Group items tagged

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 county of St. Mary's has just launched their new website that now has features such as an interactive map, trip planner,& events calendar. By making these changes in their website potential tourists can find out what's going on in this town.  Local business owners and attractions are able to upload and edit their own information on the website, this helps to keep their events and pictures all current. With this website change, St. Mary's hopes to drive a lot of new and repeat business to their area.

Many restaurants are choosing to go to hand-held POS systems for the many advantages they provide. Perhaps the number one reason to chose a hand-held POS system is time saved. A restaurant can save up to four minutes by placing the order via a hand-held POS system. This leads to more selling opportunities, and greater time with the guest. Information on 86'd items is immediately available, and the system can suggest possible "upsell" options. Order accuracy is increased, because the order is placed right at the table as it is given. Drawbacks include the durability of the unit, considerable start up costs, and complexity of the unit. Many of the durability issues have been addressed, but the units are still pricey. Costs have come down as the technology becomes more widespread. The complexity of the unit still remains an issue, as servers tend to focus more on the unit and placing the order, rather than engaging the guest.

I have seen these work very well at Chick-fil-a recently. They utilize these systems during high traffic times by having two associates out in the drive through line taking orders along with the intercom. By doing this, they are able to take three orders at a time and the line is very minimal. If used correctly, this is a great system to have.

This article shows the importance of guest reviews in a hotel through online websites like TripAdvisor. Before purchasing the antique St. Ermin's Hotel in Central park, management decided to take a look of what customers thought about the property. People said the location was fantastic and it had beautiful physical assets but it needed a major renovation. TripAdivisor played a huge role for the hotel to recover and maintain high level of guest satisfaction raking their property from 480 to number 25 in TripAdvisor's Central London rankings and later jumped to number 18. Websites like TripAdvisor enables management to be informed and up-to-date of what customers are looking for before they travel. At the end, customers are they reason why we are still in business.

This article shows the importance of guest reviews in a hotel through online websites like TripAdvisor. Before purchasing the antique St. Ermin's Hotel in Central park, management decided to take a look of what customers thought about the property. People said the location was fantastic and it had beautiful physical assets but it needed a major renovation. TripAdivisor played a huge role for the hotel to recover and maintain high level of guest satisfaction raking their property from 480 to number 25 in TripAdvisor's Central London rankings and later jumped to number 18. Websites like TripAdvisor enables management to be informed and up-to-date of what customers are looking for before they travel. At the end, customers are they reason why we are still in business.

In 2009 the GDS usage declined from 98% to 79%. ALthough there has not been a demand to use this technology, there has been a demand in the first quarter in 2012. There has been an increase because of corporate business demand. GDS is being used to transfer room inventory to global distribution partners as well as travel agents and OTA's. Hotels using the GDS technology offer a percentage to a client instead of a fixed rate. This happens as long as companies have access to the hotel's system everyday. According to Robert Cole, The GDS system is notgoing anywhere because of its unique solutitons to hotels and travelers. It makes it easier for everyone.

This article is about how global distribution systems are still in demand even though they were said to be dying out. Industry leaders thought that with the development of online travel agencies, GDS's would soon be out of business. This isn't the case though. Well it is proven that member travel agencies have been using GDS's less this could be linked to the economy. The people who are purchasing travel through online travel agencies are still using the GDS every day. Business travel is also up in the past 10 years and also an increase in business travelers extending their stays for leisure. With that leisure and corporate traveler are help keeping GDS's alive. But GDS's would be even more profitable if they lowered their transaction fees.

The GDS has decreased steadily over the past decade, but recent studies have shown that there has been a small increase. The increase is thought to be due to corporate travel.  Many hotels are trying to increase the use of the GDS through dynamic pricing models. This model offers a percentage off the hotels best available rate depending on what the demand is. The GDS provides many benefits like facilitating the online search process, offering immediate access to information without using a marketing budget, and high sense of security. The only downfall is that the distribution costs are too high, because transaction fees usually are around $5. 

In my career within hotels, what struck me the most was the GDA that the St Regis adopted and now is part of the brand standard for the St Regis hotels worldwide. Just with a touch a button you can practically do anything and everything you would like to in your room, without moving from your bed. You can even order In room dining using this feature. This is something ultra luxurious and has taken a liking by many guests who has used this before. Now with this being said, Starwood in Middle East is coming up with the GDA for guest rooms that are voice activated to do everything for you

Sustainability has been a primary focus for many hotel companies around the world. There are many initiatives that are being created other than your everyday recycling. Fairmont Mayakoba has implemented a tour in which guest can assist in the transplant of coral to help their growth. Hosteling International USA has also become the first of it's kind to develop a system that monitors shower to last at most seven minutes in it effort to conserve water. These are just some of the many ideas that are taking into effect to further progress sustainability within hotel operations.

As guests are getting more environmentally friendly, being sustainable is an important aspect of hotel operations. Before they book a hotel, a lot of guests will look for or read about the hotel's social responsibility program. Hence, going green would bring in more revenue by attracting more guests.

This article explains several ways that hotels and resorts are helping in the fight for sustainability. Some resorts have completely eliminated the use of air conditioning and other ways to get energy for running electricity. For example, the Jade Mountain resort in St. Lucia has designed all their rooms to be open-air rooms which allows for breezes to come through the rooms and ultimately cool down the rooms. This, in turn, eliminates the need for air-conditioning all together. Some hotels are even offering classes on how to live a more sustainable and eco-friendly lifestyle. Hotels and resorts have worked towards saving coral reefs, energy and water conservation, preserving food and re-purposing waste, and creating eco-minded communities.

This article emphasizes how imperative it is for hospitality businesses to stay on the cutting edge of technology as a part of their business design and strategy if they want to survive in today's competitive market and remain in it, in the near future. The author expresses that today's hospitality market is being driven by Millennials' "the largest generation in the country's history" who patronize businesses that are socially and environmentally responsible. Armed with this information to capture their targeted market, more and more hotels are now incorporating from inception within their physical blueprint infrastructure that is environmentally sustainable and cost-effective. As well as obtaining Green certifications and implementing sustainable software to reduce waste and minimize leakages. This concept has also been adopted by cruise ship operators to reduce environmental impact through the use of technology.

This article introduces the different initiatives that the hospitality industry is taking with regard to technology in order to align with their target market or a large segment of their market. As being perceived, millennials are sought to be the largest generation in the country's history which leads companies to infer that they have a massive amount of buying power in their hands. Hospitality companies are now making strides to become more environmentally conscious. Some of these initiatives is incorporating LED lights throughout the facilities to reduce energy waste and cut down on costs. Another initiative is incorporating new systems in the guest rooms that enhance the stay while keeping it green like systems that adjust temperatures in the rooms, remotely powered shades, etc. Other companies are even using systems as a tool to help track, measure, and reduce food waste for more sustainable and effective restaurant/bar operations. It is no secret that technology is ever-evolving, and it will continue to develop as new features are discovered.

Article discusses millennials as the largest generation in U.S. history, and the speed at which technology progresses. In addition to paying attention to millennials' purchasing decisions, other industries must also meet their financial expectations. Many brands are taking steps to become more sustainable in the hospitality industry despite its reputation for producing massive amounts of waste.

inamo™ is like no other restaurant anywhere in the world. Located in central London inamo and inamo st james are pioneering Oriental fusion restaurants where the control of the dining experience is placed firmly in the customer's hands. At the core of inamo™ is its interactive ordering system, E-Table™. With an E-Table™ system, diners place orders from an illustrated food and drinks menu projected on to their table surface. Customers also set their table ambience, discover the local neighbourhood, and even order a taxi home. The Content Management System makes Restaurant management easy. All E-Table™ ambience and retail activity is conveniently connected to a central management system. It has been specially developed for E-Table™ and designed so anyone can intuitively control the management process. Features include: Easily update and edit Names, Images, and Descriptions of products. Create and modify food and drink menus. Instantly create paper menus and website copy direct from the Management System. Update images and patterns with direct upload from your computer to change the look and feel of the tables. Create new permanent and seasonal sets of images and patterns. Set up a private dining room. Create custom configurations and apply any combination of themes, menus, images and patterns, to groups of tables on the system. Change your menus according to the day of the week, season, time of the day, special events. Create and modify "where next" maps. Guests can see what they and their group have ordered at any time, call a waitress over to attend to them and request the bill when they are ready to go. A host of extra functions are available - guests can view a live video of the kitchen, order a taxi home, or see what's on at the local cinema.

The Oyster Bay Beach Resort is a highrise hotel in St. Martin that promises guests white-sand beaches, "breathtaking" views of the Caribbean and a "paradise found."But Jack Permadi says he found more than that when he stayed at the property recently.

This article talks about how events have changed throughout the years and especially because of 9/11. before this day the event planners and safety personel were focus on traffic control but now it is more safety concerns and the prevention of terrorist attacks. It discusses how and why technology can help them and shows many different examples that were real life like the super bowl an the presidential debates. it also stresses how important it is to know the technology and not to learn it in a crisis. Also it helps in choosing what technology to use. There are so many options out there and there is definitely a way to do all this without technology but technology can help and make it a lot safer and more effective.

Events can be successfully planned, executed and reviewed without the use of technology. However, there are affordable technology solutions that can ease the burden and provide enhanced situational awareness during an event. And the new high tech, E-Sponder, really assist in the automation of business processes, expecially the event planning. E-Sponder was used to automate many critical business processes during the debate and consequently provided real-time information sharing and reduced resolution time for unplanned events. In addition, it gave complete situational awareness both inside and outside the command center to all of those involved in securing the debate activities.

The federal government has recently promoted a new plan that will combine smartphone applications and energy companies to help consumers monitor and manage their utility bills. The Green Button initiative was first welcomed at the Silicon Valley event by California's biggest utilities companies. The government is now hoping that the rest of the country will be able to jump on the bandwagon. The initiative is led by Aneesh Chopra, the chief technology officer, who hopes that private sector utility companies will create a standard format across the board so that a wide range of consumers could potentially benefit. Consumers will have virtual access through applications to their energy consumption. Ideally, the plan is supposed create energy saving efforts for consumers who will have greater access to managing their bills and levels of consumption. There already are major energy companies, like Opower and Tendril, which are producing Green Button compatible applications. It shows how energy companies are treading the online and smartphone waters. This initiative will also require consumers to put their part in adopting smart meters and smart phone applications. I think this a great move by the government in a time where both energy consumption and costs are increasing. As a future homeowner, I would be more than willing to contribute to participating in this type of plan. People today are interested in having their life bundled up and having access to it through their online services, this effort was definitely inevitable.

Maritz Travel, the global leader in meeting, event and incentive travel management service, has chosen the registration and sourcing platform of Cvent which is the world's largest meetings and event management technology company for use with its clients. Maritz associates are using Cvent's meeting and event management software to streamline the entire event lifecycle while helping their clients increase attendance and decrease costs. Cvent's software automates time-consuming tasks because of its online registration, event marketing and secure online payment processing to housing and travel management and reporting. This feature helps planners focus on meeting strategic goals and achieve more engaging and effective events.

The involvement of technology enable event planners to focus on the planning of the content of the event rather than the schedule, marketing and payment stuffs. Therefore, it saves time for the event planners as well as the costs that are generated without the use of technology. It will require more time for the event planners if everything has to be accomplished manually.

Maritz Travel Company have recently chosen to use Cvent Cloud Event Management System. Due to Maritz Travel Company Maritz Travel books an annual of 1.2 million hotel room nights for meeting and travel program where they use Cvent which will increase attendee and decrease cost for their clients. The Cvent software helps control time consuming task which helps event planners focus on meeting strategies goal.

Netiquette is very important in today's industry as it can only improve and enhance our way of communicating and networking. Also, everything is pretty much done by conference calls, audio visuals and over the internet by exchanging emails and web links. I personally believe that Netiquette should only be improve on because that is where the world of today is looking forward to and addressing too.

The article introduced the recycling initiatives of the Palm Beach. Aluminium collection, recycling of plastic and glass; make package of cardboard for easy sold; collecting office paper for newspaper manufacturing; prevent waste cooking oil to make bio diesel fuel; using drought-tolerant vegetation to replace exotic flora; hotels` sustainability program in an aerobic composter, and "matchmaker". 

Yes a very good article. I wish more would take this seriously. When i was at the St Regis Hotels, we use to do the same thing of recycling initiatives.

I think the above points are for hotels that do not have a brand awareness... For example, the St Regis brand we did not need all this as it was a well established brand and the business just practically walks in...

According to the article, Bluebird Global has introduced one of the most advanced iPad-based POSs, known as the Revel System, to its base of multi-establishment and fast-paced businesses. Running this many business called for an advanced upgrade from its former POSs. Studies show that software unreliability and lack of accurate data are obstacles to market growth for operators. Introducing the Revel System provided a feature-rich package including inventory management, intelligent reporting, and payroll management. This POS is the only native iPad based app with True Offline and full PCI compliance, also allowing for access and storage to it's cloud system.

With cloud based technology quickly on the raise this was a great article about the Pros and Cons of both at this current time.

This article highlights how several large chain hotels have taken on the initiative to reduce/eliminate their resource and energy consumption to sustain their communities for tourism. The four main steps taken include: saving the coral reefs, energy and water conservation, preserving food and repurposing waste, and creating eco- minded communities. Hotels have taken on a number a projects such as creating underwater structures to preserve and enhance the coral reefs for guests experience, filtering water from the local river, starting a food waste program to turn left over food items into reusable water, and hosting seminars to discuss sustainability and clean ups to name a few.