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In this article, the author discusses four hotel accounting challenges and solutions with Scott Watson, Executive Vice President of Sales and marketing from M3. According to this VP, hotel finances and accounting can be complex and come with challenges. We will discuss the challenge and solutions to the four listed issues: Enterprise Resource Planning, Staff Variations, Data Overload and Core Challenges. Firstly, the challenge with enterprise resource planning is how do hotels implement affordable and scalable solutions. Scott believes partnering up can cut costs. Secondly, staff variations and labor demands and the importance of staying within the budget. Scott's solution to this is real-time monitoring for labor. Cloud- based reporting can help manager monitor the daily labor costs and other payroll functions in real-time. Thirdly, data overload. The challenge here is how to do hotels present that data collected. According to Scott, the solution here is having a centralized platform. This allows for a check and balance system and may assist in monitoring cash flows, etc. Lastly, the fourth challenge are core challenges such as guest service, sales, operations and cash management. The main challenge here is how to hotels monitor the core competencies that generate revenue. The answer, according to Scott, is to outsource it. Outsourcing can be an efficient and cost-effective solution but it is not for everyone.

This article describes the challenges that hoteliers face when it comes to accounting principles. There are four major issues that arise: Enterprise Resource Planning, Staff Variations, Data Overload, and Core Challenges. Choosing the proper system to manage your finances is an important issue when dealing hotel accounting. Taking into consideration your varying staff levels into the financial arena is also important. In addition you must choose what data is important to your financial success. Once you determine the data to use its very important on what you do with it. Its important to have someone on staff that will understand how to interpret the information and make it useful. If no one is on staff then the choice to outsource the task will be the next option.

Every hotel company would like to build their own enterprise back-office system. It is more cost effective solution would be to partner up and invest in hotel sector specific technologies. With needs to staff variations real-time monitoring of labor is essentially in reducing labor cost. Another cost-effective and efficient solution is to outsource any finances and accounting practices that the hoteliers can't perform themselves

Its no secret that a hospitality companies financies and accounting tools can be complex with there own unique challenges. Cloud based reporting tools are there to help manage and monitor transactions in real time through an array of data sets.

This particular article on hospitality and tourism accounting states that the global travel industry is expanding at an accelerated rate. Although there are high demands in corporate travel and high level of satisfaction in the economy, the ever growing industry is vulnerable to many risks given by its consumers. Just as much as the guests utilizing these hospitality services are becoming more pressing towards great prices and expressing concern in the quality of service they receive, hotel businesses are adamant about increasing awareness in cost and profit. To balance all these exclusive challenges, hotels are insisting on being educated and equipped with the most up-to-date technological advances to keep up with the ever demanding industry. With this in mind, the article states three methods to conquer the challenges faced today. The first method is to utilize a cloud based system to keep track of all the innumerous activities present to keep the business running. Due to the fact that a hotel is run by an overflowing amount of employees, all with different jobs and tasks, all using different systems respective to their departments, and require several types of pay (part-time, full-time, tipped employees) methods, it is a challenge to keep things efficient without a proper system. This is the reason why the article recommends using a cloud based system to keep track of the daily labor costs, overtime management, daily payroll transactions, and incorporate easy accessibility to reporting functions. The cloud based system will be beneficial in keeping everything in record beginning from the moment an employees clocks in to the end where they receive their paycheck, as well as, the ability to manage transactions. The second method is to centralize all the various sources of data. Hotels have a countless amount of data being stored. That can range from guest satisfaction satisfaction survey and comment reports, PMS data, to financial reports. With all these busy ac

The article discusses how hotels can overcome accounting obstacles. Firstly managing payroll is cumbersome, so a cloud-based reporting system can provide an easy way to monitor labour and manage overtime, and daily payroll transactions. Secondly, hotels have a difficult time to read data as data can come from a huge variety of sources: STR reports, PMS data, satisfaction surveys, comments. Hotels need a centralized dashboard which combines all critical accounting and performance data to assist hotels in making better decisions. Lastly, the article talks about hotels needing a back-up accounting team in case of disasters. In-house accounting teams may not be able to tackle on one-time event disasters and there must be a back-up team in place in times of urgency. The author, Scott Watson, executive vice president of sales and marketing at a cloud-based financial platform, sees that hotels are becoming more "cost and profit conscious" and I agree with him. Technology solutions are what hotels are craving right now to increase revenue, minimize costs, and maximize profits without sacrificing service quality.

This article helps guides hotels in how to overcome challenges when it comes to the accounting department in any situation that deals with staff tracking, how to decipher intricate data, and what to do in emergencies. The article details the usefulness of the Cloud and keeping track of staff members that are FOH and BOH that are both hourly and salary. That the accounting department could simply look them up in the cloud rather than searching through paperwork to understand exactly what their role is in the hotel and pay them accordingly. The article also goes over how having multiple centralized data sources can help accountants understand information from reports, guest satisfaction questionnaires, and other forms of reporting to pinpoint exactly what needs to be changed to become more efficient in the company. Lastly, the article covers how having back up accounting teams could be a definite positive just in case of emergencies (i.e. weather) so accounting can still be in progress no matter what situation occurs and the hotel can run smoothly.

This article discusses the integration of an HRIS system and its potential challenges. When getting the system, employees and management should really dedicate themselves in training with the new system. It is not something that can be learned so easily. In addition, there should be someone familiar assisting with the process, and this process includes the reason for the change. You will need to give the employees the reason why this is being implemented, and all of the new possibilities that can be accomplished. Some possibilities involve the maximization of the ROI. Another challenge includes the formulas within the system, it might be very difficult for users to understand or manage. The last few challenges include legal obligations, and the fact that legal rights are not impeded. The line must be clearly defined. Moreover, you want to ensure that all of the data placed on this system is secure. As long as these challenges are monitored, then the user will be fine.

This article jumps into some challenges facing the hotel industry with respects to accounting. It touches on various topics we have gone through as a course, and ends with an emphasis on technology.

This article talks about the need for hoteliers to be up to date with technology. By having systems that have all the data in one place, helps owners make better decisions. Also having an accounting system that helps with making decisions and offer the proper tools is imperative. When it comes to accounting it is important to be prepared for the worst case scenario.

Although I'm not a 100 percent fan on the cloud base systems, technology is ever changing and i somewhat believe that we should keep up with it providing that it is in out best benefit personally or from a business security point of view. We see how this article reveal to us challenges and how technology helps alleviate some of them.

The article introduced about the opportunities and challenges if the hotels want to expand their ecommerce in China. As the China Internet Network Information Center said, more than 500 million Internet users reside in China while it is still growing, hotels around the world believe that it is a big opportunities to develop their online distribution in China. However, although this is a big opportunities, there are also many challenges which can influence the effect. As the author said, the challenges are government restriction, language and translation and lack of adequate technology. As many hoteliers said, in china, it is very hard to develop its ecommerce. The key issue is the language, only the companies can find professional staff to translate the system into Chinese, the ecommerce can be used. Also, as Chinese credit limits are very low, most of the overseas travel transactions are completed offline in cash.However, hoteliers are trying to find solutions to beat challenges like hiring local marketing agencies or developing in-house marketing teams. Also working with local partners has been more used in the industry.

IT investment are pushed forward now and days more so for guest satisfaction. A recent Motorola Solutions Inc has uncovered a study that fifty six percent of hospitality organization plan to increase their mobile investment and wireless technology with greater data volumes and high speed access. This will increase drastically competitive advantage for the business and customer experience. Some find it a challenge in convincing upper management to approve investing in to the latest technology. As well as demonstrating that a proposed technology investment will be beneficial for their business and will assist in continuous up to date trends and market competition. I highly agree that technology is a must in this industry, especially how fast it is changing. In order to stay within the competitive advantage and provide convenience for our guest it is necessary to invest and update into the latest technology. The initial investment might be extreme especially if you have been out of date from any recent technology however, with time the results will be returned with satisfied guest and fast paced PMS systems.

Information Technology is indispensable in the hospitality industry for several reasons. This article discusses how many hotels are increasing their investment in I.T because of its abundant advantages, especially guest satisfaction. It particularly states how mobile and wireless technology will aid in guests pleasure but ensure competitive advantage as well. They looked at a study of Motorola Solutions Market Barometer of 2011 where they fundamentally determine the emerging trends in the industry and opportunities. They then came to understand that businesses are investing more on hospitality information technology to not only assist in customer retention but to have an overall high-quality system that can manage their daily duties such as inventory, budget, and status of room reservations.

This article talks about how hotel companies are starting to invest more in information technology to provide a more enhanced guest experience. A survey done by Motorola Solutions found that 56% of hospitality companies are looking to invest in more mobile technology. While companies are looking to invest more in technology, it has been challenging to convince higher management levels to make the investment. Radi Karnib with Rotana Hotel Management said that it's important to demonstrate the benefits of the investment. Daniel Haijar with Layia Hospitality agrees and goes on to say that it's important to differentiate between what's an investment and what's an expense.

In this article, Binu Mathews, Ceo at IDS Next, discusses how the hospitality industry faces massive disruptions and the majority of the challenges related to technology. He discusses how these challenges affect larger hotel chains.

This article is a research paper did by Amir and Beer-Sheva. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the impact of technology on the human resources function in organizations, in general, and in hospitality firms, in particular. At the beginning, it introduced the role of human resources department in organizations for decades. And the trend or changes in contemporary human resources. Then it came out that we cannot skipped the effect of technology on the HR function, especially in tourism and hospitality industry. So, next it gave the definitions of HRIS by introducing technology. And list some advantages and challenges of using HRIS. In the end, it listed how technology put infusion across HR function, including recruitment, selection, training, performance evaluation and compensation, payroll, benefits and pension administration, labor relations and outplacement.

This article talks about a group of New York City hotels that have pledged to become greener. Seventeen hotels have joined the NYC Carbon Challenge, an initiative originally created to get the city's universities to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. These hotels have pledged to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by at least 30% in the next ten years, which can significantly reduce the amount of greenhouse gases produced by the city's buildings. This is all in an effort to reduce the city's overall greenhouse gas emissions 80% by the year 2050. The Office of Sustainability worked with the Hotel Association of New York City, a coalition of hotels in the city, to get this first group of hotels involved with this green initiative. The hotels that have already started working towards making their property greener are already on the right track to meeting their goals and these implementations will involve minor construction and little hindrance to guests. The article talks about some of the changes that these hotels are making, such as changing to LED light bulbs, installing more energy-efficient elevators, implementing sensors that turn off bathroom lights after a certain period of inactivity, and using an energy-conserving air-conditioning system. Although these changes will cost the hotels a hefty sum of front, they also know that these changes will save them money in the long run. Most of these changes will not be visible or known to guests, but people who want to stay someplace that is environmentally-conscious can educate themselves about what these hotels are doing.

Technology has taken a huge toll on society and business now a day. If our business is keeping itself updated with technology, could mean we are at the top of our game. This article briefly  demonstrates how Beacons can help improve your business by providing how, when and where are customers behaving. For example, Beacons allow customers to order-ahead of time. It attracts a different clientele and allows us to gain others because of a shorter or no waiting time. Like an express line. But  it may become a challenge if the business doesn't know how to ensure a time-effective preparation before customers arrive. Beacons also allow customers to know exactly how much people are at that exact time at the restaurant or business, and thus waiting time, if any. Another advantage would be "push-customized notifications". I believe this is one of the most challenging for businesses. Customers (as myself) hate when we get attacked by too much notifications.  If it were useful in any way or if it called my attention every now and then, but companies apparently don't pay attention to how customers may feel.  It is very important to use the access wisely and give out information customers really want. Offer what they are looking for, by personalizing. It also helps to attract customers by promoting events or special offers and notifying via beacons. People like a place they can see as happy and fun. Also, who doesn't like discounts? A fifth advantage, and as I believe to be one of the best ways to retain and gain customers, is to reward the customer who passes by every now and then, with personalized dishes, and reward first time customers by attracting them with discounts specifically for them. And finally, another must consider, is that beacons help keep track of everything (all happening at a specific given time) to better improve employee wages and specifics of customers that are out-and-about.

Technology has taken a huge toll on society and business now a day. If our business is keeping itself updated with technology, could mean we are at the top of our game. This article briefly demonstrates how Beacons can help improve your business by providing how, when and where are customers behaving. For example, Beacons allow customers to order-ahead of time. It attracts a different clientele and allows us to gain others because of a shorter or no waiting time. Like an express line. But it may become a challenge if the business doesn't know how to ensure a time-effective preparation before customers arrive. Beacons also allow customers to know exactly how much people are at that exact time at the restaurant or business, and thus waiting time, if any. Another advantage would be "push-customized notifications". I believe this is one of the most challenging for businesses. Customers (as myself) hate when we get attacked by too much notifications. If it were useful in any way or if it called my attention every now and then, but companies apparently don't pay attention to how customers may feel. It is very important to use the access wisely and give out information customers really want. Offer what they are looking for, by personalizing. It also helps to attract customers by promoting events or special offers and notifying via beacons. People like a place they can see as happy and fun. Also, who doesn't like discounts? A fifth advantage, and as I believe to be one of the best ways to retain and gain customers, is to reward the customer who passes by every now and then, with personalized dishes, and reward first time customers by attracting them with discounts specifically for them. And finally, another must consider, is that beacons help keep track of everything (all happening at a specific given time) to better improve employee wages and specifics of customers that are out-and-about.

Creative and a bit scary application of existing technologies. Much like Facebook Messenger, when do we cross the line between convenience and forfeiture of privacy? As part of the industry, the responsibility falls to us to manage the line in favor of our guests. They will know when it has become too much, and we will know very soon after when business evaporates. Provide friendly, targeted service without being too invasive. Remembering orders and having them ready on time is fine. Sending a pop-up message every time the guest passes by in a cab may be a bit much. Consider how many Starbucks messages you could receive in any major metropolitan area. Without proper care, we could be giving a whole new meaning to the word Spam.

This is a three year old survey on Green Intiatives by American Hotel & Lodging Association. It talks about : (a) Challenges or barriers faced by hoteliers. (b) The biggest motivation for implementing green lodging practices. (C) The top ten things hotels are doing well relating to green initiative. (d) Top ten green things hotels can improve on.

The American Hotel & Lodging Association's Green Assessment Survey results reveal the top 10 green initiatives hotels are enacting, the top 10 motivations for implementing green lodging practices, the top 10 green things hotels are doing well and top 10 green things hotels can improve on. In the challenges and barriers part, the biggest one facing in implementing green lodging practices is having enough capital to invest; in addition the whole world is in financial crisis now. Money is a big problem. As we know, before implement green practices, hotels need large amount money to buy equipment and need a lot of time to train employees to use it. In high season, they are busy to serve guests, to earn money. In low season, they may have time but no money. In the motivation part, environmental benefits and building guest loyalty rates to first place. But I think most hotels deciding to implement green practices are because financial savings. In addition, implement green practices can preempt government regulations and improve hotel reputation. It is also a good way to advertise. To do and not to do lists, hotels should keep and improve their recycling and reuse program and pay more attention to the power save program.

This is a great article that collected all top 10 related to GREEN. It makes me realize what we are doing well and what we need to improve in the future. And also it lists the top 10 challenge that we are facing. I agree with you that implement green practices can preempt government regulations and improve hotel reputation.

As spending on cloud services jumps up almost 21% from last year, everything seems to be positive for this fast growing technology. It is, however, facing some challenges along the way that companies are going to need to take into consideration when spending on these services. Making sure they have a well qualifies and capable team to keep these services secure without burning them out is one of the concerns employees are bringing up in recent conversations. The security and safety of the data held by these services is very important, and needs to be prioritized in the day to day decisions made by all companies that utilize these services. Threats and malicious code taken advantage of by hackers is ever growing, and requires a constant, educated team with empowerment to protect to constantly watch out for these threats. Cloud computing still continues to grow, and is still a great advancement in business, but it also still needs to have it's threats carefully assessed and addressed to make sure it remains secure.

The following Press Release describes the Marriott La Jolla was showcased by a tour by the Department of Energy of its Better Building Challenge participants. The three-day tour took place in California and highlights the energy-efficient and energy savings practices and technologies in which the hotel offers.  The Marriott La Jolla-is owned by HEI Hotels & Resorts and recently was selected by President Obama to the Dept. of Energy Better Building Challenge as a part of the initiative to reduce energy consumption by 20 percent. HEI's commitment has led to enhancing its properties by energy efficiency upgrades and renovations-HEI has installed Energy Looking Glass (ELG), as well as the Energy Set-Point (ESP) program which defines optimum settings for key systems (domestic hot water, chilled water, etc.). Additionally, the hotel's BUZZ Committee gets all hotel associates engaged in conservation efforts. Core energy upgrades such as lighting and HVAC are proven technologies that were adopted and implemented years ago by the Marriott La Jolla and other properties in the HEI portfolio.

This article primarily discusses HEI Hotels & Resorts' Marriott La Jolla and their past showcase during "Tour of Department of Energy's Better Buildings Challenge Participant Facilities". Fundamentally, this hotel is using and produced an energy efficiently program which will allow the hotel to annually save $200,000 each year. That is an incredible savings that will keep the hotel tremendously environmentally friendly, while hopefully starting a trend for other hotels to do the same. This hotel is now facing great benefits with their energy saving initiatives and great operational systems such as HVAC, ELG, and ESP which will overall save water, the consumption of energy, and reduce waste.

San Diego, CA - August 30, 2012 -The Marriott La Jolla, owned and operated by HEI Hotels & Resorts, was showcased on Tuesday by the Department of Energy during a tour of the facilities of its Better Buildings Challenge participants. The visit was part of a three-day tour in California to highlight the energy-efficient and energy saving practices and technologies implemented by the participants.

Palm Beach Hotel face some challenges, they are looking for a solution that is capable of managing the hotel front desk and guest transaction. In order to solve this challenge then use the Horizon property management system. This system can give the management full control over the challenges. It is also equipped with an advanced interface gateway, witch help to connect the front desk and other hotel facilities. This PMS also can implement in the finance department. However the training process is critical, hotel stuff need to be trained. Over all this new system is more flexible and user friendly  than other system they used before. 

This article indicates that there are three majors shaping our world between now and 2020. Those are the cloud, mobility, and Cellular Offload. We should determine the major trends, and then invest in solutions that align with those trends. Interestingly, it is mentioned some insights provide clues as which investments will be future proof to and witch will be risks. From hospitality perspective, equipment and maintenance performed by on-site or locally based staff, which is great for all owners. Also, It can be seen that the cloud allows investors to make big investments in its service.

This article introduced three major trends that we think will shape our world between now and 2020. The author thought one of the biggest challenges for any technology executive is predicting the landscape of toolsets and IT infrastructure that will be available in the future. The correct choice can last at least 10 years and there are three major trends, cloud, mobility and cellular offload. For cloud, the author thought it is good for hospitality. It holds the promise of relieving the hotel owner of responsibility for managing the operation and integration of premise-based systems, with associated costs for deployment, equipment and maintenance performed by on-site or locally based staff. Also, the author thought the mobility creates both opportunity and challenge. It can be used to both define new service models and revenue streams, and to improve existing ones. Today's challenge is that mobility requires massive investment in wireless infrastructure and bandwidth .Finally, the author thought as it is far cheaper for a cellular carrier to build or fund a Wi-Fi network, than to install an additional cell tower and/or buy additional spectrum, it is good news for hotels. It means that cellular companies have an economic reason to help fund hotel Wi-Fi networks.

This article is talking about wireless internet becomes more and more important in the hotel industry. They provide some of the key considerations for the hoteliers that help the hotel to ensure they can meet the demands of their customers. There's a big demand for wireless access to hotels. Every customer would like to choose a hotel with a Wi-Fi service. Wireless become very necessary in the hospitality industry. The best wireless service that can help the hotel create the loyalty customers. Wi-Fi has become a standard amenity, therefore, the hotel has to find affordable and non-disruptive solutions to meet customers wants and needs. Currently, customers would like to use the smart phone and their computer to watch videos rather than watch TV. They are not just sending email and web surfing anymore. There have a strong needs of the best internet from the hotels. The articles showed us couple challenge of wireless in the hotel. First of all, weak cellular signal strength. In many hotels, for guests, it's not always can find the signal of their cell phone, especially in urban area. The customers can't have a good voice communication with others. Maybe because the location of that room in the corner and there have something will disturb the signals or building construction that will interrupt the signal as well. The solution of the cellular signal strength is "Make provision for both voice and data signals to be amplified." To installing that equipment that always needs the hotel to run a new cable in order to provide the good signals for the guest used. The second challenge for the hotels is "Cellular Network Capacity Issue". Since cellular companies continue selling the device for many years without expanding their network to meet their demand. For example, AT&T is the first company that realized this issues when there are sell iPhone and another cellular. Thus, it's very important that each device support connection to the internet by use Wi-Fi withou

This article mentioned that economic uncertainty is regarded as the biggest challenge facing the travel industry, ahead of climate change and sustainability issues. 53% of people in Travel Technology Europe's survey polled put economic conditions at the top of the list of concerns followed by sustainable travel at 45% and climate change at 44%. The survey also found that cybersecurity remains a worry, with 20% citing it as a key challenge in 2020.

This article discusses research that shows four hotel technology challenges in 2019. These challenged include Interoperability, Data Management, Security & Privacy, and Responsiveness. It argues that hotel management should be aware of these technologies because they can either help or hinder your business.

This is an excellent article that explores that businesses in the hospitality face in their day to day running. The challenges that the article points out identifies include the interoperability of hotel technology systems, the management of data, the security and privacy of data, especially in the current era of cloud computing, and the responsiveness of hotel technologies. Although hotel technologies improve guest experience and foster efficiency in hospitality companies, such challenges may adversely their efficiency, and thus, adversely affect guest experience.

This article discusses what we talked about this week in regards to the different types of technological disruptors in the hospitality industry. It discusses data management issues, privacy issues, and how responsiveness can be improved within hotels. This article will be useful for future research as I look more into artificial intelligence within the hotel industry.

The article (and the video on top) mainly discuss now hospitality industry is facing certain key challenges cush as personally identifiable information(PII), intellectual property, mobile security, application development and PCI compliance. And Fishnetsecurity offer a series of solutions. For example, for PII challengers, they can analyze how data enters, exits and is utilized and by that develop a data flow diagram and data analysis & lige cycle sevices.