HOUSTON, TX, and DORTMUND, GERMANY, June 22, 2017—Sceptre Hospitality Resources, SHR, a leading provider of advanced distribution technology and creator of the best-in-class central reservation system, Windsurfer® CRS, has partnered with global property management system (PMS) innovator, protel hotel software, to bring hoteliers and their guests an enhanced booking experience by way of a unique predictive analytics data interface.
This agreement, which gives SHR access to protel’s 14,000 global hotel clients’ transaction and preference data, makes the company the first CRS provider to have such deep data integration via a service bus concept, enabling them to, in turn, offer their hotel clients highly-relevant data before, during, and after the guest experience.
“At SHR, we are firm believers that more sophisticated system integrations are needed to help simplify the confusing swirl of hospitality technologies currently on the market,” said Drew Rosser, VP of Sales for SHR. “The team at protel has taken this belief, kicked it up to the next level, and acted on it. We are very excited to see the innovative solutions that will undoubtedly come out of this common vision.”
Development of protel’s Genius analytics platform started in March of this year, making protel the first company in its field to bring this technology to market. “No one else but protel is doing this, and this is the first time any CRS vendor has gained access to predictive analytics information generated by the entire hospitality ecosystem,” said Linda Vallner, VP of Business Development for protel. “It’s really the future of PMS meets the future of the CRS.”
Traditionally, the CRS and PMS talk to each other via a point-to-point interface. The protel system provides a multi-point connection to the entire hospitality ecosystem via its enterprise service bus, protel.I/O. The service bus extracts data from the PMS as well as from other vendors such as restaurants, spas, and any other connected systems. It stores the data in its data warehouse, protel Genius. Genius then analyzes the data and feeds only the most relevant guest intel and upsell recommendation data back. This can be delivered at every guest touchpoint using what is known as “whisper” technology. Subscribing systems such as the CRS can then pull these focused recommendations for booking, stay, and post-booking purposes, providing hoteliers with not only vital guest preference and spend information, but also calculated recommendations to create a more personalized and engaging guest experience.
The protel team has been providing PMS services to the market for 22 years in over 90 countries throughout Europe and Asia, garnering deep PMS knowledge over that period. “We were one of the first hospitality vendors to realize that traditional interfaces could not provide the high levels of integration and data sharing needed to drive the unique levels of guest recognition that will delight today’s savvy traveler. We wanted to work with an agile, like-minded CRS Partner,” said Pete Simpson, SVP of Global Business Technology for protel. “With SHR’s technical prowess and reputation for embracing only the best of the new, we knew we’d found a great match.”
The company plans to introduce the new system at HITEC Toronto next week at a special Consultant Briefing breakfast held in, of all places, a bank vault. “We’ve all been to our share of breakfast briefings before, and a unique product calls for a unique venue,” said Vallner. “We believe our technology is dead on the money, and we want our guests to come away understanding that it’s true.”