Group items tagged

Property management systems (PMS) were originally only for front desk needs like booking reservations, checking guest in and out, charging accounts, and managing room assignments. The newer PMS systems have enhanced the check in and check out process, maintenance and housekeeping management, and accounts receivable management. The check in and check out process has been enhanced by the newer cloud based PMS systems by giving the front desk the ability to provide service anywhere and anytime. It is more accessible and can update room statuses in real time. As housekeeping cleans rooms the room statuses are updated through their mobile cleaning device into the PMS system. Also, the PMS system allows the front desk to communicate with the maintenance and housekeeping staff for last minute guest request and complaints. The cloud based PMS system also allows the front desk to have access to revenue management. This way the front desk can have access to accounts receivable and update it as payments come in from previous guest. This enables faster and more accurate billing for guest. As technology advances it is important for the hospitality industry to stay updated so that guest and employees needs are met. Keeping up with the technological trends allows companies to remain competitive.

This article tell us what is PMS and what benefits it can brings to the hotels operation. Automating daily operations and administrative tasks is an important part of achieving customer satisfaction as it helps provide reliable and quality service time after time. A hotel is a complex system that encompasses the activities of many departments, and every operation must be tracked

More than a "platform that enabled a hotel or group of hotels to manage front-office capabilities", modern PMS is "a critical business operations system that enables hoteliers to deliver a seamless guest experience" by integrating many other systems. PMS offers many kinds of benefits to hoteliers, including improving housekeeping services and revenue management. The deployment of PMS is also a consideration. While most PMS systems were on-premise, there do have cloud-based ones that reduces cost in an innovative way. It also helps in enhancing customer lifetime value and increase RevPAR and ADR.

People is getting more and more busy in this fast speed world and have fewer time to enjoy themselves. Catering is a big business in this country. "Industry data indicate there are nearly 40,000 catering businesses in the United States, not including the many restaurants that cater as well as operate one or more locations." Based on the need of socialization amount people, catering has been experienced rapid growth. The most important part and also is the most attractive part in catering is food. Now, there is a trend that people is more likely to enjoy nurturing, wholesome and down-to-earth food than before. With the globalization, Americans have a chance to taste worldwide food easily and have multiple choice. 

Its a very interesting article talking about how the catering trends are shaped by the diner's evolving taste pallet. I also found it to be interesting that the article addresses the issue of employee retention in the industry. How is hospitality technology related to this article? Besides of course the global media outlets promoting catering trends such as the Food Network.

    This website is a homepage of the company called Immerauf. This company is to provide network service and sell the technology products that are related to the hotels. Human Resources Information System is also a product of theirs.     As everybody know, without an effective HRIS, the hospitality management system could not be considered completely. The functions of the HRIS are managing the recruitment, shift, attendance, requirement and so on. They highly recommend their HRIS technology product. And they mentioned their partner Greytip Software. The partner is a focused HR & Payroll software solutions company.     They introduced a few basic own and partner's history and stated they had groups of customers, more experience, and superior engineering.     They list some products overview, such as Folklore HCM, Payroll, Attendance Software and Training. All of the products could help hotels to reduce the transaction costs, improve employee morale, communicate better, eliminate the fussy processing, increase productivity, save time and effort.

HRIS technology plays a very important role in hospitality industry. There is no hospitality management system can be considered complete without an effective HRIS system. This technology manages the recruitment, staff-shifts, time&attendance, and many other aspects of the HR requirements in hotel. It is very useful especially for Human Resources. This tech is also backed up with high quality customer support and service. Some of the support is timely and relevant, ensuring a high degree of usability for our products. It can help us do track record, products overview, folklore attendance software and so on. It can not only drill down to history files, but also provide e-leave application& training management.

this article is talking about the Greytip Software. this software has many solutions. it can help the manager monitor the HR activities and payroll activity. using this system, the managers can analyse their hotel attrition rate and make measures in time.managers can easily promote the employee information management, develop training management, create compensation,share benefits, supervise attendance management. this way can save money and time. managers do not need to set up sheets of attendance, employee behavior, punishment or rewards,etc. depended on the computer, the process of management goes more smoothly.

Catering managers ensure that food served is of good quality and meeting certain set standards.

It is clear that a ton of work goes into planning a successful and smooth event. Many companies use event planners to coordinate an important meeting or event. This involves setting a budget, choosing a location and vendors, obtaining necessary permits or insurance, coordinate with speakers, and are onsite at all times to ensure the meeting or event runs as planned. The job market for event managers is growing and the need for event managers can increase by one-third in the next decade. In order to be a great event planner, you should be a people person, organization skills, interpersonal skills, and multitasking skills.

In order to succeed in event management, one needs to develop crisis management strategies in order to anticipate where problems might arise and plan for them. In the industry there is no right or wrong except to make the client happy, doing the work and getting it right is what matters most.

This article said facilities management company using information technology to ensure smooth running of the business. The ensure the property and business are being run very smoothly. The facilities management firm is much similar to property management and it costs less than property management. It usually divides their given work into soft services and hard services. The soft service generally includes over all monitoring and perfect cleaning. The hard services commonly included fixing all kinds of utilities and smoothly make sure they are running safely plus remodeling of the rooms. It brings better positive changes and major success in all area of your business. It generally includes customer care service, technology department, construction utilities and housekeeping. They provide facilities management onsite, switch board help, reception room management, health and safety management, catering, grounds oversight, conference room management, security, project research and management, IT management and cleaning.

CaterTrax is a catering software that clients can add an event, order food, and set up the event the way they want. its a great system and is very intuitive. CaterTrax partnered accessiBe. acessiBe offers users a fully automated solution for web accessibility and ADA compliance. The way the CaterTrax Assist works is that it scans the website and looks at activities on the accessibility screen to adjust the website to the users needs. this shows that even event management software is trying to make the software accessible because they want to make sure that they "cater" to everyone.

This article highlights the benefits of the STS Cloud Hotel Sales and Catering software. STS Cloud is a comprehensive Sales and Catering system with account management and contact profiles that support sales team in selling and managing events. This software is said to be fully functioning, web based, fast, and affordable.

The focus of the article is to highlight how the event industry is becoming more popular among the hospitality industry in Nigeria. It mentions the Events Market Nigeria (EMN) group aims to provide a places that allows for growth and development within the event industry with the newcomers and experienced event planners. The event that was hosted by the EMN, provides free gathering that offer different speakers to offer advice and their experience to those attendees willing to listen. Throughout the article, it states that the country of Nigeria has a population of "almost $200 million people and a reputation for an ostentatious culture", which makes it a perfect place to invest in the event industry. Especially due to the fact that the industry is a source of a more favorable return on investment even though other sources in Nigeria are considered more attractive. What makes the event industry profitable, is the ability to venture with other businesses such as venues, catering, event planning and more. But with all the good, the article does point out the issues such as liability and the lack of rules that are set for the industry. I think that it's an important topic to consider because hotels are implementing a source of revenue with renting out meeting spaces and catering services to outside companies. With more and more events being planned, I think it's a great business to venture in. The ability to have an events department within a hotel or even a restaurant gives the establishment to produce more revenue within other departments. Such as a hotel, the planning of a meeting not only brings in the revenue of the space being rented but also to Food and Beverage with the catering aspect and the front desk with the rooms being occupied by the clients and attendees.

This article gives us a glance at six different technological trends being used and "revolutionizing" the hospitality industry. The six trends are cloud/software services, mobility, social media, personalized systems, integration, and globalization. The trends are all seen across the board in hospitality nowadays and are making huge changes in the industry. We have been talking about cloud computing and the pros and cons of using a cloud to store information and even with all the controversy, companies are investing and using the cloud. The use of tablets and smartphones has changed the way we interact with technology and the hospitality field is not staying behind. They are developing mobile sites and apps to help customers look at pictures and reviews about a place, check in and check out or make other arrangements. Social media is also revolutionizing hospitality by creating a reputation for businesses whether they be positive or negative. People can freely post about whether they enjoyed their stay at a certain hotel and helps build the online reputation of the company. In addition, more and more companies are looking to become more personalized experience. When I think about this part, I think mostly of the new systems rolling out at Disney World that scream personalization, guests can select their Fastpasses ahead of time, can use MagicBands to purchase things, get into their hotel, get into the park as well as to utilize the Fastpass system and every time a MagicBand is scanned at a touchpoint, the cast members know the person's name and whether they are celebrating something. With integration, customers and staff can access information from different departments all on one system and with globalization companies are trying to use systems that are global and used worldwide. 

Technological developments continue to have a great effect on all aspects of our lives, the hospitality industry not being an exception. Calum McIndoe in his article "Six Technology Trends Revolutionising the hospitality industry" outlines areas of technology that managers within the industry need to take advantage of. Cloud technology, though this concept is fairly new it can provide great financial benefits to companies as it cuts cost greatly due to the fact that it eliminates the heavy hardware requirements traditional technology offered. Mobility, the fact that portable devices can add a competitive edge to the service offered. Think traditional services being provided on the go away from a fixed station. Social; the popularity of social networking sites have changed the face of hospitality and tourism marketing completely. Properties are now forced to monitor social networking sites to learn about customer demands and to also learn about the image their company has out there and how they can improve it. According to Mr. "for any hotel to not at least monitor social medis is tantamount to willingly flying blind." Personalized systems; value for customers within this industry has to do greatly with the personal touch added to the service delivered. These merged systems allows properites to use data to ensure that guest needs are met. Integration; the joining of isolated systems used in all areas of operations on the property. The use of integrated systems allows for the pulling of data from the different departments thus ensuring proper management of services delivered and revenue management. Globalisation; It is important that hospitality companies adapt to changes and trends brought about by globalisation. Whether the current global outlook is taken into consideration when considering how a company operates can greatly impact the final product.

((NOTE: The author already highlighted the article in yellow when I found it, my personal highlighting is in PINK. Sections 5 and 6 are not highlighted in pink because I agree with the parts that the author highlighted yellow in those sections; Diigo toolbar will not let you highlight over something that has already been highlighted.)) This article mainly focuses on the technological changes in the hotel industry in pertinence with storing hotel information versus the traditional method(s) used by hotels that involved little to no technology at all. The article lists six different points or examples and states that businesses, especially small or upcoming businesses, need to follow by these six trends. The part of the article that stood out to me the most when reflecting on the lectures and power points for this week is the first trend. The first trend speaks about a "cloud" software (which I am not really familiar with so excuse me if my explanation is not 100% sound) and announces that "around 85% of the queries we see from hospitality companies and hotels include a serious look at cloud computing". The author lists a few reasons why such a high percentage of hotels are doing it this way. He basically says that you do not need special staff or special training to maintain the system; the system maintains itself so you can have more time to focus on your guests and trends in their patterns. Also, as far as the cost is concerned, "upfront investment is lower with the cloud as there are no initial hardware costs or associated expense…". Even though I am not very familiar with this service just yet, I like the idea of freeing up employee time to go and interact more with the customers; attending to the customers' needs is the most important thing in my eyes. The article goes on to list mobility, social media, personalized systems, integration, and globalization as all equally important parts to this revolution of technology pertaining to the hospitality industr

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 introduce the Maestro's sales and catering development, it integrated with Maestro's front-office system to simplify the accounting

This article explores the existence and significance of management information systems (MIS) in modern businesses. The article also explains the meaning of MIS, its types, and its benefits. Besides, the author explains how MIS can be improved.

This is a great article in that it does certainly measure productivity of the industry's work force. Perhaps it will take a few years for any one who does not use the system to fail as a business, but I feel that it is more depending on the size of the business and caliber of the business itself. A little mom and pop business may not need MIS if they have established themselves and already created a brand within their community. Although a new place that is opening with a brand which is not established, MIS is perfect for them so they can cater to the clientele and become profitable by collecting data of things such as "repeat guests", "common items bought when", "trending combinations of items bought"- given what the business is and what it is selling. Overall, MIS is a very good tool to assist in building a brand either from scratch or bringing its profitability to the next level; therefore allowing the business to stay competitive.

This article gives some ideas on how to successfully host an event. Events are important and valuable to the hospitality industry. An excellent event includes making registration easy, managing the event properly, and creating a unique experience. Events can be divided into "Simple" Events, Midsize Events, Small Events and Complex Events. The size of the event will affect the planning of the event. The main points and purpose of the event are also factors to consider when planning the event. Time should have a clear theme, while considering the company's profits. Finally, applying the current technology to the event to create an unforgettable experience for customers is also essential for a successful event.

This article talks about the detail about a professional way to make a good event. It lists seven necessary points. Also, showing the point of view and example to make the reader easy to understand.

Good facility management of a hotel can make the service indispensable and delight the customers. But it's not a easy work. It is related to almost every department of a hotel. Abaris came up with a facility management solution on cloud. The solution mainly focus on three parts, which are housekeeping service, security services and maintenance & engineering services. With its help, a hotel can change its way to operate the business and ensure integration between operations and back-office departments. As a result, it can provide perfect service to meet customer requirements.

Tripleseat, the fastest growing sales and event management platform that helps restaurants, hotels, and unique venues streamline the planning process and increase event sales, launched new features specifically designed for hotels. New key functionalities include the ability to book group businesses in one or hundred of hotel, manage event and guest room blocks easily and access a flexible and dynamic sales and CRM platform. When I was a Manager with Lettuce Entertain You Enterprises, we used Tripleseat for our private booking and catering software. I found it extremely user friendly and efficient, and the platform was a great communication tool for all of the managers.

As a full time event planner I have learned that softwares are the best tool to have when working on this industry. The reason why I wanted to share this article is because I learned about so many software that I didnñt knew before and feel that they work great or at least look amazingly well equipt.

This article provides a list of the best event software systems that are used by companies such as Hilton, Marriott, Westin, Johnson & Johnson for event planning. In the case of hotels, some of these event planning tools such as Cvent & Tripleseat can also be used to receive leads that can be turned into bookings should the client accept the rate at which the RFP has been submitted by the venue.

Compared to large hotel chains and airlines, the GDS can play a different role for businesses of smaller sizes. For small hotels, it may be beneficial to make use of a channel manager instead of depending on sales from a GDS. The article suggests to smaller hotels that channel managers, who work directly with travel agents, can mean more profit for your business. Using the GDS and a travel agency, you are technically paying 2 commissions. With a channel manager, you would only be paying one. Having this business relationship will cut out a middle man, and hotels with smaller budget will find this strategy more efficient.

I find this article a little misleading. The GDS are channels, can be managed by a channel manager, or in conjunction with, or separately but usually for smaller hotels require an intermediary. Accessing the GDS(s) are used less by smaller hotels for two main factors: 1. Costs and Fees 2. Scope of demand (driving the right customers). 3. Program Fees The article cites figures which have changed substantially since 2015, as of Q4 North American GDS growth was up 6.4% and ADR was up 4.2% YOY with 18.4% of all bookings coming through GDS. TravelClick, Inc. (2019, March 4) What isn't highlighted in the article was the fact that margin agreements with OTAs for smaller independent hotel range anywhere from 20-35% . If the article had done an actual cost comparison (access through intermediary to GDS instead of OTA) the 10% commission + access and delivery fee may have proven more profitable. It would have been better if they had done a little more comparative cost analysis. TravelClick, Inc. (2019, March 4). GDS Booking and ADR Growth Drive Strong Q4 2018 RevPAR Performance in Hospitality. Retrieved from https://www.hospitalitynet.org/performance/4092226.html

This article from the Little Hotelier talks about what exactly is GDS and the Channel Manager and which on is better for Small Hotels. Small Hotels should opt for the system that gives them what they need, but in their price range and for the size of their business.

For this article I want to focus on the room technology aspect. We have become so dependent of our devices at home that sometimes going to hotels is not as pleasant as before. In this article, we can see how hotel chains are changing to cater to our needs so the daily routines are not affected. One example is how Hilton is partnering with Netflix allowing you to sync your Netflix Account with the Hilton Honors app so you can go and use the room tv to keep watching your favorite programs. So no more using your computer or ipad to keep binging on your series while you are in a hotel. The other interesting part is the use of tablets and apps that mimic our regular apps for food ordering within the hotel avoiding the need to call for room service or doing lines at restaurants.

This article discusses not only the future of hospitality technology, but the impact it will have on the industry, All of the technology advancements mentioned will change how hospitality businesses operate. For example, cybersecurity is becoming a really important investment for these businesses to make because hackers have been stealing guest data and information. Tech advancements are being placed around privacy of consumer data, when that never used to be a major issue

This article palms out 8 disruptive hotel technology trends to follow. The explosion of SaaS, APIs going mainstream, room technology innovation, privacy and cybersecurity, the struggles of OTAs, WiFi 6, big data and digital hotel companies. The article illustrates that technology is driving the hospitality industry by explaining new technology trends that enable hoteliers to operate more efficiently and offer guests the opportunity to personalize their experience. But it also means hoteliers must focus on data security and ongoing training when implementing the technology guests expect.