Hospitality software provider Mews is cutting 15% of its 1,350-person staff in what it is calling a “proactive decision,” a company spokesperson told Hotel Dive.
Affected employees were notified Tuesday, per the Mews spokesperson. Customer-facing roles were largely not impacted by the cuts, which represent the company’s largest restructure since the pandemic.
Richard Valtr, founder of Mews, shared in a LinkedIn post about what led to the “difficult decision”. He noted Mews is in a “very strong position” and the business “continues to grow very fast.”
“That’s precisely why we wanted to act now, rather than when the landscape around us, and the company we have built for it, has changed irreversibly,” Valtr said in a Tuesday morning post. Mews CEO Matthijs Welle shared the same post on his LinkedIn profile.
The layoffs come as artificial intelligence is “fundamentally changing the economics of hospitality,” Valtr wrote in the post.
“AI is now capable of handling much of the execution layer of that work intelligently and at scale, and more profitably,” he wrote. “We believe the hospitality operating system of the future is an AI-native one, and we intend to build it. But in order to help our customers be AI-native, we need to become that ourselves.”
A May survey from Mews revealed that nearly all hoteliers use AI across their operations. And in a sit-down interview with Hotel Dive last month, Valtr said AI can be used in hotels to not only maximize operational efficiency, but also strengthen the human connection.
The layoffs come six months after the Amsterdam-based company raised $300 million in a Series D funding round. At the time, it bumped up the company’s valuation to $2.5 billion. In his post, Valtr said it is incredibly difficult to remake a company, including “saying goodbye to people who were exceptional stewards of growth.”
Valtr noted that the company is still hiring for specific roles. According to its website, Mews has 36 openings, including across its sales, customer support and technical departments.
