The latest Hotel Tech Awards presented excellent and cutting-edge tools that are pioneering the future of hotel tech, and that’s what we want, at Otolo. To provide our community with the relevant resources to their challenges, one of them being technology. So, we asked our members the tools they use the most at work, whether it’s related to operations, food and beverages, booking, HR, and other hospitality areas and departments.
We handpicked the apps, platforms, APIs that were recommended by our mentors and mentees, tools that are super relevant to anyone working in hospitality, hotel management, DMCs, airlines, accounting, etc. Here’s our list of some powerful tech platforms that will make your life easier at work, if you work in hospitality!
At a glance:
Hotel and Property Management
Guest experience and intelligence
Meetings and Events
Marketing
Travel and Booking
Accounting, Revenue Management and Tipping
Food and Beverages
Cool picks
Hotel and Property Management
Designed to make communication flow, hotelkit is the ultimate solution for hotels. Originally developed by Marius Donhauser, Founder & CEO to improve communications in his 4-star boutique hotel in Salzburg, hotelkit helps hotel teams manage, supervise, delegate and communicate efficiently, anywhere, any time, on any device. The platform is currently used by 60,000 hotel employees across more than 1,200 hotels worldwide. It aims for hoteliers to deliver outstanding service easily and smoothly, save time with automated work (repairs, tasks, guest complaints) and give them time to make their guests happy.
d2o provides hospitality businesses with live forecasting and productivity management solutions, such as their Performance Management Intelligence (PMI), an integrated suite to guide hoteliers to discover untapped profit throughout their enterprise. PMI is a cloud-based planning and productivity management tool used by hotels, resorts, catering services, cruise lines to keep their team productivity under control, even from a mobile device.
Thought to ease internal communication and task management, ALICE helps hospitality staff act as a team to provide excellent service. The platform brings together front office, concierge, housekeeping, and maintenance teams, and connects guests to the hotel with an app and text messaging tools aiming to deliver impactful work throughout departments.
Aiming to make the world a more connected place, Cloudbeds helps lodging providers, luxury hotels or campgrounds build and run their business efficiently without worrying about technology. The platform helps businesses reach travellers worldwide and empower them to spend more time with their guests.
End-to-end contactless guest journey platformEasyWay aims to humanize digital experiences by personalising the entire guest journey. With EasyWay, guests enjoy an innovative and safe experience at the hotel while benefitting from new revenue streams, increased operational efficiency, and improved engagement with guests.
Created in 2017 by the founder of FlipKey (acquired by TripAdvisor), Breezeway is building the future of property care and service. The team developed a property operations platform that helps coordinate, communicate, and verify detailed work at properties, and deliver the best service experience to guests and homeowners. Breezeway has helped hundreds of short-term rental operators and hospitality professionals meet specific service standards and increase their guest experience.
Guest experience and intelligence
How to better run your hotel? Born in Los Angeles, Whistle founders imagined a more efficient, contact-free way where guests are engaged throughout the entire process, from booking through departure. The company helps hotels create a contactless guest experience, streamline operations, drive upsell revenue, and reduce costs via its proprietary software that bridges the gap between hotel guests and teams.
With two offices in Paris and Tel Aviv, the intuitive Duve app helps hospitality professionals increase performance, profitability, and enhance their brand via a single platform. The app aims for hotels and properties to create a deeper, friendlier, and enhanced experience for their guests. Hoteliers who currently use it in 60 countries can achieve an elevated contactless guest experience, provide upsell services and personalise their communication with guests, without compromising on quality.
Founded in Barcelona in 2008 as part of the Shiji Group, ReviewPro is great for controlling the hotel social media channels’ online reputation and enables the automation of clunky processes thanks to its chatbot solution. Leader in guest intelligence, ReviewPro is used by groups like Radisson Hotel Group, Kempinski, Mèlia Hotels International which rely on the tool to automate their guest experience and increase guest satisfaction with the power of AI and into one powerful platform.
Founded in London in 2014, GuestRevu helps hotels, groups, tour operators across the world get a better understanding of their guests through the data and insights gained from feedback and online reviews. It aims to improve guest satisfaction and drive direct bookings. The company believes that feedback from guests should be at the heart of any hospitality business for marketing success, as hospitality is not a product but an experience.
Meetings and Events
Born in 2014 in Finland, MeetingPackage helps venues increase revenue and reduce costs in Meetings & Events sales. The company developed a venue management SaaS solution that enables hoteliers to sell meeting rooms & event spaces online. The dynamic pricing feature offers a choice amongst hundreds of distribution channels and makes it easy for customers to book meeting rooms.
Created in Canada, Event Temple aims to streamline hotels and venues operations and increase their sales seamlessly. The all-in-one events and hospitality platform delivers powerful features that assist special event venues with prospecting, client retention, event calendar management, etc. and can integrate with plenty of event management tools and apps.
Marketing
Backed by Lakestar, Kima Ventures, Stride.VC and Latitude (who also backed Airbnb, Spotify, Trivago, Travelperk, Zoopla, Monzo, and Deliveroo), Impala is reshaping the tech behind travel, often experienced as complex and clunky. The company has built a travel API that connects hotels with customers who want to sell hotel rooms. Hotels can join instantly, and customers can access the booking platform to sell hotel rooms in minutes.
Founded by Charlie Osmond and Alasdair Snow with offices in London, New York, Barcelona and Singapore, Triptease is a smart SaaS that was built to help hotels take back control of their distribution and increase their direct revenue. The platform identifies the most valuable guests then works across the entire customer journey, from acquisition to conversion, to make sure they book directly at the hotel.
Founded in 2017 and headquartered in Brasil, Asksuite is the leader in omnichannel intelligent communication for hotels, chains and resorts. The company developed the first 24-hour chatbot focused on increasing direct bookings and can control all of the hotel channels using powerful automation and features: direct bookings, integration with booking engines to deliver instant real-time quotes within chat, Facebook Messenger, Gmail, and other channels.
Travel and Booking
Backed by key VCs like Benchmark, Blossom, Index Ventures, Kima Ventures, and Y Combinator, Duffel aims to redesign the travel infrastructure to make it effortless with the most powerful and intuitive tool for starting a travel business. Duffel helps businesses provide smooth flight booking experiences to their customers. And today, travel companies do need powerful technology to stay competitive and meet their customers’ expectations.
Now valued at over $5 billion, Hopper is on a mission to build the world’s most customer-centric and fastest-growing mobile-first travel marketplace to help customers save money and travel better. The new travel booking pioneer aims to reduce traveller anxiety throughout all stages of the trip, by creating a transparent travel marketplace and data-driven fintech products focused on providing peace of mind.
Created in 2015 in Barcelona, TravelPerk is reinventing business travel with a solution that works. Having the world’s largest travel inventory, the company is pioneering the future of business travel by giving travellers the freedom they want while providing companies with the control they need. It has powerful features and tech, 24/7 customer support, and customer-centric design, to enable companies worldwide to get the most out of their travel.
Accounting, Revenue Management and Tipping
Headquartered in the US, M3 provides accounting solutions for the hospitality industry since 1998. M3 has played a part in innovating hotel tech and its software offers different features: accounting, business intelligence, and payroll solutions for a variety of brands and independent hotels in the U.S. and Canada. With this solution, companies can reduce complex work and remain competitive in the industry.
Founded by Mike McDerment in 2003, FreshBooks is the idea that came on a busy afternoon while Mike, self-employed at the time, accidentally saved over an invoice and lost his work. Freshbooks is an accounting app to make anyone’s life in the hospitality industry easier - businesses can create invoices, track expenses, take payments and report on their activity seamlessly.
If you’re looking to be proactive on your revenue management, Oaky may be the right fit, as it works as a hyper-personalised and automated upselling engine that helps hotels drive more profit from their existing customers by delivering a superior guest experience. With Oaky, hoteliers save time with automated welcome offers, increase their revenue by selling room upgrades, reselling available rooms, while making their guests happier!
Based in Mountain View, California, and founded by Elle Rustique, TipBrightly is 100% made for the hotel, travel, and hospitality industries. It’s the first integrated mobile payment system that enables cashless tipping, real-time feedback and data analytics. Tipbrightly aims to design educational products to enable seamless consumer experiences and encourage data-driven decisions and transparent digital systems for employees who rely on tip-based income.
Food and Beverages
RoomOrders is a room service ordering application, very easy to use for both guests and employees. Essentially it allows hotel guests to order their room service using a mobile device and by downloading an app while providing better access for restaurants to receive an order, without the hassle of answering phones. With this app, restaurants can streamline the ordering process and eliminate missed orders, create a better client experience and increase guest satisfaction.
Looking for an easy and innovative solution to create digital menus? Menumodo enables you to upload and update your menu via an app and synchronises it online on your website and social media channels. You can also add any dietary requirements or specify allergies on your menu, and the app will enable the guests to filter the menu according to their needs.
My Digital Office is a hotel performance management platform for sourcing, processing and storing hospitality data in the cloud. It helps hotel owners, operators, franchisees and hospitality REITs automate the hotel back office and manage their property portfolio performance. The SaaS aims to deliver visibility, connectivity, and control via cloud-based dashboards, document management software and integrated data feeds.
Founded in 2017, Bbot helps restaurants increase revenue and reduce staffing costs without compromising on hospitality. The web contactless order and pay solution allows guests to order food and drinks hassle-free from their phone to their location: hotel room, hotel lobby or a table at a restaurant. Guests save time as they can order and pay without swiping a card, signing a receipt, or spending a moment waiting in line. There is no signup required or app to download, and operators can still capture guest data.
Cool picks
Since 1994, JourneyWoman is a women’s solo travel publication, inspiring generations of adventurous, courageous women to travel safely and well. The company finds its essence in seeking authenticity in every experience, sharing stories to influence positive change. Through award-winning editorial, JourneyWoman empowers women to travel safely and provide practical advice from real women who understand that travel is a privilege, not a right.
Founded in 2015, Eightydays.me is the smart and effortless (AI-powered) way to design your travel itineraries. The platform suggests all-in-one trip plan search results, from commercial flights, trains, buses and ferries to hotels and vacation rentals through Airbnb and Booking.com. The algorithms, website, mobile app, and AI-powered backend help save time, money and energy by comparing top travel opportunities to show the perfect trip at the cheapest price. And the nice design makes it easy to choose!
Do you know DoNotPay? It’s all about Frequently Asked Questions, for financially resourceful customers and for anything! If you wonder how to claim compensation for poor airlines Wi-Fi, get free hotel room upgrades, or want to know how much lottery winnings are taxed or sign up for travel sweepstakes effortlessly, you may find your answer on the DoNotPay community.
Founded in 2019 by Mark Philips, formerly of KPMG, Microsoft, Apple and Linda McCall, formerly from Qantas & Australian Air Force, Nomad Stays aims to make it easier for everyone to grow their careers and business while exploring the world. Because both aren’t incompatible as would best explain the company founders, who explored more than 100 countries. To date, Nomad Stays helped thousands of entrepreneurs combine their passions, networks and experience to make it easier to create an amazing travel based lifestyle.
And you, what other tool, app, software, platform or website do you use to run your hospitality business? Which ones do you prefer and recommend, and why? Join the conversation on Otolo.
30 apps and platforms that hospitality professionals should know in 2022
The latest Hotel Tech Awards presented excellent and cutting-edge tools that are pioneering the future of hotel tech, and that’s what we want, at Otolo. To provide our community with the relevant resources to their challenges, one of them being technology. So, we asked our members the tools they use the most at work, whether it’s related to operations, food and beverages, booking, HR, and other hospitality areas and departments.
We handpicked the apps, platforms, APIs that were recommended by our mentors and mentees, tools that are super relevant to anyone working in hospitality, hotel management, DMCs, airlines, accounting, etc. Here’s our list of some powerful tech platforms that will make your life easier at work, if you work in hospitality!
At a glance:
Hotel and Property Management
Guest experience and intelligence
Meetings and Events
Marketing
Travel and Booking
Accounting, Revenue Management and Tipping
Food and Beverages
Cool picks
Hotel and Property Management
Designed to make communication flow, hotelkit is the ultimate solution for hotels. Originally developed by Marius Donhauser, Founder & CEO to improve communications in his 4-star boutique hotel in Salzburg, hotelkit helps hotel teams manage, supervise, delegate and communicate efficiently, anywhere, any time, on any device. The platform is currently used by 60,000 hotel employees across more than 1,200 hotels worldwide. It aims for hoteliers to deliver outstanding service easily and smoothly, save time with automated work (repairs, tasks, guest complaints) and give them time to make their guests happy.
d2o provides hospitality businesses with live forecasting and productivity management solutions, such as their Performance Management Intelligence (PMI), an integrated suite to guide hoteliers to discover untapped profit throughout their enterprise. PMI is a cloud-based planning and productivity management tool used by hotels, resorts, catering services, cruise lines to keep their team productivity under control, even from a mobile device.
Thought to ease internal communication and task management, ALICE helps hospitality staff act as a team to provide excellent service. The platform brings together front office, concierge, housekeeping, and maintenance teams, and connects guests to the hotel with an app and text messaging tools aiming to deliver impactful work throughout departments.
Aiming to make the world a more connected place, Cloudbeds helps lodging providers, luxury hotels or campgrounds build and run their business efficiently without worrying about technology. The platform helps businesses reach travellers worldwide and empower them to spend more time with their guests.
End-to-end contactless guest journey platform EasyWay aims to humanize digital experiences by personalising the entire guest journey. With EasyWay, guests enjoy an innovative and safe experience at the hotel while benefitting from new revenue streams, increased operational efficiency, and improved engagement with guests.
Created in 2017 by the founder of FlipKey (acquired by TripAdvisor), Breezeway is building the future of property care and service. The team developed a property operations platform that helps coordinate, communicate, and verify detailed work at properties, and deliver the best service experience to guests and homeowners. Breezeway has helped hundreds of short-term rental operators and hospitality professionals meet specific service standards and increase their guest experience.
Guest experience and intelligence
How to better run your hotel? Born in Los Angeles, Whistle founders imagined a more efficient, contact-free way where guests are engaged throughout the entire process, from booking through departure. The company helps hotels create a contactless guest experience, streamline operations, drive upsell revenue, and reduce costs via its proprietary software that bridges the gap between hotel guests and teams.
With two offices in Paris and Tel Aviv, the intuitive Duve app helps hospitality professionals increase performance, profitability, and enhance their brand via a single platform. The app aims for hotels and properties to create a deeper, friendlier, and enhanced experience for their guests. Hoteliers who currently use it in 60 countries can achieve an elevated contactless guest experience, provide upsell services and personalise their communication with guests, without compromising on quality.
Founded in Barcelona in 2008 as part of the Shiji Group, ReviewPro is great for controlling the hotel social media channels’ online reputation and enables the automation of clunky processes thanks to its chatbot solution. Leader in guest intelligence, ReviewPro is used by groups like Radisson Hotel Group, Kempinski, Mèlia Hotels International which rely on the tool to automate their guest experience and increase guest satisfaction with the power of AI and into one powerful platform.
Founded in London in 2014, GuestRevu helps hotels, groups, tour operators across the world get a better understanding of their guests through the data and insights gained from feedback and online reviews. It aims to improve guest satisfaction and drive direct bookings. The company believes that feedback from guests should be at the heart of any hospitality business for marketing success, as hospitality is not a product but an experience.
Meetings and Events
Born in 2014 in Finland, MeetingPackage helps venues increase revenue and reduce costs in Meetings & Events sales. The company developed a venue management SaaS solution that enables hoteliers to sell meeting rooms & event spaces online. The dynamic pricing feature offers a choice amongst hundreds of distribution channels and makes it easy for customers to book meeting rooms.
Created in Canada, Event Temple aims to streamline hotels and venues operations and increase their sales seamlessly. The all-in-one events and hospitality platform delivers powerful features that assist special event venues with prospecting, client retention, event calendar management, etc. and can integrate with plenty of event management tools and apps.
Marketing
Backed by Lakestar, Kima Ventures, Stride.VC and Latitude (who also backed Airbnb, Spotify, Trivago, Travelperk, Zoopla, Monzo, and Deliveroo), Impala is reshaping the tech behind travel, often experienced as complex and clunky. The company has built a travel API that connects hotels with customers who want to sell hotel rooms. Hotels can join instantly, and customers can access the booking platform to sell hotel rooms in minutes.
Founded by Charlie Osmond and Alasdair Snow with offices in London, New York, Barcelona and Singapore, Triptease is a smart SaaS that was built to help hotels take back control of their distribution and increase their direct revenue. The platform identifies the most valuable guests then works across the entire customer journey, from acquisition to conversion, to make sure they book directly at the hotel.
Founded in 2017 and headquartered in Brasil, Asksuite is the leader in omnichannel intelligent communication for hotels, chains and resorts. The company developed the first 24-hour chatbot focused on increasing direct bookings and can control all of the hotel channels using powerful automation and features: direct bookings, integration with booking engines to deliver instant real-time quotes within chat, Facebook Messenger, Gmail, and other channels.
Travel and Booking
Backed by key VCs like Benchmark, Blossom, Index Ventures, Kima Ventures, and Y Combinator, Duffel aims to redesign the travel infrastructure to make it effortless with the most powerful and intuitive tool for starting a travel business. Duffel helps businesses provide smooth flight booking experiences to their customers. And today, travel companies do need powerful technology to stay competitive and meet their customers’ expectations.
Now valued at over $5 billion, Hopper is on a mission to build the world’s most customer-centric and fastest-growing mobile-first travel marketplace to help customers save money and travel better. The new travel booking pioneer aims to reduce traveller anxiety throughout all stages of the trip, by creating a transparent travel marketplace and data-driven fintech products focused on providing peace of mind.
Created in 2015 in Barcelona, TravelPerk is reinventing business travel with a solution that works. Having the world’s largest travel inventory, the company is pioneering the future of business travel by giving travellers the freedom they want while providing companies with the control they need. It has powerful features and tech, 24/7 customer support, and customer-centric design, to enable companies worldwide to get the most out of their travel.
Accounting, Revenue Management and Tipping
Headquartered in the US, M3 provides accounting solutions for the hospitality industry since 1998. M3 has played a part in innovating hotel tech and its software offers different features: accounting, business intelligence, and payroll solutions for a variety of brands and independent hotels in the U.S. and Canada. With this solution, companies can reduce complex work and remain competitive in the industry.
Founded by Mike McDerment in 2003, FreshBooks is the idea that came on a busy afternoon while Mike, self-employed at the time, accidentally saved over an invoice and lost his work. Freshbooks is an accounting app to make anyone’s life in the hospitality industry easier - businesses can create invoices, track expenses, take payments and report on their activity seamlessly.
If you’re looking to be proactive on your revenue management, Oaky may be the right fit, as it works as a hyper-personalised and automated upselling engine that helps hotels drive more profit from their existing customers by delivering a superior guest experience. With Oaky, hoteliers save time with automated welcome offers, increase their revenue by selling room upgrades, reselling available rooms, while making their guests happier!
Based in Mountain View, California, and founded by Elle Rustique, TipBrightly is 100% made for the hotel, travel, and hospitality industries. It’s the first integrated mobile payment system that enables cashless tipping, real-time feedback and data analytics. Tipbrightly aims to design educational products to enable seamless consumer experiences and encourage data-driven decisions and transparent digital systems for employees who rely on tip-based income.
Food and Beverages
RoomOrders is a room service ordering application, very easy to use for both guests and employees. Essentially it allows hotel guests to order their room service using a mobile device and by downloading an app while providing better access for restaurants to receive an order, without the hassle of answering phones. With this app, restaurants can streamline the ordering process and eliminate missed orders, create a better client experience and increase guest satisfaction.
Looking for an easy and innovative solution to create digital menus? Menumodo enables you to upload and update your menu via an app and synchronises it online on your website and social media channels. You can also add any dietary requirements or specify allergies on your menu, and the app will enable the guests to filter the menu according to their needs.
My Digital Office is a hotel performance management platform for sourcing, processing and storing hospitality data in the cloud. It helps hotel owners, operators, franchisees and hospitality REITs automate the hotel back office and manage their property portfolio performance. The SaaS aims to deliver visibility, connectivity, and control via cloud-based dashboards, document management software and integrated data feeds.
Founded in 2017, Bbot helps restaurants increase revenue and reduce staffing costs without compromising on hospitality. The web contactless order and pay solution allows guests to order food and drinks hassle-free from their phone to their location: hotel room, hotel lobby or a table at a restaurant. Guests save time as they can order and pay without swiping a card, signing a receipt, or spending a moment waiting in line. There is no signup required or app to download, and operators can still capture guest data.
Cool picks
Since 1994, JourneyWoman is a women’s solo travel publication, inspiring generations of adventurous, courageous women to travel safely and well. The company finds its essence in seeking authenticity in every experience, sharing stories to influence positive change. Through award-winning editorial, JourneyWoman empowers women to travel safely and provide practical advice from real women who understand that travel is a privilege, not a right.
Founded in 2015, Eightydays.me is the smart and effortless (AI-powered) way to design your travel itineraries. The platform suggests all-in-one trip plan search results, from commercial flights, trains, buses and ferries to hotels and vacation rentals through Airbnb and Booking.com. The algorithms, website, mobile app, and AI-powered backend help save time, money and energy by comparing top travel opportunities to show the perfect trip at the cheapest price. And the nice design makes it easy to choose!
Do you know DoNotPay? It’s all about Frequently Asked Questions, for financially resourceful customers and for anything! If you wonder how to claim compensation for poor airlines Wi-Fi, get free hotel room upgrades, or want to know how much lottery winnings are taxed or sign up for travel sweepstakes effortlessly, you may find your answer on the DoNotPay community.
Founded in 2019 by Mark Philips, formerly of KPMG, Microsoft, Apple and Linda McCall, formerly from Qantas & Australian Air Force, Nomad Stays aims to make it easier for everyone to grow their careers and business while exploring the world. Because both aren’t incompatible as would best explain the company founders, who explored more than 100 countries. To date, Nomad Stays helped thousands of entrepreneurs combine their passions, networks and experience to make it easier to create an amazing travel based lifestyle.
And you, what other tool, app, software, platform or website do you use to run your hospitality business? Which ones do you prefer and recommend, and why? Join the conversation on Otolo.
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