Matt Talks Hospitality: Real conversations for innovative hoteliers

Hospitality is still working out its relationship with AI, embracing it where it saves time and holding back where it touches the guest. Catherina Gioino, a News Editor at Fortune covering AI and technology, brings an outside read on where that technology helps and where it falls short. She joins Matt for a view on where the industry stands and what AI is doing to the way people find, book and experience a hotel.

Can your staff keep up with guest messages and requests? Most hotels would say no. Messages scatter across five or six apps, and by the time someone replies, the guest has moved on. Guest Messaging and Automations, two new AI-powered Mews features, intend to fix that. Adam Britton, Director of Product and Engineering at Mews, joins Matt to explain how.

Digital room keys are increasingly replacing the classic physical keycard, with more hotels handing guests a key that lives in their phone wallet instead of a piece of plastic at the desk. Mews and Vingcard, an ASSA ABLOY company, are part of that shift, having launched a partnership to offer native wallet-based room access. Tess Mattisson, Vice President and Head of Product for Hospitality at ASSA ABLOY, joins Matt to talk about the partnership, the tech behind wallet-based keys and the future of hotel locks.

Every hospitality startup pitches a similar story: better tech, faster growth, bigger returns. Someone has to decide which ones are worth the check. On this episode, Matt is joined by Chris Hemmeter, Managing Partner at Thayer Investment Partners. They talk about how venture capital finds and funds the future of hospitality tech: what convinces investors, what makes a business worth the investment risk, and where the smart money thinks this industry goes next.

Wellness is one of the fastest-growing categories in hospitality, and for a lot of properties it has moved from a nice-to-have into a real part of how the business makes money. Steve Porter, Co-founder of Trybe, has spent years building software for exactly that part of the hotel. Steve and Matt talk about why guests now book the spa before the room, what makes it the most complex system in a hotel to run and how wellness is redefining hospitality.