Buying a new property management system is one of the biggest decisions a hotelier can make, and most of them will tell you the process is painful. Tommy Kalita has been on both sides of that process. Before joining sales and then fintech solutions at Mews, he ran his own hotel in Edmonton, Canada. In this episode, Tommy and Matt talk about what hoteliers often overlook during the RFP process, who should be involved in the decision beyond leadership and what changes for a property once a new system goes live.


Tommy Kalita is a Fintech Solutions Specialist at Mews. Tommy spent many years in banking until he decided to run his own hotel in Edmonton, Canada. He now works in fintech at Mews, helping hoteliers simplify payments and cash flow.

Meet Tommy Kalita on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tommykalita

Meet Matt Welle on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthijswelle

More about Matt Talks Hospitality: https://hubs.ly/Q0350wrf0

More about Mews: https://www.mews.com/en



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Matt Talks Hospitality is handcrafted by our friends over at: fame.so

SiteMinder's distribution engine, the largest in the world, is now being built natively into Mews. Availability, rates, inventory and other content are now handled in one place: Mews Channel Manager, powered by SiteMinder. This closes the gap that hotels have had to bridge manually between two systems. Leah Rankin of SiteMinder joins Matt to talk about what this partnership changes for hoteliers, how hotels should think about their channel strategy, and where AI is taking distribution next.


At the time of recording, Leah Rankin was Chief Product Officer at SiteMinder, the world's leading hotel commerce platform, connecting over 53,000 hotels to more than 500 channels and processing 135 million reservations a year. She spent 25 years in product and tech across telco, travel and software before joining SiteMinder, where she led the customer teams before finding her way back into product.

Meet Leah Rankin on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/leah-rankin-9b94b230

Meet Matt Welle on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthijswelle

More about Matt Talks Hospitality: https://hubs.ly/Q0350wrf0

More about Mews: https://www.mews.com/en
 

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Matt Talks Hospitality is handcrafted by our friends over at: fame.so

Mews has just been granted an Electronic Money Institution license from De Nederlandsche Bank, making it the first vertical hospitality operating system in the European Economic Area to hold one. Matt talks to Maximilian Lehmann, CEO of Mews Financial Services, the regulated subsidiary of Mews that holds the license, about what it is, why Mews pursued it, and what it can open up for hoteliers and the hospitality industry.


Maximilian Lehmann is the CEO of Mews Financial Services, a subsidiary of Mews, where he's currently scaling regulated fintech services. He brings over 10 years of experience in banking and payments across the US, Europe and Asia, including senior roles at Adyen and Boku.


Learn more about the podcast here: https://hubs.ly/Q0350wrf0


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 Matt Talks Hospitality is handcrafted by our friends over at: fame.so

Guest data is the most underused asset in most hotels. It sits fragmented across the PMS, the OTA, the spa system and a dozen other touchpoints, and most of it never gets acted on. In this episode, Matt puts the spotlight on three CRM solutions from the Mews Marketplace that are tackling exactly that problem. Hear Daan de Bruijn, co-founder of Bookboost, Bryson Koehler, CEO of Revinate, and Benjamin Devisme, Senior Problem Solver at Quinta (previously Quicktext), talk about turning data into direct bookings and stronger guest relationships.


Daan de Bruijn is the Co-founder of Bookboost. Daan started his career in hotels, moved into private equity and startups, and co-founded Bookboost in 2016.


Bryson Koehler is the CEO at Revinate. Bryson has spent his career at the intersection of hospitality and data, with senior roles at various tech companies before becoming the CEO of Revinate in 2024.


Benjamin Devisme is the Senior Problem Solver at Quinta. Benjamin was part of the founding team at PriceMatch, the revenue management tool acquired by Booking.com. He then went on to co-found Quicktext in 2016, which has recently become Quinta.


Learn more about the podcast here: https://hubs.ly/Q0350wrf0


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 Matt Talks Hospitality is handcrafted by our friends over at: fame.so

When you deploy tech the right way, it makes you more revenue, more money. That's hard to prove, since a hotel changes more than one thing at once. Today we bring the data. Mews ran one of its most rigorous studies, across over 6,000 hotels, isolating one system, Mews RMS. What happens when a hotel deploys it, and switches on autopilot? Richard Smithies, Director of Data, led the study. Conor Winders, VP of Product and Engineering, built the product. They’re here to take you through the tech and the data showing a 13% revenue uplift in hotels using the Mews RMS autopilot pricing feature. 


Richard Smithies is Director of Data at Mews. With a background in tech, financial services and loyalty consulting, Richard is a visionary data science and analytics leader, helping businesses make better decisions using data.


Conor Winders is VP of Product & Engineering at Mews where he leads the development of products for Back of House hoteliers. Conor is a seasoned engineer building technology that powers modern hospitality. He brings a product-driven mindset to solving real hotel problems.


Learn more about the podcast here: https://hubs.ly/Q0350wrf0


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Matt Talks Hospitality is handcrafted by our friends over at: fame.so

What if the room was the least interesting thing about your hotel? Jim Deters looked at a ski town in Colorado and decided to build something else entirely: a tribe. He is the founder and CEO of Gravity Haus, an adventure lifestyle hotel and membership club with properties across the Rocky Mountain West. Jim's a tech entrepreneur turned accidental hotelier, and someone who gives his general managers stock options, which tells you everything you need to know about how differently he thinks. Jim joins Matt to talk about the membership model, the tech stack, and how he's built something that guests are willing to pay for twice: once for the room, and once to belong. 


Jim Deters is the founder and CEO of Gravity Haus, an adventure lifestyle hotel and membership club with 13 properties across the Rocky Mountain West in the USA. A platform investor and creator, Jim has spent the last two decades building companies around one simple idea: people thrive when they find places where they belong.


Learn more about the podcast here: https://hubs.ly/Q0350wrf0


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Matt Talks Hospitality is handcrafted by our friends over at: fame.so

Have lifestyle hotels gotten worse? Eric Jafari has built hospitality companies from the ground up across Europe, multiple times over. He co-founded Locke, edyn and Birch, led a £1.5bn pan-European development platform, and is now building AENDRE, a platform that acquires, develops and operates wellness and lifestyle hospitality brands. Eric and Matt get into the problem with lifestyle hotels, what it takes to raise capital for something disruptive, and what the next generation of hospitality looks like.


Eric Jafari co-founded companies like Locke, edyn and Birch, brands that helped redefine the European lifestyle hospitality landscape. Now Eric’s building AENDRE – a platform that acquires, develops and operates wellness and lifestyle hospitality brands.

Learn more about the podcast here: https://hubs.ly/Q0350wrf0


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 Matt Talks Hospitality is handcrafted by our friends over at: fame.so

Up until a few years ago, Cole Rubin managed a $19 million residential portfolio of around 200 properties across Airbnb and Booking.com. He lived the midnight guest messages, the missed calls, the inbox chaos. That firsthand pain led him to build Conduit, an AI agent platform for hospitality. Guest requesting a late checkout? An agent checks availability, takes payment and updates the cleaning team, all without a human in the loop. Cole joins Matt to talk late checkouts, AI agents and the future of hotel guest communication.

Cole Rubin is the Co-founder and CEO of Conduit. Before building the AI agent platform, Cole was a hospitality operator, managing a $19 million residential portfolio of around 200 properties across Airbnb and Booking.com. He lived the midnight guest messages, the missed calls, the inbox chaos. That firsthand pain led him to build Conduit.


Learn more about the podcast here: https://hubs.ly/Q0350wrf0


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 Matt Talks Hospitality is handcrafted by our friends over at: fame.so

How should small hotels think about building and investing in a tech stack when they don’t have the data, the team size or the budget of large properties? Elise Roberts is the Managing Director of Happiness Hospitality, the operator behind The Gallivant, a beautiful boutique coastal hotel in East Sussex that holds a MICHELIN key and VisitEngland's Small Hotel of the Year. Elise joins Matt to talk about why 18 systems are not too many for a small hotel, what every hotelier should ask before buying software and how independent properties can outrun the big chains. 


Elise Roberts is the Managing Director of Happiness Hospitality, the company behind The Gallivant, a beautiful boutique coastal hotel in East Sussex that holds a MICHEIN key and VisitEngland's Small Hotel of the Year. Elise has held sales and marketing roles at Hilton and Aviator, giving her a rare perspective on what technology looks like at scale and what changes when you move to an independent property.


Learn more about the podcast here: https://hubs.ly/Q0350wrf0


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Matt Talks Hospitality is handcrafted by our friends over at: fame.so

Why can you order an Uber within seconds but booking a hotel room still feels like filing a tax return? That is the question Frédéric Robles could not let go of. A tech and antitrust lawyer at Sullivan & Cromwell and Amazon, he walked away from law in 2021 to build Namastay, a modern booking engine now live in over 400 hotels across 42 countries. He joins Matt to talk about why most hotels are stuck below 15 percent of direct bookings, and how payment optimization, including digital wallets like Apple Pay, can shift that number.


Frédéric Robles is CEO and Co-founder of Namastay. Frédéric is not your typical hospitality founder. He spent over a decade as a tech and antitrust lawyer, having worked at Sullivan & Cromwell and Amazon, before walking away from all of that in 2021 to start Namastay. The idea is to make direct hotel bookings and payments as easy as possible. Namastay is live in over 400 hotels across 42 countries, working with names like Relais & Châteaux and Preferred Hotels & Resorts, and plugged into platforms like Mews.


Learn more about the podcast here: https://hubs.ly/Q0350wrf0


#hoteltech #hospitalitypodcast #mews #hotelmanagementsystem #pms #hotelrevenue

Matt Talks Hospitality is handcrafted by our friends over at: fame.so