Hotel Tech Insider

SPEAKER_02:
And our focus on the technology side at least, and even on the data side, has always been that, again, the data and the technology are meant to complement and optimize the human experience.

SPEAKER_00:
From Hotel Tech Report, it's Hotel Tech Insider, a show about the future of hotels and the technology that powers them.

SPEAKER_01:
Today we speak with Claudia Infante, the Chief Data Officer at Margaritaville. Over her 27-year career in the industry, Claudia has worked in various roles at hotels and resorts in the U.S. and Mexico, including a 10-year stint at Hard Rock Hotels before joining Margaritaville as the Director of Revenue Strategy in 2017. In our conversation, we dig into Margaritaville's tech stack, which includes an exciting mix of startups and legacy solutions. We also talk about the psychology of loyalty and how Margaritaville took a unique approach with their loyalty program and has already achieved some great results. Finally, we get to hear Claudia's take on AI and hospitality and what skills she believes are most important for hoteliers to be successful today. I would love for you to start by telling us a bit about your background, how you got into your current role, and then what you're doing now at Margaritaville.

SPEAKER_02:
So I've been in hospitality my entire career, 27 plus years now. And I really kind of fell into hospitality, I think like most of us, very, you know, at least most of my friends by accident. I actually have, I'm a major in arts and I love arts and it was kind of the thing I wanted to do until You know, you realize that you're kind of have to figure out something to pay the bills. And so I ended up working for a technology company back in the day that created reservations for properties that were independent properties. And so I got pretty familiar with most reservation technology and then started getting involved in revenue management and not just all of the data processes that go into creating a strategy for a hotel and being successful on the commercial side, on the technology side, on the operation side. And just kind of how technology threads all of those things. And obviously with the rise of technology over the last 20 years, that became just that much more prominent, right? The idea that technology is an enabler to the experience and that hotels that invest in technology and do it well, free up the time for their staff to then take care of the guests and enable that human experience that we sometimes lack, I think. in some hospitality areas. So that kind of was my role. I did a lot of that kind of everything and anything when I was growing up in my career, like we all do. I moved around a little bit between the US and Mexico, working for a couple of resorts and a couple of large development resorts. on their reservations, data, technology platforms, and then came back to the US, worked for a couple of different companies. One of them was a mergers and acquisitions company. And at that point, I did realize that I wanted nothing to do with mergers and acquisitions after like three years of working with them. And so I kind of veered back to hospitality in Orlando. And by pure luck, I ended up applying for a job that I didn't even know existed at the time. in a role at Hard Rock International. The hotel company was growing and they needed someone with my skill set. And so what I thought would be kind of a springboard type of job or something I could do in the meantime while I could find a role, because this was 2007 when, you know, the crisis was going on. There was a lot going on in the country. And so I thought, well, you know, I'll just go work there until I can figure something out. and get another job in an actual hotel because I thought that's what I wanted to do is be in the hotel and and then I blinked and I have been at Hard Rock for 10 years and it was a wonderful experience and I really kind of grew attached to not just the brand and the values that that brand stand for, but actually just the ability to be innovative and to be pushing the edge, right? Hard Rock had a very innovative and also very irreverent kind of way of being. And so they always pushed us to go extra, to go see how far you can push the envelope. And I got so used to that. So it was hard to kind of see them company moved down to South Florida and I wasn't going to move with them. My kids were here, my whole life was here. And so it was hard to kind of see them go. But at the same time, I was also ready to move on. So I kind of ended up at Margaritaville, which is even more forward, even more creative in the sense of having to be very nimble and react and very flexible. And we work together and we work very quickly. and we make decisions quickly and we don't get too bothered with red tape, which is a good thing about privately owned companies is that you don't have a whole lot of red tape to go through. And so that has been really the food of that creativity piece that I have to get me to do what I do, which is try to compose situations, platforms and solutions that help the brand grow, but at the same time provide a very nimble and a very helpful solution to the properties that are under our brand umbrella to generate business, to understand their data and obviously to improve their margins. So that's a nutshell.

SPEAKER_01:
For our listeners who may not be as familiar with Margaritaville, can you give just like a quick summary of the brand, how many properties you manage, where they're located?

SPEAKER_02:
So I hope everybody knows, but Jimmy Buffett wrote a song in a five-minute kind of thing. It's a five-minute song that has turned into 50 years of branding. So he wrote a song called Margaritaville that talks all about escaping, right? Escaping every day, escaping whatever pain and sorrow he was going through. And he just went and escaped to Margaritaville and had a few drinks and try to get back and reset, right? So the brand, the Margaritaville brand is based on that feeling. The feeling of escaping and resetting and having fun and forgetting a little bit about where you're coming from doesn't matter. Everybody needs a little bit of fun and a little bit and a place to get away. So. With that, we are and we have been a brand for 40 something years. The song was written in 1977, so it's been a while. And in 1984, they opened a t-shirt shop in Key West because people were bootlegging Jimmy Buffett's t-shirts and misspelling his last name, which he had a pet peeve about because he was not Buffay, he was Buffett, right? So he's like, well, I'm going to sell my own t-shirts and at least, you know, spell my own name right. And so he did that. And so that kind of started growing. And in 1988, they opened the first big restaurant in Orlando at Universal Studios. So the company really started as a restaurant company. It grew up, you know, pretty quickly, it expanded super quickly. And then the next thing you know, is in 2010, they were opening a hotel in Pensacola because everybody wanted a piece of this Margaritaville lifestyle that was being kind of created by the restaurants model. So I came to work here in 2017 when we had four properties in the portfolio. And now only six and a half years ago, we are up to 41 lodging properties. So places where you can rest your head and you can stay and you can You know, in different ways, we have everything from beach resorts, urban hotels, urban resorts. We have all inclusive resorts. We have vacation rentals. We have cottages by the beach. We have RV resorts and places where you can drive your own RV and have a full resort experience. We have lake resorts, we have casitas in different places where you can just go and rent a tiny home and spend a weekend in different places. So, you know, 41 properties, about 30 something restaurants that are freestanding, but about 110 across all of the hotels. Obviously in each of our hotels, we have a few restaurants. We have over 40 different concepts of food and beverage, and then just a whole line of consumer products, foods, and now that you know they exist, you'll see them everywhere. You'll see Margaritaville everywhere. It's a big kind of ecosystem of products and they all kind of ultimately help kind of continue with this lifestyle for our partners and obviously our customers.

SPEAKER_01:
So first, I'm curious, out of all the technology that you use in your role, what would you consider your most critical technology partner?

SPEAKER_02:
We probably have two or three that are critical to the data operations of the brand, right? The brand has different divisions and I oversee data in many places. Obviously, our financial data is very important, but that's more of a company operation, right? The financial data that we have is crucial, but that is mostly an internal solution. On the external solution, so the brand to the consumer, the brand to the partners, the brand to the different business lines that we have, I would say there's probably two or three, one of them being our CRM and our data warehousing solution, which we're using Salesforce. is probably the 800-pound gorilla, right? It keeps all of our guest data and all of our consumer data in the same place. And it allows us to do a lot of the data analysis that we do on a day-to-day basis to service, obviously, our consumers and our partners. Then we have our reservations technology partner, which powers all of our hotels' reservations. And so that's Synexis, Savers Synexis, and that's been our partner now for almost seven years. Then we use other technology. So we have, for example, a loyalty, non-loyalty program. So a program that is very anti-loyalty in the traditional sense of the word. And we instead do surprise and delight. So you get a perk every time you make a reservation. And when you get to the property, you get to choose between different things that we offer you as a way of saying thank you for your loyalty. So that's another key system and technology piece that allows us to not only understand our consumer behavior better because it's AI and is highly intuitive, the system in terms of understanding what our guests like, But it also is a very wraparound solution, so it can go in different places. And so in that sense, it's a very nimble and scalable solution as well. So we use Lassie for our technology and the platform on the loyalty side.

SPEAKER_01:
And when you say it's sort of an anti-loyalty, loyalty program, does that mean there's no points or tiers or something?

SPEAKER_02:
No points, no levels, no tiers, nothing, right? You book a reservation today and you get your perks today. So, you know, it's an immediate satisfaction or immediate reward system allows us to not only entice and encourage our guests to book directly with us because the whole point of the loyalty is to get the guests to book direct. So when you book direct, you get perks and we call them Margaritaville perks. And so those perks get associated with your profile. And when you get to the property, then you get your perks given to you. So you don't have to keep count. You don't have to, you know, say, oh, I'm a, I'm a silver, I'm a this, I'm a that. And because I'm a gold and I get to do this, it's no, it's just a perk that comes every time you book. And next time you book, you'll get more perks. And the next time you book, you'll get more perks. And the system is intelligent enough that it understands not only your behavior, but also your preferences. And so the perks start getting more and more personalized over time.

SPEAKER_01:
How do you measure success with loyalty programs like from a big brand, they're banking on the fact that these guests are staying so many nights a year in order to get those perks. So by giving the perks upfront or after just that first day, are you still seeing the retention?

SPEAKER_02:
We're seeing retention in different ways. We are very new programs and we are not, again, we don't have the volume that you would need to have someone stay 20 times in a year, which is not that brand, right? So we also have to taper our own expectations of what the loyalty program is supposed to do. Because our metrics, while we follow the business metrics that every other loyalty program does, The core program or the core objective of our loyalty program was to one, retain our loyal customers that have been our loyal customers for a long time before we had a loyalty program. And two, really hone in on what this brand is all about, which is the fun, the relaxing, the escaping, the don't have to worry about points or lines or none of that. Right. And so for us, if the program yielded better benefits in terms of rate, or in this case, right, if they return more often, if they go and cross pollinate other properties, that was kind of gravy. Our job and our goal was to show our guests our appreciation for being members to us. It was almost like showing our guests loyalty. back. It's like, oh, you've been loyal to us. Here's our loyalty to you. And so that I think has ultimately turned into a very reciprocal relationship where the guest realizes that they're getting something they wouldn't get any other way. And they wouldn't get if they were not a member of our program. So that also puts us top of mind, because now instead of thinking, you know, I'm going to go on Expedia and find what's available or on any other third-party site, it's like, no, but I know at Margaritaville, I'm going to get something when I book. And that could be an upgrade. It could be a late checkout. It could be an early check-in. It could be a free appetizer. It could be a reserve cabana by the pool. Like, I don't know what I'm going to get, but it's that element of surprise and appreciation that ultimately keeps guests coming back. And so in the last two years, we've started seeing that cross-pollination of properties, right? Guests are going to more than one property by almost 30%. We see a growth in the rate. So the average daily rate that perks members are paying, which by the way, perks members don't get necessarily discounts. We don't discount the rate for them and they don't mind. They pay the rate because they know that they're going to get their perks. And so the value is really a value added as opposed to just a discount program, which is what a lot of the loyalty programs on the points become.

SPEAKER_01:
And are the perks only available when the guest books direct?

SPEAKER_02:
Only on our booking engine or our call center.

SPEAKER_01:
So does Lassie integrate with Salesforce?

SPEAKER_02:
Yes, and with Synexis.

SPEAKER_01:
And with Synexis.

SPEAKER_02:
So we have connected a multi-pronged approach, if you would, all kind of interconnected in the back end.

SPEAKER_01:
And I'm curious to learn how those decisions were made to partner with Salesforce, Synexis and Lassie. You mentioned Lassie is probably the newest of those three.

SPEAKER_02:
Yeah. Lassie is actually a startup or was a startup when we started working with them about four years ago. The thing with Margaritaville is we are a very organic brand. We grow very organically. So when I first came to work for Margaritaville, we knew that, for example, Synexis was a solution that was state-of-the-art, well-connected, well-established, you know, so we went with like best-in-class solutions that could be off the shelf, right, for properties. So Synexis was an easy one. When we decided to put in a CRM, we actually went with Sendine at the time that was then a hotel CRM. And we connected with Sendine, but then we grew so quickly into so many other business lines. So we have cruises, we have restaurants, we have cottages, we have lifestyle, we have you know, vacation homes. We have, uh, 55 and better communities. So we had all these other data points that we needed to gather and Sendine was very hospitality centric. So that's when we decided to go to a bigger engine in terms of data and loyalty. And so Salesforce was the next thing that we could go to that could not only take on the volume that we were handling, but also have connectivity already to a lot of the solutions that we needed them to connect to. So it's been a decision, a little bit of strategy, but also functionality and making sure that what we're doing is not breaking other parts of the environment. Because as we take care of the hotels, for example, we also have to think about the restaurants. We also have to think about the cruises, we also have to think about the stores and the foods and the shoes and the bikes and the frozen concoctions and all these other things that Margaritavilla has in the data. So it's mostly about that. And then lastly, it was really a strike of luck. We had gone through an RFP to talk to loyalty companies and we had talked to probably, I don't know, five or six of them. And quite honestly, we were just a little overwhelmed about how much process and organization was needed to bring one of those big box loyalties into Marco Vitaville. And Margaritaville is a lot of things. We're not an institutional company. We are not Corporataville by any means, right? We have a lot of, we have a lot of things that we've done on the fly. So when we talk to a lot of these loyalty companies, they were like, well, where's your data warehouse? And what's your data structure? And what is this? And what is that? And we're like, uh, We don't have a lot of that. We're building it as we drive. Right. I always reference my role at Margaritaville, a little bit like building a foundation and a house that already has people living in it. And then it has multi floors. So you have to not just build, you have to make a hole, but you can't let anything drop. Right. And so a lot of the loyalty programs and companies that we talk to, we're just so square, quite honestly. in their approach to data and their approach to the management of a loyalty program. And we wanted to be anything but loyal, anything but that, anything but the points, anything but this, anything but that, because that's not who our consumers are. And so we started then moving away a little bit from the institutional providers and then instead looking for startups. And so Lassie was one of those kind of like perfectly positioned places and companies that were just getting, hitting their stride in their product and looking at ways to expand. And so we got together and they own a few patents for artificial intelligence and kind of solutioning around that. And so they were super nimble and flexible and ready to work with us. And they would, you know, make changes around just to make sure that our solution was implemented. They worked on a custom solution for us. And so it's been nothing but pleasure to work with those guys and just kind of, you know, take it so far. It's an amazing little company and they'll go very far.

SPEAKER_01:
Well, we've talked a bit about your reservation system, CRM, loyalty. Curious to learn more about the rest of your tech stack, what you're using for revenue management or point of sale.

SPEAKER_02:
So on the hospitality side, on the hotel side, remember that we are a franchising and licensing company, so we don't manage the properties. So our role in that sense is to drive the tech stack from a standards side. So we write the standards for the brand. We have certain items that are mandated by the brand. So anything that touches the guest experience is mandated by the brand. So the PMS is mandated. We use it for HMS. The CRS obviously is Synexis. The CRM is Salesforce. Our loyalty program is also mandated, which is Lassie, as you know. And then all of that gets connected back to Salesforce and CRM, and we use HAP as our ETL. Then on the property, on property experience, we have mandated solutions for interactive TV, for HSIA, Wi-Fi, networking. video distribution and music distribution because we are a music forward brand, as well as financial reporting, quality assurance, and point of sale. Point of sale being Infogenesis. So all of those solutions are mandated by the company and we kind of deploy them as a standard. Then we have a level two, which are recommended solutions. We don't mandate those, but we highly recommend that you use that. So in revenue management, we partner very well with Ideas and Dueto. Those two are our favorite solutions. There's a couple of the ones that are kind of now creeping up, but we haven't done an RFP. So we'll do that every couple of years. We'll do RFPs to see what's new in the industry and who's doing what and, you know, just keeping up with what's happening. Door locks is also a recommended solution. We use Dormacaba and Assa Abloy. And then sales and catering, we use Delphi or Infor sales and catering. Depends on where you are on the spectrum of the size of the property. Some properties obviously are much larger than others. And then we have spying golf and activities, and we use real time reservations for that. So those are kind of the two tiers that we have on the tech stack within a third tier, that is open solutions. So things that we don't get involved in, for example, is applicant tracking solutions, or HR systems, or even inventory, digital signage, all of that kind of stays within the property or the management companies, they already have solutions available.

SPEAKER_01:
And you mentioned every couple of years, you'll go through the RFP process. How do you judge whether a system is working well for you? Or if maybe it's time to switch things up?

SPEAKER_02:
We have annual meetings with all of our properties to talk about their solutions, what they're doing, what's working, what isn't. We have monthly calls with all of our GMs. And our GMs are nothing if they're not shy. They just, they tell us, they tell us when something isn't working, we hear about it. Now granted, not everything that happens is an issue, right? Sometimes it's just, it could be system related, it could be user error, it could be just volume of transactions, it could be a fluke, it could be an actual failure, we don't know, right? The idea ultimately is to understand when solutions are no longer servicing the set. And so we have with all of our vendors, we have annual business reviews. With those that we have corporate agreements with, we have business annual reviews. And so in these annual reviews, we kind of collect all of the tickets that have been open throughout the year. We collect all of the feedback that we get from the properties or the users. We collect, quite honestly, all of our woes and queries and whatever we have with that vendor. And so we sit down and have very honest conversations with our vendors about what do we need? Where are we going? Where are you going? What's your development look like? What are the things that you're working on, on your solutions that will benefit us or where do we need to go? Ultimately, we don't ever want to find vendors. We are very keen on finding partners. And so our partners are very much, and they know that we talk to them. I'm a very open kind of candid type of client. So when there's an issue, we pick up the phone and we call and we say, listen, this is what we need from you. And in most cases, our vendors know very well, and our partners know very well, by the time we come to that business review, they usually know what they need to be working on. So It's a very kind of, I hate to say it like this, but it's a very living and breathing relationship. We work with them very closely throughout the year. And even though we only meet once or twice a year, the communication is very consistent and very constant in terms of the understanding of where we can go or where we may need support from them. So, you know, we at the beginning of the year, we issue a report to our vendors and say, OK, it's time to put the franchise documentation again. You are considered last year, for example, a mandated solution. Are these the things that we need from you? And they're very good at responding, very good at sending back information, very good at obviously wanting to stay in that mandated or in that preferred vendor list. And so we struggle almost nothing with our vendors to provide all of that. And then we have an annual summit where we invite all of our technology vendors to come in, participate with us, help us do sessions, do educational sessions for our users, almost like a users conference, but we have all of our vendors in the same place. So they all get to participate, get to know each other, get to know the properties, get to know different people in the brand, you know, because we are a small brand is still manageable and we can keep it very close knit in terms of the relationship.

SPEAKER_01:
Just speaking of technology partners, I'm curious if there's anything on your wishlist that you haven't implemented yet, or maybe a vendor that is seeming really cool and innovative.

SPEAKER_02:
There's a lot of that going on, especially right now. We just started, and this is not public, so it'll be next year, but we just started developing an app. So I'm super excited to see where that's going to go. We're a little late to the app game, but I think it's going to be another of those things that is so different from anybody else that will have its own place in people's phone and in people's screen, right? So we'll see how that goes. I really want to get to a point where we have a more robust, not only technology partner, but culture around data visualization. And just understanding at a much faster pace, we're moving so fast that even our topical or typical dashboards are sometimes not able to catch up with us. So obviously that is one of those things that I'd love to kind of get my hands on and see how much more we can improve. And I know everybody's talking about it and everybody's bringing it up, this whole AI thing, right? And yeah, it's inevitable that it's coming. I think I'm a little bit on the camp of AI needs to be a vehicle to improve the human experience, not the other way around. And coming from a brand like Margaritaville that is so focused on that human experience, on talking to someone and looking them in the eye and say, welcome, I hope you have a wonderful day here. You cannot change that. You cannot replace that with any type of AI. There's still no AI that can look you in the eye and make you feel chills. And that's what we focus on. What I want to focus on is giving our properties and giving our partners the right solutions to not have to worry about the things that are menial and boring and stupid sometimes that we have to do. And rather focus, focus on that guest that's sitting in front of you with their kids and their savings for the whole year because they're here for four or five days. And this is their memories. This is their vacation. So I think AI is going to be different for everybody because some companies I'm sure are going to take it very far. For us, I think if it enables our experience and our human connection, then I'll be a very happy camper. And our focus on the technology side at least, and even on the data side, has always been that, again, the data and the technology are meant to complement and optimize the human experience. in the brand experience as opposed to driving the experience, right? We are not, and I don't think we'll ever be, I hope so anyway, a technology forward company. That doesn't mean we're not using forward technology. It just means we lead with our heart and we lead with our eyes and our smile instead of a screen. And I hope we remain with that value very much at the top of our priority.

SPEAKER_01:
And seeing as guest reviews are such a, at least a big factor when someone is booking a property, are you using any sort of reputation management software?

SPEAKER_02:
Yes, we use Medallia and we have it connected to Salesforce. So all of that out. So I forgot to mention that one, but yeah, that is definitely one of the other key operation tools that we have on that side Medallia. And then We have another solution on top of that, CMX, that allows us to do property audits and obviously create business and improvement plans when properties need that as well.

SPEAKER_01:
Well, we're getting down to the end of our time. Two last questions. Would love to dig into your experience in many different facets of the industry. What would you say are one or two skills that are crucial for hoteliers if they want to be successful in today's dynamic environment?

SPEAKER_02:
I think probably the most important one is to be nimble and understand that the changing environment, and that means everywhere and everything, right? Technology changes, people change, situations change, climate changes, politics change. Everything is changing at a pace right now that requires a huge kind of focus on adaptation. Adapting is easy if you're nimble. If you try to stay stiff and adapt, you're going to struggle. And it doesn't matter what the change is. And so I think being nimble and flexible, flexibility is probably a big one. And the second one is innate, but it's passion, right? You have to be passionate about what you do. It doesn't matter what it is. You've got to love it because if you can't believe in it and if you cannot defend it, then just working in it. And granted, we've all had jobs to pay the bills. I'm guilty of that, right? But there's got to be a point where you make a concerted decision about where you want to invest your time, your money, your efforts, your passion. And so that is not just a way to succeed. It's a way to actually live comfortably in your career, whatever it is that you decide to do. There is a lot of opportunity I think right now for all of us to disperse very quickly because there's so much that we could be doing. And the question is, if you didn't get paid, what would you do? And that's always the question, right? I ask my kids all the time that is, if you were not going to get paid, what would you do all day? And then focus on that. Focus on getting paid for doing that, for what you would do anyway, because then you get paid to do what you love. There's no better way to do it than that.

SPEAKER_01:
Well, I really appreciate your time, Claudia. It was so nice getting to know you and learn about your experience. Have a good rest of your day. Thanks. I appreciate your time.

SPEAKER_00:
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 comp set 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. 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.