The New Standard of Service Excellence

Allison Ramirez More than 900 million tourists traveled internationally in 2022, and that number is expected to increase this year, which is why we’re chatting about the new standard of service excellence with some really knowledgeable and seasoned panelists. Welcome to INTELITY’s Inside the industry. There’s no question about the importance of providing excellent service and what better people to discuss the topic than Amanda Fraser, the President of Ratings at Forbes Travel Guide, Matthew Desmond, Executive Director of Information Technology at Edgewood Tahoe Resort. And Robert Stephenson, the CEO of INTELITY. I’ll tell you a little bit about our panelists in just a second. But first, let me introduce myself. My name is Alison Ramirez, and I’ll be your moderator today. I’m a travel writer and editor based in Atlanta. For now, my work has been featured in The Daily Beast device, Thrillist, Travel&Leisure, Lonely Planet, and some other really fun lifestyle, travel and F&B publications. I write a food, travel and culture newsletter called Eat, Drink, Sleep, Repeat and co-host a podcast with the same name. I’m really excited to learn from our panelists today. First, we have Amanda Fraser, who is Forbes Travel Guide’s President of Ratings, born and raised in London. Amanda now resides in Atlanta, like me. And overseas, the coordination of the global inspections and annual STAR awards, she also serves as chair of the Forbes. Travel Guide Standards Advisory Committee. Next up is Matthew Desmond, executive director of Information Technology at Edgewood Tahoe Resort. He has 17 years experience in luxury hospitality IT management and nearly two decades in the industry. He’s opened around 100 hotels worldwide. Matt has worked as director of it for companies like Marriott, Four Seasons, and Hyatt hotels. He’s very well versed in many hospitality platforms and technology and is responsible for finding, researching and installing new tech that can benefit the guest experience. Our last panelist is Robert Stevenson, a tech and entertainment exec with more than 20 years of rich experience across a broad array of disciplines, including products and business development, marketing, engineering and finance. He’s a seed investor in a number of tech and FMB startups, and he works with young entrepreneurs and advisory boards to help them reach their goals. This is how Robert came to run INTELITY as an investor and adviser to the company. Hi everyone. Thanks for being here today. Robert Stevenson Hello. Hello. Allison Ramirez Thank you for having us. Thank you. Let’s get right into these questions. Since we don’t have much time. We can all agree service excellence is important, right? But what does that mean to you? For me, as a traveler, as a writer, it means amenities, high end products, daily turndown service, knowledgeable and friendly staff. It means great food and drinks, a bathtub in my room. If I’m being really honest and, and most importantly, a property, and people who really go above and beyond to make me feel at home when I’m traveling for you. It might be something. So when it comes to recommended four or five star rated properties in the hospitality market, can you provide some examples of service excellence? What should it look like and feel like first and foremost for the guests? Amanda Frasier There’s just some great examples. I think, Allison, that you gave the things that most people think of when they’re thinking about what makes a great hotel or a great expert? But you know what we look for and I think what a lot of great hotels around the world know as well. And Matt knows that, his property is that. It’s not always the grand gestures. It can be the small things as well. I talk about this a lot and it’s really about not overthinking it and we hear lately I think a lot about the word authentic, right and what it means to be genuine is really what we’re looking for, so it doing something not just because you’re told to do it, but because you want. To do it, you saw something that you thought you could do that would make somebody’s day better or a little bit easier and as a staff member, you’re paying attention to those little things all the time. But for the guest, it can often feel pretty magical, and it could be when something. Is magically replenished, or you’re noticing the guest’s subtle habits without them realizing that you’re paying that much attention and now every property has its staff, staff and and. You know, staff that go. Above and beyond that seem to do these things very naturally. But I think at the end of the day, the key is consistency. Excellence can’t be optional when you’re talking about service excellence and running a hotel at that level. And it’s really a commitment from the top down. It’s your brand value. And it’s really a lot to do with who you hire as well. Robert Stevenson Yeah, I think. Building on Amanda’s answer, I think it’s both little details and large details. I think there’s, you know, it’s a nonlinear curve going from four to five star. So you know at the five star level, I think the expectation is all the minor details are taken care of as well as some major wow moments. So whether that’s the, you know, the quality and the ambience of the room or the speed of the service and the anticipation of service needs, I think those things are all kind of you know like standard at the top level that that that a guest would expect. I think as it relates to you know some technology elements I think showing. To showing to the guests that they can have the same type of service. Or similar service with you know also lightning fast speeds and responsiveness and you know sort of attention to detail. You know, if I’m going into, you know, order at the five Star restaurant and five star property, you’re going to expect the you know the order of your meal to have all of the options you know. You know, conveyed to you by the waiter that are available and quite detail specific. You know, how do you want something cooked or, you know, did you want a particular side ingredient or whatever? I think people on the digital side of things, you know, at a 5 star level would expect that as well, right? Can I add comments to my? Could be as simple as a hamburger, right? You know, did it queue me for what sides that I wanted? Did it give me an option to? I have some notes to get some extra detail of. Like you know, I want a cheese but I want a particular cheese, right kind of thing which you would expect it to be available at maybe a 5 star resort. And so I think that’s that’s what we’re talking about is it’s the, it’s the attention to detail, even small stuff that might seem insignificant that goes beyond the wow moments. I think that’s a very good way to sort of look at four and five star service. Allison Ramirez And Matt, what is that? What does it look like for you or what should it look like and feel like for the guest? Matthew Desmond Yeah, for the guests, I think you know the base of it is ensuring that the guest has everything they need, whether they’re here working, they’re here on vacation, whether they you need a specific Wi-Fi speed, trying to watch movies or they’re here to go outdoors, making sure that we provide their needs 1st and then on top of that, we have to have that. How factor is anticipating and and? Getting things for them before they even know that they need it. You know, ensuring that they have everything. They need to. Make that a memorable moment and a memorable vacation with their families and friends, and being able to provide that for them and just you know that to me, a lot of that comes with a lot of guest interaction and open. You know, why are they? You know, why are they here? You know, what exactly is their goal while they’re here while they’re coming in? All you’re here to play golf. Sure. You know you have a tee time. You know, one’s available for you. I’ll make sure to call over and get that set up for you or you can go in your room. There’s a tablet there you can just click a button, you see all the tee times for golf you can use that you know already and just go to one place in order to customize your entire stay. Amanda Frasier But that’s so important if I understand, I mean, I think there’s a lot of misconception as well that service excellence in being anticipated that you have to guess what the guests might want and service excellence is not being stuffy and not engaging with the guests. It’s having a great time so that they’re having a good time and letting your personality come out, because that’s when. You know, you get to learn what you need to make some of these things happen. Yeah, that’s a really great point, man. Allison Ramirez Yeah, having conversations with guests is. And I think a lot of times people think. That it’s it’s the opposite that just. Being at their level and down to earth and understanding what they’re looking for and kind of relating to you know what you would enjoy. Maybe if you were partaking in their experience as well. So our next question is, what are some of the more recent trends and new standards for? Excellent service that you see emerging. Robert Stevenson So from you know the perspective of INTELITY or a tech provider obviously and we have a guest experience platform, it’s quite comprehensive. But I think in terms of service excellence as it relates to tech and technology, it does begin with, you know, kind of the roots of service excellence. I think from the human to human. Sort of aspect of what, four and five star hotels have been doing for now. Decades, and I think, you know from a tech perspective, it’s understanding those sort of service excellence sort of markers but also those trends and trying to adapt and provide support to enhance them but then also and you know perhaps if we chat on provide new options for you know. Service excellence that can be tech driven that are hard to replicate. From a human to human sort of contact, and I think for us at least, the trend we’ve seen, you know, at indelibly and particularly through the pandemic, but I it it’s continued as the pandemic started to wane is really the expectation of of guests to have a, a, a digital flow in addition to a, you know a more human to human. Flow available to them, right? You know, like the rise of Bluetooth locks or digital check-in or these kinds of things. And some of these things frankly, were happening before the pandemic and in areas like airlines and ride shares. But I think. The hotel industry. You know, really started to hit that trend of like the digital adoption is really needed to provide, you know, really service excellence by providing the option for the guest that wants to contact lists or wants a a digital first experience from a really from a health and safety, maybe routes. But it’s evolved into something. More and more tech can can provide more features and overtime. I think it’s it’s started to snowball and build a bit. And I would say that’s a trend that we’re we’re definitely seeing is the now, OK, we’re past the fact that a mobile key can be put on a phone. We’re now getting into, well, what about more sophisticated interactions with the gas? Could we do more sophisticated chat or could we do more sophisticated AI understanding of the guest needs, those kinds of things to better support the? Yeah, but still I would say the dominant thing for us is like service excellence has existed and and and and for a long time in hospitality. And obviously Matt and Amanda know a lot about it, but we are seeing that the tech component of that be a really a piece of the equation that that isn’t ignorable anymore. You think it would? Fairly rare to have a four or five star property that has no digital amenity at all. No digital option at all. I think that would be fairly bizarre. Matthew Desmond And no, I would I would definitely agree with that, Robert. I mean, we live in a digital age now where it’s more convenient for people to have apps on their phones and to be able to interact with customers. And just with guests as well. So it it makes it a lot easier and and with COVID and the pandemic we we definitely saw. Big trend in safety and utilizing these pieces of technology and how do we? Input these pieces of technology without taking away from that guest interaction. You know, with the employees to make sure that we still meet that excellent standard to provide for them. So I think we’ve definitely been walking that fine line to make sure that we don’t go full digital where they still have that guest interaction. And with this new technology and what’s coming out. It’s been really interesting to see and it’s definitely been very helpful, especially coming from me from a director of a property. Allison Ramirez Yeah, you know. Amanda Frasier I can dovetail off of both of those comments just. A little bit. You know, as far as trends and. Obviously, two huge things that we’re focused on and haven’t focused on for a. While at full travel. Guide or well-being and environmental responsibility. And even though a lot of what we’ve just talked about is technology that is in front of the guests and in front of the stuff, there is so much. Right. Technology that happens behind the scenes that the guests don’t even realize it’s there, that support all the efforts as to maybe even why they’ve chosen to stay at the property because of its commitment to their well-being through the air temperature. You know the control that they might have over that, or maybe what you’re doing back up housed with environmental responsibility, that they’re never going to see, that it’s driven through great new technology. And because there are properties out there in destinations that aren’t tech forward and people go there because they’re not tech forward. But behind the scenes, they embrace technology to really advance some of those. Huge time for that really, really important right now. Allison Ramirez So we say that the adoption of of tech in this way has influenced where people go, what they do and service standards for hotels as as well. Speaker All right guys. Amanda Frasier Definitely. I mean, you know. Poptropica, we’ve evolved our standard. Over time and. You know, we’ve actually got an entire section called digital service, which is dedicated just to all things. You know digital that that the hotels and and properties do you know, including everything from prayer, arrival on stay and. Post day and. We even actually have standards around texting now as well. But what we do try to. Do is just to. Make sure and I’m I’m robbing. You touched on this at the beginning is we try to make sure that all our standards and our requirements that the hotels have the ability to offer the guest. The choice because we’ve still got this balance to address with guests that do want to embrace technology and are super comfortable with it and people that are really not. So it’s about still offering that balance, not making it overly complicated, but still giving those younger guests exactly what they expect from the convenience, the technology. And as I just said, some of the. Best experiences in the world are completely tech free from a guest standpoint, but they maybe are touching technology but don’t realize they are because it’s happening behind the scenes. Allison Ramirez So I know Matt, you touched on this for a minute before, but as executive director of IT at a luxury resort, how do you view the influence tech has on service standards? Do you have any real world experiences that you would like to share? Matthew Desmond Yeah, I think I think Amanda kind of said it right there. There’s guests that that come in that aren’t tech savvy and they don’t want technology and they they want that guest interaction and always want to be face to face and pick up the phone and make a call. So you you have to walk that fine line of being able. To service those guests as well. But then at the same time you have. The younger crowd that loves technology wants the app wants tablets in the rooms they want to digitally just kind of disappear or go somewhere luxurious and be able to stay in their room and order everything without talking to anybody. So you got to be able to cater to both those different guests and I. I see that here in Tahoe and that some of my other properties a lot of mountain properties that I’ve been at that that’s always been the case is we have guests that. Men that want the guest interaction but that also want to disappear, and they also want the. Technology there as. Well, so it’s trying to cater to both those worlds. Allison Ramirez Yeah, I mean, I’m a little embarrassed to say that I love the tablets and I love kind of hiding away when I check in somewhere and just, you know, having that time alone. And if I want to talk to people, I’ll go down to the bar or you know, that kind of thing. But it’s nice to just have that privacy and. Be able to chat through tablets and get what you need without, you know having to talk to. Robert, can you provide some examples of how this adoption influenced Intelity software? Robert Stevenson Yeah, absolutely. I mean the the as I mentioned before, the rise of sort of the contactless mobile interactions really for for us, you know we we already had mobile capability pre pandemic, but we doubled down triple down on it. Maybe you might even say. And really refined that, that package of of what would be available to the guests that you know and frankly the hotel owner that was just like looking to try to keep the doors open, get some guests in you know if they’re if they’re state level requirements or regional or country level requirements allow them to take guests, you know, how could they make guests feel safe and. Providing a really full feature set for that, you know that really it comes down to check in flow the ability to effectively. Bypass the front pad. And every hotel is different, so the check in flow, the tech stack that might be there might be different. So the flexibility in that check and flow and mobile key flow, very, very important in the last couple of years. And I I just don’t see that kind of waning. I I would say you know, you know the guest experience now is a pandemic. You know, started to. You know subside and we don’t really talk about it. Think about it anymore. We have some some spots in Asia and in China that are still kind of resolving themselves. But you know, now I think people have kind of come to a. Level of hey. You know, I can do everything on my phone. I can order any food that I need. I can now get all my groceries that way. Can QR code at every restaurant? Now I do see people kind of trending back to like, OK, maybe they are OK with some more human to human interaction. And what that does and. Signals to us. Is like OK now tech has solved to some degree the the contactless conundrum now where contact play a really smart role. You know people that want to go the route of contact. That’s great. You’ve got that taken care of. You can go into your room. Of course. Use a tablet and order and explore. But where? And the next Frontier, B and I, I I would say the things that keep popping up are, you know, things like. You know, SMS interactions, the notion of I think Allison, you were kind of talking about it. You know, you go into the hotel room and you you want to like, order stuff and do things. This kind of exploration mode that people get into, particularly at a large resort or they’re staying somewhere for personal travel and they want to see what the local surrounds. Or maybe the hotel. It’s called out local restaurants or, you know, relationships they’ve got in the in the village, the ski village, or, you know, perhaps those kinds of things. Features and functions, though, tell a hidden gym you weren’t aware of an indoor pool, whatever it might be, you know those kinds of things, making sure that that is very robust. That’s not really new technology, but we do see it from a from a trending and service excellence perspective that it that it be done, you know, really, really well. We’re we’re currently onboarding. A very large brand and. Going through tons of luxury properties and we’re seeing that, you know, seeing that very much like making sure triple checking that the compendium type information, the exploration of of the surrounding area type information is perfectly well done because I think people are like, OK contact, let’s check box checked now what’s next? That is low friction, right? The guests can interact with it. They cannot interact with it. You know it’s there, you know, and you know the technology is not particularly sexy, but but it’s. Allison Ramirez Right. So like. You said during the pandemic these functionalities became necessary right for people to continue traveling and spending money and all that. So hotels begin investing, probably before the pandemic and relying more on technology to aid and hospitality for both their guests. And the team Matt from a staff facing side, can you talk to us about how tech has changed the way your team operates? Matthew Desmond Yeah, definitely for us. I mean, the the pandemic was pretty hard just in hospitality in general and trying to get our staff back and and everything like that in order to cater to guests. And so we started looking at technology and how do we utilize it a little better. And so for us, adding an app adding you know intelity adding in tablets to our rooms, creating a one stop shop for a guest. It’s one thing to, I think, add technology, but you don’t want to over complicate it to where a guest has to go to five different apps in order to do anything. That’s it’s a one stop shop so they. They find everything they need. They can order their food now, utilizing that, trying to find the bodies to answer phones was really hard during the pandemic. So it’s utilizing technology and inputting it so that if a guest is using a tablet and say 70% of the guests are using tablets now, well, that’s taking a body. Away from someone having to answer the phones so that that helps us as a company. And filling that void so we can, you know, give our guests the best service that that they deserve. Allison Ramirez For sure. And so, Amanda, what does this look like for you? Have you seen a change in the properties that utilize software for this stuff? How does this look when upholding service standards? Amanda Frasier The the back of house element but. Not in real touch and we we don’t measure that in rating because we’re we’re we’re obviously from the guest. Point of view, but we’re certainly. Aware of of what’s happening back at how. From the technology. That is. Becoming more readily available. And I think anytime an employee. Has access to these types of forward advanced tools at their fingertips, whether it’s controlling their schedule or their healthcare, or access to training tips and just general support in in their workplace, we know that ultimately that benefits the guests too. So while again, while it might not be apparent to the guests that this hotel is. Certainly technology forward, if it’s happening back of house. And it’s making the. Staff feel better and perform better. And then everyone wins right at the end of the day. Allison Ramirez Perfect. So we’re kind of talking about all the ways that you know hotels and staff are doing it right. Are there any missed? Opportunities do you think hotels should look into further with technology in 2023? Robert Stevenson I’ll jump in. Yeah, I do think that from a tech perspective, you know there there’s a wide gamut of stuff that you can deploy in the property. I do think that you know the contactless thing is kind of a check box now and I think what, what the next level of stuff that, that, that people should be paying attention to is like, OK, well, once we’re in the door, once the guest is on property, how can we improve service levels? Is that through SMS? Is that through maybe more? Smart technologies trying to do some anticipation of what’s going on with the guests or better guest profile data that they can look at with the guests. You know things that will support to Amanda’s comments, Matt’s comments on support the the the staff. And enable them to be more effective, right? There’s there’s not. There’s not a drop in AI today that’s going to go in and and make a great guest experience, but you can certainly queue up and deliver on on elements that will help the staff make the right decision or make it maybe a more efficient or or or quick decision. I think you know to speak. More, you know plainly about. I think it’s, you know, having a nice robust of course property management system, but also have a good ticketing system that allows you know service request. Test work orders staff to staff type of transactions or perhaps maintenance or housekeeping. Those kinds of things all sort of organized and sorted for for the staff. That’s kind of foundational. And then I think the ability for the staff to properly interpret, you know, as we talk about a guest in service excellence, you know property and. Interpret the ticket information you know closing times. You know, queuing, you know, is there maintenance issues with a particular particular area of the hotel or particular function of the hotel and be able to take action effectively against that? You know, to the points made right, the the the guests are not aware that this is going on and the more robust that back end can be for the staff that you know the probably the better the service excellence is going to be it will be I can I think to Matt’s point too you know making sure it’s you know it’s accessible but you know easily. Those kinds of things. It’s very hard to hire a new. A new, you know, front desk staff and then be like, OK, here you go. You know, on the front lines tomorrow. And then there’s a piece of software sitting in front of them that’s like, you know. They’ve never seen before. It’s difficult to learn. That’s that’s a complete no go. I mean our our training team, for instance, we we not a big training team, but we still have one and and. So we’ve doubled the size, you know, in the last. Last year to two years really just on that right, it was we had a lot of new new people coming back from the pandemic first time hotel years and and they need training, right? Like you know, it’s it’s the software can be sophisticated, it can be a little confusing in spots and trying to work on that and make sure that they have a really good, robust experience. Amanda Frasier You know, the last thing, Robert, because your some of your comments take you back to when I was. On the front desk as well. And you know I. I’m hospitality tour. And tour and and and technology is and the the the way my brain works. I really have to. Work hard to understand a lot of it, and I do remember people are perfectly good system, it’s great. And then along comes the new system and now you. Have to learn this. In between a very, very. Hectic back-to-back shift and it’s it’s daunting because hospitality is so full on in front of the guests and every time you ask to learn something new and you’ve got a comfort zone, it can be it can be daunting. To that, and I do think in hospitality in general, the industry remains a little bit shy, but I do you know as well, I think that technology companies have a lot to learn from the hospitality professionals as well to get those kind of two areas working harmoniously well together because. It’s important to embrace it. And and to be forward thinking, otherwise you get left behind. Allison Ramirez So, Amanda, what does the future of new standards of service excellence look like in your mind? So we’ve? Amanda Frasier Very much focused on the guest experience. We always have been, so that isn’t. New but we’re taking an even more. Deep and meaningful. Look at what that is. Technology plays a huge role as we’ve just discussed today. And that ultimate guest experience, whether they see it and touch it or whether it’s just something that enhances their trip, that they never even knew was there. But the guest experience and as we talked about the very beginning, keeping it authentic keeping. Genuine making sure those experiences. Yes, maybe they’re well moments, but also not overthinking it and just making sure the guests have everything at their fingertips, whether they’re actually actively touching the technology or whether it’s somebody doing it for them. There’s some really amazing technology out there now. Things that you wouldn’t even think of that. Help the way you operate a hotel, how the guest has their experience. But as I said, our biggest focus in 23 and moving on is the guest experience and and really digging into what that is and what that looks like. Allison Ramirez So we kind of ran through these questions very quickly. I have one more for all of you, but before that, is there anything really specific that you want people to know about either the standards of service excellence or tech? Uhm, in the future of hospitality? Matthew Desmond I think for you know, the future hospitality for, you know, guest experience in the in room, I think we’re we’re there. I know it’s just going to keep growing because there’s such a huge technology push and creating smart rooms and and things like that. But on the back end, from a staff level, you’re going to see a lot of properties changing their systems to go. Just to focus more on sustainability and ensuring that you know your property is completely paperless, that you’re no longer printing reports or anything. For not out reports or anything like that, but now you’re just saving them. Guests coming in, you know? Not really. Giving them paper folios, emailing them, putting them on tablets. They can view. Them red cards are already digital. And you’re seeing this technology already there to help with this. And so that to me is where you’re going to see. A lot larger push is is more on that back end and staff reporting it and. And things like that. Robert Stevenson Yeah, I would. I would totally agree with that. I was making some comments to that earlier. I think that the back of House functionality Mandy was talking about it as well, right that that ability to provide a a really robust deep experience for the staff is is crucial and that’s where it’s going. And we look at, you know, pretty complicated questions, tech questions that come through our platform because of the variety of of hotels that that we support. But take something like, you know, sharing a key. You know that that experience on a on a digital platform. Form is it’s complicated, right? Like how do you properly register the the the gas that’s going to receive the key, how you’re able to revoke it? Should there be an issue, you know all of those kinds of things, you know the the, the tech platforms in the past have required people to, you know, stop come to the front desk issue or, you know, our traditional key. That was probably acceptable. Now 2 two years ago. Not so acceptable now we’re we’re past that sort of contactless hurdle. We’re past the mobile key hurdle. Those technologies should be robust and exist now like make sure that to Matt’s point. You know the act of sharing a key doesn’t require going down to the front desk and registering a new person in the PMS and all of that. That takes the magic out of it, right? And you’re you’re then taking that line that the guest has chosen. Hey I want to go down a digital pathway with my experience now and you’re forcing me to go to a human to human pathway and and so. So I think that’s, you know, incumbent on all tech providers to to think about exactly the things that Matt said is how can you be comprehensive and I would go as far as saying that’s important to the industry, right. The consolidation of some of the tech capabilities out there in deeper, probably less platforms, but deeper, stronger, richer platforms with more capability. Is is a a trend that I. Hope to see. Amanda Frasier I would close like. By second, you know just I. Would jump on both of. Those comments and agree 100%. I mean the the. More technology can do to help with the efforts around sustainability because there is so much focus on that, that if we’re not on top of it right now. If properties aren’t. Following along and staying current it it’s. Going to become regulated? Might as well just do it now and do it and take, you know, take control of ourselves. We’re working on a solution for travel guide, for sustainability, blending luxury and sustainability, so not compromising luxury, but still being environmentally responsible as a business for your guests. So we’re on the path and we we we know it’s important to. Matthew Desmond You know that that’s one of our big pushes and you know, especially with our owners here at Edge with that is keeping with the you know, the environment and ensuring that you know when we build a hotel here that we’re not destroying the entire environment that we’re keeping up with TRP A that we’re working with different groups to make sure that there’s no push going into the lake. We also run the water company, so we monitor everything that’s going on there, making sure that you know we’re we have no plastic here on the property. And then also like I said, utilizing technology in the background. So we’re not printing out any paper anymore, bringing in tablets to all the rooms in order for them to, you know, check their folios there, check their folios on the app, on their phone, check their folios on their TV. So any way they turn, there’s multiple pieces of technology to where they can find what they need. So that they don’t have to, we don’t have to print out any paper and give it to them. So we’re able to stay sustainable. Robert Stevenson Yeah, I would. I would say most of our tablet customers, which there’s there’s like a massive fleet of them out there, tons of thousands of tablets, a lot of them begin with the sustainability concept. They’re they’re you. Know perhaps trying to save a bit on the hassle of all the Compendium updates and. Menus and things like that to get out of date or stained or torn, torn, or those kinds of things. But sustainability is a major component of it. Tablet lasts a long time, sits in that room. It’s easy to maintain, you know, when it’s not being used. Very, very little electric. The versus, you know, carting around and printing out stuff and replacing those printouts and then being out of date. And you know, we did a case study some years ago before I think sustainability was a bit more of a of a of a key. Topic in the in hospitality. And we had swapped out tablets on it. It was a very small brand, regional brand in California and Oregon. But I think they had thrown out $80,000 worth of, you know, material that they were doing annually across, you know, a whole variety of stuff that they were putting in the room in terms of magazines and, you know, room service menus and leather bound compendiums and those kinds of things. That’s a lot, right. And it all goes into landfill. You know, tablets, you know, eventually do, do, have an end of life. But but it’s it’s decades in some cases. So we have some top of customers. They’re literally basically 10 years old and still still churning along and doing stuff. Allison Ramirez Can you guys hear me? Amanda Frasier Now we can. Trying to write. Allison Ramirez Talking, just talking just. Talking to myself, the sustainability aspect is definitely really high up there, I think. Are you getting guest feedback regularly on the tablets and on the technology and just you know that they’re they’re enjoying it and they. Want more of it? Robert Stevenson From my end, we’re, you know, we’re a B2B company. We work directly with the hotel. So interactions with the guests, Matt can definitely comment more closely on that, but we do get some feedback we and we do pay attention to it. We look at TripAdvisor for our hotels and you know, try to pay attention to any reviews that might come in that might mention. I would say definitely on the tablet side. It tends to be like universally positive. We rarely rarely see anything where somebody had an issue on the tablet, and I think, you know, we talked about this much earlier, right? You know, in a tablet enabled hotel room, it’s quite sophisticated. You can go into exploration mode, but there’s very few hotels that have taken the phone out of the room. And so there’s always that. Option 4. The guest, who doesn’t want to interact with the tablet but prefer to call down for room service and so it’s hard to have a bad tablet experience. Basically it would be my take on it and the feedback that we see on mobile when we when we do see that stuff pop up on TripAdvisor or other types of reviews tends to be pretty positive. I do think mobile. Before we talked about this earlier for an older generation might not be their their bread and butter. You do tend to see, like uh, you know, I just. Got the app, but you know wasn’t quite sure what to do with it other than room service, but you see a younger crowd. You can tell like you know the the the vibe of what some comments that people might make. They definitely excited by the the capabilities and the offering. Matthew Desmond Yeah, definitely. I think for us, we do get a lot of comments on the technology that we hear at our property, because you know a lot of people, when you’re coming from the city and you’re going to the mountains your expectation is Internet speeds are going to be slow. You know, TV’s are going to be in and out. They’re not gonna have tablets, anything like that. And then, you know, they come to our property and they come into Edgewood and see that their Internet speeds are just the same as they would be in the city. There’s tablets. They have all the technology. So we do get a lot of comments on how we came here. We were expecting there to be no technology and you have everything that a normal city property would have. And so they have that, that same ability that they would anywhere else being located in the mountains. Allison Ramirez Yeah, that’s great. That’s really important. I think the thought about covers it. Thank you everyone for joining us at INTELITY’s Inside the Industry, I think you’ve all provided some really wonderful information today that I’m excited to share with everyone else. Amanda Frasier Thank you. Thank you for having us. Robert Stevenson Thank you. Thanks, Allison. Thank you much.