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This is the most obvious technology we can’t live without. Let’s be honest—-most of us are glued to our smartphones and our favorite apps 24 hours a day.

Chances are, if you walk around a convention center or hotel lobby, you will see people with their heads down, tapping away furiously on their smartphones

How did we ever find time to accomplish everything before smartphones came into existence?

your event management system with a customer relationship management (CRM) system such as Salesforce,

the benefits of the SaaS (software as a service) delivery model are becoming increasingly apparent.

These applications are advantageous to planners because they allow us to access all details and execution aspects of an event from any web-enabled device—be it a computer, smartphone, or iPad

With SaaS cloud apps, just provide end-users with reports-only access to what they need and nothing more. 

integration options available to planners, you are now blessed with the ability to link up your event management system with a customer relationship management (CRM) system such as Salesforce,

2. SaaS Cloud Apps

With all of the information you  could ever need to access right at your fingertips through event management applications, you can ditch the millions of pieces of paper and now access contracts, registrations, room blocks,

Live and virtual events are about giving the attendee a choice as to how they spend their time

“webinars on steroids.” Live and virtual events are about giving the attendee a choice as to how they spend their time.

virtual events save the planner and attendee time, money, and resources.

virtual events save the planner and attendee time, money, and resources.

Virtual events are a great way for planners to fill seats at a cost that won’t make anyone wince.

This is the best tool in the box for improving future events.

4. Social Media and Viral Marketing

Did you know that one out of three consumers is online for three or more hours per day? Or that 90 million tweets are sent out daily? What about this one: One of every eight minutes spent online is spent on Facebook

Some of the best traction you will get is from people sharing interesting tidbits they may have learned and enticing others to learn more

Today is the day of the iPad and the tablet, and a more simplified life.

3. Virtual Events

In a world where everyone is always on the run, our top five technologies for event planners are no surprise—but what these tools can accomplish might impress you.

our top five technologies for event planners are no surprise—but what these tools can accomplish might impress you.

our top five technologies for event planners are no surprise—but what these tools can accomplish might impress you.

our top five technologies for event planners are no surprise—but what these tools can accomplish might impress you.

our top five technologies for event planners are no surprise—but what these tools can accomplish might impress you.

our top five technologies for event planners are no surprise—but what these tools can accomplish might impress you.

our top five technologies for event planners are no surprise—but what these tools can accomplish might impress you.

our top five technologies for event planners are no surprise—but what these tools can accomplish might impress you.

Smartphones

Chances are, if you walk around a convention center or hotel lobby, you will see people with their heads down, tapping away furiously on their smartphones. 

Whether the ubiquity of these devices is a blessing or a curse, the fact is, event professionals and participants alike would be lost without them.

SaaS Cloud Apps

SaaS (software as a service) delivery model

These applications are advantageous to planners because they allow us to access all details and execution aspects of an event from any web-enabled device

Additionally, with all of the integration options available to planners, you are now blessed with the ability to link up your event management system with a customer relationship management (CRM) system

Virtual Events

Virtual events are a great way for planners to fill seats at a cost that won’t make anyone wince.

Often complementing physical events, virtual events save the planner and attendee time, money, and resources.

There is word that the economy is making a recovery, but many of us have yet to see it.

Social Media and Viral Marketing

Did you know that one out of three consumers is online for three or more hours per day? Or that 90 million tweets are sent out daily? What about this one: One of every eight minutes spent online is spent on Facebook. 

So this should be a no-brainer

This marketing can come from either you or your attendees. Allowing attendees to share things that they like and getting them involved in hyping your event is a great way to spread the word. 

iPads and Tablets

Today is the day of the iPad and the tablet, and a more simplified life. 

When combining tablets with mobile event applications, planners can also communicate in real-time with participants and share or update information in seconds. Never leave home without one! 

A data centre is a facility used to house computer systems and their components, and it can be far and away the biggest contributor to an organisation’s carbon footprint. A data centre’s life expectancy is relatively long so it is imperative it is built to the highest standards in terms of efficiency as any excess energy use will lead to significant cost implications over the years.

1. Build the most energy-efficient data centre possible. This will save energy and costs over its lifespan. 2. Only get the data storage capacity that is currently required and forecast for the lifespan. Many data centres have excess capacity that burns energy (and therefore costs) unnecessarily. Don’t have servers or equipment that will not be used. 3. Cooling data centres. Traditionally cooling has been done by air circulation, which is very inefficient. Larger data centres already use other technologies to cool more efficiently, such as water cooling. 4. Virtualisation technology. Improve your system’s resource utilisation through virtualisation technology. Virtualisation is the creation of a virtual (rather than actual) version of something, such as an operating system, server, network, etc. and allows a single user to access several physical devices on one terminal. A computing device dedicated to an individual member of staff or allocated for one software application is highly inefficient and expensive. Virtualisation consolidates resources, requiring less power and cooling. 5. Consider cloud computing. This is a location-independent IT service, typically available over the internet, where shared servers provide resources, software and data to computers and other devices on demand, increasing IT capacity and capabilities without an organisation having to invest in new infrastructure. Keeping data virtually, or “in the clouds”, means less information stored on IT systems and therefore less energy being used to run the systems. Systems such as BT’s Virtual Data Centre, a hosted data centre that enables businesses to create, deploy, monitor and manage their own service through a self-service portal, claim to offer savings of up to 40% of the total cost of running one’s own data centre as well as reducing the space required, the level of emissions produced and the power consumed.

6. Measure and monitor power usage. Once you know what’s using the power, focus on why and whether it’s possible to reduce consumption.

1. Upgrade. Before buying new, investigate options to upgrade with the latest energy-efficient components to extend appliances’ working life and efficiency. 2. Green labels. Look out for the certification labels denoting more energy-efficient equipment, from Blue Angel in Germany to TCO in Sweden and Energy Star in the US (see below). 3. Screens. Opt for flat screen monitors, which reduce energy use by over two-thirds. 4. Get the right equipment. Consider your information technology needs against the tasks required. For example, laptops may be a better option in some circumstances because they have been developed to be energy-efficient and generally match the computer to the task required. Remember: not all staff have the same needs. 5. Consider running costs. Look at the life cycle costs, not just the purchase cost. Take note of running and standby costs of equipment. These can vary enormously.

Top 10 Tips to reduce running costs of office equipment (source: Carbon Trust) 1. Computers. Activate energy-saving features. In fact, most office equipment will have these features, so make sure they’re activated. 2. Standby features. Introduce a policy to activate standby features, don’t assume employees will do it. 3. Turn it off. Buy seven-day timers. These can save up to 70% on energy costs. 4. Monitor and manage the equipment that is peripheral to computers, such as speakers, printers, etc. and consider installing intelligent switch-off solutions. Printers can consume 30%-40% of their peak power demand when idling between printing and standby modes, so minimising this can produce cost savings, reduce heat output and increase its operating life. 5. Educate your staff. Consider a screen saver with an energy-saving message. 6. Rationalise your equipment via networking to reduce the number of printers (for example) in any office area. 7. Printers Use only black and white for internal documents and colour only when absolutely necessary. Consider the benefits of inkjet printers v laser printers. Inkjet energy use is much lower than that of a laser printer. Encourage staff to use print preview functions. Set default printing mode to double-sided. Use lower-specification printers, such as inkjets, for internal documents and encourage staff to use these for day-to-day use.

8. Photocopiers High volume copiers use more energy so should be used sparingly. Use low melting point inks (available from stationery suppliers). Encourage staff to copy in batches to increase standby time. Stick to black and white copiers and only use colour when absolutely necessary. Set default copying to double-sided. 9. Invest to save and purchase only what you need. 10. Don’t forget to motivate staff. Keep repeating the message of the importance of energy saving in ways that they can understand (for example, a computer monitor switched off overnight saves enough energy to microwave six dinners).

WEEE (Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment), or e-waste, is the term used for old or disposed electronic equipment. It covers both the toxic and valuable materials found in appliances. The most important lesson is to reuse, not recycle. With so much e-waste, and electrical devices such as computers and flat screens often being replaced well before the end of their shelf life and ending up in landfill, it’s imperative that the most is made of these materials by reusing them productively.

Options to investigate when trying to reduce e-waste are: 1. Can you upgrade your equipment with new energy efficient components? 2. Can it be used by someone else in the company? 3. Can it be given to a charity? (Note: charities must be registered to take WEEE.) 4. Will the manufacturer take back the old equipment and reuse parts in new products?

Developments on the horizon include: 1. Smaller, more efficient processors. The continuing development of microprocessors means a mobile phone can have around the same computational power as the average desktop computer back in 2000. 2. Memristors. Electronics giant HP is in the process of developing “memristors” (see photo above), which have greater memory storage capacity while requiring less energy and space. They are due to be on the shelf in about three years. 3. Specialist data centre design. Siemens recently launched its transformational Data Centre Solution, a groundbreaking strategy in data centre energy-efficient design and operation. It claims the system, which uses virtualization and efficient power and cooling, offers many benefits for businesses, including up to 50% energy savings through ground water cooling and IT costs reduced by 30%. 4. Outsourcing. Hotels of all sizes are starting to view IT outsourcing as a viable option to gain flexibility and reduce short-term costs and increase transparency of cost structures and processes. 5. Optimisation of resources. This will become a necessity either through virtualisation, networking or cloud computing. 6. Water cooling. IBM is currently working on a supercomputer that is cooled by water (a given volume of water can hold 4,000 times more waste than air), which claims to be 50% more energy efficient than the world’s leading systems. The Aquasar stacks many computer processors on top of each other with cooling water flowing between each one. IBM’s Dr Bruno Michel told the BBC in November 2010: “We plan that 10 to 15 years from now, we can collapse such a system into one sugar cube — we’re going to have a supercomputer in a sugar cube.”

New developments are taking retail POS systems to a whole new

level, however, helping to reduce labor costs and increase impulse purchases, both in stores and on-line.

Self-Service Equals Labor Savings

Quasi-Personalized Advertising

Integrating Brick-and-Mortar and Online Stores

Life Hospitality is able to take over existing hotels in as little as one week and train staff on its intuitive software in a single day, materially decreasing transition costs and preopening costs for owners

22kg of toxic chemicals, 240kg of fossil fuels and 1,500 kg of water.

consuming 15% of the total electricity used in offices

50 million tons of e-waste was generated worldwide, but only 13% was recycled. US Environmental Protection Agency

Reusing working computers is up to 20 times more energy-efficient than recycling them

hich utilises the naturally cool environment below ground to reduce power consumption, and increase energy efficiency.

o date, more than 28,761 IT assets have been recycled (waiting for latest stats), which equates to 629,408lbs of e-waste diverted from landfill.

Big hotel companies have wised up to the costs involved in operating inefficient hardware and are driving system changes to cut wasteful expenditure.

nt. A data centre’s life expectancy is relatively long so it is imperative it is built to the highest standards in terms of efficiency as any excess energy use will lead to significant cost implications over the years.

most energy-efficient data centre possible.

Get the right equipment.

Only get the data storage capacity that is currently required and forecast for the lifespan. Many d

Don’t have servers or equipment that will not be used.

, such as water cooling.

allows a single user to access several physical devices on one terminal. A computing device dedicated to an individual member of staff or allocated for one software application is highly inefficient and expensive. Virtualisation consolidates resources, requiring less power and cooling.

cloud computing

e. Once you know what’s using the power, focus on why and whether it’s possible to reduce consumption. Spotlight on Fairmont Hotels & Resorts - T

into account not only the initial outlay cost of hardware, but also the running costs.

e up to 30% more energy, making it significantly more expensive when looking at the total cost of running that appliance during its lifespan.

investigate options to upgrade with the latest energy-efficient components to extend appliances’ working life and efficiency

Green labels

Data centres last 30-odd years and you can’t go back in and fix them, so they need to be efficient. Over time, this saves money as they run efficiently. Servers have to be Energy Star-compliant or I won’t even talk to vendors.”

is to reuse, not recycle

and flat screens often being replaced well before the end of their shelf life and ending up in landfill, it’s imperative that the most is made of these materials by reusing them productively.

Dumping e-waste on developing countries was until recently commonplace, and it has caused huge environmental problems and harm to human health in countries such as Ghana and China. But new legislation, including the EU WEEE Directive and the 2010 US Responsible Electronics Recycling Act, has stopped countries from being able to export e-waste.

dopted a scheme where the cost of recycling an electronic item is included in the purchase price. In Switzerland, they’ve been able to return all electronic waste to their place of purchase since 2005, and in the European Union, Taiwan, South Korea and Japan manufacturers must by law recycle 75% of the e-waste they produce.

Smaller, more efficient processors.

which have greater memory storage capacity while requiring less energy and space. They are due to be on the shelf in about three years.

pecialist data centre design.

all sizes are starting to view IT outsourcing as a viable option to gain flexibility and reduce short-term costs and increase transparency of cost structures and processes.

6. Water cooling

Facebook gives a greater ability to expand awareness through news feeds

to be successful social media demands high levels of participation, which means the time of the person who works on that project of increasing social media business opportunities.

Represent on all the best online marketing platforms and get involved in the forums and start talking about the hotel and its products and special offers.

With the increasing demand for more bandwidth and the subsequent costs to provide this it is in my opinion going to be difficult for hotels to agree to offer anything other than a limited free Wi-Fi mainly for emails.

IPads that are made available to guests to use in the guestroom open up a world of new opportunities for hotels to deploy in guestrooms to handle the following applications:

2. Mobility Mobile devices are now part of our everyday life and for many travelers they are now replacing the laptop, PC, telephone, kiosk, and boarding pass as part of the booking activity. A guest’s handheld device is now an integral part of the entire journey, not just from pre-trip planning and booking, but through the actual trip itself.

3. Cloud Computing There has been a lot of talk about this subject and I believe 2012 will be when this technology takes off as a number of PMS vendors release their cloud version where hotels will have the ability to access their major software applications on a web browser.

4. Social Media Wikipedia defines Social Media as “media designed to be disseminated through social interaction, created using highly accessible and scalable publishing techniques.”

5. Hosted PABX For many hotels one of the largest capital expenditure has been the PABX. In the past revenue from guest phone calls justified this large capital outlay but the advent of mobile phones and the cost of making calls from a hotel guest room have left hotels reeling from the costs of providing and maintaining this service.

6. Energy Management (EMS) With the cost of electricity continuing to raise hotels have to start looking seriously at more sophisticated systems than the traditional magnetic stripe cards in the slot.

7. Lighting Another major contributor to excessive power bills is the type of lighting that is installed in hotels. With replacement of lights to LED and Halogen hotels can save up to 30% and have lights that have a long life up to 12,000 Hours

hospitality industry

energy savings

Philips’ 7 W master GU10 LED lamp with DimTone

improve the bottom line

enhance guests’ comfort

hospitality managers are under pressure to cut costs without compromising on their guests’ experience

42% of energy use comes from lighting, of which 70% is inefficien

cost of lighting this area has been reduced by 82% with a payback of one-and-a-half years based on 12 burning hours a day.

Green roofs, also called 'vegetative', 'living', or 'eco-roofs', are living plants installed on top of traditional roofs. In addition to providing a haven for birds and other wildlife, the green roof provides many other benefits for the environment-- the reduction of storm water runoff, reduction in the amount of blacktop roofs in the city which reduces the heat island effect and reduction of HVAC cooling loads resulting in the lowering of utility bills. Green roofs also have the additional advantages of lengthening the waterproofing membrane life of the roof and help to improve the air and water quality of the area.

By tracking workflow in SynergyMMS for the maintenance of these assets, the tasks are completed efficiently. This also aids in establishing the equipment's useful life, prolonging replacement cycles for equipment, and reducing energy and water consumption.

n addition to improving the lifecycle of equipment, SynergyMMS also adds accountability for our Engineering teams,"

SynergyMMS not only helps identify what work needs to be done and when — both in the villas and across the entire property — but the system tracks exactly when work is completed. SynergyMMS provides another tool for our engineering leaders to monitor productivity and efficiency of the preventive maintenance program.

Hailed as the ultimate solution for today's mobile and multilingual workforce, SynergyMMS offers tools that help hotel maintenance staff work together without increasing demands on their time

SynergyMMS is all about time, efficiency, and solving today's most tedious preventive maintenance tasks.