Evention in Dubai: Transforming Hospitality Finance

As our time in Dubai comes to a close, we’re reflecting on the key themes and discussions that took place at the events attended by Evention Co-Founder and Managing Partner, Mike Baldinger, and International Business Development Manager – International, Ben Jackson. From facilitating workshops about Empowering Finance at the Tech Forum to being selected as a vendor partner at the 2025 EMEA Conference for Marriott-managed properties, our mission remained clear: to share our expertise, understand our client’s needs, and deliver solutions through our reconciliation platform.

By collaborating closely with our valued clients and driving innovation with cutting-edge technology, we continue to enable finance professionals and push the industry forward.

Empowering Finance Tech Forum

A key theme emerged during the Finance Tech Forum: the importance of vendor partnerships and integration to drive maximum value for hospitality accounting. While many individual solutions offer significant benefits, the true potential is unlocked when platforms work together, multiplying efficiencies. Moreover, when vendors and hotel management companies collaborate as true partners with a shared focus on process improvement, efficiencies can be realized at scale, maximizing ROI.

“It was exciting to see attendees so engaged during the Technology Showcase. One visitor shared a story of how our credit card analytics can empower their team to protect revenue by identifying areas where operations may be unaware of the significant financial impacts of not following SOPs for checking in guests with “card present” transactions.” shared Mike Baldinger.

 Revolutionizing Finance Operations – Optimizing and Automating Payments in Hotels

“Our team was thrilled to talk with so many audience members that simply wanted cash management and credit card reconciliation to not be burden for both operations and finance. We are thrilled to bring forward industry best practices and solutions to help finance teams to operate more efficiently while enabling operations teams to save time for every cashier while improving security, cash accountability, and finance processes as well.” Said Ben Jackson.

Marriott’s 2025 EMEA HR & Finance Conference

The theme “Be Inspired. Be Empowered. Be You.” truly resonated with our team. At Evention, we are committed to inspiring users through innovative solutions that empower teams to make informed, data-driven decisions with tools that are customized to meet their specific operational needs.

“The energy in the room was infectious, it was such an honor to engage with our clients at Marriott and align with their specific needs and goals. We had the opportunity to chat with a client that has been using Evention for the past year, they shared how Total Recon has transformed their finance team. Previously, reconciliations bogged down senior finance members, especially at busy times like month-end and audits. Now, anyone on the team can manage the process with ease while knowing they are fully compliant,” shared Mike Baldinger.

Evention’s Impact and Commitment to the Industry

Evention was thrilled to leverage this trip to meet with industry leads from the hotel management companies to understand their objectives for 2025. As an outcome, Evention is focused on continuing to help organizations reduce their costs, automate their processes, and leverage technology through reconciliation solutions to ensure audit controls and compliance. 

Evention is the industry-leading platform for reconciliation and optimization, with Total Recon at its core, enabling companies to reconcile payments in minutes, not hours.

Total Recon drives optimization and compliance built on three key pillars:

• Connectivity – Evention integrates directly with systems of record through our SOC 2 Compliant Data Fabric layer – eliminating manual data entry and downloads.
• Domain Expertise – Brings forth industry rules and best practices that can additionally be configured to the specifics of each hotel management group.
• Application Layer – Exposes detailed reconciliation workflows, reports, and control for accurate and compliant results for users and stakeholders.

Evention recently introduced Credit Card Optimization and Analytics to the Total Recon suite, a new feature that allows users to track interchange fees, chargebacks, and dynamic currency conversion (DCC). Unveiled in Dubai, this advancement enables hotels to further smart, real-time financial decisions and streamline operations.

Enhancing Reconciliation with the Credit Card Analytics Feature in Total Recon

“Rallying for customer delight is one of Evention’s core values and I felt like this trip really enabled us to connect with our clients in a true partnership to collaboratively work together to solve industry challenges and improve financial operations. It is an amazing feeling to identify a problem that a customer is facing and deliver a solution that solves it, exceeding their expectations.” highlighted Mike Baldinger.

With feedback from our customers, we continue to enhance Total Recon. The launch of Credit Card Analytics represents a major milestone in our commitment to equipping hotel operators with deeper financial insights. By enabling tracking of interchange fees, chargebacks, and dynamic currency conversion (DCC), Credit Card Analytics helps hotels optimize payment processes and reduce unnecessary costs. We were thrilled to showcase this innovation at the Evention Forum and look forward to collaborating with our partners to drive even greater efficiencies across the industry.

This trip was professionally rewarding for our team, and we’re eager to leverage the insights gained from our clients around the world to guide our continued growth. Our sincere thanks to the teams at Marriott EMEA, United MakGroup and Glory for the opportunity to participate in these events. We look forward to future collaborations and the exciting opportunities that lie ahead.

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