2024 Trends & Takeaways

More than 2.5M+ hoteliers visited HotelTechReport.com in 2023 who contributed thousands of new verified product reviews during the annual awards period.  Below are a few key trends extracted from HTR’s data set:

1. Most tech focused department was operations…25% of reviews during the awards period were submitted for operations products

2. Most popular category was channel managers…1,142 hoteliers voted for channel managers making it the most popular category

3. Fastest growing category was contactless checkin solutions…+72% YOY growth in hotelier votes followed by Upselling Software (+42%) and Hotel CRM (+38%)

4. Most tech saavy region was North America…35% of votes were contributed by hoteliers in North America followed by Europe (33%) and APAC (14%)

5. Most tech savvy job title/role was General Managers…29% of votes submitted by general managers followed by revenue managers (16%) and owners (15%)

6. Most recommended product was Canary Digital Authorizations…621 hoteliers voted for Canary Digital Authorizations followed by SiteMinder Channel Manager (431 votes)

7. Most tech savvy property type was luxury hotels…18% of reviews came from luxury hotels followed by branded properties (16%) and then boutiques and resorts (tied with 11% each)

8. Most tech forward hotel company was Hilton…Out of 5,029 unique hotel companies who left reviews, Hilton was the most tech forward with employees contributing 211 tech product reviews during the awards period

Best of Operations

Top tools that help hotel ops teams improve day-to-day operational efficiency and service delivery

1. Property Management System (PMS): The central nervous system of your hotel’s tech stack.

2. Staff Collaboration Tools: Keep your hotel running smoothly and improve workplace productivity with digital tasks, checklists, escalations, team messaging and more.

3. Housekeeping Software: Increase housekeeping efficiency by streamlining core processes such as room assignments, inspections checklists, scheduling and more.

4. Hotel Maintenance Software: Maintain your assets better with proper documentation and workflow automation.

5. Finance & Accounting Software: Manage your hotel's accounting, budgeting and financial planning.

6. Guest Survey Software: Gather feedback during or post stay to improve service delivery and reputation.

7. Concierge Software: Enables concierge to collaboratively plan an itinerary with guests making bookings, sending confirmations and communicating directly.

8. Scheduling & Labor Management: Lower labor costs with labor standard creation, scheduling, benchmarking, monitoring and more.

9. Spa Software: Market your spa’s offerings, generate bookings, track revenue and communicate with guests

10. Payment Processing Tools: Credit card and payment processing tools to help your hotel capture payments and stay compliant.

11. Cyber Security & Fraud Prevention: Tools to help your hotel prevent fraud and chargebacks, uncover vulnerabilities and protect your hotel’s guest data.

If you're looking to really get a handle on the tech side of running a hotel, you'll want to dive into the  best examples of property management systems. These systems are the powerhouse behind your hotel's day-to-day operations, helping with everything from bookings to guest services and managing bills.

 

2024 Operations Tech Winners

Best of Revenue Management

Top tools price your hotel's rooms more effectively and outpace the compset

1. Revenue Management System: Software to analyze, automate and optimize pricing strategy to increase profitability.

2. Channel Manager: Optimize visibility and inventory across channels in real time.

3. Market Intelligence Software: Keep a pulse on competitors and use real time market insights to increase occupancy and optimize pricing.

4. Business Intelligence Software: Say goodbye to spreadsheets and leverage modern BI tools to visualize your data and uncover hidden insights.

5. Upselling Software: Find new revenue streams with tools to upsell room upgrades and ancillaries to drive incremental revenue for your hotel while improving the guest experience.

6. Rate Parity Tools: Track rate parity and get notified when its breached with distribution partners.

7. Hotel Reservations Systems: Get a unified view of your reservations & supercharge your team's workflow with an online reservation management system.

 

2024 Revenue Management Tech Winners

Best of Guest Experience

Top tools to deliver a more seamless and elevated experience to guests

1. Guest Messaging Software: Help your guests find answers faster and communicate in their preferred medium, text messaging

2. Contactless Check-in: Provide guests with a seamless self check in experience like airports and grocery stores

3. Hotel Guest Apps: Create a mobile app for guests to be able to message, place requests, order, check their folio and more.

4. In-Room Hotel Tablets: Put your hotel's amenities and services at your guest's fingertips. 

5. Mobile Key & Keyless Entry: Let guests access their room with a digital key right from their mobile device

6. Mobile Ordering & Room Service: Software to manage room service and self-service ordering, tracking, upselling and fulfillment.

 

2024 Guest Experience Tech Winners

Best of Marketing

Top tools build your hotel's brand, drive direct bookings and boost loyalty

1. Booking Engine: The eCommerce shopping cart for your hotel’s website.

2. Website Builder: Build a stunning website to showcase your property and convert more bookings.

3. Hotel Chatbot: Convert more web traffic and give guests easy access to answers with website chatbots.

4. CRM & Email Marketing: Software to craft and execute your email marketing strategy with targeted campaigns that leverage rich guest profile information to create targeted revenue generating campaigns.

5. Digital Marketing Agencies: Agency partners that help hotels optimize their web presence via SEO, SEM, social and paid advertising.

6. Reputation Management Software: Software that helps hotels get more reviews and automate feedback collection and analysis to monitor and improve their reputation.

7. Direct Booking Tools: Widgets and tools to increase website conversion and drive more direct bookings.

8. Metsearch & AdTech: Orchestrate your visibility on meta-search channels to drive more demand.

9. Loyalty Software: Tools to drive repeat visits and customer loyalty.

 

2024 Marketing Tech Winners

Best of Meetings & Events

Top tools to generate more group business and streamline collaborative workflows

1. Group Sales Management Software: Empower your sales teams to stay organized, collaborate and followup like pros.

2. RFPs & Proposal Management Software: Save hours of back-and-forth and close more deals by digitizing your RFP process.

3. Online Venue Booking Platforms: Promote your venue in online venue marketplaces to generate more bookings.

4. Meetings & Events Intelligence: Get a pulse on the market and find out where business is flowing to capture your share

5. Event Management Software: Tools to seamlessly organize, plan and execute your meetings & events.

 

2024 Meetings & Events Tech Winners

Food & Beverage

Top tools to manage your hotel's restaurant, room service and F&B outlets

1. Restaurant Management Software: Point of sale systems for hotels & restaurants.

2. Mobile Ordering & Room Service: Software to manage room service and self-service ordering, tracking, upselling and fulfillment.

 

2024 Food & Beverage Tech Winners

Best of HR & Recruiting

Top tools to help you attract, recruit and retain staff

1. Digital Tipping: Enable guests to tip digitally to improve the staff experience and team retention

2. Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS): Software to keep track of open jobs and candidates who applied for them.

3. Employee Engagement Software: Improve inter-company communication to keep employees engaged and on the same page.

 

2024 HR & Recruiting Tech Winners

Best of Vacation Rental Tech

Top tools to help you manage your vacation rental like a pro

Best Overall Platforms

In addition to ranking the top products across each of the key categories in the hotel tech stack, HTR also analyzes the top overall platforms that meet HTR’s platforms criteria which analyzes platforms based on their HT Score, cumulative platform reviews and product interoperability.

Best Operations Platform

Platform Definition: Companies that provide all-in-1 solution that covers the critical capabilities and workflows needed to digitally manage the day-to-day operations of a hotel.  Critical workflows, capabilities and use cases include: 

Criteria:

• Ability to communicate and manage tasks (Category Requirement: Staff Collaboration)

• Ability to manage housekeeping workflows (Category Requirement: Housekeeping)

• Ability to monitor and preserve property (Category Requirement: Preventative maintenance)

Best Ecommerce Platform

Platform Definition: Companies that provide all-in-1 solution that covers the critical capabilities and workflows needed to establish a hotel’s web presence and generate direct and indirect online bookings.  Critical workflows, capabilities and use cases include: 

Criteria: 

• Ability to have a web presence (website builder or digital marketing agency)

• Ability to take online bookings (booking engine)

• Ability to sell indirectly (channel manager or CRS)

Best Guest Experience Platform

Platform Definition: Companies that provide an all-in-1 solution that encompasses the critical workflows and use cases for a hotel to communicate with and engage guests during their stay.  Critical workflows, capabilities and use cases include: 

Criteria: 

• Ability to perform self-check in (Category Requirement: contactless check-in) 

• Ability to communicate with hotel on own device (Category Requirement: Guest Messaging or Guest App)

• Ability to purchase/reserve ancillaries (Category Requirement: upselling, mobile ordering or Guest App)

2024 Finalists by Department

Operations Tech Finalists

• Property Management Systems: Cloudbeds PMS (2nd Place), Oracle Opera PMS (#3)

• Hotel Management Software (HMS): Little Hotelier (2nd Place), RoomRaccoon HMS (#3)

• Staff Collaboration Tools: ALICE Service Delivery by Actabl (2nd Place), Flexkeeping Operations (#3)

• Housekeeping Software: Flexkeeping Housekeeping (2nd Place), ALICE Housekeeping by Actabl (#3)

• Scheduling & Labor Management: M3 Labor (2nd Place), Inn-Flow Labor Management (#3)

• Concierge Software: Eleanor (2nd Place)

• Surveys & Feedback: TrustYou Surveys (2nd Place), Customer Alliance (#3)

• Finance & Accounting: PVNG by Aptech (2nd Place), Inn-Flow (#3)

• Restaurant Management Software: Vento ePOS by HotelTime (2nd Place)

• Hotel Maintenance Software: Transcendent by Actabl (2nd Place) Flexkeeping Maintenance (#3)

• Cyber Security & Fraud Prevention: Sertifi for Authorizations (2nd Place)

• Digital Tipping Software: eTip (2nd Place)

Guest Experience Tech Finalists

• Guest Messaging Software: Duve - Communication Hub (2nd Place), ALICE Guest Messaging by Actabl (3rd Place)

• Contactless Check-in: Duve - Online Check-in (2nd Place)

• Hotel Guest Apps: Bowo - Guest App (2nd Place)

• In-Room Hotel Tablets: Crave Interactive Tablets (2nd Place)

Revenue Management Tech Finalists

• Revenue Management System: RoomPriceGenie (2nd Place), IDeaS (3rd Place)

• Channel Manager: Cloudbeds Channel Manager (2nd Place), RateGain  Channel Manager (3rd Place)

• Market Intelligence Software: SiteMinder Insights (2nd Place), Optima by RateGain (3rd Place)

• Business Intelligence Software: Scoreboard by Duetto (2nd Place), Profitsword by Actabl (3rd Place)

• Upselling Software: Canary Upsells (2nd Place), Duve Upselling (3rd Place)

• Rate Parity Tools: The Hotels Network Parity Management (2nd Place)

• Hotel Reservations Systems: Windsurfer CRS by SHR Group (2nd Place), SynXis Central Reservations by Sabre (3rd Place)

Marketing Tech Finalists

• Booking Engine: Profitroom Booking Engine 360 (2nd Place), allora.ai Booking Engine by SHR Group (3rd Place)

• Website Builder: Profitroom Websites (2nd Place), Web Design by SHR Group (3rd Place)

• Hotel Chatbot: Quicktext (2nd Place), HiJiffy Hotel Chatbot (3rd Place)

• CRM & Email Marketing: Revinate Marketing (2nd Place), Smart Host CRM (3rd Place)

• Digital Marketing Agencies: Sojern (2nd Place), Net Affinity Digital Marketing (3rd Place)

• Reputation Management: TrustYou Reputation (2nd Place)

• Direct Booking Tools: Smart Host Offers (2nd Place), The Guestbook: Cash Rewards Suite (3rd Place)

• Loyalty Software: dailypoint™ Loyalty (2nd Place)

Meetings & Events Tech Finalists

• Group Sales Management Software: STS Cloud by SalesandCatering.com (2nd Place), Thynk CRM (3rd Place)

• Event Management Software: Tripleseat (2nd Place), Thynk Event Management (3rd Place)

Methodology: How Products Are Ranked

HTR ranks more than 2000+ products based on our proprietary ranking algorithm, the HT Score. Ultimately the goal of the HT Score is to productize the criteria that buyers assess when researching hotel tech products to be able to compare and benchmark products within each of the core categories of the hotel tech stack.

The variables that go into the HT Score can be broken down into four key categories: 

1. Customer Ratings & Reviews: How highly do hoteliers recommend the product?

2. Partner Ecosystem: How well does the product integrate with other solutions and how highly do tech partners recommend the product?

3. Customer Centricity: How customer centric is the company?

4. Reach, Staying Power & Resources: How extensive is the company's reach & resourcing as an indicator of long term success?

Similar to how hotels use REVPAR to be able to compare hotels of different classes, sizes and regions--the HT Score serves a similar purpose making it possible to compare tech products within a category that may have different target markets, price points and feature functionality. 

Also similar to REVPAR, the HT Score is a metric to aid in decision making but is not intended to be used as a sole factor when selecting vendors.  The HT Score is intended to create a baseline overall comparison within a given category based on which solutions come most recommended by hoteliers.  The same way a search for ‘the best hotels in Paris’ on Tripadvisor will surface a list of wide ranging options that all have strong ratings as a starting point in a user's research process to find the best match for them, the HT Score serves a similar purpose in the hotel tech research process for hoteliers.

Every hotel has different characteristics and needs so while there is no single best product for all hotels (the same way there isn't a single best hotel in Paris), the HotelTechAwards serve to highlight best of breed products across each of the key categories of the hotel tech stack.