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Laguna Beach welcomes more than 6 million visitors annually to its sandy shores. Now visitors who stay in the beachside city's 22 hotels and lodging establishments will be inadvertent participants in a citywide effort to recycle all of the soaps, shampoos, hair conditioners, lotions and bath gels that are left over after a night's stay. Starting Monday, Laguna Beach becomes the first city in the nation to have all of its hotel properties with more than 20 rooms participate in Clean the World -- a Florida-based nonprofit that provides recycled hotel soaps and hygiene products to those in need. Montage Laguna Beach, Pacific Edge Hotel and Best Western Laguna Brisas are among the 18 participating hotels, along with four of the city's six bed and breakfasts, for a total of 1,229 rooms. In an average year, with an estimated 75% occupancy rate, Laguna Beach hotels generate 336,000 bars of soap and a slightly lesser number of shampoo, conditioner, bath gel and lotion bottles, all of which were previously thrown in the trash. Working with Clean the World, those hygiene products will be reclaimed by the housekeeping staff and set aside in a separate receptacle to be shipped to a Las Vegas processing facility. The bars of soap are cleaned of hair and paper, sterilized, ground into pellets and pressed into new bars of soap that are distributed to non-governmental organizations in 45 countries that do not have ready access to soap. The bottled amenities are likewise reclaimed. If they're full, the bottles' exteriors are sterilized and redistributed to homeless shelters and soup kitchens inside the U.S. If the bottles are 25% empty, the plastic is recycled or potentially upcycled for use in other products. Founded in 2009, Clean the World has 1,200 partner hotels across the U.S. and Canada, 126 of which are in California, including the Disneyland Hotel, Disney's Grand Californian Resort & Spa and Disney's Paradise Pier Hotel in Anaheim. Since joining the Clean th

This article addresses how hotel design must change to be successful in a COVID/Post-COVID world. The emphasis the last few years has been on meeting spaces and smaller square footage in guest rooms, but with social distancing those wonderful new high-tech meeting spaces are empty. More guests are having to use their hotel rooms as a place to sleep, socialize, be entertained, and even work out. First impressions are crucial in all aspects of life including hotels meaning adding things like UV-C- lights can help to make guests feel safe and rejuvenated. Also we must redefine the guest "room" experience, such using Smart technology and intelligent room design.

Staicoff (director of Oculus Inc.) stated that the covid-19 epidemic emerged as altering the settings of multiple organizations from healthcare facilities to the corporate ambiance. The designers created various changes in hotel infrastructure to meet the criteria of social distancing in the pandemic. Recently, the AEC (Architecture, Engineering, and Construction) business elevated to provide technical and innovative solutions to control the spreading of infections with physical distancing. Also, the emerging AEC technologies encourage check-ins and elevators of the hotels to be compatible with smart solutions. The intervention of "Zone of Calm" and UV-C light impresses the guest to ensure that the hotel is reliable, safe, and caring. UV-C light is an antimicrobial technology with a unique fixation of light, music, and art to influence the people. The describe that multi-use facilities (housekeeping, room service, laundry, remote control, menus) have been eliminated for safety features. Visual indication facilitates cleanliness in diverse settings. The coordination of hotels with hygienic corporations enhances responding protocols to prevent infection. The structure of guestrooms are preferred from the perspectives of reducing OA (outside air) and EA (exhaust air), but the approaches are costlier practices to meet the demands of the pandemic. The intervention of "separately-zoned HVAC supply and return HVAC systems" acts as a filtration tool to remove EA from infected rooms and control the spreading. Usually, guestrooms are created for multi-functional management, but the guidelines of the pandemic representing constructive and financial challenges. According to a report presented by Markets and Markets, the implementation of smart devices in the markets would double by 2025 worldwide. At a minimum, the materialistic quality is designed considering long-term goals with comfortable and mood elevated facilities.

Interesting article! This robot Rosie, was created by a student while working as a housekeeper at a hotel. He saw that majority of accidents reported by housekeeping staff were injuries sustained from vacuuming. Later they found that Rosie was much more capable at performing other duties than housekeeping. Due her data storage capabilities she became useful in tracking environmental data, temperature, humidity and WIFI signal strength. No doubt this type of green technology has had a tremendous impact on the overall guest experience and increase in revenue.

Data cleansing consists of checking for errors so that data is consistent and recorded. The term "Dirty data" - is comprised of outdated data, incomplete data, or duplicate records. Article addresses the necessity of maintaining clean usable data.

Carnival's and Royal Caribbean's CEOs agree that cruising will resume when "society decides it's ready for social gathering." They emphasized that the decision to resume cruises is not theirs alone, but will be guided by the CDC and other regulatory groups across the globe. Initially, they believe that shorter sailings will probably drive the markets. They stressed that that can and will establish screening and hygiene protocols but will be guided, once again, by the authorities in charge, as well as, by the people who actually do the traveling. In other words, when the people decide that the likelihood of contracting the virus has been mitigated and only poses a reasonable risk, then they will be more likely to resume traveling.

The article "Making Shipping More Efficient Through Disruptive Technologies" discusses the opportunity of using augmented reality and computer vision to improve efficiency within the shipping industry. Safetytech Accelerator in collaboration with CYENS and Oceanic will be assisting crews in the safe handling and storage of vessel provisions. The goal is to become efficient, safer, and sustainable through this process. For example, some of these projects include using technology to fight fires on container ships.

Ever wonder what happens to the little soaps you use at the hotel you recently stayed at? Hyatt Hotels Corp. has become one of the major hotels to start recycling toiletries through the organization called Clean the World. When guests are done using their shampoos or soaps at a hotel, the housekeeping staff collects all of the used and unused products and recycles them or donates them to other countries. The organization has only been around for a few years, however other hotel chains are joining the cause to helping the environment and also humanity. It is not just in the United States that hotels are getting involved but it is expanding globally. Hotels are sending used soaps that has been re-sanitized to battered women's center and also to countries like Africa to local clinics and orphanages.

It looks like the industry is taking notice of what they can do and stepping up to the plate. It all comes down to the front line workers though, in this case housekeeping staff. Turning a room correctly is labor intensive and time consuming. Adding the step of separating the used soap and shampoo does take time. 1 minute per room per day in a 200-room hotel at 90% capacity comes out to 21 man hours per week. At $10/hr that's nearly $11,000 per year. I'm not saying it shouldn't be done. I think it's a great idea. It does many people (including the hoteliers) a lot of good. If we consider this as "goodwill" in our operating costs, it probably works out for everyone.

I have never pay attention to where the leftover of the toiletries would go, and it's nice to know that they are going to the charity. This is a great way to recycle, help reduce waste, and help support the people in struggle. Knowing such information doesn't help making the booking decision, but it sure does increase the hotel's reputation.

This article focuses on current packaging trends along with the diversification of brand management. Additionally, how companies, through smart packaging with QR Codes and NFC tags, can keep up with the below-mentioned trends and achieve higher ROI for their business. Successful incorporation of these technologies will help companies achieve product transparency and authenticity, supply chain visibility, elevated consumer experience, and many more positive outcomes.

This article lists and describes cyber threats that have occurred on companies in 2020. It is very important to note that big companies have been impacted by security breaches. In the article it stated that since work has changed to a "work from home" approach, there has been a raise in cyberattacks and security breaches.

The article "How technology Will Reshape the Hotel Industry Post COVID 19 Pandemic" talks about how this industry is taking necessary measures in order to promote safety and security within their companies while implementing new technologies. It states that this pandemic has impulsed the implementation of new technologies into hotel operations. Contactless solutions, hotel check ins, mobile room keys, etc.. are just some of the examples hotels are taking in order to minimize contact and enhance customer experiences

This article mainly describes how the hotel industry can use technology to help it recover after COVID-19, and how to enhance the confidence of employees and customers. With the development of the epidemic, the hotel industry and even the entire hospitality industry are widely promoting contactless technologies. Therefore, various mobile and self-service AI technologies are integrated with hotel operations. In the future, with the development of this normalization, reasonable monitoring technology, non-contact communication technology, location detection technology, super sterilization, and robotics technology will all become important aspects of the future development of the hotel industry.

The article describes how the pandemic accelerated the adoption of technology for many people and how it shifted the needs of people looking for short-term/hotel stays. Companies that thrived during the pandemic were the ones that offered things that began trending as people needed to stay away from others and inside for large periods of time: contact-less experiences and apartment settings rather than traditional hotel rooms. As we move forward from the pandemic and travel begins again, hoteliers will need to re-evaluate their technology and invest in guest experience software tools so their hotels can compete with the new trends in hospitality spaces.

This site explains the benefits of using Proximity Marketing but this is the side of a company that is selling this marketing tool. It goes into detail of how it works and gives examples. I like how this site goes over the benefits and does touch base on how connectivity is important. It goes over how sms, email, mobile aps and wifi captive portals are beneficial.

How technology will help kitchen in the UK.

This article goes over the "new normal" of the hospitality industry and shows a somewhat grim future for the hospitality industry. This pandemic has made it so that the industry know for exemplary customer service is somewhat prohibited from what it is known for. No more valets, no more greeting front desk agents, no more waiting in a buffet, etc. It's a sad reality, but there is no reason to believe that this will be how we will be forever.

As the entire travel industry, OTAs suffere a lot because of the COVID-19 pandemic. In this article are described not only financial losses of the OTAs, but also the steps that they are going to take towards the safety of the travelers, and the possible future conditions for the OTAs operations.

Cyberattacks on health organizations. These organizations need to implement better data protection. Personal and medical data has been hacked and there is a continuous effort put forth to breach the systems that house this information. With more and more companies researching potential vaccines and remedies for Covid, now more than ever, organizations must have more than just cloud backups; disaster recovery plans should include offsite backups at a minimum.

Now more than ever, introduction of products that help preserve the health of staff and guests are an imperative for hotels and resorts. This article introduces this patented antimicrobial hotel key card technology to the hospitality industry.

Another Article about how Covid-19 has affected the industry. In this one in particular, is about an application that can be accessed by Android phone or website called Event Tow. With this new app that was inspired in millennial technology and Covid-19 pandemic, the customers can book events from the comfort of their homes and/or office. I believe this could be another example like the Smart-bar