Hotel Tech Insider

SPEAKER_00:
We have a large number of frequent guests because they are mainly also our employees, but from the building company, we get a big amount of internal reviews saying, okay, that works, that doesn't work, or we would like to have that feature within the rooms or within the customer journey.

SPEAKER_02:
From Hotel Tech Report, it's Hotel Tech Insider, a show about the future of hotels and the technology that powers them.

SPEAKER_01:
After following his love of hospitality for several years, Arno Sanderfeld, together with his wife, launched MK Hotels, a collection of 13 hotels which started in Germany, but now span several countries across Europe. As managing director, Arno oversees all technology investment for the group, including the adoption of several new tools recently. A couple of highlights from our conversation include how MK Hotels leverages the open API of their PMS, Apaleo, and how they collaborated with hardware and software vendors to build their ideal check-in kiosk. I'd like to start the conversation by getting an understanding of your background. So if you can tell me about your career in the industry, different roles, different companies you've worked in, and then how that led to where you are now and what you're doing today.

SPEAKER_00:
Right, my name is Arno Sonderfeld and I started with the basic training in hospitality and that was 1999 at the Maritime Hotel in Bonn. And I worked basically as a barkeeper and bar supervisor before I hit the University Steigenberger to do my hospitality management training. And from then I actually made a change because I was more interested on the tech side. So I went to a company doing medical stuff in the export business and also was able to do more of the tech side. So I was the administrator of their systems as well as their service. But after a year I felt that I needed to come back to hospitality because that wasn't my first love and obviously my profession. And by that time, I met my wife and we agreed upon opening the first hotel in 2007. And yeah, a couple years later, we have now 13 hotels in different destinations in different segments between two and five star hotels.

SPEAKER_01:
So the company... And if you can tell me a bit more about the company, what it's called, how many properties and where they're located.

SPEAKER_00:
We are a family business, and the main family business is the Lindner Group. It's a worldwide interior fit-out company with also a strong background in tech and fit-to-need solutions. So whenever an architect has a special request, they come to us and we have a great tech team to fulfill the customer's and architect's needs. And actually, from there, we developed the idea of having hotels because our staff, they needed to have obviously a place to stay. And thus, we opened locations in different places all over Germany. So in the main locations where the offices are, we have hotels.

SPEAKER_01:
Are the hotels all independent or do they have one common brand?

SPEAKER_00:
No, the common brand is MK Hotels.

SPEAKER_01:
And are the hotels full service? They have food and beverage, spa, any amenities?

SPEAKER_00:
We have four full service hotels with a restaurant, brewery. So we brew our own beer directly in the hotel. And all other hotels are bed and breakfast hotels.

SPEAKER_01:
Is it still a partnership with your wife? You mentioned it's a family business. Who else is involved?

SPEAKER_00:
My wife is taking care of the staff site. and remaining in our headquarter because we have two kids. So she's also the family manager. And I look after the hotels outside the headquarter and take basically the tech parts in the business.

SPEAKER_01:
Awesome. Well, I'd love to dive a bit deeper into the tech components that you work on. Who would you say is the most critical technology partner to the success of MK Hotels?

SPEAKER_00:
Well, we did a change of the PMS system because we felt we needed a change. So we switched to Apaleo, which is now our main driver for technical development in the MK Hotels world because they have an open API. So it's easy for us to have interfaces where we feel we need them. And yeah, It's now become easier to interfaces to the system you want to whether it's a CRM or a mailing system or whatever. Because with the open API, you can easily do that without any struggle.

SPEAKER_01:
And walk me through the process of selecting Apollo. Did you consider other PMS vendors and were you using a more legacy system before? What was the thought process in changing?

SPEAKER_00:
We used one of the big players of the PMS systems, but it was on site. And because we have a critical business within the building industry, our hotel tech stack is very close to the Lindner Group. And that has a very, very good firewall. And that involves a lot of struggles within the hospitality world because they are more open. And obviously you have more outside communications, whether it's with an OTA or the channel managers or whatever. So actually, the first thing we came up is, okay, we need a system within the cloud because that way we won't have any firewall issues within the PMS systems. So we looked for cloud systems, which were MPE, where we had multi-property additions. And we did an analysis of the market, had a look into basically all main systems on the market. And then we made our choice after a couple of interviews. We involved all our tech partners saying, okay, if you would be able to choose one of the PMS, which would that be? So we also involved all tech partners, which we already had a contract with. just to get them also involved and see their point of view. And why would you choose that? Because, you know, you don't want to have any fuss about their interfaces later on.

SPEAKER_01:
And with Apollo with the open API, can your team handle those integrations on their own? Or do you need support from Apollo or support from the third party system that you're connecting with?

SPEAKER_00:
Well, it was a change of mindset, basically, because coming from a very big PMS system with a lot of features within the system, 60% you used, 40% you didn't need to use. Apollo has the core functionalities, so you need more systems around the PMS systems. However, it is very, very easy to set up and very, very easy to connect. So main systems, we usually do our own ourselves. Also, small things which we can program ourselves, we do that also within the team. So with make.com, it's more basically like playing Lego and putting your workflows together. So that's low code automation, which makes it great to work with.

SPEAKER_01:
So walk me through the other partners that Apollo connects with. So in addition to your PMS, what other vendors are you using?

SPEAKER_00:
We're using four suites in all of our hotels, which is a mobile key solution with a two-way interface. We're using Umnion, which is usually just a CRM system. But it is also very easy to adopt. So we have a We call it the backbone is Umnion and the core is still Appaleo. So we have a PMS system as our core system and Umnion as our backbone where all the customer requests are handled, where we have our customer handling platform, all mailings, all whether it's the reward points or guest data, whatever is handled within Umnion.

SPEAKER_01:
And is that a system that your staff is using to respond to inquiries or messages as well? Sort of two way?

SPEAKER_00:
Yeah, we're using that as a ticketing system, but also as a collaboration tool.

SPEAKER_01:
What about for distribution channel management? Does Apaleo have something?

SPEAKER_00:
Apaleo has something so you can connect booking.com and Google directly to Apaleo. But we use DS21 to online as our channel manager. And thus, we have all channels within DS21.

SPEAKER_01:
And the booking engine on your website, how is that powered?

SPEAKER_00:
That is also powered by DS21. So we have one vendor for all the... We are basically booking for the guests. And then we have Hotelistart for the yield tool. So we're just launching the version two with them together, just implementing that in Q1. We started already last year with the update of the version two, and now just rolling out to the hotels and applying the rules to get it properly configured.

SPEAKER_01:
Are you using any sort of business intelligence tool? I mean, seeing that so much data is generated by these systems, are you leveraging dashboards in Aplio or is there a third party system?

SPEAKER_00:
No, we have no mainly the dashboards within HoteliStud because there we check on the prices and also on the reputation. But we use Juyo Analytics also for all the data needed for the hotel management stuff.

SPEAKER_01:
Great. And so you mentioned four suites for the mobile key. Is there any other tech that guests would interact with during their stay?

SPEAKER_00:
We usually send them via Umnion a request for check-in, and then they can check in online on our website or via the mail. So the request is handled within Umnion, and we see already the status of the guests, how far they got in their customer journey, whether they just have filled in the guest form or whether they have already checked in. And as soon as the guest has decided to check in, we use four suites to send out the digital key. So usually the regular guests, they can bypass reception directly heading to their room because we feel that it's time for business travelers lost at reception or to queue up at the reception just to have the room Kiwi, even if they know the hotel better and stay regular with us. There's no need to have waiting time at the reception. Better to come later to the bar and have a chat with the guys about the gossip within the hotel, but not to have a struggle within check-in time.

SPEAKER_01:
How many guests do you find bypass the front desk? Is it a small percentage?

SPEAKER_00:
No, we see that increasing because we do A-B testing. So we change our mailing texts frequently to see which text suits better to increase the numbers of mobile check-ins. So we reach 25% of guests checking in online and using the mobile key. But we feel that there is an increase of that also within the hotels. And obviously, it's quite different on the markets. We have a hotel in Passau, which is also used very, very heavily by Riverside Cruise Line, I guess. And they tend to be a little older. So obviously, older guests, they love to hit the reception. But in the bigger towns like Frankfurt or Rüsselsheim, where we have the normal business traveler, they tend to accept more the mobile key.

SPEAKER_01:
With the mobile key, is there some other functionality guests can do during their stay? If they have a question for the front desk, is there a messaging?

SPEAKER_00:
Not with the mobile key, but we have our own guest journey too, which we programmed ourselves so they can have a request at any time, whether they're in the room or whatever, they can check in, they can check out online, and they can get in contact with us directly. Also, that is handled within Omnion directly. And if the phone has an empty battery or whatever, we use Abitari as a hard key generator. We have check-in terminals outside of the hotel, but also inside of the hotel. So they can generate their keys themselves when they lost their key card or maybe the mobile phone has gone off or whatever.

SPEAKER_01:
One common sort of hesitation for hotels to adopt mobile key would be, well, what if a guest wants a physical key? Or what if the phone is dead? So that's a really good solution to still have a self-service option. But if for some reason the guest can't use their phone, they can still do all those same things.

SPEAKER_00:
Exactly. And we have like the two-star hotels or unrated hotels like in Ashbourne. So the reception is only there from 630 in the morning until two o'clock in the afternoon. So usually we never see a guest on check-in time. So all our guests check in online or if they didn't get the mail because they were blocked by booking.com or another OTA, then they have to check in on the terminal. So they decide whether they check in online or they check in on the kiosk. And we feel that this is obviously okay because all the airline companies, they have done that for ages. They ask us to check in on the terminal. But for whatever reasons, technology development within hospitality is not that fast or we are not engaged enough in technology and ask that from our consumers because we always feel that we need to do the extra mile, which is fair enough. But I think it's very, very strongly related to the product or segment you're within. And also, we feel that you need to have the customer touch points, but it's crucial where you set them as a brand.

SPEAKER_01:
Can you tell me a bit more about the process to develop the kiosk? So you mentioned it was a partnership between the hardware vendor and the software vendor. Did you approach both of them at the same time? Or how did you find those vendors?

SPEAKER_00:
Actually, we approached the vendor for the hardware first, because we had kiosks outside in place, Ariana at that time. And they didn't have an interface and they were not willing to have an interface. So we said, okay, do we need new terminals or not? But they were already a little over-aged. So we said, okay, let's do new terminals and then customize them ourselves. So we had a look into the market and then approached a company saying, okay, are you willing to do that and invest into the partnership? Because we feel that there's a strong need in the market and there's nearly no one offering that solution. And I said, yeah, let's have a chat. So we met in Munich in one of our hotels and agreed upon the first design phase and then came up, okay, what do we actually need? Do we need a camera? How large has to be the screen? Do we need an identity reader, credit card terminal, and all the other features? And then we found a software partner, Avitari, to do the backend, which they already had in place for Android tablets, but not for larger terminals and not for an automatic key cutter. Because you cannot put a staple of cards outside and say, okay, take that card and place it on a reader. You want that automatically, because it's also money on the cards. So we asked Abitari and they were also willing and then we did it in a partnership, which is still ongoing and very, very beneficial for all of us.

SPEAKER_01:
So with the kiosk vendors, do you have some sort of regular feedback sessions? How do you work with them so that they can make the improvements that you'd like or make changes that align with your brand?

SPEAKER_00:
What we have to fix is so we meet regularly online and have a chat on new ideas and updates and test new cables or whatever. So whenever we have a problem or a challenging thing ahead, the interval increases and then it decreases after the update has passed and has been released to the kiosks.

SPEAKER_01:
Awesome. Well, thanks for sharing so much about the kiosks. I think that's a really interesting component of your tech stack. So thinking ahead to the future, is there any vendor or system that you've seen on the market that you feel is very innovative and interesting, but you have not adopted yet? Maybe something on your wish list?

SPEAKER_00:
Not really. There are many on the market and we feel that there are good partners outside. But one thing we see is that you have a lot of overlapping within the systems because they have one core feature and then develop their system even wider. And with this opening of features, you have a bigger overlapping, which they need to get paid and we don't want to pay. And that's always something which we keep in mind. And at the moment, actually, we are just reducing our tech stack partners because we want our staff to have less touch points with software partners and have a smaller selection of softwares in place, but with a broader feature.

SPEAKER_01:
And how do you think about making those changes to the tech stack? Is there some sort of regular audit that you do? Or do you ask staff, which systems do you use the least? How do you think about keeping that tech stack really tailored to what they need?

SPEAKER_00:
Because we have a large number of frequent guests, because they are mainly also our employees, but from the building company, we get a big amount of reviews, internal reviews, saying, okay, that works, that doesn't work, or we would like to have that feature within the rooms or within the customer journey. So we have a good outside review. And from the inside, we have weekly meetings where we discuss tech stack issues and see, okay, which process is still ongoing? Where do we need to fix something which is not ideal? Where do we need to make changes or whatever challenges our team has? And obviously, yes, that's discussed within the team and the team usually decides that.

SPEAKER_01:
Switching gears a little bit, I'm curious to hear about one or two of the highest priority business objectives that you're focused on at MK Hotels. And how is technology helping you achieve those goals?

SPEAKER_00:
I guess the main objective of all of us is the profit at the end of the year. So that's the main objective to increase profit. And obviously tech helps a lot to achieve that because the less work or unnecessary work we need to do, the more profit you get at the end of the year because you don't need that many working hours to get the solution or the things fixed. Yeah, and that's something we see as the main challenge to digitalize wherever we can. And that's also the main target within the staff or within the team, that whenever we handle a process two or three times, that we try to make it smart and digitalize it or discuss where we can speed up the process. Obviously, we need the time on the guest and spend a good time with the guest, but face to face without an iPad in front of your face saying, okay, I need that figure or whatever. That's not personal. We are not a suit company where people come up and we say, okay, you're not allowed to go to the restroom because you're not wearing a tie. We don't feel that it's still that time. So we have a good and happy time with our guests and try to achieve that by being very honest, very open, and being a host. And I think that's the main objective for the staff on the guest side, being a host, have a good time with the guest, enjoy your time at work, and enjoy the time you spend with the guest. But whenever it comes to the work behind the scenes, let's call it, have as less as touch points with the systems you need, because whatever the system can automate, we need to automate. Whether it's a mailing, whether it's parts of the guest journey, whether it's filling out stupid forms or making A to B, that's things which can be done by the systems.

SPEAKER_01:
Are there any examples of those processes that you're working on finding a solution for automating?

SPEAKER_00:
a lot of whether it's the standard segmentations within the PMS system. So whenever it comes to fields not filled by front office staff members, because you have that fields, but you need them for your reporting. Obviously, they tend to have more chat with the people in front of them, which is fair enough. You need to handle that. And you don't want to have a controller sitting hours and hours off selecting the right segment or the right fields for the report or whatever. So that's done automatically because of matching of companies and fields and price matching and all the data behind we select.

SPEAKER_01:
For MK Hotels more broadly, is growth a priority? Are you looking to acquire additional properties or are you at a comfortable number right now?

SPEAKER_00:
Well, we always feel comfortable because we own and operate. So we don't rent properties. They are owned and operated by us. So whenever we fall in love with a new place, then it's time to grow. At the moment, for some reason, we don't fall in love with a new place. We have one smaller project coming in 2024, hopefully. But that's nothing big. It's just a new segment we want to try out. and see whether we feel comfortable with that new solution.

SPEAKER_01:
So switching gears one more time, given your career in the industry and all the experience you've had, what are one or two skills you feel are most important for hoteliers to be able to succeed in today's environment?

SPEAKER_00:
I think first of all, you need to love the job and love to be a host. If you don't love people, don't do it. but I see that it has become more challenging to adopt to the speed of tech within the hospitality world, because slowly we are adopting tech finally, and you need to keep up to date to that. And I feel that smaller hotel chains or privately owned hotels, they are a little behind the tech solutions on the market sometimes.

SPEAKER_01:
And personally, how do you feel you stay up to date? Are there news sources that you rely on or conferences you attend or networking with other hoteliers? How do you know what's at the forefront of technology?

SPEAKER_00:
Well, I attend the fairs and trainings regularly. I have the Apaleo community, it's a great place to be in. It's the community place of Apaleo and it is a different Well because you know you didn't know your other competitors within hospitality of the old p.m. asphalt within the community now you have a check you have a video call from them to them and then that's okay that's my new solution okay let's have a look within the system they show you around within the system will you show them your hints and tips so it's a more open approach and I feel that this has become more valuable within our world that we have a more open approach on what we achieved, what we have done. We like to share that and obviously we like to see other solutions as well.

SPEAKER_01:
How are you thinking about approaching AI at MK Hotels? Is it something you're using right now or something you're considering adopting?

SPEAKER_00:
Well, we're already using that follow code So we feel that is quite good. We also use that for easy texting and marketing tips, whether it's writing blogs and stuff like that. So that's where we already use that. But we use that carefully because you still got very often the impression that it has been written by an AI, even though that might be just known to the people using that regularly. So you basically get more aware of what could be an AI text or what not. I feel that there's a big chance on the market, but I'm carefully watching that, to be honest. We feel that that might help within handling reservations on the phone. as an overflow system, so the AI can do the reservation and stuff like that. But we have to see how the guests perceive that. I mean, there are good stuff, things like on the market, you could also have a face recognition on the terminals, on the kiosk, so that would say, hey, Adrian, welcome back to the hotel. That's the room, have fun staying with us. But would a facial recognition make you feel comfortable with the system? Or would you say, oh, That's a little frightening. It can easily scare also guests and we don't want that. We don't want guests being scared by systems or whatever.

SPEAKER_01:
Well, last question I have for you. Always a good one to close the conversation with. What's one thing you believe about tech in the hotel space that others would disagree with you on?

SPEAKER_00:
Good question. I think that some might disagree on the statement that technical development within the hospitality is crucial to fulfill the guests' requests. Because there are a lot of still hoteliers saying, okay, but it's the touch points of humans. We need to have the human touch points, which is fair enough. But they often forget that not every service is paid, that not every touch points need to be done by a human. And I feel that using tech is crucial because otherwise you won't fulfill your company profits or details.

SPEAKER_01:
Well, thanks so much, Arno. Really appreciate your time.

SPEAKER_00:
Bye bye.

SPEAKER_02:
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.