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The Peninsula Hong Kong has launched a $58 million dollar renovation to get up to date with their in-room technology.  They have chosen to add touch screen tablets to each room.  These tablets will control all functions of the room.   They have also added a dvd library of 3D movies that you can watch on their new in-room HDTVs.  You can switch room modes at the click of a button.  They have added VOIP calling from the rooms as well.  This is a huge upgrade and they have become relevant in the tech world.

Site Minder by GDS experience, serves as good example to better understand the impact of a GDS's impact on the hotel industry. GDS by SiteMinder provides a single point of entry to over 500 000 travel agents across the globe, which means that hotels can target many type of travelers in multiple geographic regions. By connecting hotels directly to the world's major GDS providers - Sabre, Amadeus, and Travelport - and travel agent network, GDS by SiteMinder offers a major convenience to participating hotels. Through this service, hotels don't have to worry about signing up with each one of these providers. Another advantage of SiteMinder is its affordability; there are no commission fees, rather, just one flat transaction fee per reservation. The company offers free services from GDS experts and free technical account management advice which are other benefits. For instance, in another article, in mid-2013, South Beach Group who has boutique hotels in the heart of Miami Beach, decided to switch its 12 hotels to GDS by SiteMinder. After moving to GDS by SiteMinder, South Beach Group representative highlights the significant increase in bookings leading to a growth in annual revenues by17% in 2013. In essence, GDS by SiteMinder advertises participating hotels to more customers globally within an incomparable distribution platform, with real-time and two-way GDS connectivity. As we can see in the article, in 2016, just within 12 months the total number of users of GDS by SiteMinder increased from 250 to almost 900. This article underlines the importance of GDS for the growth of travel industry. With Site Minder by GDS, one can realize how GDS helps increase hotel bookings by placing hotels on more virtual channels (an analogue of supermarket shelves) globally.  

"Hong Kong's International Airport is seeing a total investment to improve facilities and provide better services for growing numbers of air passengers. The airport served a record 53 million passengers in 2012. Investments include the development of the Midfield and West Apron, and a new cargo terminal, which will start operations in 2013. In 2012, plans for a third runway were approved. The expansion will take about 11 years before the three-runway system can be commissioned in 2023.

This article announces that the Regal Hotels Group, a Hong Kong based company, now has seamless connnectivity with hundreds of online travel agents from its custom-built Miro PMS and RDX, Room Distribution Exchange. According to the article, RDX allows hotel groups to build a custom PMS and connect it the world's leading booking sites through RDX. The process saves staff hundreds of hours in manual reservations processing and allows hotels to receive thousands of bookings every day. Room Distribution Exchange is a technology powered by SiteMinder. What I didn't know was that RDX is the only real time hotel room exhange platform. It appears to be very beneficial and efficient because it allows busineses to connect directly to their partners. The system also reduces the amount of time hotel staff have to spend manually making reservations, and allows customers all around the world to book reservations. In a time where consumers are becoming more demanding and internet savvy, having an effective PMS is imperative.

While this short article is specific to the Regal Hotels Group, it also shows how the higher demand of customers result in a technology increase. This article is about the Regal Hotel Groups now connecting with hundreds of online travel agents around the world as a result of a custom created Miro Property Management System. Providing thousands of rooms in Hong Kong, it was inevitable that a custom made online PMS would form given the mass amount of rooms to be monitored. This system known as the RDX serves as a direct connectivity platform, eliminating the gap between reservation systems and booking channels. This increases productivity and efficiency for this high demand hotel group across Hong Kong. This innovation can further increase like I said productivity by taking the traditional approach to property management system online to achieve a greater reach of potential hotel guest around the world and at the same time.

HFTP is short for Hospitality Financial and Technology Professionals. It is working with members of several organizations, including EHL, HFTP's Research institute at the University of Houston, Hong Kong Polytechnic University and Hospitality Professionals Association. From the article, HFTP has start developing a global hospitality accounting system users guide. The global guide will provide the industry with a comprehensive glossary of inventory terminology, charts of accounts and will benchmark common allocation for specific regions of the world. The project is planned as a three-step process. 1. Final year bachelor students at Ecole Hoteliere De Lausanne (EHL) in Switzerland working on their Student Business Project are gathering data, surveying hotel operations and assembling terms of reference. 2. Once the data is assembled, it will be distributed to regional teams of industry professionals that are chaired by industry consultants. These teams will develop sample charts of accounts and common allocations for their specific areas. 3. The team chairs will finalize the project by authoring a discussion on similarities or differences of allocations. The initial guide will be published in English, with plans to distribute globally in multiple languages.

This article introduces the hospitality industry's first Mobile Management device solution. MVI, an Asia-focused hotel technology provider, partnered with IBM to develop the new enterprise class MDM solution. The MDM solution provides effective management of smart mobile devices to support interactive, live and on-demand video services in hotels. The usage of this new device was recently incorporated at the L'Hotel`elan in Hong Kong. An iPad is provided for guest use in all the hotel's rooms, and it serves as an entertainment device, offering eGuest services such as TV channels and interactive guest services including in-room dining. The MDM solution is fully integrated with hotel PMS and POS systems, which allows the device to become a part of a hotel's overall management ecosystem. This device not only provides the features of an entertainment device for guests, but it also offers hotels unique management features. A few of the features include customized workflow to streamline the installation of hotels' managed apps on mobile device, comprehensive push-based notification management, availability for all Apple mobile devices, and effective protection of guests' own data and personal information for apps that required login. I recently went on a site visit at Turnberry Isles Resort with one of my classes. While on the tour, the lady conducting the tour mentioned that with the rate technology is advancing in the near future many of the hotel procedures will be completed via Ipad (such as checking in and out of the hotel). After reading this article, it seems as if the near future has already arrived!!!

I really liked this article. Personally, I do not have a good experience dealing with people at the front desk. Many people do not want to deal with employees and would find this method a lot easier and stress free. Now you can check in and out from both your TV in your room and also the iPad device. Great article Nicole!

This article highlights the different aspects that e-commerce brings to society. It highlights the many ways that e-commerce has affected the Hospitality Industry and the things that can be done about it, and it also highlights the economical and political impact that e-commerce might have on the future of our society (especially the hospitality industry).

Moving into the sixth month of the year, this article seems to hold true to the growth of international tourism. In relating articles you will find that tourism has hit an all time high so far this year. With the economies slowly bouncing back from the recession people are starting to jump back into traveling. I must agree with the UNWTO Secretary- General, Taleb Rifai, when he stated that tourism should be supported by all governments around the world for economic growth. Tourism is a business in itself and there is always room for growth and potential money gain.

This article is focussed on the risk involved if the proper impact study is not undertaken prior to implementation of extensive IT projects. Several multinational companies were referenced in the article, highlighting failures with smooth implementation resulting in the loss of millions and sometimes billions. Below is a summary of some companies referenced in article and the impact of IT implementation gone wrong: 1. Levi Strauss: In 2003 Levi Strauss examined its technological capabilities and concluded that its systems were inadequate for its multi-national corporation operation within 110 countries. A budget of US$5 million was created for a system upgrade. Many challenges along the way resulted in the inability to sufficiently report financials resulted in three distribution canters in the USA closing for a week. As a result of this, the company lost US$200 million and the termination of the chief information officer in 2008. 2. Hong Kong Airport: IT problems resulting in glitches in flight information system and database for tracking cargo shipment resulted in a US$600 million loss between 1998 and 1999. 3. Hershey: About 10 years ago Hershey wanted to implement a new order taking system. Problems with implementation resulted in the inability of the company shipping US$100 million worth of candy in time for Halloween thus impacting the company's bottom-line of an 18.6% loss in earnings during the quarter. 4. Kmart: in 2000 Kmart embarked on aUS$1.4 billon IT modernization project. In the midst of the project Kmart discovered that the project had too many customized application which would result in an exorbitant maintenance costs. An additional US$600m was spent on integrating a supply chain management system. Failure of this project led to bankruptcy filing by Kmart in 2002. This resulted in the closure of 600 stores and the loss of over 60,000 jobs in the USA. 5. Auto windshield (UK): Auto windshield was considered to be the second largest auto glass c

In the future, the technology in hotels are developing faster and faster, better and better, it will make guests control more by just touching the button or screen. Nowadays, guests plugged-in the hotels or restaurants by online reservation via the high-tech networks and telecommunications. There are a lot of aspects in the hotels guests using the networks and telecommunications to connect with hotels. For example, before guests come to hotels, they made a reservation online, it needs network; and then, when they get into the hotel, they will check-in by self-service or using the hotel computers, which is convenient to guests. In addition, taking the Aloft Hotels in Hong Kong as an excellent example, guests can use their SPG card to go to their rooms directly without front desk check-in, and then when they go into the room, they can connect their phones and computers whatever they want to the hotel TV. Furthermore, Las Vegas guests can use a touch button to require cleaning services,view room charges, or survey the International Flight Schedule, all of these are related to the high-tech networks, if there is no power or no network, all of these technologies are went out. To sum it up, networks and telecommunications are extraordinary significant to hospitality industry, it represents a kind of luxury and top level of a hotel, it can bring more and more guests for itself.

From what I read about this article, I think this high-tech brings benefits both to hotels and guests. It improves hotel's working efficiency. At the same time, it brings convenience to guests when they check in. As an old saying goes, kill two birds with one stone. This is worthy recommended technology.

/This article was interesting because it talk about how the Regal Hotels Group was able to connect their custom built PMS to the world via Room Distribution Exchange, a direct connectivity platform. This new technology helped Regal Hotels to gain two-way access to the world's leading booking sites. Regal did not have to change its existing PMS system which could have been costly. RDX gives hotels with traditional PMS the opportunity to reach the world.

Building their own PMS puts Regal Hotels Group above everyone else; making them more efficient thus reducing cost and impacting their bottom line. Its interest how a company can see the big picture in technology advancements and implement those cost saving features.

To create a global resource for the hospitality finance industry, Hospitality Financial and Technology Professionals has begun development on a global hospitality accounting system users guide. HFTP is the only global association dedicated to hospitality finance and technology and our Global Board is investing heavily to create a benchmark that stakeholders can use to compile accounts, compare regional differences and define the value of a hospitality operation.

This article was pretty brief, but it stated that Hospitality Financial and Technology Professionals has begun development on a global hospitality accounting system users guide. This would create a global resource for the finance industry. Frank Wolfe, HFTP's CEO, says that the company is the only global association dedicated to hospitality finance and technology. They are hoping to create a benchmark that stakeholders can use to compile accounts, compare regional differences and define the value of a hospitality operation. What I found interesting about this article was that it greatly involved final year bachelor students at Ecole Hôtelière De Lausanne in Switzerland performing research for this project. I also think that a global hospitality accounting system users guide would be beneficial, especially since many managers/employees do not have the strongest training or skills in a financial or technical area.

HFTP (Hospitality financial & technology professionals) begins developing a global hospitality accounting system users guide. This kind of users guide is totally new to the hospitality industry and currently there is no global resource like this. The global guide will provide the hospitality industry with a glossary of inventory terminology, accounting charts and other accounting-related information. This project is developed using technology that can provide users with a benchmark that stakeholders can use to compare regional differences and define the value of hospitality operation. This project is a three-step process. First, bachelor degree students from all over the world who are interested in this project will work as data collector. Second, the assembled and analyzed data will be processed into professionals in different regions all over the world to create new sample charts. Finally, the initial guide will be published in multiple languages and distributed globally. This new accounting system technology is predicted to help the hospitality industry increase the ability in financial management, accounting, cost control and the sharing of global accounting data sources.

This article talks about how the Hospitality Financial and Technology Professionals (HFTP) are in the process of making a user guide for the global hospitality accounting system. This guide will include a glossary of inventory terminology and have charts that are allocated for specific regions of the world. The article also breaks down the process into three parts. First they are gathering data by surveying hotel operations and terms of reference. Next the data will be sent to regional teams of industry consultants. Then to finalize the project they will author a discussion on issues of allocations. I belive that this would be a definite benefit to some people that have to work with these systems. It allows them to really understand the information rather than just trying to figure it out.

This article showcases a platform that not only provides online registration but also many different ways for event attendees to interact with each other over the course of the event.

This article talks about where the internet has brought us in the business world and where it is taking us. There are other articles included to support the idea that hospitality businesses need the internet inorder to successfully reach out to and market toward customers. Along with the idea that if a business does not have an online presence,that, is an untapped stream of revenue. As well as the combined business efforts that go into delivering a flawless product to its customers via the web. There were two case studies that took place in order to understand the role e-commerce has played and will potentially play in the hospitality industry.

Hotels are definitely in a position to use green technologies to reduce their consumption and waste without compromising customer experience. In addition to environmental benefits, this approach can also improve a company's environmental performance and reduce utilities expenses. However, both external and internal factors can affect a company's decision to adopt these environmental technologies. This study explores some of the factors that might be hurdles for the industry as it tries to move towards a smarter and more sustainable future.

This article discusses the barriers to more hotels implementing green/eco-friendly technology. The main concern most hotel managers have about installing green tech is compromising the experience for the guest. For example, lowflow water heads are eco-friendly and conserve water as well as money, however guests may be displeased with the low pressure. Another large reason for lack of implementation is the little knowledge hotel staff have of green tech in both installation and usage.