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2. Build Your Credibility

Let’s face it – there are unscrupulous hotels who don’t care an iota about their guests. They trick their guests, overpromising in terms of their facilities and amenities and delivering sub-par service. This is why a lot of travelers have developed a healthy level of skepticism toward hotels and this is why it is important that you convey credibility on your website.

3. Make It Extremely Easy To Book a Room in Your Hotel

4. Display Customer Service Channels Prominently

7. Ensure That Your Website is Mobile Friendly

5. Make Your Website Easy to Navigate

6. Have a Single Call to Action Per Page

Best e-commerce practice dictates that you should always be reachable to answer questions from those who want to book a room with your hotel, but need their questions answered first. Not having this information prominently displayed on your site can spell a difference between a non-booking and a successful booking.

8. Ensure That Your Website is Secure for Financial Transactions

The Internet is always under attacked by various security threats and one of the issues that always make people wary is the security of their financial information online. This is why it is important for you to demonstrate that your website can handle financial transactions safely.

9. Always Have an Email Collection Mechanism in Place

10. Use Persuasion Elements

The Global Hospitality Accounting System Users Guide will provide for a wider community of information users, and demonstrate approaches to the production of alternative analysis of data for hotel performance measurement.

five of the biggest data security concerns in the hospitality industry and highlights some best practices for protecting hospitality data.

Data Security Concerns in Hospitality

complex ownership structures

groups may use different computer systems to store information, and the information can also frequently move across those systems.

Reliance on Paying By Card

t was reported in 2017 that out of 21 of the most high-profile hotel company data breaches that have occurred since 2010, 20 of them were a result of malware affecting POS systems.

can go unnoticed for months.

High Staff Turnover

In the U.K., for example, the job turnover rate in hospitality is as high as 90 percent.

challenge to maintain teams of well-trained staff.

Compliance

Insider Threats

t involves employees selling data to third parties without the knowledge of the organization that employs them.

key disadvantages and share tips and best practices that your teams can employ to address them.

Since cloud computing systems are internet-based, service outages are always an unfortunate possibility and can occur for any reason.

Best practices for minimizing planned downtime in a cloud environment

storing data and important files on external service providers always opens up risks.

Their dependence on remote cloud-based infrastructure meant taking on the risks of outsourcing everything.

Best practices for minimizing security and privacy risks

Even the best teams suffer severe attacks and security breaches from time to time.

Best practices to help you reduce cloud attacks

Since the cloud infrastructure is entirely owned, managed, and monitored by the service provider, it transfers minimal control over to the customer.

Best practices for maintaining control and flexibility

asy switching between cloud services is a service that hasn’t yet completely evolved, and organizations may find it difficult to migrate their services from one vendor to another.

Best practices to decrease dependency

Pay-as-you-go cloud services can provide more flexibility and lower hardware costs, but the overall price tag could end up being higher than you expected.

Best practices to reduce costs

the suitability of cloud computing for your specific use case should be assessed in a risk-based evaluation.

The trust that organizations place in their workforce can leave them vulnerable to malicious insiders, who often use particular methods to hide their illicit activities.

Current technology allows seamless collaboration, but also allows the organization's sensitive information to be easily removed from the organization. A complete understanding of critical assets (both physical and logical) is invaluable in defending against attackers who will often target the organization's critical assets.

Critical assets can be both physical and logical and can include facilities, systems, technology, and people. An often-overlooked aspect of critical assets is intellectual property.

Insider Threat Incident Response Plan:

Organization-wide Participation:

versight of Program Compliance and Effectiveness:

Confidential Reporting Mechanisms and Procedures:

Formalized and Defined Program:

ommunication of Insider Threat Events:

Protection of Employees' Civil Liberties and Rights:

Policies, Procedures, and Practices that support the InTP:

Data Collection and Analysis Techniques and Practices:

Prevention, Detection, and Response Infrastructure:

Insider Threat Practices Related to Trusted Business Partners:

Insider Threat Integration with Enterprise Risk Management:

Organizations should ensure policies and controls provide: concise and coherent documentation, including reasoning behind the policy, where applicable consistent and regular employee training on the policies and their justification, implementation, and enforcement Organizations should be particularly clear on policies regarding acceptable use and disclosure of the organization's systems, information, and resources use of privileged or administrator accounts ownership of information created as a work product evaluation of employee performance, including requirements for promotion and financial bonuses processes and procedures for addressing employee grievances

wareness training for the unintentional insider threat should encourage employees to identify potential actions or ways of thinking that could lead to an unintentional event, including level of risk tolerance--someone willing to take more risks than the norm attempts at multi-tasking--individuals who multi-task may be more likely to make mistakes large amounts of personal or proprietary information shared on social media lack of attention to detail

Our intent was to develop a single definition for insider threat that covers malicious and non-malicious (unintentional) insider threats covers cyber and physical impacts applies to both government and industry is clear, concise, consistent with existing definitions of 'threat', and broad enough to cover all insider threats

pects of a franchisee’s business, from guest check-ins and housekeeping services to billing and finances. Over time new features have been rolled into the software platform making it more robust and useful for hotel owners—it’s currently distributed in eight countries and available in four languages. And while plenty of cloud-based PMS packages are now available from third-party vendors like Micros, Maestro, and RoomKey, Choice’s internal solution has garnered its fair share of attention. “We had been getting knocks on the door from IT vendors at other hotel companies and individual Choice franchisees that own other brands, saying they were interested in our product,” says Pacious, “So we set up a new division so we could take a look at other opportunities we could develop.” This led the company to launch SkyTouch last year, a new division that develops and markets cloud-based software solutions to hotels inside and outside the Choice system. Pages: 1 2 3 4 2013-06-18 Sean Downey !function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js";fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document,"script","twitter-wjs"); (function(d, s, id) { var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0]; if (d.getElementById(id)) return; js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id; js.src = "//connect.facebook.net/en_US/all.js#xfbml=1"; fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs); }(document, 'script', 'facebook-jssdk')); (function() { var po = document.createElement('script'); po.type = 'text/javascript'; po.async = true; po.src = 'https://apis.google.com/js/plusone.js'; var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(po, s); })(); (function() { var li = document.createElement('script'); li.type = 'text/javascript'; li.async = true; li.src = ('https:' == document.location.protocol ? 'https:' : 'http:') + '//platform.stumbleupon.com/1/widgets.js'; var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(li, s); })(); inShare0 Related Articles attachment-3

Switching to the cloud from a client server platform pays off with a big drop in both the initial capital outlay and the ongoing operating costs for the property management and other systems.

his led the company to launch SkyTouch last year, a new division that develops and markets cloud-based software solutions to hotels inside and outside the Choice system. Pages: 1 2 3 4 2013-06-18 Sean Downey !function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js";fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document,"script","twitter-wjs"); (function(d, s, id) { var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0]; if (d.getElementById(id)) return; js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id; js.src = "//connect.facebook.net/en_US/all.js#xfbml=1"; fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs); }(document, 'script', 'facebook-jssdk')); (function() { var po = document.createElement('script'); po.type = 'text/javascript'; po.async = true; po.src = 'https://apis.google.com/js/plusone.js'; var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(po, s); })(); (function() { var li = document.createElement('script'); li.type = 'text/javascript'; li.async = true; li.src = ('https:' == document.location.protocol ? 'https:' : 'http:') + '//platform.stumbleupon.com/1/widgets.js'; var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(li, s); })(); inShare0 Related Articles Hotel Market Insight: Cleveland a

This led the company to launch SkyTouch last year, a new division that develops and markets cloud-based software solutions to hotels inside and outside the Choice system.

Many hotels are incorporating web-based solutions to optimize their key management functions in order for managers, HR executives, and employees to shift their focus to other high value activities.

Within just a year, the hotel experienced significant positive results in terms of better alignment and lower turnover.

scale, magnitude, duration, and strategic importance

experience and knowledge must be readily available to employees, and must be proactively delivered to the right person at the right time.

The senior management needs to outline such customer service values of their hotel, and ensure that their staff at all levels has clear understanding of how their individual actions contribute to providing these values.

senior executives also need to empower employees to ensure they deliver them in a way that adds values to the customer experience.

hotels are cultivating talent pools internally and preparing their employees to assume leadership roles whenever the time comes.

they need to reinforce core messages through timely advice, which should be both practical and inspirational.

Each employee needs to know this change is going to affect their work, what they are expected during and after the transformation process, on what basis their performance will be measured, and what is the altered definition of success and failure.

Know the total cost of all facility work done both directly and indirectly. “To the untrained eye, the facilities maintenance arm of a business appears to be a black hole of cost. The costs of these FM services add up, and unless discrepancies arise, that is where most of the business analysis ends. However, facilities maintenance managers, who are privy to all of the nuances that make up eac

h work order, understand the complexities and overhead involved in this sector of business.

Consider less obvious improvements that impact facility energy use. “Some energy-related projects will be more or less hidden from the users and primarily pursued to reduce energy demand, such as chiller and fan-unit upgrades. Such projects may end up providing the building users with better temperature control, but this is not the primary goal of the upgrade

Operational changes such as reducing the hours of HVAC and lighting operation, and changing setback temperatures, which require very little expenditure (if any at all) do not directly affect user experience, but can produce large reductions in electricity loads. In general, working with the building operations team to reduce energy use can produce impressive reductions in loa

his allows building and facility management professionals to determine whether the cost to improve a particular element of a building or a system in it against the cost savings over the same period. If the cost of an upgrade over its lifetime offers an advantage over the building operational costs it will save, then it’s generally considered a good investmen

“Finding the right suppliers to maintain your facilities can be difficult and time-consuming. From janitorial services, to groundskeeping and maintenance supplies, ensuring suppliers are providing apples-to-apples quotes, developing contracts with clear service levels, and validating that supplier quality

“Boilers today can reach efficiencies of up to 96 percent using condensing technology; however, a typical building, including new buildings, uses atmospheric type boilers which, for all intents and purposes, are only slightly more advanced than a science lab Bunsen burner. This technology is reliable and it works, but it is expensive to operate

An energy audit systematically identifies and develops opportunities to help reduce energy use in an institutional or commercial facility and, as a result, decrease building operating costs. Focusing the audit is imperative for maintenance and engineering managers.

“Commercial kitchens are high energy users, consuming roughly 2.5 times more energy per square foot than any other commercial space, according to the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).  Of that, as little as 40% is used in the preparation and storage of food, says the UK’s Carbon Trust; much of the wasted energy is dispersed into the kitchen.

All commercial buildings are insulated; building codes make it mandatory to insulate up to  a certain level. Unfortunately, because most buildings are put up under strict guidance to budgets, they are usually put up with only the minimal amount of insulation

Develop performance measures for your PM process with an emphasis on measuring the amount of PM that is work completed compared to all other work. Total PM hours should be the highest percentage of all the department’s maintenance work. This goal might seem impossible, but over time, it is very achievable

“Preventative maintenance is all about planning, plain and simple. Every piece of equipment or machinery at your disposal or under your care should have a schedule of what type of maintenance it requires and when it requires that check-up.

“Failure modes are defined as “how something fails.” Let’s use a flat/membrane roof to show an example of what a failure mode is. On a flat/membrane roof, one failure mode may be “penetration of roof membrane,” and the causes of this failure mode could be many. Knowing the failure mode(s) of a specific maintainable item such as a membrane roof and its causes can be key to early detection of roof failure (not meeting the intent of the end user) so the repair can be made before it affects an operatio

“Catch small problems now before they become big ones. Addressing small details can add up to huge improvements in appearance and functionality. Ask your facilities services provider, janitorial company

You may schedule preventive maintenance based on meter readings on an equipment. However, equipment meters usually do not differentiate between work time and idle time

Greasing the rack and pinion of a beam saw, for instance, can cause grease and saw dust to solidify inside the gears over time, eventually preventing them from moving. If you’re unsure which tasks are beneficial to each piece of equipment, ask your equipment representative.”

Having spare parts and supplies around the time of a major preventive maintenance schedule is absolutely critical. Asset management software allows you to check the availability of the spare parts for dates when the work orders are due. This report can help you identify parts that are insufficient for the required work orders in the future. If you know which parts you are falling short on, you can order them in advance from suppliers rather than waiting till re-order limits are reached

“Appropriate repetition and reinforcement are necessary. The average person is bombarded with more than 300 messages while at work, and multiples of that outside of work, Finney says. Getting a message to land with an audience might take as many as 12 repetitions, in some cases, he says

Let’s get together: when you’re designing your facilities, design social spaces for your employees. These might be lunch or break rooms, games rooms, gyms, or even community gardens.

While other managers may work to manage clients or staff, your job is to manage facilities and all that occurs in them. Your corporation’s physical assets are just as important as your human resources, and you are the expert in this field. Whether it’s collating data or contributing to the organization’s bottom line, your input is a valuable part of corporate decision-making

 “Workplace inclusion has to be clearly defined before any initiatives can be pushed forward. One useful definition of an inclusive office is a workplace in which all staff are treated with respect and have equal access to resources and opportunities. Facility managers should build on this high-level description to create an idea of what concepts like equal access, diversity and fairness look like in their own facilities

Space costs money. Knowing that we are moving towards a working environment consisting of virtual or mobile workers, investing time in developing new workplace designs that can suit these new ways of working while increasing space utilization rates can result in impressive cost savings

Performing facility maintenance and engineering tasks is like sailing among icebergs. What technicians can’t see will sink them — or their facilities. Thermal imaging technology gives technicians the ability to see the unseen, making it easier to spot failing motors and electrical components,

This concept is broadly used to describe our attempt to formally identify in-house talent in many of our labor shops. We identify talent through a competitive selection process based on potential vs. skills and promote our selected personnel to the worker and helper level while training them to achieve appropriate full mechanic level with associated certifications/licenses

This directly leads to the client receiving a more fit-for-purpose solution and ultimately receiving greater value which grows a greater relationship.

In other words, there has to be a compelling reason based on our mission for why we would submit budgets for anything.” By presenting specific information on how and why you’ve chosen your budget numbers, you can help the C-suite see that your budget is well within reason

When you automate the work order process, you remove human error associated with it. Essentially, you’re taking the people out of the process and ensuring nothing gets missed or overlooked

“There are many different software options out there than can aid FMs in organizing and streamlining their everyday tasks. This ranges from software designed to help manage all maintenance activities to logging and tracking facility visitors for security purposes. 

uch smart sensors, operating costs are dramatically reduced, productivity is enhanced, and occupants’ comfort is improved.

“One of the most exciting features of Facilities Management software is the ability to manage heating and cooling remotely, or set a programmable thermostat to move set temperatures up or down throughout the day. Facilities planners love the ability to analyze and explore energy use from heating and cooling systems

“Maintenance and facilities administration systems must frequently abide by national and global regulatory requirements. All maintenance administrators face occasional random or audits inspections by regulatory authorities. Maintenance software enables you to prove regulatory conformity and decrease the amount of paperwork and preparation that is needed for an audit.

KPIs allude to opportunities and errors in your company. Paired with the Internet of Things (IoT) and energy management systems, KPIs can be used to highlight missed maintenance tasks, greater traffic area of your business or problems with machinery

“Closely monitoring energy and water use to reduce building-operating costs is another benefit. By allowing owners to monitor and analyze the performance of multiple systems—air-conditioning levels, lights on automatic dimmers, water usage

“A feature that’s gaining a lot of ground is using facial recognition technology to let people in and out of the building. It’s more secure than key fobs or cards, and unlike cards and fobs, you can’t forget your face at home. It’s like batting a triple, or killing three birds with one stone

You cannot do your job properly without the correct information. If you don’t have proper records on the state of your facilities, you can’t do your job as a facilities manager.

“A surprising number of facilities managers have no true system in place for managing their space.  More than a quarter of everyone interviewed – 28 percent –

. It may help significantly with compliance with various industry standards, such as HIPAA in the healthcare industry and Sarbanes-Oxley in the financial field. It can help to document best practices for avoiding accidents, or in the worst case scenario,

This method identifies how critical a piece of equipment or maintenance task is to your business and will ultimately show you where it should land in your prioritization process

Smartsheet is a spreadsheet that you share with your co-workers, but its features go far beyond Excel. This tool combines the traditional spreadsheet with project management tools, templates, and forms and allows you and your colleagues to access spreadsheets on mobile devices and work on them collaboratively

The business world is increasingly embracing a larger remote workforce. Offices are used as areas to collaborate, develop, and design new ideas. The day-to-day work can be, and often is, done from home

“Another possibility for cutting costs, say experts, is not just moving staff around, but moving work around also. This means carefully examining all outsourcing contracts to see if they can be scaled back and the work completed by in-house staff

“Verify assets from a minimum of two data points, such as the barcode and the item’s serial number.

After collecting data and developing a maintenance schedule for your assets, you need to plan for the long-term maintenance of your asset inventory

However good asset management and maintenance planning is, there comes a time when an asset reaches the end of its useful life and should be disposed of.

“If you’re trying to get a handle of your documents, the first thing you should do is an asset assessment. Detail the condition of all the main equipment and systems, and document those conditions

Strategic asset management integrates key relationships between planning and delivery activities.

Maximize your use of vertical cubic footage by placing seasonal products or those that move less frequently in harder-to-reach vertical storage areas

The privacy framework applies only to commercial entities that collect non-sensitive data from more than 5,000 customers per year

This element recommends that entities build in privacy at every stage of product development. Substantive protections include data security efforts such as encryption, reasonable collection limits, sound retention and disposal practices, and data accuracy. Policies and procedures should be designed that:

•Protect personal information from unauthorized access; •Keep personal information accurate and up-to-date; •Require that business partners with which information is shared exercise reasonable efforts to maintain the confidentiality of personal information about customers; •Educate employees regarding privacy and best practices for protecting customer information; •Protect personal information transmitted via websites during online transactions or when using other technology.

: A customer should be offered a choice at the time, and in the context, that his or her data would be used.

A customer should be provided with reasonable access to company-maintained data.

In this rapidly changing industry, hoteliers should always look for property management tools that will ease operations, automate procedures, reduce the risk of human errors and give hoteliers enough time to attend to guests.

When evaluating the TCO of software, one should not restrict the calculation to the initial cost of purchase, but should also calculate the cost of managing the software to its complete life and should incorporate the following points in their calculations. Cost of initial deployment and employee training. On-going fees for maintenance, software updates and upgrades as well as help-desk support. Costs associated with downtime Cost associated with the business process re-engineering.

As technologies advance, the old clears a path for the new. Some individuals may be inclined to hang on to what they are comfortable with, but they won't advance if they don't make room for the best and brightest

This type of situation was brought to a head earlier this year when marketing services giant Epsilon experienced a massive breach to its email systems. According to a SecurityWeek report, among those impacted by the breach were several hotel operators, including Hilton, Ritz-Carlton and Marriott.

According to a USA Today report, a panel of IT executives from Starwood Hotels, Hilton and other lodgings operators recently told an audience at the LodgeNet’s Customer Technology Symposium in Chicago that protecting customer data is becoming their top priority.

According to a 2010 Wall Street Journal report, the most common security vulnerability in hotels is point-of-sale software. Often, hotels do not require employees to change the default names and passwords of these programs, making it easier for hackers to break in and steal customer information

According to a 2010 Wall Street Journal report, the most common security vulnerability in hotels is point-of-sale software. Often, hotels do not require employees to change the default names and passwords of these programs, making it easier for hackers to break in and steal customer information.

According to a USA Today report, a panel of IT executives from Starwood Hotels, Hilton and other lodgings operators recently told an audience at the LodgeNet’s Customer Technology Symposium in Chicago that protecting customer data is becoming their top priority.

According to a 2010 Wall Street Journal report, the most common security vulnerability in hotels is point-of-sale software. Often, hotels do not require employees to change the default names and passwords of these programs, making it easier for hackers to break in and steal customer information

According to a USA Today report, a panel of IT executives from Starwood Hotels, Hilton and other lodgings operators recently told an audience at the LodgeNet’s Customer Technology Symposium in Chicago that protecting customer data is becoming their top priority.

According to a USA Today report, a panel of IT executives from Starwood Hotels, Hilton and other lodgings operators recently told an audience at the LodgeNet’s Customer Technology Symposium in Chicago that protecting customer data is becoming their top priority.

Hotels

According to a USA Today report, a panel of IT executives from Starwood Hotels, Hilton and other lodgings operators recently told an audience at the LodgeNet’s Customer Technology Symposium in Chicago that protecting customer data is becoming their top priority.

otels, Hilton and other lodgings operators recently told an audience at the LodgeNet’s Customer Technology Symposium in Chicago that protecting customer data is becoming their top priority.

According to a USA Today report, a panel of IT executives from Starwood Hotels, Hilton and other lodgings operators recently told an audience at the LodgeNet’s Customer Technology Symposium in Chicago that protecting customer data is becoming their top priority.

According to a USA Today report, a panel of IT executives from Starwood Hotels, Hilton and other lodgings operators recently told an audience at the LodgeNet’s Customer Technology Symposium in Chicago that protecting customer data is becoming their top priority.

Hotels

According to a USA Today report, a panel of IT executives from Starwood Hotels, Hilton and other lodgings operators recently told an audience at the LodgeNet’s Customer Technology Symposium in Chicago that protecting customer data is becoming their top priority.

According to a USA Today report, a panel of IT executives from Starwood Hotels, Hilton and other lodgings operators recently told an audience at the LodgeNet’s Customer Technology Symposium in Chicago that protecting customer data is becoming their top priority.

According to a USA Today report, a panel of IT executives from Starwood Hotels, Hilton and other lodgings operators recently told an audience at the LodgeNet’s Customer Technology Symposium in Chicago that protecting customer data is becoming their top priority.

According to a USA Today report, a panel of IT executives from Starwood Hotels, Hilton and other lodgings operators recently told an audience at the LodgeNet’s Customer Technology Symposium in Chicago that protecting customer data is becoming their top priority.

According to a USA Today report, a panel of IT executives from Starwood Hotels, Hilton and other lodgings operators recently told an audience at the LodgeNet’s Customer Technology Symposium in Chicago that protecting customer data is becoming their top priority.

According to a USA Today report, a panel of IT executives from Starwood Hotels, Hilton and other lodgings operators recently told an audience at the LodgeNet’s Customer Technology Symposium in Chicago that protecting customer data is becoming their top priority.

According to a USA Today report, a panel of IT executives from Starwood Hotels, Hilton and other lodgings operators recently told an audience at the LodgeNet’s Customer Technology Symposium in Chicago that protecting customer data is becoming their top priority.

This type of data risk is more subtle, and it involves employees selling data to third parties without the knowledge of the organization that employs them

Data security risks in the hospitality industry extend far beyond the reputation hit that a hotel can take if guests’ data is compromised. Industry and political regulators are becoming stricter in governing how organizations process and store personal data.

the job turnover rate in hospitality is as high as 90 percent

High Staff Turnover

From the perspective of cyber criminals, hospitality appears to offer an ideal target for conducting crimes, such as identity theft and credit card fraud, due to the existence of multiple databases and devices containing both Payment Card Information (PCI) and Personally Identifiable Information (PII).

Information security is a pivotal aspect of many industries

Complex Ownership Structures

Reliance on Paying By Card

Here are five of the biggest data security concerns in the hospitality industry:

Compliance

Insider Threats

Best data-protection practices for companies in the hospitality sector include… Always encrypting payment card information.Operating a continuous training program in cybersecurity to maintain a well-trained workforce.Always adhering to relevant regulations, such as PCI DSS.Use cybersecurity measures such as firewalls, network monitoring, anti-malware, and traffic filtering to protect against common threats.Conduct tests against your organization’s cybersecurity defenses in which you mirror the behavior of an actual hacker.Know where your data is and enforce the principle of least privileges to limit acce

ss to sensitive information.

organizations in the hospitality sector are better placed to implement a comprehensive information security strategy that entails the necessary procedures, processes, and people to improve cybersecurity within the hospitality industry.