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"We don't get incremental revenue from using the PMS, but there is information in there you can use if you want to," said Graham Dungey, SVP of ecommerce, revenue and distribution for Concorde Hotels & Resorts. "The theory is fantastic. You identify the people who spend the most money and where they spend it. Some hotels are quite forward-thinking; they'll make a study of the minibar, see who is buying what items, put corner-store food into a dozen minibars and sell it for twice as much. There is so much opportunity inside the PMS to increase incremental spend on property.

"We don't get incremental revenue from using the PMS, but there is information in there you can use if you want to," said Graham Dungey, SVP of ecommerce, revenue and distribution for Concorde Hotels & Resorts. "The theory is fantastic. You identify the people who spend the most money and where they spend it. Some hotels are quite forward-thinking; they'll make a study of the minibar, see who is buying what items, put corner-store food into a dozen minibars and sell it for twice as much. There is so much opportunity inside the PMS to increase incremental spend on property.

"We don't get incremental revenue from using the PMS, but there is information in there you can use if you want to," said Graham Dungey, SVP of ecommerce, revenue and distribution for Concorde Hotels & Resorts. "The theory is fantastic. You identify the people who spend the most money and where they spend it. Some hotels are quite forward-thinking; they'll make a study of the minibar, see who is buying what items, put corner-store food into a dozen minibars and sell it for twice as much. There is so much opportunity inside the PMS to increase incremental spend on property.

When Uruguayan footballer Suarez bit an Italian player during a match in the Fifa World Cup in June last year, an Indian restaurant in Kuala Lumpur used it as a marketing tool. On that day, Fierce Curry House in Bangsar offered free biryani meals to those who walked in wearing a Uruguayan football jersey. That is e-marketing for you.

In December last year, the bakery called Tommy le Baker posted on Facebook a photo of two large baskets of bread with a poster next to them that said: “Take if you need, pay if you want.” The post was shared numerous times over and within a short time the bread was all taken.

Scicom Education Group’s head of Creative Services Vernon Adrian Emuang feels positive about social media in Malaysia when compared to other countries in Southeast Asia. “Perhaps (we are) way ahead of others, in terms of widespread public engagement and intensity of online activity,” he tells The Establishment Post. “Essentially, Malaysians seem pretty clued in. The social media landscape is pretty populated which has facilitated marketing and sales efforts that ride on technology,” adds Mr Emuang.

Fortunately, new technology lets restaurants adopt some of ecommerce’s best practices. From an IT perspective, this requires four key elements:   A system to close the loop at the guest level on promotional offers. It’s not enough to have a POS discount key for “Father’s Day promo” anymore. You need to know which dad (or mom!) responded to that offer, what they bought, and who they brought in with them.   The ability (either directly or through your credit card processor) to access payment data in order to identify individual guests when they return. This data set is essential – it’s the lifeblood of ecommerce. Fortunately, the ecommerce players have pioneered safe, secure ways to get at data without compromising PCI safeguards.   A guest-centric data warehouse to store all the key data sets — check level POS data, payment data, marketing data, loyalty program data if available, reservations, online ordering, guest responses, and third party data such as Prizm or Mosaic.   An analytics layer. The requirements here go way beyond static or standardized reporting. Marketing needs to be able to cut data in an ever-changing variety of ways to identify key patterns and segments.   Marketing, in turn, must partner with IT on determining goals. What is the restaurant trying to accomplish and what can be left out? Take joint meetings with IT to look at vendors to help give a sense of what’s possible. But then let IT do their job. Next, build the business case. Moving to a data driven marketing strategy will require shifting budget from other media, or finding new budget dollars. Determine appropriate metrics and the desired payoff. Setting up high level, high visibility “report cards” is critical. For example, “Our 2015 goal is to grow the annual spend of our top three customer groups by 4%, thereby delivering $17.5M of incremental sales.” That will get the CFO’s attention and the goal is doable. Finally, design and execute the marketing plan. That will likely require a trained data and analytics expert, and/or a close partnership with a company that analyzes data 24/7. Either way, it’s important to not over-reach in the beginning. Year one is about becoming familiar with the data, drawing insights, and learning a new language—segments, deciles, annual spend, customer acquisition costs, and lifetime value. The good news is there is usually a great deal of quick wins, such as offer optimization.     Introducing data-driven marketing may seem like a daunting task, but the ability to predictably drive sales should incent even the most cautious. The benefits of bringing an early mover are huge. These restaurants will have more data to work with two to three years out. More data, gathered over a longer period of time, becomes its own competitive advantage. Just ask Amazon.

decade's-long technology transformation program to move Starwood from its MVS Mainframe technology (Starlink) to modern Reservation, Call Center, eCommerce Web, Property Management and Revenue Management systems integrated with the Loyalty system via SOA interfaces and open system frameworks (system name: Valhalla)

dynamic pricing, rapid channel distribution plug-in integration, standardized PMS, Web/Loyalty integration, multifaceted inventory and booking capabilities, advanced amenity search, etc.

heIntercontinental Hotels Group (IHG), for example, is currently engaged in a major project in partnership with Amadeus to replace its own Holidex TPF Mainframe reservation system with state of the art technologies by 2018[1]. Wyndham Hotel Group too has announced its intention to migrate its legacy system to a new system being developed by Sabre [2], and Hilton has also announced a major $500M investment to upgrade its technology[3].

Keep Communicating With Your Guests

consistent social media updates

establish a connection

In 2013, retail giant Target had more than 110 million of its customers’ credit card and con

act information compromised. This breach led to the resignation of its chief executive officer (CEO) and chief information officer the following year.

Hackers steal personally identifiable information, like names, addresses, phone numbers, and Social Security numbers to commit identity theft.Attack groups also steal less common information, such as customers’ favorite sports teams, pet names, dream vacation spots, and places of birth to gain access to financial accounts.

5 Ways Ecommerce has Benefited the Travel Industry

In the past few years, a tremendous change has come about within the travel and tourism industry and e-commerce has completely changed the concept of how people choose the way they travel around too.

E-commerce has played the vital role in enhancing the travel industry. Service providers and consumers, both are now enjoying the feasibility of it.

New technologies are providing different channels for marketing and management that improve the capabilities of society. And computers are providing faster and more reliable processing with lower cost continually.

In Hospitality and Tourism industry, hardware, software, information management, and telecommunications systems have allowed for the processing and information flow amongst organizations. The way in which tourism organizations take advantage of IT tools may determine their future success in the marketplace [4]. We consider the importance of the trend of Information Technology by implementing an effective IT system for advertising, distribution, encouragement and co-ordination of the industry. It is important that Hotel Industry take the lead of the emerging technologies to improve management abilities and develop business plans focusing on the most efficient income of delivering value added products to clients.

B2C transactions involve business-to-customer interactions.

Ebusiness has completely changed the way we buy. You’ve probably experienced some advantages of ebusiness as a consumer, but if you’re thinking about starting your own online business, you might be asking, “What are the benefits of ebusiness?” Here are five advantages of having an ebusiness:

In the hotel and hospitality industry, it is believed that the ideal revenue management is to sell the right room to the right client at the right moment at the right price on the right distribution channel with the best commission efficiency.

Today, every bit of data about your room occupancy a couple of years ago can be scrutinized against the specific date and season to determine why you sold your room at that price. And compare it with today's trend and determine the actual cost of the room you should be selling at.

Big hotel chains like Marriot were the first ones to understand value and implement the concept of revenue management decades ago. Today, especially in Asia, the developing economies are at a cusp of a technological revolution.

The Internet has consolidated itself as a very powerful platform that has changed the way we communicate, and the way we do business.

Hotels tend to keep adding promotions, banners to promote offers and special deals.

why is hotel e-commerce so important today?