Using AI to bring humanity back to hospitality

Speaker A: Foreign. Hello, everyone. My name is Davon Rees. I am one third of next generic powered by costar. Uh, we come to you once a month, um, with, and then sometimes it's me and then sometimes it's my other co host Christopher Henry or Omari Head. But today I am live. If you hear a little background noise, if you just hear, see a lot of action going on. I am live at High Tech in San Antonio. Um, and we are at the, uh, hospitality Creators Lab. Right. A part of the hospitality Creators Summit. And yesterday I had an opportunity, uh, to speak at the inaugural hospitality, uh, creator summit. And guess what? I am live with a very special guest. This is my first time doing it, so. You're the first.

Speaker B: Hey, it's always good to be first.

Speaker A: You're the first. I've never done this before. Live at a conference, um, with Andrew Parrot of Alliance and he is going to tell us about yourself. You're going to tell us about your company. You're just going to give us all the tea.

Speaker B: We'll have a good conversation, don't you worry.

Speaker A: We should have had some tea.

Speaker B: We should have had some tea.

Speaker A: We should have had some tea.

Speaker B: That would be very British.

Speaker A: There we go. So you got to share the tea. Let us everybody know who you are and who you're comfortable.

Speaker B: So I'm Andrew Pitt. I'm the SCP of customer experience at Alliance. We are a guest experience platform. We cater for the post booking journey all the way to beyond the stay. And it's really about building your itinerary and connecting you with a hotel so that you can plan your stay and maximize your guest experience. Um, and really make sure you maximize those few, few precious leisure moments that you get to have or business moments that you get to have.

Speaker A: Now I hear a little accent.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: So where are you from?

Speaker B: So I'm British by birth. Uh, I'm half Scottish, so I always say British, not English.

Speaker A: Okay.

Speaker B: My dad's a Scot, so I can't say I'm English.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Um, so now I grew up in sort of the south of England, but then I got to live in Brazil. Got to live in Houston. Oh, nice. So, yeah, I got to live in San Antonio. So yeah. So now in San Antonio.

Speaker A: So we really should have had the tea.

Speaker B: We really should have had tea. It takes me home.

Speaker A: Like, yeah, uh, it takes you home. We would have just spilled out of secrets. So now where is the company based? Out of it.

Speaker B: So the company is based still down on the south coast in the UK in a place called Southampton, not the one up in New York, the proper, the original. So yeah, we're down in Southampton. So it's about 70 miles southwest of London. But great to sort of get away from after being at these conferences and schedule to be able to be there with family and friends, sort of out on the coast and near the water.

Speaker C: Got it.

Speaker A: So now I'm a hotel owner. Right. Um, and so how would your company, how would you help me improve, um, my guest experience or just really at the bottom line? Just the experience itself for the overall hotel.

Speaker B: Yeah. So I think you kind of have to go back to the sort of epicenter of where we sort of started with the product and where we built it from. A lot of us are uh, hotel operators. My background is I worked in hotels in operations. I've been an in room M dining waiter, I've been a receptionist, a concierge, a night manager. And we have a load of those sort of external managers and operators inside the business. And it's all about how do we make it easy for staff to deliver on that experience. Because as a guest I want to go digital and I want it easy and it's on my phone. Um, so we want to make it really frictionless for both parties. So yeah, generally we're looking at how do we maximize those opportunities for your staff. So not a blast email that you're doing one by one, but how do you engage on the channel of choice and in the language of the guests. So we've got everyone everywhere that we want to bring to that.

Speaker A: So walk me through it. Right? So you're coming to me. I have a hotel and my customer service scores are low. Right. My employee M engagement scores are low. So how can your product or software help me Walk me through like step by step.

Speaker B: So step by step we typically go, uh, understand those issues and those concerns and look at sort of how you're operating. But we sort of work it down to make it bite sized chunks that you can work through. So maybe if your guest satisfaction. So maybe there's some operational problems or deliveries in there. And we want to bring in something like messaging that makes it really easy for guests to connect with the front staff or automate it through our AI sort of sidekick that can go in and automate those answers and those responses. So if a guest is asking when's the restaurant opening? That can be handled on tone of voice by each of the sort of agents. So that answers the team and the property in there. So we look at where are those opportunities to enhance that customer experience and make it really easy for the staff as well. Because if it's not easy for the staff, you're not going to get the buy in. Right. We want to be working and pushing uphill, so we really want to make sure that it connects into that. But it's trying to look at how do we bring that guest along that whole journey. So it could start as simple as an email with a link that says, hey, welcome to your next day, Devon, and here's your sort of itinerary and we can work towards building that. Or you may just want to have them check in online so they can bypass the front desk, which is what we do with loads of people.

Speaker A: Well, I'm old school. I like ladies working just like edges working hotels. I like talking to people. Right. Sometimes I may do like the digital key and I go straight to my room. So, okay, so I just want to understand this. Right. So I check into my room and then your software would send, uh, like a text or an email to me and then I get that instant response like, how does that work now? Now I'm a guest, you explain it to me from a hotel owners or the hotel. But now I'm a guest, I want to understand it.

Speaker B: Yeah. So as a guest, you would go in and there's a load of options. It doesn't have to just wait till check in. It can happen the second you've made that booking because we want to take that opportunity to plan that stay or get you connected to the hotel. So in your confirmation email, you'll be able to WhatsApp or SMS or message to them and that channel stays all the way through your stay. So you're able just to start just quickly messaging them and saying, hey, when can I do this? Or that can create service orders and tickets behind the scenes and automate towel delivery for you if you want.

Speaker A: Okay.

Speaker B: Or it can do the quick instant response that will tell you the best restaurants around, because the concierge or the guest relations team have taken the time to put their recommendations into Alan. So you get to curate it. It's all yours as a team and property to bring it together to deliver your guest experience. We're just the delivery mechanism for it.

Speaker A: I love that. Now. So my hotel is limited service. Right. So it may not need as much love and care. Right. Um, because it doesn't have as many services, but I love seeing it. Hotels like the Waldorf Astoria and Four Season and you, you know, we need that extra touch we want. And now we're in an Age where we need that, that, uh, instant interaction. So it sounds like that your software is able to do now, do you work with all types of brands?

Speaker B: Yeah, we work with all types of brand, both sort of select service and sort of full service luxury.

Speaker A: Wonderful. Okay.

Speaker B: And I think there's a really interesting flywheel effect, right. You've got the luxury customers are really trying to look at how do they deliver in a digital world the experience that they give as a human. On the other end of the flywheel, you've got the select service brands that are wanting to automate that sort of piece, but they also want to enhance the guest experience. They don't want to give a poor experience, they really want to give a good experience. So they both learn from each other, which for us is a really cyclical sort of thing. So we've got those big select service brands that are pushing us more to automate. And the benefit is we see the luxury teams and taking that so that they can deliver more personalized service. So actually they actually really complement the two sort of journeys of a guest experience. So, yeah, it's really interesting for us.

Speaker A: Oh, yeah.

Speaker B: So we've got people like Premier Inn, Easy Hotel, Molly's, and then we've got Four Seasons and Rosewood and Mandarin. So we've got both sides.

Speaker A: So you can work with all brands.

Speaker B: M. Yeah, and we love that. And we love that scale and like the optimization of how do we check that room in and automate that because there's a premier inner guests. I want to go straight to my room potentially because I've been working all day, I'm staying the night, and then I'm back out working the next day. And I just want to be in and out and I want the friction needs that I can go to the restaurant. And then for the big sort of luxury brands, they want to really curate your itinerary and they really want to maximize it. You're going to this destination, you really want that sense of place, and you maximize on that journey for them now.

Speaker A: So this podcast is called Next Gen and Lodging. Right. And so we actually came up, my co host and I, we came up with this idea during COVID and. And we were like, okay, so what's the future of hospitality? Right? And then the future. Not even from just like a technological standpoint, from the employee standpoint. Right. Because a lot of times when you work in hotels, you know, you get burnt out. Right. And so it sounds like that your software kind of helps that. Right. It helps that problem. And taking us into the Next generation and keeping. So that way we can really focus on the guest experience. As an employee, we're not as burnt out, like, oh, my gosh, we can't get this call immediately. Uh, you know, the guest needs a towel. And we had a call and nobody's answering the phone. And so it just sounds like that your system, it just, it makes it really easy. You know, just for me, just thinking as an employee standpoint, it just helps makes my life a little bit easier.

Speaker B: Yeah. I think from. We have that great benefit of traveling a lot and also working really closely with our customers. And I think for us, we really want hospitality to be human. We think the future is the people that can deliver on the intangible thing that's really hard to replicate. The something that your competitor isn't going to be able to reproduce. It really is a you and a distinct thing that brings people back because that's what. That's your secret source.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker B: And we want you to be able to focus on your secret sauce. We're talking about reconciliations and all the processes that happen.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: We see a real opportunity for the agentic AI pieces to take that over, which therefore means that I'm then taking my. My staff and I'm putting them on the pedestal and saying, I now want you to be really, really human and I want you to really connect. And I think that's the interesting thing. If I'm in San Antonio and I go to a hotel and I've got a local that's sort of like, hey, this is my city and this is what I want to show you.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker B: That for us, the epitome of the future is actually you've got all of these masters of crafts and know their areas. Like, the bartender probably knows the best bars around. Right. And we want that information to be coming out and, uh, not the process to get in the way. So how do you make those real connections and that intangible piece.

Speaker A: Oh, I love that. I love that. You know, and so. So I'm checking in and I get the text. Right. Which I love. Or I get the email and then you're with me throughout the whole process. Right. So what about post process?

Speaker B: Yeah, so.

Speaker A: Or post checkout or getting close to that.

Speaker B: So currently, today, that you can still do that, you can still connect. We've got customers that say, oh, no, I want to stuff it off. And it's like, why? Like, if I want to get my bill and I'm doing my expenses, like, just do that. So I think that's building Those connections and that just sits in your imessage or your WhatsApp or it sits there and you want to be able to reconnect and ask questions or, or rebook. Right. I think, you know, you're now great, you're now in a place really familial to where family and friends are. And now you've got brands and hotels and customers in there and then actually you have it all in um, one place. So it becomes really easy for the guest experience. But I think in the future, if we're talking next gen, do you need to check in or check out? Right. Or are those just dealt with differently? We've kind of put a standard process if we think about hotels. You're kind of at the very end of the sort of travel journey. You've been through the flight, you've done the check in on the plane, you get to the destination. I don't want to be doing a load of admin here. Right, exactly. And then we remove that friction from the journey, um, to make it better for both staff and guests.

Speaker A: Okay. Okay. Now as far as I know, I see that you're international. Right. Um, is there like a typical hotel like size? Like um, you know, mine is 85 rooms. So what's the smallest hotel and what's the largest hotel that you all will work with?

Speaker B: Uh, the smallest I think, think is 56 rooms.

Speaker A: Okay.

Speaker B: Uh, the largest individual hotel is 3660 rooms.

Speaker A: Okay. So you can handle that.

Speaker B: So we've got again the size. Yeah, so it's really interesting. And then we've got brands that are one hotel all the way up to a thousand hotels and we've got some that ah, are doing a few more than that.

Speaker A: So can you customize it based on, you know, or is it like a standard a. This is what you have. This is, this is our box. This is what you have to work with.

Speaker B: We aim to try and allow you to configure it so that you can put in, make it feel like yours and your brand. So it's got your, the links are all branded yours. It feels trustworthy, it feels safe, it feels secure. Because I think those are the things as a guest matter to me. Right. Making sure that I'm putting my credit card or I'm sending you messages that you're keeping that safe. So no, for us you can configure it, make it feel like your own and yeah, keep it on point.

Speaker A: So if I'm a hotel owner, right. Or even a general manager or even a Director rooms. And I'm listening to this podcast because I, like, listen to it every month. Right. So I'm listening. But I want to know, like, how can I get in contact with you?

Speaker B: That's great, great question. So alliance.com so, uh, not the insurance company, but alliance.com we have all the information about all the different pieces that we offer because we allow it to be a LEGO system. So you can take bits and pieces. You need to take the whole thing. But m. Go to alliance.com, fill in the demo request. You can also use our chat on there to ask loads of questions about what the products do as well, make it really easy and reach out or connect with us on LinkedIn. We're all available and ready to help you deliver a better experience.

Speaker A: Ooh, that sounds amazing.

Speaker B: Thank you.

Speaker A: So, one last thing.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: How would you compare? Why would I choose you over your competitors?

Speaker B: I think we are built by hoteliers for hoteliers. And, you know, that's a big difference. And a lot of people say that, right?

Speaker A: No, but that's a big difference.

Speaker B: We spent a lot of time. We really try and understand the operations. We work really closely with our partners to make sure that we're. We are learning and they're learning and we're maximizing the opportunity as we don't want you to sit still. And they go, you bought something. And then in two years time, you're like, oh, it hasn't changed or improved.

Speaker A: Oh, wow.

Speaker B: Constantly.

Speaker A: So it constantly changes.

Speaker B: Constantly changing and improving because the guest constantly changes, the guest constantly changes, and the tides change and the motions change. Like a couple of years ago, would we have had so much AI in the system? No. And I think. But that benefits the teams now. And we're seeing really great, um, sentiment improvements and quality responses. So, no, I think we work really closely with our customers and our partners to deliver and maximize on that experience.

Speaker A: Oh, my goodness, this is amazing.

Speaker B: And if we aren't. Reach out to me. My email's all over the website. You can reach out to me and tell me where we're not hitting the standards.

Speaker A: Also, they can contact you directly.

Speaker B: They can contact me directly.

Speaker A: Amazing. Well, thank you so much for joining us today. Um, you know, we had a great time yesterday.

Speaker B: Yeah, no, it's fantastic.

Speaker A: Thank you for, you know, for sponsoring. I'm on the, on the council. And, um, this has just been an amazing conversation.

Speaker B: Thank you.

Speaker A: I like, um, I'm asking these questions because I had to put my hotel owner hat on. Right.

Speaker B: You have to put your hotel owner, your guests, your staff, you gotta do it all.

Speaker A: I had to think about all of that and I think you did a great job.

Speaker B: Thank you.

Speaker A: Answering those questions. Um, so we will see you all next month. My name is Da' Von Rees, the co host of NextGen and lodging or 1/3 of NextGen and lodging and we will see you next month. Thank you. Foreign.

Speaker C: Hello, I'm Luke Haynes, People Newsletter Editor, Costar News and the host of Top Credentials, a monthly podcast exploring the colourful careers of those working at the top of UK commercial real estate. In the episodes, we discover the valuable lessons influencing the daily decision making of property sector leaders and hear about the aspects of their job that make it a little easier to get out of bed each morning. We'll also ask for their views on the latest news and policies shaping our constantly evolving industry and even get them to share a famous quote or song title they think defines their career or the profession. Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

Speaker B: This episode was recorded on June 15, 2026 and edited by Sean McCracken. Visit costar.comhotelnews for more from Costar News Hotels and find all of our podcasts on Apple, Spotify, YouTube or your platform of choice.