Sojern Expands into New Hotel Tech Via Acquisition. Here's the Thinking.

25.08.2023 - 13:15 / skift.com / Justin Dawes / New Hotel

Sojern, the business-to-business marketing platform for travel companies, is moving into a new sector of hotel services through an acquisition. 

The company said Tuesday that it has acquired California-based VenueLytics, a platform that provides guest management and communications software for independent hotels.

Sojern is not disclosing the acquisition price or terms of the deal. The company is also not disclosing the number of clients or employees from VenueLytics that are joining Sojern. 

LinkedIn lists 22 people as employees of VenueLytics. 

The tech from VenueLytics will power the new Sojern Guest Experience Solutions business. Baskar Manivannan, the VenueLytics co-founder and CEO, is joining Sojern to lead that business. Suryanarayana Mangipudi, another co-founder and head of technology, is joining the technology team at Sojern. 

Sojern historically has focused on its AI-powered platform that uses customer data to help hotels and other travel company clients make more informed marketing decisions, meant to drive more direct bookings. 

Sojern says it works with more than 10,000 travel companies worldwide.

In the age of post-pandemic financial recovery and a labor shortage, those clients have been asking for a way to use Sojern’s data to drive revenue beyond securing bookings alone, said Kurt Weinsheimer, chief solutions officer for Sojern. 

“For hoteliers, for a lot of them, that’s kind of the starting line. Getting that direct booking is just the beginning of that guest journey,” Weinsheimer said.

The new technology coming on board includes an AI chatbot that can automatically send pre-stay greetings as well as automate guest interactions, meant to free up front desk staff for more complicated work. That chatbot includes underlying AI technology that analyzes customer data and makes personalized upsell recommendations before and during the stay.

VenueLytics is in the early stages of integrating generative AI from Google and OpenAI into the chatbot tool.

The VenueLytics website published a blog post listing the top 10 requests from guests through the AI concierge. It highlights how each interaction could lead to an upsell. A question about check-out time, for example, could lead to the chatbot offering an option to pay more for a late check-out. Or a question about ice could lead to the chatbot offering ice delivery along with drinks. 

“Being able to do this quickly for that mobile-first guest … and do it when hotels are short staffed is critically important,” Weinsheimer said. “We’ve seen hotels have up to a 70% reduction in front desk calls by implementing, for example, this AI smart concierge.”

One of VenueLytics’s main customers is Grupo Posadas, the publicly traded hotel company in Mexico