Dion Jensen, Founder & CEO Arguably the holy grail of digital strategy in the hospitality industry, these words are fast becoming table stakes for business success and growth. At a time when external factors like Uber Eats and Postmates are intensifying the competition for hotel and resorts, Dion Jensen, founder and CEO, REVA Hospitality, believes that in order to exceed the game and roll with the tides of change, “say yes, no matter where your guest is or at what time.” As such, he leads his team at REVA Hospitality to enable hotels and resorts to maximize and drive additional revenue and enhance guest engagement with their software application. In an environment where occupancy rates are stagnant or declining, REVA Hospitality goes above and beyond to manage costs and maximize revenue per available guest, by driving in-stay spend. “We use technology and innovation to empower our hotel and resort partners to say ‘Yes. Anywhere’ and take guest experiences to a whole new level. Our mobile ordering, restaurant management and guest engagement tools, deliver guests a world of experiences. Uninterrupted,” says Jensen. With over 16 years experience at the intersection of the travel, financial services, and IT industries, and a deep passion for brands and the customer experience, Jensen doesn’t believe that technology needs to replace the power of the human connection. “It is merely an enabler and a connector for a frictionless experience to occur—powered by the people using it,” he adds. As a reflection of his line of thinking, REVA Hospitality leverages technology and harnesses its potential to drive efficiency and deliver an enhanced guest experience.
Governed by a mission to “empower experiences through innovation,” REVA Hospitality’s product suite includes the core REVA Anywhere platform and five additional, beautifully designed enhancement modules. The guest-facing, cloud-based platform acts as a software layer that connects and integrates the diverse and complex property management systems (PMS), and point of sale systems (POS) utilized across properties. This enables the guests to gain a digital representation of the brand, hotel, resort or casino and a holistic view of all the F&B outlets, spas, hotel services, and activities, any time of the day and from anywhere—be it on-premise or off-premise. At the core, REVA Hospitality is laser-focused on creating a solution that does not interrupt the existing workflow of an organization, or what Jensen refers to as “we play well with others” offering PMS and POS with effortless integration. This seamless integration with the leading PMS, POS and payment methods allows guests to manage everything from guest billing and messaging to retrieving user-profiles and organizing bookings, on a single platform.
The uniqueness of REVA Hospitality’s product suite stems from the technology—REVA Location Services—that underpins its platform and modules.
If I order the food by the pool, and then I decide to go to the beach, the staff will still be able to find me even when I am moving and deliver the order irrespective of my location
The patented technology can find the guest no matter where they are within one meter of their actual location. Eliminating the need to install any hardware onsite, the platform uses the device of the staff and the person placing the order and connects them through cell signal or Wi-Fi to track the guests within a 10-to 15-meter radius and then uses its acoustic technology to find the exact location of the guest. The company geofences hotels and resorts and allows guests to order F&B from any of their locations for dine-in or delivery wherever and whenever they choose. “For instance, if I order the food by the pool, and then I decide to go to the beach, the staff will still be able to find me even when I am moving and deliver the order irrespective of my location,” explains Jensen. “REVA Location Services uses ultra-high and ultra-low frequency sound to create an acoustic spatial model. The application enables the users to visualize the model and use the compass on the device, which directs them to the guest’s location.”
From the customization perspective, REVA Hospitality incorporates APIs and SDKs into the client’s existing digital asset ecosystem to offer a completely branded experience to the guests. For companies that haven’t extensively invested in their own mobile applications or websites, the platform is made available via a progressive web application, optimized for mobile, device and OS agnostic with the look and feel of the hotel, resort or casino’s branding. To take the guest engagement a notch higher, the platform enables guests to interact with the client’s property in 15 different languages. The guests can also choose when, where, and how to consume the services and pay with a variety of options like WeChat Pay, AliPay, Apple Pay, and GPay. REVA Hospitality also works with each individual property on a series of what the company calls “guest hooks.” As the name suggests, it hooks the guest into using the application. “As soon as the confirmation email is sent for a hotel booking, guests receive a link that says ‘start planning your stay,’ helping them to book a restaurant, interact with beverage menu, services and activities linked to the app portal,” Jensen illustrates. Upon checking in, customers can scan the QR codes provided and access the web portal, in-room TVs, F&B outlets, and more.
With a journey of only nine months, REVA Hospitality has already gathered plenty of achievements to its credit. In an incidence, one of its clients approached REVA Hospitality seeking help for building a holistic digital ecosystem across its rapidly expanding business. Though a large organization, it didn’t have any automated processes for restaurant reservations, or multi-language capability to deliver a digital experience to its guests. Without interrupting their existing workflow, REVA Hospitality integrated their solution into the client’s system, to let customers interact with the property in their own language and pay using their preferred mode of payment. The application went live in August this year.
Since its launch last year at HITEC Dubai, REVA Hospitality’s journey has been more about building awareness. Today, standing at the threshold of its first anniversary, the company aims to become the hospitality industry’s global guest experience platform of choice. Jensen explicitly mentions the words “of choice” because, as an organization, REVA Hospitality understands that consumers always have a choice. With its unique commercial model, REVA Hospitality wants to be an actively contributing revenue line and not just another cost line to the businesses. “Our definition of success for our hotel partners is that we want to pay them money to have our platform rather than the hotel needing to pay us,” concludes Jensen.
CIO Speaks
-
Ross Fastuca, CIO & Co-founder, Locomote
Monika Nerger, Chief Information Officier,Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group
Douglas Duncan, CIO, Columbia Insurance Group
Thomas Knapp, CIO, Waterstone Mortgage Corporation
David Kennedy, Group CIO, Transaction Services Group
-
Joelle Chen, Director, Global Partnerships & Marketing, Intelligent Air Solutions, Mann+Hummel
Peter Auhl
Subbu Murthy, CIO, Howard Building Corporation
Daniel M. Horton, CIO, Sallyport Global
Osman Faiz, Chief Information Officer, Singapore, Standard Chartered Bank
Voranuch Dejakaisaya, CIO, Bank of Ayudhya (Krungsri)
