19/10/2018 – Singaporean mobile learning tech firm Boost has secured a strategic investment from École hôtelière de Lausanne (EHL), a Swiss hospitality management university.
This will be a strategic partnership between both parties, which will allow Boost to expand its suite of mobile learning solutions as well as tap into EHL’s expertise that is built over more than a hundred years.
“Since our founding in 1893, EHL has set the international standard for tertiary education in hospitality, with over 25 000 alumni going on to take leadership positions throughout the industry,” said EHL’s Chief Innovation Officer Rémi Walbaum.
“Innovation is one of our core values, and today in 2018 we see technology as a key means of learning both in schools and universities and in the workplace, that is why we have decided to invest in Boost,” Walbaum added.
Boost improves employee service skills through mobile-driven learning and vocational skills training, empowering employees to provide better services to guests.
The platform leverages mobile technology to provide a holistic team management system that brings together mobile learning, messaging communication, recruitment, and organizational capabilities into a simple, mobile format.
With massive levels of consolidation across the hospitality industry and rising competition, hotels need to do more to differentiate themselves and adhere to higher guest demands and one such requirement, is to speak the customers’ native language.
“The needs of the industry are changing at an ever-greater pace, as language skills are required by hotel employees, many of whom are more used to learning from a screen than from a book,” Walbaum said.
“By developing our mobile learning capabilities we remain at the forefront of hospitality driving education, upskilling and learning, and helping talented students around the world to build a successful and fulfilling hospitality career.”
The mobile learning service provider to the hospitality industry is already working with a number of hotels, including the Continent Hotel Bangkok which uses Boost Voice and Boost Upsell.
According to Boost’s GM Jay Jhingran, since the hotel has started using these solutions, it has seen social media feedback regarding the improvement of their quality of English, and they have increased their upsell revenue by 5 percent this year.
Boost’s Managing Director and Chief Commercial Officer Allan Taylor also add that “20,000 hotel employees are already using our mobile learning solutions, we have seen them learn Mandarin which allows them to communicate with Chinese guests.”
“We have seen them learn how to upsell, improving hotel revenues, and we have seen them learn many more skills vital to improving service and thus their hotel’s bottom line. But most importantly, it is measurable, scalable, and available at an enterprise level allowing for group and team organization, HR and recruitment functions, and inter-team communication. ”
With Boost, the hospitality industry can build a new future of HR, where analytics, AI-enhancement, and world-class mobile assessment and training deliver the workforce that is capable of efficiency, freeing up valuable time and resources on more specialized training.
Boost has a total of 46 staff throughout the region, in roles ranging from business development, sales, development and administration.
