In Cornell University’s Hospitality Hackathon 2023, a hospitality business case competition held in October 2023, the teams participated by our students Kigen Mera, Ze Chen, and Anna Shimizu of the Kyoto-Cornell International Collaborative Degree Opportunity program won the first and second places.

Cornell Hospitality Hackathon 2023 (Theme: Delivering Exceptional Experiences for the Hotel Guest of the Future)

Winners:
First Place: Data Don(key)s (members: Kigen Mera, Ze Chen, and others)
Our team proposed the idea of upgrading the existing reservation platform for Hilton Hotels. The idea was to enable large group reservations, combined with a membership rewards program offering, to attract a new customer segment and expand the customer generation.

Second Place: Taking You AFAR (members: Anna Shimizu, and others)
We proposed a new function of the Hilton’s existing app to create an interactive map of each property to assist users in freely exploring the property according to their individual interests. This is intended to provide customers with a higher quality guest experience.