Hotel Moment

In this insightful conversation, Karen Stephens speaks with Georgine Muntz, CEO of Visual Matrix, about her journey from accounting to leading a property management system company that serves thousands of hoteliers. Georgine shares how her diverse background in finance and technology prepared her to address the hospitality industry's technological lag, which she estimates to be about ten years behind other sectors.

Listen as they explore:

Georgine also shares her vision for the future of hospitality technology, predicting continued movement toward cloud solutions and more options for hoteliers beyond brand-mandated systems. This episode provides valuable insights for hoteliers looking to improve their tech stack. and for women navigating career paths in the hospitality industry.

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[04:28] Bringing financial expertise to hospitality tech - Georgine explains how her background in finance provided essential skills for succeeding in hospitality tech. She emphasizes the importance of understanding business metrics and financial drivers for anyone seeking to advance in their career. This foundation has helped her identify how to move the hospitality industry forward from outdated on-premise technologies to more integrated cloud-based solutions.

[05:37] Solving data silos and system integration - As CEO of Visual Matrix, Georgine has tackled one of hospitality's biggest challenges: fragmented systems and poor integration. Her team created a streamlined one-hour process to move hotels from on-premise to cloud solutions without disruption. Additionally, Visual Matrix adopted industry standards for APIs to enable faster integration with new technologies — reducing implementation time from months to days while maintaining security.

[09:08] Building technology relationships to eliminate finger-pointing - Georgine reveals how Visual Matrix addressed hoteliers' biggest complaint about technology providers: finger-pointing. Through a relationship-based approach with tech partners, they've achieved an impressive 98% resolution rate for inbound issues without referring customers elsewhere. This approach has transformed the support experience for hoteliers facing technical problems across multiple systems.

[11:20] The Women's Innovation Council - Recognizing the lack of diverse voices in hospitality technology, Georgine co-founded the Women's Innovation Council to bring forward perspectives that weren't being heard. The council includes women from across the hospitality ecosystem — hotel owners, operators, and technology providers — to accelerate innovation through collaboration. While focused on women's voices, the council welcomes men to participate in meetings and contribute to solutions.

[17:43] Using PMS technology to combat human trafficking - Georgine shares how Visual Matrix is leveraging its technology to help combat human trafficking in hotels without putting staff at risk. By enabling safe documentation of suspicious activities through the PMS and housekeeping systems, they can feed data to organizations tracking criminal patterns. This initiative demonstrates how technology can be applied to address serious social issues while also protecting hotels from potential litigation.

[22:32] Vision for the future of hospitality tech - Looking forward, Georgine predicts that the industry will continue transitioning from on-premise to cloud-based solutions over the next 3-5 years, though progress may be slow. Georgine anticipates less reliance on brand-mandated technology requirements and more options for hoteliers. Her personal goal is to see technology working for hotels rather than against them, while also increasing the representation of women in C-suite positions throughout the industry.

00:00 - Intro

02:13 - Welcome Georgine Muntz

02:38 - From financial background to hospitality technology

04:53 - The importance of understanding business financials

05:37 - Addressing data silos and systems integration

07:55 - The value of technology relationships and standard APIs

09:08 - Solving the finger-pointing problem

11:20 - The Women's Innovation Council

13:37 - Advice for women seeking board positions

17:43 - Using PMS technology to combat human trafficking

22:32 - Vision for the future of hospitality technology

24:55 - Final thoughts: Goals for women in hospitality leadership

If you enjoyed this episode, don’t forget to subscribe, rate and review it on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. Instructions on how to do this are here.

Hotel Moment Podcast is handcrafted by our friends over at: fame.so

Previous guests include: Shannon Knapp, CEO of Leading Hotels of the World (LHW), Patrick Norton of Brittain Resorts & Hotels, Shawn Jereb of Montage International, Carlo Del Mistro, Chief Digital Officer of Ennismore, Jason Pirock of Springboard Hospitality, and many more.

Are you a hospitality industry leader with insights to share? We're always looking for innovative voices to join our conversation about the future of hospitality technology.

If you'd like to be a guest on an upcoming episode of Hotel Moment, we'd love to hear from you! Our podcast reaches thousands of hospitality professionals worldwide, and we're particularly interested in perspectives on:

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