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The hardware security check has been improved a lot after 911. However, how to increase the software security is the key for hospitality industry. How can we ask some sensitive questions or find some information through observation are the key for the comfortable travel environment. However, except some western countries, asking people's religion is acceptable and reasonable. Though globalization, hospitality industry should come out more approaches for making sure the security.    

Marketing and E-business for tourism industry A good marketing plan is important to the success of businesses. There are several guidelines and ways to use electronic medium to stay competitive. A business has to always take care of the existing customers and their needs without forgetting to attract new customers. Tourists are using internet to shop for new destinations so an online presence is very important for consumers so they will be able to find out information about the business. There are several guidelines to consider: * Promptness people expect to get a response within a reasonable time. * Quality means that your website should be able to compete with other websites on the internet and this means that it should have good quality photographs and professional tone to the websites. * Consistency means a good consumer service and a professional image. There are many ways to promote services online: email newsletters and promotion, building traffic by working with other websites, offer deals, get involved in discussion sites about the industry you are in. During an off season bookings, simplicity of booking should be a priority. Tourism operators should join travel and tourism "mall" to offer their products and host their site and use these low cost services. Companies can also promote their products online by offering auction style sales that helps consumers have some kind of control over the prices of the different services in tourism. One of the perks of online shopping for travel services is the price transparency and the fact that costumers have choices of different prices in front of them. Company should Increase a web marketing pull by offering different services and also advertising with other companies. Promote and minimize the costs of the services by adding "do-it-yourself" features. A list such as: A FAQ, maps of location of other area attractions and local guides for rental outlets. To improve the way you market your products and

The article highlights the dramatic change that Disney will effect to increase customer service at the theme park using the Near- Field Communication technology (NFC). This technology which is presently been use by hospitality firms and other industries will allow Disney to eliminate the need for room keys, credit cards, and paper tickets. Customers will be given a wrist band which will be tied to the Disney websites and all accounts numbers and IDs created on the website will be embedded in a chip that is also embedded in that wrist band. All you will need to do is just give it a tap and boom! You are given access to rides, movies, restaurants, kiosks and other attractions within the park. According to the report this saves customers and Disney tremendous amount of time but the real deal behind this is to gather more personal data about customers, and track all the activities you engaged in plus the things you bought. Personal information could be encoded in the wrist band so that an employee or even mickey mouse could greet you by name. All this technology sounds very good but what if I lost my wrist band and it gets in the hands of someone else. The article states that the wrist band can be remotely deactivated if lost or stolen. You and I know that when you having fun at Disney no one will be looking at their wrist every five minutes to see if a wrist band is still in place. If someone found my lost wristband and I notice two or three hours later who will be responsible for all these charges racked up by someone else? I really like this technology because I hate having to wait in long lines; anything that would make my life easier I will pay for it. Having said that I do believe that there are facets of this amazing technology that still needs to be tweaked.

This article is explaining how Henry Harteveldt, an airline and travel industry analyst, believes that GDSs will evolve into value creation hubs, or VCHs, over the next five years. He believes GDSs have served airlines the best among many transactionally based industried; however, many areas of airline marketing, sales, distribution and e-commerce are looking for more. He specifically states that airlines are looking for "more flexible, robust commerce platforms built on contemporary software and architecture", as well as "commerce platforms that can support extensive fare and product transparency, dynamic pricing, rich basic and ancillary product merchandising and retailing and the ability to reliably and securely process the massive volume of shopping sessions." VCHs will be used to support the high-volume, high frequency shopping, similar to GDSs, and the system will the new technology that powers airline CRS/PSS host systems, reducing the need for costly conversion disruption.

Optima Go Green allows hotels using the Optima Hotel Management Solution property management system to go the extra mile and reduce the total amount of paper used by implementing Optima green solutions. The Optima Go Green solution includes features such as advance up to 24hours before using a smart phone; guest checkout allowing the guest folio to be viewed via an iPad; scanning of IDs to save time and ensure accuracy, managerial reports being able to be directly sent to the appropriate manager without having the need of being printed; allowing managers to check rate strategies and availability online on their smart phones. The maon concept of Optima goGreen is a cost effective solution which is all about managing documents without wasting time and space. This article tied in with the previous weeks discussion about green initiatives. A hotel's priamry office expense is paper and toner. By printing less we are drastically saving money by not having to waste paper. Storage is also cut down because the need of storing paper is eliminated. In such a tech savvy world, this is definitely the way to go.

As this article mentioned, Priceline Partner Network cooperated with Grandparents.com,Inc. to reach a business which can provide the latest information on this website. Travel customers can access to book hotels, rental car, airline tickets, air & hotel vacation packages. They try their best to provide best service and products. It also present the specific introduction about Priceline Partner Network, Priceline Group, Grandparents.com, Inc. in my opinion, this agreement can bring the visitors a new trip to search the hotels and other information. It can show various information which can be selected for customers and provide superior saving compared with other deals.

This article introduces Revel System's new Ipad Point of Sale System designed specifically for food trucks. The system includes Revel Router, which allows customers to connect to the internet by using their iPad's built-in 3G or 4G connection. Another highlight of the system is that it intergrates with Twitter, allowing food truck owners to instantly send out location/price/sales updates to their followers. I immediately found this article to be interesting, because my research for this class will center around effective POS systems in food trucks. I feel it was an excellent move on Revel's part to create a system for this unique group. I think they really had food truck owners' best interest in mind, especially in intergrating Twitter with the system. This allows food trucks to communicate easily with their followers, and provides opportunites to boost sales and revenue. I look forward to seeing if any of the food trucks I visit are using this system.

This past weekend, I was lucky enough to attend the New York City Food and Wine Festival Burger Bash.  This large scale event held 300 people and utilized 28 burger places to demonstrate their burger might.  The technology they used was interesting.  They first had ticket scanners that corresponded with bracelets, clearing you for admission.  They gave everyone coins to vote in a process that would declare the Burger champion.  On stage, they had many microphones, with a whole band rocking out.  They used ID scanners to check how old people are.  I think that this event utilized effectively technology, but only used somewhat dated means due to their relaxed nature.  It was highly successful, but in terms of tech, very simplistic.

The article I read was called "Accounting Software for Restaurants" in the article it said that many restaurants owners opened their business for their desire of food or their love for friendly surroundings. Most restaurant owners highly ever talk about their finances or accounting systems, yet they all should know how much money they are making and what percent of that money is profit. Every accounting system has a general list of assets and liabilities for the restaurant, which in other words means what the restaurant owns and what it owes. "These bookkeeping functions can be performed with a checkbook and a ledger pad (not recommended), a general-purpose accounting package like QuickBooks or Sage 50, or with special-purpose financial systems designed specifically for restaurants. High-end packages include point-of-sale terminals, menu planning, cost accounting, inventory, payables, receivables and other food service-specific features." Accounting software's allow you to see the general ledger, profit and loss, cash flow, and basic inventory. These software's are not only easy to use but they also save you a lot of time in the long run. When choosing software for your restaurant, start by looking at the business plans and see what your business can afford. It's best to talk with an accountant to find out what will be needed for tax reporting and license renewals, they will help you find out how much to spent up front and each month.

According to the article, a survey sponsored by SAP suggests that businesses are looking to make investments in IT and effective use of technology is seen as a key priority in achieving growth. When it comes to technology, becoming more efficient and using IT more effectively over the next year is among the top three priorities of those surveyed, with 46 percent saying using technology more effectively was a top business priority. The survey indicated this was especially important in emerging countries, including India (72 percent), Brazil (75 percent), Russia (33 percent), China (44 percent) and Mexico (33 percent). In addition, 60 percent of respondents said they are automating more tasks and functions now than three years ago.

According to an Economist Intelligence Unit survey, the survey of more than 1,000 SMEs included businesses from the developed economies of France, Germany, Japan, the UK, and the United States. 53 percent of those in developed markets said growth were a top business priority. Effective use of technology was seen as a key priority in achieving growth, and according to respondents, the three main internal obstacles to growth were finding and keeping new customers, hiring and retaining people with the right skills and operating the business efficiently. When it comes to technology, becoming more efficient and using IT more effectively over the next year is among the top three priorities of those surveyed, with 46 percent saying using technology more effectively was a top business priority. The hotel industry usually does not invest enough to grow compared to other industries. I believe it is because they consider being a technological leader in this industry does not bring more profit than they invest. Investing on technology might not bring instant profits but it can be one of ways to become a top business priority.

With many clients desiring to stay in "green" hotels, the industry is currently looking for ways to slash waste and promote sustainable practices. Hotels are now conscious of the impact they are having on the environment, and they are looking to minimize this impact.

In class we spoke about how the internet has an impact on small businesses and how small businesses are having a hard time being compared to the bigger businesses. This article talks about how they are being ranked in the search engines. When a consumer goes online to search for a product, he or she will like at what the article refers to as an established brand such as hp or dell in computers oppose to smaller brand names which although theyre known theyre being bypassed by these big brand names. The article talks about the "bid per click" bases that business advertisers use to promote on google. This makes it hard for a smaller business to compete with a bigger business because of their promotion level. It is very expensive.

Having a proper security plan is so critical for hotels. Here in Miami, just days ago, the Doubletree had a fire and everyone was evacuated. Due to proper evacuation measures and a fast responce from fire officals, no one was injured.

One of the hottest negotiation issues now a dyas is to stay green in whatever field of industry you're working at. That includes the Hospitality Management as well. In the hotel business one of the very basic, at the same time very important need is providing Hot Water. With the help of new sustainable hot water technology, the hotel properties can provide hot water without any trouble even during the peak hours while saving money!  These Solar Thermal heating Systems figured out to be very cost effective and practical that quickly began to rise interest between hoteliers.  In this way , they not only save energy and help our planet to stay green but also help them to save their budgets to be spent on some other parts. 

This Global Distribution System "Sabre" was selected by Hotel Okura to provide revenue through the forms of sales, account management, customer care and technology with a team of professionals who are all fluent in Japanese.Sabre is used by more then 12,000 properties around the world.JAL Hotels who is under the control of Hotel Okura experienced an impressive 18 percent increase in revenue after their initial migration to Sabre in 2009.This proves that GDS are still a huge factor of the online reservation industry.

Point of sale systems are revolutionizing the retail and hospitality industry. They have gained much attention and are now much more common then the older cash register terminal systems that once used to be at every retail store in Australia. The reason for their increasing popularity in retail stores, hotels, and restaurants is that they are more efficient and make processing and tracking orders easier. In the hospitality industry a POS system is much better because of the different needs, requests, and reservations of customers. Data must also be stored, and processed by the staff of the hotel to ensure smooth operation of the hotel. Because POS systems can record date such as payroll. labor, volume of good sold etc, they are more feasible then a cash register system. POS systems are now found in high volume restaurants. Restaurants that bustling with clients have installed this new software to be able to track and complete orders in real time, similar to a rail or airport flight schedule. Customers appreciate when their food is delivered on time, and when their orders are not mixed up. For high volume or busy restaurants the POS system offers incredible advantages and the possibility of increasing profits.

Travelers prefer to stay at green hotels. Major corporations such as Marriott, Hyatt, and Hilton & Starwood are looking for ways to integrate green into their hotels while conserving water and energy. Not only is the focus on going green going to impact the environment but also will impact the bottom line which is the dollars. This article shows how the Hyatt Regency McCormick Place in Chicago, Illinois has been able to go green to benefit both the company and the environment. The amount of items they are able to recycle is amazing; it is great that the company can also focus on the disposal of foods. As we continue to focus on the environment, more and more companies will continue to find ways to help reduce cost while protecting the environment. At the Walt Disney World Resort, guest can tour facilities and are educated on how the company impacts the environment through their recycling programs worldwide.

This article talks about the Hyatt Regency McCormick Place and the different steps they have taken to Go Green. They have significantly reduced their water and electricity consumption with the "When not in use, turn off the juice" project. Along with saving water and energy, they have also begun recycling. They recycle, paper, plastic, cardboard, light bulbs and the list goes on. They are also taking the time to educate their employees as well. "To encourage participation in programs such as 'When Not in Use, Turn Off the Juice,' employee awareness days are held. Compact fluorescent light bulbs are given to employees to help them save energy at home." The hotel has a green team who meet quarterly to continue growing in their sustainability initiatives. The Hyatt Regency McCormick Place is Green Key certified and has been recognized and awarded for their Green efforts.