The discussion explores the integration of AI and voice technology (specifically Alexa) in the hospitality industry to enhance customer experience, alongside a broader conversation on evolving marketing strategies in the digital age, particularly the interplay between brand building and data-driven approaches.
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Alexa, send me some room service.
>> Room service has been notified.
>> Anything can be controlled through
Alexa. We all have this experience as
business travelers. You don't want to
know where the switches are. You don't
know how to manage the air conditioning.
You don't want to learn anything at all.
I had this vision of a room that is
managed through natural language.
>> Order a margarita pizza.
>> This is exactly what I've been waiting
for. These people felt that their life
go could go to, sorry to say this, to
in one month. How has this impacted
customer experience? Cuz better customer
experience, more word of mouth
marketing, more people going to come back.
back.
>> I can bet on that that AI is going to
substitute marketing efforts in the next
5 years. I'm sure this is going to happen.
happen.
>> Hi everyone. Thank you for showing up
today. We have amazing guesto
Martinez and he is the CMO of Minor
Hotel. They have 550 locations globally,
five-ish billion in revenue, and 67,000
employees. I think I got it all correct. Right.
Right.
>> That's right. The other thing is I'm the
CMO of the European and American Pilot.
>> That's right. Um, and before that, you
were at senior roles for Pepsi, Proctor
and Gamble, um, a lot of amazing large
corporations. But, um, I have some
interesting things that I want to talk
to you guys about. And the first thing I
want to talk to you guys about is you
led an initiative an initiative in which
you wanted to integrate Alexa within a
lot of the hotels. So then that way
people can control the hotel rooms from
a voice aspect and uh use commands which
I thought was really cool cuz people see
that kind of stuff on TV. Very few of
them actually implement that technology
into their home but a lot of people want
to. and you're implementing it within
your hotel rooms, which I thought was a
really cool concept.
>> Let let me be I I want I want to do it
again, but let me be in modest in for
for a second. This this is this I mean I
I for the time I've been in in
hospitality, I always had a vision. I I
my my my hotel my company my hotel
company 50% of the of the people that
comes to our hotels are business
travelers. We all have this experience
as business travelers. We get into a
secondary city where we have a next day
meeting. We arrive at 700 p.m. We we are
picked up at the hotel one hour later
because we have a dinner. Then we come
back at se at 12:00 to the to the room
and at 7:00 a.m. we need to leave the
hotel. And if there's something that you
cannot do at that moment that you want
do don't want to do at that moment is
learn how to manage the hotel room. You
don't want to know where the switches
are. you don't know how to to to manage
the air conditioning. You don't want to
learn anything at all. So I I had this
vision of a of a room that is wanted was
managed through natural language that
you could go inside to the room and say
turn the light off, turn the light off,
rise the the air conditioning, load the
rice condition. So I didn't have to put
any kind of effort in understanding how
the how the room works. So this was my
vision and I one of the things I I I
carry on in in in my company is the
definition of experience. So when Alexa
came into my life and I said this is
exactly what what I've been waiting for
because it was not only that the
information that Alexa has but also
Alexa is integraable with lights with
air conditioning with shades with many things.
things.
>> Yeah. So my vision of that natural voice
control room could come to a to an end
or to a beginning at least. So when when
the people in in Amazon contacted us and
they told us that they were they had
this initiative to push their Alexa through
through
the world and using the hotel rooms as a
sampler for many people. We said we are
your people. We want you. I told him I I
want you. I mean you you are you are the
tool I have been expecting to start
developing this vision that I always had
of a a room that is managed through
natural language. You don't need to
learn how to manage the telephone how to
call to the concarch anything just Alexa
um call I want a taxi Alexa send me some
room service anything can be controlled
and uh through Alexa. So we are at early
stages. Some of the the features that I
I was looking for are already
implemented in in in 10,00 rooms that
where we are running a test in in
basically in Spain and some new features
are getting into the into the equation.
H we already have lights that are
controlled through voice and we also
have air conditioning and temperature
heating that is also controlled by
voice. See, I think that's cool because
I travel a lot because my company, we're
not as global as you guys are, but we're
in 20 plus countries at the moment. And
when I look at my journey as an
entrepreneur, I have to h I have people
all over the world that work for me. So,
I travel all the time. Sometimes I'm
doing two plus international trips per
week. So, I tend to stay in a lot of
hotels. And when I'm staying in hotels,
one thing that most people, including
me, tend to do is we adjust the
temperature. Usually walk into a hotel
room, sometimes it's just right, but a
lot of times it's either too cold or too hot.
hot.
>> Um, because everyone's body runs
differently and they prefer a specific temperature.
temperature.
>> So, I have to walk around the hotel room
to find the silly temperature uh meter.
And then if they upgrade you, cuz I
travel a lot, I typically book a normal
room, but sometimes they give you a free
upgrade and you got a living room and
then you got a bedroom. Now I got to go
walk around and find two or three of
these temperature gauges, the
thermometers, and change the or
thermostats and change the uh
temperature in the room to my liking.
And at the time of going to bed, you
have 15 lights around you in that
switch. And then you say, "Oh my god,
now you should start going around. You
only want to go to bed." No, no. It's I
mean what what pursu what we are
pursuing obeys to a need. I mean there's
a guest in I mean if you're going for to
a resort for 15 days, you can take the
time of looking around managing the TV
control. I mean you're not in such a
rush. that if you're going to spend 10
hours out of which seven are going to be
slept, you don't want to do learn
anything about that room. Just be as
easy as possible.
No. And I was recently in a five-star
hotel room uh in Florida less than a
week ago. And when I was there, there
were so many different light switches, I
couldn't figure out how to turn off the
ones next to the bed. And I was just fed
up. So what I started doing is I started
unplugging the lights from the wall
because it was more convenient.
>> So I I we will let you know when we have
um Alexa hotels in in in your territory
so you can come to our hotel rooms.
>> No. So here's a question for you. You're
testing it out on a thousand rooms. How
has this impacted customer experience?
Because better customer experience, more
word of mouth marketing, more people
going to come back. Um, and when I say
how's it impacted customer experience,
do you have data on how people are
actually using it? Like do majority of
the people use it? Do they not use it?
And I'm curious also how this has
affected bookings as well and revenue.
>> Definitely we are measuring we are in
the process of testing. So so far so we
have not come to sound conclusions. We
always this we are a very let's call it
financialdriven company as most of the
companies do. So this project has a
business case behind it. So there are
two ways of um addressing the extra cost
that having Alexa in in our rooms
conveys. One would be how we can grow
the the room service. I mean if we are
able to deliver more room service
because people finds easier to book an
hamburger or a beer or whatsoever to the
to the room and we are measuring that
way. The second thing that we are
measuring as you were saying is if we
get a better quality impact in our
customers, we will receive more recurrent
recurrent
guests and then we will be able to to
grow the the the number of our guests in
in in our hotels and we are measuring
that. We don't have the results so far
because we started pretty recently. We
don't have some results but these are
the two ways that we are measuring
through the increase in room services
and some of the things that we're trying
to sell through through Alexa like for
example trips local trips experiences
we're trying also to to sell those kind
of things through Alexa inside the room.
The second thing is going is is is
quality and how it's it impacts the the
perception of of the room and and as
such the value of the services that our
guests receive.
So going back to integrating alexexas
within the hotel room. I have a very
specific question related to onboarding.
So in business a lot of companies
release new features. Uh whether you're
B2B or B TOC or SAS people release new
features. I would consider this a new
feature within your hotel rooms. Now
granted, you know, someone's not just
coming into a hotel room and saying,
"Hey, Alexa, turn off the lights or open
the shades." Because they don't know
yet, assuming this is their first
experience. Because even if they're
repeat guests in your hotel, this is a
new project. So, the chances are they
haven't experienced this yet. What is
marketing doing to onboard these hotel
guests to get them to understand that
there's this feature in the room? So
that way they know how to a or so a they
know they can use it and b they know the
prompts and the queries and how they can
converse with Alexa to actually get this done.
done.
>> Okay. I mean there are very very very
valid questions. We are we are I mean
but we are we are not doing
extraordinary things. We are featuring
that in in in the in the description of
our of of these rooms in in in the
website and so on. We are we are putting
some um this cartoon triangles that we
have in the room
announcing the features that room has
and also we have produced a video that
runs in Alexa explaining what Alexa can
do for you. So what what we're inviting
people when we get into the room at the
front desk level you have an Alex in
your room go and try to talk with him
and as soon as you contact with Alexa
this um training video this on boarding
video bless you bless you this on
boarding video will run so it it will
give you some idea of what is going on
with with Alexa inside your room
>> got it um and I think that's actually
smart on the when they're checking in
letting them know that you just
mentioned that makes onboarding easier
so they know to look into that or look
for it when they enter the room and
they're probably increases the
>> to be honest we we we provide um um um
the opportunity of having Alexa and also
we give them um comfort on the privacy
side we say that this Alexa is not
connected to anything we we are not
recording anything and you can be free
at and at speech in in in your room or
at action because we we there's nothing
that is going to go beyond what what
what is in the in the in the device itself.
itself.
>> Yeah. Now another area that I wanted to
discuss which is different than the
technology and the Alexa piece is the
hospitality and travel industry.
>> If you look at the hospitality and
travel industry, I would say over the
last four or five years, there's been a
lot of ups and downs. Um COVID caused a
big freeze in which people weren't
traveling as much. Then after COVID,
people are like, "Man, we haven't
traveled in a long time. Let's go out
there, travel a ton, experience the
world." Uh and then, you know, you we've
had a lot of economic shifts globally.
And because you guys are global, you're
seeing them whether it's with GDP slow
down or inflation or uh businesses
laying off uh and people slowing down on
travel because either lower jobs or um
people just not making as much or just
not needing to travel as much. What do
you guys do from a marketing standpoint
to try to create consistency and revenue
during bad economic times? Right. And
you guys are publicly traded. And as you
mentioned, when you're publicly traded,
it doesn't matter what business you are
in, of course, you care about the brand,
the customer experience, but you also
have to think financially as well
because you have shareholders. So, you
have shareholder responsibility to
perform and do the best you can for them
as well.
>> Absolutely. I mean, it's is not an easy
question. I I'm not going to give you
any any kind of magic formula. I mean
our our our company itself um we have
two very different business. We have the
B2C business. We we seek for transient
customers that work on their own. They
make their own decisions. But we also
have 50% out of business is B2B business
is is meeting and events in our in in
our hotels group events in our hotels
laser groups in our hotels. So we have a
a pretty balanced demand. So when when
B2C maybe is falling because I mean
there's uncertainty regarding people
keeping their jobs and so on we always
have the other side where we can make a
push to have more leisure groups in in
our in our in our hotels more B2B groups
in our hotel more m events m events in
in our hotels said this and and talking
specifically about the last five years
let me tell you that what we one of the
things that we have noticed and I'm sure
you you've already aware of what I'm
going to this trend I'm going to to to
to share with you is that after COVID it
happened um sort of shift in in in
the interest of consu of consumers and
we al also seeing it in the in the new
generation Jensen set gen alpha and and
the such they are not that interested in
having things in in buying things in
owning houses or cars and they are more
interested in having experiences going
to fancy restaurants and traveling. So,
and I think COVID also was a catalyst of
this. I mean, this was a trend that was
growing. But after people, these people
felt that their life go could go to
sorry to say to in one month. They
started thinking I need to live. I need
to to be experienced. I I need to have
experiences. It's not that important to
have a car. I can take my Uber and and I
I will I don't need to have my car in
the garage. And there was a shift of the
money of the of the of the of the of the
spenditure at home to more experiences
and travel is one of the of the big
benefited people of the excuse me
industries of of of this shift. So it's
true that in the last four three four
five years after what the effect that we
called the revenge trip people that had
been uh confined they wanted to travel
doesn't matter the cost the price they
wanted to be aware and and this was for
2020 this happened in 2022 and early
2023 now we have suffered some
go and falls of the GDP environment and
so on but still from a from uh a
standpoint which is higher than the
previous to co people is spending more
money towards traveling that they used to
to
>> and and you mentioned that you guys have
roughly half your business from B to C
roughly half of from B to uh B
>> most businesses either focus on B2B or B
to C. So with your marketing, you know,
from my understanding, it's the same
website whether it's B2B or B TOC. You
probably have different landing pages,
but in general, it's the same website
from what I can tell and what I
researched before uh we got on the phone
and we talked.
>> I mean, it's not exactly the caa the
case. I mean, we but but we're in the
middle of of something. I can I can
share with you the the details and and um
um
we we we do have a platform. I mean um
minor hotels Europe and Americas the the
company where I am CMO was acquired by
another company called minor hotel minor
hotels a tai company our our former name
was NH hotel group we at NH hotel group
we had a platform a business platform
called NH pro in NHRO and you can you
can google it we have all the um
services for agents meeting and events organizers,
organizers, um,
um,
travel managers at companies and and the
such. Now we are relaunching that nhro
company into a minor pro platform. So
it's not exactly the same the same
website. We have this minor hotels.com
website for the B2C and we h we will we
have and we will have because we are
relaunching in in in in a month or such
the minor pro platform where you can
find if you're a a B2B partner of minor
hotels you will find all the services
that we deliver to this audience to this target.
target.
>> Got it. So you do have a separate B2B
website uh platform. It's just not under
the minor hotels brand currently, but
you guys are shipping
>> it called minorpro.com and this is why
you have not been able to find it. I'm sorry.
sorry.
>> Uh, no, no, it's okay. Um, so, so you
have two different experiences. >> Exactly.
>> Exactly.
>> How do you go about marketing to B2B
versus B TOC? Like what's a major
differences in strategies if you had to
pick two or three?
I mean I I think the the obvious one
that may happen in in in every in every
in in in the B2C
most of the of of of your effort is is around
around
the top of mind. I mean you need to be
the top of mind of your of your
customers es especially in in in in
industry like consumer goods and so on
and it happens also in hotels not to
that level but it also happens in in in
hotels levels in in in B2B it's about
the value proposition and in the value
proposition to to to our B2B partners is
beyond the price is it also affects to
the commissions the way we pay the kind
the kind of contract that we have signed
with them the the the broader of our
effort of our offer. So they can they
can they can make we can become a single
touch point for a more complex offer to
their own clients. So it's it's it's
it's it's a different it's a different
effort. It's true that we try to have
similar visual identity. We try to have coordinated
