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This article gives a brief summary of Blue Mountain Networks offering new clod telephony management system software, which will enable Metaswitch's MetaSphere platform to bring carrier-grade VoIP services all the way to the hotel guestroom.On the one hand, this new technology will provide a robust suite of hospitality features and interfaces that enhance the carrier's portfolio by providing new cloud-based capabilities for the hospitality market. On the other hand, it extends beyond software to enable its ILEC and CLEC Carriers to offer "Pay-As-You-Go" occupancy based rates for the hotel sector as well.  This unique feature gives hotel properties an economical path to purchase state-of-the-art communication services as well as utilize a robust hotel feature set based on Metaswitch Networks' MetaSphere platform that enables hospitality to reside in the cloud. Besides this new benefits, it also innovate the PBX systems, which expands their services portfolios with a new set of revenue-generating services geared toward the hospitality industry. As general analysis from author, we can clearly see how dramatic that the technology influences our hospitality industry, every second, things goanna be changed and this new trend will put more weight on hotels' revenue related to unique features set of the industry.

Vail Resorts is implementing technology into their ski resorts through Emma, or Epic Mountain Assistant. Emma is an app that skiers can use for various information regarding the ski slopes. Some of the main features Emma will help its visitors with are real time wait lines, electronic lift passes, weather conditions, ski school, and rental options. Additionally, if Emma cannot answer a guests question, she will connect the gust with an employee and will then update her database with the information that she did not know.

This article discusses the "Green Hotel" award that is presented every two years to Asean resorts. The purpose of this award is to bring awareness to hotels about the importance of being eco-friendly and preserving our environment. Thousands of hotels compete for this award based on criteria including water efficiency, air quality management, collaboration with local organizations and external communities. I personally love that collaborating with external communities is a criteria for this award because I find that to be very important. Well-known resorts should help smaller organizations and team up with them to show they care about those around them. Once of the recipients, Daluyon Beach and Mountain Resort, focused on protecting and sustaining the rich ecosystem surrounding their resort by constructing their resort using eco-ethical materials and placing priority in sustaining its environment-friendly atmosphere. The hope is for these awards to be an incentive to improve the tourism industry and to provide awareness to the hospitality industry regarding global warming and other important natural effects hotels are having on our environment. While it promotes healthy competition in the tourism industry, it also improves the quality of the hotels in Asean countries which in turn will lead to more tourism and financials for the country.

Sustainability has been a primary focus for many hotel companies around the world. There are many initiatives that are being created other than your everyday recycling. Fairmont Mayakoba has implemented a tour in which guest can assist in the transplant of coral to help their growth. Hosteling International USA has also become the first of it's kind to develop a system that monitors shower to last at most seven minutes in it effort to conserve water. These are just some of the many ideas that are taking into effect to further progress sustainability within hotel operations.

As guests are getting more environmentally friendly, being sustainable is an important aspect of hotel operations. Before they book a hotel, a lot of guests will look for or read about the hotel's social responsibility program. Hence, going green would bring in more revenue by attracting more guests.

This article explains several ways that hotels and resorts are helping in the fight for sustainability. Some resorts have completely eliminated the use of air conditioning and other ways to get energy for running electricity. For example, the Jade Mountain resort in St. Lucia has designed all their rooms to be open-air rooms which allows for breezes to come through the rooms and ultimately cool down the rooms. This, in turn, eliminates the need for air-conditioning all together. Some hotels are even offering classes on how to live a more sustainable and eco-friendly lifestyle. Hotels and resorts have worked towards saving coral reefs, energy and water conservation, preserving food and re-purposing waste, and creating eco-minded communities.

AI has tremendously helped the hotel industry especially in the realm of revenue management. Instead of having to compile mountains of data and make calculations by hand, we have AI software that can not only analyze all the compiled data, make predictions based of trends, and set rates but it also learns from this data to become smarter with time.

Green hotel has become a hot topic recent years since people have more concerns about sustainability of natural resources. This article is talking about sustainable hospitality hardware. It starts right from one kind of hardware material, bronze. Two types of bronze are introduced as the most popular choice for hardware, "silicon bronze" and "white bronze". Considering the long durability, excellent corrosion resistance, better fatigue resistance, lower melting point, easy care and maintenance, bronze, as a material is a dramatically long time and continues to be so today using both time -tested and innovative manufacturing techniques. The article also talks about green characteristics of bronze products. For example, it use life cycle analysis results to show bronze products is better than other materials. Bronze is 100 percent recyclable and make healthier environment. In hospitality industry, the most applications of bronze must be the door hardware, including the lock set. The article gives an example of Pelican Hill Resort which used lot bronze in the resort manufacture. Overall, it's a material choice that can contribute positively to the overall design intent of a given facility and its long-term successful operations.

Starting this spring Walt Disney World is introducing it's new vacation management system known as "MyMagic+". This system will drastically change the way Disney World theme parks are run. Part of the software is introducing "MagicBands" that will store guests credit card information, Fast Pass, hotel key, and other information to make the guests experience more interactive. The system will also allow Disney to keep a more accurate account of what is interesting to guests and what is not being utilized. There are some concerns with privacy that guests may have, but Disney is proactively trying to ensure that all guests privacy is still intact. Guests will be able to use the system how they want, and share only as much information as they are comfortable with. The introduction of this management system will benefit both guests and Disney if used effectively. Guests will be able to plan their trips with more ease, and spend more time enjoying the parks rather than standing in lines. Disney will be able to offer a better product, as well as manage its parks more effectively and see what guests are really interested in.

This article talks about one of the negative impacts of the current state of e-commerce: the detrimental impact on the environment. The article discusses how consumers have a need for their goods to be delivered quickly and conveniently. E-commerce ventures such as Amazon, Google Express, and Postmates provide customers with goods and services at the click of a button that can be delivered in as little as 10 minutes. However, these businesses have a heavy environmental cost, with an increasing use of cardboard being used in shipments and an increase in personalized freight services, which can lead to more greenhouse gas emissions. While some argue that these e-commerce services might lead to less consumers going out and shopping in physical stores, research shows that this is not the case, with consumers still going out and shopping even if they also shop online through these e-commerce businesses. Although much of the cardboard that is being used in these services is recyclable, recycling comes with its own downsides, as the process of taking things to the recycling centers uses a lot of water and energy. Overall, the new wave of e-commerce has spurred questions about its environmental impact.

Coastal Hotel Group implemented the IDeaS Revenue Management System (RMS) to maintain speed and accuracy across revenue strategies. The new system allows the director of revenue management more time for analyzing trends and making more strategic revenue decisions because the revenue management process is simplified and expedited, providing market information quickly and easily. Although the system doesn't replace human insight, its complex algorithms and ability to pull data multiple times a day provides Coastal Hotel Group with a clear vision of hotel data, making it easier to book the right guest at the right time for the right rate. In addition, the IDeaS RMS automatically uploads rate shopping reports from vendors and uses competitors' data to create the best available rate decisions. In today's fast-paced, interconnected business environment, the new automated revenue management system can provide a quick and intelligent reaction to various market conditions in order to capitalize on consumer behavior. That can be a strong competitive edge of the Coastal Hotel Group properties. 

Summary of sustainability trends in the Hotel Industry

Hotels are using IT information to "maximize" the guest experience.

"Big Brother is Watching", but in a good way. Hotels are now using guest information to "personalize" their stay. Let's face it, technology is here to stay whether we like it or not. How businesses choose to utilize this technology could be the "key to their success or failure". Hoteliers must now sift through a mountain of information with regards to guest satisfaction. We live in a "microwave" world, and we want results now, faster is better. Hotels must continue to gather information on guest preferences, but utilize this information carefully. Businesses must walk the fine line between excellent service and "stalking".

It is interesting what technologies customers latch onto when traveling. The big fancy technology typically does not wow the guests as much as you would thing. It is actually the tiny details they notice more in terms of technology. My hotel is very technologically advanced and was built with the new technology implemented by our brand, The interesting thing that everyone notices though is the usb connectors in every outlet.

In regards to Module 2: Post a hospitality/tourism network, telecommunications, or green related article, I chose to post about a green related article and found an awesome article of "Eight Ways Hotels Are Helping To Protect The Environment." In honor of the past April 22's Earth Day, the article displayed the examples for some of the hotels in the United States that were committed to aid in preserving the environment for the hoteliers and guests alike to keep sustainability strong for the respective hospitality companies as well as travelers who are striving to travel with eco-friendly options. Located in Oahu, Hawaii, the Turtle Bay Resort is home to an on-property horse stable, tennis and golf courses, a 15 mile hiking/mountain biking trails, many health conscious classes such as fitness, wellness, and even a surf school. With its advantageous beach location, water adventures such as eco-kayaking, snorkeling, and swimming enable guests to view many of the natural resources, mammals, and endangered species that visit along the shores of the resort. With all of the above activities, it is crucial for this resort to take especially good care of the natural resources that benefit the resort by attracting guests. With that being said, the resort team members initiate beach cleanups every month for about 5 miles of the beach's shoreline. As well, back in 2009, the resort developed a Green Committee to plan and map out methods to reduce the resort's carbon footprint. Some examples of this was adding solar roof panels, convert 70% of the resort's lighting to Compact Fluorescent Light Bulbs, initiated recycling for the entire resort, and changed cups utilized at the F&B outlets to environmental friendly options. Located in Leesburg, Virginia, The National Conference Center's food and beverage program partnered with local Virginia Farms to source their food from local farmers to enhance the consumer's yearning for the farm-to-table cuisine. For Earth Day, the company i

This article emphasizes the positive and negative aspects of the hospitality industry adopting to sustainable practices. It recognizes that this industry is in the business of making money, while appoints the importance of doing so conscientiously, respecting the environment. It shows the steps that the organizations should take on its journey to action. I believe that sustainability should be a business imperative and not a lifestyle choice, as the sustained interest among consumers in tourism products and services are continuously increasing. That should be beneficial for the organization, positively affecting the operating revenue.

The article discusses the many ways the IT world is finding new ways to be sustainable in the hospitality industry. Changing the way a hotel runs by introducing e-mails to guest and other companies to reduce the paper flow or allowing guest to do mobile check-ins can reduce a lot of paper waste. Also, having guest use their phones as key cards for their rooms can aid in avoiding wasting and needing to create key cards. By hotels having an energy saving system, they reduce electrical waste by having computers on low power consumption mode. One main thing the article mentioned that I personally see a lot of hotels doing is digital advertising. Instead of relying on paper advertisement, hotels rely heavily on ads on social medias, facebook, google, and third party vendors.

This article discusses the IT green movement that has been in action since the rise of technology and ways on how IT can go green. Some opportunities in the green IT movement include the following: - Using IT responsibly and effectively to reduce water, energy, and paper consumption. This gives IT teams to take advantage of a few technical enhancements within their hotels to provide key cards available on smart phones, email to reduce paper, and digital signage. - Deploying effective technology practices such as Energy Star compliance to shut down computers automatically after periods of inactivity and server virtualization. This would mean for everything to be on one common server, and companies can save money on computer hardware and power consumption. - Tackling e-waste and deploying recycling technologies to reduce environmental waste and impacts. This could be implementing by introducing a safe recycling system for used hardware. - Digital marketing practices. This could be like using digital media to save money or using social media to encourage guests about the green practices that the hotel is implementing. - Marketing strategies to report and promote green practices. This could be having the business properly use marketing strategies to target these environmentally conscious market and find ways to promote green practices to this market segment. These are all very effective ways for IT teams to go green within their hospitality businesses. These green IT projects will need approval from top management and investment in time and resources.

Adjara Group has signed a deal with Cendyn to power CRM across all of their hotels in Georgia which will help them utilize data collected from multiple sources to provide an accurate, single source of truth of each guest. Cendyn is a tool used to provide marketing automation and guest intelligence sitting on top of a hotel's property management system or call center application.

This article is a great addition to what we learned in the module this week regarding physical plants. The article stresses the importance of saving energy to reduce the carbon footprint, but to also provide exceptional hospitality services. He mentioned its the little things that count such as turning the lights off in a room or as well as checking thermostats in vacant rooms and just keeping an eye out overall. To ensure that all employees are abiding by this, its crucial that proper training is to take place

This article was very interesting as it shined a light on the importance of employees participating in sustainability efforts.

This is an interesting article on "Mount Recyclemore". A group made this sculpture as a statement to world leaders and people about e-waste and recycling issues that are happening.

Green information technology(IT), referred to as green computing, is a term used to describe the application of automated resources in an efficient manner. Green IT originates with system manufacturers producing environmentally friendly products and encouraging users to adopt eco-friendly practices such as reducing paper usage through minimal printing, operating more efficiently with power management,and exercising proper recycling habits.As global information technology environmental standards continue to expand, it is highly likely that guidelines governing product life span, power consumption and recyclable resources will be in the forefront.

I highlighted in blue the sections I was most interested in, I found the passage about reducing faxing and photocopying to be most interesting. There is no reason to be so reliant upon these when you can send attachments through your smart phone. Hotels and other properties can unplug these machines to save money on the electric bill. There are otherways to be paperless, for example.The article I spoke of was about how hotels can limit the need to priint itemized bills and reciepts, all charges can be posted right to the mobile app on the smart phone. The mobile app on the smart phone will even unlock and lock your room doors and allow enterance to the spa and fitness center. There won't be a need for plastic room keys anymore either.

In hospitality industry, IT technology brings many benefits to us, but it is also a source of pollution when disposing of broken technology. There are many advantages of green IT movement such as reducing energy, water, paper, environmental waste and impacts, etc. Although it has many benefits, green IT projects need support from company's top leaders in both time and resources. The ROI of green IT is a little bit longer than other types of projects, but it has upside potential and intangible benefits. Green IT practices are not contrary with making money, so hoteliers should take measures to lead the organization on its journey to green action.

This article is about the important reasons why an hotel needs to have a proper property management system to operate. How effectively the system is going to work in the different departments. Specifically the article talks about Jonas Chorum as a modern cloud based property management system.