CCO of CIC Hospitality on Using Tech to Scale a Complex Hotel Portfolio
I think we have a lot to do on maybe expanding on the hologram, maybe doing it on more screens throughout the hotels, maybe inside rooms to make sure that we can commercialize it a bit.
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're talking with the chief commercial officer at CIC Hospitality. CIC operates 30 hotels across The Nordics, working with various brands and many different markets. Explains which software makes up his tech stack, and he shares how to reassure employees who might fear AI will take their jobs. Let's dive in. Thank you so much for joining me today, Oyfin.
Speaker 3:Really looking forward to speaking with you and learning about all the exciting things you and your company are doing. To get things started, I would love for you to introduce yourself and tell us a bit about your company.
Speaker 1:Thank you for having me. My name is Eivind Srisak. I'm the Chief Commercial Officer in CIC Hospitality. We started CIC Hospitality in 2018 with One Hotel and One Clear Mission and that was to be a new kind of hospitality company. So we started with the Guestway and have done a lot with that to introduce different tech.
Speaker 1:We operate about 30 hotels today across The Nordics and have just press released cooperation with AQOR in Germany. So we're going south at the moment.
Speaker 3:Can you tell me a bit about the hotels? Are they limited service, full service, urban, rural?
Speaker 1:A mix of both. We are white label operators, so we're not too occupied on having the flagship tier one locations. We're more about getting a hotel to operate as perfect and as productive as it can in the location it is. So usually we source a lot of different locations where we build. So one third of our hotels are our own hotels and we have about a third on lease and we have a couple on management as well.
Speaker 1:And we partner with the biggest brand there is, if it's Marriott Decor, Radisson, Thorn, Schendick. So for us, it's a mix between rural and inner city. And we kind of base that on the brand we're choosing to franchise with.
Speaker 3:Well, it sounds like the portfolio is quite diverse then with different brands, different types of locations. Walk me through your tech stack. I would love to know which PMS vendor you're using, and there may be some variants across brands too. But I would love for you to give me an overview of some of the most critical systems to your operation today.
Speaker 1:So I think PMS is always the backbone. We have rolled out Muse on everyone affiliated with the Best Western in our portfolio. I found Muse to be really easy to work with, quite easy to get people to get to a point where they can actually operate the system. And we use Opera Cloud from Oracle, from many of the more hard brands as we have. With Radisson, we have Emma, their own.
Speaker 1:So we're quite used to having a lot of PMS out there and they, of course, have different reporting dates. So that's the reason we need quite a successful data lake as well because you get that information and then you can get your data lake to produce that. So it's similar to everyone else. So we are able to benchmark our hotels in the same way. And then it's easy to scale up as a white label operator as well because you can see the same thing instead of having different measurements on different properties.
Speaker 1:I think in relation to that, of course, Pelikan with our data lake is quite important for us. I use CRM a lot, of course. I'm a commercial asset. So CRM is quite an important part for me. What I usually do when I source, I look at how integratable are they to the existing tech stack.
Speaker 1:Or if I can't integrate it directly by having a buy in integration, I might create one with the data lake just to translate whatever they need to talk to each other. And it's important for me to also tech is quite heavily always in fluctuations. So it's always something new coming in six months' time. So when we choose tech, we use a lot of time to first know our need, what is our need and how could this influence the guest way in a positive way. So we usually just go back to the old guest way.
Speaker 1:Can we automate some of these parts in this gateway? Could this tool be efficient for us to use? And, of course, what should we do on the backside of this as well to make sure that we can look at the dashboards and have that insight to actually influence operations as well.
Speaker 3:Is there a specific CRM vendor that you use?
Speaker 1:For now, we're using HubSpot, which are quite good. Then we use that for B2B. As you know, in hospitality, it's difficult to know where the B2B ends and where the B2C starts. So what we've done is we kind of divided it quite hard. So today we use HubSpot for B2B where we have all our contracting partners and follow-up with what kind of business we want to get to.
Speaker 1:And then I actually use BookBoost more as a I called it a CMS instead. It's a CRM as HubSpot but it's more on a guest level where I can communicate with the guests actually staying with us. So I'm actually rolling out BookBoost on our Amuse properties now, which is, of course, a Dutch company as well. Almost all hotel tech are coming from Holland for some reason. But they're quite good at collecting data from Muse directly, making sure that our staff are only in one platform and they have multi channel inbox as well.
Speaker 1:So you're able to get all third party, all communication from the guests directly into one inbox where you can, you know, put on maybe a little AI bot as well so you can get rid of FAQs and if you refer some individual bookings as well.
Speaker 3:How are you using AI in those responses?
Speaker 1:We have gone through a couple of AIs. We have been on machine learning with template based answers, which has been, of course, hard to roll out. And now everyone is on a language based model. So we have rolled out D3X. It's a company that does our AI.
Speaker 1:And what they do is they have a knowledge base, a vast knowledge base where we have asked a lot of questions and answer it. And then that tool can be implemented multi channel as well. They answer SMS, WhatsApp, email, and everything is going into the same place. So we had reduced actually them. We tried a pilot on one of our airport hotels, quite a lot of FIQs.
Speaker 1:And they reduced answering time for about twenty four hours to two minutes. And they do that multi language as well and quite fast. You just get the knowledge in and then it is up running the day after. It can start answering the guest. With an integration with the PMS, you will get concrete answers as well on your booking, for example.
Speaker 3:Does the AI respond to the guest directly or does the AI draft a message and then a human reviews it?
Speaker 1:Especially when it comes to machine learning, I was skeptical on letting it because then you need to know the intent before it answers. So then you kind of stop it. If it's, you know, under 70% unsure of what the intent are, you kind of stop the draft and then you send it. So what we did with this one is we kind of tested it a bit. You just ask it a lot of questions.
Speaker 1:And when you see it's up and running and since it's only working on a knowledge base that you're it's not pulling things from the Internet, We just set it to work. So it's answering all our guests and it does it within two minutes, as I said, and it does it on every language there is. So it's quite exciting to look at. People get a bit excited when I show it because you don't know what it does.
Speaker 3:Are you doing on the revenue management side?
Speaker 1:Atomize, still, We went early in with those guys back in 2021, I think. Now they're bought up by Muse as well, which we think is great because we have two systems beginning to be one instead of two separate systems. And I think we've got a lot of synergies from that merger as well. But again, it's about me not wanting to use a revenue manager sitting and turning a price up and down instead of I want them to use our creativity and our strategy capabilities to make sure that they set a strategy for that RMS instead of turning up and down, which is not a hard thing to do. The hard thing to do is to set that strategy for that hotel to be to accurate and make sure that you have a great forecast.
Speaker 1:So Optimize has been great. And, of course, now four years running with those as well.
Speaker 3:How do you think about the role of AI in revenue management in the future? Do you think there will be a world where AI completely runs the show and there's no human touch? Or do you think there will always be a human element in revenue management?
Speaker 1:Difficult to predict, but I think always that the AI is a tool to make sure that you use your time correctly. So I think there will be revenue managers, but they will just be used differently. You won't turn rates up and down and maybe we'll get the insight you need to do more strategy. So whatever it needs to be, I think we'll just be better than we are now because you can get more insight and hit better targets. So I think it will just be there.
Speaker 1:But I think the revenue manager not using AI will not have a job after this revolution.
Speaker 3:So expanding on the revenue piece a bit, are you using a channel manager? And also curious about your booking engine and if direct bookings are a focus or if you're kind of channel agnostic.
Speaker 1:I know, of course, direct booking is quite exciting. But we are a white label operator, meaning that we, of course, have a lot of brands that's doing a lot of our distribution. So we have kind of solved ourselves out also a couple of problems, being branding, loyalty programs, distribution being the best and cheapest asset. We have kind of opt out on doing that as a white label and then we can make sure that our brands, if it's Bethesda and Thornska, Radisson, Accor, Marriott, they can focus on that kind of job. And we can make sure that all the backend kind of works with the guests and sales and, yeah, on that side.
Speaker 1:But of course, one of the most talked about topic is, of course, lawsuits against third party agents. Of course, we look at how much the segments we have in our hotels, how much are OTAs, how can we make sure that we get more direct bookings. We can do it through sales. We can do it through rate discrepancies. So there is a lot of tools.
Speaker 1:And we will, of course, use those as well, but with the brand as well. We work a lot with the brand on distribution.
Speaker 3:I want to explore the guest experience as well at your properties. Can you talk me through some of the highlights in terms of guest facing technology?
Speaker 1:Yeah. So one of the things that we do when we talk about only host function is that we actually pick up their receptionist or service crew, as we call them, and we put it out with the guests. But what you kind of miss out on that is that we usually, in traditional hotels, you have a person standing there and greeting the guests. And when that person is gone because it's talking to somebody else or, you know, cleaning up some coffee mugs or something like that, We needed something else. So one of the guest facing technologies we opted in with was a hologram.
Speaker 1:So we have a hologram from HoloConnect where we have a person coming in saying, Hi there. Welcome to this and this and tell. You need help with anything, and then you get the menu up. And you can ask them a couple of questions. They will get with your answer back.
Speaker 1:Or you can actually opt in and talk to a live agent. We see it's actually a studio here in Oslo where I have a service crew, central service crew that works for all the hotels, which can answer and pick up every reservation that's out there. So again, to kind of make that guest way perfect, we needed something that's, you know, in that hole where you miss out when you remove somebody from a, call it, waiting position, waiting on customers and being active out there with the customers instead.
Speaker 3:Yeah. I remember when I talked with your colleagues last year, I remember them mentioning the hologram. And I'm curious, over the last year, guest perception changed at all or are guests still happy to use that tool?
Speaker 1:I think they're still happy using it. I think we have a lot to do on maybe expanding on the hologram, maybe doing it on more screens throughout the hotels, maybe inside rooms to make sure that we can commercialise it a bit. We have done some kind of tests now where we put up a brand and then a QR code and see if that increases sales, which it has. So we make it more commercialised. But to have that possibility, it's more of an overflow.
Speaker 1:When we know that that person is busy, we can have one that's, you know, not on the shift list. It's actually always available or on the phone or on the email. So it's kind of having the possibility to do overflow without, you know, staffing up at that exact moment when you have a line throughout the door.
Speaker 3:Switching gears a little bit, I am curious to hear about some business objectives for you and your company. So if you could share one or two of your top goals and how technology helps you get there.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So this year, especially 2025, has been a year of implementation, as Will said, because we have not stopped the growth. We have two new openings this year, but we have turned down the tempo a bit and going to turn it quite fast up next year. But it's been all about integration. So myself, I've done a commercial tradition where we kind of did a lot of projects and still doing a lot of projects where we highlight how can we get people from quote to cash, for example.
Speaker 1:When they actually sign or get an offer from us, how fast can we get them to use the hotel. So we call it quote to cash. That's one of them. Then they have to link in everything from CRM to PMS to guest communication and, of course, the data lake in between. And the second one is operational constancy.
Speaker 1:We need to make sure that we have one digital standard across Norway, Denmark, Sweden, and now Germany as well. Because we need to if we are to scale even more now and maybe do different countries as well, we need to scale without losing control. And one of those control act factors is KPIs have been briefly touched on as well. We need to have that. So I think that's maybe one of the two of the high priority business cases that we have at the moment.
Speaker 3:And is expansion, adding more hotels to the portfolio, entering new markets, is that also a top priority?
Speaker 1:We have both. And we have done a lot of internal growth during this year as well on existing properties. A lot of hotels in ramp up and some of them completely new to the market as well. Somebody in quite what we call white space opportunities where we have built hotels where there's nothing before us and then where the market is coming. One of those examples are Rulan down the South Of Denmark where they're building a new underwater tunnel over to Germany, where we know it is a high demand for hotels at the moment for the workers.
Speaker 1:And soon you will have a port into Scandinavia where we are the first hotel of the first exit. So that's been one of them. But of course, we are still on growth. So we have a lot of pipeline at the moment. About 10 hotels are quite near to open as well.
Speaker 1:So that's hotels that we're leasing and hotels that we're building as well.
Speaker 3:Another question. I'm curious to hear your perspective based on managing a diverse portfolio. What would you say are one or two of the most important skills hoteliers should have to be successful in today's environment, which is always changing and there's an emphasis on tech, but also an emphasis on high touch hospitality? What do you think makes an individual successful?
Speaker 1:I think you need curiosity to make sure that you are out there looking for things. Sounds like I'm kissing up to you guys, but you guys are doing this. You're kind of putting out data out there to make sure that people know what and what the other people are trying to do. So curiosity is one of them. And the part about data literacy that you actually collect data and you use it for something.
Speaker 1:So you know and can predict whatever future ahead of you, then you're able to get ahead. And I think those two kind of beats experience every time because it's forward and not backward. So yeah, you don't need to be the coder as well. Everybody has AI quite easily at hand. And since it kind of keeps evolving, you need to be in the right places to get that information.
Speaker 1:So yeah, if you have those two, you kind of get away with much, I think, these days.
Speaker 3:Well, I think that's a great note to end on. Thank you so much, Oguyen. It was really great chatting with you. I'm appreciative of all the advice and best practices that you've shared, and I think our listeners will find your story really inspirational and valuable.
Speaker 2:That's all for today's episode. Thanks for listening to Hotel Tech Insider produced by hotel tech report dot 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.
