CEO of Port Hotels on Eliminating Manual Work Portfolio Wide
This is going to cost 10,000, but we are going to earn 1,000,000. Nobody is going to say no to that. So we need to start thinking as an investment in terms of technology.
Speaker 2:From Hotel Tech Report, it's Hotel Tech Insider, a show about the future of hotels and the technology that powers them.
Speaker 3:Today, we connect with Diego Fernandez, the CEO of Port Hotels. After leading revenue management at Palladium for a decade, Diego is now in charge of Port Hotels' 11 properties and nine fifty employees based in Spain. Diego shares his best practices as the company works towards scalability and eliminating repetitive manual tasks. Let's dive in. Well, thank you, Diego, so much for being on the podcast.
Speaker 3:Really looking forward to our conversation. To start things off, I would love for you to introduce yourself, tell us a bit about your career journey and your role right now at Port Hotels.
Speaker 1:Now, first of all, thank you to you for the invitation. It's a pleasure to share that minutes with you and try to give my special opinion about the technology, about systems, about all these things that in some cases I love a lot. But first of all, let me introduce myself during a couple of minutes. I'm Diego Fernandez Predeponga. I'm the CEO of Corf Hotels.
Speaker 1:I have been working in the hotel industry for the last twenty years. I just became CEO one year at my house for the first time. So I'm in this test time, I'm testing, or they are testing me. So I hope I'm doing a great job here. But before that, I was the former Director of Revenue Management at Palladium.
Speaker 1:I spent almost twelve years of my career doing revenue management, corporate level. And I studied a lot of time ago, auto management. So I started to be a GM. I love this industry and I knew it a lot of years ago. On the other hand, Port Hotels, we are a Spanish company based in Spain, we have 11 hotels.
Speaker 1:This is only to put perspective to that numbers, almost 2,000 rooms across the Commodio Valenciana, which is an area of Spain. We have in our peak season almost nine fifty employees, which is a large number of people. We have some of our portfolio, our city hotels, another part of the portfolio are research hotels, and three and four and four are Star Superiors hotels. So we try to cover all our guests, all our segments possible. Our headquarters are located in Benidorm, which is a really important place in Spain in terms of tourism, because almost sixty years ago, almost seventy, the tourism started in this area in Spain.
Speaker 1:So this is the birthplace of tourism in Spain. So it's a really nice area. And we have our headquarters, our commercial team and our GMs, and some more stuff here at our headquarters.
Speaker 3:Well, thanks for the intro. And I am excited to unpack all the exciting things you're doing at Port Hotels. So to get started, given that you have a sizable portfolio, some variety in the hotels that are in that portfolio, What would you say is the most critical technology partner to the success of a hotel and why?
Speaker 1:I'm going to say something really, probably easy to say, which is the PMS. When you ask me that, they said, okay, we cannot wear some fancy stuff, but not, it's our PMS. Because the PMS is like the heart of the company right now. And I'm pretty sure that it's not in our case. It's in a lot of hotels, the PMS, and a lot of industry companies, the PMS is the central point of the life in the hotel.
Speaker 1:Because probably 80% of all the, all the things that happen in a hotel, you use the PMS. At least in our case, at least in the cases where I worked in my career. If you are having the first contact with the client and you are incorporating a reservation, a booking in the system, probably you use the PMS. Okay. You are only one hotel, you don't have a CRS, you have a PMS where you incorporate your reservation.
Speaker 1:In our case, we have a centralized PMS. So we incorporate the reservation in the PMS. Once the client goes to the hotel, what do you use? The PMS to make the check-in. So the first contact with our clients in front of us in the reception, you use the PMS.
Speaker 1:Probably in the 95% of opportunity, you use that system. If you want to make room change, what do you use? The PMS? If you have a problem in one room, probably in some occasion, you use the PMS. In our case, we use the PMS.
Speaker 1:When we have a problem, we use some part of the PMS where we can, tell the problem that all our rooms have. To charge something to the minibar, if you want to charge something in the swimming pool, you use the PMS, or POS connected to the PMS. And last but not least, if you want to make a checkout, a billing process, probably you use the PMS. So at the end, at least in our case, and what I have worked in the industry, the PMS is the central system that you use. And this is critical.
Speaker 1:Because once the PMS is not working, nowadays, with all the technology that we have in place, we will almost die in the hotels. We will almost die. But thirty years ago, a lot of things happened manually the reception. So you can't run a hotel without internet. Nowadays it's impossible, because this is critical.
Speaker 1:If lose internet in your hotel, probably you will have a really bad day, the reception in the hotel. Answering that, and probably the easiest way to answer that, which is the most critical technology that you have opinions. I can be more fancy, or there is a lot of staff, a lot of fancier stuff in the industry. But at the end, all comes through the PMS. Sometimes we lose a lot, or better said, we spend a lot of time thinking in another platforms, thinking how can we improve the customer journey with a lot of stuff going there.
Speaker 1:A lot of technology, fancy technology, AI technology nowadays. But at the end, 80%, 85%, 90% of your operations goes through the So for us, it's with no doubt the PMS because in that, in that technology, we have the POS connected to the PMS with the same vendor. And we have a lot of stuff from that vendor in the PMS. So if we lose the PMS, I have a problem, you know. And I have, I want to that, I think it was two months ago, we had in Spain massive blackout of electricity.
Speaker 1:I don't know if it was something remarkable in Europe, but we have almost one day of blackout of electricity in the whole country. Okay. So it was really complicated to operate without premiums. Some part of the portfolio could work personally because we have another structure to give energy to the buildings. But a couple of hotels were shut down completely the electricity.
Speaker 1:So we couldn't run properly the hotel without the It was everything manual. It was really complicated. And at that time you realize, if the PMS falls, your hotels at that moment will start to struggle. And it doesn't matter which PMS do you. Because all PMS in the world has problems, has good things.
Speaker 1:But with no doubt, at least in my opinion, it's the PMS technology.
Speaker 3:I'm curious, which PMS does port hotels use?
Speaker 1:We have everything in the company is centralized. We have only one PMS for the entire portfolio. It's a local PMS called STEA, and all the suites that we have. We have the POS from that vendor, we have a lot of things. Technical services maintenance system is also from them.
Speaker 1:So we have a lot of stuff from that vendor, which gives us a lot of good points because everything is in the same place. I mean, everything has the same technology. Everything in every single property will have the same technology. So this gives us a lot of advantages right now.
Speaker 3:Yeah. I would love for you to walk me through the tech stack. So in addition to the PMS, what other systems are used to generate command, handle revenue management? I'm curious, each step of the guest journey, which systems are in place?
Speaker 1:We have a CRM where we collect all the data from our guests. Also our loyalty program. The loyalty program is the industry CRM. This CRM is connected to the PMS. In the PMS, we have everything.
Speaker 1:We have the CRS or the booking center model. We have the call center model also. We have the PO system integrated in that PMS. We have the technical services maintenance program also in that same ecosystem. Also, have the booking engine is provided by Panati, which is one provided here in Spain, a really famous one, connected in two ways with our Channel Manager, which is SiteMander.
Speaker 1:SiteMander is connected to the PNS. And in terms of sales, we don't have anything more. We are running manually in terms of revenue management right now. And we are starting a third of SP, cost for commercial to have probably in the next half year area, an awareness in the company, which will help our sales team to improve, improve the sales with no doubt. We have also chatbots connected to the website.
Speaker 1:So some part of the question are asked by AI agents right now in the company. Nothing more related to sales. On the other hand, in terms of billing and all these profits is managed by VBS also. And something big, I mean, sometimes having less things is better than having a lot of things in a tech stack. Okay.
Speaker 1:Because sometimes the company wants to have every new system that appears in the market wants to have it. You start to collect programs because every single department wants to have the best technology possible. So in our case, we try to, once we add the technology, it must give us a lot of value to have it. Because if not, you are complicating your tech staff so much that they want to change something in the future, you will be not able to do that. Because it's so complicated that you want to change the opinions in the future.
Speaker 1:You will not be able because you have 50 other programs connected to the PMS. So we try to don't expand a lot our tech stack. Once we enter something, it's because this is giving value to our teams. And these are scalable systems with APIs, open APIs, which can connect with everything. And also because I forgot completely some very, very important area, all the data is managed by Microsoft with Power BI.
Speaker 1:We have everything in Power BI, in terms of reports. And with that, we are able to run a company in a good way. So sometimes there are a lot of vendors, new vendors with all the AI ecosystem, or AI system that came from the industry. You can buy every single week, one new feature, or one new system. It's getting really complicated to swim in that, in that ocean right now.
Speaker 1:There are other vendors selling things daily. You realize that in 90% of the occasions, that's in chief value, real value to the company.
Speaker 3:I was also wondering about guest facing technology at your hotels. Is there like an app that guests use or anything in the guest room that's interactive?
Speaker 1:We have with no doubt a web app where all our clients were making a pilot. In that, we are testing that technology in one of our hotels because, and it's a web app, not an app. And this is a really important difference because the apps in the hotel industry are not working well because we have 100 apps in our mobile. So we don't want to have another one. So we are developing a new web app where we can sell to the clients all the information related to the hotels.
Speaker 1:Also, are doing pilot with Refrieder, which is a cool system where you can have the newspapers, magazines, and so on for free in our hotels. It's developing right now in the company. But we don't want to add a lot of things to the client, the customer journey. We try to add value to that customer journey. Because once you are making holidays in our resorts, or going to a meeting in our city hotels, I mean, you want to be relaxed.
Speaker 1:You don't want to be touched by a lot of things. Because you use technology in the check-in. Better say, You use technology in the pre check-in. Okay. Because we send them an email, trying to give all the information to the guests.
Speaker 1:We use technology in the check-in. Okay. Because we have obviously, stable to, tabs to make a paperless checking. Okay. We have tabs to make a checking, paperless checking.
Speaker 1:Also, we have, based on our portfolio, the team is ready in place to use technology in that. But we don't need a lot of things more. We have a web app, we have screens, a touchable screen. We are making a pilot with robots in one of our hotels, and one robot in the restaurant to deliver dishes to our guests, trying to see how this technology is working. But, I mean, we try to give space to the clients.
Speaker 3:So with the pilot, with the robot, what was the decision process on testing that? It sounds like it must add a lot of value if you're considering it.
Speaker 1:It's really nice. Because as I said, love it and Malay, once I entered the company, said, we need to try robots. Okay. Because maybe the industry is not great right now for having robots in the hotels, because we are face to face industry. We need to see people in front of us.
Speaker 1:But in this case, we have incorporated one robot to help waiters to bring dishes to the kitchen. Okay. So instead of having our waiters bringing back dishes to the kitchen, these waiters are giving service to our clients. Okay. And the leases are managed by this route.
Speaker 1:Okay. And it's working. We are really happy with that test. At least all the news that they have are good news because it also gives to the clients something cool. Because we have a lot of kids in that hotel, which is the poor vineyard, and a lot of kids want to have a selfie with the robot.
Speaker 1:It's something also good, but it's given to our staff the opportunity to stay more with the client. Instead of going to the kitchen and going back with dishes, they are able to spend more time with our guests. The decision was, sorry, because I realized that I didn't answer you properly. The decision was releasing is a test. We are going to try it with a company where we want to try new things with no fear.
Speaker 1:I mean, if you try, I mean, it doesn't work. Okay. Nothing happens. And it works, you implement in the third company. So it was an easy one in this time.
Speaker 3:So are you planning on rolling this out to
Speaker 1:Yeah, the rest of the we will love it. We will love it because also the waiters are more, at the beginning, they start to think that they want to replace them via machines, but it's not the case. It's not the idea. The idea is that our staff use the time and the efforts in big things, in important things, not bringing dirty dishes into the kitchen. I mean, speak with a client, try to speak with them, try to see how they are going to the hotel, how they are in the hotel, how they are happy or not.
Speaker 1:Try to give value to that experience in the hotel for that.
Speaker 3:That's really exciting. I would love to zoom out a little bit and hear about one or two high priority business objectives that you're focused on. I think as CEO, you have a unique perspective on what's happening throughout the company. And I would love to hear some of your goals and how technology will help you get there.
Speaker 1:That's a great question, Leanne. Thank you. To ask that, I can resume in two words, scalability and eliminate repetitive manual work. I mean, I'm a little bit obsessed about scalability. Okay.
Speaker 1:Once we incorporate a system, once we incorporate a new portfolio, once we incorporate something in the company, we need to start thinking if, okay, we are running 11 hotels right now. Can we run 20 hotels with that? Can we do that for 20 hotels? No, we can't do it. So this process is not valid for me.
Speaker 1:We need to be scalable. We need to be more efficient in our processes. Not for being a CEO when I was Director of Revenue Management, I was thinking the same. We need to do more with the same resources, which is not the same that with less resources. We don't want to eliminate resources in our company.
Speaker 1:We want to, with the same resources that we have now, to be able to get more results, nothing more. And sometimes in the industry is not scalable. So if we are managing right now in the evening that headquarters, 11 hotels, and we want to manage 20, maybe we need to double our people in the headquarters. This is a mistake in terms of business. So we're working really hard to incorporate new technology to our company, to our technical departments, in order to be more scalable, to do more with the same.
Speaker 1:We are incorporating AI systems. Some part of our headquarters have access to top GPT business. So we are trying to help our teams to do more with the same.
Speaker 3:And is growth in the future for Port Hotels?
Speaker 1:If not, maybe I will lose my job. We need to grow a little bit. Yeah, we want to grow. As a company, we are a family owned business. We work for our family and we are really proud of that.
Speaker 1:And we will work at least the objective is 30% in the next five years, try to have three, four hotels in the portfolio and try to do it in the same way that I was speaking with you, with the efficiency. So work with efficiency. Try to eliminate all our manual tasks. Try to eliminate all repetitive tasks that can be done by the machine. And we don't want to do that to eliminate position in our structure.
Speaker 1:We don't want to do that. We want that our people start to make the processes that add value to the company. Because I have been head of research fifteen years ago. I was head of reservation at Palinotto Group. Some part of the reservation department was to incorporate information from an Excel file to the PDF.
Speaker 1:I mean, Lunobody is working like that eight hours. I mean, seeing with two screens, one Excel, one PDF, and in the other screen, one reservation. And start typing eight hours per day, doing the same. I mean, this century, in this year, with all the technology that we have, all this process can be done by the team. And we are not seeking to eliminate that person in reservation.
Speaker 1:No, we will move that person to, for example, a contact center, to speak with the people, to the call center, to give service to the people in that kind of service that these people, or this person, this worker could feel better doing their job. Okay. And like that, a lot of positions in the industry. I'm not speaking about portfolio right now. I'm speaking about the entire industry, which has a lot of staff that are making repetitive tasks daily from eight to three.
Speaker 1:They are doing the same. So sometimes this kind of job, from at least my perspective, could be bored. So try to give to our teams or to your teams better task.
Speaker 3:Switching gears a little bit, I wanted to ask, and again, drawing on your entire career, what would you say are one or two of the most important skills someone should have to be successful in today's environment?
Speaker 1:I can give you one, a real one, which is adaptability, resilience. I mean, we work with people. We serve people, okay, or we serve our guests, We serve our employees. We serve our coworkers. We're serving people.
Speaker 1:So we need to adapt to that needs. Every single client needs completely different things. So as a professional, at least in my career, all that I have done has been about to the needs that my clients needed. And my clients sometimes in math is my boss also. My client is my team also.
Speaker 1:So in this industry, sometimes we focus on the client and we don't realize that the one of the most important clients is your colleague, your colleague, your boss, your team, your data reports. So you need to adapt constantly to their needs. And also being a team leader or running a department, the key of your success is adaptability. As a leader, you need to adapt to your team. And at least, in my opinion, and this is very personal opinion, it worked for me.
Speaker 1:So I'm trying to adapt the needs that our clients ask for. I try to adapt the way that I lead my team to that team. I'm not the same leader with one person that with another one. I try to adapt everything I can to the others. I can't do one.
Speaker 1:And this is a powerful one.
Speaker 3:Well, very last question, which is one of my favorite ones to ask. What is one thing you believe about hotel technology that other people in the industry might disagree with?
Speaker 1:I have another one, a good one here also, Arlene, to finish that podcast. I have enjoyed a lot. I need to say thank you very much. But I will finish with that technology is an investment, not a cost. And I think that this is a very powerful message because when we are trying to ask to our GM or to our owner to ask a new software, we plan as a cost.
Speaker 1:No, this is a huge mistake. We need, we need to plan an investment with a return of investment. In my entire career, I think that nobody has stopped me to do a technological project. Because once I enter the office of the person who needed to validate that cost, I started, okay, this is going to cost 10,000, but we are going to earn 1,000,000. Nobody is going to say no to that.
Speaker 1:Nobody, you know. So we need to start thinking as an investment in terms of technology. I mean, the technology needs to be an invest, not a cost. And I think that this is another useful tip to all the people who is asking for permission to buy new stuff, new cool stuff in the hotel. Start thinking about ROI in terms of investment in your technology.
Speaker 3:Great. Well, thank you so much, Diego. This was such a great conversation. I really appreciate everything you've shared. I think our listeners will get a lot of value out of this episode.
Speaker 3:So thank you very much.
Speaker 1:Thank you, Benoit, today.
Speaker 2:That's all for today's episode. Thanks for listening to Hotel Tech Insider produced by hoteltechreport.com. Our goal with this podcast is to show you how the best in the business are leveraging technology to grow their properties and outperform the concept by using innovative digital tools and strategies. I encourage all of our listeners to go try at least one of these strategies or tools that you learned from today's episode. Successful digital transformation is all about consistent small experiments over a long period of time, so don't wait until tomorrow to try something new.
Speaker 2:Do you know a hotelier who would be great to feature on this show, or do you think that your story would bring a lot of value to our audience? Reach out to me directly on LinkedIn by searching for Jordan Hollander. For more episodes like this, follow Hotel Tech Insider on all major streaming platforms like Spotify and Apple Music.
