The Philosophy and Psychology of Deploying New Technology | with Simone Puorto
GAIN Momentum episode The Philosophy and Psychology of Deploying New Technology | with Simone Puorto
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Adam Mogelonsky: Welcome to the GAIN Momentum podcast, focusing on timeless lessons from senior leaders in hospitality, food service, travel, and technology. I'm here with my co host, Zoe Kombuzi. How are you?
Very good. Thank you. Very happy to be here.
Great to have you. And our special guest today is a fellow GAIN advisor, author, and founder of Review, Simone Porto. Simone Porto.
Simone Puorto: for
Adam Mogelonsky: Come vai?
Simone Puorto: bene. Molto bene.
Adam Mogelonsky: Molto bene. certo. we'll keep it for English. Uh, so that way we can appeal to everyone who doesn't know la bella lingua. Simone, before getting into our first key question of four that we structured this podcast around. I just want to give you a little bit of a plug for your new book that's out, We Are the Glitch.
And I'm wondering if you [00:01:00] could unpack what that book is about and your reason for writing it right now.
Simone Puorto: Well, thank you so much. So, yeah, that's the book. Uh, We Are The Glitch, uh, just came out, uh, in, uh, late April now. Uh, it's been a couple of years of, uh, work and research. mainly the main reason why I wrote the book was to, uh, Make it a little clearer, my vision on artificial intelligence, uh, web3, and what we can call the metaverse, even though it's not really a word that I do like, and the possible impact in the hospitality industry.
it's Partially, more like a philosophical book, you can put it like that, like the first 100 pages or so, I put it in the the preface, I said, look, you're not going to learn anything from the first 100 pages, it's just me, you know, mumbling about what I [00:02:00] think will be the future of the technology.
And then we move a little more into possible. applications now of these different texts and applications in the next few years.
Adam Mogelonsky: It's funny you mentioned the philosophy of artificial intelligence because my first thought is that goes all the way back to Ray Kurzweil's first or second book on artificial intelligence,
Simone Puorto: it's a
Adam Mogelonsky: You know, I guess you're just, yeah, you're, you're standing on the shoulders of giants, right?
Simone Puorto: Oh yeah, big time. Yeah, big time. Well, actually, it probably goes even, uh, like, farther than that. Uh, I I quote, uh, Gunther Anders, that's a, that's a philosopher that, uh, actually spoke quite a lot, about, uh, machines more than, but you know, you can read it as artificial intelligence now. And this was like, uh, probably 120 years ago or something like that.
if you do have enough [00:03:00] alcohol in your body, you can probably go back to Socrates and Plato as well when it comes to looking at machines. So, yeah.
Adam Mogelonsky: Yeah. I mean, you could go all the way back to, uh, ancient Jewish texts with the Golem. You can go back even farther if
Simone Puorto: They do, believe it or not, they do mention the column in the book. Yeah,
Adam Mogelonsky: Yeah. Um, so I guess one final follow up is the whole reason for This entire podcast, when we were first ideating it around two years ago to, to this, to the day when we're recording here on October 2024, look back two years ago, and we were, we were talking and saying, every senior leader in hospitality or major industries, they have enough knowledge and experience to write a business book, but they just don't have the time.
So Simone, where do you find the time to write?
Simone Puorto: I make the time that literally it goes like that. Look, look, [00:04:00] what I can tell you is this is my fifth book. and I do write books for a reason, and that has nothing to do with. You know, the, the idea of having my name on, on a piece of paper is more than, it's more that for me it is really a way to get all of these different thoughts that I do have and just give them some little structure, right?
So it's, it's something that I do anyway. So, After a little while you pile up, you know, words and words and words, and it could be like notes, mental notes, stuff that I, you know, I record, it could be voice messages to myself, and at some point you do have enough material that you can write a book.
So, And I would say this happen pretty much every, I would say, 24 months, probably 24 to 30 months. And so it's really just a question of sitting down and just creating some kind of structure. And, uh, the book is pretty much done. So, [00:05:00] I would say that when I start writing a book, the book is already written in my mind.
It's just a question of sitting down now and just putting all the pieces together. And then I always like to do it in a way that is a little, uh, less, uh, self centric. Uh, so I do have, like, four or five people that I trust. And, uh, four or people that I do not trust and, uh, I asked them to take a look at the first draft and, uh, they gave me some feedback and that's how it works.
so once I have everything in my mind, I would say it takes probably three, four months to write it. And this is just probably, uh, two or three hours a day of the work or, you know, when we travel on a train, on an airplane. And, uh, but the, the majority of the work is done by then. It's, it's really just a question of sitting down and cleaning it up.
and on top of that, um, you know, you can say a lot of stuff about, uh, negative [00:06:00] stuff about, um, traditional, uh, Publishing companies, but they always give you like an amazing editor. So you don't have to deal with, you know, checking typos or, you know, maybe if you got a source wrong, they will check it out for you.
So that, you know, it takes quite a lot of time to do that. So it's usually, it's usually that. So here you are, here's the time.
Adam Mogelonsky: Awesome. Well, it sounds like a very meditative process and that you have it down, but Simone, we're going to dive into our first key question here, which is when it comes to scaling a business, what is the single piece of advice you would give entrepreneurs as a professional in hotel technology?
Simone Puorto: Well, scalability is really something different for. different companies, right? Uh, we're looking at, especially in hospitality. And I, as you know, I do mainly work [00:07:00] with Southern Europe, meaning that the majority of the properties I work with are independent properties. and now the paradox is that of course is pretty much easier to scale something when you do have Bigger properties or branded properties, like if we're talking about, I don't know, like 400 key, property, scalability is not even a question of, uh, you don't even think about scalability.
You need to skate at some point, right? While, while you're thinking about maybe like a small luxury boutique hotel in Paris with 20 suites, scalability has a completely different meaning. And to the point that at some point you need to sit down and even though I'm a tech enthusiast, as you know, you need to sit down with these people and look, you know, what we want to scale and will it make sense to scale that?
Are we sure that if we introduce some level of automation, [00:08:00] RPA or AI or whatever, will we actually save time? Because sometimes it's not even, it's not even that, uh, dead black or white. So I would say the scalability means a lot of different things based on the people you talk to. and it's not really a question of, you know, um, Reducing the human touch, whatever that means.
It's more a question of, you really, do you really need to scale that up or, uh, or not? Of course, it's easier when we start, um, uh, working with, like, uh, groups or when you start working with travel tech, for example. Of course, that is, in that case, you really need to, you really need to scale. But I would say that, um, to me, if we stick to the hospitality business, I do have a rule and that is that it's also in my book and I say, look, if you can scale it up with, you know, tech, because that's actually the way we do it, you need to do it in a [00:09:00] way that will not affect the, uh, guest point of view, you know, the experience of the guest.
will not be affected. And when I talk about the guest, it's not all, it's not only the guest that comes with a luggage, it's also your staff, right? So to me, it's always a question of, if you're automating something, if you're trying to scale something up, or if you're trying to go into a more like factory mode or whatever, just make sure that when you do it, the guest and your staff will not feel like their experience is diminished to a certain extent.
And I think, uh, it's pretty challenging, because it's really case by case, and sometimes you're working with very small improvements, meaning that scaling up something could probably make it a little better. But then you need to think if making that better will, you know, going through that process to make that [00:10:00] better will actually play out in the end.
So it's, I would say it's more a question of You know, trying to understand if it's worth it or not. And of course, with more tech being available and tech being overall less expensive than it used to be like 20 years ago, now you do have more and more cases where you can scale up even micro businesses.
Again, you know, it just came back from a couple of big events in Italy, you know that. And in Italy, for example, 95 percent of the properties, they're independent. And of this 95 percent of the properties, 50 percent have less than 40 rooms. So sometimes we're talking about like micro companies. There is a risk that you want to scale something and you really believe that you're doing it for the good of the property, uh, but you end up by, creating more confusion and in some cases scaling it up is not even the main reason why these people want to talk to you.
So I think that it's [00:11:00] probably, now that I think about it, I've never thought about it in these terms, but I think it's probably the most challenging part of my job.
Zoe : Yeah, that's really interesting. I like the way that, um, you not only touched upon the guest experience, Simone, but the staff experience as well. And because it's so important to get staff by and obviously, when you're implementing new technologies, and, you know, I was wondering if you had any examples of how that is generally received by staff and what hoteliers are doing to kind of mitigate that.
Simone Puorto: That's a good one. I always say that in, this industry, we do have a. L word, right? It's a word we cannot even pronounce, and that is labor, right? and I know it's a similar situation in the U.S I know it's a very, it's a similar situation in Canada, but in Europe, and especially in Southern Europe, this is becoming endemic.
It's, it's really a big problem. I do teach at a couple of [00:12:00] business schools in Switzerland, And we got a 50 to 60 percent of the students, uh, that, uh, graduates then move to other, industries, right? Either luxury or retail. To the point that, um, hospitality school now, to me, looks more like a great, uh, Economy school, rather than hospitality school, if you know what I mean, right?
You, you learn these amazing skills that now you can transfer to retail, or to luxury, or to wealth management, or whatever, right? And it's pretty sad, actually. the problem is that, uh, we do not have enough people. So, uh, and it's not even a question of good people. We do not have enough people, not even bad people, it's becoming really a problem.
So, um, I would say that the perception before this labor shortage, and some people will tell you that probably we've been understaffed for probably 20 years, right? But it all [00:13:00] went down after COVID, you know? But before that, I would say that maybe properties were a little more inclined not to include any piece of automation or, or AI or RPA because they were very concerned about losing that human touch.
I would say that now it has become a necessity for a lot of those people. They need to do more or with less with guests that are increasingly. Demanding. So I, I don't think it, it does have that, um, science fiction feel, uh, to it that it used to have like, uh, just, uh, 10 years ago now. of course, again, I think there is, um, there is a big question, uh, but this is more, again, Adam is more like a philosophical question and that is.
I think that we need to sit down and think again what, um, we mean when we say the word [00:14:00] hospitality, right? Because, um, if you think about it, uh, for years we've been used to, uh, uh, whenever we were talking about hospitality, we were, um, Referring to something and we could agree on that, you know, like a hotel with a front office manager and reception.
Somebody was picking up your luggages. Somebody was cleaning up your, uh, room and you know, we're assuming all of these people are humans, right? you need to look at it from a slightly different angle, especially with, you know, the explosion of, you know, Uh, apartments in, in Europe, for example, Airbnb, where, uh, the hospitality experience for the guests is pretty much humorless, right?
You go to an apartment, you don't talk to anybody, you just pick the key from P. O. box or whatever, you know? And my question is, is that still hospitality or hospitality means that there is at least some level of human interaction? [00:15:00] I don't really have an answer, to that. I'm more inclined to think that, the guest needs to have the chance to choose whatever he or she wants.
And so it's not really up to us to define hospitality. but I think this is a pretty big paradigm shift that we never faced before. I would say that, uh, hotels now are probably a little more inclined to include technology without perceiving it as blasphemy.
Adam Mogelonsky: Right, so you're talking philosophically about how we define hospitality and whether that has to, as a prerequisite, include a human to human interaction. And the word to contrast hospitality would be lodging. So Simone, how would you define the [00:16:00] difference between lodging and hospitality?
Simone Puorto: Again, that's, um, that is a good one, but, um, I think that destination has, plays a big role in that, right? Uh, hospitality is also what happens when you're not really In your bed when you're not in, in your room. And I think a lot of that is also the reasons why you're actually traveling. Right. I just wrote a preface for, for a book that a friend uh, published, a couple of weeks ago.
And I went down and, and I tried to find the, the root of the word travel. Right. And with that, whenever you look at. You know, the origin of the words, and usually they're Greek origins or Latin origin. You're always amazed because they never really mean what we're used to think they mean now, right?
And so I said, um, I started with, okay, what is a tourist? And tourist, I didn't, I I never realized it, but it comes from French, tourner, so turn around, [00:17:00] you know, and when you talk about tourism, you're referring to somebody that just moves around, you know, it's more a movement, a, movement.
Implication of the word rather than the experience, right? And, um, the same goes with, um, we got a word in Italian, it's called, uh, that is, uh, viaggiatore. So it means someone that, traveled, but it's slightly different in, in the root. And that again doesn't really mean, a traveler, it means, uh, a luggage, you know?
Uh, viaggiatore comes from viaticum, that's lighting for the stuff you, bring with you when you do travel. And that seems also interesting because, On one side, you got one word that we use in our industry, and that is like a movement declination of the word. The other one is not even a word to define what we do.
It's a word to define what we bring with us when we travel, right? and at the end of the day, I had to come, [00:18:00] come down with and agree with the people that says that probably the best way to call the people that move from one place to another for whatever reason is the experience. And because when it comes to experience, it is more to experiment something, right?
Or to be in a situation that is not only Moving, lodging, in your case, or bringing luggage with you, but it's something else. So I would say that when we talk about hospitality, it's really about Am I having an experience? And it can also be a bad experience. It doesn't even have to be like a local experience or, you know, a great experience.
You know, it could be like a horrible experience, but it's still an experience. You know, like, again, the Latin sort, the Latin root of the word experience is experience. Uh, does have a small part in it that is per experience, you know, it's PER that P E R, it's also in an Italian word that is pericolo, [00:19:00] meaning danger.
So my take is, you know, that is, that PER is You're experimenting something, but while you do experiment something, there is some level of danger, right? You get food poisoned when you travel, you know, and your luggage got stolen and now you need to go around with, you know, no underwear. It happened to me like a billion times.
so I would say that, well, let me put it different. If you come back with a story, I would say that's That's hospitality.
Zoe : You've clearly been to Barcelona on your last travels, am I right? With a story or two.
Adam Mogelonsky: on the note of bad experiences, let's move into our second key question here. So Simone, what are some of the common pitfalls or failures you have witnessed that business owners should look to avoid? When scaling their business.
Simone Puorto: I would say that the number one concern [00:20:00] that I do see every single time we start, and you know, we've done a couple of projects together, Alan, but you know that, it's more a question of the fear of losing part of what they are. This is usually, with tech, it's pretty common. You start, you come up with a new idea, Text app project.
And it doesn't even have to be very advanced, right? It's not even, we're not even talking about, you know, moving to self check ins or, you know, mobile keys. None of that. It's just sometimes something as innocuous as Changing a PMS, uh, creates this fear in the people going through that process.
And I can understand that. and I think there is a psychological reason for that. Because in psychology that is called an availability bias, right? Meaning they remember that they've been through a process that was pretty [00:21:00] painful for them. Like changing a PMS, for example, and now they assume that every time they will change a PMS, they will go through this process again, or it will be even worse.
Uh, it happens to all of us. You know, there is like, uh, traveling with, uh, flying on, on airplanes. It's very safe. Uh, it's probably, I think it's the safest, uh, means of traveling in, in the world. But, uh, but again, you see one airplane crawling and now you think, okay, flying is, is dangerous, right? It's avalability.
Uh, bias. And, um, I always, all, every single time you start scaling up a business, every time you start trying to go in a little more scientific approach with businesses, the main, uh, concern that I do see in the eyes of, the people trying to implement that is always the fear of. Not being true to what they think they are, not even to what they are, but what they [00:22:00] think they are.
Right. And with technology, I think this is, this is like number one problem we do have, because, you know, there are a lot of problems we can solve, you know, and again, implementation, of course, is a big problem for us, or data in silos is another big problem, but all of that can be solved to a certain extent, right.
Or it can be mitigated. That fear of losing something of what they are. is what I will tell you is usually the main, uh, the main blocker for, uh, scalability or tech adoption.
Zoe : Yeah, it's really interesting how the negativity bias plays out, isn't it, within companies, like you say, and people are So fearful to implement new technologies. Have you got any specific sort of case studies where you've had somebody that's been very hesitant and then there's been a result that they've been pleased with?
Simone Puorto: Yeah, but look, let me give you an example with very low, uh, low tech, right? [00:23:00] Um, I did have this client. This was a mission. So, you know, from time to time, we, were kind of the first to have people come to us and they just want to have like a second opinion or something.
So maybe we work with them for a couple of months or three months and that's, that's the end of it, right? these guys, um, came to me and, um, the only thing they really wanted to evaluate was if they had to implement a payment gateway. Right? So basically what they were doing, they were, Putting manually credit card numbers on a machine, right?
This was before PSD to regulation, so you could still do it at the time, right? and we started, you know, started writing down and said, okay, how many people do you need to do that? You know, it's probably, okay, you need to pre authorize or charge in the case of not refundable reservation, maybe 25 credit cards a day.
And, okay, probably it will take, you know, two, three minutes each. And let's say you've got, uh, [00:24:00] A credit card that, uh, is not valid. You need to go on boogie. com and maybe ask for another one. You know, it's, let's say on average takes, I don't know, five minutes. And we started doing the math and said, okay, you know, just payment gateway will be way cheaper for you and you can free up the people.
And, you know, we can use these people to do something else that has a little bit more value that just, you know, put in numbers. It to me was a flawless explanation. You know, I said, okay, let's do it. You know, I was expecting that. I was expecting. Okay. Sure. It's cheaper I can get my people to do something else.
Let's do it. But the reaction was I'm afraid we will lose something Because we like to do things manually And that to me was like a revelation because I, thought that, and I, and I started there, you know, I used to be a hotel manager for the first part of my career. But in my mind, it was always, can I automate that?
And if I do automate that, [00:25:00] will I remove something from the experience? Again, what I told you before. for this client in particular, it was more a question of. This is us. We don't introduce any level of automation in what we do. Everything we do is manual. Even if it's a pain in the ass, we cannot, it takes like a tremendous amount of time.
Our stuff is super, bored to death with that. Uh, on top of that, we're breaking our regulation because now people can go around with credit card numbers. They can do whatever they want with that. But if we implement that, we will lose what we are. And that is, we are a company that does everything manually.
So you are, that is really like, uh, the example. It's every time I think about it, I come back to that specific thing, but I can give you, like, the small variation of that story.
Zoe : Yeah. Thank you. It's like almost you're asking them to have an identity shift,
Simone Puorto: Yeah,
big time.
Zoe : tech.
Simone Puorto: Big time. For them is, for a lot of those [00:26:00] people, implementing technologies like going from, uh, From Dr. Jekyll to Mr. Hyde, really, you know, they, they are afraid they will change so much that guests will not recognize them. And, but again, it's really, I think it comes back to some level of, identification with thoughts, you know, if I talk to Adam and I said, uh, I don't like your shirt, Adam is smart enough to say, you know, the only
problem is my shirt.
You know? Well, there you are. But if Adam identifies with that shirt, that is going to be a problem, right? And, um, so I think it's, um, we all know that the hospitality industry is very egocentric, and I think that to a certain extent it has to be.
It's good that you feel part of the ego of something else when you go to a hotel. But, um, they really need to let go. and not without, again, they don't have to let go based on [00:27:00] just, uh, you know, trust or whatever. But, uh, when you sit down and you show the math and they're still hesitant to do that, they probably need to think about that.
I
Adam Mogelonsky: There's almost a Buddhist argument to be made here for more non attachment within hotel culture.
Zoe : That'd be the next book.
Adam Mogelonsky: Yeah.
Simone Puorto: don't wanna, I don't wanna be too spiritual here, but again, well, if you don't wanna go into the, the Buddhism. realm you can go through something that's a little more, probably resonates a little more with western culture and that is Marcus Aurelius, you know, uh, Marcus Aurelius used to say The word is there.
It's not for us to try to define the word. It's just there, you know, just look at it. End of story. And I think that is probably a great, uh, a great, uh, piece of advice. Well, you are, you know, I always say, don't buy, don't even buy my book. You know, it's just by Marcos Aurelius. He said everything that we need to know [00:28:00] about the industry.
Adam Mogelonsky: Yeah, I mean, it's, uh, Meditations is, I would recommend that book to every single person on the
planet to read.
Simone Puorto: you are. And
I was, um,
Adam Mogelonsky: ironic part.
Simone Puorto: Which one?
Adam Mogelonsky: The most ironic part of Meditations is Marcus Aurelius wrote it for himself as a journal, as a way of guiding himself. He never intended it for it to be published. So, keeping that in mind when you read it about saying that a lot of the, the lessons were things that he had to constantly remind himself of, because we humans are susceptible.
constantly to things like availability bias or recency bias or negativity bias. We're, we are never, we can never cure ourselves from those things. They're constantly going to come back in through the ether of our minds and you constantly need to remind yourself of it. So it's, yeah, again, it's foundational.
It's a foundational [00:29:00] book.
Simone Puorto: that I give as a gift more often in my, in my life. And I was, uh, if I can tell you an interesting story. So I, I was going to Sweden for a week with my family. And, um, in high tech, I interview, uh, the CEO of, you know, a very well known, uh, Scandinavian, uh, hotel group.
And uh, he told me, you know, just call me, I will give you a discount, and you'll sleep at my hotel. And I did, and it was an amazing experience. He didn't know anything about me, but when I opened the door, on my bed, there was a copy of The Meditations. So that to me was like, okay, that's hospitality, right?
I don't know if you, if you look it up, maybe so like a post where I talk about it, but it was there and it was like a magic moment.
Adam Mogelonsky: Yeah, that is a magic moment. Remembering who you are, specifically you, not just you as a customer. And Simone, we're going to dive into our third question here. And maybe there's a way to tie this together in terms of [00:30:00] this whole idea of using technology for personalizations. Simone, our third question.
What do you see as the key opportunities and challenges for hotel technology companies in 2025 and beyond?
Simone Puorto: Ah, okay. That's an easy answer. Uh, data. I think what we're seeing now, um, is a lot of clients come to me. Let's put it differently. A lot of clients come to me and they try to solve the last mile problem when it comes to, uh, AI mainly, you know, they, they don't want to be left behind. but I, I think the question is wrong because they're always trying to do, to say, to ask something like, okay, I know about ChargerPT, right?
Now what? Now what? What do I do? and a lot of travel tech companies, uh, and I do consult for travel tech companies as well, they have similar, uh, problems. And I always say, you know what, a lot of the things [00:31:00] we can do now with tech, um, will be way different in just six months to a year.
Now, the only thing we know for sure is that, uh, in order to do something interesting and fun with these technologies, we need to have good data. So, I would say that 2025 is, there's not like a single, uh, Uh, technology you need to include, uh, in your processes yet, but you need to make sure that your data, first party data of course, uh, they're crystal clear because we will need those, right?
And we will need those in a way that we never needed before. I'm working on a project now with a PMS and we're working on, conversational reporting and predictive reporting, right? And I always say. You know, we've been, the first hotel was built, I think it was a Japanese one on top of that, I don't know, I think it's 741 AC, something like that.
[00:32:00] And from that property up until the introduction of Microsoft Excel in 1984 or 85, something like that. We had so many data on paper, you know, very hard to, uh, do data crunching with that. we had Excel files and reports and, BI, business intelligence, but still, the problem is that, um, we need to, uh, Uh, get this, data extraction and we need to sit down and think about this data, right?
Uh, what I'm working on right now with this client is, basically like an LLM model, uh, with a chatbot where you can ask questions to the PMS, right? And this could be anything from owner, Style questions, you know, like stakeholder kind of questions, you know, I just want to know what will be 2025, uh, early revenue, uh, or it could be very geeky, nerdy questions like, um, [00:33:00] how much more or less American clients spent on that particular brand of whiskey last week, right?
The information is on the data somewhere. But good luck with extracting this information, you know, and I'm not like, even the best BMS will have problems to give you that information like that. And, um, you can actually do it by just, connecting, uh, an LLM on top of your data. But the main thing is now I need to trust your data.
I need to make sure that your data are there and they're clean, right? So I would say 2025, if you want to do one thing right, Be crazily, like, uh, super crazy about the quality of the data that you do have.
Zoe : That makes complete sense. Because like you say, technology and systems are continuously changing, but if the, like we say the caldo, like the brew, the base is not good, then what are you going to do with it? [00:34:00] That's yeah, it's really insightful. Great tip.
Simone Puorto: I put it on a different, uh, and I think I've said it a couple of times, but I always say that every single travel tech, uh, company will be a data company in five years old. There will be no company. So that's really it. And I'm pretty sure they do have the data. Now the problem is what is the quality of this data?
And I think it's really, that's the main question. Yeah.
Adam Mogelonsky: So, to get quality data, not just the recording, but the cleaning and structuring, what would you advise on that front, in terms of tools that hotels and travel companies can use to Match and merge or clean, ETL, whatever term you want to use to bring and centralize the data and also test to ensure that it's high quality.
Simone Puorto: Well, first of all, I would say that you need to reduce as many input errors as you can. And that is, you need to [00:35:00] limit the human interaction with data, right? So, the more you can get data directly from systems without going through a human, the better it will be. You know, we, we, We all, all of us, we've been in that situation where you do have your guest profile in a hotel, you go there like, uh, you know, six times a year and you've got like four different profiles for yourself, you know, and that is just because, the receptionist put a, uh, uh, Misspelled the name or, uh, just wrote that the reservation is coming from booking dot, es rather than booking.com, whatever.
Right? So I would say that the first, uh, piece of advice would be every time you deal with data, just try to. Reduce to the minimum human interaction. Just make sure that the data is as pure as possible. Uh, once you do have that, there are several approaches you can use. Uh, you know, RPA, I love RPA when it comes to that, to cleaning up data and coming up with single guest profiles.
So that's another, another [00:36:00] way, uh, another approach you can use. But again, the more the data will be clean from the source, the less work you will have to do later. So again, just try to reduce any, uh, human, data, uh, input. First thing, second thing, uh, put a level of, uh, automation to come up with single guest profiles.
And that is not all, not only on, uh, your main system, uh, you know, for the majority of hotels will be a PMS, but for every single system that. Uh, record data from guests, so spa system, wellness system, food system, just make sure that you've got one single source of truth and that is your Bible, right? You need to look at that.
So, um, again, I would say that if you do have that, and if you do it right, in 2025 you can have a lot of fun with data. Um, and you can. [00:37:00] Introduce some level of technology and do pretty amazing things. If you do not have a faith in your data, because they're all around, no matter the technology, the technology will always be like a bunch of hallucination because now, you know, it's, especially when it comes to generative AI, it's really all about the data you put into the system.
Right. So just focus on the data.
Zoe : Yeah, it makes sense. What are some of the most exciting uses of data, clean data that you've seen?
Simone Puorto: Uh, look, I'm into this crazy rabbit hole now of, um, data, um, prediction. Uh, so I did a test with a client and they, they do have this interesting housekeeping slash maintenance app. They do have quite a lot of data. We took a client, that was, I think it was client number one or number two, something like that, probably 10 or 12 years of data, right?
[00:38:00] And we, trained a model to look at every single maintenance task that was open, every single task that was closed successfully or not, uh, the time, uh, needed for, uh, the, the conclusion of each task. And based on that, we try to predict the next problem in a room, right? With all of this data, we just came up with a couple of questions and the question that was really shocking to me was, I asked the, the, the model, based on what you know now, where do you think we will have the next problem?
And in which room and what kind of problem? And, um, he came up with a pretty interesting answer. So Luke, uh, based on what I see, you know, room 205, whatever. it seems like you do change quite a lot of light bulbs there, right? So maybe you need to look at the wiring. There's probably something wrong.
Anyway, based on my, on my past data and what I predict, I [00:39:00] think, uh, you will have exactly the same problem in 10 days. the system was wrong, but it was wrong for a day. So he said, uh, 10 days, and it was actually 9. And that, to me, was super interesting. And at the end of the day, we sent somebody in the room, like a maintenance guy, and he started looking around, and he found the problem with the wiring of the room, right?
But again, that is all only possible because we have this clean first party data, and now we can come up with this assumption or prediction of what is going to happen. And the other one that I'm really pumped about is, conversational reporting. You know, really my dream would be that, we can live in a Excel free world in a couple of years.
So yeah.
Adam Mogelonsky: Yeah, the, um, whole idea of reporting and these dashboards that are filled with these pie charts and pie charts, they can look colorful, but they don't really. [00:40:00] So,
Simone Puorto: Yeah.
Adam Mogelonsky: Simone, we're going to dive into our fourth and final question here to wrap things up. What are the key things innovative leaders and entrepreneurs should prioritize and focus on to gain traction for their business?
Simone Puorto: look, when it comes to the hospitality industry, I think the main problem is that, um, it is a very, uh, operational industry, you know, we've all been there and actually this is the reason why I left, uh, my job as a, as a GM, because if you deal with pillows and mattresses and, and guests and, you know, and if you got people in your house, there will be a problem, you know, at some point, you know, somebody will, uh, break up with, uh, his or her, partner and somebody will need to go to the police or whatever.
You don't really have time, right? So when you work 12, 13 years a day in a hotel and you really need to focus on [00:41:00] just, fire extinguishing all the time because you're really just, it's, it's, most of it is, it's band aid strategy, really. Uh, you don't really have the time, neither the, Brain capacity to understand what's going on and in a moment in time where technology goes way faster than our ability to predict where technology is going is pretty much impossible.
So, And this is probably a provocative, but not really answer is don't focus on that, you know, just try to find somebody, you know, and Gain, of course, is a great example of that. Find somebody that does that for a living and that does have the time to sit down and look at technology. and of course, just choose somebody with some proven history of, uh, uh, of success.
but then you need to trust these people, right? You, you cannot do it by yourself. It's, if you're working in a hotel, you cannot understand what is going on. You can have like a, [00:42:00] an overall understanding of, but it's, it's otherwise, it's impossible. Uh, so to me, it's more about, um, Probably it's more about coming back to what hospitality is all about.
And I think this links back to the first question, and that is, at the end of the day, it's taking care of guests, right? So if you can focus on that, and if you can remove all kind of distractions and, you know, to a certain extent, understanding which kind of technology you need to implement in your property is a distraction, right?
it's something that, uh, that probably will, will pay out in in the long term. Now the The problem is that, uh, there are a lot of people out there, uh, probably without the interest of, hospitality entrepreneurs, uh, as a priority. That's, that's a different story, but I don't have a solution for that.
be, I've
tried to be very politically correct here.
Adam Mogelonsky: I mean, one of the beauties of hospitality is it's not a one size fits all. There's [00:43:00] room for so many different organizational structures, design, amenities, experiences.
Simone Puorto: Yeah, but I think, you know what Adam, I think part of the problem is, is really It's also us, you know, when we teach, especially with the new generation, you know, and this, this kids will be the new GMs or the new concierge or the new owners. We teach that guest is king, and I think that to a certain extent that is true, but now you need to sit down and define what a king is and what a king wants.
And we all think that, uh, uh, it needs to have this, you know, pile of people. People just following, following the king around. but that's not always the case. You know, you've got guests with complete different needs or with complete different expectations that, uh, wants a complete different experience.
And it's, you know, the simple [00:44:00] example that I always use with my clients is, uh, and I live in Rome and I lived in Paris for a long time, right? So big cities and, the problem with big cities is after a while is that the human interaction is, is probably, uh, lost in day to day activities. And I said, you know, if you live in a big city, try to go to the supermarket where you always go, right?
And try to remember the face of the cashier that's scanning your barcodes of, you know, your protein bars or whatever. And most people, they cannot do it, you know, they really cannot do it. But if I ask the same question to my mother. Uh, that she goes to the supermarket and sometimes she goes there because she wants to have a chat with somebody, like another human being.
She totally remembers, probably she remembers also the birthday of this person, right? No one is right. There are just different needs and different expectations and uh, you know, so if I go to a supermarket that what I want to do is probably I go to self, self, uh, cashier and just pay [00:45:00] and, and I wanna get out of that as soon as possible with my mother's a complete different experience.
That's the same with guests. You know, once we do understand that, once we do understand that heavy human is different, that is, there is a spectrum of. guests expectations. Probably we'll be, uh, we'll go back to the real, uh, root of what, uh, hospitality is all about. So it's really all about diversity.
Adam Mogelonsky: think that's a good place to end it, Simone, to getting back to the roots of hospitality and, of course, an eye for the future. And at the day, servicing gets personalization and experiences, experiences, experiences. Simone, thanks for coming on the show.
Simone Puorto: Thank you so much.
Zoe : Thank you so much. Thanks.
Simone Puorto: See you next time.
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