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Green Path Transfers are a a fairly new Eco-friendly airport transfer and ground transportation network. The goal is to offer safe and professional transportation in global markets to travelers. In addition Green Path Transfers are focusing on a low carbon movement in the future. The company has partnered with companies using low-emission vehicles and these vehicles are clearly marked in the search results of the website, in order to allow the customer a completely transparent booking and check-out process with the vehicle of their choice. Their customers consist of leisure travelers, corporate travelers and their distribution partners, such as hotels and flights.

This article is eye-opening as it proves how important technology such as HRIS systems are within the Hospitality industry. This article does this by describing common human errors that occur when working with data and then immediately providing ways that these errors can be avoided or limited by the use of this technology. For instance, the article states "It can become challenging to track each employee's availability and providing updates to all of your staff as soon as possible." The next section responds to this situation with "Having an employee time tracking tool that's integrated with your payroll system ensures that all data can easily be found in one place. This eliminates the need for multiple systems, where information can be easily misplaced." The industry is ever-changing thus it is becoming increasingly more difficult to keep up with all of the duties. Moreover, human error will always exist as we are not perfect. For these reasons, businesses need to incorporate technology systems to create a more productive and effective workplace.

This article goes over the importance of HRIS in regards to the employees. It talks about how the employee must be comfortable with the process and understand it as well. They must have a good experience with it.

The article give information regarding four global paths through which IT can impact hotel performance. The conducted research by doing a survey on 30 managers of hotels around different areas. The research was extensive and brought information that will be useful for IT and hotels in the future.

The Sabre Eco-Certified Hotel Program builds upon Travelocity's Green Hotel Directory, launched in 2009, and extends the program company-wide to recognize hotels that are certified as sustainable according to the Global Sustainable Tourism Council's guidelines. Travelocity is still the only major online travel company that helps users find green hotels with an eco-friendly tag.The program addresses travelers' growing desire for environmentally responsible accommodations and includes more than 4,700 hotels certified by globally-recognized certification programs. The 4,700+ hotels participating in the program will be clearly distinguished in Sabre's Global Distribution System (GDS) and reflected in other Sabre platforms. Sabre is keenly focused on the economic, social and environmental sustainability of the travel industry and we are committed to providing our customers with products and services that help them promote these same long-term values throughout their businesses." In addition, Sabre's resolve that standards are important for the travel industry directed an industry-leading path for standards with the introduction of carbon calculation and reporting tools for airlines, hotels, and car rental companies.

GDS systems are predominantly used by travel agencies to book both individual and corporate travel. By expanding their listings to Travelport and Amadeus, Southwest opens themselves up to increases in bookings but also potentially moving into better competition with larger airlines. Moving into these systems also allows them to offer further NDC enabled content, such as fare bundles and checked bags, helping to build even more bookings.

Southwest has always been on the outskirts when it comes to the top airlines. The "big three" are known as American, Delta and United. In order for Southwest to stay in the game, they are providing full content in Amadeus and Travelport systems. Amadeus is known for its European market and Travelport is known for its US market. Southwest already belongs to Sabre, which is also a US market. However, "those offerings will both complement and exceed Southwest's current limited-content availability on Sabre" (Silk). Henry Hartveldt states that "given Sabre's leading presence in the U.S. market, Southwest will elevate its participation in the Sabre GDS as well" (Silk). Of course, by only belonging to one GDS presence, Southwest was not able to compete with the big three, however, now Southwest is back in the game. In order to sell your tickets, you must be available in the channels that customers prefer to use. Southwest realized that "they had to go down that path or be left behind" (Silk). Vlitas believes that "Southwest's broader entry into the GDSs will result in the legacy carriers boosting the incentives they offer corporate and leisure agencies" (Silk). Other airlines may fear more GDS entries from other airlines, however, it is clear that GDS is here to stay.

Network redundancy is the process of adding network devices and other instances of communication lines to help ensure network availability and reduce the risk of failures on critical data paths. One of the first steps in the network redundancy plan is to create a network strategy that reviews the existing infrastructure. A high-quality hosted data center should have an extensive backup system to ensure that it is always available. All valuable data should be backed up regularly, preferably in another location. By using multiple data centers, companies can ensure that even if certain disasters occur, they will be able to proceed with minimal losses. In addition, a well-maintained UPS system ensures that the server can be switched from power to backup generator power without losing any data or applications.

A network outage whether it is due to a cyber attack or simple human error can be devastating to a company. It makes them look very bad, damaging their reputation, and can cost the business millions of dollars. Network Redundancy can help ensure network availability and decrease the risk of failure. There are 2 forms of redundancy. Fault Tolerance where there is a mirrored backup system that takes over with no loss of service, and High Availability where the backup servers take over and restart applications that were running on the failed server.

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.

The article tells us how the social networks important to the hotel business. The study shows the network and social media are benefit to hotel marketing. And the ARCOTEL sees this potential opportunity in social media and network application Facebook. Nowadays, the network and some third party such as kayak, priceline provide many hotels boost in booking and increase in guest loyalty and public relation. But study shows that only 24 percent of the users would like to join hotel profiles on Facebook. The ARCOTEL hotels have integrated the apps into their Facebook sites. By using this app, the fans can directly book their favourite hotel and read ratings and other information through the app. The social media will get after them to offer excellent services. Both of them were done on the internet. At the same time, the fans who use the app to book hotel will also get prize draws, special discounts or a user-friendly booking function with extra tools. Although the network has given the hotel a instrument to contact with the guest, the modern technology still can not replace the classical booking and marketing paths, the network is just like the catalyst. As the internet business is rapidly growing worldwide. Hotels have to focus on combine their classical marketing with new technologies such as smartphones, ipad and facebook. They will help the hotel gain business and be success.

This article deals with the necessity to assist military veterans through all the internet marketing on colleges. Veterans or soon to be veterans can find it very hard to weed through all the internet information there is on colleges and which is the best for you to choose. One Marine veteran Paul Szoldra had this problem, he thought a good college would be one that was expensive with a low population, therefore a low student to teacher ratio, not true. To assist other veterans trying to locate a college that is suitable and is not looking for the monies that the GI Bill will provide the institution he created CollegeVeterans.com and created Change.org an online petition to rank colleges that best provide for veterans. President Obama has also pass an executive order to address these veteran issues at institutes of learning making it mandatory to have certified veteran advisers that will lead and insure veterans are not taken down a wrong path with their education benefits or other federal benefits vice more costly loans or funding to the veteran. Some more important factors that a veteran should do is research the institute they wish to attend, e-mail the veteran representative at the institute to get some insight on the institute, there is nothing like communicating with someone who know and cares about you and will help you to avoid the marketing pitfalls, and last look for institutions that have veteran assistance, look for the institute offering military credit towards education in the field you wish to enter.

"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.

During the recent solar eclipse the hotels located on the path of totality got an increase on their revenue. The greatest increase on the occupancy rate was the night before the event but also the following days. Apparently customers took advantage of this natural event to explore the areas that they were visiting. The most incredible point for me , is that the main part of such event , it lasted less than 2 minutes, which it was the moment of total eclipse. These 2 minutes of total darkness had a geographic path were it could be seem from, therefore, those 2 minutes were the responsible for such a great episode in our industry. Some cities were not prepare for this touristic wave as they are not popular destination in general. Some other cities had a great number of accommodations therefore these ones had great deal of business. Regardless, the number were so scandalous for the average revenue this time of the year "that was enough to lift performance results for the entire country last week." Important to mention as well that most of the hotel were located in non-urban areas which requires a certain type of customer but it did not matter in this case. We need more solar eclipses everybody.

What an informative article! In my own opinion, the following article gave a great insight to investing in technology within the hospitality industry. The 5 helpful tips they provided within the article are the following; get to know your guest first, balance technology with the human touch, invest in mobile based technologies, try before you commit, and future-proof your technology investments. Each of these suggestions truly would make a huge impact within the hotel industry if followed and practiced. In my own opinion, the most vital thing to be sure of when introducing new technologies into your business is to make sure you have the right balance of human connection and technologies. Like stated in the article, technology is not meant to be an aid or replacement for face-to-face staff and guest interaction. New technologies are giving the industry the ability to provide fresh ways to deliver high quality experiences to keep pace with rising customer expectations.

The article highlights 5 things a hotel leader should consider before they decide to invest in IT. The goal is to ensure the investment truly helps grow the firm's bottom line, is inclusive with the human resources operating within the establishment, and is in align with current long-term trends and not just fad investments. The article helps connect the dots on what makes IT investment risky or an essential path to success.

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.

In the article, "Travel Agents Increase Use of GDS to Book Hotel Rooms," it talked about how the leading global provider of revenue is generating solutions for hotels, it shows how important GDS platforms are to travel agents. "84 percent of respondents indicated that they were using their GDS platform the same amount or more often than in the past, with 35 percent stating that they are using GDS more." Back in 2009, when the last study was conducted, about 26 percents of travel agents said that they used their GDS platform more often than in the past. This study also states that the annual GDS shopping displays will be over $50 million in 2011, which will increase more than a million bookings compared to 2010. There was another survey that was done and they surveyed different travel agents from across the world that were subscribed to a major GDS system. In the survey the travel agents indicated that promotional messages are effective and often prompt bookings. Out of the travel agents they surveyed, 66% said that they were aware of the "promotional messages requested addition information by looking at the screen attached to he promotional message." From this survey it showed that promotional messages are an excellent way to reach travel agents and from reaching the agent, they also reaching the customer, it's a win-win reaction.

I enjoyed the part about brand and promotional messaging, that is always a lure for me. When I see an attractive offer, evern If I'm not interested in booking or going to the destination, I often click on it anyway just to see the offer. It is a very effective marketing tool.

This article describes how many companies are reluctant to add "green" initiatives. However, it notes that this is a growing and important area that many companies are deciding to become involved in because of its importance. Moreover, it points out that by reducing the power consumption of computers in a business the effect is to produce a green result. Additionally, this not only saves the company money, but it also has the result of being a good public relations outcome. Then, the company can advertise how it is following a greener path.

I found this article very interesting because it gives us a walk through of the evolution of POS in the hospitality industry. Since the very beginning hotels and restaurants have relied on keeping record and storing data. Throughout the years there have been great breakthroughs that have made the life of the employees easier as well as lead to greater productivity. It makes me happy and feel very fortunate to live in times where work has been facilitated and has made work for efficient and reliable. I am sure that there is still much work to be done and many adjustments to be made but we are on a good path.

I like your reflection about the article very much because as you mentioned "it walk you through" the different stages of technology through time. Our industry had evolute from the paper record keeper all the way to a very efficient data storage and operating systems. I cannot even imagine what the future will withhold for the lodging industry.

Network redundancy is the process of enhancing network devices and lines of communication to help safeguard network availability and decrease the risk of failure along the critical data path. Redundancy in networks purpose is to help eliminate specific areas of failure to guarantee better network stability and availability when the network would otherwise be offline. Optimize network redundancy by backing up data offsite and conductions frequent test to measure its durability and maintain it. Protect the network from malicious attacks is also important. By creating plans for when attacks occur by rerouting network services.

The stakes of getting innovation right have never been higher as leaders in this industry are weaving technological building blocks together to set a course for their conpany's future. The path forward begins with renewed focus on the transformation of technology.

Underboeck Software International, a hospitality industry-related watch group, discusses five industry trends to watch out for that were critical in 2014 and were expected to continue being important into 2015 and beyond. Its main focus appears to center around information technology and the path in which key target markets utilize this technology to perform functions associated with their hospitality needs.

The article starts off by addressing the most essential desire of the modern traveler, which is well performing WiFi. Based on a study in 2018, 89% of guests decide where to stay based on free reliable WiFi. This makes access to connectivity the top priority hospitality firms should be looking at for their guests. Poor WiFi experiences can lead to negative guests satisfaction which leads to a loss of repeat business and poor guest reviews. Connectivity also plays a crucial role in the operation of the business. As more business applications move to a wireless or cloud base, the need for strong connectivity increases. This allows room for new innovations to enhance the guest experience. A front desk agent can now check someone in on a cell phone rather than a desktop. This enables you to greet the guest at the door and complete a check-in while in route to their room, eliminating the need to wait in the lobby. Another benefit is with the advent of cloud computing, a hotel can reduce their hardware costs by not having to have a LAN at each property. They can run a centralized cloud server that all properties can log into. This also eliminates the need to have dedicated IT staff at each location. A major issue with this though is that IT loses visibility of the local delivery path of the network. This makes it difficult for them to locate and resolve issues that might happen, such as slow WiFi speeds. They are then challenged to develop a network performance monitoring solution that can account for all the apps working off the network, including the guest's, to gain visibility to be able to troubleshoot when issues arise. I think moving to a cloud based system to reduce hardware and labor costs will become standard for large hospitality firms. For brands with thousands of properties, this can be a great way to reduce expenses. There are certainly challenges that go along with this new technology, however I believe the ROI to be greater and I can see these companies m

I can see these companies making the initial investments to perfect this method. You already see it in a majority of software applications moving to a cloud/web based system. This helps to greatly reduce hard drive storage needs and makes the programs accessible from anywhere. In this post-covid environment, remote accessibility has become a necessity.