Group items tagged

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.

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

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.

How does the Information Technology team in any hospitality environment respond to

echnology snafus that impact

ervice delivery?

Are IT teams oriented or trained to understand that they are providing customer service to internal customers, the employees and do they comprehend the behaviors that will add or decrease anxiety in these anxiety –producing situations?

They are trained to understand the intricacies and nuances of machines, software and the internet. They are probably not trained to understand the intricacies and nuances of the humans and the emotions around them. Frontline personnel are trained to anticipate, be proactive and responsive to guest needs. Technology teams are trained to anticipate, analyze and be responsive to machine and software needs. Integrating the two philosophies and approaches can lead to productive new strategies to benefit both employees and guests.

Now, with additional hi-tech duties and guest needs for immediate access to wireless and the ability to set up their hotel room office away from home as soon as they arrive, expectations are higher.

Understanding the big picture and all the sensitivities involved can be powerful to share with IT teams.

Providing a deeper understanding works both ways to create the most effective guest service strategies. IT teams can explain what it takes to analyze and solve problems to frontline teams. Frontline teams can explain to IT how guests react and what type of communication would be helpful to them and enhance service delivery. Developing effective working relationships between these two very different employee ‘cultures’ may seem obvious but is often neglected and that’s when misunderstandings occur.

Other areas impacted by the IT/frontline interface include the hotel’s website, customer loyalty tracking systems, data collection, meeting planner specs, reviews and responses to them and especially now social media.

Include and provide Guest Service training to all employees involved in IT or technology efforts. If any services are outsourced, make sure a representative of that company or key points of contact are integrated into the hotel’s guest service philosophy and standards

Design service standards for the IT team

Focus on internal communications between the IT teams and other parts of the hotel or business

With the market continuing to be extremely competitive, revenue management and channel optimization remain key focal areas of investment for publicly traded companies as well as independently owned organizations alike.

Enhancements to CRM and loyalty programs are also on the list of investment directives.  A number of responses (almost 70 percent) indicated that they were targeting business intelligence (BI) initiatives for the coming year as part of their technical focus and in an effort to become more strategic in managing the business and targeted revenue focus. 

The investment in guest experience technology continues to be strong as hotels attract guests to hotels. There continues to be increased expenditures on key drivers such as improved Wi-Fi service, self-service mobility applications and expanding the in-room offerings.

With a number of breaches within the hospitality industry this past year, and other large corporate breaches such as Yahoo headlining the news, this continues to be an area of concern. 

With the sophistication of the threats and the possibility of breaches increasing, companies are looking to outsource their information security/cybersecurity requirements to third-party service partners that specialize in countering these risks.

in recent years corporations are beginning to understand that investment in human resources is one of the most important assets they have.  A recent Forbes article referenced the Deloitte Global Human Capital Trends Research analysis, which said, 78 percent of business leaders rate retention and engagement as being urgent or important. 

While managing Big Data has long been an Achilles heel for most companies, most would agree that there are significant competitive advantages that can be gained from being able to effectively manage the information.  With a number of respondents targeting CRM projects for the coming year, the promise of being able to effectively target individual guest preferences becomes more obtainable.

A significant number of companies are continuing to look at transitioning to cloud-based applications for some of their applications.  However, more than 80 percent indicated that they are not ready to transition all of their applications to the cloud. 

With more than 70 percent of respondents reporting that they expect an increase in their IT spend this coming year and only 10 percent expecting a decrease, 2017 promises to be a good year for the hospitality technology industry.  Most respondents indicated that their primary reason for investing in new technology was to improve their customer engagement and experience.  This was closely followed by their directive to make operations more streamlined and efficient.

expertise and special business relationships

(they’re heavily used for luxury, corporate, and group travel

they have seen a surge in demand in recent years

their time-saving, stress-relieving, and problem-solving skills.

Travel agents are useful if you’re doing a very costly or complex trip, planning a honeymoon or something fancy, or traveling with a large group.

Internet has made it easier to book your own travels, but with that comes informational overload.

Travel agents are for people who don’t want to spend hours researching their trips, are not experienced travelers, or are traveling in such a large group that the economics and logistics of booking it yourself do your head in. I’m not surprised that travel agents have seen a rise in usage of the last few years, especially among millennials who try to outsource time intensive activities.

GDSs function as an umbrella for many many CRS systems. It’s like a CRS motherboard. (In fact, many vendors outsource their CRS systems to a GDS.)

on of the GDS . . . travel agents have access to zillions of different airline fares, and many airlines’ inventory is accessible to the zillions of travel agents who are booking flights for their many many clients.

Using a GDS is a technical skill (think computer coding), and to use it really well is an art.

If you are a leisure travel agent, there’s a huge whopping huge chance that you don’t need to use a GDS.

The GUI is the point-and-click version of the GDS.

its current stage of development, even GUI users need to understand the language of the green screen

interface, the code that comes back still has important information like fare types and rules that the agents really needs to understand

In short, debit memos are fines to travel agencies for making a mistake when booking with the GDS. Yes, even an itty bitty innocent mistake or typo

This is why a host agency cannot afford to let a new agent use the GDS without rigorous training. It’s just too risky.

nd if you miss your goals? Expect there to be financial penalties.

defends against online food ordering and delivery platforms

Guests can visit the website or scan the RoomOrder QR code displayed in their hotel room,

Guests can then scroll through images of menu items, place an order

in a few clicks from their room, or in transit, and track delivery time.

the global food delivery mobile application market was pegged at $3.79 billion in 2017 and is projected to reach $16.61 billion by 2023, registering a compound annual growth rate of 27.9% from 2017 to 2023.

Fin Point in Boston Hilton Downtown was the first to trial RoomOrders

Hilton Sydney and Hilton Belgrade have become the latest hotels to implement RoomOrders last month with sensational early results

RoomOrders helps hotels answer dilemmas between in-house and outsourcing room orders

easy to implement as it requires no special or dedicated hardware

language barriers as it’s multilingual, reprinting menus for seasonal dishes, guests getting a busy signal or being placed on hold, and staff members not being able to provide detailed information about the menu.

“These are the kinds of things we are thinking of recreating and redefining for the Panera of the future, which is going to be more off-premise-oriented, and led by technology and convenience,”

Besides smaller physical footprints, other aspects of Panera 2.0 will include delivery-centric ghost kitchens and mobile kitchens

An online version of catering will look like all of us sitting around a Zoom meeting with our food arriving at the same time

That is a disruptive way of serving the same needs consumers have in a different way that is more convenient and relevant in a world that looks different.

The pandemic has changed the way operators should approach convenience technology

Chaudhary said they’re looking at other forms of technology like touchless kiosks where instead of tapping a screen to place their order, customers might use hand gestures instead like giving a thumbs up, for example. This way, they can leverage consumer needs for contactless experiences without sacrificing engagement.

A disruptive model is a hybrid of both [third-party and in-house delivery],” Chaudhary said. “We might leverage our existing drivers for orders and every time we need some help, we can outsource it. These are examples in this new world of us being able to innovate, to improve and strengthen our business model

The Marriott mobile app is accessible globally, allowing access to book rooms in over 3500 properties.

A very important aspect of mobile tech is providing staff the essential tools to deliver outstanding experiences

Hotels can actively analyze this huge collection of guest data to understanding and anticipating guest demands for superior experiences. 

This data is also being used by hotels to deliver guests with more personalized experiences.

New technologies and upgrades will make service delivery easier for staff, while hotel guests will experience a completely new service delivery process. 

Hotels can then use these very valuable user preferences to delight the guests when they visit next with already personalized rooms and local services.

Technology investment decisions should be outsourced to professional hospitality technology managers who have a better understanding.

Cloud technology is a brilliant solution for hoteliers to innovate data management, property management, and information technology services.

Therefore, cloud infrastructure will be one of the most important investment decisions for hotels in the coming year. 

Hotels are actively delivering IoT solutions by offering guests unlimited room control through mobile apps and in-room tablets.

Technology investments are also bound to make back office operations like revenue, procurement, and maintenance simpler.   

Know the total cost of all facility work done both directly and indirectly. “To the untrained eye, the facilities maintenance arm of a business appears to be a black hole of cost. The costs of these FM services add up, and unless discrepancies arise, that is where most of the business analysis ends. However, facilities maintenance managers, who are privy to all of the nuances that make up eac

h work order, understand the complexities and overhead involved in this sector of business.

Consider less obvious improvements that impact facility energy use. “Some energy-related projects will be more or less hidden from the users and primarily pursued to reduce energy demand, such as chiller and fan-unit upgrades. Such projects may end up providing the building users with better temperature control, but this is not the primary goal of the upgrade

Operational changes such as reducing the hours of HVAC and lighting operation, and changing setback temperatures, which require very little expenditure (if any at all) do not directly affect user experience, but can produce large reductions in electricity loads. In general, working with the building operations team to reduce energy use can produce impressive reductions in loa

his allows building and facility management professionals to determine whether the cost to improve a particular element of a building or a system in it against the cost savings over the same period. If the cost of an upgrade over its lifetime offers an advantage over the building operational costs it will save, then it’s generally considered a good investmen

“Finding the right suppliers to maintain your facilities can be difficult and time-consuming. From janitorial services, to groundskeeping and maintenance supplies, ensuring suppliers are providing apples-to-apples quotes, developing contracts with clear service levels, and validating that supplier quality

“Boilers today can reach efficiencies of up to 96 percent using condensing technology; however, a typical building, including new buildings, uses atmospheric type boilers which, for all intents and purposes, are only slightly more advanced than a science lab Bunsen burner. This technology is reliable and it works, but it is expensive to operate

An energy audit systematically identifies and develops opportunities to help reduce energy use in an institutional or commercial facility and, as a result, decrease building operating costs. Focusing the audit is imperative for maintenance and engineering managers.

“Commercial kitchens are high energy users, consuming roughly 2.5 times more energy per square foot than any other commercial space, according to the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).  Of that, as little as 40% is used in the preparation and storage of food, says the UK’s Carbon Trust; much of the wasted energy is dispersed into the kitchen.

All commercial buildings are insulated; building codes make it mandatory to insulate up to  a certain level. Unfortunately, because most buildings are put up under strict guidance to budgets, they are usually put up with only the minimal amount of insulation

Develop performance measures for your PM process with an emphasis on measuring the amount of PM that is work completed compared to all other work. Total PM hours should be the highest percentage of all the department’s maintenance work. This goal might seem impossible, but over time, it is very achievable

“Preventative maintenance is all about planning, plain and simple. Every piece of equipment or machinery at your disposal or under your care should have a schedule of what type of maintenance it requires and when it requires that check-up.

“Failure modes are defined as “how something fails.” Let’s use a flat/membrane roof to show an example of what a failure mode is. On a flat/membrane roof, one failure mode may be “penetration of roof membrane,” and the causes of this failure mode could be many. Knowing the failure mode(s) of a specific maintainable item such as a membrane roof and its causes can be key to early detection of roof failure (not meeting the intent of the end user) so the repair can be made before it affects an operatio

“Catch small problems now before they become big ones. Addressing small details can add up to huge improvements in appearance and functionality. Ask your facilities services provider, janitorial company

You may schedule preventive maintenance based on meter readings on an equipment. However, equipment meters usually do not differentiate between work time and idle time

Greasing the rack and pinion of a beam saw, for instance, can cause grease and saw dust to solidify inside the gears over time, eventually preventing them from moving. If you’re unsure which tasks are beneficial to each piece of equipment, ask your equipment representative.”

Having spare parts and supplies around the time of a major preventive maintenance schedule is absolutely critical. Asset management software allows you to check the availability of the spare parts for dates when the work orders are due. This report can help you identify parts that are insufficient for the required work orders in the future. If you know which parts you are falling short on, you can order them in advance from suppliers rather than waiting till re-order limits are reached

“Appropriate repetition and reinforcement are necessary. The average person is bombarded with more than 300 messages while at work, and multiples of that outside of work, Finney says. Getting a message to land with an audience might take as many as 12 repetitions, in some cases, he says

Let’s get together: when you’re designing your facilities, design social spaces for your employees. These might be lunch or break rooms, games rooms, gyms, or even community gardens.

While other managers may work to manage clients or staff, your job is to manage facilities and all that occurs in them. Your corporation’s physical assets are just as important as your human resources, and you are the expert in this field. Whether it’s collating data or contributing to the organization’s bottom line, your input is a valuable part of corporate decision-making

 “Workplace inclusion has to be clearly defined before any initiatives can be pushed forward. One useful definition of an inclusive office is a workplace in which all staff are treated with respect and have equal access to resources and opportunities. Facility managers should build on this high-level description to create an idea of what concepts like equal access, diversity and fairness look like in their own facilities

Space costs money. Knowing that we are moving towards a working environment consisting of virtual or mobile workers, investing time in developing new workplace designs that can suit these new ways of working while increasing space utilization rates can result in impressive cost savings

Performing facility maintenance and engineering tasks is like sailing among icebergs. What technicians can’t see will sink them — or their facilities. Thermal imaging technology gives technicians the ability to see the unseen, making it easier to spot failing motors and electrical components,

This concept is broadly used to describe our attempt to formally identify in-house talent in many of our labor shops. We identify talent through a competitive selection process based on potential vs. skills and promote our selected personnel to the worker and helper level while training them to achieve appropriate full mechanic level with associated certifications/licenses

This directly leads to the client receiving a more fit-for-purpose solution and ultimately receiving greater value which grows a greater relationship.

In other words, there has to be a compelling reason based on our mission for why we would submit budgets for anything.” By presenting specific information on how and why you’ve chosen your budget numbers, you can help the C-suite see that your budget is well within reason

When you automate the work order process, you remove human error associated with it. Essentially, you’re taking the people out of the process and ensuring nothing gets missed or overlooked

“There are many different software options out there than can aid FMs in organizing and streamlining their everyday tasks. This ranges from software designed to help manage all maintenance activities to logging and tracking facility visitors for security purposes. 

uch smart sensors, operating costs are dramatically reduced, productivity is enhanced, and occupants’ comfort is improved.

“One of the most exciting features of Facilities Management software is the ability to manage heating and cooling remotely, or set a programmable thermostat to move set temperatures up or down throughout the day. Facilities planners love the ability to analyze and explore energy use from heating and cooling systems

“Maintenance and facilities administration systems must frequently abide by national and global regulatory requirements. All maintenance administrators face occasional random or audits inspections by regulatory authorities. Maintenance software enables you to prove regulatory conformity and decrease the amount of paperwork and preparation that is needed for an audit.

KPIs allude to opportunities and errors in your company. Paired with the Internet of Things (IoT) and energy management systems, KPIs can be used to highlight missed maintenance tasks, greater traffic area of your business or problems with machinery

“Closely monitoring energy and water use to reduce building-operating costs is another benefit. By allowing owners to monitor and analyze the performance of multiple systems—air-conditioning levels, lights on automatic dimmers, water usage

“A feature that’s gaining a lot of ground is using facial recognition technology to let people in and out of the building. It’s more secure than key fobs or cards, and unlike cards and fobs, you can’t forget your face at home. It’s like batting a triple, or killing three birds with one stone

You cannot do your job properly without the correct information. If you don’t have proper records on the state of your facilities, you can’t do your job as a facilities manager.

“A surprising number of facilities managers have no true system in place for managing their space.  More than a quarter of everyone interviewed – 28 percent –

. It may help significantly with compliance with various industry standards, such as HIPAA in the healthcare industry and Sarbanes-Oxley in the financial field. It can help to document best practices for avoiding accidents, or in the worst case scenario,

This method identifies how critical a piece of equipment or maintenance task is to your business and will ultimately show you where it should land in your prioritization process

Smartsheet is a spreadsheet that you share with your co-workers, but its features go far beyond Excel. This tool combines the traditional spreadsheet with project management tools, templates, and forms and allows you and your colleagues to access spreadsheets on mobile devices and work on them collaboratively

The business world is increasingly embracing a larger remote workforce. Offices are used as areas to collaborate, develop, and design new ideas. The day-to-day work can be, and often is, done from home

“Another possibility for cutting costs, say experts, is not just moving staff around, but moving work around also. This means carefully examining all outsourcing contracts to see if they can be scaled back and the work completed by in-house staff

“Verify assets from a minimum of two data points, such as the barcode and the item’s serial number.

After collecting data and developing a maintenance schedule for your assets, you need to plan for the long-term maintenance of your asset inventory

However good asset management and maintenance planning is, there comes a time when an asset reaches the end of its useful life and should be disposed of.

“If you’re trying to get a handle of your documents, the first thing you should do is an asset assessment. Detail the condition of all the main equipment and systems, and document those conditions

Strategic asset management integrates key relationships between planning and delivery activities.

Maximize your use of vertical cubic footage by placing seasonal products or those that move less frequently in harder-to-reach vertical storage areas

Most crucially, a cybersecurity strategy must include a solid plan for Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery in order to prepare for any worst-case scenarios. In the era of COVID-19, incidents of the worst kind are fast emerging and businesses deserve a fighting chance to succeed.

Today, the systems used for various functions in a hotel’s back and front operations are manned by employees who are not yet well-equipped to pick up on and counter large-scale cyber-attacks until it’s too late.

Mobile phones, tables and laptops connected to open networks become a hunting ground for hackers to harvest banking details through card payments. 

While financial services and the public sector have been forced to endure an endless stream of cybercrime, the hospitality industry has also become a prime contender for hackers in the wake of its rich data-base. 

No matter the size of the business, inefficient cyber support diverts crucial time from business activities and relationships with customers.

With global business fighting relentlessly to survive against the chaotic threat of the Coronavirus, all industries are exposed to criminal cyber-threats, and so the security of highly sensitive data must be handled appropriately.

British Airways and Marriott International are two major hospitality companies to be victims of high-profile breaches in recent memory. They serve as a stark reminder of the heavy costs faced when the safety of customers’ data is compromised. 

While your cloud provider will be responsible for infrastructure needs such as storage, outsources will be taking care of compute and networking, specific needs such as data, visibility, AI and ML technology, or IoT.

As cloud costs get taken under control, businesses will have more revenue at their disposal to take advantage of these solutions that beat their specific industry challenges. In turn, providers will look to push out innovation that is easily accessible to a wide audience, has a low learning curve, low-code interface, and is more democratized overall, so that anyone can reap the rewards. Without the need for a team of data scientists, organizations will begin to see the benefits of Machine Learning, AI, and automation in a very tangible way to solve and enhance business strategy and an exciting cloud trend in 2020.

new online stores have, in turn, increased demand and the number of users, putting pressure on traditional retailers to create an e-commerce presence as well.

eWallet acts as an information-handler by providing online purchasers a way to automatically provide their information to any vendor.

Web technology is characterized by rapid breakthroughs in software and hardware.

the cost barrier to entry in the web market is virtually zero

small new companies do not have a formal infrastructure through which strategic ideas get squandered.

While new agents can partially navigate the GDS with the GUI interface, the code that comes back still has important information like fare types and rules that the agents really needs to understand. So many agents, in the end, need to learn the green screen (and find it faster) regardless.

One of the reasons that most leisure agents don’t need the GDS is because the air will be included in a vacation package by the tour operator, or you can book it with the cruise line and you don’t need to use the GDS.

Global Distribution System (GDS) is a travel agent’s motherboard for booking airline tickets and other sorts of travel goodies (like hotel and car)

It can be easy to confuse the GDS with a Central Reservation System or Computerized Reservation System (CRS). CRSs are automated inventory-tracking systems that were (originally) owned and run by individual vendors (like airlines, car companies and hotels).

GDSs function as an umbrella for many many CRS systems. It’s like a CRS motherboard. (In fact, many vendors outsource their CRS systems to a GDS.)

an show you many fares from multiple airlines, but it also offers a great depth of information about each flight in one place. The carrier, the times, the costs, the class of the seat, aircraft type and so much more. It’s a smorgasbord of options. So if you’re bookin

This is key to the success of a hotel group in a market where 1) mobile booking on travel websites are increasing at a faster rate (20% annually) than desktop bookings (2% annually), 2) 21% of bookings are originating from smart phones and tablets, and 3) 12% of mobile bookings are implemented by Apps

Cloud computing has been used for tourism management, for example to rank popular tourism destinations in cities

Cloud computing is a technology that allows the provision and utilization of resources over the internet in lieu of installations on a desktop computer

cloud computing de nition: Private, Public, Community and Hybrid clouds.

After the 2008 recession, when lowering costs was a key objective for hotels, PAR Springer-Miller, introduced ATRIO as the Next Generation Hospitality Management Software 3 into the market.

The cloud related challenges that have stood out from the hotel groups responses were a) the increase in Opex (OPerating EXpense), b) restricted access to the environments and c) concerns about information security.

how a Quality of Service (QoS) ranking mechanism enables cloud applications such as airline ticketing systems, hotel booking services and car rental services to interact with each other to deliver services to their customers.

OPERA property management system cloud application in over 850 of their hotels. The hotel management system is no longer maintained on the hotel premises and storage of their data is outsourced (MICROS Systems Inc., 2013).

InterContinental Hotels Group were able to eliminate hardware infrastructure costs and centralize management activities such as updating prices, at the touch of a button across sixty one of their UK properties by adopting a cloud solution for their restaurant point of sale systems called SIMPHONY

Cloud computing is the only way forward for hospitality.

The distribution of the usage of cloud information system (IS) or on-premise IS in the studied hotel groups shows that the majority of IS used by hotel groups were running on the cloud, and that the smallest (in terms of number of rooms) hotel groups' (group 2) level of cloud adoption is equivalent to that of the largest (group 4).

The most common two bene ts identi ed are: 1) solving the problem of lack of hardware on site, and 2)transferring the risk relating to security and PCI / PA-DSS requirements to the cloud service suppliers.

traditional telephone system to a cloud based VoIP solution which is integrated to their SaaS hotel management system solution provided by Protel (16).

Alternatively, it could be due to the change in process experienced by IT Managers and now having to depend on a third party for issues which previously could be quickly checked and resolved with servers being on site.

The challenge which received the highest average rank (12.38 points) by the participants was the Dependency on bandwidth whilst that of least signi cance was the issue of Software licensing (3.38 points)

Outsourcing can speed up development and deployment – but has huge security implications so vendor evaluations need to be thorough.  

Data compliance and cybersecurity training should occur annually, at least. “Secret shopper”-style testing can happen year-round.

For example, is the vendor in a secure financial situation? Does its geography or location create vulnerabilities? How does it secure its data and property?

Nearly 90% of hacking incidents involved some sort of credential abuse. Hotels can activate multifactor authentication to improve security instantly.

Create a standard interrogation procedure to evaluate and measure the stability of each potential partner and solution

Being prepared can minimize the impact of an attack or data breach.

As cyber threats increase, large groups and conventions may require cyber insurance as part of their booking contract.

A consistent and thorough evaluation process can lead hotels toward a solution that works for everyone – creating a secure and efficient work environment and a safe and inviting guest experience.