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Communication technology is constantly evolving around us in everything we use. Nowadays, we no longer communicate face to face. Instead, we use our cellphones, tablets, computers, etc., to communicate with one another. This in turn affects the tourism industry immensely by providing them with a range of possibilities to successfully and effectively communicate with customers. Due to the increase in new technologies, customers now have easy access to tourism companies and what they have to offer. This benefits the industry by providing exposure and easy access to the things they offer. All in all, it's important that the industry evolve hand in hand with technology in order for the industry to embrace all the opportunities that technology has to offer. 

No industry has a bigger stake in protecting the environment and local communities than the travel industry. Like the article states, if coral reefs are destroyed, there will be no more snorkeling. And if the communities are not able to profit from the travelers coming to the area, their displeasure will show. In order to help green travelers decide if their trip is hurting the environment or harming local communities, or actually doing some good Sustainable Travel Leadership Network has started TravelWell. This project will also encourage the governments in the destination areas to improve sustainability practices, help travel companies decide where to do business.This initiative will score destinations based on the practices of piloted destinations, letting them know what areas they need to improve in. The problem is that while most governments are willing to create a plan, they do not actually follow through with the plans they've made. With TravelWell being implemented, destinations could lose out on the growing market of green travelers and this will affect their bottom line more in the long run. Because TravelWell will also give this information to potential investors, destinations also run the risk of losing potential investors. The main purpose of this tool is to keep the conversation of sustainability alive with governments. It would continually create a standard to measure the effectiveness of sustainability efforts as well as creating new ideas.

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

There are of course numerous ways a hotel property can go green. Depending on need and budget, one can choose from a range of options and technologies. There are tons of technologies right now designed for hotels to save energy.But, since energy-efficient equipment may be costlier both in terms of installation and capital costs; the hospitality industry is acknowledging the long term benefits to be reaped in terms of reduced maintenance and energy saving, especially when energy costs are escalating. With technology constantly improving and becoming cost effective, initiatives that seemed too expensive just a short while earlier are now within reach of most hotels. Going green using techonologies can be easy for big hotels , but for smaller scale hotels, the installation and maintence costs too much. But we believe that with the fast development of technology , go green will be acceptable for every hotel.

Green Path Transfers are a a fairly new Eco-friendly airport transfer and ground transportation network. The goal is to offer safe and professional transportation in global markets to travelers. In addition Green Path Transfers are focusing on a low carbon movement in the future. The company has partnered with companies using low-emission vehicles and these vehicles are clearly marked in the search results of the website, in order to allow the customer a completely transparent booking and check-out process with the vehicle of their choice. Their customers consist of leisure travelers, corporate travelers and their distribution partners, such as hotels and flights.

This article describes a new tool to measure and aid in guest satisfaction. Through a strategic partnership, Infor (a business application software company) enlists TrustYou (a market leader in online reputation management) to help create a system used to provide real-time access to positive and negative feedback from guest. There are three widgets designed to search through data and streamline them into summaries that hotels can use to enhance their customers experience. All information reported is current information, that way hotels can quickly respond to their guests. This technology is key in creating the best guest experience possible and it allows hotels to do so within a matter of minutes. The real time access feature would allow hotels an opportunity to turn a would be negative experience into a positive one. Hotels rely on "word of mouth" Marketing, especially with social networks, blogs and message boards becoming such a huge part of the daily exchange of information. We must admit, a lot of us value the opinions of our Twitter followers. It is vital for hotels to keep up with these different areas of communication so they can strategically position themselves in an ever growing and competitive market. They can address concerns immediately while at the same creating opportunities to build their brand. Hotels must utilize this advanced approach if they want to survive in this industry.

This article describes the infor company（a leading provider of business application software） and trust you（a market leader in online reputation management） built online reputation management software for hospitality industry. Hoteliers could access to the social senciment on a real time. From the customer's perspective, there are many factors related to choose a hotel form more than hundreds choices. Not only the hotel's facilities and services, but also the reputation on the internet will influnce customer's slection. Nowadays, with the rapid development of social networks, the senciment plays a great role in people's life. For example, in China, there is a web-site, named as "Quna". On that web-site, people share the travel information, rate the restaurants and hotes. The new travelers could get some ideas about the hotel choosing. Therefore, the hotel manager must pay attention to the public reputation management in time. Now, the hoteliers could access to the social senciment in real-time via a series of dashboard, embedded widgets. What's more, by this tool, the hotel employees could correction error, redeem hotel's reputation, improve customer satisfaction, and improve hotel's occupancy rate.

This article talks about a new brand campaign which was launched by Expedia, an online travel site that helps users plan and book travel. This campaign, called FIND YOURS, is about content photos and videos and stories from everyday consumers include Personal Storytelling, Travel Blogger Integration, Social Media and NFFTY which are all about travelers' daily travels to give an image to show travelers' personalities and get personal touch back to business. As we know, information technology steps big forward to the future quickly. Nowadays travel agents turn its most businesses into online due to the less cost and more convenience. By doing the huge business and getting large numbers of information from expanding to the internet, travel agents get a big profit over the last 3 decades. But the personal touch is getting less and less due to this radical change on the internet; humanity is becoming mechanized and electronized and far away from actual contacts. So in my opinion, I am strongly agreed with this campaign and I think Expedia did a good job to make the electrical business to be personalized and more humanity which should be the nature of the business initially

The article states that the "Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) has committed to the social and environmental sustainability in a broad and long-term planning of the hospitality and tourism sector development throughout the country". The previous focus of Thai tourism was on social and economic development. The focus has now been shifted towards minimizing the ecological impact of tourism. In efforts to minimize the ecological impact, the TAT has introduced Seven Green Concepts in 2011. The Seven Green Concepts include: * Green Heart * Green Logistics * Green Destinations * Green Communities * Green Activities * Green Service * Green + Despite some criticism, the TAT will look at "managing short-term market recovery, long-term market expansion, improved economic revenue, and the preservation of ecological assets". The upkeep of national parks, protection of wildlife and green capacity building will help sustain the environment. Hotels and resorts are also encouraged to follow Green guidelines. In 2011, there were 220 hotels with Green Leaf recognition and 535 smoke-free hotels. With increasing popularity of Green concepts, these numbers were expected to increase in the future.

this is a good article that goes over some trend changes in events, such as the Super Bowl, with regards to green initiatives. the Super Bowl committee developed a list of programs to make the event more sustainable; donating carbon credits, recycling, free bike programs, and more. I specially found it interesting that they recycled all the promotional material by collecting it and making it into other consumer products such as bags and wallets. I've always wondered why events as big as this one dont have recycling programs for the incredible amounts of wasted promotional items. When you think about it, not only does this help reduce waste but also helps generate some revenue from the products that are eventually sold. The article also shows that this trend seems to be happening at all levels from the committees, to the teams, and even the consumers! 

This article is talking about speed up people's internet access in life. When people want to speed it up , they need to test their internet access speed at first, such as they could go to the DSLReports.com. People also could chanfe their DNS settings to a faster, more reliable DNS server. Like Google and OpenDNS have free public DNS serviecs that can greatly increase their web browsing speeds and offer features like improved security. What's more, people can contact their ISP if their have slower than expected speeds. Last way is to tweak their DSL or Cable Settings by adjusting their network device settings or using web accelerators.

It is important to have a fast speed internet in a hotel industry. To provide a good service to your guests, you have to be on top of things, especially using the network and reservation system. The computer systems facilitates the employees in that in helps with the speed of their task, therefore a fast internet speed will only work in the hotel's advantages.

With so much emphasis this week on the negative environmental impact of computers, I found an article that points hoteliers in a direction on how being green can improve your bottom line. The idea is quite simple; you implement energy or resource saving methods, you pay less utilities. Customers recognize that you are being eco-friendly and are more loyal to your brand. Over time your revenue goes up, there are less expenses and thus impacting your net profits in a positive manner. Then you get to repeat the whole process with newer technology again with the increased profits. Sounds easy right...? So what things should you implement? One idea was Portfolio Manager web tool that tracks all of your hotels energy consumption all while taking in consideration of operational and local weather factors. This is one piece of the solution of on going concerns of environmental destruction taking place industry wide. If everyone contributed in some small way, hopefully we can see a large impact.

Recently, the development of e-business application in the hospitality industry (e.g., travel industry, and recreational entities) and illustrate with two case studies, one is about a local hotel industry's effort to use the Internet to boost its local market; another describes the operations and its competitive strategy of an emerging online travel agency. One key issue for the e-business application in service operations is about the possibility of online delivery of the services customers ordered - as not all types of services (or products) can be delivered online, such as haircut (or hot cooked meals).The hospitality industry has followed the trend of Internet application in recent years, and sometimes even gaining its own name of Internet application - called "e-traveling" referring to all travel related business transactions now completing through Internet applications. The application of the Internet in the traveling booking industry has attracted a great amount of attention by both industrial practitioners and academic researchers. Because the information exchanging and sharing is a key part of those business operations, where the use of the Internet provides an advantage in the related information flow. One key issue for the e-business application in service operations is about the possibility of online delivery of the services customers ordered - as not all types of services (or products) can be delivered online. The travel booking industry is one of several services - which can be checked, inquired, and ordered online easily, and conveniently communicated and delivered electronically via the Internet.

Laguna Beach welcomes more than 6 million visitors annually to its sandy shores. Now visitors who stay in the beachside city's 22 hotels and lodging establishments will be inadvertent participants in a citywide effort to recycle all of the soaps, shampoos, hair conditioners, lotions and bath gels that are left over after a night's stay. Starting Monday, Laguna Beach becomes the first city in the nation to have all of its hotel properties with more than 20 rooms participate in Clean the World -- a Florida-based nonprofit that provides recycled hotel soaps and hygiene products to those in need. Montage Laguna Beach, Pacific Edge Hotel and Best Western Laguna Brisas are among the 18 participating hotels, along with four of the city's six bed and breakfasts, for a total of 1,229 rooms. In an average year, with an estimated 75% occupancy rate, Laguna Beach hotels generate 336,000 bars of soap and a slightly lesser number of shampoo, conditioner, bath gel and lotion bottles, all of which were previously thrown in the trash. Working with Clean the World, those hygiene products will be reclaimed by the housekeeping staff and set aside in a separate receptacle to be shipped to a Las Vegas processing facility. The bars of soap are cleaned of hair and paper, sterilized, ground into pellets and pressed into new bars of soap that are distributed to non-governmental organizations in 45 countries that do not have ready access to soap. The bottled amenities are likewise reclaimed. If they're full, the bottles' exteriors are sterilized and redistributed to homeless shelters and soup kitchens inside the U.S. If the bottles are 25% empty, the plastic is recycled or potentially upcycled for use in other products. Founded in 2009, Clean the World has 1,200 partner hotels across the U.S. and Canada, 126 of which are in California, including the Disneyland Hotel, Disney's Grand Californian Resort & Spa and Disney's Paradise Pier Hotel in Anaheim. Since joining the Clean th

this article is talking about the sustainability development in hotel industry. every year the waste of water and energy in washing machine is huge. this behavior violates the mind that builds a green industry. in the help of the Green Hotels Association the hotel companies make some measures to save the water and energy like putting a card which ask guests to consider not having sheets changed every day. it is simple word but really playing an important role in developing sustainable vision.

We all know that a lot of hotels leave little cards in the room claiming that they are environmental-friendly and initiate protection of the environment or reducing waste. They encourage customers reuse towels and linens, and so on. This article use Marriot and Four Seasons as examples to describe that this kind of behavior is indeed helpful. Water, waste and cost reduction is resulted. So hotels should keeping doing this and lead to green life-style and reduce waste.

Twenty years ago marked the beginning of a new period in Royal Caribbean Cruises Limited (RCCL) and helping the environment. They proposed a Save the Waves program, which allows guests to choose when towels and linens are ready to be washed saving numerous amounts of water and energy as well as reducing, reusing, and recycling. Today, their green initiative goes even further, and as the arictle discusses RCCL is implementing a plan to improve their waste, power, and most importantly, their future. Protecting and conserving the environment is a priority this company is willing to stand for. They constantly plan their efforts to maintain environmental protection and to continue to be environmentally responsible.

According to in the Florida Department of Environmental Protection's Green Lodging Program, Rosen Hotels & Resorts are the first hotels in Central Florida to achieve the Two Palm status certifies. The state provides technical assistance, with which hotels can reduce waste, conserve natural resources and improve the bottom line. Harris Rosen said they will do everyday effort to continue the green standard, to increase sales, and it is right to do this for every company. Some green practices of Rosen hotels & resorts are various, simple and effective, such as, the water conservation measures, energy efficiency measures. They provide the more chances to recycle, purchase items in bulk, recycled materials and recycle ink and toner cartridges to reduce waste. The three Rosen hotels' special measure is to introduce several other eco-friendly programs. And also, they use a programmable energy management system to control temperatures in meeting rooms, after the using of meeting rooms, the lights would be turned off. They also emphasize the green materials. The hotels and Harris Rosen play a role in conservation of the area's natural resources. He made the Expedition Headwaters, An Everglades Journey to Remember, which aims to increase awareness of the ecological connection of the Orlando metropolitan area with the Everglades ecosystem. The team also invited students from elementary and middle, taught them about watersheds, wetlands and aquatic ecosystems.

Email marketing is a crucial component of the hotel eMarketing and online distribution strategy. The website is a key to establish interactive relationship with customers and capture client email profiles by the company. In hospitality industry, especially the travel agency frequently use the emarketing to retain the loyalty, and offer accurate communication. The permission-based email marketing is very useful and practical for sending the promotional emails. And the precision e-mail marketing used by the airlines has generated up to a fivefold increase in response rates and tenfold lower conversion costs than direct mail. The email marketing provides some benefits for hoteliers, such as low cost, accessibility, protecting brands integrity, hommization, timeliness, good visual sense and positive results. The consumers, travel intermediaries and corporate clients are the significant customers for email marketing. The hotel can stratify the customer list by specific characteristics, communicate and offer value in the message. Hotels must employ new strategies to take advantage of these opportunities to capture this Internet market.

As this class teaches us, along with this article, " the marketing power of the Internet in terms of reach and frequency." This article in particular speaks about the advantages of email marketing. With the low cost for companies in the hospitality industry, email marketing can produce positive results form the masses. The article goes on to explain how and why email marketing have been seen to be so efficient as a marketing tool. One obvious pro for instance is that everyone uses emails in today's society. After reading this article I can agree that email marketing is a very good way to put the internet to use when it comes to marketing. My concern, however, as mentioned in the article is the control the receiver has with the emails. For instance, how many emails are too much, too frequent or just not relevant? Features today have given the consumer the opportunity to now have a bit of control over this issue as I have mentioned. I believe this may be one of, if not the best form of marketing online because it gets directly to the customer, usually requires interaction whether to the main website or further clicking for deals, and sets up a format in which sufficient information can be given.

Many hospitality managers choose email for its low cost, rapid spread, and measurability. There is an incline to online purchasing, which means that Internet is the place to establish relationships with your customer, through email for instance. Email can be easily personalized, include only relevant promotions, and be a tool to keep in touch with your regular and new customers. Permission-based email is sent only to customers who have allowed to be emailed, thus, you are targeting people who gave you permission and who most likely are interested in your product/service. Email is also a better tool because it is cheaper and faster than regular mail. Also, it is easier to track the results, using the tools to see who opened the email, clicked on the link, etc. There are key factors to remember in order to be successful: -interactive relationships -frequency -personalize and relevance -permission-based The article provides a rationale for implementing total email marketing strategy.

Pineapple Hospitality has chosen Zmail from the company ZDirect, as the platform they will use for their email marketing campaign. Because Pineapple Management is a growing company, the want to improve the way they communicate with their customers. Siting that it is important to have a platform that works both ways. Allowing the hotel to contact the customers and allowing the customers to contact the hotel. Zmail operates by using their content engine to capture guest behavior, purchase history and preferences. It then send individual transaction emails, emails that cater to the customer individually as opposed to mass emails to all customer. ZDirect offers this service with Zmail that is directly focused on communicating with the "right customers", those who are most likely to be loyal customers to the hotel and spend more money with the hotel. Because Pineapple Hospitality wishes to expand beyond their current market, Zmail is an ideal tool to use to identify potential customers. Since the company has been using Zmail, they have seen a ten percent increase in click-through rates.

IT investment is one of the most necessary cost for most hospitality properties and play more and more important role in today's hotel or restaurant operation. For this reason, some of the large hotel groups have started to invest in this field and achieved a favorable result sine the increasing of profit and brand value. On the other hand those small properties can work together to develop and share resources in their operation. I believe a hotel without IT investment may rapidly lose the position in the market.

A property management company is investing in diversifying their technology portfolio to tailor specific brands and to it's market, while maintaining standards. One of their main focuses is on guest feedback on hotel stays, and ways to improve in real time solutions. By collecting data from social sites properties are able to provide actionable responses to guests concerns. For instance taking care of a problem after reading a posting on Twitter and the issue being resolved by the time the guest returns to their room. Instantaneous info and reacting to that info creates a satisfied guest and a well a maintained brand and image of the property.