Cover Story
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financial information they need right from
their phone.”
Choosing a purpose-built platform
improves adoption by hotel staff, Hansen
said. It also leads to real results.
“Resistance we find in the technology
space often happens because something is
deployed or rolled out or implemented, and
immediately people are resistant because
they go, ‘Ah, well, this is not really created
with me in mind,” he said. “It wasn't created
with my hotel or my role in mind. It was
created to be a retail or whatever.’”
Whatever can go wrong
There are other things that can go wrong
if a company implements the wrong
fin tech, or they fail to implement it
correctly, Middleton said. Having realistic
expectations is the first step.
“What they try to do is buy that $30,000
subscription, and then they try to make it
do what they're already doing,” he said.
“And the difference is, is that tool is built
to make you think differently? Is it built
to make you better? Is it built to make you
rethink your processes and how you're
structured so that you can be better than
you were yesterday?”
Pride is another problem in the hotel
business, Middleton said.
“So, there's a lot of pride, and we all tend
to kind of think we've all got it figured out,
and we've got it figured out better
than they do, and this is why,”
Middleton said. “We're scared
to change, and we kind of let
that pride take over, and we
don't really step back to say,
‘OK, I know we've done it this
way for the last five years,
but is that really the way
that we need to be doing it?
Things have changed. We're
changing. Our portfolio has
changed. We probably need
to look at if they're building
technology in this way, it's
probably because there's a
really good reason behind
it.’”
Essentially, owners
should ask if a certain
tool gives them something
they didn’t have before.
Middleton said that creates value.
“If you buy a tool and you don't get
better results than you had the day before,
something happened,” Middleton said.
“Either it was the wrong investment, or it
was a bad implementation. I mean, that
tool is there to derive a greater value for
your business. So if you don't deploy it
with a mindset that, hey, we're going to
have to change the way that we do a few
things, or we're going to have to rethink
some roles and responsibilities around our
organization, it won’t work out.”
Adopting any new
software package is
really a matter of
mindset, Middleton said.
“I think that's really the biggest thing that
we have to change along the way,” he said.
“I think the tides turning a little bit, but it's
still, I will say, the number one cause in
contract termination with any technology
solution is bad implementation.”
Hansen gave another reason companies
reject new fin tech. Many are not sure
how to fit a new package into their already
crowded tech stack.
“As a matter of fact, most hotels have an
average of 12 different unique softwares
that any team member within that hotel
uses on a daily basis,” Hansen said. “To put
that into perspective, 12 different softwares,
and I'm talking your POS software, your
property management solution, maybe a
sales and catering software or a back of the
house software, your register, whatever it is,
there's an abundance of technology being
used every day to run a single entity.”
Middleton said at least the hospitality
industry is giving fin tech due
consideration.
“People are finally seeing technology as
a true investment,” Middleton said. “When
you go buy land, you build a property,
you invest in this massive amount of real
estate, you're not just putting out $20, $30
million and saying, let's hope it works.
Technology is the same way. The tools that
you employ to run that business is just as
important of an investment, because
the success of that $30 million to
a to a large degree, depends on
the success of your $20,000
tech investment over here in
this one little area of your
business.”
What else is
new?
Regarding other current
trends in hospitality
fin tech, Middleton
said the initial wave
of excitement over
the use of AI will
translate into
explorations of the
practical use of
that technology.
Primarily, it will
help hotel owners
and operators
develop a clearer
understanding
of where they
should focus their
attention day to day.
“I think you're
www.asianhospitality.com
September 2025 | Issue 24
Nimble Accounting CEO
Radha Alla said his company’s
platform was created to
simplify and modernize
financial management for the
hospitality industry.