Hotel Tech Insider

Most hotels are trying to deploy AI on top of broken data. In this episode, the founder of Nomse—managing 26 independent hotels—explains why fixing your data layer is the real prerequisite to turning insights into daily decisions.
Why AI fails in most hotels: Without clean, connected data across PMS, marketing, finance, and operations, AI outputs lack context and produce little value.
How to turn data into daily decisions: Using pickup, pace, and on-the-books performance to guide pricing, marketing, and operational actions in real time—not just reporting.
How to track true revenue performance: Linking every booking source—including OTAs, direct, and offline B2B deals—to acquisition cost for a complete, actionable view of profitability.

Most hotel tech stacks are overbuilt and underused. This one isn’t. In this episode, Harmeet Mann—CEO and cofounder of a 30+ property management firm—breaks down how her team runs high-performing hotels using simple systems, tight workflows, and a stack that’s largely not hotel-specific.
Key Takeaways:
• How to eliminate operational silos across properties by structuring communication and task ownership into one shared system—so nothing gets lost between departments.
• A repeatable method for turning everyday operational mistakes (missed payments, duplicate vendors, dropped leads) into permanent process fixes using permissions, workflows, and SOPs.
• Why most hotel tech investments fail after implementation—and how to drive real ROI through training, adoption, and accountability (not more software).

What if the biggest mistake hotels make with technology isn’t adopting it too slowly—but using it to reinforce outdated assumptions about how guests want to interact with your property? In this episode, Matt Dybing, Co-Founder and COO of Nuvho, shares a candid look at how leading operators are using automation, revenue systems, and smarter distribution strategies to outperform competitors.
Nuvho advises nearly 200 hotels across Australia and the UK, ranging from small regional properties to world-class luxury boutiques. With a unique vantage point across hundreds of tech stacks and revenue strategies, Matt brings a practical operator’s perspective on what actually drives performance - not just what vendors promise.
Why “luxury equals human interaction” is often wrong: Matt challenges a common hospitality assumption: that removing friction with automation hurts the guest experience. Instead, he argues that luxury today is about choice—letting guests decide whether they want a frictionless mobile check-in or a high-touch arrival.
How top hotels use OTAs strategically instead of fighting them: Rather than avoiding OTAs, Matt explains how smart operators optimize listings to rank on page one, where nearly all bookings occur—then convert that visibility into direct bookings using better booking engines and websites.
A real example of technology-driven turnaround: Hear how a struggling luxury lodge increased revenue by 50% and returned to profitability after implementing automated revenue management, proactive marketing, and improved financial visibility—demonstrating how technology works best when paired with the right operational philosophy.

Subscribe to Hotel Tech Insider for more conversations with the operators and innovators shaping the future of hospitality technology.

What if 70% of your guests are willing to upgrade—but your pricing strategy is leaving that revenue on the table? In this episode, Erik Tengen, President of Hospitality at Plusgrade and former co-founder of Oaky, explains why the future of hotel profitability isn’t RevPAR—it’s total revenue, frictionless upselling, and becoming “agent-ready."
Experienced hotel operators, GMs, commercial leaders, and ownership groups focused on driving profit—not just topline revenue—in an increasingly AI-driven distribution landscape.
Erik brings a rare combination of entrepreneurial grit and global scale. After building Oaky into one of hospitality’s leading upsell platforms and selling it to Plusgrade—a global leader in ancillary revenue across airlines, cruise, and rail—he now oversees hospitality strategy for one of the most advanced ancillary monetization engines in travel. His vantage point spans independent hotels to major global brands actively modernizing their tech stacks.
• Why TrevPAR Beats RevPAR in 2026 and Beyond
Erik breaks down the industry’s post-COVID shift toward total revenue management and explains why pairing a Revenue Management System with dynamic upselling technology unlocks meaningful profit growth across parking, F&B, spa, upgrades, and more.
• Dynamic Pricing Isn’t Just for Rooms
Flat pricing for parking, late checkout, or room upgrades? That’s profit leakage. Learn the core data inputs required to dynamically price ancillaries—inventory, forecasted occupancy, and scarcity—and how to operationalize this without overwhelming your team.
• “Commercial Empathy” as a Competitive Moat
A surprising insight: personalization isn’t about more data—it’s about small, meaningful actions that remove friction at micro-moments across the guest journey. Erik explains why “big data is useless without small actions” and shares real-world examples of hotels training frontline staff to turn service moments into revenue opportunities.
• What It Means to Be Agent-Ready
With agentic AI poised to transform how travelers search and book, Erik outlines why structured data and open APIs will matter more than flashy AI features. Vendors—not hotels—must become agent-ready, but operators need to choose partners that are.
• Scaling Upselling Without Nickel-and-Diming Guests
The episode dives into seamless fulfillment—from PMS integrations to housekeeping workflows—and how top-performing brands debundle strategically without eroding guest trust.
If you’re serious about driving profitable travel and future-proofing your hotel’s tech strategy, subscribe to Hotel Tech Insider, share this episode with your commercial team, and follow along for more operator-level insights from the leaders shaping hospitality’s next chapter.

What if your busiest check-in nights didn’t require a front-desk line at all—even when most guests booked through OTAs? In this episode, Fabio Passos, Owner & CEO of QDI USA Developments (a multi-property operator with hotels across Florida and Brazil) breaks down the practical playbook he’s used to modernize arrivals, improve security, and squeeze more signal out of property data—without waiting for a brand to catch up.

Key Takeaways:
How to eliminate peak-arrival bottlenecks with mobile keys + self-service check-in (including the exact pre-arrival cadence: timed emails, app adoption, and how to handle ID/vehicle info requirements without clogging the desk).
How to keep security tight when guests bypass the front desk: Fabio shares the operational counterweights—staff training plus “smart camera” monitoring for common loopholes (like propped stairwell doors) so automation doesn’t mean losing control.
How to turn messaging into a direct channel—then scale it with AI: A surprisingly simple WhatsApp-led approach starts human-first, captures demand, and then gets trained into an AI agent to handle volume without needing staff online 24/7.
Fabio’s operator mindset spans two very different markets (Florida + Brazil), and he brings a distribution-aware view of tech—specifically solving for OTA-heavy demand where brand-only mobile keys don’t help. He also shares a practical “aha” moment using ChatGPT to consolidate multi-hotel financials and dashboards from CSV exports—an unusually pragmatic, owner-level use case that goes beyond the typical “AI for marketing” talk.
If you’re looking for tactics you can test this quarter—share this episode with your ops lead or GM, and subscribe to Hotel Tech Insider for more operator-grade playbooks on using technology to run leaner, safer, higher-performing hotels.