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Communication technology is constantly evolving around us in everything we use. Nowadays, we no longer communicate face to face. Instead, we use our cellphones, tablets, computers, etc., to communicate with one another. This in turn affects the tourism industry immensely by providing them with a range of possibilities to successfully and effectively communicate with customers. Due to the increase in new technologies, customers now have easy access to tourism companies and what they have to offer. This benefits the industry by providing exposure and easy access to the things they offer. All in all, it's important that the industry evolve hand in hand with technology in order for the industry to embrace all the opportunities that technology has to offer. 

With smartphones evlving and getting smarter, smaller and speedier it is allowing for advances in mobile point-of-sale technology especially in the restaurant industr. There are now numerous POS platforms that support both iPhone as well as android. Tablets and iPads are also supported so that restaurants can process payments in the field with a credit card reader. Traditionally POS have been very costly and structured; now with mobile technology the flexibility is convenient, fast and user friendly. New applications allow restaurants to store customer spending patterns without retaining their personal credit card information. the use of smartphones also opens up very exciting opportunities when it comes to business-consumer communication. Restaurants can send text messages containg discounted coupons to their establishments. The key is to not over do it as customers may become annoyed with too many text messages. This article delat mainly with the restaurant industry but did mention the evolution of technological advances with the use of smart phones. Form personal experience I have used my iphone and ipad to conduct credit card transactions utilzing squareD which provides free of charge a mobile credit card swiper that is connected to the microphone port of either the iphone or Ipad. there is not monthly contract or fee. The only charge is 2.5% per settled credit card transaction and the amount is automatically deducted from the batched amount and within 1-2 business days the funds are deposited directly into ones checking/savings account. This is convenient, fast, and easy. I have been able to secure payment right on the spot instead of either handling cash which is always a ahzard or the risk of accepting checks. the use of smartphones and tbalets have revolutionozed the way business is being conducted making it fast, easy, and convenient to both cutomer and busoness owner alike.

I feel that implementing technology in event planning can be of a great benefit to hotels. THe business of meeting and conventions can be a profitable one but the competition is tough. Hotels need to offer a wide variety of services to attract conferences to their properties. The use of technology now day is expected and hotels that do not offer these opportunities will stay behing the curve and miss on great opportunities.

The Intelity's ICE is a new virtual concierge program, as a digital supplement to its renowned "GEM" (guest engagement manager) service, which is established in Mogans hotel in New York. By launching the Intelity's ICE, nearly all guests' requirements can be accomplished quickly, for guests can explore the amenities in the hotels, search for events in the city, buy tickets and communicate with the hotel working staff through an ipad in each room. Not only that, but the hotel managers also find it a great program to communicate with the working staff. To the hotel managers, they think that the program can enhance customer service and increase communication opportunities as well as heightening operational efficiencies

I found the mobile app to be most interesting because my article disscussed that as well. I feel that the mobil app will certainily create a unique experience for the visting guest. By going digital there are many benefits to not only the guests but the environment as well. There will be longer be a need for plastic room keys, or large amounts of paper. Hotels will be able to save expenses and man power by providing systems like the new virtual concierge program. In particular, you won't need to hire so many people to book reservations over the telephone. Everything can be done through the Ipad which most people have now a days anyway. However, I would feel better if there was trouble shooter around should the guest not be able to comprehend the technologic system.

I like this article which related to the development of Chinese hospitality industry. This news showed that Pegasus Solutions and TravelSky Technology Limited had connected with China's state-owned global distribution system (GDS). In China, there are at most 1.2 billion potential customers, the hospitality market there is really attractive. This connection will allowing more and more Chinese people to book different hotels anywhere in the world even though when they at home. I believe this connection is a effective and successful choice. After that connection, it makes nearly 100,000 hotels of Pegasus' global hotel available for booking in China. Pegasus' has more than 1,000 hotels under nine brands. The first Pegasus customer to go live on the connection is Starwood Hotels & Resorts. Hoteliers recognized that there will be a lot hospitality business opportunity in China, so that they decided to take these opportunities and continue to get benefit from domestic and inbound travel by cooperating with Pegasus/TravelSky, in order to expand their businesses. This cooperation is indeed a win-win deal. Firstly, it let Starwood properties available to the 7,000 travel agents who work with TravelSky managing the increasing domestic and international Chinese travelers' growing demand. While, TravelSky has long-dominated the airline market in China, and it becomes both the second largest travel market in the Asia-Pacific region and the world's second largest economy. The new connection with Pegasus offers more accessibility to the collection of ebookable hotels.

A leader provider of outsourced staffing solutions for the hospitality industry, Hospitality Staffing Solutions, announced that it has completed the sale of its assets to HS Solutions Corporation. HS Solutions Corporation is an entity formed by LJC Investments 1, LLC and a group of investors including Littlejohn Opportunities Master Fund,LP, Caymus Equity Partners and Management. This transaction allows HSS to reduce its outstanding debt and responsibilities. It also gives the opportunity to emerge with strong financial backing of a new owner.

"It's easy to fixate on technology when talking about bookings, but one of the most well-established paths to booking a room might represent the most overlooked opportunity for hoteliers. That opportunity? Global distribution systems."

This article talks about exactly what we talked about in the discussion board, it talks about how hotels are actually getting more bookings from using the GDS system.

This article is about how e-commerce is being new opportunities to global and tourism travel. America are the biggest group online buyers. With internet being the prime source of shopping, in no way will it tourism portion will be left behind. It has been reported that 1.5 billions passengers has travel with computers and this is an extreme market to capitalize on. Adding inflight internet will replace the tradition means of entertainment like, magazines and newspaper in which will create a bridge between travels and travel service providers. With this new technology passengers will be allowed to make purchases and have it waiting at the gate at arrivals or even at the hotel. The passenger can also visit a site before they reach their destination and explore activities and places to go. Going electronic is not cheap, but it is a necessary investment. And as technology advances so will it in the tourism industry.

This article focuses on new hotel apps, focusing on Recharge, that let you rent upscale hotel rooms by the minute/hour. As the article states, this is not a new concept and has been offered in the pass usually at motels. This app looks to change the demographic of those looking to rent hotels for a small amount of time. The app is already active in popular cities around the world, they aim to only work with 3-5 star hotels. I downloaded the app and thought the pricing was a little concerning, but it goes back to the demographic the app is targeting. Recharge aims to appeal to travelers with long layovers, business people looking for a quiet spot in between meeting, sight seers that may need a nap, and even mothers looking for a safe place t publicly breastfeed. Their pricing is right in line with their target demographic as the cheapest price is usually around $30 per hour, and there is always a service fee; the author of the article talks about staying in a hotel for 15 minutes and paying $65 dollars. Personally the pricing is a huge setback, but business wise it makes sense. You are covering the cost of housekeeping having to go in and reset the room, and front desk reprogramming the keys/ handling check in and check out. While I think the system could create a bit of a challenge for hotels in terms of making if something is ready and clean or not, it is another opportunity to increase revenues. This app especially during the slow season for hotels, could help them fill their less desired rooms, if only for an hour. It is similar to a restaurant way of thinking "How many times can we flip this table (room) in peak hours". I may not use the app, but if I was traveling with friends and splitting the cost, I would definitely take the opportunity to pay a few bucks to nap in a 5 star resort.

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.

This article discussed the importance of being ahead of the curve and why the 'wait and see' approach is not beneficial in most cases. If you 'wait and see' you can become irrelevant very quickly as there are many others out there, in many cases other parts of the world, making new inventions and discoveries daily. This article gave a great example where a school system implemented tables and the amount of money they saved was $25k/year. There are many benefits to staying ahead of the curve and as the article states "If you don't do it, someone else will".

A "wait and see" approach has a higher risk than it being avoided. One of the cons is that it can pave the way to a company no longer being relevant. New opportunities for sales and growth may be missed if a company does not begin to evolve quickly.

Operators focus on cost, and this can prohibit the Operator from realizing the advantages and benefit of utilizing an RMS. When looking at an ROI they will often utilize Pacing data from a year over year perspective which is often, as the author puts it, asterisked. A simple explanation is the number of variables that can lead to impractical or flawed comparison such as mis-segmentation, unique events or otherwise. The author proposes instead that Operators should look at ROU, which roughly speaking takes market dynamics and most of the variables out of the equation. An ROU analysis (Revenue Uplift Opportunity) establishes a baseline measurement over a 90 day period that requires the establishment of two models (carbon copies) of the Hotel in question. The first, is a manual model that mimics the manual process of yielding and inventory management and overbooking, while the second utilizes the decision process of the installed or applied RMS. The author states that what Operator realize is the hidden maximization opportunity in both pricing and inventory controls based on manual processes reacting to demand conditions rather than anticipating. The value of this outside of the above application is how a KPI and a different manner of looking at the data can lead to valuable insight on what a real ROI can be. As an RM professional whom utilizes an advanced RMS on a regular basis it is sometimes it is difficult to see outside the box and perceive the value of the technology that is a mainstay in the Branded community. Being able to see the implications it can have for those not using or not having bought into the technology is actually a bit of a back step as it speaks to the value that this solution provides for the company.

Event Management Software market is valued at million US$ in 2019 and will reach million US$ by the end of 2025.

True statement was given by Chestler on this topic. GDS have a lot of positive contribution to hotels and brings a lot of opportunity as it is growing. He even compare it to a supermarket. this system emerges and give a good impact on the hospitality industry's revenue.

I chose this article because I believe it is a perfect example of how to make the most out of the technology revolution! Blockbuster did not see the opportunity fast enough and so Netflix put them completely out of business. There are advantages and disadvantages to the "wait and see" approach but I think in this case, Blockbuster missed out on a huge opportunity and they didn't look into the future as they should have. As technology is constantly evolving, the only way to keep up is to stay current.

The article describes how hotels have been late in adopting the cross-selling and up-selling trip extras that airlines have been so successful with over the last decade or so. It also summarizes the results of research done by Phocuswright with iSeatz which found that the majority of business travelers surveyed are interested in purchasing additional on-site extras and off-site extras. The research also found that the hotels that were surveyed cite reasons such as a lack of technology and stretched resources at hotel level as barriers to implementation.

The author fails to recognize that the e-commerce platforms developed by the airlines over the past decade have been focused on selling unbundled extras, whereas until recently the hotel e-commerce platforms have been very focused on offering the customer bundled packages and only had limited capability for up-selling and cross-selling.

This article covers a study performed to determine the digital maturity of events. The research conducted reveals that the majority of industry professionals are aware of technology in events. The study ultimately finds that events have a low digital maturity, but high potential for advancement. The article also addresses the limitations of the study performs and agrees that additional research should be performed to determine the relevance of technology in the events industry while acknowledging that digital engagement is not necessary or conducive to every type of event.

This article has discovered the fact that the event industry was digitally immature. It also introduced a new concept which is called E4.0 into the academic literature. The article is meaningful since it has filled a gap in the literature relating to events and digital maturity and responded to some of the calls for research. The authors were also planning to make further research on E4.0, events, and digital maturity. They have mentioned that the studies on E4.0 itself were also requiring deeper research.

GDS has been around since the 1970s and is extremely beneficial for the hotel industry. It creates a common entry point for several OTA's and travel agents so that they can obtain accurate information about the hotels. 5 Benefits to GDS in hotels: Reach market segments globally, more revenue, growth, instant updates and growing the corporate segment. All these benefits of using GDS can result in greater exposure for the property.

With the growing of the travel industry the GDS is a great tool that many travel agents use to narrow the search of what exact details they are searching for. GDS is an efficient way for agents to promote their product and services. This tool helps with the aspect in business such as revenue generated, growth opportunities, and give instant updates on rates so there is no secret.

Five benefits of using a GDS's. Talks about reaching a global market, improving revenue growth opportunities and the ability to have live updates for prices.

The Platform for Accelerating the Circular Economy (PACE) is a public-private group consisting of more than 50 heads from various internal and external organizations. The group intends to fight the route cause of e-waste by repairing the method for which technology is recycled. The plan of action is to establish a circular economy. Materials are consumed, trashed, and eventually sent to landfills or sent for workers in toxic unsafe conditions to extract the precious materials. The world produces 50 million tons of e-waste annually, accumulating a worth of almost $62 billion. 80% of e-waste is improperly recycled in dangerous polluted conditions, creating an environmental hazard and unethical work conditions. Valuable resources such as gold, are also lost due to this poor method of recycling.Nigeria is one of the many countries that has exploited thousands of workers in the recycling of e-waste. In an effort to reform this issue, the Nigerian government has invested $15 million to employ PACE's circular economy. The design of a circular economy allows for products to be either made for longer use or recycled in a sustainable way. The circular economy will allow for a more efficient and environmentally friendly method of harvesting these resources while providing sustainable job opportunities.