Group items tagged

pects of a franchisee’s business, from guest check-ins and housekeeping services to billing and finances. Over time new features have been rolled into the software platform making it more robust and useful for hotel owners—it’s currently distributed in eight countries and available in four languages. And while plenty of cloud-based PMS packages are now available from third-party vendors like Micros, Maestro, and RoomKey, Choice’s internal solution has garnered its fair share of attention. “We had been getting knocks on the door from IT vendors at other hotel companies and individual Choice franchisees that own other brands, saying they were interested in our product,” says Pacious, “So we set up a new division so we could take a look at other opportunities we could develop.” This led the company to launch SkyTouch last year, a new division that develops and markets cloud-based software solutions to hotels inside and outside the Choice system. Pages: 1 2 3 4 2013-06-18 Sean Downey !function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js";fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document,"script","twitter-wjs"); (function(d, s, id) { var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0]; if (d.getElementById(id)) return; js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id; js.src = "//connect.facebook.net/en_US/all.js#xfbml=1"; fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs); }(document, 'script', 'facebook-jssdk')); (function() { var po = document.createElement('script'); po.type = 'text/javascript'; po.async = true; po.src = 'https://apis.google.com/js/plusone.js'; var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(po, s); })(); (function() { var li = document.createElement('script'); li.type = 'text/javascript'; li.async = true; li.src = ('https:' == document.location.protocol ? 'https:' : 'http:') + '//platform.stumbleupon.com/1/widgets.js'; var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(li, s); })(); inShare0 Related Articles attachment-3

Switching to the cloud from a client server platform pays off with a big drop in both the initial capital outlay and the ongoing operating costs for the property management and other systems.

his led the company to launch SkyTouch last year, a new division that develops and markets cloud-based software solutions to hotels inside and outside the Choice system. Pages: 1 2 3 4 2013-06-18 Sean Downey !function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js";fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document,"script","twitter-wjs"); (function(d, s, id) { var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0]; if (d.getElementById(id)) return; js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id; js.src = "//connect.facebook.net/en_US/all.js#xfbml=1"; fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs); }(document, 'script', 'facebook-jssdk')); (function() { var po = document.createElement('script'); po.type = 'text/javascript'; po.async = true; po.src = 'https://apis.google.com/js/plusone.js'; var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(po, s); })(); (function() { var li = document.createElement('script'); li.type = 'text/javascript'; li.async = true; li.src = ('https:' == document.location.protocol ? 'https:' : 'http:') + '//platform.stumbleupon.com/1/widgets.js'; var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(li, s); })(); inShare0 Related Articles Hotel Market Insight: Cleveland a

This led the company to launch SkyTouch last year, a new division that develops and markets cloud-based software solutions to hotels inside and outside the Choice system.

Dayuse.com, available for 4,000 hotels in 22 countries, also partners with three- to five-star properties, with a three-hour minimum on reservations.And now, with the app Recharge, users can book rooms by the minute at luxury properties in New York City and San Francisco

Recharge’s customers — more than 30,000 as of November — are mostly locals and include mothers who want a clean place to nurse their babies or pump their breast milk, people seeking a quiet space to take a phone call and those seeking a midday reprieve. “We’ve even had fathers who need to change their child’s diaper and would rather do it in a hotel room than in a coffee shop bathroom,

According to the company’s research, a 250-room property can get almost 275-rooms’ worth of revenue in one day from these short stays

Every hotel listed on Recharge’s app has a service fee, ranging from $30 to $50. The more luxurious the hotel, the higher the fee. After the service fee, per minute prices for the stays range from 50 cents to $2.

Recharge is easy to use and has an appealing list of hotels. In a market in which companies sell stays at properties for small chunks of time, the brand’s by-the-minute feature helps it stand out

The app works by giving the user a list of all available hotels in the immediate area of the device which have same-day availability, with a two-step process if the user wishes to book from the handset.

Booking.com says it secured $1 billion in transactions via mobile devices in 2011

Validation of the marketplace for same-day bookings via mobile devices was illustrated again last November when HotelTonight secured Series B funding to the tune of $9 million in a round led by Battery Ventures.

Provides Labor Management Tools

This can help you to optimize scheduling on a minute to minute basis so that your company is making the best use of every labor dollar spent.

Alerts You to Uncovered Shifts

HRIS can be configured to alert you to uncovered shifts or shifts where more coverage is needed based on forecasts. This can divert potential disasters and help you avoid ever being short staffed.

Makes Scheduling Communication Instantaneous

Having scheduling information in advance regularly can quickly and dramatically increase employee contentment.

Communicating schedules instantly through HRIS can help to reduce headaches and scheduling mishaps.

Provides a Template

HRIS usually provide scheduling templates and may even make it a snap to copy over the schedule from the previous week or month and make changes to accommodate current business needs. This can save time from penciling in shifts that will stay the same. Templates can also help you to easily utilize feedback from previous scheduling issues to improve future shifts.

Can Increase Employee Contentment

Depending on the available features, employees may be able to submit feedback regarding preferences in regards to scheduling. Knowing which employees prefer the late shifts, which prefer the early morning shifts, and which employees would like to pick up available additional shifts can simultaneously make scheduling easier and make employees happier.

Allows You to Strategically Gear Scheduling

HRIS can help you to identify times when it may be possible to assign certain employees training tasks or simply take employees aside and teach them new skills. This can help your company to increase the value of labor hours and invest in employees without breaking the bank.

Other hotels are doing similar things (and even more). An example of a newly-developed energy efficient amenity:

And the conference also talked a lot about putting solar panels on hotel roofs with government subsidies.

The system will remember how lights are set and if the fireplace is on and will shut down 20 minutes after the guest leaves and come back to the same setting when guest returns.

We're geeky enough to love new hotel technology, but we've got our green side too;

Hospitality Industry Technology Exposition and Conference in New Orleans.

Hospitality Industry Technology Exposition and Conference in New Orleans.

Most of the new green tech developments are focused on reducing energy use, and it seems like there are some killer new innovations coming to hotels at the moment

For example, at Hotel 1000 in Seattle,  they control what gets switched on and off using the system that tells them when

a guest comes and goes.

Other hotels are doing similar things (and even more). An example of a newly-developed energy efficient amenity

The system will remember how lights are set and if the fireplace is on and will shut down 20 minutes after the guest leaves and come back to the same setting when guest returns.

And the conference also talked a lot about putting solar panels on hotel roofs with government subsidies.

Before, we had to dial into each location to send menu updates, and I had two or three people sending updates. Now I only need one

The system also allows franchisees to gain control over their food costs

test a snack combo pack at its more than 400 locations and realized they needed to run one report at a time in order to analyze its effectiveness

RedPrairie's Performance Management

It literally took me three weeks and 270 individual reports," says Paul Mullin, business analyst at Culver's. After implementing the RedPrairie solution, the same scenario can be accomplished in five minutes, he says

As a result of this one report, the company saved $45,000 per year

able to see real-time information about what was going on in my restaurant, including open checks, servers logged in or out and even sales

Another sign that technology is changing is the ability to combine accounting, inventory and point of sale into one solution without the old challenge of interfacing disparate systems

The system integrates with the POS, and deducts ingredients based on recipes created using the system.

I can look at inventory counts and on-hand counts at each location, which allows me to move things around if we are running out of something at one location

A variety of interesting newer selling models including tingo.com, backid.com, guestmob.com and hallst.com, can be categorized in a consumer discount group

Over the last few years, social media has emerged as a new “channel,” impacting guest satisfaction, OTA channel conversations, brand evaluations and revenue.

Now with the emerging social-media channels, user-generated content effects not just brand perception but also revenues.

there is a risk that firms focus too much on one particular channel at the expense of others

what the industry really needs to do now is focus on how the customer got to that point, how they moved through and interacted with each channel, and what role each channel played in getting the customer to book.

India, Brazil, and Russia are growing,

marketers need to identify those channels that are helping to drive more conversions, or can influence the conversion funnel.

Increasingly, revenue management needs to integrate with all the disciplines – sales, marketing, channel optimization, loyalty marketing, and operations.

China, where the number of outbound tourists rose by 70% in the first 6 months of 2012.

Big data, personalization, and being relevant is key in the marketing battle.

By 2020, about 50 million Indians are expected to travel overseas, according to estimates drawn up by Tourism Australia, which has been actively targeting this market.

As the middleman, the GDS charged airlines and travel agents a fee for each booking.

CRS systems started sharing data with one another,

Global Distribution Services (GDS)

These terminals would only be useful if they let agents search for flights from multiple airlines all together.

Their goal is to charge each customer the most they’d be willing to pay.

The solution is to have seats at many different price points.

To maximise revenue, airlines optimise fare class sizes and prices by analysing historical trends.

different Google searches often yield different fares for the same seat on the same flight

only travel agencies that have been accredited by the IATA (International Air Transport Authority) can use them, and accreditation is an arduous process riddled with acronyms.

No more paper wasted on small menus that get lost under the furniture and have to be reprinted every week. With this option, the guest can have the full menu on the TV, with dazzling pictures, in any language he wants, having the option to check hotel amenities and services, all whilst having full internet access to verify any tourism related information he might please

It is now an important system that enables hoteliers to deliver a faultless guest experience.

It further helps the hoteliers to stay in touch with their guests even after they have checked out to make a good brand image into the minds of the guests, guaranteeing repeated visit and thus helping in developing the business.

he most integral function of a property management system is to help the hotelier in managing the bookings that he gets, right from the point where a customer is searching for a hotel to the point the customer checks out from the hotel.

An efficient hotel PMS will allow you to get listed on and manage multiple online platforms.

Larger online presence will consequently reap bigger revenues for the hotels. Also, it will increase a hotelier’s online presence and help a guest during their journey of booking a hotel.

You can limit the measure of time spent on authoritative errands. The correct hotel PMS will complete a great deal of the work for you, enabling you to focus your attention and your vitality on the more important tasks

With a Property Management System in place, you will have a great flexibility in deciding what rates you want to throw in market for your property at any given point of time.

It gives the hoteliers, the ease to see their reservations and availability in a very convenient and different way.

A decent hotel PMS will enable you to make rate designs and inferred rate designs and afterword effortlessly appoint them to reservations. Not only this, the most advanced PMS will allow you to plan multiple rate plans for deep into the future so that you don’t have to manually interfere every now and then to throw new rates.

A channel manager is a platform wherein a hotelier can update the inventory and prices on each OTA from a single place.

A propelled property management system will make sure that the hotelier gets daily/weekly/monthly reports like the sales reports, manager reports, account receivable reports, inventory availability reports etc.

A good POS will enable you to keep the guest satisfaction in mind and help you settle their dues from any service shop at the stage as preferred by them.

good cloud-based software will have customer databases in place to help the hoteliers keep a record of all the customers that have at their property and what their preferences are. This lets them help those return customers with their choices and build a good relationship with them.

Hotels need to partner with an experienced physical security provider, and ensure that the entire staff understands the need to keep security top of mind - always. 

Maintain security-minded customer service  Review key card access  Establish evergreen background screening protocol  Control after-hours access  Assess location and local crime statistics  Train security officers to welcome and protect  Bolster public/private initiatives  Maintain emergency response plans  Commit to ongoing training

The open environment fostered by hotels is welcoming to guests and visitors but, unfortunately, also creates vulnerabilities that must be addressed. Ensuring that all public spaces are continually monitored by staff and security personnel is crucial in maintaining a hospitable environment. 

Beacons can also help shoppers navigate a big store

beacon communication

often connected to an app

, which may gather even richer data, such as a customer’s product preferences, demographic information and purchase history, particularly if the app is hooked up to mobile pay.

customers now have access to a map that shows their location within a Target store

the state of Illinois proposed a bill that will make it illegal for companies to “collect, use, store, or disclose geolocation information

from a location-based application

Those who do want the discounts and the conveniences that come with location-based marketing should be able to participate knowing that their data and privacy are safe and respected.

displaying in-store signage notifying shoppers that their location data is being collected,

And there will always be companies that ignore guidelines

, and even break laws.

an Uber update surreptitiously removed an option that allowed users to opt out of location tracking when they were not using the app.

Instead, users had to sign on for tracking “always” or “never.”

they were also forced to sign on to tracking for up to five minutes after they had completed their ride and left the vehicle.

It took nine months for Uber to listen to their users. This August, the company finally announced it would stop tracking the location of its users when they were not using the app.

Target’s privacy notice is currently 4,359 words and the top of the page reads, “We may change or add to this privacy policy, so we encourage you to review it periodically.”

Handheld wireless Point of Sale (POS) systems are a portable version of a POS system, which is defined as the time and place in which a transaction is made. Point of sale computer systems include cash registers, optical scanners, magnetic card readers, and special terminals.

This market provides a large opportunity for the handheld wireless POS system in today’s customer satisfaction driven industry, especially since the once costly systems are finally poised to make the transition from niche product to mainstream acceptance

These benefits lead to cost savings and return on investment for the pur chase of a handheld POS system. Customers are the reasons restaurants are in business, and the time saved by using a handheld device, rather than waiting in line to place an order on a traditional POS system that averages over four min utes per order, can be used to better serve the guests.

Handhelds can also ensure accuracy by prompting servers with cooking temperatures and salad dressing choices and also offering up-selling suggestions.

One option for the handheld devices is a portable receipt printer that can allow servers to print out checks instantly without waiting in line at the POS station. Customers can also pay immediately if the handheld POS systems also offer credit card payment capability with a swipe area built into the unit.

This tech nology can also be used to inform a server when an item has been 86’d (no lon ger available) enabling the customer to make another selection immediately rather than finding out minutes later having the guest be even more disap pointed.

a key advantage to what handheld POS system a restaurant purchases will be what ports it has to hook up bar-code readers, cash drawers, voice-over IP capability, printers, fingerprint recognition and other emerging technologies

Some handhelds can even be used for back office inventory control before the restaurant opens by de-coupling software applications onto the interface (On Technology, 2004). Other benefits will be handheld systems that are easy to upgrade and service.

While many of the drawbacks and problems are only perceived or occur only in early models, some are still around today and just emerging.

the largest problem and reason that every restaurant doesn’t im plement a handheld POS system is cost. Even though the costs are starting to come down, it is still a pricey investment especially for smaller restaurants.

Restaurants need to budget for installation costs, training costs, printing materials, system supplies, electricity, power protec tion devices, software upgrades, modifications and the costs of supporting the systems/improvements (Scavone, 2003). These costs add up quickly.

Also, needing complex and error-prone configuration actions, like configuring security settings, is another security drawback

RevPASH, or revenue per available seat-hour, is the mathematical way to see the value of purchasing a handheld wireless POS system.

Although restaurant problems such as reservation issues cannot be solved with easier more efficient POS systems, such issues of duration management can.

operators could realize a 9% increase in revenue if managers “cut dining time from one hour to 55 minutes, without making customers feel rushed.”

If the cause of a restaurant’s long table time and low turnover is due to the time it takes servers to get the order from the guest to the kitchen and also the time is takes a guest to close out a check, then implementing handhelds would be a way to shorten the length of those times.

Unfortunately, going handheld doesn’t solve all problems, and the kitchen overcooked a guest’s filet mignon. Mike handles the situation by apologizing and notifying the manager on his handheld wireless POS system.

use the same handheld device during the day but load it up as an inventory device and complete her inventory and or dering in 1/3 the amount of time, thanks to the same radio frequency identifica tion technology that lets the hostesses and servers know who is in the restaurant.

When a customer signs up for a customer appreciation card, all of their preferences are stored in the cus tomer database

These marketing attempts have helped bring in more business.

The menu is also more effective because data mining was used to determine what items bring in the most revenue, what items have the highest margin, and what less popular items are most popular with customers who bring in a large amount of business.

This market provides a large opportunity for the handheld wireless POS sys tem in today’s customer satisfaction driven industry, especially since the once costly systems are finally poised to make the transition from niche product to mainstream acceptance

The right influencer should match both your brand values and the values of your audience, bringing an already-established crowd of relevant consumers to your digital door.

The audience's goal is to use that influencer's experiences to guide and inform them as they choose their next getaway destination - positioning your property as the place to be.

Educate Your Audience

Hotel guests can't get enough of reviews - the more in-depth, the better. An influencer can provide the most detailed content about your brand and the guest experience you offer through high-impact channels utilising video, blogs and photography.

The best influencers are seen by their audience to be unbiased and objective, which puts them in a position of authority and trustworthiness when it comes to purchasing decisions.

People follow influencers and engage with them because they believe they have a wider range of experience to better understand the brand, products and services they are talking about, similar to a professional hotel reviewer.

influencer marketing actively builds trust in your brand.

it's an ongoing challenge for hotels and hospitality marketing departments to keep coming up with something fresh and exciting - something their audience wants to see.

Good professional influencers really shine when it comes to this side of hotel marketing strategies. Not only do they have a deep understanding of what their audience (and therefore your audience) is looking for and what resonates with them, they are also creative specialists in finding fresh and entertaining ways to deliver this content.

leveraging their creative expertise is not only rewarding in terms of results, but helps to avoid critical missteps that can happen in a marketing strategy. You'll get more engagement, avoid the kind of faux pas that can cost you, and drive followers and leads to your website and social pages.

COVID-19 has made social media more powerful than ever before

Instagram, a primary platform for many influencers, saw some of the biggest increase in terms of use, with 2020 projections showing 14% growth - an additional 3 minutes of time per user on the platform per day.

One of the best ways of leveraging these changes in user behaviour work for your hotel marketing strategy is to get an established influencer who understands you brand and already has a relationship with your target audience to work on your campaigns.

Influencer Marketing is the Edge Your Hotel Marketing Strategy Needs