ITB Berlin: What’s Cool and What’s Not in Hospitality Tech

Rewriting the Rules of Hospitality at ITB Berlin

I always spend the first day of ITB the same way; walking the floor for a few hours to take inventory. Last week in Berlin was no different. Saying goodbye to Hall 8.1, the home of Cloudbeds’ Rewrite the Rules booth, I passed through Halls 9 and 7, 6, 5, and 4, and eventually, I returned to Hall 8.1, the epicenter of technology providers. Surrounded by companies with big promises, I took note of their messaging, colors, booths, and team sizes. Fewer people crowded the floor, likely because of poorly timed Lufthansa and German Railroad strikes (which impacted many of our team members, not to mention the 100,000 attendees traveling to the heart of Germany for this conference) or because #FITUR in Madrid has possibly become the new international standard for our industry (and who doesn’t want to go to Madrid?).?

I’m always hoping to be blown away by someone or something other than Cloudbeds giving hoteliers the technology they deserve. What’s cool? What’s next? What’s exciting? Outside the gimmick of a mirror that used AI to flirt or Oracle showing off their Formula 1 sponsorship with a racing simulation, little of what I saw was fresh. Or as Cloudbeds’ VP of Product Ivo Salmre so aptly put it, “Giant big screens have become passé” at tradeshows (and there were plenty of big screens, physically and metaphorically).

Not cool:?

Same messaging, everywhere. If I read “all-in-one” on a booth’s wall, I read it thirty times. “Hotel tech is a swamp of overlapping terms and concerns: CRM, CRS, Channel Management, Website, Marketing Tech, Revenue Management, Guest Experience,” our VP of product Ivo Salmre pointed out. He’s right. Messaging is converging in ways that overlap and confuse hoteliers. Shoot, I’m confused! Cloudbeds’ VP of Marketing, Nancy Huang , aptly suggested that hotel operators need a whole decoder wheel to understand who does what because everyone is saying the same thing.?

We don't need more PMS brands in the market. For Cloudbeds, it’s not a threat. We’ve got too much momentum and focus to be bothered. But when I think about our customers, it’s noise for them. It’s a distraction. Why should they pick between 20+ mediocre guest communication products when there could be a few excellent ones? Why was this the year of – quote un quote – “total revenue” applications? I’d like to see more money fueling true advancement, not just legacy companies moving their tech stack into the cloud and calling it “innovation.”?

Advanced AI wasn’t splashy. Besides the gimmicky mirror flirting with me, advanced AI seemed to be less center-stage and more behind-camera, powering every aspect of hotel operations. Cloudbeds is doing this. We’re innovating on AI-powered products that drive and streamline internal efficiencies in guest communications, high-performing marketing for hoteliers, and revenue management. Still, it was interesting that the most powerful technology in a generation was a secondary or tertiary talking point. While plenty of new applications touted AI, it seemed very reactive to me. I assumed (wrongly) that at ITB we’d see unbelievable AI innovations unveiled for other parts of the travel and hospitality industry. Artificial intelligence was everywhere, but it didn’t carry a punch.?

Monopolies. The EU’s Digital Marketing Act recently went into effect, making fair competition mandatory and designating Google a “gatekeeper”, which has forced them to change the way they do business. Four of the largest OTAs in the world (Expedia, Booking, Airbnb and Trip.com spent $16.8 Billion to send customer into their networks in 2023, up 20% from the year before. They’re behemoths that stomp out competition in sheer dollar spend alone. Booking is expected to be assigned this same “gatekeeper” status. It was evident in conversations in Berlin that everyone expects the European Commission to continue to restrict and break apart these gatekeeping entities because, as our VP of Partnerships Sebastien Leitner put it, “Nobody likes a monopoly”.?

The lack of female founders. Over the course of ITB, I attended multiple founder-led networking events and dinners. In rooms full of people who’d founded or funded companies in our industry, very few of the attendees to these events were women. Two weeks ago, it was International Women’s Day, and March is Women’s History Month, yet there were still so few women founders in my midst. Our industry should be doing better. We should be leading the way to push back against the stark realities for women who start companies. The numbers say it all: in 2022, according to Pitchbook data, companies with founding teams that are all women raised around $3.1 billion — or 1.8% of all venture capital allocated. It hasn’t been that low since 2016. This needs to be fixed, and it starts with supporting women with big ideas for our industry, listening to them, and putting our money where our mouth is. To hear about the triumphs and challenges of women in hospitality tech, look no further than this LinkedIn LIVE with Cindy Alonso , Product Manager at Cloudbeds, Emily Goldfisher, Founder/Editor-in-Chief at Hertelier, moderated by Paula Carreir?o , Partner Marketing at Cloudbeds.

Cool:?

Awesome conversations.? As an all-time all-remote company, I know how effective Zoom can be. Still, there’s no substitute for real-life, in-person conversations with other industry leaders, hoteliers, and customers (and my team!). That was evident from the deep and meaningful insights our current customers gave us within the four walls of our conference rooms just a walk away from the booth. It was even more evident as we talked shop with amazing partners like IDeaS, Amadeus, Expedia, and SHR. “The 1:1 customer and partner meetings are the best part. The opportunity to go deep with a few partners and customers on what they need to be successful in their growing businesses was invaluable. I loved that our most enthusiastic customers and partners want to speak to us about – invoices to power longer-term relationships with their guests, ways to get the accounting data just right, and many other points,” Richard Castle said. And he’s so right. It’s incredible to see, conversation by conversation, just how much value we’re bringing to businesses, from independents to multi-property hospitality and lodging operators. Our innovation is powering businesses that scale.?

A very blue bridge. The most talked about party at ITB was Electronights, hosted by our team in partnership with IDeaS. It brought notoriety to our brands. And it was very, very cool. How else can you describe the coming together of two titans under a world-famous bridge and 1500 people dancing the night away to three famous DJs? A bridge that used to straddle a once-divided city lit up in honor of the partnership between two hospitality tech leaders. It’s been a week since that night, and I’m (still) speechless. And still very proud of the passion and grit of the Cloudbeds team who pulled this off. This party was one of our biggest drum rolls in Cloudbeds’ 11-year history, but trust me when I say: the best is yet to come.?

Total Revenue. “What belongs together is coming together. CRM, Revenue Management, and (Digital) Marketing is the story for many partners servicing Hospitality. Whoever gets there first and does it well will win.” – Sebastien Leitner. We constantly think about total revenue for hoteliers. In fact, at Cloudbeds we obsess over it – great distribution, more reservations, better guest experiences, hotel offerings, and curated upsells. We’re helping hotels’ operations team make that efficient, personalized, and completely uncomplicated. A million little things happen daily in a hotel, and if they’re repeated, they should be able to be replicated using technology. Then, data and analytics about what has happened can help determine what should happen next for maximum revenue opportunities. Cloudbeds, from day one, has always had a total revenue point of view, and it was exciting to see that come into full display at ITB.?

There was plenty to see and experience at ITB Berlin this year – some of it cool, and some not so cool. Our team left Hall 8 completely exhausted and electrified to put in the work to make sure that everything we heard from customers and partners gets incorporated into our innovations. Like all companies, we have room to grow, and that climb inspires us. But what happens after the summit won’t be the top of some mountain; it’ll be an outer space trip—rewriting the rules of hospitality once and for all.

Onward!?