Transcript
[00:00:00] Maurits Bots: Pick a process, break it down into small steps, and see where you can already automate something, but just start somewhere.
[00:00:20] Matt Welle: Hi, everyone. Welcome back to another Matt Talks Hospitality. And this week, I wanted to talk to one of my favourite Dutch hoteliers, Maurits Bots, who's joining us from Westcourt Hotels. Maurits, thank you for joining us today.
[00:00:32] Maurits Bots: Thank you, Matt, so much for having me.
[00:00:34] Matt Welle: Can you share some of your background? Because you've had an interesting background to get to where you are today.
[00:00:39] Maurits Bots: Yeah. Yeah. So, I'm at hotel school in The Hague.
[00:00:43] Matt Welle: The good one.
[00:00:44] Maurits Bots: Yep.
[00:00:45] Matt Welle: The Hague is where I studied as well.
[00:00:46] Maurits Bots: Yeah. I went to London on the assumption that everything happens in London. So I did a traineeship as a duty manager in a hotel of an Italian chain, Jolly Hotels, which was just acquired by NH, Spanish. So my first, exciting experience was the whole cross-cultural management traineeship to understand how Italians and Spanish people do not think alike, do not work alike, and then being the Dutch guy, coincidentally, because the hotels of the NH headquarters was in the Netherlands. I was presumed to be one of those spies to come and check if the brand standards were in order and all that. In 2009, a few of those banks fell over, and that ended. I came back home here in the Netherlands, did a lot of jobs, as they say, through agencies in various hotels, really to get to know, like, what is the type of hotel that you wanna work in, because during my hotel school, I just realised I wanna work in hotels. I wanna do this, like, theatrical entertainment at the front end. I really wanted to engage with guests, and I loved it. So, at one point, I got a call from a friend of mine who said, like, Hey, the Krasnapolsky, the NH Krasnapolsky is looking for an assistant F&B manager. I got the job. So that was amazing, worked for three and a half years as an assistant. The F&B manager left. I was asked to take his role. So I became the F&B manager for the Krasnapolsky, which is, obviously European standard’s a big hotel, a big banqueting, multiple restaurants. So at one point, I was 28, 29, running a hotel with 120 employees, for the F&B side of things. Also, that ended. And then, obviously, what do you wanna do with your life? So I decided, let's do something that everybody in the hotel industry, I believe, everybody in the hotel industry likes to do, and it's open a hotel. So, being part of an opening team with another client of yours, Wynn Hotels, opened one of her properties, which was really nice, really hard work, long days, but for me, at one point, trying to also create a family. And we were really looking like, how can we find ourselves in more of calmer water? But I really did not want to leave the hotel industry, and obviously, it's all about networking. So somebody called me again, saying like, Hey, Maurits, Hilton is looking for an IT manager for the DoubleTree. And that's where it more or less, it really fired up. One of the great things that I enjoyed about working for Hilton was the fact that the hotel I worked at was really, obviously, a big one. Almost five hundred rooms, but really one of those hotels that other hotels look at, like, hey, how are they doing? And Yeah. How can we copy some of those procedures? So we had quite some freedom, did a lot of cap explaining to change TV systems, Wi Fi systems, all that and then, yeah, because I was just executing, basically, I really felt like, hey, I wanna have a say in stuff. So I decided to bluff my way into Westcourt as a hotel manager because I assumed I could do that, and that was in 2016. So the Amsterdam business was really firing up at that time in terms of occupancy, ADR, etcetera. Run that hotel with just rooms and breakfast. So, as an FNB-minded person, for me, it was really a playground to get to know the game of selling rooms. Yep, and then COVID hit. And then, obviously, everything stops. And then you really need to find yourself again. Like, what do I really like? What do I really enjoy? And coincidentally, my predecessor left, and I was asked to perhaps fill his role. And I said, sure, but let's do it then in a better way, as in we have in some hotels, we have Mews. But what are we gonna do with that? How are we going to use that new technology, and how are we really going to get the tech running? Because my predecessor was released.
[00:05:03] Matt Welle: In some hotels and some of the other ones, you had different systems. Right?
[00:05:06] Maurits Bots: Yep. Yep. Yeah. Still legacy on-premises. And obviously, we were migrating. We were talking about this, and we were talking about using the new system like the old system. Which obviously is well, I can never get a good idea. I can hear you already. This is not the way it should be, yeah? We need to redesign all our procedures, and we need to, like, consider -
[00:05:30] Matt Welle: When you say that, so, like, that's because, like, redesign all the procedures, like, what is it? Is it a big whiteboard I'm picturing, or do you do this in software, somewhere? How do you do the redesign process?
[00:05:39] Maurits Bots: No. It's just talk, talk, talk, talk, talk. There's, I'd say a million discussions we've had with various people, and it's not like we create a little group and we stick ourselves in a meeting. No. No. Everything was on the go. Everything was really, like, okay. So now we can do this. How are we gonna do that? And some things we couldn't do in the beginning with Mews. So how are we going to do this? Because now we cannot. So we were also forced a little bit to really start working the same way in each hotel, and instead of just allowing all these differences or exceptions, in various hotels, how can we really find what the foundation is, the blueprint is for every hotel, and how are we going to, well, at least, yeah, copy and paste doesn't put the blueprint.
[00:06:28] Matt Welle: I guess you do to some of them and copy and paste.
[00:06:31] Maurits Bots: Yeah. Because, obviously, every hotel is different.
[00:06:33] Matt Welle: But business hotels, but you also have resort hotels. So is the blueprint the same for both active hotels?
[00:06:37] Maurits Bots: No. So in the end, obviously, with the more functionality Mews also brought us in these past seven years, there are so many things now that we're doing differently in the leisure hotels than in the business hotels. We do learn. So, obviously, we're, let me put it this way, we are a very quirky hotel chain. And quirky sounds a bit weird, but we are a bit weird. Every hotel itself is run independently, so the hotel manager is in charge of what we do. And they know the product. They know the guest. So…
[00:07:14] Matt Welle: I was like a nightmare for an IT director.
[00:07:16] Maurits Bots: It's a nightmare. Yeah. But it's fun because the great thing is also working with your teams. We can do a lot of testing because we know for a fact this will work in that hotel, but we're not sure if it will work in the other. So we are constantly looking at, like, how can we use the same systems throughout all the hotels, and how can we learn from each other without really trying to redesign the whole tech stack every time? So for us, the difficult part is to get everybody on board, to really have that hotel manager who's looking in a certain direction. How do we assist that person really in designing the tech stack the way they want it to be? But on the other hand, they can't go too far because then it doesn't fit in the tech stack anymore, and then we need to decide if we're going to change something for the whole chain.
[00:08:09] Matt Welle: If you step back now, a few years later, what's been the most exciting innovation that you've been able to bring to life that we couldn't do 10, 15 years ago when we started hotels?
[00:08:18] Maurits Bots: Oh, that has to be the WhatsApp chatbot. That has to be Runnr.ai. The moment that these guys came to me with just an idea, that was in December 2022. So it was before ChatGPT actually came to life and the fact that it, and what I really loved about it, was we were facing quite the cold volumes to the hotels that people don't read, people don't go to a website to check the FAQ but people were still keen on like, hey, what are the procedures now with COVID still a little bit around? And, so we were really looking for, how can we get all these questions answered automatically? 24/7, multilingual, and how can we do this in a way that a guest doesn't have to go somewhere? And, yeah, it was a star in heaven, basically, because this was the moment that they said, Hey, let's do it on WhatsApp. I was like, if you can do this in WhatsApp, 24/7, multilingual? You're there
[00:09:15] Matte Welle: As an IT director covering so many hotels, how do you build a return on investment for a Runnr.ai like that, the software that we didn't previously have? So I'm thinking, well, we managed without it. So why would we buy something in addition? So, how do you calculate what the return on investment is on a new software, buying in a new category?
[00:09:36] Maurits Bots: Well, what we don't do. We never look at time saved because we're not changing the amount of people working. People will do other things. So time saved is one of those metrics. We don't use that. So yeah. So we're looking at return on investment literally in the revenue. So, how much revenue is this going to bring in? But especially with Runnr.ai at the beginning, there's no revenue yet. And there was no entire upsell scheme, anything was built yet. So we were really, like, discussing if we do this, let's do this for a longer period. So we immediately signed up for three years. No questions asked. We wanna do this. We're gonna do this in the long term. And we really invested in weekly, monthly discussions with them. How is this evolving? How many conversations are we having? How many questions are we answering automatically? How many conversations are we having? And then, obviously, constantly reviewing at the desk with guests just face-to-face, how did you enjoy this conversation with the chatbot? But also reviews, obviously, we checked and double checked every month all the reviews coming in, if there's any mention, be it positive, be it negative, but a return, there was no return. It was just costing us money, but, obviously, because we were in it from day one for the long run, we really pushed and worked together with the team from Runnr.ai to get them to create something that we could at least break even. That was the first goal.
[00:11:09] Matt Welle: You mentioned that you wanted to drive revenue. Does Runnr.ai bring new revenue to you in some way, and how does that work?
[00:11:15] Maurits Bots: Very simple. If you don't book breakfast, and we find breakfast really, really important, some of our hotels are an including breakfast concept, but others are not. So if you booked it without breakfast, we will just ask you if you want to have breakfast and if you do, it books it straight away into Mews. So there's no receptionist having to do something.
[00:11:35] Matt Welle: That is so good. I was at Wall Street in a hotel in Spain, not a Mews hotel. And then I got to the breakfast room, and they sent me right back to the reception desk to add breakfast to my reservation. It was so awful.
[00:11:45] Maurits Bots: Yeah. That's awful. And and, obviously, the the the the guest experience, at least the way that we consider the guest experience to be, is that automation has to be there, but it has to be under the hood. So Yeah. The moment that you realize that you're talking to a a a chatbot, you need to know also the fact that you need to be informed in advance Yeah. That you're talking to a chatbot. And you need to be informed that if you say yes, it will book it automatically. And because of that and because of that, Ed, because trust is a is a is an enormous part of working with, uh, with AI, uh, um, we also decided very early on that the phone number that we're we're chatting with is the hotel phone number. So if there is a trust issue, you can call the number, and the receptionist will answer. Nice. Um, and that's also a choice, right, that we always have a receptionist answering the phone.
[00:12:36] Matt Welle: And are you thinking of deploying voice AI in
[00:12:38] Maurits Bots: the future? Or if you so
[00:12:40] Matt Welle: I actually wanna call, I wanna speak to a human?
[00:12:42] Maurits Bots: We we have been discussing that before. At this moment, we are really going for a human being on the phone. So the moment that you have taken the time and energy to call us Yeah. Then we will answer.
[00:12:53] Matt Welle: Yeah. And you, um, you've centralized or actually you say the hotels operate on their own. So you don't have a centralized call center where people call in, so they go to the individual hotel then?
[00:13:02] Maurits Bots: It's, uh, like I said, it's a bit quirky. We we we do have centralized offices too, actually. In lay water, there's our financial administration, our personnel administration, and and online marketing. And in Amsterdam, we have a a central office for, uh, distribution, IT, marketing Yeah. Purchasing. So it is we we are scattered, but we're not in the hotels constantly, but we do have people in the hotel who run things. Yeah. So that's a lot of discussions.
[00:13:28] Matt Welle: That was a great example of something you did well. But did did you make any bad decisions as well in your career?
[00:13:33] Maurits Bots: Well, I'm, uh, I think I'm I'm I'm fortunate to say I I didn't really make any bad decisions myself, um, because everything goes in it's always a team effort. Uh, but, sure, there's there's, uh, situations that we now look back at and we're just like, should've, could've, could've.
[00:13:52] Matt Welle: Hope wasn’t Mews.
[00:13:53] Maurits Bots: No. It's not Mews. No. Well, um, uh, obviously, uh, um, everything in in our tech stack, uh, is built around Mews. So for us, one of the few things that we we always say with any integration is, does it work with Mews, but does it enrich Mews? Yeah. It needs to go two ways, uh, with everything. And and some of the integrations, they're not two way, so that's, uh, difficult now to work with. And and, uh, um, uh, so we could just change certain integrations. Sure. But then the question is, are you going to change it for something that does the same thing, or are you going to change it for something that does more than that one same thing? And we've really discussed that uh, already a few months ago, uh, with the owners too. If we change the system, it needs to change for the better. It needs to change for a two way enrichment of systems. It needs to provide a better guest experience or a better employee experience, obviously, because that's also a big part of the job. Um, but it it really needs to be more than just that one replacement because everything obviously comes at a cost. And and it's always the question, are you going to make more revenue by changing a certain system if it just if it does just the same thing? Probably not. Maybe, yes. But then the question is, okay. How much more revenue are you going to bring in because of this and this feature? And, uh, and that's that's difficult at times. Yeah. Absolutely. But, yeah, what we do, uh, with every new integration, uh, that, uh, uh, comes to our door and says like, hey. We can do this a lot better. Uh, we will look at things. And there's always more than one person looking at things simply because we want to have that enrich enrichment. So, uh, um, sure, I'm I'm a big part of that, but also in in terms of distribution, but ecommerce, online marketing, they're all part of that. Uh, operations has a has a big say, and and maybe even the the most important person who's involved in in, uh, deciding a yes or a no for any integration, do we have a hotel where we can actually use this for a benefit, or are we just going to replace something?
[00:16:02] Matt Welle: Yeah.
[00:16:02] Maurits Bots: And, uh, so we're we've we've stopped just replacing something. Um, we've really come to the point that if we do something, we discuss, we ensure that takes quite a lot of time. There's no, uh, today discussion tomorrow. It's implementation. But we really try to find, uh, uh, all these benefits and also scope out the downside of things. Because with a different system comes, again, training, there comes people, uh, needing to, uh, to really understand, maybe change the process. So, uh, bring all that really into scope and then decide, like, okay. So what is the route then we're going to take?
[00:16:41] Matt Welle: And we use you and your team a lot for, like, beta programs and things like and it's because you've asked us to involve you, and so our team loves working with you. Um, but why do you do it? You that is not as distraction for the team to be in all of these trials for new features, etcetera?
[00:16:57] Maurits Bots: Sometimes. Yeah. Sure. Sometimes I've got, uh, I've got hotels that that say, like, hey. Maybe, um, we'll skip this one, and then let us know about the next one. Um, but having 15 hotels, it's quite easy. Uh, there's always a hotel who's interested, and there's always a reason why a certain feature, uh, can work, uh, if it's made the way that we like it to
[00:17:19] Matt Welle: Yeah.
[00:17:20] Maurits Bots: So and and I've always learned that if you wanna change your world, you need to start changing it. So every beta and every inquiry you guys have about any aspect of Mews, if I can nudge a little bit on how you're going to build it towards how I perceive it to be built, that's a win. Yeah. Uh, uh, and the I hate the voice voice
[00:17:41] Matt Welle: in it. Right? We take your feedback really seriously because you're full service, like, high volume hotels. And and if you say that it's right, then we're like, it feels like this is ready for, like, the general population to be rolled out. Yeah. Yeah. And it works really well.
[00:17:55] Maurits Bots: But it's it's terrible to have somebody just complain and and not indicate how it could work. Yeah. And having 15 very different hotels, I can also specify why something would work or why it wouldn't work for this and this and this reason.
[00:18:09] Matt Welle: Yeah.
[00:18:10] Maurits Bots: Um, and and then bringing that to life is just, uh, yeah. Nice. Big fun.
[00:18:14] Matt Welle: I don't know if you remember when I came for cross exposure, uh, at the Jakarta Hotel in Amsterdam, you took me to the housekeeping office, and you sat me down for, like, an hour and a half with, um, the housekeeper there. Do you remember that? Yeah. And then, like, two weeks ago, we announced the acquisition of Flexkeeping. And and when we will send it out, it's probably two months by then. But, um, and it was really from me from you bringing me into the hotel, allowing me to spend a day in the hotel and operations, and actually just seeing how much your housekeeper loved working with flex keeping that I was like, I think there's something here. We need to go down that path. Um, and I'm I'm so thankful that you allowed me that time to just see what's happening out in the markets.
[00:18:53] Maurits Bots: You're welcome. Yeah. Um, I believe I actually told you, like, uh, you need to you need to copy or buy this. So You
[00:18:59] Matt Welle: did say that. I mean, like, you traded something in my head.
[00:19:03] Maurits Bots: Obviously, uh, um, there are there are so many things that we still do every day, uh, without technology in hotels. There's a lot of human touch involved. But every step of the way that we can provide more space for a human being to do the human thing, uh, we should be doing that.
[00:19:21] Matt Welle: Because you said at the start of this conversation that you were looking for this theatrical experience. Like, you get excited about the theaters of of of of hospitality. Do you find that your team at Westcourt is living that dream now?
[00:19:34] Maurits Bots: Uh, I I'd hope so. I'd hope. I'd hope. Um, uh, in some hotels, yes. Uh, because, obviously, as every hotel is doing their own independent thing, um, some hotels are are quite strong in in automation, like Hotel Jakarta. Uh, but other hotels are a little bit behind or at least they don't have the need yet to, uh, start automating. Yeah. Uh, there's still a lot of people a little bit afraid of things, so, uh, it is coming. But what I do see from, for example, trainees, what we do every six months, we do, uh, like, an intern day. We get all the trainees from the chain together in in one of the hotels, and there's workshops. And I always do workshop, and and it's primarily about cybersecurity. But what I understand from from these young new, uh, hotel leaders is is that they're all looking like how how are we now facing technology? What are we doing now on a day to day basis with technology? But where is it going? Yeah. What direction are we taking? And, uh, uh, and they're very invested in understanding what is the goal. Where do we where does Westcourt want to go with this? And, uh, and it's really interesting to see how they, uh, have a very different perspective on things because, yeah, I'm I'm not the youngest anymore. Uh, and it's funny because
[00:20:51] Matt Welle: something from them?
[00:20:53] Maurits Bots: Yeah. No. Sometimes people are quite, uh, upset that we're still so behind Yeah. That we still don't have certain tech in in our hotels, that we're not using AI to its fullest yet. Um, and then I just, I tried to, uh, get them to to come up with with how do you perceive this to be there? What do you consider to be that next thing that we need to do? Um, and that's that's very interesting because some are, yeah, like I said, very invested. They come up with these great ideas, and others are just like, uh, I don't know yet. Can we put pictures on Instagram? Yeah. So it's it it it is quite interesting to see how there's a whole generation, uh, that grew up with this technology as it being very normal where you and I, we're still the cassette deck with a pencil. Right? We've we've we've struggled with technology. And, uh, it's very interesting to see how in some hotels, uh, the teams are really invested in using all the tech, and they're all just constantly, like, asking me for new features. Can can Mews already do this? Can Mews do that? Can FlexKeeper do this? Can can it do that? Where other hotels are just like, Flexkeeping? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Let let's let's not have a phone on the on the work floor because that's, uh, we don't want people to be annoyed or distracted or yeah. And that's just so different in in in so many hotels still, unfortunately. But if you could if if if we look back ten years, everybody was working, uh, uh, on prem doing their own thing, uh, not talking to their software developers, not talking to their competitors even. Yeah. And and nowadays, that's what we do. That's how we learn. That's how we grow. And not just as a single hotel, but as a chain, as an industry, uh, together with our partners in, uh, in in software development like you.
[00:22:45] Matt Welle: So do you think hospitality today is more human than it was twenty years?
[00:22:49] Maurits Bots: No. Absolutely. Yeah? Yeah. Absolutely. I think the the hospitality business is more human. Um, the unfortunate part is that we have seen, uh, with COVID a lot of talent, uh, leaving the industry, and and that's unfortunate because
[00:23:06] Matt Welle: Why do you think that was? What was the reason why they where they left and why they didn't return?
[00:23:11] Maurits Bots: I think why they didn't return is because it it is quite, uh, I think it it it for a big part, why people didn't return to hospitality is because of the hours. Uh, having to work late, uh, evenings, night shifts, uh, that's just difficult. Having a social life, um, during COVID, obviously, people wanted to have a social life, and they they couldn't. And then when they could, they opted for a more
[00:23:36] Matt Welle: Balance.
[00:23:37] Maurits Bots: Yeah. Nine to five Yeah. Weekday kind of, uh, position. Uh, but we are now, uh, and and sure, I mean, uh, COVID is five years ago. Thankfully. But we are seeing a new generation of trainees coming in that are really eager again, that are they they have chosen this industry for the theatrics. They have chosen the industry to to make a difference in somebody's life, and that's just really nice because, uh, uh, you can see that that because of these new people coming in, and, sure, we we see them coming in every six months or so, the new trainees, and then, uh, some, uh, stick around and others leave. But you you see that fire, uh, boiling up again, and you see people enjoying more that human interaction again and using the technology that they have to deal deal with guests more.
[00:24:27] Matt Welle: Yeah.
[00:24:27] Maurits Bots: And to really have that check-in conversation like, hey. I see you. You've been here already a few times. Uh, what's your plan for this stay, and how can we make it even better? And that's, uh, yeah. In in the old days, with the old system, uh, you'd be happy if your profile were merged because somebody recognized your name.
[00:24:44] Matt Welle: Look. If if our teller is listening today that is not using a modern tech stack that still has a server in the back office and is considering moving into the cloud, um, but has worries, worries that the data will go missing, that it's gonna be a problematic experience. How would you go about, um, explaining to them that actually it it can be done? And and what would your advice be? Pick a process, break it down into small steps, and see where you can already automate something, but just start somewhere.
[00:25:15] Maurits Bots: Yeah. Don't make it big. Make it small. Make it really, really small. Uh, but for each and every step and each and every process, there is something to automate.
[00:25:25] Matt Welle: Yeah.
[00:25:26] Maurits Bots: And and it can be just an, uh, an automatic export that converts into a different list or filters it down, uh, with things like Zapier or whatever. Yeah. There's so many things you can already do with on premise, with legacy systems. But if you don't start now, then tomorrow, your competitor has already done it.
[00:25:47] Matt Welle: Yeah.
[00:25:47] Maurits Bots: And you will see this back in your revenue. You will see this in your teams because your employees will be like, hey. I'm not gonna work with this old system anymore. Uh, I've worked with, uh, Mews, for example, in, uh, in my previous hotel for a few years. Uh, I didn't have to do this, this, this, this, and this. And and now I come to this hotel. I need to do all these manual tasks again. I don't want to do that anymore. And is that laziness? Is that arrogant, uh, of these employees? No. I believe if you offer somebody a certain technology and it helps them to do their job better, then they will not accept going back to that old system Yeah. Simply because they know that it can be done. And ten years ago, it couldn't be done. But nowadays, it can be done. So if you don't start as a hotel owner today, at least by adopting or testing or trying and and failing, sure, you will fail. You will drop face down flat on on on the on the ground. Um, but if you don't start now, then you will never get to that point where you are part of the, uh, of the group.
[00:26:55] Matt Welle: Well said. I totally agree. And in that response, you mentioned Zapier, uh, which is one of our our most used integrations, but a lot of people have never heard of it. And it's this if this, then that's all. Right? So people says, if this happens in the hotel, then connect with this tool to do this thing on the other side. What are some of the workflows that you've, um, helped kind of create with Zapier at your hotels?
[00:27:19] Maurits Bots: Well, what we primarily use it for is the automatic creation of tasks. So, uh, somebody books a certain package. Yeah. Uh, and then tasks need to be distributed throughout the hotel, uh, just so that people don't forget, and it's done in time, and that nobody needs to manually create all those tasks because with, uh, in some of hotels, for example, a package has a a bottle of champagne in the room, but also the room needs to be decorated. So there's a task for reception. There's a task for F and B. There's a task for housekeeping. And all these tasks, they're just created now. So the moment the reservation is made, the tasks are in, nobody has to think about anymore. And, uh, all the, uh, the people only have to do on the, uh, at the on the floor. They need to open their task list every day and just do what they have to do. Taking away, sure, a little bit of their ownership of the process, but the fact that somebody needs to check every reservation, that time is past. Yeah. There is no reason to double check every reservation every day anymore because we can automate these things. We should automate these things.
[00:28:22] Matt Welle: So good.
[00:28:23] Maurits Bots: Freeing up a lot of time for this one individual to, I don't know, talk to people just to have fun, interact with guests instead of going through all these difficult motions of just, oh, yeah. So I need to create a task, and and you need to think of, okay. So for when is this? What's the arrival date? What time?
[00:28:42] Matt Welle: It takes a lot of cognitive load.
[00:28:44] Maurits Bots: Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. And and it's it's a very simple thing just to set up. So it's, uh, um, yeah. That that's it works, uh, amazing.
[00:28:52] Matt Welle: Are you doing any exciting experiments at any of the hotels right now?
[00:28:55] Maurits Bots: We are actually now, uh, trying well, we're not trying actually because it works. Uh, we're using AI in our buildings to better regulate heating and cooling. How? Yeah. Well, uh, as smart people, because I'm not really too sure on how because, obviously, uh, AI is a is a big black box. But the the algorithm, it takes into consideration, obviously, use of space, uh, how much heating and cooling is going in and out, uh, what's the weather like outside. Uh, we're hoping Mews to to join in soon to also getting the occupancy Nice. Uh, based on, obviously, rooms and and and and spaces as a whole. And and with all that, it it creates a better understanding if you need to be warming up or cooling down a certain area because of the usage, not just at this moment, but also in the coming hours, days, months. Yeah. So in instead of just turning on the heat and then it's on for the whole season, uh, let's really drill drill down to when, where, and and how much do we heat and cool a building. It's better for sustainability, obviously Yeah. And for the bottom line because it's it's a lot of money is going into, uh, uh, into energy.
[00:30:10] Matt Welle: So we
[00:30:10] Maurits Bots: Um, Yeah. We already we're ever running in two hotels, and we're seeing a decrease in, uh, in energy consumption. So it's, uh, there's only benefits to it.
[00:30:18] Matt Welle: Fantastic. What do you think is still one unresolved, um, problem in hospitality that you wish that someone would go and tackle within, you know, a new startup or Mews or someone in the marketplace?
[00:30:28] Maurits Bots: That's a very difficult one because the diff the the the difficult part is always there is already so much that can be done, and we're still not doing it. I think the in in overall, uh, having a solution, uh, that fits everybody would be amazing.
[00:30:47] Matt Welle: Yeah.
[00:30:47] Maurits Bots: But the problem is there is no everybody. Every person individually, be it the guest, be it the employee, be it the hotel is different. I'm perceiving perhaps that in ten, fifteen years, we are so far we are so far advanced as human beings that your personal AI knows you fullest Yeah. And that a system like a PMS can interact with that individual AI database, whatever. And based on that, it will create the perfect stay for that individual. And and, obviously, there's a lot of things that still need be need to be done. Yeah. Uh, not to mention security wise, where are we going to store all that information. But in in in essence, if you would have, like, a digital twin, that digital twin knows you the best and can, uh, interact with the PMS and and really create the perfect stay so that as a human, more or less, everything has been handled, has been organized, keeping, obviously, the room for the human touch because that's also at the balance. When are we going to upsell you something that you are really not interested in? When are we going to give you, uh, an upgrade if we could have sell sold you the update? Uh, I mean, let's not over automate. Yeah. It needs to be the human in the loop. The human needs to be in charge. Um, and that can be the human guest, but it also needs to be the human employee. And and that's, uh, that's gonna be a very interesting technology coming in
[00:32:26] Matt Welle: the next
[00:32:27] Maurits Bots: in years.
[00:32:28] Matt Welle: And, like, I think a lot of people are worried about it, but it's your choice to share information. And if you are willing to share, you can have great, great experiences in the future. If you're not willing to share, that's okay as well. I think and I think as long as the choice is there, it's important. Yeah.
[00:32:42] Maurits Bots: Yeah. I think, uh, I think we we have to, uh, have that choice Yeah. Always. Uh, because myself, I'm an individual. Uh, I want to control my choices. I want to know what the hotel knows of me. Yeah. I want to be able to toggle on or off. I want to be able to add interests myself. Uh, I want the hotel to know that I'm allergic to nuts so that they don't put a bowl of nuts in my room when I arrive. Yeah. I want the hotel to understand I don't drink alcohol or that I do drink alcohol. You know? I mean, a a few of those examples you've given yourself as well in during this podcast. If you travel with your dog and you want the hotel to know that you're traveling with your dog, then you you make a note. Right?
[00:33:24] Matt Welle: Yeah. Exactly.
[00:33:25] Maurits Bots: My dog. If you don't travel with your dog, you'd probably or at least that's an assumption that I'm making, but you don't want to stay in a room that just had a dog in there. So it's every stay can be different. Every human being, every, uh, expectation can be different for each and every stay. Uh, and as a human, you need to be in charge of that flow of that information, what is shared, what is done, etcetera.
[00:33:50] Matt Welle: And as a last question, so what's the future of your role? The role of someone who runs IT across a portfolio of hotels, is that role growing, or will it shrink off one?
[00:33:59] Maurits Bots: No. No. Well, uh, for the coming fifteen years, I'm set, um, because there's so much more coming in terms of tech. Um, obviously, in in in, uh, twenty five years ago, uh, almost nothing was technology other than the check-in system. Uh, but now I'm dealing with payment providers. I'm dealing with elevator services because they're Wi Fi operated, and, uh, I'm dealing with camera systems. I'm dealing with lock vendors. I'm dealing with what have you struggles. Uh, everything. Um, and there's so much more just coming now to tech. Uh, um, uh, my colleague and I, we we joke about the fact we're basically, we're waiting on the moment that housekeeping is going to call IT to change the toilet roll because the toilet roll says through the Wi Fi that the roll is out. I like that. We're going that way, Uh, probably because there's a screen on there showing an ad for something or or just to say, like, hey. I'm out of paper. Um, but there's more and more and more now becoming tech. Uh, and I think for the role itself as an IT director, it's really about culture. It's about training, learning people to understand, uh, over explaining why we're doing things. So to really get everybody on board because that's for the for the shorter term, the biggest, uh, challenge that we have. Yeah. Getting everybody on board to really understand the why. Why are we doing certain things in a certain procedure with certain automations, uh, and why are we not doing this manually anymore? How many errors were made in the past and how many are made now because of the automation? It should be zero. It's never zero. But but overexplaining
[00:35:42] Matt Welle: Yeah.
[00:35:43] Maurits Bots: Really training people, learning them, uh, educating them, and and and and, uh, probably, uh, creating that culture of accepting, embracing, uh, the the technology.
[00:35:55] Matt Welle: Maurits, it sounds like we will be working together for the next fifteen years at least, which excites me because, actually, you're one of my favorite people. Whenever we have new ideas, we throw your way. And I and I love that you always grab it, and you're like, let's test it out. And thank you for doing that. I know that it it's not a given, and I really appreciate everything you do from Youse and and the advocate that you are. Um, and thank you for joining and sharing your experiences today.
[00:36:16] Maurits Bots: So thank you so much for having me.
