AHLA Announces 2025 TechOvation and Tech Acceleration Award Winners
Hospitality Technology Next Generation awards program celebrates advancement of industry standards and AI-powered solutions driving hospitality forward
The American Hotel & Lodging Association (AHLA) and Hospitality Technology Next Generation (HTNG) today announced the recipients of the 2025 HTNG TechOvation and AHLA Tech Acceleration Awards – two prestigious technology awards recognizing excellence and innovation in hospitality technology.
Photo by AH&LA
DENVER – The American Hotel & Lodging Association (AHLA) and Hospitality Technology Next Generation (HTNG) today announced the recipients of the 2025 HTNG TechOvation and AHLA Tech Acceleration Awards – two prestigious technology awards recognizing excellence and innovation in hospitality technology.
The HTNG TechOvation Award, celebrating its 10th anniversary this year, continues its tradition of honoring the people and companies driving hospitality's digital evolution. This year’s winner is Agilysys Book with S.P.E.N.D. (Stay Package Entitlement New Dynamic), a technology breakthrough that increases ancillary revenue and guest personalization by simplifying how hotels sell and fulfill packages. It enables guests to reserve all entitlements in a package – from spa and golf to dining and activities and tours — in a single, guided online experience without requiring calls, emails or manual coordination with a property’s staff.
Agilysys Book with S.P.E.N.D. was selected from 10 exceptional semi-finalists representing the forefront of hospitality innovation.
Following four-minute presentations from each semi-finalist, the winner was determined through a combination of expert judging and live audience voting at the awards ceremony held October 28 at The Hospitality Show in Denver.
Hotels and their partners increasingly rely on innovation to enhance operations, elevate guest experiences, and advance profitability. These award winners demonstrate how thoughtful technology implementation elevates every aspect of the hotel experience. Rosanna Maietta, President and CEO of AHLA
The AHLA Tech Acceleration Award recognizes hotels and suppliers leading the adoption of HTNG standards and best practices to shape the future of hotel technology. Selected by leaders of the Global Technology 100, both winners this year demonstrated exceptional implementation of HTNG AI for Hospitality best practices:
- Hotelier Category Winner: Belmond
- Belmond – a collection of luxury hotels, trains, boats, and safari lodges – earned recognition for developing Bella, an AI-powered email assistant that leverages HTNG AI for Hospitality best practices to streamline guest communications and booking inquiries. The solution delivers enhanced efficiency and real-time personalization in guest interactions, demonstrating how HTNG standards translate into tangible operational improvements.
- Vendor Category Winner: Canary Technologies
- Canary Technologies was honored for utilizing HTNG AI for Hospitality best practices to automate guest communications across voice, chat, and messaging platforms. Their implementation reduces staff workload while simultaneously boosting guest satisfaction and unlocking new revenue opportunities.
The Tech Acceleration Award, now in its third year, has reinforced the critical importance of industry-wide standards adoption. Together, these awards celebrate the visionaries and forward-thinking companies pushing the boundaries of what's possible – from enhancing operations and guest experiences to advancing sustainability goals across the industry.
Part of AHLA, HTNG is the premier technology solutions organization in the hospitality industry, serving members from hospitality companies, technology vendors to hospitality, consultants, media and academic experts. For more information about HTNG standards and the award programs, visit https://www.ahla.com/htng.
About the American Hotel & Lodging Association (AHLA)
The American Hotel & Lodging Association (AHLA) is the largest hotel association in America, representing more than 30,000 members from all segments of the industry nationwide – including iconic global brands, 80 percent of all franchised hotels, and the 16 largest hotel companies in the U.S. Headquartered in Washington, D.C., AHLA focuses on strategic advocacy, communications support, and workforce development programs to move the industry forward. Learn more at www.ahla.com.
About Hospitality Technology Next Generation (HTNG)
Part of the American Hotel & Lodging Association (AHLA), HTNG the premier technology solutions association in the hospitality industry, HTNG serves members from hospitality companies, technology vendors to hospitality, consultants, media and academic experts. HTNG's members participate in focused workgroups to bring to market open solution sets addressing specific business problems. HTNG fosters the selection and adoption of existing open standards and also develops new open standards to meet the needs of the global hospitality industry.
Currently more than 400 corporate and individual members from across this spectrum, including world leading hospitality companies and technology vendors, are active HTNG participants. HTNG's Board of Governors, consisting of 22 top IT leaders from hospitality companies around the world, itself has technology responsible for over 3 million guest rooms and world-leading venues. HTNG publishes workgroup proceedings, drafts and specifications for all HTNG members as soon as they are created, encouraging rapid and broad adoption. HTNG releases specifications into the public domain as soon as they are ratified by the workgroups.
About Agilysys
Agilysys delivers state-of-the-art software and services built exclusively for hospitality—helping organizations go beyond what they can accomplish with traditional property management systems (PMS), point-of-sale (POS) solutions and food and beverage inventory and procurement systems. Modern, state-of-the-art solutions work standalone to provide best-in-class capabilities or together in a coordinated ecosystem that unifies data and workflows across a property, equipping staff members to delight guests, improve efficiency, and grow margins. The Agilysys 100% hospitality customer base includes branded and independent hotels; multi-amenity resorts; casinos; property, hotel and resort management companies; cruise lines; corporate dining providers; higher education campus dining providers; food service management companies; hospitals; lifestyle communities; senior living facilities; stadiums; and theme parks. www.agilysys.com
About Canary Technologies
Canary Technologies is modernizing the hotel tech stack with its award-winning AI-powered Guest Management Platform. Digitizing guest touchpoints from booking to checkout, Canary's cutting-edge solutions simplify hotel operations, increase revenue, and elevate the guest experience. Enabling these innovations is Canary AI, the most advanced artificial intelligence model built specifically for hotels.
Trusted by over 20,000 hotels in 100+ countries, Canary powers hospitality at the world's most renowned brands, including Marriott International, Four Seasons, Choice Hotels, Wyndham Hotels & Resorts, BWH Hotels, and Intercontinental Hotel Group. Recognized as the #1 Guest Experience Platform by HotelTechReport for multiple years, Canary has earned recognition from Deloitte, Business Insider, Fast Company, the American Hospitality and Lodging Association, TravelTech Breakthrough and more.
For more information, visit https://canarytechnologies.com.