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There is a lot of talk within the travel industry about the future of travel distribution. Some argue that direct bookings from airlines are the new future, while others are arguing that the continued use of GDSs still remain essential to travel distribution. ASTA and Travel Weekly conducted a survey of travel agencies to get their take on GDSs. Although the use of GDSs continues to shrink, the declining rate of use has been slowing down. In 2010, the rate was 76% and in 2011 the rate was 75%. In 2012, surveys found that 72% of agencies surveyed were still using a GDS. ASTA predicts that the rate of decline will eventually stop because no other method of booking flights beats the GDS System. Agencies surveyed said that they continue to use GDSs because of the speed, and the ability to easily compare airlines and hotels. Airline bookings continue to be the main reason for the success of GDSs, with 90% of air bookings made through the GDS. 95% of car rentals are made through a GDS, and 50% of hotel bookings are done through GDS. GDS systems continue to drive competition, and make it easier for agencies to negotiate with suppliers. Agencies also continue to receive incentives from GDSs as long as they use a GDS. I believe that as long as travel agencies stay in business and are continuing to turn a profit then the GDSs are safe. Travel agencies are not likely to switch to a new system if the easily accessible, and easily manageable system is still GDS. If travel agencies begin to become less popular, then GDSs may see a rapid decline in the use of the system.

Unattended POS post-pandemic has become essential for hotels to increase their revenue by providing more convenience to the consumer. Due to the shortage of staff, guests can be left feeling that there is lack of service to provide for instance snacks and meals. In addition due to the shortage of skilled workers, the unattended POS can check out the guests at any time of the day.

The PMS can do many things for the hotel, like web reservation, revenue management, front desk management, back office work, housekeeping, preparing invoices and bills, making report, multi currency and language. It involved all parts of the operation of the hotel. It is very useful. 

Property management systems should be chosen after a lot of deliberation and research. With many property management systems in the market, it is important that you are not cheated or you don't hastily buy something that doesn't work for you. A quick check on 10 features that you should be looking for in a web based property management system are listed below: 1. Web Reservation: One of the most important things to look for in a web based property management system is its web reservation features. Having a good hotel with great facilities is no longer enough. Letting people know about it is crucial for the success of the business. A hotel management software is the right tool for this purpose nowadays. When you are looking into a PMS, check that its web reservation system is easy to use, not time consuming and is flexible. 2. Revenue Management: Getting your finances sorted is essential so that even in the most testing times, you finances and revenue are well managed. A PMS that has a good revenue management system will see that you can control your rates efficiently and provide easy yet detailed reports of the same to any authorized person as and when required. 3. Front Desk Management: Sorting out the checking in and checking out process, facilitating the guests with whatever they need, and linking the same details with all the concerned departments are some of the things that a front desk console should be doing for you. Check that your hotel management software can efficiently take care of these. 4. Back Office Work: One of the most boring yet very essential departments is the back office. All expenses are doubled checked here; all means of revenue calculated and audited, statistics are prepared as are ledgers. A property management system should be having a console that can look into these things easily and without much human effort. 5. Housekeeping: Hotel management software can be a great help when it comes to taking care of rooms. Fro

This article talked about Sabre Hospitality Solution which is the user-friendly e-marketing tool. The Sabre Hospitality Solution will push your internet marketing program to a higher level of performance through the following five essential elements. First, Sabre Hospitality Solutions developed a proprietary Content Management Tool (CMT) based on the needs of the clients. Second, Sabre Hospitality Solutions provides a full e-commerce solution that enables you to build and manage an E-store that generates significant incremental revenue. Third, behavioral targeting engine of Sabre Hospitality Solutions serves potential guests content based on how they are navigating through the Website; and profiles their keyword search that has led them to the Website. Fourth, flash map solution integrates standard interactive components for any set of floor plans. Fifth, Sabre Hospitality Solutions' Interactive Proposal Service (IPS) is a proprietary system that allows a property to respond to RFP's in a highly customized fashion.

Sabre Hospitality Solutions has designed applications and products to push the e-marketing program to a higher level. It offers a wide range of e-marketing tools. Sabre Hospitality Solutions developed a proprietary CMT based on the needs of the clients. This friendly empowering the clients and is widely used in multiple hospitality websites. It also provides a full e-commerce solution that enables you to build and manage and e-store that generates significant incremental revenue. In addition, the behavioral targeting engine serves potential guests content and the flash map solution integrates standard interactive components for any set of floor plans. Finally, it is a interactive proposal service. This unique online presentation of your proposal will ensure your product stands apart form other competitors.

The Lost Tree Club of North Palm Beach, FL chose ClubPay for payroll and HR management solutions. ClubPay will help processing payroll, printing checks, accurately managing deduction, ensuring compliance with payroll policies and filling payroll taxes so that HR staff can focus on more centric activities. 

This article talks about The Lost Tree Club that is located in North Palm Beach will be using ClubPay's payroll and HR management solution. Lost Tree Club will benefit from The ClubPay's new" HR and Benefit Essentials" online portal it designed to help the club's human resource and employee administrative work fast, efficient and, mostly importantly, accurate. It will help with processing payroll, printing check, accurately managing deductions, ensuring compliance with payroll policies and filling payroll taxes.

This article covers a new online distribution channel called TripConnect. This website was created by Trip Advisor and essentially removes the involvement of a third party when booking hotel rooms online. TripConnect connects hotels directly with potential customers via the Internet. This is helpful to many properties because there is no minimum requirement of size or rating to get involved. The property must first be a part of Trip Advisor, which in turn provides essential information for the property to understand their demand and customers in the first place. TripConnect minimizes the cost of consumer acquisition and maximizes revenues, in the end, becoming a very beneficial tool for many hotels.

Nowadays, we can say each hotel must have the accounting department. Every successful goal needs a perfect financial management to consolidate it. In the hotel, accounting need to budget preparation, need to do the business planning, creating financial statements and payroll. Hotel needs to pay the salaries for employees and reporting sales and analyzing the profits. This is a huge process. A hotel must manage it efficiently. And owners can make decisions and improve their company. When you report the financial activities, you need to do the real report. A report can give you a chance to take the best decisions and make more profit. As a staff, you need to track cash flows and record transactions. If you have some trouble, you can let the expert help you to solve problems. They can help you to control your cash flows and maximize earnings.

For all businesses, including hospitality businesses, it is essential to have a properly organized accounting system. Every business needs solid financial management to achieve growth without which every business withers and dies. Proper accounting is at the heart of solid financial management. Hospitality accounting includes: preparing a precise collection of month end accounts, a trial balance, budget preparation, business planning, creating financial statements and balance sheets, and payroll. Not only does it enable you to track cash flows and record transactions, but it provides deep insights into the financial status of the business enabling owners to make proactive decisions and improve profits. So to excel in the dynamic hospitality industry seek professional help from expert accounting companies to set up proper accounting to have solid financial management. In my opinion, I believe that to have a successful business you need to have an up to date, accurate way to record your accounting transactions so getting professional help from experts would be wise.

This article discusses the 10 Best POS systems of 2019. These POS systems include Square, Vend POS, Bindo POS, Erply, Intuit Quickbooks POS, NCR Silver, Shopify POS, Shopkeep, Lightspeed Retail POS, and Revel System POS. It also discusses the different benefits to each POS system and why it is important to choose a good POS system. There are also some negatives that come with these POS systems. This article also offers steps on what to do if the POS system fails and how important it is to have product support. "A backup solution is essential here and that's especially true in the case of cloud-based POS systems. These systems can suffer not only from software problems but also from internet connectivity issues." This states how essential it is to have a backup solution if the POS system goes down, and ensuring the POS system will be there to assist with any issues that may arise. Choosing the right POS system is very necessary when owning a business and being able to properly take advantage of everything that the system offers.

"The Human Resource Information System (HRIS) is a software, an online solution for the data entry, data tracking, and data information needs of the Human Resources (HR) and management functions within a business. Normally packaged as a data base, hundreds of companies sell some form of HRIS and every HRIS has different capabilities."

The Hospitality industry is known to have very high attrition rates. This makes it all the more critical to have a robust HR information system (HRIS) in place. HRIS has emerged as among the most crucial aspects of hospitality IT. No hospitality management system can be considered complete without an effective HRIS system. An efficient HRIS system manages the recruitment, staff-shifts, time & attendance, and many other aspects of your hospitality HR requirements. It should be able to drill down to history files and provide e-leave application & training management. Immerauf has partnered with Greytip software to bring you one of the industry's best Folklore HR software to suit all your HR needs including a resume bank to store a active database of prospective employees.

HRIS solution in hospitality industry is crucial. it makes managers save time and money to pursue the high profitability. this software can collect the employee information or interviewers information and choose the best employee who are suitable for hotel. this solution can compare the employee working experiences like how long this employee works in hospitality industry, what his job was before, what his position was before. using this software, managers can have a clear understanding of the performance of the employee.

Almost everyone has a smart phone now and days. Apps are used for almost anything and this article gives evidence to how much you can do with an app. The article focuses on Las Vegas and how many hotels have different apps for every occasion. Vegas Mate caught my attention from how it has things such as "a listing of resort fees, top suites, information for travelers on getting around, conventions, gambling and more" that other Vegas apps don't have. I believe it takes great time and money for these companies to keep up with the ever changing schedules for each hotel. I'm a planner and I was really intrigued on how this certain app pulls up the latest update and weather from around the city and even "keep all those show tickets, dinner reservations and hotel bookings in order." I mean who can beat that? There's no excuse to why hotels and many other tourism spots don't have an app for all the amenities that are offered. It'll surprise guests and make them really pleased with their stay.

With all of the challenges that have faced the hotel industry in recent years, organizations have been forced to find new tools to make sure that guests are satisfied. Technology has been a very important part of making sure that organizations are able to do this. Guest now have certain expectations from hotels concerning a hotels website. Not even expectations, but demands. A hotels website is expected to be a direct portal to the hotels. More than just an online booking tool, but also provide photos, information on the area, and accurate rates and options. Having an effective hospitality management system is also essential to customer satisfaction. When expanding hotels to different areas, having a system in place to ensure that all the hotels produce the same results, the same successful results, is mandatory to remain a viable brand. This is especially true in areas where cultue and language can be a chanllenge to expansion. Being able to digitilize the processes that are usually done on paper is also vital to hotel operations because it helps managers track inventory and plan ahead for preventitive maintenence and ordering materials. This also introduces cost savings. Where having internet access has been a requirement for more high-end hotel guests before, it has now become a requirement for all travelers. With the use of mobile phone, tablets, and laptops that all have wireless capabilities, it is increasingly imparative that hotels increase their bandwith. What was at one time bonus features, is now a requirement for hotels to remain competitive in the hospitality markets.These investments in technology are the foundation for success in this year.

Traditional PMS functionality is still the critical core at every property. By tracking and managing all aspects of guests' data, it's both a source and collection point for the crucial activity and preference information that forms the basis of all future relationships with the guest. But with the change of technology and the manner we do business today, hotels now need a wider function set than what a traditional PMS provides. Having a PMS on the web and in the clouds is getting more popular. These new Web services make it easier for new vendors to develop fresh approaches and link them quickly and effectively into established systems, providing hoteliers with richer and more varied options. There are more advantages than disadvantages when using cloud computing. The world is changing rapidly and in other for hotels to survive, they have to keep up with those changes.

Hey all, here is an article I found that talks about the traditional PMS systems for hotels and how it once rained supreme. Now a days, traditional PMS systems are not cutting it anymore because businesses are growing and are trying to find systems that have more functionality. This article brings up a few different options that a business could adopt and put into use. Installing software applications at the property is becoming unmanageably complex. Despite very worthwhile gains in functionality, no PMS will ever cover everything a hotel needs; none offer telephone service, for example. As more guest and operating information needs to be captured and managed, many hotels and resorts need multiple other systems to complement the PMS. The first option the article bring up is Virtualization, Server virtualization is not a new technology, but its adoption by the hospitality industry is relatively recent. The basic concept is that specialized control software allows the physical resources of a single computer server-memory, disk space and computing power-to be divided as needed between several different software applications, each perceived to be running on its own dedicated server. The second option is running a cloud based system, we all know what that is so I will let you read the article. Enjoy

The author attributes a growth in 'hotel complexity' that is driving the need for a change with traditional PMS systems and the limits of their capabilities. According to the article, the current PMS system is unsustainable and will need to evolve to meet client's demands- such as cloud computing, which is highlighted as being beneficial to hotels especially with regards to flexibility, better security, speed of implementation, etc. The pros and cons of cloud computing are clearly described, the cons mainly being loss of connectivity and security breaching. Although traditional PMS are essential for most hotels, cloud computing could put them at a competitive edge.

Accounting has a crucial role in the hospitality industry in money management, which is essential for any business to operate efficiently. It's the core of the business. No hotel, restaurant or any business whatsoever can get started without a good accounting system. So as the article mentions the success of the business depends upon an adequate return in its investments. All branches of accounting are used in the hospitality industry such as cost accounting and financial accounting. With a well running accounting system you will know: how much cash is available to pay bills, what is the total amount on payroll last pay period, what is the ratio of various departments and sales and what amount of food inventory is on hand at the beginning of the month, all of this is necessary information to the success of your business.

This article contains information about how accounting is a key force in the hospitality industry. The article continues with what accounting actually is in business and how it is significant in a business in order for it to run smoothly. The article concludes with information that can be accessed through accounting, such as the amount of available funds in the company and the payroll amounts. I agree that accounting is an essential part of a business. Accounting covers the important part of a business: the finances. When finances are accurate, the business runs smoothly. When finances are not balanced properly, the business will fail to thrive. Accounting can be somewhat considered as the lifeline of a business. Besides the finances, accounting links with many more departments and can provide answers to many questions. The accounting jobs should not be underestimated.

This article is about how important e-marketing is important to the hotel business. Since technology is evolving hoteliers are marketing their businesses on the internet. Building a brand is important but what is equally important is understanding what the consumer is looking for and their online behavior. Developing a plan on how to catch the attention of a consumer is very essential. The internet have made the distance of reaching new consumers easier. This will help anyone run a successful business because you have a worldwide audience.

The article discussed the factors to consider when choosing a PMS system. While they are some factors that were essential there were also some that i had never thought of. Mobility is something PMS systems have not traditionally offered in the past but it is something to consider now, the article did mention that it will enhance the guest experience, I wouldn't consider this a deal breaker. Reporting is a deal breaker the system needs to have advanced reporting and tracking to accurately forecast the future. One of the considerations was also auto function such as auto assigning rooms based on preference, this is actually a great function I never thought of. Overall the article did bring up some great points to consider.

What an informative article! In my own opinion, the following article gave a great insight to investing in technology within the hospitality industry. The 5 helpful tips they provided within the article are the following; get to know your guest first, balance technology with the human touch, invest in mobile based technologies, try before you commit, and future-proof your technology investments. Each of these suggestions truly would make a huge impact within the hotel industry if followed and practiced. In my own opinion, the most vital thing to be sure of when introducing new technologies into your business is to make sure you have the right balance of human connection and technologies. Like stated in the article, technology is not meant to be an aid or replacement for face-to-face staff and guest interaction. New technologies are giving the industry the ability to provide fresh ways to deliver high quality experiences to keep pace with rising customer expectations.

The article highlights 5 things a hotel leader should consider before they decide to invest in IT. The goal is to ensure the investment truly helps grow the firm's bottom line, is inclusive with the human resources operating within the establishment, and is in align with current long-term trends and not just fad investments. The article helps connect the dots on what makes IT investment risky or an essential path to success.

This article discusses how important technology is in the tourism world. Tourism essentially rely on technology at this point and time, hence the need to invest in making enhancements to make better platforms. Tourism is a global thing and it alls for everybody to connect, everywhere. It is said that technology allows for a whole new world to open up at the edge of your fingertips. With websites, booking platforms, apps, social media, etc. travels are able to engage with others and truly do their own research to figure out the experience best for themselves. Tourism companies need to keep up with easy navigation, mobile availability, stay connected, and sharing experiences.

This article discusses the importance of a hotel being up to date with their PMS system and all the features a PMS system could have. The article states that cloud-based PMSs accessible to hotel staff via Internet through a phone, table or laptop is essential for the future of PMS and will enable the staff to stay up to date in real time. Additionally, a PMS system that is PCI compliant is necessary to protect guest personal information and will allow the hotel to provide better guest services and satisfaction. Another feature listed was to ensure the PMS is integrated with third-party systems such as two-way OTA interfaces and credit card processing platforms. This will help eliminate human error and lessen workload so employees can concentrate on delivering the best guest experience. Also mentioned was the fact that a cloud-based PMS offers security updates that will always be compliant to the latest standards of cyber security. With staff scheduling and revenue management capabilities, PMSs are a much more integral and important part of hotels success than ever before. It is imperative for a hotel to be up to date with their PMS so they don't fall behind their competition.

As technology advances so does the way consumers buy products and services. In order to keep consumers happy the hospitality industry has adapted itself to be more mobile and convenient. Mobility and convenience are two very important factors when making a website or app for E-Commerce. Many hotels and restaurants have created apps for cell phones and tablets so that guest can have convenience and mobility when booking a reservation or ordering a meal. E-Commerce profitability is maximized by using digital marketing. Two major sources for digital marketing are search engines and social media ads. Through digital marketing companies can constantly advertise to consumers anywhere at anytime in a cost efficient manor. Search engine marketing allows companies to increase the number of visitors to their website by putting them at the top of search engine results.

To summarize this article, it mainly discussed how the layout of digital marketing within the hospitality industry is constantly changing and highly important. This is something that is a challenging task for most hospitality businesses, especially hotels. It was said that there are many factors/questions to consider when approaching digital marketing such as " How much does it cost to acquire a new guest and how do we encourage this new guest to book directly through a brand's website?" Websites are plays a vital role in digital marketing are one of the main starting points. Hotels and other hospitality businesses should be frequently updating websites with useful information that compliments more visuals such as images and videos. In addition to that, it was even mentioned how making sure that the website is easy to navigate and readily accessible to customers is essential. After carefully reading more into article, SEM (Search Engine Marketing) was mentioned. This is more like an assessment in a way and a method to show where a hotel or business stands as a brand. For example, if your were to simply google the word hotel, brands such as Marriott and Hilton would most likely be at the top of the list. That is actually good and will benefit those brands greatly in the aspect that there reputation, which possibly stems from online review sites and social media platforms, is well known. These online review sites are capable of monitoring and responding to customer inquiries/comments. The article also touched basis on how the demand of social media presence is vital and should not be overlooked. Social media proves to be cost effective and efficient. Simply using hashtags with either the brand name or keywords can attract prospective customers which in return will generate more revenue. Overall, the article was clear that as far as the hospitality industry goes, digital marketing is something that has evolved in so many ways and can generate good revenue if the plan

Digital marketers in the hotel industry are adapting to the changing climate for OTA's guest expectations, advertising, and competition. Hotel Websites must be clean, low text, and image based with opportunities for guest to comment or ask questions. How to guests find you online? How can we create strategic links from the website to a brand's social channels for increased retention? Business owners will need to learn search engine marketing (SEM) to ensure that sites appear high on listed results of search engines. Paid advertising and Geo-targeting advertisement will be essential in offering the right products to the right markets. Markets must set measurement goals to monitor performance at different stages of ad campaigns and decided if ads should be adjusted. Lastly, the social media craze is still going strong, and being aware of current trend such as Instagram and hashtaging will be crucial in for current success.