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Facebook is becoming more and more popular around the world and it is becoming a social media requirement for companies to utilize for their customers. Grand Millennium Kuula Lumpur realized this and became the first hotel in Malaysia to use Facebook as a booking engine, allowing its 30,000+ followers to book hotel accommodations comfortably and in a secure environment with a special fans only rate. Friends of the hotel's Facebook page feel confident when booking through this mechanism because the page links directly to the hotel's real-time reservations system, allowing customers to check availability and book rooms instantly. This is all done without ever leaving the Facebook page. Sabre Hospitality Solutions understands the growth of social media and is helping hotels engage guests through this new technology by providing the most comprehensive social media optimization solution available. They are helping hotels build loyalty, tap into new market segments, build buzz and grow their business through online communities. This is a very important and relevant marketing tool for Malaysia because their total number of Facebook users at the end of 2011 grew to over 12 million.

This Conference will host speakers from global companies such as Wal Mart, CNN, Hewlett Packard, Coca- Cola,Intel just to name a few. They are discussing corporate responsibility , a new way to manage a company, it's not just about the bottom line anymore. Open your mind and check out this website.

Despite the fact 50 % of guests use their smart phones to book hotels, recent research reveals they are not ready to pay for their rooms after they stay with the same phones. Near Field Communication (NFC) would allow guests to simply wave their phones at a kiosk to check out instantly paying and updating the hotels accounts. Fear of cellphones being stolen are the general apprehensions of this new technology that would eliminate carrying a credit card. After the smart phone market matures hotels airlines and restaurants will be able to take advantage of the swift mobile payment technology.

It seems they are really customizing the guest experience by offering guests the opportunity to take advantage of their relationship with Live Nation. I like how they get the guests involved in promotions by offering them a cash code, a benefit of being an SPG member.

The article, iPad POS Use Rising Among Restaurants, reflects the evolution and implementation of both hardware and POS software within the restaurant industry. The iPad is revolutionizing POS systems, helping to increase the efficiency for the restaurants. According to Chris Wishart, restaurateur of the Trio Restaurant & Bar, "You don't have to worry about servers coming back into the kitchen 10 or 15 times a night asking questions". This allows for the quicker and more efficient placing of orders that contribute to higher customer satisfaction, which is to an extent difficult to measure. As well, Wishart comments about the hardware cost an estimated $3,000, in comparison to the typical upfront POS system costs of $12,000 to $20,000. Including, the use of the cloud base technology has eliminated the need for store software upkeep. The iPad is a versatile hardware that has allowed POS software companies to benefit mutually along with restaurants.

This article introduces using ipad as a POS in restaurants. Customers liking ipad, this is a big advantage of using ipad to take the order. What's more, ipad can improve the efficiency for the restaurant and decrease the workload of servers. "You don't have to worry about servers coming back into the kitchen 10 or 15 times a night asking questions, and the recipes for all the bar drinks are there, too," And ipad POS can bring the benefit for the cost of the restaurants. In addition, it also has the reliability to assure users.

It is a revolution that tablet brings to restaurant industry. Taking orders, reservation, planning and inventory, all things are possible with iOS platform devices. Both restaurants and guests like new tablet POS because it improve experience and time efficient. Both servers and restaurant owners like it because it is cheaper to set up comparing with traditional POS.

This article speaks to how the travel experience has changed due to e-commerce. Instead of relying on printed travel guides, there are many apps and website available that one could interact with people who have actually been to the destination you are interested in. Photos and experiences can be shared and also the best places to go in a particular area.

Great article on the rise of mobile payment systems and how businesses who in the past may have been cash only or otherwise are seeing increased sales as the ability to take credit card payments with little hardware and software infrastructure costs. Down the street from me is probably my favorite Rib joint in town, Uncle Rodney's House of Ribs is the name. I love that place, but rarely go because they are a cash only business due in large part to the fact that the owner does not wish to pay for wireless or otherwise internet related services to make his business able to accept credit cards. What are everyone's thought to the increased use of mobile payment systems for restaurants and other businesses?

This is an interesting article, and it is quite amazing to see how the way of payment is drastically shifting with new technological devices such as smartphones, card readers. Just a couple of years ago, if I wanted to buy something online, I had to start my computer then go on whatever website I bought something from which took some time. Now, however, I don't even have to turn on my computer to purchase something on the web because I can buy many things through my smartphone whenever and wherever I want. It is a lot easier and faster than what it used to be.

Spasibo bolshoe za interesting article! Ona mne ochen pomozhet v moem research!

In Amazon's last quarter, net income dropped by 57 percent from a year ago. Sales for the three months before December 31 came out to $17.4 billion, lower than Wall Street expected over the traditionally busy holidy season. It is predicted that for the next quarter outlook, there could be anywhere from a gain of $100 million to a loss of $200 million. While Amazon continues to profit in sales of its best selling Kindle devices, there were a variety of factors that contirbuted to its losses. The flooding in Thailand slowed down production for many tech companies. Third-party sellers (which give a 13% commission to Amazon as oppsoed to 100% commission when Amazon sells themselves) were used more than usual. Promotions such as the Amazon Prime program which allows the customer to pay a fixed rate and get umlimited two-day shipping hurt the retailer hard over the busy holiday season with shipping costs. Other reasons were lower demand for skimwords

This article gave us a highlight information of e-business strategy, E business has been added as the latest domain in business and has become a must-have in the highly competitive technology driven open market. E Business Strategy can be summarized as the strategies governing E Businesses through calculated information dissemination. E-business can help company reach to the international market and use minimal cost. There have some E-business models, such as MRP (Material Requirements Planning), EDI (Electronic Data Interchange) or ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning). And e-business strategy would general included : supply chain management, customer service and customer relationship management, inventory and service management integration and tactical operations alignment.

From this article, the-business plays an important role in today's world. By the e-business, the trade can be made on the internet. It is very convenience for the global businessman who can reduce the cost and make more profit. The supply chain management and email marketing are the essential features of the e-business. With the help of the e-business strategies, the wholesalers and retailers can handle with different products. They can discuss the price, quantity and other detail information on the internet. Else, the trade can be observed by the internet that will offer a good environment for the businessman. In addition, the effective e-business can make sure the customers will have a good service. And it also can avoid the unnecessary purchase steps and expenditures.

This article introduces some strategies that hotels can use to enhance e-business. Evolving from selling to engaging the customers and engaging customers through social computing is recommended. Also, hotels should pay more attention to the mobile technology. I think it is really necessary for hotels to focus on e-buiness today, because it may help to identify problems and get more information, then get more profit. Besides, it is a must-do thing under this competitive and globalized environment.

It explains how and why the companies need to announce in tweeter and how it affects the companies sales and advertisement departments.

This article talk about the Internet Tourism Marketing. The Internet has increasingly become a popular medium for marketing. This paper attempted to investigate the potential of the Internet for tourism marketing and the current constraints on the full realisation of such potential. Through an examination of the advantages of the Internet as a marketing tool and the characteristics of the tourism industry, the paper found that the Internet was ideal for marketing tourism. It then analysed the main Internet applications in tourism marketing and explored the key factors that were attributable to the current low level of travel sales an the Internet The paper concluded with a brief discussion of the major strategic issues in the implementation of Internet tourism marketing.

The Internet has increasingly become a popular medium for marketing. This paper attempted to investigate the potential of the Internet for tourism marketing and the current constraints on the full realisation of such potential. Through an examination of the advantages of the Internet as a marketing tool and the characteristics of the tourism industry, the paper found that the Internet was ideal for marketing tourism. It then analysed the main Internet applications in tourism marketing and explored the key factors that were attributable to the current low level of travel sales an the Internet The paper concluded with a brief discussion of the major strategic issues in the implementation of Internet tourism marketing.

This paper has so far examined some of the key issues related to the marketing of tourism on the Internet. In particular, it has highlighted the main features of the Internet as an effective and efficient communication medium, including its addressability, interactivity, flexibility and accessibility, and its role in improving customer service and reducing costs. It has also analysed the unique characteristics of tourism which make it perfect to be marketed on the Internet and further explored the main areas in tourism marketing where the Internet could play a significant role and provide substantial benefits for both the marketer and the consumer. In an investigation of the key forces which drive Internet commerce, it has found that a wide variety of factors, grouped conveniently in four broad categories demand, organisational, technological and governmental - could both enable and restrict the application of the Internet in tourism marketing.

Peppered throughout this article on Groupon's CEO Andrew Mason are snippets of knowledge or understanding of the importance of efficient accounting systems to run a successful business. While working as a host in a restaurant, Mason learns first-hand the inefficiency of its RMS, stating that there are 2 separate systems for the front and back of house. His experience working in a small business is a stint to help develop more relevant and seamless applications and software with merchants to help them manage payment and inventory, rather than inundating them with coupons, customers, or no business at all. The major takeaway related to this class is that finance and accounting are so unappealing to businesses that even the CEO of a major public company was surprised by how disorganized, even non-existent, an efficient POS was within a small restaurant in Chicago. And perhaps that is also a reflection of his own business model, as Groupon has been reported to have lost money, and even passed up a billion-dollar deal with Google. To survive, any business, large or small, must approach their finances intelligently.

The article talks about how a business owner was able to reduce the paper used at his restaurant in the back office. While doing this he finds out that it is much easier to control his business, the cloud and technology initiatives provide him with accountability and easier way to expand. This is a lesson in the how to achieve two objectives with one solution. 

I think going green is a must but its not enough. The system of producing-consuming needs to be comletely changed. Actually im happy companies start thinking about bringing less harm to nature.

Going green is such a win for every party. I would argue that there is a big difference between wading through piles of paper and having a clean organized electronic system. The more automated the back office of any company can be, the more efficient and therefore profitable it will be. The popularity of cyber communication, data storage, bookeeping, etc is only going to increase rapidly in the next few years.

The director of the Trade Service Division of China's Ministry of Commerce, named Di Jiankai, stated by media of China that nation is going to create 10,000 green hotels by the year of 2012. When I was working on my ecological part of remote environment analysis for another courses, I realized that "Go green" is so much important today even every nations are thinking about it, not only China. As we all know, pollution has been becoming one of the most significant issues in the world, such as CO2 emission, overuse of water, energy using by fuel fossil and so on. By different kinds of pollutions, hospitality industry, especially hotels, have to take more into consideration about the pollution trends and have to think more about the impacts from those pollutions. In my opinion, hotels have to pay more for new eco-technology. However, since "go green" will attract more guests, which means lots consumers come to the hotel just because its "eco-label" or "eco-brand". In this article, Gong Ping also said that not only decorations outside, even the materials using inside should change to be green. For instance, the bath tubs, which is more popular if it is organic.

This article discusses the importance of technology in convention space.  The Benton Convention Center which helped bring over 95,000 visitors and $69 million to the Winston-Salem area, is realizing that their outdated technology could cost them all of this economic boost.  This article clearly explains the importance of technology in the modern world of convention and meeting management.

The hospitality industry has to keep up with digital marketing and social media. The new breed of travelers has emerged. They are technology smart, and expect hospitality providers to be engaged with the digital global network so they can communicate using their preferred media channels.

The total online transaction for both inbound and outbound tourism have add up to USD 1,200 million for Peru tourism industry according to National Chamber of Tourism (Canatur). The website has played an important role with a small investment of USD 20,000 can compete with either any tour operator or country's most important operators. The Foreign visitors will continue generate 15 percent more from last year which is forecast to be USD 3.800 million. The reason for a large amount of online tourism transaction is because of the growth of the Peruvian economy increase the number of foreign investment.

Intercontinental Hotel Group(IHG) now said that the company will try to focus on mobile marketing to counter challenges from aggregators such as Expedia, Priceline.com, and booking.com. These aggregators enable guests to search by showing the price and location and book hotels at a time. They are such an important outlet for sales, however, they drive down the price and also drive down the brand. Hence, IGC now trying to focus on mobile marketing to connect guests journey from search, shop, compare, booking, confirmatiln, pre-staying planning, arrival, stay and depature.

Summary: The variety of gifting options has grown from a simple plastic gift card to virtual cards delivered by email, text, debit/credit cards and more. The prediction for 2013 will exceed a billion dollars of digital gifting for the holiday season and continue to grow. Digital gift cards have made giving easy due to the convenience of redemption. Paper coupons have proven to be successful to draw in consumer activity, but the digital revolution in virtual gifting is expected to explode as people are so connected to their mobile devices. Even with the convenience and growing popularity of digital gifting comes barriers and security issues. Such issues include personal banking security and privacy. Some small to midsize businesses may not be able to participate in digital gifting due to cost barriers or lack of technology. Due to electronic process, paper receipts will be obsolete. Computers aren't perfect so how does one resolve dollar discrepancies. One benefit of virtual giving is the bar codes/QR codes. Companies are able to collect and retain additional information of givers and receivers by scanning the bar code/QR Code. Often people are reluctant to provide contact information, but in this case they aren't being asked, they have no choice. This is a benefit to the companies because they can make other promotional offers to engage and possibly retain both parties, thereby increasing sales. There are a variety of methods of virtual gifting and redemption. One example is Giftly. Giftly adds the value of the gift to the recipient's credit or debit card which can be used anywhere. This is super convenient for many people and they are able to choose whatever they wish rather than receive a gift chosen for them. This is certainly the digital age version of sending a check via mail to a loved one. Other corporate examples that have impacted the transition from plastic gift cards to virtual gifting are Burger King, Dunkin Donuts, Applebee's and Starbu