Hospitality podcast

In this week's episode, Matt sits down with Alexander, founder of Atomize RMS, a Mews Company, to dive into the world of revenue optimization. They explore how revenue management software can help hotels of all sizes, the state of RMS adoption and the undeniable revenue uplift these systems provide.

Timur Dikmen, Solutions Architect Lead at Mews, joins Matt to talk integrations, automation and why your tech should match your hotel brand (with a PMS at the heart of it all). Whether you're an independent hotel or a global brand, aligning your tech with your brand promise is key. Tune in to discover how smart integrations can transform your hotel’s profitability.

In this episode, Matt sits down with Conor Winders, VP of Product and Engineering at Mews, to explore the power of AI in hospitality. They discuss the latest innovations in travel technology, the role of AI, and the exciting concept of invisible hospitality. If you’re curious about where to start with AI yourself, tune in.

In this episode, Matt talks about why it’s time for hoteliers to shift their focus – from Revenue per Available Room to Revenue per Available Guest. He breaks down what really drives spend, like smarter guest data and seamless self-service and how to turn one-time stays into long-term loyalty. Plus, how Mews helps make it all happen.

In this episode, Matt sits down with Susanne Sandler, GM of Fintech at Mews, to talk about a new feature of Mews - Multicurrency. They discuss the challenges cross-border payments create for international guests – from unfamiliar currencies to hidden fees – and how Multicurrency enhances the guest experience and boosts hotel revenue in the process.

Matt and Ellen, CMO at Atomize, talk about how Atomize RMS enables real-time, context-aware price optimization for hotels. They explore the shift toward total revenue optimization, the power of guest data and reflect on what defines exceptional, future-focused hospitality.

Matt sits down with Michael Fitzsimmons, VP of Growth at Mews, to talk about how hotel websites function as digital business cards. They explore how structure, content and design influence whether a website visitor converts into a paying guest.

Why is Mews called Mews? Matt and Mews founder Richard Valtr takes us back to where it all began and what still drives the company today.

Matt shares his 10 favorite new Mews features, such as Apple Wallet keys, AI tooltips, dynamic pricing, automated workflows and more. All to help you work with more efficiency, keep staff and guests happy and earn more evenue. Plus, we throw in two bonus features.

Joshua Edwards, Operating Systems Manager at Penta Hotels, shares how a major cyber attack became a turning point for the hotel group's cybersecurity. In response, they rebuilt their strategy around six core pillars: protect, prevent, detect, respond, recover and review. The overhaul included a new IT team, staff training on phishing, and tools like two-factor authentication and password managers.

Is there joy in PMS migration? There can be, when it's done right. In this episode, Matt talks to Manisha Athukorala, VP of Deployment and Customer Success at Mews, about the secrets behind what really makes switching to a new PMS successful. Hear how flexible training, smart use of AI and strong partnerships help hotels stay on track while everything behind the scenes changes.

Matt talks to Ryan Tomlinson, VP of Product and Engineering for Platform Enablement at Mews, about what it takes to keep a global hotel platform reliable and secure. He explains how the team utilizes cloud infrastructure, protects customer data and builds tools that help developers move fast – all so hotels can scale without disruption.

AI chatbots are flooding the hotel tech space, but which of them actually deliver? In this episode, Matt puts the spotlight on the top 4 AI chatbots on Mews Marketplace and asks the founders to pitch their products. You'll hear from Evan Chen (Akia), Jeremy Atlan (Duve), Michiel de Vor (Runnr.ai) and Tiago Araújo (HiJiffy).

Claudia Meglin, Director of CMC Hospitality Software, has seen it all – botched migrations, bloated rate plans and hotels that swap systems without fixing what’s actually broken. In this episode, she joins Matt to unpack why so many PMS projects go off the rails, how to prepare your teams for go-live day and what smart hoteliers do before even touching their tech stack.

Rebecca Lane knows every inch of Paradise Resort. Having started as a server, 15 years later she’s now running revenue across the entire property. Rebecca’s seen the hotel transform from outdated systems and long check-in lines to one of the best rated family resorts in Australia. In this episode, she tells Matt how better tech and a shift in focus helped the team stop chasing room revenue alone and look at the full picture.

It’s Friday at 3pm, the lobby hums and the line at the reception snakes past the elevators. Guests tap their feet. Staff keep their heads down. Familiar pain? In this episode, Matt explores the real reason hotel queues build up and how technology can keep arrivals and departures flowing without piling pressure on the front desk.

Hospitality is at its best when everything just works. That’s the idea behind the very first Mews Summer Release, aptly named Smooth Operations. It's a bundle of new Mews features intended to make hotel operations (and stays) smoother. Think guest ID & selfie collection, wallet-based room keys, guest lifetime value insights and automatic payment routing, among others. Adam Britton, Product Director at Mews, joins Matt to talk it all through.

When AMANO Group asked independent turnaround consultant Mirco Weber to review their hotel accounting processes, it didn’t take long to see the problem ran deeper. He found that the entire tech stack needed rebuilding, including the PMS. That shift triggered both a systems and a concept change, as AMANO rolled out Mews and rethought how guests are welcomed, including removing the reception desk at some of their hotels.

For this end-of-year special, Matt is joined by Mews founder Richard Valtr. Except this time around, they both ask each other questions. What was the first app they opened this morning? What advice have they ignored? What decision looked smart at the time but almost broke the company? From there, they talk about the drivers behind great hotels, the core of hospitality and the 13 years of working together to shape Mews into what it is today.

What can the hospitality industry expect in 2026? Especially given the rapid development of AI and the fact that a third of travelers already use LLMs to search and get travel inspiration. Wouter Geerts, Director of Market Research at Mews, joins Matt to break down the 2026 Hospitality Industry Outlook report, shaped by conversations with 18 industry experts, including hoteliers, tech vendors, consultants and investors. You’ll hear about the changing AI use cases in hotels, new guest behavior patterns and what determines which hotels get surfaced and booked in 2026.Download 2026 Hospitality Industry Outlook

Cocoons and capsules sit at the heart of Zedwell Hotels’ London city-centre vision, where rooms are designed around sleep, efficiency and the realities of urban life rather than tradition. In this episode, Matt speaks with Halima Aziz, Head of Hotels at Criterion Hospitality, which owns and operates Zedwell Hotels, about turning forgotten city spaces into some of London’s most profitable hotel real estate, all while removing TVs, kettles and even windows from the rooms.

Can a hotel run with one seventh of staff and still outperform its peers? Bob W is built for the modern traveler who wants the best of both worlds: the consistency and reliability of a hotel, with the space, utility and local feel of a short-stay apartment. But what truly sets Bob W apart is its software-first mindset. Niko Karstikko, Co-founder and CEO of Bob W, joins Matt to explain how Bob W blends apartments, hotels and automation into a new hospitality category.

When hotel GMs receive hundreds of emails from software vendors claiming to be the best, judging new tech becomes difficult. That exact problem led to Hotel Tech Report, one of hospitality’s most-trusted review platforms. Its co-founder Jordan Hollander joins Matt to talk about what goes into hotel tech buying decisions. The episode lands as Mews wins Best PMS for the third year in a row and Best POS at the 2026 HotelTechAwards, run by Hotel Tech Report.

Hotels have spent years trying to convince guests to skip daily cleaning through towel reuse signs, drink vouchers or loyalty points. Having run large city hotels, Floris Licht saw firsthand how none of those ever worked. He ended up founding Hotels for Trees, a non-profit that turns skipped room cleans into forests. One skipped clean –⁠ one tree planted, with over 800 thousand trees planted so far. Floris joins Matt to explain how Hotels for Trees fits into hotel operations, from door hangers to the digital guest journey with Mews.

Can a hotel brand successfully scale while building social impact into its business model? The Social Hub, now certified as a B Corp, is built on the belief that a hotel can serve its city as much as its guests. The Social Hub’s Founder and CEO, Charlie MacGregor, shares what it takes to keep profit high and purpose alive as the company scales.

Vicky Irwin has spent over six years shaping how Mews looks, sounds and feels as the company's Creative Director. In light of Mews launching a new identity, she joins Matt to talk about branding in hospitality. What is a brand when you strip away the logo? What makes hotels feel disconnected from their own identity? And when does a rebrand become necessary? Listen in.

How do you grow from one hotel into a group and don’t become a rigid chain? Inge Decuypere, Owner of C-Hotels, breaks down the operational choices and technology decisions that enabled their growth from a single property to a multi-hotel group along the Belgian coast. Inge also shares how walking away from a global franchise meant gaining control over their own operations, without sacrificing the occupancy they'd built.