Tech-Forward Hoteliers: Rethinking Hospitality from the Inside Out

In today’s hospitality landscape, forward-thinking hoteliers are rewriting the rules of what it means to run a modern hotel. With guest expectations changing and the tech marketplace becoming more fragmented, these innovators are creating lean, creative, and personalized systems that put the guest experience and data control front and center.

Building the Right Foundation

As Ermin Jusufovic, SVP of Commercial Strategy for Valor Hospitality, puts it:

 “Choosing the right technology stack can be daunting, but it is crucial for optimizing operations, enhancing guest experiences, and staying competitive—especially in an independent hotel environment. Without the backing of a major brand, independents rely heavily on efficient, scalable systems—from PMS and booking engines to CRM and revenue management tools—to streamline workflows, reduce costs, and drive direct bookings. The right tech stack enables seamless integration, actionable data insights, and personalized service, ultimately supporting profitability and long-term growth. Making the wrong choice can have massive impact, especially at launch, and bring huge headaches and costs if a switch needs to be made down the line.”

This Innovator Spotlight celebrates the end users who aren’t just adopting technology. They’re shaping how it works for them in unconventional and resourceful ways, making sure the tech stack serves hotel guests from the very beginning.

Technology That Protects Human Connection

Dina Belon-Sayre, President of Staypineapple Hotels, leads an innovative, high-touch brand built on human-centric hospitality. With a portfolio of 10 properties, Staypineapple prioritizes personalized service at every touchpoint, foundational to how they operate their business and feeling throughout the guest experience.

"As a brand, we have a very clear point of view, Staypineapple is a part of the community and we serve a broader purpose than just selling room nights, we create human connections." says Dina Belon-Sayre.

With that philosophy in mind, Belon-Sayre thinks of technology through one guiding question: does this tool remove the human being or support the human being? At Staypineapple, the goal is to remove transactional friction around reservations or administrative tasks, so staff can focus on cultivating genuine relationships with guests. Surprise-and-delight moments are central to the brand’s culture, empowering every team member to contribute to memorable experiences.

Technology at Staypineapple is designed to support and amplify an already-established culture. When the company underwent a tech revamp in 2024, their process emphasized both the end user and the company’s cultural alignment. The technology partners they chose aligned with the cultural framework that Staypineapple has laid out. End-user team members also had the loudest voice in evaluating new tools to ensure adoption and buy-in. Once implemented, each system was carefully optimized over 6–9 months, rather than “set and forget”, ensuring the promise to the team that they would receive the best tools to provide the best guest experience.

Staypineapple also emphasizes integrations along with choosing a best-in-class vendor.  Integration is the glue that makes all that new tech work. At Staypineapple, technology is a tool to enhance human connection, enabling staff to focus on what matters most: listening, observing, and delighting each guest.

Balancing Efficiency with Human Connection

For Ryan Alpert, CCO of Extreme Hospitality, being tech-forward is never about adding more, it’s about choosing smarter.

 “At Extreme Hospitality, being tech-forward is about finding practical solutions for each property’s needs. We look for technology that helps our teams work smarter, makes operations more efficient, and improves the guest experience, whether it’s better personalization, smarter room controls, or easier communication. AI and automation are helping us make faster, more informed decisions across every department, from optimizing room rates and reducing cost of acquisition, to enhancing ancillary revenue like parking, streamlining F&B operations, and even anticipating guest preferences, ultimately driving stronger profitability and a better guest experience. We’re also keeping an eye on health and wellness trends, which we believe will play a bigger role in the guest experience going forward. As technology evolves, our goal is to strike the right balance between efficiency and authentic service. By teaming up with partners like Affixify, we’re able to find and implement the right tools quickly, so our teams can focus on what matters most: our people, our guests, and our owners.”

Data-Driven Personalization, Powered by Curiosity

Bill Graf, founder of ONDA, approaches hospitality with a unique strategy tailored to leveraging tech to create efficiencies, automations to fully understand property data and a focus on fewer systems to avoid “death by 1,000 add-ons”. ONDA currently operates two hotels in Costa Rica and plans to add another 1-2 in the coming year where thoughtful technology implementation is never about following trends, it’s about solving real operational problems while elevating the guest experience. 

One of Bill's strong opinions is to maintain direct access to the hotel’s data by implementing a data warehouse. He emphasizes that most systems abstract the raw hotel and guest data and limit how it can be viewed, filtered, and exported. Another powerful practice is the guest feedback loop by which ONDA has leveraged AI to create a personalized approach for the guest. Rather than depending on an automated, generic SMS, Graf has implemented a process that takes his data from the data warehouse (remember, access to his own data!) and he uses make.com and the WhatsApp API to deliver personalized messages powered by ChatGPT, crafted to sound human and sent directly by Rene, the hotel manager. These messages elicit quick, actionable reviews via a simple thumbs-up or thumbs-down system, resulting in a 95% belief rate that a real person is behind them. The implementation behind this didn’t require a developer or a coder, just someone curious about how to take guest feedback to the next level, and complete visibility into the responses. 

While tech plays a major role, ONDA prioritizes human connection - offering a daily, complimentary “family breakfast” to build community, encouraging guest interaction which in turn creates new revenue streams based on discussions about activities each guest is participating in. Ultimate personalization to drive revenue going above and beyond the traditional happy hour or social hour offered in the past. 

The ultimate purpose of all the technology is to free up staff members from mundane clerical work so that they can focus on providing an amazing experience to the guests standing right in front of them. ONDA success isn’t built on complex code, and Bill's background is not technical, but with creative thinking and accessible tools, he proves that you don’t need to be a developer to deliver high-tech hospitality. 

The Bigger Picture

Across these perspectives, a common theme emerges: technology is not the goal, it’s the enabler. Whether it’s Jusufovic’s emphasis on selecting the right foundational stack, Graf’s deep dive into owning and leveraging data, Alpert’s focus on balancing automation with authentic service, or Belon-Sayre’s human-centric approach, the throughline is clear: the best hospitality technology makes the guest feel valued while making teams more effective.

As this spotlight series shows, these stories stand as proof that the future of hospitality isn’t about technology replacing people, it’s about technology empowering them.

About Affixify

Affixify is a decision-support platform built for hospitality. It makes it easy to navigate and compare technology vendors and industry expert consultants—helping hotel teams find the right connections to move their business forward. With an unbiased approach and a hospitality-specific database, Affixify turns complex choices into confident decisions. To learn more, get in touch with us at www.getaffixify.com.