Betterspace and luca solve different jobs in a hotel. Betterspace's better.guest is a digital guest directory that sits next to the company's energy management line. luca is a guest experience platform that bundles check-in, guest directory, communication, upselling, payments and point of sale into one system. This page helps you decide which approach fits your property.
Both providers are German companies with a DACH focus and both work in line with GDPR. The difference is scope, not origin.
The full guest journey versus the guest directory
better.guest is a digital guest directory. Guests see property information, book add-on services and browse offers, either on an in-room tablet or as a web app on their own smartphone. It covers the in-room stay well.
luca starts earlier and ends later. The guest fills in their details and payment method before arrival, checks in online and skips the queue at reception. At checkout they review the bill by email and return the key. Up to 69% of guests use pre-check-in according to luca, and check-in time drops by up to 80%. The digital guest directory is one building block among several here, not the whole product.
More on digital check-in with luca
Payments and point of sale in the guest flow
This is where the systems part ways. better.guest offers no integrated payments and no point of sale. Upsell bookings run as a request to the relevant department, without capturing payment directly.
luca captures payment in the same flow. luca Pay runs on Adyen, with less than 1% card fee on all cards and no subscription. For food and beverage there is a point of sale, QR code payment at the table and card terminals from €19 a month. The Isla Brown Corinthia Resort (Curio Collection by Hilton, 165 rooms) created 180 additional order points with QR ordering at the pool, beach and rooftop, and generated €12,500 in extra F&B revenue in one month.
Hotel and restaurant under one roof
Betterspace addresses the hotel guest directory. Anyone who wants to run a restaurant, bar or room service digitally needs a separate point of sale and payment system for it.
luca serves hotel and food and beverage from the same account. The Vienna House by Wyndham Andel's Berlin (550+ rooms) runs the full stack: check-in at the lobby terminal with key issue, integrated payment with automatic invoicing, mobile ordering in the conference area and lounge, one-tap upgrades and a 24/7 self-service shop with age verification. For properties with their own food and beverage, that is a daily difference.
AI communication without a detour
better.guest connects guest-to-hotel communication through third parties such as straiv, and its own AI is not front and center. luca ships with luca Chat: guests write over WhatsApp or email, the AI answers recurring questions automatically and creates tasks when needed, such as "new towels." Since July 2026, the luca Inbox gathers every written message per guest into one thread, so your team replies without switching tools.
When Betterspace is the better fit
Some properties are better served by better.guest.
- Energy management comes first. Betterspace comes from energy tech with better.energy and, per the vendor, 155,000+ connected IoT devices. If you want heating control and consumption reduction together with a guest directory from one provider, Betterspace covers both.
- Fixed in-room tablets are a given. If you deliberately want tablets in the room as part of the setup, Betterspace offers an established product with a CMS backend and references such as Upstalsboom, Der Europäische Hof Heidelberg and Hotel Oderberger Berlin.
- The need ends at information and offers. If check-in, payments and point of sale are not part of the project, the leaner scope of better.guest is enough.
