If you've competed in the HotelTechAwards in the past, this year is going to be nearly identical to last year.  Having said, that, there are a couple of updates and improvements that we've made this year that are worth noting that fall into three buckets: 

1. New Perks: Thousands of dollars in perks and benefits for participants to help make running your awards campaign a breeze.
2. Product Updates: New features that we've rolled out to simplify managing your team's awards campaign
3. Algorithm Updates: Updates to the HT Score ranking algorithm since last year to make the HT Score more dynamic that impact this year's competition.

I. New Perk for Participants: Free Case Studies During the Month of October

As in past year's all companies who compete in the annual HotelTechAwards get free access to the Automated Review Manager for 30-days (September 1 - September 30) to kick start your campaign.  This year we are also going to be adding a new perk worth thousands of dollars which is that all participants will now get 10x free case studies ($5,000 value) to utilize during the month of October.   We will be sending out a reminder notification about this in October but for those of you who like to plan ahead...plan on focusing on posting case studies in October. How it works: 

1. Post a case study during the month of October
2. Once it has been verified, fill in the refund form here by October 30, 2024 to get up to 10x case studies refunded in full 

II. Relevant Product Updates

1. Redesigned Reputation Report Card: Ground up redesign of the Reputation Report Card to make it easier than ever to see what will make the most impact and move the needle most to optimize your HT Score and focus your awards campaign on the action items that set your company up for success.
2. Company-Level Integrations: Integrations have been refactored from the product to company level making it easier to list and verify your integrations without having to relist or audit duplicate integrations for each of your products.
3. Partner Recommendations Tab + Updating Feature: In order for companies to more easily manage, collect and update recommendations from partners, HTR will be rolling out a tab in the dashboard dedicated to partner recommendations (instead of the small report card modal from past years)

III. HT Score & Rankings

1. Profile Completeness Variable: The profile completeness score will evaluate each profile along with pieces of key information that buyers look for which include: capabilities, screenshots, pricing, features, profile freshness.
2. Trending Variable:  The purpose of the trending score is to help hoteliers identify products that are trending in the market which is measured by assessing the following questions.
3. Static Variables Update: All HT Score variables migrated from static (cumulative over time) to dynamic (time-based variables and calculations to enhance relevance and weight recent content more heavily)

Reminder: For companies who are looking to compete in the overall platform awards, please rememeber that you do not need to register seperately for this competition BUT YOU DO NEED TO BE REGISTERED AND COMPETING IN EACH OF YOUR RESPECTIVE PRODUCT CATEGORIES.

In July HTR will be adding a new variable to the HT Score called the trending score.  The purpose of the trending score is to help hoteliers identify products that are trending in the market which is measured by assessing the following questions...

1. Is your product trending with buyers? 👉 Metric: TTM price quote & demo inquiries
2. Is your product trending with customers? 👉 Metric: TTM 4+5 star reviews
3. Is your product trending with partners? 👉 Metric: TTM partner recommendations
4. Is your product trending in the news cycle? 👉 Metric: TTM posts (press releases, success stories and guest posts)

Each product on HTR is analyzed based on real time data in the platform along these four criteria to determine it's trending score within it's category to show which products are trending most in a given month.

While almost identical to prior years, this year's HotelTechAwards come with a few new updates to be aware of going into the competition.

1. (NEW) Rules agreement. Your team should have received the rules agreement. This is a new requirement this year - all competitors must sign the document by September 23rd in order to be eligible for recognition as a winner, finalist or any other prize. Learn more
2. (NEW) Leaderboard visualizations: The live leaderboard is now available from within the vendor dashboard and includes a bar chart visualization with hover tool tips that break down the HTScore and show the underlying data in realtime Learn more
3. (NEW) Verified case studies. Next week HTR is rolling out our latest feature - verified case studies. We'll send a dedicated update about this feature and case studies will be a ranking factor in the HotelTechAwards this year so stay tuned. Rest assured all competitors will receive access to the feature at the exact same time to keep the competition fair as always. Learn more
4. (NEW) Platform awards. This year's awards include 3x new platform awards to recognize companies that have built a suite of products that that enable hotels perform and execute essential use cases and work flows that span Ecommerce, Operations and Guest Experience Learn more

Its September 1st and the annual HotelTechAwards officially kickoff today! 🏎  🏁  This is arguably the most important HotelTechAwards competition ever. The last 18-months have seen the hotel industry undergo an unprecedented digital transformation.  During this same period, thousands of hotels around the world have changed ownership (or management) and the hospitality workforce has shifted dramatically.

This game of musical chairs amongst hotel tech buyers is creating opportunities for the top hotel tech companies to pull away from the pack.

What separates the best hotel tech companies from the rest?  That's where the HotelTechAwards come in: using data to measure customer satisfaction, partner ecosystem strength, customer support processes, peer trustworthiness and more to determine the most loved products in hotel tech according to the judges that matter most, hoteliers.

Almost every major hotel tech company from San Francisco to Sydney is registered to compete in this year's awards for a chance to win the most coveted award in hotel tech so make sure to start collecting reviews asap to increase your chances of winning.

Below please find a few tips to help you kick things off strong and as always, if you have any questions along the way feel free to reach out anytime via the live chat on HTR--we're here to help!

👇  Scroll down for week 1 tips 👇

Week 1 Tips and Announcements

• Live leaderboard and coaching checklist activated: The live leaderboard and coaching checklist are now activated so registered companies can check your eligibility status and current standings in real time and get tips to pick up more points
• Automated review manager is now unlocked for 30-days: Included with your registration is 30-days of unlimited access to the Automated Review Manager, a tool to help you save time, automate your outreach and collect more reviews.  The review manager is now unlocked in all participants dashboards so if you aren't a Premium Member and don't typically have access to the review manager--make sure to take advantage of it to save time and get off to a strong start
• Coaching tips coming your way: We'll be sending out tips every few weeks to registered companies to checkin and help you focus your efforts on important milestones to stay on the road to victory.  
• ✅  First target milestone target...Meet the minimum eligibility requirement of 25-reviews as quickly as possible to get a strong start and set your team up for success (you can check your status in the live leaderboard here)

Learn how to launch an automated campaign

30-day free access ends on September 30, 2021

Phase II of the Poseidon Algorthim update is now live.  This means that the new rankings that were only vendor facing in the vendor dashboard in Phase I can now be viewed live on HTR throughout the entire site both the hotelier facing site as well as the vendor dashboard.

If you have any questions about the algorithm updates please refer to the scoring documentation or the Phase I announcement.  If you're looking for personalized tips to improve your reputation, rankings and visibility--check out the Report Card and Coaching Checklist in your vendor dashboard.

Continued from Phase I: HT Score Poseidon Update

When does the 3rd and final phase of the update go live?

The final Phase III update (Client bias/Share of Voice variable) will be rolled out with the introduction of the Client Bias ranking signal no later than 11/1.  Per the June 16th update for vendors to see in the dashboard but the weighting will go live after the end of the 2022 HotelTechAwards:

Client Bias (aka. Share of Voice). Hotel Tech Report’s policy has historically been to accept reviews from multiple users at a single hotel due to the fact that every user has a unique opinion/viewpoint on software.  Having said that, collecting lots of reviews from only a handful of customers that aren't representative of your overall customer base indicates potential risk of bias.  

What is the client bias update?

We’ll use two hypothetical vendors to illustrate the importance of this algorithm patch: Vendor A and Vendor B. Vendor A has 30 reviews from 30 hotels, Vendor B has 30 reviews from 1 hotel client. 

In this example, you can see that while both vendors have the same # of reviews, this is not an apples-to-apples comparison when it comes to credibility and install base since Vendor A has 30 verified hotel clients and Vendor B has only 1. 

The Share of Voice variable will help identify potential client selection bias (aka. cherry picking) that can arise if a vendor is strategically only asking for feedback from a select number of clients versus reaching out to their full install base.

Who will be impacted by the client bias update?

Most companies will not be impacted by this update.  The only companies that will be impacted will be ones who have selectively sought to only seek feedback from lots of users at a small sample of client hotels.

*Note: You can still get a handful of reviews from a single property; however, if all of your reviews are coming from a small amount of properties the algorithm will identify this as potential cherry picking/gaming and your score will be impacted as a result

What can we do to maximize our score for the client bias update?

Just make sure you are reaching out organically for feedback to your client base instead of cherry picking select clients.  Also, take note that while you may certainly collect a handful of reviews from different users at a given hotel--if your strategy has been to try to game the system and collect tons of reviews from a single hotel (or small number of hotels) this will be identified by the algorithm update and your score will be impacted.  Hopefully it goes without saying but...make sure you're review collection is organic, representative and diverse and you are not trying to game the system by gathering lots of a reviews from only a few select clients.  

Phase I of the HTScore Poseidon Algorithm update that was announced back in June is now live.  

Phase I of the rollout gives vendors a chance to see potential impact to their rankings and what they can do to improve before the site wide rollout to all users.  In Phase I vendors have the opportunity to see their new scores privately via their Reputation Report Card and Awards Live Leaderboard and get personalize tips to improve your score before the public rollout later this month (late August) via the Coaching Checklist in your vendor dashboard.

As a reminder, for the next few weeks during Phase I the updated rankings and scoring are only visible to vendors privately via the vendor dashboard and the awards leaderboard to make sure you have plenty of time to check your impact and take any necessary action (if needed) in advance of the update officially going live on the site.

FAQs

Will my ranking and scores be impacted?

While most companies' scores won't be heavily impacted, companies who don't have recent reviews of their products may experience significant drops in ranking and scores.  

How will I know if my HTScore or ranking will drop significantly due to the update?

Head to the Reputation Report Card in your vendor dashboard to check your HT Score and ranking relative to what you see on the front end (ie. your profiles or category pages) of HotelTechReport.com. 

See how to check your score impact

If our products look like they will drop in score or rank after the update goes live, what can we do to mitigate this?

Not to worry, this is exactly why Phase I exists to give your team time to know what to expect and pre-empt any unexpected or undesired changes.  The first thing you'll want to do is review the Coaching Checklist in the Reputation Report card which is sorted by potential impact (most important at the top).  The main reason for companies dropping in score or rank with this update is due to inactivity and lack of recent reviews so this is an easy one to fix and HTR has several resources available to help Basic Members and Premium Members quickly and easily collect recent reviews.

When will the update officially go live to the rest of the site (Phase II)?

Phase II will go live towards the end of August providing vendors several weeks of additional prep time leading into the official rollout to check their impact and collect reviews to mitigate any potential drops in scores/ranking due to inactivity.

Each of these trends were inevitable tech enabled shifts in the way we interact and collaborate as a species whose adoption was vastly accelerated by COVID-19.

But while rapidly changing regulation, limited staffing and required physical distancing highlighted the importance of technology to survive in the face of uncertainty, what hoteliers across the world realized is that the benefits of leveraging technology to attract more customers, communicate more seamlessly and improve efficiency stretch far beyond COVID.

👉 Download the 2021 Market Leaders Report

We created this free report packed with data driven insights, product rankings, trend analysis and tons of additional free resources to serve as a primer to all things digital to inspire HTR’s global community of hoteliers as you prepare for the recovery.

Whether you’re looking to adopt contactless checkin to make guests feel more at ease upon arrival, find a channel manager to tap into new distribution channels, upgrade to a modern PMS so you don’t have to kick the hood three times and blow on the steering wheel to check a guest in (joking…kind of) or you're just looking for a resource to share with your team to help them get more familiar with the top tech tools that are available—this report has it all.

Check out the new top rated products announcement page bringing the winners of the annual HotelTechAwards front and center on HTR year round to garner more visibility and leads.

Running a hotel is hard and 2020 was the most challenging year in history.

But with every crisis comes opportunity and here at Hotel Tech Report, we've spent the last 3-months scouring the globe for the best tech products to bring your hotel back stronger than ever in 2021.

During the 3-month 2021 HotelTechAwards period, 318,466 hoteliers across 127 countries visited Hotel Tech Report and spent more than 3,000 hours contributing 10,227 verified hotel software product reviews to help you save time, make better vendor decisions and determine the best hotel tech products of the year.

HTR's community of hoteliers from the world's leading hotel companies surfaced innovative products ranging from contactless check-in solutions and next-gen guest messaging all the way to automated revenue management systems and business intelligence software.

We are excited to share with you the best hotel tech products of 2021!

View the full announcement eblast

On December 15th, the 2021 HotelTechAwards period comes to an end and all companies will have had a full 14-weeks (Sept 1-Dec 15) to earn as many points as possible per the competition scoring rubric.  Please note that to ensure a fair competition for all participants, the December 15th deadline is firm and final with NO EXCEPTIONS.  

Upcoming Dates to Keep in Mind

1. ✅  December 9-10 Review Inbox Access Period
2. 🏁  December 15: Competition Deadline
3. 🧮  December 16-18: Analysis and Data Audit
4. 🌚  December 21-31: Winner Determination + Go Dark Period
5. 🤫  First week of January: Winners Notified
6. 🥇  Tuesday January 12, 2020: Public Announcement of Winners
   

Learn more about what happens on December 15th after the cutoff deadline

HotelTechAwards Home Stretch FAQs

• (Q1) Will the review manager be unlocked again to submit last minute verifications for reviews where the user didn't click the verification link?
• (Q2) What should I be focused on leading into the final stretch of the awards?
• (Q3) If I'm showing in 1st place in the leaderboard on December 15th @ 5pm when data is frozen does that mean I've won my category?

Check out the answers to the FAQs