LOULOU Named Best New Product at ISPA 2026, What It Means for Hospitality AI

I don't think I stopped smiling the entire week. I've walked the ISPA floor for years as a buyer, attending sessions, sourcing vendors, always on the operator side of the table. Being there for the first time as a vendor was a completely different experience. And honestly, a little surreal.

To then have LOULOU recognized as Best New Product/Service by that same community, the one that shaped my entire career, I'm still sitting with that one.

Why operator validation is the only kind that matters

There are a lot of ways to measure whether something you've built is working: metrics, press, investor interest. But when a Spa Director sits down across from you at a conference booth and starts describing the exact problem you spent 18 months solving, the missed calls during peak hours, the guests who hang up before leaving a voicemail, the front desk team stretched impossibly thin, that's a different kind of confirmation. It's the kind you can't manufacture.

That's what happened at ISPA. Over and over, operators from resorts, day spas, hotel wellness centers, sitting down and telling us, in their own words, exactly what we built LOULOU to fix. The alignment between what they described and what we designed wasn't coincidence: it came from building inside the industry, not at it.

What LOULOU is, and what it isn't

LOULOU is a voice and SMS AI concierge built specifically for hospitality: spas, hotels, and restaurants. She answers calls 24/7, handles appointment inquiries, booking confirmations, after-hours requests, and guest questions, in the brand voice you define, not a generic script.

She is not a replacement for a great team. She is what your team reaches for when they can't be everywhere at once, which is every peak hour of every operating day in this industry.

The phone is the most under-supported revenue surface in hospitality. Every missed call is a missed booking. LOULOU changes that.

The moment that made the week

What made ISPA 2026 more than an award was the people: Spa colleagues I've known across 20-plus years of this industry, showing up, cheering us on, sharing in something that felt genuinely earned. This business is personal for me. Building it alongside my co-founder Margaret Seeley, watching the recognition land in front of people who knew us before LOULOU existed, that's the part that's hard to put into words.

Grateful doesn't quite cover it, but it's where we start.

What comes next

The award is a moment. What matters is what operators do with the technology. We are continuing to grow our spa, hotel, and restaurant client base, deepening integrations with booking platforms, and expanding LOULOU's capabilities based on the real feedback operators give us every week. If you were at ISPA and we didn't get to connect, reach out: we're just getting started.