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This article focuses on the technology innovation regarding electricity in hotels. The article states that the total energy consumption costs for hotels will continue to rise. Luckily, there is an energy saving technology that is worth investing in. Cogeneration, which the article states is known as "combined heat and power (CHP), helps minimize the heat and power from a single fuel source". It takes natural gas and converts it to electricity. This helps the hotel use heat for areas of their operation. This technology supplies 95% of the electricity needed for a standard hotel. Besides helping the hotel's electricity, heat, and power system be more efficient, the CHP helps with financial costs. According to the article, investing in a CHP will bring a payback in about 3 years and this time expected to decrease. This means hotels will receive a return on their investment in a shorter period of time. In my opinion, this is great technology to invest in. It not only helps with financial savings but it is also better for the environment. The business will benefit from it because it helps with operations. Also, consumers will be more likely to want to stay in a hotel with an energy efficient system. It goes hand in hand with the Go Green initiative that has proved to be successful and consumer driven. In all, investing in technology is a risky business. For this specific energy saving technology, I believe it is worth investing in. The cogeneration would be ideal for "hotels with 100 or more rooms, high electric rates, hot water heating system, and high use needs".

Justifying IT investments is a critical skill for anyone working in technology. It's important to understand the terminology and basic techniques to make a choice to invest a new equipment. Capital Expenditure (CAPEX), Depreciation, Cash Flow, Discount Rate are basic IT investment analysis terminologies. Capital is used to identify a purchase that can be used more than one year. Usually companies will have policies on the useful life of equipment. Depreciation is used to spread the expanse of a capital IT investment over the useful life of purchase. Cash flow means that the movement of cash. And there are cash and non-cash items. Discount rate can be used to account for the fact that a dollar today is worth more than past. There are two simple IT investment techniques, Net Present Value, and Payback Period. Net present value lines up a series of cash flows over time and discounts each to the current period. It take into account the time value of money. It typical to look at cash inflows (saved maintenance costs from retired software), and outflows (cost of the software) over a 3 to 5 year period and discount the net inflow less the net outflow into a single value. Payback period analysis is trying to indicate how long the IT investment takes to recover the cost of the investment. Usually the shorter the payback period the less risky the IT investment

The goal of any business is increasing and exceeding the bottom line; in other words, profit. Those companies especially within the hospitality industry that have the ability to seek and implement new/ innovative methods to cut costs tend to be the most successful. One way hoteliers, restaurant owners, cruise lines, and other 24/7 operations within the hospitality industry will be able to cut costs is a simple new advancement created by Phillips- The 7 W master GU10 LED lamp with DimTone. This article discusses the the DimTone light, its features and the potential amount of savings it offers users in the hospitality industry. Many hotels, bars, restaurants, cruise lines and other hospitality businesses incur a huge expense from energy use due to the volume and demand of business. The article points out that this new lighting feature will save those within the hospitality industry a large percentage of money each month while still providing an inviting ambiance. The life span of the DimTone light is twenty times more than traditional halogen lights. One hotel that completed a full replacement of all lighting with the new DimTone light has seen costs reduced by 82% and an investment payback of making this change within only two years. If this is true for all hotels that have the ability to invest in this cost efficient change, the only question I have to ask is why aren't we seeing this more frequently? The opportunities for an increase in profit from year to year appear to surpass the amount it would costs to enhance all hospitality businesses and help the environment as well.

Green technology will bring benefits to the hospitality industry. It will become a future trend for the hotels to go green. From my point of view, going green is another saving cost and long-term benefits. We can reduce the the harm for what we produce and keep the guest's travel experience more green. Also hospitality plays an important role in telling others about the green concept. People will remember more when they are in realx.

This article discusses the different approaches hotels are using to make their hotels green. They are trying to use technology to reduce energy consumption which will help reduce fossil fuels. At Hotel 1000 in Seattle when a guest checks in the computer system sends a signal to the room to turn on the air conditioner. This system helped the hotel save approximately 40% on their energy. The Bardessono in Napa Valley has auto controls, so when the guest enters a room the sunshades rise, lights, television, and fireplace turn on. They will also turn off when the guest leaves the room. Xanterra in Death Valley has a total of 5,040 solar panels and uses wind power. By doing this they will offset emissions of 24,000 tons of dangerous pollutants over the next 25 years.

This article will give you the basic skills necessary to evaluate a proposed IT investment.These skills can be used in any industry including hospitality. At the beginning, it explains some basic IT investment analysis terminologies. Then it introduce two IT investment analysis methods: NET PRESENT VALUE; PAYBACK PERIOD. It also contains some link that would teach us how to use EXCEL to calculate data.

This article explains how important it is to analyze and interpret new forms of IT technology to make the best purchase or investment. The articles starts by describing terms used in IT Investment. The first term is Capital Expenditure, which is any expenditure not for the usual maintenance and upkeep of the hotel or restaurant. For example, a Capital Expenditure would be obtaining a new PMS or renovating your banquet facility. The next term is Depreciation, which everyone should know is the amount of money lost on an investment of the course of its life. The third and fourth terms are Cash Flow and Discount Rate. Cash Flow is "the movement of cash in and out of the business", and Discount Rate is "analysis based on the dollar being worth more today than in 5 years". The second part of the article talks about investment techniques used. Many methods are used to help make sound investment decisions like NPV. NPV is Net Present Value, which is an assessment of long-term profitability of the investment made by adding together all the revenue over its life and deducting the costs involved. Another technique used to evaluate an IT investment is the Payback Period. This helps to evaluate how long it will take to make back your initial investment in the IT. The article goes into grave detail on both of these methods and believe this article can be very helpful for hotel/restaurant managers and owners when determining which investment should be made.

The financial crisis of 2007-2008 is considered by many economists to be the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. It resulted in the threat of total collapse of large financial institutions, the bailout of banks, and downturns in stock markets around the world. The bursting of the U.S. real estate bubble, which peaked in 2006, caused the values of securities tied to U.S. real estate pricing to plummet, damaging financial institutions. Prior to this crisis strategies to develop new hotels or acquire existing assets with a small percentage of cash out of pocket were plentiful. Today to secure funding it may take 30%-40% of hard cash to move a deal forward. The Small Business Administration (SBA) is offering a way to leverage funds at well below market rates for major renovations and new construction with as low as 10% cash down. The catch? Some money-saving energy efficiency or renewable energy measures must be in the mix. Millions of dollars in SBA 504 loans have been available for decades to help small businesses grow. The greening of the program began when the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 added 3 public policy goals that could qualify businesses for a loan for construction, renovation, or refinance to: 1.Build a new facility (or retrofit an existing building) that consumes at least 10% less energy. 2.Incorporate sustainable design such as LEED into the new construction or renovation projects or building purchases. 3.Incorporate the production and use of renewable energy onsite for the business and/or for the local utility. Another area the 504 green loan program can assist the hospitality industry is to bring cash to the table for major renovations. Hotel franchise companies have been lenient over the past several years on product improvement, as not many hoteliers have had the financial ability to perform major renovations. In the past several months the need for franchise companies to protect their brand have

This article shows a new way to make green hospitality. Compare the tradition way, the new technology will save the energy cost and provide the comfortable environment at the same time.

Running a hotel in the cloud is a very new technology and most of the hotels are still in the trying process. There are pros and cons of running a hotel in the cloud, the atticle has solved most of our concerns about the problems that be occured when running a hotel in the cloud. However the temptation of the cost will be the most competive advantages of the cloud based PMS system.

The article clearly cleared up some of the myths in terms of internet connectivity which is a major concern. It is clear that if cloud computing is used as the option then internet redundancy should be utilized as well. It was interesting to note that a major corporation like Hyatt as moved its micros Pos and accounting systems to cloud. This will certainly encourage other hotels to get on board. On the matter of security especially for credit cards, it is good to know that PCI compliance is a must when utilizing cloud computing. Great article.

Nowadays, there are many concerns for hoteliers to adopt the cloud computing PMS system. People are reluctant to use the new technology because of the issues of control, security and connectivity. Hyatt and some benchmark hotels put most of their systems into cloud. Actually, when using the cloud PMS, data is not in the property which decrease the risk of operator. Also, as backups, network disconnection is rarely found. There are many benefits of the cloud, such as low cost, easy to upgrade software. Besides, it also has financial benefits. Many servers replaced the cloud PMS saw ROI within a year.

This article talks about how more and more people in the hospitality industry are using a POS based-cloud instead of hardwire systems. According to some experts in some years most of the hospitality industry would have change into using the cloud. For now most of the users of the cloud are single unit restaurants as it is an easy system to adopt and cost efficient. On the other side for chain restaurants to make this change can be costly; therefore it is believed that it will take some time for them to change. Still some people believe that this can be an unreliable and unsecured system. Some of the reasons for this are: -The lack of privacy; as the data will be in the hands of somebody else. -This system relies on the internet so when a connection problem occurs a downtime would take place creating complications for the restaurant operator. According to experts and users both of these ideas can be debated. Leaving the data handling in the hand of experts can bring advantages and lower the costs. On the other hand when the internet fails if the correct backup measures are taken it has no difference with the hardware system.

This article talks about the benefits of POS in cloud, and eliminates some misunderstanding about its downtime and security concerns. The author start selling POS in cloud by pointing out the trend that it is becoming more accepted. CEO and president of the Retail Solutions Providers Association (RSPA) says it will be mainstream in the next two to five years. Though POS in cloud would be a easy set up and cost saving solution for a starting up single-unit,"Large chains are more likely to turn to cloud applications for business intelligence solutions first because there is not as much investment or change in infrastructure compared to the POS" says Dave Matthews. But since multi-unit chains have already invested lots of money in the old POS, they are going to wait for those POS pay back before they switch to POS in cloud. Then author switched to what concern people most about cloud computing, downtime and security. A cloud based POS can have as reliable backup plan as a hardwired system. Although POS in cloud does not have backup servers in the location which should be provided by vendor, it can have several connection backups, like wireless, 3G or 4G, phone line. And about the security concern, just ask yourself is you have the security system than a technology vendor.

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

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

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

This article includes ten ways smart technology is reshaping the hotel industry. Smart energy management, predictive maintenance, smart guest experience, big data protection, smart reserved parking, remote check in and check out, mobile room keys, smart room service, smart marketing practices, and online reputation management technology are all highlighted in this article.

This article is about 10 ways that smart technology can help and reshape the hotel industry that would be beneficial in the long run.

This article explains 10 ways of smart technology in the hospitality industry. 1- Smart Energy 2- Predictive Maintenance 3 - Smart Guest Experiences 4 - Big Data and Big Data Protection 5 - Smart Reserved Parking 6 - Remote Check-in/Check-out 7 - Mobile Room Keys 8 - Smart RoomService 9 - Smart Marketing Practices 10 - Online Reputation Management Technology We all know most of these, but Smart reserved parking caught my attention because I've only seen this once where hotels now have smart sensors and hotel apps that allow to reserve parking spots in advance and it reduces labor since there's not really a valet person assigned. It proves guests a smoother experience from the moment they pull in.