a lot of vacancy, he will create a simple branding campaign with let's say like 10% off in the writing and so on. Yeah and maybe he will check the prices and he will fix the prices on booking and maybe you will tell him okay those are my competitors so have a look at them before you do something and then ask me for that.
Speaker 4:And so that's what we are gonna do instead of like costing you 20% of your revenue for some sort of a, you know, cool marketing consultants and you will get your results but they are pretty expensive. Maybe like get yourself at 15% of ideal state and like we gonna take $200 for that or something.
Speaker 3:Last question before we wrap up. What is one thing you believe about technology in the hotel space that your peers or competitors might disagree with? So what's your hot take on tech in the hotel space?
Speaker 4:I think that we are not doing enough at all. Like in hospitality we are so slow with like accommodating tech solutions and a lot of my peers in the business don't want to hear that and they feel like oh my god we are like it's so sophisticated because now like we are counting hours of our employees through like some sort of a chipping system. They put the finger on some tablet when they come in and like the rest of the world is doing this for like thirty years now, come on. Yeah, so I would say that the main thing is that we are super, super slow.
Speaker 1:My thing is kind of like very much connected with it. And like the super slow, I think it's people don't realize that it's here. You know, like, they'll say, yeah, yeah, if I have time, you know, I can do this. I have, a different kind of like things. And it's like, people like they would use GPT in their normal lives, right?
Speaker 1:But they don't realize that this technology, you know, together with the infrastructure, otherwise it doesn't work. It's already changing the world. And, you know, like people like Martin, who are like tech savvy operators, who actually understand the data and understand the AI, are just, you know, like jump flipping, you know, them forward. That will have huge implications. Because, you know, I've seen what he does across 26 portfolio companies.
Speaker 1:And we are not talking about small change. We are talking about significant changes in revenue base. Well, that means, you know, like the people who will apply first have more money, have more guests, and have more, you know, capital for acquisitions. So I'm definitely seeing a big m and a activity in the space, you know, coming, which is gonna be tech driven. It's gonna be led by people who will, you know, very fast understand how to use it to improve their margins so they can get better financing, they can get better operating margins, and they can do more acquisitions.
Speaker 3:Well, thank you both so much for your time.
Speaker 4:Thank you for having us. It was great.
Speaker 1:Thank you.
Speaker 2:That's all for today's episode. Thanks for listening to Hotel Tech Insider produced by hoteltechreport.com. Our goal with this podcast is to show you how the best in the business are leveraging technology to grow their properties and outperform the concept by using innovative digital tools and strategies. I encourage all of our listeners to go try at least one of these strategies or tools that you learned from today's episode. Successful digital transformation is all about consistent small experiments over a long period of time, so don't wait until tomorrow to try something new.
Speaker 2:Do you know a hotelier who would be great to feature on this show, or do you think that your story would bring a lot of value to our audience? Reach out to me directly on LinkedIn by searching for Jordan Hollander. For more episodes like this, follow Hotel Tech Insider on all major streaming platforms like Spotify and Apple Music.