Sonny's BBQ Introduces Mobile App with Exclusive App-Based Rewards Program

Sonny's BBQ, the mission-driven BBQ restaurant known for quality BBQ and spreading kindness in the communities they serve, has recently launched their mobile app and a new, app-exclusive rewards program as a part of their larger brand commitment to meeting the changing needs and priorities of their guests in today's unique economic environment, offering deals while maintaining portion size, guest experience and product quality.

"We're proud to offer guests new and convenient ways to get value from our Pitmaster-crafted BBQ menu," said Peter Frey, chief brand officer at Sonny's BBQ. "Our guests turn to us to make life easier, to savor each small moment and celebrate big occasions, and it's our focus to meet them where they are - their phones, computers and their dining tables. That means continuously evolving how we connect – not only by providing unprecedented value in today's budget-conscious world, but also by offering digital solutions that will continue to meet our guests' needs in this mobile era."

To build their mobile app, Sonny's BBQ partnered with Thanx, whose industry-leading technology is paving the way for guest engagement and loyalty solutions. The BBQ brand's mobile app performance numbers indicate a desire from guests for additional convenient ways to engage with the brand that work with their lifestyle. Since its initial release in June, the mobile app has seen over 57,000 downloads and over 160,000 digital orders. With a notable 83 percent app cart conversion rate, over 20 percent higher than the brand's current web conversion rate, as well as a 29 percent conversion rate from email subscribers, it remains evident that meeting consumers' increasing desire for seamless mobile ordering experiences is crucial.

"Bringing this mobile app and loyalty program to life has introduced yet another avenue to meet our guests where they are," said Katie Love, director of brand management at Sonny's BBQ. "We've put our digital transformation to the test in recent years by introducing new data-driven marketing initiatives, a new website with a streamlined user experience and a variety of guest-centric pick-up and ordering solutions, all while keeping that in-person connection and spirit at the heart of the guest experience to ensure customer satisfaction."

Guests who sign up for the brand's updated loyalty rewards program can earn 10 points for every dollar spent and will receive $5 off an entree in their first app order upon sign-up. Points can be redeemed for unique offers as they accumulate, such as a free order of BBQ Pork Egg Rolls or a Pick 2 Combo, giving guests the flexibility to choose the rewards that best suit their tastes. Users earn points with every order.

Travel Tech Buddies: 5 AI-Powered Apps for Your Next Trip

The days of merely booking tickets and packing bags as enough preparation for your next adventure are long gone. Today, it is about harnessing the power of artificial intelligence to enhance the entire travel experience. From effortless itinerary planning to personalised recommendations, AI-powered travel apps are changing the way we explore the world. Here is a list of top five picks, each designed to elevate your travel experience and make every moment unforgettable. 

Roam Around

Roam Around is a leading travel planning tool powered by ChatGPT. It offers a seamless plan for your next adventure by generating complete itineraries in seconds. With over 4 million itineraries created, Roam Around is the largest and smartest AI travel planner available. Simply input your desired destination, and the tool will provide personalised travel suggestions tailored to your preferences and needs.

Mappls Kogo

Mappls KOGO revolutionises travel exploration with its AI assistant, offering advanced features to enhance travel experiences. Through its AI Trip Maker and voice-enabled Kogonaut Chat, KOGO integrates innovative AI technology with user-centric functionalities, providing real-time travel advice and personalised itineraries within seconds. With access to over 17 million locational data points, KOGO empowers users to discover hidden gems, navigate unfamiliar territories, and curate unforgettable experiences tailored to their preferences.

Mappls Kogo stands out as an ultimate travel companion, consolidating search, planning, and booking into a single, user-friendly app. With the assistance of Kogonaut's chat-based AI, travellers receive expert guidance throughout their journey, ensuring a seamless and hassle-free experience from start to finish. Moreover, Through KOGO X, the platform's member-first programme, travellers benefit from transparent pricing, free from hidden fees, surge pricing, or commissions. This innovative approach revolutionises the travel industry by prioritising affordability and accessibility, ensuring travellers can plan their trips without unexpected costs or inflated prices.

Hopper

Hopper utilises AI algorithms to analyse vast amounts of flight data and predict future airfare prices with remarkable accuracy. This allows users to book flights at the optimal time, potentially saving significant amounts of money. Hopper's intuitive interface also makes it easy to set up price alerts and receive notifications when prices drop, ensuring you never miss out on a great deal.

TripIt

TripIt is another AI-powered travel organiser that simplifies the process of managing your travel plans. By forwarding your confirmation emails to TripIt, the app automatically creates a detailed itinerary for your trip, complete with flight details, hotel reservations, rental car bookings, and more. TripIt's AI algorithms continuously monitor your itinerary for changes and updates, ensuring that you always have the most up-to-date information at your fingertips.

Sygic Travel

Sygic Travel is a powerful trip planner that harnesses AI to help you discover and explore new destinations with ease. The app offers personalised recommendations for attractions, restaurants, and activities based on your interests and preferences, ensuring that you make the most of your time wherever you go. Sygic Travel also features offline maps and navigation, making it perfect for navigating unfamiliar cities without an internet connection.

In conclusion, AI-powered travel apps have revolutionised the way we plan, book, and experience travel. From organising itineraries and predicting prices to overcoming language barriers and discovering new destinations, these apps offer a wide range of features that can enhance every aspect of your journey. Whether you're a seasoned globetrotter or a first-time traveler, be sure to download these top five AI-powered travel apps, before your next trip for a smoother and more enjoyable travel experience.

Using Ai Image Enhancer In Hospitality

In today's digital age, visuals play a crucial role in attracting customers to hospitality businesses. High-quality images of hotels, restaurants, and amenities can make a significant impact on potential guests' decisions. This is where AI image enhancer technology comes into the picture.

AI image enhancer tools use advanced algorithms to analyze and enhance images, resulting in clearer, sharper, and more visually appealing photos. In the hospitality industry, utilizing AI image enhancers can bring several benefits:

1. Improved Visual Appeal:

• AI image enhancers can refine low-quality images, making them more attractive and professional. Clear and visually appealing images can create a positive impression on guests looking to book accommodations or visit a restaurant.

2. Better Online Presence:

• High-quality images can set a hospitality business apart from competitors in an overcrowded online marketplace. AI-enhanced images can help hotels and restaurants stand out on booking platforms, social media, and official websites.

3. Enhanced Marketing Efforts:

• Appealing visuals are an essential component of marketing campaigns. AI image enhancers can help create captivating images for promotions, advertisements, and social media posts, increasing engagement and interest from potential customers.

4. Cost-Effective Solution:

• Investing in professional photography for every aspect of a hospitality business can be expensive. AI image enhancers offer a cost-effective way to enhance existing images without the need for extensive photoshoots.

5. Consistent Brand Image:

• Maintaining a consistent visual identity is crucial for brand recognition. AI image enhancers can ensure that all images released by a hospitality business meet the same quality standards, reinforcing brand cohesiveness.

In conclusion, leveraging AI image enhancer technology in the hospitality industry can elevate the visual representation of businesses, attract more customers, and improve overall brand perception. By utilizing these tools effectively, hospitality businesses can stay ahead in a competitive market landscape and leave a lasting impression on guests.

Marriott International Becomes First Hospitality Company to Introduce Neuroinclusive Practices at Its Largest Customer Events

Leveraging work from Google Xi’s The Neu Project, Marriott strives to create a more inclusive experience for meeting attendees

Marriott International, Inc., a hotel industry leader for more than 95 years, today announced its commitment to incorporate neuroinclusive practices at Marriott-hosted customer events of 250 people or more globally. This commitment is a result of joining forces with The Neu Project, an initiative from Google’s Experience Institute (Xi) that aims to share resources designed to better accommodate and create a more inclusive experience during meetings and events for neurodivergent attendees. These practices are initially being previewed at Marriott’s Corporate Partnership Customer Conference, THE EXCHANGE, currently taking place November 28 through December 1, 2023 at the JW Marriott Desert Springs Resort & Spa in Palm Springs, CA.

Approximately 15-20 percent of the world’s population has neuro differences, including ADHD, obsessive-compulsive disorder, autism, dyslexia, epilepsy, and Tourette Syndrome.* In 2022, the Google Experience Institute launched The Neu Project in order to demystify and educate event professionals on the design of more neuroinclusive experiences through a helpful guide and checklist.

The following neuroinclusive practices will be incorporated at Marriott-hosted customer meetings and events of 250 people or more:

Quiet Room: A dedicated room will be available during Marriott customer events for recovery from sensory overwhelm, restoration and regulation. Designed to foster the physical, emotional, and mental well-being of attendees, the room will serve as a calming retreat where guests can break from the event to manage fatigue, overload and/or sensory needs.

Tools and Resources: At registration, event attendees will have the opportunity to request various tools to better accommodate their needs, including sensory & fidget toys, noise canceling ear plugs, sleep masks, sunglasses, printed agendas and venue maps, and details about loud music, flashing lights or surprise moments taking place during the event.

Closed Captioning for Main Stage Presentations: Real-time subtitles and captions will be available on-screen during main stage event and conference presentations.

“Grounded in our commitments to innovation and inclusion, Marriott is dedicated to making meetings and events more accessible for everyone,” said Drew Pinto, Executive Vice President and Chief Revenue & Technology Officer, Marriott International. “The Neu Project is a driving force in this space, and we look forward to working jointly with them, along with the neurodivergent community, to deepen our understanding of neurodivergent needs in order to truly welcome all.”

Over the past two years, Marriott has collaborated closely with The Neu Project to learn directly from the neurodivergent community. The company has already begun implementing various neuroinclusive practices at its recent customer events, including a quiet room and tools and resources at both THE EXCHANGE: Association Masters in Phoenix, AZ and THE EXCHANGE: Europe in Madrid, Spain. Last month, Marriott and The Neu Project also implemented a quiet room for attendees at IMEX America, an annual industry event in Las Vegas, NV where members of the global business events community come together.

Looking ahead to 2024, Marriott will further its neuroinclusion efforts by conducting active listening sessions with the community through conversations with The Neu Project and people who are neurodivergent, which will help shape future content.

“The Neu Project was born out of a desire to rethink event experiences post-pandemic, and has since grown into a major initiative that is driving change at events across industries,“ said Megan Henshall, Global Events Strategy at Google. “Marriott understands that creating environments where differing perspectives and experiences can come together boosts creativity, and we have witnessed their passion for increasing inclusivity at meetings and events. We’re excited to continue working with them as we strive to create more inclusive experiences with and for the neurodivergent community.”

Marriott’s implementation of neuroinclusive practices for meetings at select hotels builds on its fundamental core values of advancing diversity, equity and inclusion. Through third-party partners like Disability:IN, the leading nonprofit resource for business disability inclusion worldwide, Marriott offers a variety of resources to improve accessibility at meetings, events and conferences.

For more information on Marriott International’s meetings and events offerings and capabilities, visit https://marriottbonvoyevents.com/.

Revolutionizing Content Creation for Hospitality Professionals with Writesonic

Writesonic is an AI writer that creates SEO-friendly content for blogs, Facebook ads, Google ads, and Shopify for free.

Introduction:
In this digital age, content creation has become a crucial aspect of marketing strategies for businesses, including those in the hospitality industry. While crafting engaging and SEO-friendly content can be time-consuming and challenging, there is now an innovative solution available – Writesonic. This AI-powered writing tool is tailored to aid hospitality professionals in generating captivating content across various platforms, ranging from blogs to social media ads. In this blog post, we will explore five ideas on how hospitality professionals can leverage Writesonic to streamline their content creation process and maximize their online presence.

1. Crafting Engaging Blog Posts
Writing informative, engaging, and SEO-friendly blog posts is essential for showcasing the expertise and uniqueness of your hospitality business. With Writesonic, you can create compelling blog content effortlessly. Utilize Writesonic’s AI algorithms to brainstorm blog post ideas, generate compelling introductions, craft compelling paragraphs, and even generate persuasive conclusions that leave your readers intrigued. This allows hospitality professionals to save time and resources while maintaining a steady stream of high-quality content to captivate their target audience.

2. Optimizing Facebook Ads
Facebook ads are powerful tools for reaching and engaging with potential customers. By using Writesonic, hospitality professionals can enhance their Facebook ad campaigns. Writesonic enables the generation of compelling ad copy that instantly captures the attention of users and entices them to explore your offerings. Moreover, it also provides options to test multiple variations of the same ad, enhancing your marketing efforts to maximize conversion rates.

3. Enhancing Google Ads
Google Ads play a significant role in driving traffic and increasing visibility for hospitality businesses. With Writesonic, you can optimize your Google Ads campaigns by creating persuasive copy that adheres to SEO best practices. This AI-powered tool will help you generate catchy headlines, compelling descriptions, and Call-to-Actions (CTAs) that drive engagement, resulting in improved click-through rates and conversions.

4. Elevating Shopify Product Descriptions
Hospitality businesses that operate an online store through Shopify can also benefit from Writesonic. Generating captivating and persuasive product descriptions is crucial to entice potential customers and drive sales. Writesonic assists in crafting SEO-friendly product descriptions that highlight the unique features, benefits, and value propositions of your offerings. By optimizing your Shopify product pages using Writesonic, you can greatly enhance the online shopping experience for your customers and increase conversion rates.

5. Creating Social Media Posts
Maintaining an active and engaging social media presence is vital for any hospitality business. Writesonic can play a significant role in crafting attention-grabbing social media posts. Whether it’s for Instagram, Twitter, or LinkedIn, this AI-powered tool can generate hashtags, captions, and brief descriptions that resonate with your target audience. By utilizing Writesonic to create compelling social media content, you can strengthen your brand's visibility, drive user engagement, and cultivate a loyal community of followers.

Conclusion:
In a rapidly evolving digital landscape, hospitality professionals need to harness the power of AI-driven tools like Writesonic to streamline their content creation process and stand out amongst competitors. By utilizing Writesonic's capabilities for generating captivating blog posts, enhancing ads on platforms like Facebook and Google, optimizing Shopify product descriptions, and creating engaging social media posts, hospitality businesses can captivate their target audience and drive substantial growth in their online presence. Embrace the future of content creation by incorporating Writesonic into your marketing strategy and witness the transformative impact it can have on your hospitality business.

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The Rise of Machine Learning Operations in the Hospitality Industry

Mlops (Keyword)

Machine learning operations. A set of best practices in the machine learning development cycle use in hospitality.

Machine learning has become a game-changer in the hospitality industry, revolutionizing the way hotels, restaurants, and other businesses in the sector operate. However, the implementation of machine learning algorithms and models is not a one-time task. It requires a continuous and efficient process known as Machine Learning Operations (MLOps).
MLOps can be defined as a set of best practices and techniques used in the machine learning development cycle to streamline the deployment, management, and monitoring of machine learning models. In the hospitality industry, MLOps plays a vital role in leveraging data to make informed decisions, optimize operations, and enhance the guest experience.
Here are some key aspects of MLOps that are crucial for the hospitality sector:

Data Collection and Preparation

A successful machine learning model relies on high-quality and relevant data. In the hospitality industry, data can be obtained from various sources, including customer bookings, transaction records, guest feedback, and social media platforms. MLOps involves collecting, cleaning, and preprocessing this data to ensure it is suitable for training predictive models.

Model Development and Training

Once the data is prepared, the next step is to train the machine learning models. MLOps emphasizes developing models that can effectively solve real-world hospitality problems, such as demand forecasting, revenue optimization, personalized recommendations, sentiment analysis, and fraud detection. These models are trained using historical data and advanced algorithms, such as deep learning and ensemble methods.

Model Deployment and Integration

After the models are trained, they need to be deployed into production systems for real-time usage. MLOps helps seamlessly integrate machine learning models with existing hospitality management software and infrastructure. This integration ensures that the models can access the latest data, generate predictions, and provide valuable insights to optimize operations.

Continuous Monitoring and Maintenance

MLOps involves continuous monitoring and maintenance of machine learning models to ensure their optimal performance. This includes regular model evaluation, updating the training data, retraining models periodically, and monitoring the prediction accuracy. Monitoring these models helps identify any performance degradation or concept drift, enabling timely intervention and model refinement.

Collaboration and Documentation

In the hospitality industry, multiple stakeholders, including data scientists, developers, business analysts, and domain experts, collaborate to build and deploy machine learning models. MLOps promotes effective collaboration and communication among these teams to streamline the development cycle. Additionally, comprehensive documentation of the models' architecture, processes, and assumptions is critical for future reference and knowledge transfer.

Ethics and Transparency

Machine learning models used in the hospitality industry must adhere to ethical considerations and ensure transparency. MLOps incorporates practices to avoid biases and discriminatory outcomes in predictions. Additionally, it establishes mechanisms to explain and interpret the decision-making process of these models, especially in situations like dynamic pricing, where transparency is essential.

MLOps has the potential to transform the hospitality industry by enabling data-driven decisions, improving operational efficiency, and enhancing the guest experience. As more hotels, restaurants, and travel companies embrace machine learning, it is crucial to adopt best practices in MLOps to ensure smooth and successful implementation.

Implementing MLOps requires expertise in data science, machine learning algorithms, software development, and domain knowledge. Therefore, hospitality businesses that intend to utilize machine learning should consider partnering with experienced professionals or specialized MLOps service providers to navigate this complex landscape successfully.
In conclusion, as the hospitality sector continues to embrace machine learning, the adoption of MLOps becomes imperative. By following best practices in machine learning development cycles, hospitality businesses can unlock significant value from their data, streamline their operations, and deliver superior guest experiences in an increasingly data-driven world.

Skyscanner Launches New Generative Ai Tool

Global travel marketplace Skyscanner has launched a new search discovery and inspiration tool, powered by generative AI. Called “Dream and discover with AI”, the tool is initially launching in beta in Australia, India, and Singapore to test traveller behaviour when it comes to using AI for trip planning, with other markets set to follow.

Powered by Open AI’s Chat GPT technology, travellers can ask open ended statements and questions such as “Best cities for cultural tours” or “What are some hidden gems in Europe?”. It also includes a variety of prompts ranging from “Short flights next weekend” to “Foodie city breaks”. The tool will then generate travel ideas and recommendations as well as three destination suggestions with links to the best flight options for each.

Unlike other generative AI travel tools and chatbots, imagery is combined with rich destination descriptions to highlight the unique characteristics of each suggestion. Upon deciding a destination, travellers are taken straight into Skyscanner’s flight search funnel to choose their flight.

Piero Sierra, Chief Product Officer at Skyscanner commented:

“Generative AI is such an exciting technology that we as a travel industry are only just beginning to apply. 56% of travellers are coming to Skyscanner for inspiration so with this beta launch we are looking to understand how it might help travellers in the discovery phases of the travel planning journey, and importantly how they engage with the technology versus existing tools. This one of many experiments we are running to see how generative AI can be incorporated into the core Skyscanner proposition – helping travellers plan and book their trip with ease and confidence - in the future.”

The beta phase will allow Skyscanner to gather feedback, engagement, and conversion data to optimize and enhance future traveller first product development.

www.skyscanner.co.in/discover-with-ai

IHG Hotels & Resorts Introduces Effortless Wi-Fi Connection for Guests Worldwide

IHG Hotels & Resorts (IHG), a leading hotel company with a global presence, is thrilled to announce the launch of a new mobile product feature – IHG Wi-Fi Auto Connect. A first-of-its-kind innovation available at scale in hotels, this feature is now available exclusively in the IHG One Rewards mobile app for both iOS and Android users and will automatically connect IHG One Rewards members to Wi-Fi upon arrival at more than 5,000 IHG hotels worldwide – no separate passwords or logins needed!

IHG Wi-Fi Auto Connect is enabled by the newly redesigned IHG app and IHG’s proprietary internet solution, IHG One Rewards Wi-Fi. Globally, the company logs more than 5.3 million monthly Wi-Fi logins. With this new solution, guests who opt-in via their mobile devices will join the internet upon entering a hotel without having to worry about separate login codes or passwords, saving time and enjoying a better user experience. A one-time set-up is required via the app where the member user can enable auto connection via settings. The functionality empowers guests visiting a hotel for a meeting, overnight stay or dining at a restaurant in a hotel.

“We know that our guests expect seamless instant connectivity and convenience, especially when it comes to Wi-Fi. At IHG, we are constantly looking for ways to enhance the guest experience, and IHG Wi-Fi Auto Connect is just one example of how we’re doing that,” said Brian McGuinness, Senior Vice President, Global Guest Experience, IHG Hotels & Resorts. “The solution will deliver IHG One Rewards members with even better connectivity and a seamless experience across 5,000+ hotels around the world.”

Motivated to improve the guest experience for loyalty members, the company continues to innovate and prioritize technology, comfort, and convenience. In addition to the improved Wi-Fi experience, the app has new enhancements designed for speed and convenience, including a new lock screen widget feature on iOS. Widgets allow guests to see their points balance and upcoming stays from the lock screen of their device, and to quickly launch the app. The app has also recently launched booking features allowing guests to select room enhancements during booking, including rooms with specific views or more space.

AI planning Travel Itinerary

I asked AI to plan my travel itinerary to Japan 🇯🇵 pic.twitter.com/J0ijeeqFLK

— Easlo (@heyeaslo) May 12, 2023

Would You Buy a Pizza From These Robot Pizza Chefs at PizzaForno?

Robots are taking over making America's favorite dish, with chains like PizzaForno setting up automated kiosks

Pizza may be the perfect food for automation. It's composed of relatively few ingredients and many chains, Domino's (DPZ) - Get Domino's Pizza, Inc. Report included, already use automated ovens. That makes it a relatively small leap (albeit an expensive one) to go from semiautomated to fully automated and one small U.S. chain has said it's not only doing it but doing it well. 

American pizza chain PizzaForno is investing in robot-operated artisanal pizza vending machines as food tech enjoys its disruptive moment amid acute labor shortages in the U.S. 

The fast-casual chain is planning to set up 1,000 fully automated PizzaForno kiosks across the U.S. by the end of next year. The company has 40 kiosks in North America, including five units in Michigan.

This Is Not New Technology

PizzaForno co-Founders Les Tomlin and Will Moyer told QSR Magazine, a trade publication for the fast-food restaurant segment, that they first witnessed the "aha" moment in a small French town north of Paris 3 1/2 years ago.

"The technology has been around France for the better part of 10 years. Covid, the labor shortage, people don't want to spend 10 minutes waiting for anything. All those things add up to super fast, super convenient, super quick serve. That's where I think everybody's got to go," Tomlin said.

PizzaForno partly bakes its crusts, flash freezes them, then has humans top them at regional kitchens before they’re delivered to the refrigerated innards of its 80-square-foot machines.

Technology | Sony AI launches the “Gastronomy Flagship Project″ consisting of Research and Development of AI

Sony AI launches the “Gastronomy Flagship Project″ consisting of Research and Development of AI Powered Recipe Creation App, Chef Assisting Cooking Robot and a Community Co-creation Initiative

Tokyo, Japan – Sony Corporation established Sony AI as an internal organization in November 2019 and it became a new company in April 2020 with a global presence in Japan, the United States, and Europe. Sony AI  promotes fundamental research and development of artificial intelligence (AI) and aims to “create AI that unleashes human imagination and creativity.”

In addition to Sony’s existing business areas of “gaming” and “imaging & sensing,” Sony AI has set “gastronomy” as its flagship theme for new technical and business exploration. With the aim of enhancing the creativity and techniques of chefs around the world, the Gastronomy Flagship Project consists of the research and development of an AI application for new recipe creation, a robotics solution that can assist chefs in their cooking process, and a community co-creation initiative that will serve as a foundation to these activities.

In addition to games, Music, and Pictures, Sony AI sees great opportunities in Gastronomy as one of the global creative entertainment domains connecting chefs, who are creators, with their audiences. To this end, Sony AI will pursue its own research and development efforts in partnerships with various collaborators.

AI-Powered Recipe Creation App

Recipe creation is a very challenging research area for AI, as there are infinite possibilities for combinations of ingredients, as well as constraints such as location, climate, season, and a person’s health and food preferences, that must be taken into account.

Sony AI will utilize a variety of data sources – including recipes and ingredient data, such as taste, aroma, flavor, molecular structure, nutrients, etc. – to develop a Recipe Creation App that will be powered by proprietary AI algorithms to assist the world’s top-level chefs in their creative process of ingredient pairing, recipe design, and menu creation.

Through this App, Sony AI aims not only to assist in making delicious food but also to contribute to people’s health and the sustainability of the environment.

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Video Lessons | Essential Skills For Food and Beverage Personnel | How is Alcohol made? Part-2 By Dr. Hemant Kumar Singh

Brief About the Vlogger

Dr. Hemant Kumar Singh is an accomplished Trainer and administrator with over 21 years’

of experience in the field of Hospitality. His research work has published in various national & international journals. During his 20 year-long career, he has organized and attended a number of national & international conferences, seminars, workshops, FDPs, MDPs. He is a trained Online Educator certified by American Hospitality Academy.

Post Pandemic | How Smart Food Technology can aid Restaurant Growth

In the restaurant area, there are multiple spaces where technology plays an important role.

echnology in restaurants has come a long way. From a simple cash register to a central point of control for all functioning, technology has made a quantum jump. In the restaurant area, there are multiple spaces where technology plays an important role, one of the most crucial ones being restaurant operations.

Now, let’s get the fact understandable that there are a lot of things that an owner must look into. The types of Restaurant operations start from getting the high standard ingredient from the right vendor, ensuring that the kitchen never runs out of stock, checking if all the employees are tirelessly performing their tasks are just a few to start with.

How to Grasp Technology to Streamline Restaurant Operations

Technology streamlines your end-to-end restaurant operations and helps you deliver compatible customer service. The restaurant requires quality ingredients, with freshness and nutrition value being key desired attributes which in-turn affects the quality of the dish which Chef is making. Indoor smart garden technology offers Chefs access to fresh and healthy ingredients which increases the overall quality of dishes served. Read below and gather the knowledge about how using technology productively can help you in streamlining restaurant operations:

1. Hassle free Order Taking
You must maximize the growth of cloud technology to support your restaurant operations. A point of sale software that is browser-based and can work easily on any hardware such as a laptop, tablet, even a Smartphone enables Hassle-free order-taking mobile ordering, table reservations, automatic loyalty rewards, and taking orders from outdoor diners. Various food reservation apps are creating the task of table reservations very easy for both the customers and the restaurants.

2. Improved Front-end Operations
There are a lot of daily tasks that need to be done on the front end to ensure that you have Hassle-free operations in the day ahead. The several ways by which technology can smooth your front end restaurant operations are:
• Technology can enable your restaurant staff to provide wonderful guest service. Based on the order history of the customer, the staff can advise and upsell items.
• Self-ordering stands are making news nowadays that let customers order food themselves without the help of a waiter to take their orders.
• Digital menu boards are also an alluring way to display your menu items quickly.

3. Greater Efficiency in Kitchen Operations
The food which is the soul of your restaurant is prepared in the backend. This raises the importance of having operations at the back-end on the mark. The time consumed to prepare a dish, the inventory, the menu, the generation of kitchen waste, cleaning and hygiene, all need to be checked always, and it will now be made easier with the help of technology.

• A Kitchen Display System is an essential part of the restaurant kitchen operations. The Kitchen Order Ticketing (KOT) goes to the separate food-prep station directly, and the approximate delivery time becomes more accurate. Proper communications improve the customer experience and reduce the scope of mistakes on the part of the kitchen staff.
• Executive chefs or kitchen managers can easily make menus and generate food costs for standard or special-order items
• Keeping a check on inventory becomes simple with a restaurant management POS. The software sends you real-time alerts whenever an item gets to its reorder level. This makes sure that you never order an item that is already available or your kitchen runs out of an essential item in a busy hour of the day.

Yash Vyas is the Founder of Agro2o
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Domino's and Nuro to start robot pizza delivery in Houston

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Domino's Pizza Inc and Nuro Inc, a Silicon Valley startup, said on Monday they will launch a robotic pizza delivery service in Houston this week as they seek to satisfy increasing online orders during the pandemic.

With small, low-speed vehicles to carry packages instead of people, Nuro has been pulling ahead of other autonomous vehicle startups in gaining regulatory approvals. It won U.S. clearance last year to start unmanned delivery services.

Nuro recently secured a $500 million including an equity investment from Woven Capital, the mobility investment arm of a Toyota Motor Corp subsidiary, which made its total valuation more than $5 billion, a person familiar with the matter said.

The delivery service will begin at a Domino's outlet in Houston before expanding to serve customers in many other locations as part of a long-term partnership, said Cosimo Leipold, Nuro’s head of partner relations.

"It’s generally difficult for large companies to hire enough drivers to fill their delivery demand," Leipold said in an emailed statement to Reuters.

Leipold said Nuro, which has already partnered with retailers Kroger Co, Walmart Inc and CVS Health Corp to deliver groceries and prescriptions, said its weekly deliveries had nearly tripled in the first three months of the pandemic.

Houston, the fourth-largest U.S. city, has one of the country's highest road fatality rates. "Houston’s roadways create challenging scenarios for our technology to work with," Leipold added.

Nuro and Domino’s had said in 2019 they expected to launch robot pizza delivery late that year. "Nuro and Domino’s have taken a measured approach to prioritize a smooth and safe deployment," Leipold said.

Nuro, founded by two former Google engineers in 2016, previously raised $940 million from the SoftBank Vision Fund.

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Technology in Hospitality, Evolution, Innovation and Guests.

In hospitality, technology is a complicated problem. For an industry that has historically excelled and set the bar for customer experience, buying technology solutions has not been on the top of the list. Not because hoteliers like to be old fashioned, but because until recently guests really didn't care. Guests do care about the quality of the mattresses; they care about the wear in the carpets. They care about hot water, air conditioning and operational elevators.

But innovation and competitive advantage in guest experience and comfort is not going to come from installing an elevator or hot water. Those innovations were solved a long time ago. On the material side of comfort, innovation has pretty much plateaued. The future of innovation in guest experience is through technology.

In the 2000s there were approximately one billion computer users, most of them PC users, either wealthy enough to have a computer at home or they had to use a computer at work or school. In other words, very few of the guests were active computer users during their stay. Today we have over four billion computer users, most of them using a smartphone. We can quite safely assume that every hotel guest is now an active computer user during their stay.

The future of hotel guest experience is based on how good your technology is. Let me explain.

"Hospitality being slow to adopt."

In the hospitality industry and more specifically, the technology side of the hospitality industry, it is often said that technology moves slowly. That hotels don't invest enough in technology, and thus systems are old, and new technology doesn't get adopted fast enough.

But if one looks back over the last century and if we look up from our iPhone and it's frantic iteration cycle that we've been accustomed to, things have evolved - a hundred years ago we celebrated elevators in hotels. Today guests complain if there isn't a ramp up to the front desk.

Enterprise technology doesn't evolve fast, from a vendor side, it might, but for the customer side, it doesn't. In fact despite everyone being tired of hearing cloud-this and cloud-that today only 20-30% of Fortune 100 companies have moved to cloud systems. And those old mainframe computers that were invented in the 1950s and which most people only get to see in movies, well they're still selling, in fact, over 70% of the Fortune 500 companies use them

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The rise of 'Tech-Enabled Hospitality'

The hospitality industry has constantly reinvented itself to meet new challenges and stay ahead of the curve. The fear and insecurity surrounding travel caused by the global affliction of novel coronavirus infection has led hoteliers to look beyond the traditional way of doing business. A majority of them are re-examining their fundamental strategies and technological investment to create new paradigms

The post-COVID of the hospitality industry will most likely be hinged on integrating new-age technologies in every sphere and involve booking engines, mobile apps, digital concierge services, automated check-in and check-out and keyless entry systems.

A report by Software Advice’s Guest Preferences for Technology in hotels states that 60% respondents are more likely to choose a property that allows guests to check-in and open doors with a smartphone, than a hotel that doesn’t. Nothing can be truer in the After-COVID world.

The tech solutions
Given that guests will be even more conscious about personal hygiene and social distancing, hotels are incorporating new technologies and cleaning protocols to optimise services and COVID-proof their property. Contactless or touchless technologies are emerging as crucial tech trends for streamlining operations.

Solutions such as keyless entry, online check-ins, QR codes, digital menus, contactless payments, digital communication and engagement tools, and innovative technologies are coming into picture. It will be interesting to note how hoteliers will re-evaluate their technology strategy to protect and carve new guest experiences. We map out some transformations that are likely to change the hotel experience.

Contactless/touchless experience
Touch-free experiences are the new norm of the coronavirus times and hotels introducing new-age technologies across all segments to elevate and assure safe and hygienic guest experience.

JW Marriott Mumbai Juhu has introduced QR codes at critical touchpoints such as front desks, elevators,
rooms, restaurants and recreational spaces, to ensure a complete contactless experience for guests. “Processes such as check-in/check-out, viewing the guest services directory and other hotel information, viewing menus and placing orders, making payments and appointments have entirely gone digital to minimise human intervention,” says hotel manager Sunil Kumar.

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Tripadvisor Ramps Up Support for Hotels With Launch of Two New Technology Solutions

The world's largest travel platform, today announced the launch of two new technology solutions for hotels - Spotlight and Reputation Pro - to help hospitality businesses rebuild traveller confidence, attract new customers and make smart, data-driven decisions to increase profitability during these unprecedented times.

Combining the latest technology and software with TripAdvisor's unrivalled reach and scale, both Spotlight and Reputation Pro offer something new to the market, empowering hospitality businesses with the tools they need to increase customer confidence in their brand, forecast demand and set the most profitable nightly rates.

The combined launch signals TripAdvisor's increased focus on delivering best-in-class technology solutions that will help the hospitality industry recover in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, following the launch of popular free tools such as Travel Safe and Contactless Menus and the global rollout of Menu Connect earlier this year.

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Food data Intelligence Software NutriCal launches in the UAE

NutriCal, a Food Data Intelligence Software, has launched in the region with the aim to equip businesses with the information they can use to attract and retain customers.

NutriCal can be integrated by restaurants, cloud kitchens, food delivery companies, aggregators, food manufacturers, and brands. 

The system has data and intelligence of over 25,000 ingredients from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) and other international databases

For More Information Click Below :

www.hotelnewsme.com/news/food-data-intelligence-software-nutrical-launches-in-the-uae/