Blog

September note from the CEO

September has a rhythm of its own. The heat lingers, but the tempo shifts. People return to their routines, inboxes fill up again, and there’s a quiet sense of things falling back into place. It’s not a loud transition, but it’s a decisive one—both in life and in business. We often use our own travel experiences as inspiration for improving hospitality tech—call it a professional distortion. Here’s a real September story: in the second half of this month, I travelled to China. For my wife and me, it was our first visit to this vast country, with its rich history and distinct cultural rhythm so different from what we know in Europe. The final leg of our journey took us to Hong Kong, where we stayed at a well-known global hotel brand. I had prepaid the stay back in June as part of my wife’s birthday present, but—as it often happens when you travel—plans changed. We needed to shift our arrival by two days. I reached out to the hotel, knowing it was a non-refundable and non-changeable booking, simply to let them know not to give the room away. The day before our rebooked flight, a typhoon—the strongest in a decade—caused our flight to be cancelled. I wrote again to explain that we’d be arriving a bit later. The hotel confirmed they would keep our room. But to my surprise, the night before our new flight, I received a cancellation notice via Booking.com. I contacted the hotel immediately. Their response: I had been marked as a no-show, and the reservation had been cancelled. I was livid. All the communication was documented, and the stay had been fully paid. I forwarded the previous confirmations I had received. Eventually, the front desk responded with an apology: the emails hadn’t been noticed. A reservations officer had reviewed upcoming bookings, saw the no-show, and followed protocol based on what their system suggested. That moment highlighted how hospitality shouldn’t be about missed emails and disjointed systems. It reminded me of a recent feature we built at Clock. We recently integrated emails directly into our Events module so that all correspondence with organisers becomes part of the event record. And as part of the upcoming redesign of our booking screens, we plan to integrate guest emails directly with bookings. Situations like mine should be easy to handle—and they should never lead to frustration or the need for yet another apology. Technology should keep things together.