Choice Hotels International

Brian Kirkland is the Chief Information Officer at Choice Hotels International. Kirkland is an accomplished leader with more than two decades of experience in leading overall IT strategy, infrastructure, and development. He is best known for his ability to design and launch new initiatives that align with business objectives and drive change.

What are some of projects that Choice Hotels is currently focusing on, and how do they align with the company’s strategic goals?

We acquired Radisson Hotels America in August of last year. As part of this acquisition, our current focus is to complete the migration of those Radisson hotelsonto Choice’s platform this year. This initiative encompasses not only bringing Radisson hotels into our system but also migrating its 10 million loyalty customersand integrating their commercial, corporate, and marketing efforts together.

This comprehensive initiative, which includes the integration of substantial owned and managed property business, presents an opportunity for us to learn and apply new technologies. Investing in technology is crucial to achieving our strategic goals and is an integral part of our value proposition.

How is Choice Hotels adapting to the evolving customer expectation and preferences in terms of technology and digital services?

The pandemic triggered significant technological advancements and facilitated a greater acceptance of change among people. For example, this resulted in a notable increase in the use of QR codes for payments and digital check-ins where prior to the pandemic this was a steep learning curve for some users. Companies like ours, which had previously invested in cloud infrastructure and other technologies, were able to quickly adapt to the evolving customer needs. We recognized the importance of technology and made further investments, leading to the development of ChoiceMAX, an award-winning revenue management system designed to assist hotel owners maximize profitability to their hotels. Leveraging AI and data from various sources, ChoiceMAX provides real-time updates and rate recommendations, enabling hotel owners to effectively manage their revenue and profitability – and they can do this through mobile phones from anywhere. These initiatives were built upon our prior investments, such as Choice Edge, and our transition towards the cloud with AWS, and away from our old data centers. This transition has helped us stay at the forefront of digital transformation and provide an enhanced customer experience.

Please shed light on how you integrate emerging technologies into Choice Hotels operations.

We leverage AI and ML in various aspects of our operations, and have for years. This includes assisting developers in determining optimal locations for new hotels, helping franchisees enhance hotel efficiency, and enhancing the customer experience through personalized hotel and room recommendations. AI plays a crucial role in making our operations more convenient by providing easy access to data and facilitating faster decision-making processes.

While there is currently a lot of hype around implementing emerging technologies like generative AI for commercial use, we are cautious due to the security concerns and risks associated with these technologies. As a company, we have a dedicated team actively monitoring developments in this field so that when those risks are resolved, we are ready to leverage them. This enables us to stay at the forefront of emerging technologies and assess their potential impact on our business.

"Technology should not be adopted for the sake of technology itself; it should be used strategically to drive value for our businesses"

Have you implemented any strategies or initiatives for improving the efficiency and effectiveness of internal processes?

Technology should not be adopted for the sake of technology itself; it should be used strategically to drive value for our businesses. As an organization, we follow a well-planned roadmap for implementing new initiatives that aim to improve efficiency, effectiveness, and optimize workflow. We are committed to modernization and allocate significant investments to leverage the capabilities offered by cloud technologies. This approach enables us to simplify our processes and avoid accumulating technical debt.

The industry we operate in as a whole tends to be outdated, and there is a pressing need to embrace newer technologies and ideas to drive desirable change. By adopting innovative technologies and implementing forward-thinking strategies, we can stay ahead of the curve and lead the industry in terms of efficiency, innovation, and overall performance.

What are your key priorities and objectives for the future?

It is crucial for us to invest in tech, for harnessing the power of cloud. While weshould remain informed and engaged on emerging technologies like generative AI orquantum computing and its implications for security, the near term focus is on leveraging the power of data. Today, the data space offers great potential for innovation especially with cloud compute innovations, like ChatGPT. Things that were not possible just a few years ago. With the rapid evolution of guest expectation, it is necessary that we are ready to leverage new insights, initiatives and trends.

We are also focused on sustainability goals, so we have to double downour investment in initiatives such as Choice’s Commitment to Green, or involvement with organizations like SustainableIT.org and Sustainable Hospitality Alliance. The time to make a change and have an impact is now.