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The hundred year old, Dorchester Collection's Beverly Hills Hotel participates in various green initiatives within the hotel as well as around the world. The hotel purchases only green products, donates partially used toilet paper, donates soap and amenities to local and global shelters and organizations. Most importantly they participate in proper e-waste of electronics.  I think this Beverly Hill Hotel sets a great standard for all hotels. Not only does their hotel practice green initiatives but they take that extra step and their employees participate in beach clean ups. 

This article is an interview with Leigh Tymms from Green Edge Environmental on the marketing benefits of going green. The most beneficial is generating a positive reputation with customers looking to go green. These customers are increasing everyday. According to the article, a report by Travelocity stated that 80% of travelers are willing to pay extra to visit an eco-friendly destination. Basically, more and more guests are taking into consideration the size of a hotels carbon footprint. Although it may be costly originally, in the long run it is also economically beneficial for hotels to go green. Tymms warns that hotels ignoring the green trend in hospitality risk losing customers. And he also suggest that hoteliers make sure they are actually taking steps to go green and not just marketing false claims for revenue gain. 

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.

The more savvy restaurants are incorporating video into their menu boards, taking their marketing efforts to a whole new level. Integrating dynamic content alongside the core menu information not only creates visual impact, it increases customer engagement with the menu itself and gives restaurateurs the ability entice hungry diners with more than just static text and imagery.

This article was about online marketing trends that will prevail in 2014. More and more companies are resorting to using online marketing finding success in its branding and audience growth. The trends that I think will make the biggest impact are that of content marketing being bigger than ever, image-centric content ruling, and mobile-friendly content being necessary. Out of the 7 mentioned trends I believe that these three will have the biggest impact because they are the most necessary. With content marketing, companies should focus more on inbound marketing that is tailored to a specific audience. Image-centric content should be a big hit because its basically that an ad should be simple to understand in order to convey a message. Like the saying says, "A picture is worth a thousand words." Finally, mobile-friendly content is becoming more popular and with the widespread use of mobile devices and tablets, companies are looking for ways to make their content more accessible to users. 

The IRS and auditing as been behind the curve on technology in the past. This new audit process will help and improve the process. The software does depend on the cloud, so in will be interesting to see what kind of security measures will taken.

I think that it is very important for hotel to go green. Many top hotels are the members of green hotels. That means go green is a trend. Go green could makes the hotel cost savings, competitive advantage, employee retention, customer loyalty, regulatory compliance, decrease risk and it's the right thing to do. When I went to New York, Key West and Boston, I found the hotels where I lived are all green hotels. They use retrofitting light bulbs instead of regular bulbs. But in China, green hotel is not popular. I think that it will be the trend in the future all over the world!

A restaurant investing in security measures is critical to the operation. This article points out the benefits of a foodservice establishment integrating Internet Protocol (IP) surveillance cameras with POS systems. This allows for owners and managers to be able to check real-time video against their POS, prevents employee theft. The National Restaurant Association stated "Employee theft accounts for nearly 75 percent of restaurant industry losses, or approximately 4 percent of annual sales" a real concern to the food segment industry. Another issue in the industry that security surveillance can assists in is issuance claims and liabilities, "57 percent of all foodservice general liability insurance claims are slip-and-fall incidents". In the case of a fraudulent claim, the security or IP surveillance cameras will be a great value. Yes the surveillance catches the bad things, but it also benefits the ROI. Managers are able to see and hear employee and customer interaction. This allows for training to be allotted when necessary or praise for a great efforts. A manager that is able to address issues on spot decreases the margin of error and keeps productivity and decorum high.

This article give some tips about how to choose a PMS, it basically says that the manager needs to find what are the hotel needs? base on this then think about budget, how the employees fell with the system making a list with the features requires, etc, once you have all this you can choose the ideal PMS system that goes with the hotel.

Hyatt Hotels Corporation has been in the green initiative game for over five years now. Hyatt plans to set higher goals to benefit the environment by 2020. They have set up three focus areas which are done by each sole property. Firstly, they have goals regarding the consumption of less water, less waste and opportunities to recycle. Additionally, corporate sets goals for individual properties to follow. Secondly, Hyatt wants to make sure that they are building environmentally conscious hotels that are efficient. They will start new construction in 2015 and continue with renovations. They hope for every property to reach LEED certification. Thirdly, Hyatt wants to innovate and inspire, they want to create awareness about environmental sustainability and the benefits to society it can have. Hyatt hopes to create waves in the hospitality industry and at the rate they are going they should be seeing success in the future. Hyatt is definitely going in the right direction when it comes to green initiatives. Setting goals and reporting deadlines will help Hyatt and there large number of properties reach the goals they have in place for a more sustainable future.

"Being "green" is more than just complying with local municipal codes; it's about going above and beyond the call of duty to make a difference."

As Peter Greenberg reports, it's simply not enough anymore for hotels to "go green." It is a hotel's responsbility to go above and beyond to help maintain a sustainable environment and limit the polution they are putting out into the world. I found how the initiatives by the Ritz Carlton in Charlotte, NC as well as the efforts from the Palazzo In Las Vegas particularly interesting as both hotels are in markets that one might not assume to be on the cutting edge when it comes to going green and receiving high marks for LEEDS certification. The Ritz-Carlton, a brand known for luxury lodging, might be expected to offer the highest level of service when offering valet parking to their guests. A typical guest might expect to see expensive cars utilizing the valet, however the Ritz has created a bike valet which encourages eco-travel amongst their guests. Personally I find this added "green" feature impressive. I think it allows guests to see just the lengths the hotel is going to in order to go above and beyond the standard green codes. Las Vegas, a city built on the ideas of excess, would not be a location where I would think of many hotels utilizing Green practices. The city is known to run 24 hours 7 days a week non-stop. The Palazzo uses solar panels, water conservation, as well as energy conservation to operate as a Silver LEED certified hotel. This hotel is able to make an impression on it's guests as they are able to operate successfully while conserving resources that will supply Nevada residents additional resources for years to come. I think Greenberg points out perfect examples of who the hotel industry should take notice of in regards to "Going Green." If these hotels are using it to their advantage, shouldn't everyone else?

I found this article to be really interesting as it explains the use of technology in spas. There are many benefits to using such systems in the spa industry. The link between PMS and the spa booking system improves relations with clients, and increases the likelihood of clients returning to a spa where they have previously felt welcomed and valued. I must admit that I am not a big fan of the 360 view of guests' profile that this technology promotes, I feel like it is an invasion of privacy of some sort. However, I understand that some guests appreciate when their preferences are met each time they visit a spa. At the end of the day, the use of spa management systems is a great way for spas to drive up the revenue and maximize their profits.

This article describes the importance of investing in training between front of house personnel, and the IT department. While maintaining the efficiency of both of these departments is half the battle, it is also important to make sure they understand each others roles and needs in challenging situations. Cross training for both of these departments enhances the guest experience, and helps both teams understand the other more.

Malaysia and Southeast Asia is slowly but surely adapting strategic social media and e-marketing into their small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). This article focuses on the opposing views on how these tools are being utilized and adapted to help these small businesses. Scicom Education Group's head of Creative Services Vernon Adrian Emuang is confident that Malaysia is ahead of the games in terms of social media and "widespread public engagement". This may sound like a far cry considering that 64 percent of the SMEs in Mayalsia were not engaging in social media in 2012. Emuang emphasizes the impact that social media can have, considering that SMEs account for 99 percent of the 5 million registered Malaysian businesses. Zeno Group Malaysia's CEO told The Establishment Post that "lack of knowledge is holding back many of the SMEs. They feel they need not use social media for marketing purposes." Emuang also says that many of these companies are not implementing the proper technological infrastructure to support their ecommerce, should they receive an influx of traffic on their servers, etc. He even shamed the customer service that lacks the manpower to follow-up with the volume of customers. Many hotel and lodging businesses are adapting global initiatives, such as registering with Booking.com or Tripadvisor.com. These outlets allow ecommerce to flow to a much wider, international audience, boosting bookings and revenues at venues that wouldn't have otherwise. Julian Matthews, a famous Digital Media Trainer and Consultant, says companies are operating social media on a tactical rather than strategic level. The Trinetizen Media Sdn Bdn tells The Establishment Post that many companies aren't utilizing Social Media for crisis communication-something many companies we are familiar with fully rely on. In conclusion, social media adds accountability and reliability for the companies and their stakeholders.

I found this article interesting as it talks about why the GDS is important and also gives some insight to how the booking process has changed over the decades. For instance, thanks to the internet we can book a flight within minutes while comfortably sitting on our cough. The article however states, what I did not know, was that back in the 50's, it took an airline reservationist 1.5 to 3 hours to book a single airline flight for the customer. At the end, the article also states that GDS most probably will not be going anywhere any time soon and still be around, at least for some time, and keep on evolving.

The article describes the importance of GDS to the travel industry. The article describes GDS as "a network/platform that enables travel agencies and their clients to access to travel data, shop for and compare reservations options and book travel." The system is used globally as it helps in generating travel sales in billions of dollars. Travel agents use the system access scheduling and inventory of hotels, car rentals, airlines and bus tickets all in real time. The system achieves this by linking the travel reservation sectors of car rentals, hotels and airlines. The major GDSs in the world are Sabre, Amadeus, Worldspan, Apollo, and Galileo. The authors argue that GDS is important to travel agents as it helps the agents to make reservations in real time for their clients and can complete bookings for their clients within a short time. The end of the article proposes that GDS may become obsolete by 2020 due to technological advances. However, the authors argue that the system will evolve with the technological changes and will not fall into disuse anytime soon.

GDS I feel will always have an impact in the travel industry because it is what it was built for since the beginning. Yes, we advance with apps and direct booking but people will always use travel agencies and GDS I believe will always be the primary source for booking for travel agents because it is what makes them comfortable.

I found the following article to provide a lot of useful information regarding the new trend of online marketing within the hotel industry specifically. The article reviews how the hospitality industry is now moving towards a "paradigm" and a business model where the service providers and the customers interact directly leading to the removal of the intermediary layer. eMarketing has truly taken off and it is important to be aware and educated when it comes to new marketing aspects in order to set the trend and put yourself has a business ahead of your competition. The key to eMarketing is that one has to be aggressive at all costs while keeping an open mind in order to be creative and unique in order to stand out above competitors.

In any business, a solid marketing strategy is critical to building a brand, attracting new customers and maintaining loyalty. The hospitality industry is no different. Because customer loyalty is key, marketing managers and executives devote a lot of time and resources to building brand awareness and creating ongoing, interconnected campaigns. These marketing efforts usually include both print and digital collateral that target former guests while also attracting new clientele. However, this particular industry has a unique set of challenges that must be overcome. Understanding the importance of marketing in the hospitality industry can help you get ahead and stand out in the competitive job market. Companies in the hospitality industry use various methods to develop and maintain an effective marketing plan. The following are some of the general strategies that marketers use for brand success. Customers choose hotels and other hospitality services for a variety of reasons. From location to facilities and perks, companies have to be sure that they're providing what buyers are looking for. The role of marketers is to identify what factors make customers choose a particular hospitality service, and this requires extensive research. By speaking to current and former guests, monitoring customer reviews on websites, reviewing industry data and more, marketing professionals learn what makes a hospitality service stand out, as well as how it can be improved. If potential customers don't know about a service, they can't purchase it. That's where brand awareness comes in. Marketers make sure information on hotels, resorts and restaurants is easy to find and up-to-date. They can do this by buying ad space on relevant travel sites, creating an engaging website and collaborating with other, noncompeting hospitality services in the same market. Another smart strategy for attracting customers is to run promotions during certain times of the year, usually when business is

This is a very detailed article about the various ways that hospitality firms are utilizing technology and using their capital to invest in IT related projects. A variety of hospitality firms were surveyed to produce this article on ways they plan to invest in IT and the various projects they feel are most worthy of their dollars. Some of the areas that were most noted and listed as worthy of additional IT investment include improving technology to improve financial performance and enhancements in CRM and loyalty programs, guest experience technology and ensuring the guest stay is always seen as paramount, as well as improved information and cyber security technology as well as an increased focus on understanding big data and improving employee engagement. This article is highly detailed in what it analyzes and it lists a long list of potential investments that a variety of companies will be taking on in the future. The focus of this article was on the year 2017, but many of these concepts still apply to the hospitality industry today and well into the future. Many of these things listed are also things we can see that many companies worked on leading to 2018 and continue to work on and it is the companies that put these IT investments at the forefront that will be leading the hospitality enterprises of the future.