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.