A few days ago we participated in the TecnoHotel OnTour Valencia event, an intense day with more than five hours of interviews, presentations, round tables and a lot of networking.
GuestPro intervened with a presentation by Xavier Pallicerwho addressed an issue that is affecting price control and direct selling: the impact of "Booking.com pays" and how to deal with it.
We review how we got to this point, from PCI DSS to PSD2, how Virtual Cards have changed the sector's operations and the current dichotomy between activating payments (convenience, but loss of control) or deactivating them (more complexity, but greater independence). To address this conflict, GuestPro proposes tools such as the customer app or pay-links that allow you to regain context, trust and automation in the payment process. In short, a revenue decision that will mark the future profitability of many hotels.
You can read the full presentation here:
Apart from our presentation, we took the opportunity to take note of what interested us most about the rest of the day. And this is what we liked most about TecnoHotel OnTour Valencia2025:
1.- The price of a one-star hotel in Valencia:
- ⭐⭐⭐ = +33€
- ⭐⭐⭐⭐ = +40€
- ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ = +50€
And that this price depends more than 50% on the team, the treatment, the service, the people who work in the hotel.
2.- Raising your score in Booking is not magic, it is strategy, it is data, it is a kind question to the guest during check-out:
Understanding how Booking reviews work is important to get better ratings. Booking sends the first request within 48 hours after checkout, and it is usually delivered at 21:00, which is when most reviews are generated. Then they ask for reviews again on the 4th and 27th day after the stay, but the hotel's rating is really decided in the first 24-48 hours.
Going up a tenth "is worth a lot more than we think". Finding that perfect moment to ask for the review is pure gold for revenue and reputation.
3.- We know the MCP (model context protocol):
This new standard that is about to arrive in our market that will allow AI to connect directly with your hotel, your booking engine, your data... and it will do so in real time. This kind of "universal USB-C" between hotel and AI will decide who appears and how in conversational searches.
4.- We have to adapt to AI and its new rules, but we cannot forget the human factor:
If one thing became crystal clear during the day, it is that AI speeds up, automates, predicts... but it does not replace smiles, empathy or true hospitality.
And here we return to what we said about the human factor being 50% of the value of a star.
5.- We love The Real Tour Speed Dating:
The format of commercial interviews organised by TecnoHotel is simply brutal. There are 20 minutes, with 7 partners that we can talk to almost 50 hoteliers. One conversation after another in a brilliant dynamic for an event like this, fast, fun, effective and... exhausting. In our case, it gave us the opportunity to talk to dozens of hoteliers and understand in a few minutes their real challenges.
In short, we were left with a good taste in our mouths, very happy to have participated in an event of value, dynamic and intelligent and very necessary in an area like Valencia that has gone through a complicated year.
