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World Travel Market Vision Conference-Florence May 23, 2012 The travel and tourism industry's longer-term prospects are good, delegates were told last week at the World Travel Market (WTM )Vision Conference-Florence. Despite the global financial problems, which continue to impact the industry, Euromonitor International Travel and Tourism Analyst Angelo Rossini predicted the "the next 5 years would look brighter."

This article is good news for all of us in the hospitality industry. There are "growing middle classes and they are hungry for travel." The article suggests that within the next five years people will be looking to vacation on short costs, most likely traveling on short breaks or low-cost holidays. This article also brings attention to the technology aspect in this rapidly growing industry. They say that the technology is very far behind and needs to be updated to better suit people's needs. Overall, even though the tourism industry is headed in the right direction there are still many things that need to be updated on a periodic basis to keep up with the changing times.

This article talks about how more and more people in the hospitality industry are using a POS based-cloud instead of hardwire systems. According to some experts in some years most of the hospitality industry would have change into using the cloud. For now most of the users of the cloud are single unit restaurants as it is an easy system to adopt and cost efficient. On the other side for chain restaurants to make this change can be costly; therefore it is believed that it will take some time for them to change. Still some people believe that this can be an unreliable and unsecured system. Some of the reasons for this are: -The lack of privacy; as the data will be in the hands of somebody else. -This system relies on the internet so when a connection problem occurs a downtime would take place creating complications for the restaurant operator. According to experts and users both of these ideas can be debated. Leaving the data handling in the hand of experts can bring advantages and lower the costs. On the other hand when the internet fails if the correct backup measures are taken it has no difference with the hardware system.

This article talks about the benefits of POS in cloud, and eliminates some misunderstanding about its downtime and security concerns. The author start selling POS in cloud by pointing out the trend that it is becoming more accepted. CEO and president of the Retail Solutions Providers Association (RSPA) says it will be mainstream in the next two to five years. Though POS in cloud would be a easy set up and cost saving solution for a starting up single-unit,"Large chains are more likely to turn to cloud applications for business intelligence solutions first because there is not as much investment or change in infrastructure compared to the POS" says Dave Matthews. But since multi-unit chains have already invested lots of money in the old POS, they are going to wait for those POS pay back before they switch to POS in cloud. Then author switched to what concern people most about cloud computing, downtime and security. A cloud based POS can have as reliable backup plan as a hardwired system. Although POS in cloud does not have backup servers in the location which should be provided by vendor, it can have several connection backups, like wireless, 3G or 4G, phone line. And about the security concern, just ask yourself is you have the security system than a technology vendor.

According to the article, cloud computing has huge potential for achieving saving and promoting integration and will play an important role on integrating computer and information system to share more data securely. Clapper said" over the next five years, we will make some serious and notable changes in systems for labeling, tagging, monitoring and accounting for information shared across agencies. Also, intelligence agencies are trying to separate more sensitive information from substance that operatives, analysts and officials need. The US government also will monitor its information system in order to prevent from unauthorized access. The objective is to offer better information with fewer concerns about security.

According to this article it states that the US governement has send varies request to Google corporation to eliminate or bank certain searches on their website. The reason behind this is simply politics and security towards the US government and protection over the political views and 2012 US elections. Therefore, it shows how important Google is and has expand worldwide; everyone uses google as there top search engine versus other ones.

Diamond Foods was one of the largest snack foods corporations that were involved in an accounting fraud. This was an investigation that was going on for two years that is finally being settled. The former CEO was accused of falsifying costs in order to boost numbers on the stock market. The costs of walnuts had increased, however, former CFO was hiding that fact and misleading the market to let them believe Diamond Foods was beating earning estimates each time. Diamond Foods was acquiring Pringles but fell apart due to the scandal; this would have been a $2.5 billion deal. Talk of bankruptcy, stocks taking a nose dive, and a breach in loans made the banks take a step back, however, the company persuaded them to continue holding out for them. Diamond now has a new CEO and things are slowly starting to turn back around for the company. It's unfortunate that companies feel they have to lie, cheat and steal just to come out ahead. Some companies are getting away with it, but eventually it all goes back around.

Dear friends, i thought that this might be interesting for you to know. Did you know that our favorite Netflix wasn't the first online DVD subscription service? It was a Blockbuster . com :) And the fact that people will mostly shop online? 192 million in the USA! (I' honestly like shopping outside, so this way i can smell, touch, and try; although eBay is doing pretty good job by selling cheap Chinese stuff and having a free shipping. You can not even return the package , because it's 3 times more expensive to return than the original cost! ) What do you think? Thanks

The Presto device was developed not necessarily to render waiters obsolete by any means but rather to provide guests with a more productively enjoyable meal experience by trying to get their food to their table as quickly as possible.  The technology is designed to alleviate the check-in and check-out process for guests, so let's not forget that there's still the task of actually brining the food to the table, which the device is not equipped to do.  In areas where it is used, guests are finding it fairly user-friendly and restaurants are finding that menu items displayed on the Presto help to sell food.  Guests can also use the Presto to pay their tab, and split the check as they see fit.  Some of the issues restaurants may encounter with the technology are: guest temptation to steal the device, and/or technical difficulties, which are can be easily remedied with any number of staff who are tech-savvy enough resolve issues.

This article outlines the advance of Facial recognition capabilities and technology in the Hospitality Industry. The amazing advance of combining a persons visual image and being able to tie it to data on the back end and come up with the means to truly personalize the product and provide efficiencies to the guest is truly remarkable. The 30s check in claim that the adopting company Shijin was touting truly seems possible. This technology could be extrapolated to Hotel security systems for rooms, marketing, especially proximity marketing that be recognized in all of the hotel venues and of course simple customer recognition by staff. I do however see a privacy issue related to the retention of this data and of course consumers may vote no with their feet in the North American or European markets, but for hoteliers it does offer a tantalizing breath of options to innovate.

"Cisco Systems Inc., is the biggest maker of equipment that runs the internet". This article highlights the disappointing revenue that Cisco Systems is facing currently. However, the CEO is pushing to have Cisco's networking services to be more cloud based than hardware based. Because their company is known for its hardware, they are taking a hit revenue wise in their transition to a cloud based system. Companies are buying less hardware and are relying on other alternatives to keep their business running efficiently. I believe that Cisco is identifying with the current trends that are apparent in the IT world. As stated in our discussions, a cloud-based software eliminates the use of bulky hardware, eliminates costs, and allows companies to scale up or down depending on their size. So Cisco can use this information to help develop their cloud system. The businesses see value in switching systems and Cisco is in the business of providing them with what they need. Cisco is being recasted as a networking system so it is taking time for companies to switch their view on Cisco. I believe that Cisco should not deter from this transition and be able to reinvent themselves as a cloud based network. Though their revenue is taking a hit, they should continue for now until they are able to establish themselves.

This article explains the booking trend of hotel in 2017 and afterward. Even though online booking tools such as website, mobile apps have made tourists easier to book the hotel in the world, in hotel's perspective, GDS is still the main contributor to increasing bookings and enhancing the hotel revenue. According to the article, GDS booking increased by 11.6 percent between the year 2015 and 2016, and around 60 percent of bookings at hotel were made through offline sources including CRS, walk-in, call or GDS. Among these, the major tool was GDS. Furthermore, the change of economic and political environment has caused hotels to have the right tools to decrease the loss. Thus, hotels should be equipped with the technology platform to monitor and support inventory and distribution channels. Every hotel has different situation and different booking channel. For example, when I was working at reservation department, our main booking source was an online. In other words, each hotel should find out what their main booking channel is, and based on that, suitable strategy to improve revenue should be developed even though this article emphasizes the importance of GDS booking.

I found with this article that cyber attacks are becoming alarmingly more common than we have prepared ourselves for. Businesses now need to invest in their own cyber security department or, as the article suggests, apply a cyber security budget to each department. With security budgets predicted to increase 14%, money should be collected through the customers over a lifetime of the customer so that the budget is continually there. I found this article to stand out to me because I never thought of cyber security being so crucial, but it easily makes sense. I think a lot of business lack in providing the proper amount of security to prevent cyber attacks. Personally, I never heard of a cyber security department so this was new for me to read about.

this article goes in-depth the benefits of using POS systems.. POS systems are being used a lot more than ever before. it is a great and effective tool to follow up on customer engagement and understand more about sale information and profit projections, all while providing excellent customer service

With the rise of virtual reality becoming a household item leading up to the COVID-19 pandemic, virtual events can now be more immersive than ever. While businesses benefit from local support, it will never measure up to the audience they can reach when including national and international markets, thus making events hybrid.

This Article deals with the hacking of Darkside the hacker group who extorted over 4 million dollars paid in bit coin, this article goes into ho w the FBI was able to get the monies paid back to the company.

Consumers change phones often which in turn changes their MAC addresses. Retailers then lose all the the consumers behavior. Most consumers also rarely download retail applications.Although proximity marketing has had its limitations, it has continued to evolve which means that it will be present in the future.