Hotel Tech Insider

What if buying a hotel no longer meant inheriting fourteen-hour days, outdated systems, and a business that owns you?
In this episode of Hotel Tech Insider, Simona Eicher, CEO and owner of Hotel ÜJA in Switzerland, shares how she and her partner bought an under-digitized independent hotel from a retiring owner and rebuilt it around a more modern operating model.
With a background in McKinsey, software procurement, and venture building, Simona entered hospitality with little traditional hotel experience. She used technology to simplify operations, improve the booking journey, make better commercial decisions, and preserve the human side of hospitality where it matters most.
The results are compelling: more than 80% direct bookings, a 30% increase in ADR, and higher occupancy.
Simona also breaks down the practical lessons behind the transformation, including how she selected and later replaced her PMS, why digital lock and local system integrations became non-negotiable, and where software demos can fail to reveal real-world operational limitations.
More broadly, the episode explores a growing opportunity in independent hospitality. As longtime owners retire and younger family members opt out of the operating model they grew up watching, a new generation of buyers can acquire under-digitized hotels and use modern technology to turn them into more profitable, flexible, and attractive lifestyle assets.
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What happens when an experienced hotel technology leader uses AI to extend what his team can build, analyze, and improve?
In this episode, Bill Legrand, Executive Director of Commercial Applications at VAI Resort in Glendale, Arizona, shares how he has used AI-assisted development to build roughly a dozen internal applications while preparing one of the industry’s most ambitious new resorts for opening. VAI combines hotel operations with a 14,000-person amphitheater, water attractions, and entertainment experiences, creating an unusually complex technology environment.
For experienced hoteliers, the takeaway is not about replacing established hotel systems. It is about using AI as an augmentation layer around the existing tech stack—helping teams build specialized tools faster, connect data more effectively, improve workflows, and solve problems that may not justify a standalone enterprise platform.

In this episode we cover:
See what AI-assisted development looks like in practice. Bill shares how he built tools to extract and centralize data from Salesforce, Marketing Cloud, and Mailchimp, giving his team more control over how that information can be analyzed and used.
Learn how VAI is turning SOPs into usable AI-ready data. One of the most compelling projects started as an effort to make operating procedures conversationally searchable. Bill quickly discovered that inconsistent source material was the real problem, so he built a system that restructures, standardizes, versions, and improves SOPs before making them available to AI.
Understand why data quality and judgment matter more than the model. Bill’s key lesson is that AI on poorly structured data can produce answers that sound authoritative but are wrong. Clean, integrated, governed data is what makes AI genuinely useful inside hotel operations.
Bill also discusses how his team implemented Microsoft single sign-on in roughly four hours, how VAI isolates AI development environments for security, why it is experimenting with internal LLMs for confidential information, and how open APIs make it easier to create custom workflows and interfaces around existing hotel technology.
For hotel executives who already understand the fundamentals of the tech stack, this episode offers a practical look at how AI can give internal teams significantly more leverage - without changing the role of the core systems they already rely on.
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What if the biggest opportunity in hotel technology isn’t making your team more efficient - but removing entire workflows from the equation? Kurien Jacob (KJ) of Highgate Technology Ventures argues that nearly every major hotel software category is now vulnerable to AI-driven disruption.
Few people have had a better vantage point on that shift. Before helping lead Highgate Technology Ventures, KJ spent roughly 15 years building Highgate’s revenue management capabilities and ultimately served as Chief Revenue Officer. Today, he evaluates hotel technology from both sides of the table: as an investor looking for scalable businesses and through Highgate’s operating portfolio, where products can be tested against real hotel needs.
Key Takeaways:
Rethink what “AI-native” actually means. KJ explains why simply adding AI features to an existing SaaS product isn’t enough. The winners will redesign both their products and their own operations around AI, while leveraging the integrations, workflows, and infrastructure they’ve already spent years building.
Expect major hotel software categories to collapse or converge. From PMS and CRS to RMS, CRM, financial reporting, payments, and distribution, KJ outlines where agentic workflows could eliminate manual steps - and in some cases eliminate the need for entire software layers. One surprising example: if an RMS can intelligently manage pricing and distribution mix, why should hotels still need a separate CRS for rate management?
Look beyond copilots toward autonomous execution. The most important shift isn’t software helping employees perform tasks faster; it’s software completing the underlying job itself. For experienced operators, that means evaluating technology based on which workflows it can fully execute—from guest check-in and room assignment to revenue posting, reconciliation, marketing personalization, and task management.
The episode also explores what the next hotel tech stack may actually look like. Rather than 20 or 30 disconnected systems, KJ expects the market to consolidate around a smaller number of powerful operating, commercial, financial, and marketing platforms - while still leaving room for a handful of exceptional best-of-breed products.
One of the most unexpected ideas comes from the guest experience side: instead of separate AI tools for voice, messaging, concierge, and service requests, KJ sees the opportunity for a single “brain” that remembers the guest across every interaction - from booking through checkout - and uses that context to orchestrate hotel operations behind the scenes.
For hotel leaders deciding where to invest, what to replace, and which emerging vendors deserve attention, this conversation offers a practical framework: focus less on AI features and more on whether the technology can own and execute a meaningful business outcome.

What if the biggest competitive advantage for the next generation of hotel owners is knowing when not to fly a flag?
In this episode, Skift Editor-in-Chief Sarah Kopit - formerly a managing editor at Bloomberg - joins Hotel Tech Insider to unpack why more hotel owners are questioning the economics of traditional franchise relationships. Her reporting reveals a surprising shift: while actual de-flagging remains relatively limited, the conversation around independence has moved from fringe idea to legitimate strategic option for owners evaluating expiring franchise agreements.
For experienced hoteliers, the episode goes beyond the usual “brand vs. independent” debate and gets into the operational mechanics making independence more viable.
What you’ll learn:
How technology is changing the franchise value equation. Modern PMS platforms, distribution tools, digital marketing, AI, and third-party management companies increasingly allow owners to assemble capabilities that were once difficult to replicate outside a major brand ecosystem.
How to evaluate whether your brand is actually generating enough demand. One franchise attorney Sarah interviewed suggests owners should closely examine how much business the brand and loyalty ecosystem truly deliver—and reconsider affiliation if that contribution doesn’t justify the economics.
What hotel owners need to replace when they deflag. The episode breaks down the practical transition: financing, PMS selection, distribution, branding, digital presence, Google reviews, and customer acquisition. One owner even unlocked an entirely new demand channel through Airbnb after becoming independent.

One of the most surprising insights is that the motivation to leave a franchise isn’t always about eliminating fees. For one owner profiled by Sarah, independence was primarily about gaining control over the product, brand, and guest experience - and using that freedom to grow revenue rather than simply cut costs.
The episode also explores where the major brands still retain meaningful advantages, particularly loyalty programs, and why improved access to financing could further accelerate the independent hotel movement.
For owners approaching a franchise renewal, this conversation offers a practical framework for asking a more important question than “Should I deflag?”: What capabilities does my brand provide today that I could - or could not - recreate myself?

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How do you modernize the technology behind 70 hotels without overwhelming the people responsible for running them?

In this episode, Peter Twachtman, CEO of Lark Hospitality, explains how one of the fastest-growing independent hotel management groups is building a scalable technology and operating model across more than 70 properties in 22 states, Mexico, and Canada.
Lark specializes in independent and branded hotels with fewer than 150 rooms. After growing from roughly 20 hotels and merging with Life House, Peter and his team consolidated the portfolio around a core technology stack that includes Mews, Akia, Toast, and Hotel Investor Apps.
The surprising lesson is that selecting the technology may be the easy part. The harder challenge is determining which data should serve as the source of truth, introducing change at a pace hotel teams can absorb, and remaining willing to replace systems that stop evolving with the business.
In this episode we go through:
How to establish a reliable hotel data foundation. Peter explains why Lark prioritized clean financial, PMS, and point-of-sale data before attempting more advanced analytics or AI applications.
How to manage technology change across a large hotel portfolio. Learn how Lark communicates upcoming initiatives, gathers frontline feedback, adjusts implementation timelines, and prevents technology projects from disrupting hotel operations.
How to evaluate vendors as long-term innovation partners. Peter shares why hotel companies should continuously assess whether their PMS, ERP, POS, loyalty, booking, and guest-journey platforms are keeping pace—and why loyalty to a vendor should not become technology lock-in.
How Lark is approaching AI with both urgency and discipline. The conversation covers internal AI experimentation, data-access guardrails, information security, and the importance of slowing down at the right moments while still taking calculated risks.
Why traditional hotel metrics may no longer be enough. Peter discusses moving beyond RevPAR and cost per occupied room toward more revealing measurements such as revenue per square foot, revenue per guest, and guest lifetime value.
Peter also challenges the common prediction that hotel technology will consolidate into fewer platforms. He believes the opposite may occur: lower barriers to software development could produce even more specialized systems, increasing both innovation and complexity for hotel operators.
Throughout the conversation, Peter makes the case that curiosity, empathy, strong listening skills, and ego-free leadership are essential to successful hotel technology transformation. The best insights often come not from senior leadership, but from the employees closest to the guest and the daily operation.
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