Hospitality Hackathon winners propose app to cut billing complaints by 25%

A team of students that proposed creating an online billing dashboard for hotel guests to view on an app won the 2025 Hilton Hospitality Hackathon held at eHub in Ithaca, New York, Oct. 17-19. Hosted by the Leland C. and Mary M. Pillsbury Institute for Hospitality Entrepreneurship (PIHE) and sponsored by Hilton Hotels and Resorts, Deloitte, and Qualtrics, the event required students to identify significant guest experience challenges and propose ways to solve for them.

“[The winning proposal] was a very straightforward and a very simple solution for what is actually a complex problem,” said Keri Starr, senior manager of analytics at Deloitte and one of the competition judges. “And sometimes the simple solutions are the best ones.”

With participation from 104 students representing eight schools across campus, the three-day event was the largest since Cornell and Hilton launched it in 2019.

“The increased student participation and engagement this year continue to highlight both the broad scope of the hospitality industry and a growing interest among students in exploring complex data through a personalized, human-centered lens,” said Christina McDowell, director of PIHE and a senior lecturer in the Cornell SC Johnson College of Business.

Solving the hotel billing problem

Made4U, a five-member team that won the $2,000 top prize, developed a strategy to tackle the biggest complaint found within the dataset provided by Qualtrics: billing problems. An analysis of hotel reviews showed that 41 percent of negative comments dealt with billing issues, higher than any other guest touchpoint.

Billing problems are concentrated at departure, when most guests first see their charges. Guests who receive incorrect bills are more likely to view the hotel negatively after they check out, the team’s data showed.

By adding billing information to the hotel app, however, guests could monitor their charges throughout their stay. “The main purpose of the digital dashboard is to provide real-time data anywhere, any place on your device,” said team member Siddhant Dhende ’26, who is earning a master’s in engineering.

While Hilton guests can already view their bill on the hotel app at checkout, a daily view would improve guest satisfaction, said hackathon judge Leonard Gooz, vice president and global brand leader for Hilton Hotels & Resorts. The team’s data showed that the addition of the digital departure dashboard to the hotel app could reduce billing complaints by 25 percent.

“Seeing the team come up with creative solutions on how to solve that problem is of high interest to us, as we’re constantly looking at how we can take the friction out of the experiences where we do have friction,” Gooz said.

In addition to Dhende, members of the winning team included Yiming Chen MMH ’26, Katelynn Wiseman MMH ’26, Maho Hattori MMH ’26, and Tapasya Menon MILR ’27.

Boosting engagement with Hilton’s hotel app

The second-place winner, Chilton, which received $1,000, proposed creating an integrated preorder system for Hilton restaurants on the app. The team’s plan would allow Hilton guests to order food ahead and arrive at the hotel with a hot meal waiting at the restaurant.

Team members said customers perceive room service and dining as slow and frustrating, which leads them to order meals from delivery services. Creating a mobile preorder system would reduce wait times and allow restaurant staff to better predict timing for meal preparation, the team said.

The third-place winner, Big Red Pineapples, which received $500, focused on improving digital keys, which enable guests to bypass a physical check-in and enter their rooms with the app. The team proposed adding the digital room key to guests’ credit cards for seamless room access.

Team Happy Hour, which won $500 for best visualization, proposed upgrading Hilton’s digital keys; Dreamweavers, which won $500 for best pitch, recommended an AI system to manage guest complaints.

After the awards presentation, Gooz thanked the teams for their proposals to help Hilton improve the guest experience. “Your teams were creative,” he said. “You followed directions. We truly enjoyed working with you, getting to know you — and we love your creativity.”