CIC Hospitality's CEO on Eliminating Manual Tasks in Hotel Management
So if you count the robot cleaning, the serving robots, the hologram, the index pads, the mail AI system that we use for answering the incoming mails into the hotels, It has become quite a big tech stack.
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, we sit down with 2 leaders from CIC Hospitality, which operates 30 hotels throughout Scandinavia. We talk with Matthias Tomski, the CEO, and Eric Bergsten, the senior revenue manager. Our conversation ranges from front of house tech to back of house operations, and we cover how they use technology in some ways you might not expect. Let's start by getting to know you both a bit better. So if you could please introduce yourselves, let us know your current role, how you got there, some highlights of your career so far, and what you're doing right now.
Speaker 4:My name is Eric. I'm working as a senior revenue manager for CSC Hospitality and had done so for the past 3 years. It has been quite an exciting journey, to say the least. I worked with revenue management now for about 12 years and within the hotel business for 18 years, so it's starting to get a
Speaker 1:while. And my name is Matthias. I'm the CEO and one of the founders of CIC Hospitality. We started the company in 2018, so we are quite young for a hospitality or hotel company here in Scandinavia, and we went quite fast up from 1 property in 2018. And now this year, 1st August, we opened our 30th hotel.
Speaker 1:Before that, I was basically always working in the hotel industry from bartender, reception, general manager, operations on the headquarter level to basically done everything.
Speaker 3:Tell me a bit about CIC Hospitality. I understand you have a sizable portfolio of hotels. How many properties do you operate? Where are they located? And what sets them apart from competitors?
Speaker 1:Well, again, since we started in 2018, we have thought about how can we make the guest experience better through technology and how can we maybe change a little bit of how traditional hotels are run with technology. So we started with the first rental contract. We're building hotels as well, and we always have the technology focus in the guest experience but also back of house. At the moment, we are operating 30 properties, and 10 of them we own ourselves, basically building as well. The carrier the values of CIC Hospitality are caring, inspiring, creative, the hence the CIC name.
Speaker 1:So we always try to find new solutions and try to be a little bit more creative than maybe other companies, I hope, anyways.
Speaker 3:Are your properties in city centers, and are they branded or independent?
Speaker 4:So we have the master franchise of the ADEM brand here in Scandinavia, which is you have the ADEM brand from the Swiss and the US, but we have made it in a Scandinavian way. And those properties we have a property in Stockholm, which in are in the central Stockholm, and also some around the city center area.
Speaker 1:I think for us, location wide, the city center is, of course, attractive. We have both hotels in Copenhagen, in in the city center of Stockholm, and here in Oslo. But the main sorting out criteria for us, sourcing criteria for locations for new hotels is as well big infrastructure projects or traffic hubs. So we have a lot of airport properties, and where they are building big tunnels or railroads, there we can quickly build hotels as well.
Speaker 3:Let's get into technology. So you mentioned that CIC Hospitality is always thinking about the next thing in technology. Let's start by getting an understanding for what you view as the most critical technology partner. So if there's one system or one vendor that you work with that is most important for your business?
Speaker 1:We are organizing our tech stack in sorting in front of house and back of house, and I can start with the front of house part, and then Eric can continue a little bit, about the back of house. The front of house is mainly about productivity and guest experience efficiency. So we do have, like, a hologram box where we project a receptionist in, which now serves 8 of our properties here from Oslo through a hologram. So so that's quite special. And then we have Inject Pads.
Speaker 1:We have robots driving around. We really try to find technologies from other businesses and implement them in our hotels as well. We are not afraid to try. The latest project would be a social robot that we are trying to it's a little bit more guest entertainment than efficiency, but we hope that it lifts the guest experience anyways.
Speaker 4:Yeah. And for Becca House, which I'm working the most with, we are working together with Atomize and D2O or PMI as their tool is called. We're trying to combine the 2 of them as well now because Atomize started with the forecasting module, and they're now sending the forecast to PMI. And this is to cause, like, forecast predictionality for the operations department so we can staff the hotel correct at the correct time. So this is an very exciting project, which we are trying out now, and, hopefully, we will roll out to all our properties.
Speaker 3:What you're saying is this system will take maybe occupancy, forecasting, and then turn that into a staffing prediction?
Speaker 4:Yeah. Because PMI is translating the occupancy or the number of guests in the house into how much you need to staff. So this is quite interesting. And when you get to the RMS system to talk together with this system, I think we're really onto something.
Speaker 3:I imagine listeners will be curious to learn how exactly does this work. Does the system have an algorithm that says if you're at 70% occupancy, you need x number of housekeepers? And then if you're at 80%, you need a different number of housekeepers? Or did you need to build that algorithm?
Speaker 1:It basically has an algorithm like that. And going out from the budget and the forecast, they will suggest how many hours you can use per department. The main KPI in the system is revenue per available labor unit. So we compare revenue to the labor units, and then you get these KPIs. So you have, at every time, a suggestion how many hours you can use to be most efficient with the revenue you have on-site.
Speaker 1:And that we can do 3 months in the future, half a year in the future, we do our rolling forecast 1 year. So basically if it was optimal, we could do the schedule for our employees 1 year from now, but we're not quite that far yet.
Speaker 4:But we will be, I hope. And also, it's quite important for us that the companies we are working with agrees to work together with us gain success. So for Afmice, for example, when we were choosing them, it was a start up company, and we saw that they could help us to fix some problems that we have. And together, we could build the system, and we are still doing it. So we can get suggestions to them what we miss in our environment, and they will help us to build this to complete the circle.
Speaker 3:Do you have any advice you would share with hoteliers on how to find those sorts of vendors or how to build those relationships?
Speaker 1:I think you just have to try. It's always about trial and error. We have a lot of good examples, some bad examples as well, but you don't have to be afraid to try. That's the most important thing. And I think already with the startup companies that we are connected to and partnered with, we have kind of, as you said, the same philosophy, the same thinking about technology and hospitality.
Speaker 1:So it's always fun to connect and partner up with the startup companies as we are startup as well. So I think openness to partnerships and get the feeling that this is people we want to work with, that's the most important part.
Speaker 4:And usually, that's a win win situation for everyone.
Speaker 3:So we've talked a bit about your RMS, atomize. Tell me more about your tech stack, your PMS, how you're handling distribution, maybe your booking engine. Curious to learn what other systems you're using.
Speaker 1:Well, again, we try to divide it in front of house and back of house. The for us, the tech stack is not only the hardcore systems, but as well, we have an app to measure employee satisfaction per day. Everyone who comes to work will give our us a little hint about how they're feeling every day, every shift. We have technology that connects us to our sustainability goals, like water measurement. That's also back of house.
Speaker 4:Yeah. And we are a multi brand company. So we work with, as per now, 3 PMS systems, adding a 4th to our new property because we're going to add Mews now to the Lolland property, which are being built at the moment. So we are very excited about that. But due to that, we work with the different hotel companies.
Speaker 4:We also have different tech within everyone. So the channel managers are different if you work with, for example, 2 hotels than if you work with Best Western. So it depends on which hotel chain you work with, how the tech stack looks.
Speaker 1:Basically, we're trying to streamline all the systems that we are allowed to use in the different brands so that we have a fairly good oversight over the tech stack we have. And again, if you take the front of house, if you count the robot cleaning, the serving robots, the hologram, the injects pads, the mail AI system that we use for answering the incoming mails into the hotels. It has become quite a big tech stack, which makes our employees' lives a little bit easier. Our main goal through technology is to free the time of our employees to be only hosts in the hotel so that we are basically cutting all the manual tasks and that you more focus on this high level service experience.
Speaker 3:One thing I thought was interesting that you said is that your tech stack involves many systems, which one might think would add complexity if you have so many different systems to keep track of. But you say it actually makes employees work easier and more streamlined. Can you explain how the systems maybe all work together or help to take some of the manual work off of employees' plates?
Speaker 1:That's, of course, always a challenge to get the different system and technologies to work together. I think for most of the systems now, since we have started to partner up with these companies quite early, we always have a little bit of possibility to get the different companies together in one room and talk to each other and maybe adapt to our wishes. And what's to say about the front of house tech stack with the cleaning robots, for example. Of course, someone needs to watch them and it becomes kind of part of the team and the employees give them names. We measure the efficiency through this revenue per operator labor unit.
Speaker 1:So, where we do have this technology, we can see immediate effect. And again, our goal is to free our employees from manual tasks. I mentioned last time as well that we are looking at kitchen robots as well to produce food so that the employees can concentrate on the high level service again.
Speaker 4:And the same for my department. I mean, we have atomize, which are fully automated. It's doing all the rates by itself. We are not going into the system to override it in any way, and that means that one revenue manager, for example, can handle more hotels. So at CAC, we are 2 revenue managers at the moment handling 30 hotels.
Speaker 4:And instead of putting rates up and down in the system, we are focusing on the strategies for each hotel and also for the predictability for the operations part via forecasts. And again, to emphasize how we try to get our partners to talk to
Speaker 1:each other, it's like the Atomos revenue management system now talks directly to our efficiency and operational system. That's like a trial period that we are trying out that. We are as well working with Muse now to maybe connect our hologram technology to their booking or PMS system. They're very open to this kind of ideas and very good that they're really, with us and trying new things out.
Speaker 3:I would love to learn more about the hologram and how would the connection with Muse work. But first, let's explore what the hologram does. Why do you have it? How did you develop it?
Speaker 1:We founded or I should be honest and say, a colleague of ours who works in operations, I think, clicked on a LinkedIn video fairly late in the evening or nights, and then I got an SMS with a short video clip from, trade for I think it was in Holland or somewhere where they tried this hologram technology. And he said, okay, this we need to have. And 2 weeks later, we were on a plane to Amsterdam to find these guys. And how the technology works is that we have a studio here in Oslo, and you have big hollow boxes, life-sized boxes. So the projection of the live person is into the boxes, and then you can see, have a two way conversation like a Teams call or a Zoom call with the people in front of the box in the hotel's lobby or reception.
Speaker 1:At the moment, as I said, we have 1 hollow receptionist. The guests can call on the touch screen, I want to speak to a live person, and then we get a call here in Oslo. So we can serve, at the moment, 8 hotels with 1 Hologram receptionist. And it's not to get rid of the receptionists on-site because we want to have hosts, real people in our hotels, but it's to if there's a queue or something, people can talk to the hologram instead. The main goal is, of course, to get the hologram to check-in the guest in the system as well, and that's something we are working with Muse to achieve.
Speaker 3:Do you have data that shows how guests feel about using the system? Are they happy with it? Do they choose it over an in person host?
Speaker 1:We don't have concrete data, but we are looking at our hotels and following the number of calls to the Hollow, Grammarion, Oslo. It's getting more and more calls, actually. In the beginning, everyone is a little bit skeptical because they don't really know what this is, but once you try it, it's really amazing to see this kind of technology. So I think it's always a little bit difficult to get guests to use new things, but we have done it now almost a year with the first box and now people are trying or getting the point of this technology as well. And I think the trend is that people are getting more and more technology anyways, so I think that helps as well.
Speaker 4:And, I mean, you see when you are in the hotels as well, people think that it's really cool, and they are taking pictures, and so it's very good to see.
Speaker 3:Speaking of the arrival experience, I understand you use mobile keys for guest rooms. Can you tell me a bit about the Inchex pads?
Speaker 1:We do have a cooperations with, Arribatec, which is a Norwegian start up company as well, and their pets were one of the first ones. We had a little bit of trial and error there as well, but, was the first ones who we got to work and the guests to use. We measure how many guests check-in and check out in these pads daily. So at the moment, the best properties have a check-in rate of, about 50, 60%, and some properties, it's only an add on service where we have, like, 10% of the guests using it. It's mostly regular guest in this little more city center hotels which are using these pads.
Speaker 1:But it's basically you 3 clicks and you are checked in. You make your own key, and then you go up to the room. So you skip to have if you don't want, you don't need to have contact to anyone. But on the other side, our hosts are always beside the pads to show people what they should do, and if they have any difficulties to show them how to use the pads.
Speaker 3:You also mentioned the cleaning robots that you have on-site. Can you tell me a bit more about what those do?
Speaker 1:At the moment, we have focused on the common areas, like vac vacuum robots and cleaning robots that go around on the floor and do the common areas. And, you know, hotels have long, long, long corridors. So to vacuum 1 corridor for 1 person takes hours, and these robots, they will work day night and drive to their own charging station. It was a little bit difficult to find this kind of robots for hotel use. We started, you know, with a private what you have at home, but they really can handle the hotel occupancies with other people.
Speaker 1:So now we found, a little bit more industrialized robots, which are from big industrial warehouses and these kind of things and cleaning there. And it works quite well. We are still looking at some example for the rooms. We have, a couple of things going on there, but that's still a test pilot where we try to make it easier for our cleaning staff as well.
Speaker 3:The last piece of guest facing tech that you mentioned that I'm curious about, using AI to respond to guest inquiries, how is that working, and what is the breadth of inquiries that the AI can handle?
Speaker 1:Well, we tried that now for, I think, 2 years now. It's a Norwegian startup company as well called Simplify. And the first property, now we have, I think it's almost 2 years, and the AI learns from every mail that's incoming and from the all the history of the mails. So at the moment, at the first property, it answers about 80% of the incoming mails. We are trying to get them to talk to MEWS as well so that the booking on mail go directly into the system or group bookings and name list and other thing that we, get that optimized as well.
Speaker 1:But 20% are still personal mails that go to our Hologram receptionist here in Oslo, and she can take off the mails that the AI can't.
Speaker 3:You mentioned you use an employee satisfaction tool. So you're always asking employees how they're feeling at work. How does that app work, and what sort of results have you learned from it?
Speaker 1:It's a startup from Denmark, which we use, and it recognizes when the employees come to work. You get a pop up message, how are you feeling today? And I don't know exactly. It's 1 to 10 or something. So before you start working, you have to press your mood and when you finished working, you do it again.
Speaker 1:It's an app, basically, but it's also, not only the happiness score in there, but it's also a communication device. It's our own kind of social network where I can send messages to everyone. All the hotels have their small groups. It's as well a training tool with a trainer in augmented reality that shows people what to do. It's a quite full out employee satisfaction, training, and communication system, basically.
Speaker 1:It's very interesting to see how our people use it. And, again, when we then measure revenue per operator rated labor unit and put that beside the employee happiness score so that we can see, okay. Today, it was busy, and people are happy, and today, as well, is not so busy, and people are not so happy. That's basically what happens What do we find out what happens? People are more happy when things are happening out in the hotels, and they have a lot of guests to take care of.
Speaker 3:Switching gears a little bit, I'm curious given that you both have some great experience in the industry. What would you say are 1 or 2 skills that a hotelier should have today in order to be successful?
Speaker 4:We have talked a lot about AI, and I think you have to be quite open minded to AI now and start to work with the AI and not against it. So you need to, like, embrace the AI technology and learn how to work with it and try out all the sources that you can with AI and see what happens.
Speaker 1:I totally agree. I was at a conference not so long ago where one of the, speakers said, okay, you as a hotelier need to use AI every day to get used to it. Otherwise, after a while you are out, this is coming. So I think the openness to AI and learn how to use it for ourselves as well. I'm in the chat GTP every day now to try to find out how I can use it best.
Speaker 1:But, of course, the most important skill for hoteliers is people skills. We have this strong belief that we don't want to run our hotels without people. People are a center part of the experience in a hotel. We only want to make them free of this administrative tasks and things that an AI or a robot can do so that they can deliver this high level service. So people skills and to want to talk to people, to want to be with people, that's one of the most important things, I guess.
Speaker 3:I know growth is a focus of CIC Hospitality. Maybe it's just growth or if there's another business objective that you're working toward, how does technology help you get there?
Speaker 1:I can mention that we are working a lot with, sustainability as well and technology behind measurements of water usage per guest and these kind of things that are really important to get in place in the building phase of a hotel. We have a strong focus on that as well. Yeah. One big thing
Speaker 4:for us now is also to optimize the existing portfolio as good as possible. And as I mentioned, with the forecasts for our operation managers to staff correctly and also how to pack the hotels correctly. I mean, from everything from the base load to which customers we're going to have in the hotels. So that's the main focus for the revenue department at the moment and also to get out the clean data from the systems.
Speaker 3:The sustainability piece is interesting to me. You mentioned, Matthias, using technology to understand, like, how much energy is being used, how much water is being used. Can you talk to me a bit about how those systems work in practice?
Speaker 1:These energy, follow-up systems have been around for quite a while. We just want to adapt them so that we can see each room, each guest individually. That's what we're trying to do with the water usage. Let's say, again, the Swedish startup company, SmartWatten, SmartWatten, SmartWatten, it's called, where you can measure the usage of water per guest. And then, of course, in the next step, we would say to our guests, maybe at the mirror with a little number, okay, you have showed so many liters.
Speaker 1:Please watch now. You are getting a little bit more than the average and try to influence our guests a little bit to think about the environment as well. Was water usages, of course. Electricity, we do have the solar panels all over our new properties, but we want to deep dive a little bit more in the guests' behavior when they are at our properties so that we can actually have facts, How much energy, how much water, or these kind of things. Food waste is a big part of it as well.
Speaker 1:We have systems where you weigh the food waste to see, okay, how much do we actually throw away per guests? And we kind of use that to maybe set the mirror in front of our guests as well and say, okay, come on, take as much food as you want, but eat everything you take so that we don't have to throw anything away.
Speaker 3:Well, thanks, Eric. Thanks, Matthias.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much. 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.
