Start-up launches new hospitality commerce platform

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Hospitality technology start-up Fanz has announced the release of its new hospitality-focused full-suite commerce platform consisting of digital products for marketing, payments, ordering, loyalty, and guest feedback.

Hamburg-based Fanz enables hospitality companies to activate known guests with marketing and upsell campaigns based on a guestAI engine that improves the efficiency of payments, F&B operations, and loyalty/rewards programs by providing a single solution that can handle these processes seamlessly.

With a single payment service, hotels, restaurants, and events can operate both their online booking system as well as process physical payments on location. The F&B e-commerce solution allows customers to upload digital menus and facilitates guest-initiated F&B ordering and payment from wherever they may be located on the property, such as in the bar, next to the pool, or ordering from their rooms. It also supports native loyalty, rewards, and guest feedback programs, which are seamlessly integrated into every guest payment, the company says.

All of the guest data, gathered from PMS connectivity, F&B ordering, payment, loyalty, and feedback, is aggregated into Fanz's unique guestAI database (formerly known as CRM) to facilitate intelligent, automated guest communication and activation.

The team, long-time veterans of hospitality technology companies including TrustYou, and trivago recognized the challenges that hoteliers experienced in trying to re-establish normal operations after the debilitating COVID lockdowns of the last two years.

“One of the biggest challenges hoteliers currently face is to provide their booming number of guests the exceptional service they expect while the industry faces an unprecedented shortage of staff,” says early investor and chairman of the board Ben Jost (CEO, co-founder TrustYou). “Fanz is centered on rich data, smart automation, and integration. Every location on a property should be a place where guests can order and pay for services. With Fanz, loyalty is native to the payment process, feedback is not an afterthought, and marketing campaigns can run on autopilot. I believe this will make sense for a lot of hoteliers, and it also dramatically improves the guest experience.”

To validate the proof of concept, Fanz recently partnered with the oldest beer tent of the famous Munich Oktoberfest, the Schottenhamel Festzelt, to see how the technology worked across various use cases. Christian Schottenhamel, the landlord of the Schottenhamel Festzelt, said of the experience: “We used fanz to power QR code payments for the first time during the 2022 Oktoberfest, the first after having been cancelled for the previous two years. We are really satisfied with how smoothly the system worked for us."

Other pilot hotels like Hotel Alpenwolke, a self-service apartment in Germany’s Allgäu region, operate without a manned reception. “Flexibility was an important requirement for the payment process. Fanz helps make our payment processes digital as well as independent. And our guests love it,” said - Sven Menzel, Owner of Alpenwolke.

Jan Webering, on behalf of technology investment firm Bauwens X GmbH, who participated in the initial financing of Fanz, states: “The potential value of a purpose-built financial solution for the hospitality industry is clear. Having an easy-to-implement payment technology that not only covers existing needs that hospitality providers have but also enables them to offer additional services and flexibility to their guests, all while requiring little capital investment, should be a game changer.”