Nordic Choice Embraces Hotel Tech Reset
Skift Take
How Nordic Choice recently handled a ransomware attack, sold a hotel tech subsidiary, and kept employees engaged while opening 16 hotels makes it an interesting tech example for other hotels.
Travel Tech Briefing
Editor’s Note: Exclusive reporting on technology’s impact on the travel industry, delivered every Thursday. The briefing will guide executives as they decide if their companies should “build, buy, or partner” to stay ahead.Nordic Choice Hotels oversees 214 hotels in Scandinavia, Finland, and the Baltics. It is a franchisor of Choice Hotels, but it pursues a remarkably different tech strategy than many of its U.S. brand counterparts.
The Oslo-based private company — fully owned by billionaire Petter Stordalen's Strawberry Group — had been a big believer in travel tech investment. Nordic Choice's tech strategy has generally been more advanced than what you find at most comparably-sized hotel companies.For example, the company had run two tech subsidiaries (Cenium and eBerry). Before the pandemic, it had been testing using blockchain for distribution.But the pandemic reset prompted Nordic Choice to adjust its strategy.
To learn more, I interviewed Eirik Bogsnes, executive vice president, hotel service.
First, the newsiest bit: Nordic Choice made headlines in December when hackers snuck inside its computer systems.
A Nordic Choice employee clicked on a false l
