A View from the Testbed — 5 Hospitality Technology Companies with Big Opportunity in 2019.

Published in

TESTBED.VEGAS

5 min readDec 11, 2018

FIRST PUBLISHED ON TRAVHOTECH.COM

With the unprecedented level of hospitality new build projects (12000+) taking place everywhere around the globe, it’s a positive time for technology providers.

TRAVHOTECH identifies five hospitality tech company’s that we believe are on the cusp of big things in 2019.

In keeping with more recent industry trends, these products address niche operational challenges for the industry, making their products necessary, valuable and palatable from the required investment and change management perspective.

KNOWCROSS

TRAVHOTECH’s take — Change is coming.

Knowcross is not a new player to the industry. Like new to market PMS providers, industry disruption is creating opportunities for alternative providers in the service management space to displace the incumbent vendors.

One of the gentlemen of the industry, Nikhil Nath, founder of Knowcross, has lead the charge for many years. With the recent addition to the leadership team of Karen O’Neill, ex Micros, as well as product growth in the last decade, the ingredients look to be in place for a real shake in the North American market.

Knowcross are being welcomed in to significant industry operators who are viewing the product suite as a viable alternative to Amadeus’ HotSOS for operational optimization and improved guest service. Growth, acquisition and scale brings it’s challenges — enter the alternative player.

Optii Solutions

TRAVHOTECH’s take — The future looks bright and the timing is right.

Also not a new player in the market place, Soenke Weiss’ Optii Solutions. The company recently achieved 10 years of operation with some significant customers on board, and a rewrite of the software to bring the product to up to current tech standards.

Optii’s key differentiation is a sophisticated management and optimization platform for housekeeping operations. Housekeeping is a major logistical and operationally intensive function of the business. Optii is applying a revenue management style process to the management of resources and scheduling, which has a positive impact on efficiencies and the operational costs associated with the housekeeping function.

They have recently received new investment, been welcomed into a major brand, and are preparing themselves for their second decade, proving they have the staying power to be a reliable partner.

Oaky

TRAVHOTECH’s take — Next step, North America…

Oaky is also not new, although a more recent entry to the industry, and again, benefiting from disruption of the incumbent players in their space. Oaky is in the business of upselling and ancillary revenue growth for the hospitality space.

This area of operation has always been challenging. In the current business environment ancillary revenues, or the lack there of, are gaining prominent attention from industry. The opportunity looks prime for continued growth on the back of a modern technology platform. Oaky has partnered with a number of the next generation software providers on the strength of their technology stack.

The company has a vibrancy and momentum about it and Eric, Tako and Lars with the growing team, are doing an excellent job marketing the company and being in the right places. Also winning strategic customers.

IDEM Hospitality

TRAVHOTECH’s take — We’re thinking breakout.

IDEM Hospitality is another new player entering a space that has long been a major operational challenge for the hospitality industry — management of groups and rooming lists. Once again, the opportunity is disruption and price competitiveness in a space where there is only one competitor in Cendyn.

IDEM is built on a current technology platform and allows hotel operators to automate the process of rooming list management and updating into the Property Management System. It is still early days with beta projects underway and the company is also faced with the necessary interface build processes with major Property Management incumbents from a market share perspective.

IDEM was recently selected to enter the Oracle startup program, which should move the development process along. Given the lack of easy capability in Opera for automated rooming list management and import, looking to IDEM for a complementary solution would appear to be a fait accompli. Some wise industry players are in the background of the company and 2019 should be a very interesting year.

techtalk.travel

TRAVHOTECH’s take — Watch and watch out!

Not so much software for the industry, but an information source presented in the de jour format of video. techtalk.travel is providing the opportunity for quality dialogue regarding industry providers products and services, and the opportunity for these companies and their leaders to discuss deeply their motivation for bringing the product to life.

Andre Baljeu positions the articles with insightful and probing questions that are exposing the thought process and mantra each company has taken. The interviewees are clearly embracing the opportunity and the format. The beauty of the techtalk.travel format is that interested viewers have an opportunity to gain a deeper understanding of vendor organisations. Not from a feature functionality perspective, but demonstrating the partner that they aim to be for their customers.

techtalk.travel Vlogs are professionally packaged in digestible sizes. Rarely before has the industry had an open opportunity to gain this level of insight, outside of a written article or short panel at a trade show. Herein lies the opportunity for further development.

They have recently gained funding allowing Andre and the experienced team behind techtalk.travel to expand the program in 2019.

Final thoughts

Not only are these companies bringing great products to the industry, but they are also being built by some great people with a depth of experience in the industry too. Clear themes are niche, disruption, modernization of software platform and operational facing technology platforms.