Hotels Play a Bigger Role as Matchmakers With the Help of Technology

Hotel bars, restaurants, and lobbies have long been places where people gather to see, be seen, meet, and mingle. And as popular culture has demonstrated to us in countless films, TV series, and books, they often serve as the ideal backdrop for a meet cute, too. Now, thanks to the advent of mobile technology, hotels are leveraging their longstanding supporting role to an active role encouraging more meetings among their guests and the locals living nearby. For many of these hotel brands, facilitating these connections is part and parcel with their efforts to be "experience platforms" or to be known for more than just being a place where you stay when you travel. Leveraging technology in this way helps them serve as modern-day community centers for travelers and locals alike, and helps them fill their lobbies and bars with paying patrons. Marriott's Moxy earlier this month announced a brand partnership with Bumble, a location-based app primarily known for dating, but also extends to business networking, which markets itself as a "female-first networking app." The venture designates participating Moxy hotels throughout the U.S. as "BumbleSpots," where Bumble app users are encouraged to meet one another. Sydell Group's Line hotel brand also announced a partnership with Bumble this November, although its partnership is more targeted toward female users of Bumble BFF, the company's friendship-oriented social networking app. To promote the partnership, Line hotels in Austin, D.C., and Los Angeles are hosting Bumble BFF exclusive brunches showcasing in-house hospitality and dining talent from each hotel that Bumble BFF users can attend. Also earlier this month, Generator, a brand known for its boutique-like hostels, announced the debut of GenFriends, a proprietary mobile app that includes a "swipe" feature to "match" with other travelers, as well as the ability to join groups of other guests with shared interests. In early November, Life House, a new boutique hotel concept that recently opened its first property in Miami, debuted its own Life House Platform which includes a social network feature that con