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MICROS Simphony offers significant benefits to our business. We were keen to move to a hosted solution and MICROS was able to provide the system to achieve that, while also providing us with the centralised reporting that we require to analyse sales across all of our restaurants and bars. By standardising our systems and business processes, we will be able to realise opportunities for revenue growth and improve the offerings that we deliver to our guests .”

MICROS Simphony offers significant benefits to our business. We were keen to move to a hosted solution and MICROS was able to provide the system to achieve that, while also providing us with the centralised reporting that we require to analyse sales across all of our restaurants and bars. By standardising our systems and business processes, we will be able to realise opportunities for revenue growth and improve the offerings that we deliver to our guests

MICROS Simphony offers significant benefits to our business. We were keen to move to a hosted solution and MICROS was able to provide the system to achieve that, while also providing us with the centralised reporting that we require to analyse sales across all of our restaurants and bars. By standardising our systems and business processes, we will be able to realise opportunities for revenue growth and improve the offerings that we deliver to our guests

5 Technologies Event Planners Can't Live Without

our top five technologies for event planners are no surprise

1. Smartphones

Call it LANifest destiny: the sense the Internet should be available, everywhere, from sea to shining sea. The same illness is starting to infect national parks. Last year, the National Park Hospitality Association petitioned the National Park Service, asking it to make parks more smartphone-friendly.

Meanwhile, in the spirit of the Wilderness Act, cities could take easy steps to provide a short respite from all that connectivity. Withholding Wi-Fi is easy. Jammers that block cellphone signals are cheap, simple, and effective over short distances. Physical parks could offer outdoor areas where your phone won’t work, and where your computer can’t pick up any kind of Wi-Fi signal. There could also be wireless-free areas of libraries, coffee shops, public squares, and office buildings.

It's a mistake to think that a waiter's job is primarily to deliver food. This is one of the primary lessons I get across in my customer service training sessions for restaurant waitstaff: that waiting tables is a multifaceted art form that includes providing guests with feelings of recognition, comfort, and anticipation, providing a bit of theater, and, sometimes, serving as couples counselor and family mediator. Getting food to the table is really the least of what’s involved.

And there lies perhaps the biggest danger when you’re considering a move toward installing tableside technology in a restaurant: losing these less obvious, but emotionally crucial, parts of the waiter role. Another danger is that the implementation will be off-brand and off-putting.  There is a 4-ish star steakhouse with locations in several U.S. cities (think: "Morton’s but regional") whose black-clad, iPad-based menu opens on Page One with cheesy Comic Sans electronic discount coupons and two-for-one offers.  Maybe this doesn’t put you off your feed, but it did me, and I doubt that I’m alone. Which means that all the effort the restaurant had put into properly costuming the waiters, gussying up the dining room, sending its sommelier on vineyard junkets, teaching the waiters how crumb down the white tablecloths (and buying all those silver table crumbers) went down the drain with that one, ridiculously off-brand, choice. Folks: Just because you can do it, doesn’t mean you should do it; before you deploy any tableside technology, make sure that every single part of the deployment fits your brand, or at least fits your brand as you want it to be perceived in the future.

Which brings me to Chili’s Grill and Bar, the ubiquitous casual dining chain. Chili’s, which pretty much defines the mainstream of chain restaurants (and is not a place that self-service couponing – free chips with your loyalty points! – will be off-brand), is quickly becoming a definitive mainstream example as well of tabletop point of sale (POS) technology and mobile self-service restaurant technology.

LBA Hospitality Partners with M3 Accounting + Analytics to Enhance Accounting Processes and Increase Efficiencies July, 31 2013 M3 Accounting + Analytics Seeking to update and streamline accounting processes for its 70-plus Southeast properties, Dothan, Ala.-based Larry Blumberg & Associates, Inc. (LBA Hospitality) recently announced an expanded partnership with M3 Accounting + Analytics, the national leader in hotel-specific accounting software, operations reporting, and business analytics. “If we are to continue to be an industry leader, we must have the ability to meet the requirements of our stakeholders and provide accurate, real-time and relevant information for our management team and owners,” said LBA President Beau Benton.  LBA sought the ability to swiftly handle budgets, forecasts, and reports, and to dissect business data, all while insuring that the back-office accounting platform functionality was state-of-the-art and industry-specific.  In choosing M3, Benton cited how the company integrates accounting, business intelligence, and reporting, while eliminating most redundancy, software investment and annual hardware/software maintenance. In addition, Benton and LBA were looking for continual and automatic upgrades, backup and disaster protection, and minimized downtime.  LBA is implementing the full suite of M3 products: accounting through the AccKnowledge platform, time, attendance and labor management through the newly released RightTime solution and LaborWatch, and payroll services through RightPay. The company will also continue to use M3 Link business intelligence reporting, as LBA will be expanding it to bring financial data, operating stats, Smith Travel feeds and guest satisfaction data (including verbatim responses) into one completely customizable dashboard. LBA, which launched its business by developing a Sheraton Inn in 1973, is rapidly growing its management business and securing more and more agreements from sophisticated owners and investors.   Scott Watson, M3 Vice President of Sales & Marketing, said, “While our core product remains our accounting solution, we’ve continued to evolve and offer new products and services that meet the current and future needs of the hospitality industry. It is truly exciting that our product platform will help Beau and LBA achieve the aggressive growth they are anticipating over the next five years.”  The implementation and training process for all LBA properties is expected to be complete by December 1.  About LBA Hospitality Based in Dothan, Ala., LBA Hospitality is a hospitality management company focused on maximizing return, safeguarding assets and enhancing value. Founded in 1973, the company now manages 70 properties throughout the Southeast, from Texas to Virginia. More information is available at http://www.LBAHospitality.com.  About M3 Accounting + Analytics M3 is the national leader in hotel-specific accounting software, operations reporting, business intelligence and analytics, processing more than $8 billion in financial transactions for more than 3,000 properties. M3’s integrated suite of hospitality accounting products includes: AccKnowledge, Link, payroll and labor management services, and document imaging and retrieval – all designed to help provide hotel operators, owners and managers unsurpassed access to the information they need in the most integrated and cost-effective manner. The company was founded in Gainesville, Ga. in 1998, and also has a base of operations in Tampa, Fla. More information is available at www.M3AS.com. 

“If we are to continue to be an industry leader, we must have the ability to meet the requirements of our stakeholders and provide accurate, real-time and relevant information for our management team and owners,” said LBA President Beau Benton.  

continue to be an industry leader, we must have the ability to meet the requirements of our stakeholders and provide accurate, real-time and relevant information for our management team and owners,” said LBA President Beau Benton.  

3 October 2012 Benchmark Powers Expansion with Centralized Accounting Platform Management by the Numbers: Benchmark Integrates New Properties into Company Management Processes Quickly with ‘Private-Cloud’ Back Office System

Successful management comes from by-the-numbers decisions

Basing day-to-day management decisions on the numbers is another big part of successful management in today's economy. At one time, we had to wait until month end or later to see property financials. We do not have that luxury today, so we built a centralized 'private cloud' technology hub and data gathering platform. Now our managers make decisions based on month-to-date performance every morning.

Make a Green Choice (MAGC) Make a Green Choice (MAGC) is our guest-facing sustainability and loyalty program in which our guests can choose to help reduce our environmental footprint. Any guest at a participating SPG hotel can Make a Green Choice by forgoing full housekeeping for up to three days in a row (excluding their check-out day). For each night a guest opts into MAGC, they receive 250-500 Starpoints or a $5/5€ Food & Beverage voucher, while helping to reduce the use of water, energy and chemicals. Sustainable Food & Beverage We aim to integrate leading sustainable and social practices and principles into our core Food & Beverage strategy and operations. We are working to reduce the negative impacts of our business while supporting locally sourced ingredients and their suppliers. View Sustainable Food & Beverage Policy (PDF) Sustainable Meeting Practices (SMP) Sustainable Meeting Practices (SMP) includes a globally aligned collection of initiatives that integrate environmental and social concerns into the meeting process. This includes a Meeting Impact Report that calculates the carbon footprint of a customer’s meeting, tracks the sustainable practices incorporated during the event, and provides the ability to offset the meeting’s carbon footprint.

When Tetherow, a now 700-acre resort in Bend, Oregon, first opened as a golf course and clubhouse in 2008, we were a small business with big ambitions.

Today, Tetherow is made up of twenty individual entities rolled into one wholly owned subsidiary, including a 50-room boutique hotel, a pool, two restaurants, vacation rental homes, an events pavilion, a recreation center, a golf academy, and various residential neighborhoods, as well as the 18-course golf course that started it all. In addition to our leadership team, our rapid growth has been led by our financial team’s investment in a technology that allows us to grow fast, under pressure, and with limited risk.

We came to realize that the technology and accounting systems that we had added piecemeal over the years to support our burgeoning business, a combination of Jonas restaurant software, QuickBooks, and Excel, didn’t allow us to scale and sustain growth.

Adam Stewart, CEO of the award-winning Sandals Resorts International, today gave top marks to LIME, the Caribbean division of Cable & Wireless Communications.

"The hospitality industry expects and deserves the best in communication services - our guests look forward to communicating back home to share their experiences and demand speed, reliability and stability," said Mr. Stewart.

Other businesses in the Caribbean that have dealt with LIME immediately congratulated The Bahamas on the choice of company.

allowing customers to order ahead

consumers today value personalized, contextual mobile engagement, built around their current location, interests and buying preferences.

80% of consumers prefer receiving personalized, context-aware branded content through their mobile app.

cloud-based telephony system for guests and staff, and future-proof its voice network. T

Naples Grande Beach Resort now enjoys integrated voice communications with enhanced call routing across the property, PMS integration for seamless guest service, and a future-ready infrastructure, featuring a cloud-based system that will not depreciate or degrade over time

"With Cloud5's hosted solution, our systems are always current with the latest software functionality, without the need to purchase future expensive upgrades or interrupt hotel operations. We're always operating with the most advanced features that allow us to deliver fast, reliable guest service across our expansive resort. This upgrade has even reduced monthly telecommunications expenses which adds value directly to our bottom-line."

When we deployed Aptech’s PVNG Enterprise Accounting this February we did not plan for a pandemic, but PVNG has been instrumental in our business continuity because now we can oversee financial performance and effectively manage operations remotely,” said Joshua M. Morgan, CHTP, director of technology and infrastructure for Horizon Properties Group, LLC.

Horizon Hospitality LLC specializes in hotel ownership, partner relationships, and hotel management services. Its portfolio includes Hilton, Marriott, and independent properties.

PVNG is an enterprise hotel accounting software financial system that supports one property or large multi-brand, multi-property portfolios. It uses the most current technology platform incorporating AP, GL, A/R, statistics, financials, and bank reconciliation with easy to use browser navigation. Aptech is an IBM Premier Solution Provider and Prophix Premier Business Partner offering web-enabled business intelligence, budgeting, and hotel accounting software

Brain computer interfaces (BCIs) are slowly moving into the mass market. In the next few years, we might be able to control our PowerPoint presentation or Excel files using only our brains. And companies may want to use BCI technology to monitor the attention levels and mental states of their employees

imagine if you could prepare your next presentation using only your thoughts. These scenarios might soon become a reality thanks to the development of brain-computer interfaces (BCIs).

I expect to see a growing number of professionals leveraging BCI tools to improve their performance at work. For example, your BCI could detect that your attention level is too low compared with the importance of a given meeting or task and trigger an alert. It could also adapt the lighting of your office based on how stressed you are, or prevent you from using your company car if drowsiness is detected.

The concept of eMarketing has gone beyond the traditional 4 “P’s” of marketing

Therefore there are 10 areas around which we are going to build our strategy,

Before getting started we have to know our clients and market well.

Our Classic magstripe locks do not store critical security information within individual locks, such as master key information, and any service device must authenticate itself through diversified encryption methods to gain access to the lock software

VingCard Elsafe’s locks can also detect tampering and work to alert hotel security staff using the company’s VISIONLINE system. “[The VISIONLINE system] incudes alarms to alert the hotel front desk if someone attempts to tamper with a door lock as well as providing real time alerts to the hotel’s security staff when activity is detected that a card is being misused,”

Other alarms include detecting that a door is forced open, left open, or ‘mule tool’ intrusions when a door is opened from the inside handle without an occupant in the room.”