Exclusivi is a tech startup that helps hotels drive their revenue, delight guests and promote local experiences. We have developed our platform in the course of the last 12 months, with funding from the London-based incubator of the Open Data Institute. Exclusivi is currently under beta testing in two luxury hotels in Greece.
The problem
During stay, hotels are mostly “blind” regarding how guests spend their time and money. And even when they have limited visibility, they lack the ways to influence purchasing behavior.
How we tackle it
We offer hotels the tools to up-sell & cross-sell, at scale. Exclusivi combines intuitive front-end interfaces, with real time Property Management System & CRM integrations, content partnerships, booking engine, a multilingual content management systems, analytics & insight-based marketing automation.
Guests can visually browse offerings of the hotel & our partner network and book an excursion from their own Destination Management Company, reserve a coveted dinner table, order room service or request a free room try-on from a local Jeweler; all in one place and with one tap on their room’s TV remote or their mobile phone by the pool.
The front-end
We turn any hotel room TV to a Smart TV leveraging our exclusive partnership with ZTE, the #1 IPTV box manufacturer globally. As a leader in cross-platform TV apps development, we create user experiences that are beautiful, simple, fast and drive conversions. We also install multicast Satelite-to-IPTV server, step-changing in-room entertainment. Note here that the same set-top-box acts also as wifi access point, addressing the common in-room connectivity issue.
In parallel, our iOS and Android Exclusivi mobile app offers guests a one-stop shop for discovering things to do in the hotel like dining & spa, offerings from her DMC or MICE organized and curated picks from the surrounding area. The guest is identified using a secret code handed over in the reception or found in his room’s TV, eliminating the need for yet-another registration.
Similarly our Facebook Messenger Bot enables intuitive interactions with millennial guests.
The back-end
The guest-facing apps though are only the surface of a well-oiled machine, that brings together systems & content from a series of key stakeholders.
First, we integrate with the leading Hotel Property Management System (or PMS), like Oracle Hospitality’s Micros Opera or Protel to i) deliver timely info to guests in their language and ii) use their personal data for fast check-outs down the road.
Second, we’ve built the 1st platform that integrates systems and data from leading Destination Management Companies (or DMCs) under the same roof. As Excursions are typically the #1 source of profitability for DMCs, we help them digitize this largely still offline business and target their customers using hotel’s awareness channels.
We organize & enhance their content, and link with their booking APIs and their representatives in the hotel. In this way, each guest sees the excursions from her respective DMC, while booking is done with no data entry at all: using PMS personal data and linking with agency rep or charging their room. This is frictionless, instantly gratifying eCommerce, made possible in a hotel context.
Third, we establish partnerships with local authorities, associations & artists owning rich local content, but struggling to spread the word among tourists, at scale. For example in Crete, we have partnered with the Region of Crete, Municipalities, Museums, Wineries’ Association and more for organizing their content and presenting it natively in our apps, while driving awareness for their work.
In this way, guests get leisurely educated about Crete’s wine varieties and when they later book an a-la-carte dinner within our app, are primed to a matching wine recommendation. We smoothly guide them through the funnel, from awareness to consideration to purchase and advocacy.
Fourth, we bring the full catalogues of our dining, activities & retail partners within the apps, integrating with their eCommerce API when available. This enables innovative scenarios, like room-try-on: with guests selecting items, like local artworks, from their room’s TV to be delivered in the room to touch & feel. Additionally, as we’re members of Paypal/Braintree’s Startup Blueprint program we enable intuitive mobile payment. Again, instant gratification commerce, feasible only in a hotel context.
Analyze & drive action
We uniquely feed personal & booking details from PMS and in-app analytics to a leading CRM system, that creates a consolidated profile for each guest. For the beta deployment & with the help of our UX research partner, we performed field research and drafted typical guest personas. We combine analytics with human insights to design email & push notification campaigns during the stay. Notifications that are targeted, timely, relevant and in the guest’s language.
Summing up
In summary, we have built the first platform that integrates the systems and content of hotels, destination management companies, local authorities & local businesses, so we can offer guests curated, tailored experiences and seamless purchases.