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This article summarizes a panel conversation about cloud functionality and how it can help in the hospitality industry. They point out that hospitality outlets can use cloud tech for operations, efficiency, guest experience, kitchen monitoring, waste reduction, sustainability, data analytics, predictive maintenance. They highlight that while 91% of hospitality leaders say that cloud is essential, only 29% would say that their company is on track, and that companies need to bring along employees for the advancements.

High profile hotels near large events have had to respond to events such as mass shootings since the 2017 Las Vegas attack where a guest used as hotel room to carry out the shooting. Concert venues and large hotels are now using surveillance drones and predictive threat analysis to enable their staff to recognize patterns that could indicate signs of trouble. Security costs at large venues are expensive, and they are being passed on via ticket prices. Hotels need to evaluate their need for an active shooter plan and evaluate their "do not disturb" policies and train their staff to alert management when they are unable to enter a guest room, or when they recognize something out of the ordinary.

The article "the pernicious side of electronics: the growing problem of e-waste," discusses e-waste and what we can do as a community to eliminate the issue. E-waste produces tonnes of toxic waste each year and it was predicted that within the last year around 2.13 billion PCS, tables, and cellphones were shipped worldwide. To eliminate this issue moving forward we must increase education on the harmful impacts of e-waste, improve designs for more sustainable electronic devices, and upgrade infrastructure where the consumer is able to recycle electronic goods safely.

This article introduces the next generation PMS systems: 1. Mobility is about taking customer transaction and activity away from a counter or a tethered device. 2. PMS will be integrated with social site's information and capabilities because online/social branding and interaction will be a requirement to compete. For example, PMS will enable hotels to stay on top of ratings and respond guest comments on sites such as Facebook, Twitter, TripAdvisor, Yelp and more. 3. Integrated data- PMS systems will have to adapt to allow the guest to specify their preferences and requirements while the PMS tracks spending patterns to match guests' preferences and choices.   4. PMS providers are focusing more on creating products that can transcend to the global market place by adding mapping tools that display locations of goods, inventories, assets, and supply chain networks as well as currency and time conversion. 5. PMS providers will focus on expanding and improving their cloud-based technology by increasing security, reducing of costs of system adoption, and interoperability with all hotel departments. 6. Personalizing the PMS- There isn't one size fits all. With all of the functions that modern property management systems are expected to perform, further customization is always a desire for hotels.  

This article introduced the importance of HRIS. Having HRIS in the hotel could aid the human resource team to become more organized and practice being practical in the workplace. Since this converts all the information digitally, the use of paper will definitely decrease. Having this kind of attitude towards employees will make them feel confident and secure. This in turn makes them more productive and will become happy at work. By having a clearer view of what is presently happening in the hotel, top management can also predict what could happen in the future. Some HR-related expenses that can be monitored through this system are the training costs of newly-hired employees, and the benefits given to the employees and their reported dependents. In addition, attendance can also be monitored here. Since being frequently absent or tardy could decrease the company's productivity, it is important that the hotel have a system where in top management can easily observe if there is an abuse of the company's system.

Summary This article is talking about a new software "Monscierge I connect", which launched by the company Monscierge, Dec 6, 2012. Monscierge | Connect is a new tool harness smartphone technology to keep guest constantly connected with hotel service. This is first phase of mobile applications complementing the product line designed to enhance hotels' connections to their guests, which allowing guests access to the full array of a hotel or brand's services in a way that suits the needs of today's tech-savvy consumer. Guests can communicate their needs via chat or voice, quickly putting them in contact with valet, housekeeping, or any department the hotel provides. Monscierge | Connect wraps itself in the approved brand voice for each hotel, and makes that hotel and brand's specific content available at their fingertips.  Monscierge | Connect also allows for a hotel to deliver real-time information to their guests as well. For instance, some hotels have utilized Connect to alert guests of parking availability, discounts in the bar or spa, or when a room is ready for early check-in.        I think it's a great mobile app, it could keep guest constantly connected with hotel service, and it not only provide more convenience for customers and hotels, but also improved service's quality and work efficiency. Forrester Research predicts by 2015 eighty-two million people will rely on mobile devices as a primary reference tool. So I think this new software and other mobile applications will widely used in hospitality industry. 

The equipment we use in technology such as out computer is not a determent of what prices we pay. Orbitz is showing mac users higher prices on hotels simply because they use a mac instead of a PC. The CEO states thats not a fact but facts prove that mac users are 40 % most likely to book a 4 or 5 star hotel. The engineers from Orbitz are experimenting with predicting what the consumer will search for and not giving mac users a higher price on hotel nights. Technology has now become a sterotype is how consumers are feeling by the futy posted in twitter. At the end of the day the consumer can search for different hotels prices and rooms no matter if a mac or pc user.

This article focuses on sustainability and methods in which technology is utilized to conserve energy and waste, while also not hindering the guest experience. Hotels, similar to the Salvatore Grand Hotel, have began implementing systems such as the Verve Living System, by Zeno Controls, LLC, that provide wireless connections to the heating, ventilation, and air conditioning system, as well as the lighting in the guest room. It utilizes sensors to activate such amenities, and enables the guest to enter the room, place their key card into a slot, and it will begin to adjust to the preferred temperature and the preferred lighting levels. Once the key card is removed, such as when the guest is leaving the room, after a very short delay, it sends a signal that verifies the room is unoccupied, and turns off these energy-consuming items in the room. Many guests, when staying in hotels, do not consider turning off their lights or air conditioning when they leave the room, and simply leave everything running. They do not realize the impact this has not only on costs for the hotel itself, but also the impact that it has on energy consumption and sustainability. With the growing awareness of being "green", guests are focusing more and more on conservation, however, they may still be slacking in these areas, leaving things on, being absent minded. This system will allow guests to not have to worry about such tasks, and controls the system of turning these items off for them, adding convenience for the guest who is environmentally conscious. I have personally seen a similar system being used in a hotel room, and thought it was a great idea, and an amazing way to control costs and eliminate waste of resources. It is also very surprising to read that the Verve Living System detects low battery levels, constant occupancy, problems with room connectivity, and rooms that are not communicating with the hotel PMS or other systems. This enables the maintenance team of a hotel to fun

This article talks about six trends about PMS in the future. those trends can add revenue, lower expenses, and improve guest service and loyalty, those are cloud hosting, advances in online guest engagement, data gathering, data analysis, and professional online training. the article predict the technology would be more like on this week's discussion-cloud based PMS. The article predict that if use cloud based PMS, the hotel can have more revenue and profit.

"Recent global data released by TravelClick projects 2015 to be a record year for bookings through global distribution systems, the channel used when guests book through traditional travel agents. TravelClick is projecting 62 million bookings through GDSes in 2015, which is up from 61 million in 2014 and 42 million during the depths of the recession in 2009. According to the data, a total of $12 billion in revenue was booked across all channels in the second quarter in the top 50 global markets, encompassing 69 million roomnights. GDS bookings covered 16.3% of those bookings. The highest portion of bookings came through direct bookings (36.9%), followed by Web bookings (22.5%). Central reservations system bookings (12.8%) and OTA bookings (10.2%) represent the remaining portion. GDS bookings have managed to hold their share of transient bookings through the past two years, staying steady at 19.1% during the second quarter of each year. The total revenue from transient bookings in the top 50 markets during the second quarter grew year over year from $11.5 billion in 2014 to $11.8 billion this year. " This article elaborates the rise in current and predicted bookings by GDS systems in the Hospitality industry. Over 12 billion dollars in revenue has been recorded thanks to the rise of GDS systems. This revenue has managed to hold on to a steady rise since over the last 5 years. If projections are correct, revenue in top markets will only grow larger.

This article expounds how Google is contributing to the future green advancements of the world by implementing them in their every day operations. Although developing next-generation consumer electronics is an extremely lucrative sector of technology, Google has shifted their thinking away from the immediate consumer electronics field, moving towards the development of green technology. The article further mentions Google's wide-range of environmentally-friendly initiatives which includes the development of an application plug-in that would help automobiles determine where the driver is going that in turn reduces energy use, incorporates renewable energy, and offsets carbon emissions. Also, despite the large amount of Google data centers, Google has managed to cut their energy use in half through practical thinking that included purchasing a wind farm in Iowa with plans of running entirely on renewable energy in the near future. The company also made it a point to cut down on greenhouse gases by having goats roam their Google campus to eliminate the need for fertilizer and lawn movers. In conclusion, by adopting unconventional techniques for effectively lowering its environmental impact, the company has become a model example for more companies to think outside of the box and focus on implementing green technology in an efficient and innovative manner.

Due to the increase in water usage around the world, the hospitality industry will be force to integrate responsible water usage policies. As mentioned in the article, technology plays an important role in supporting hotels in their water sustainable water management initiatives by integrating devices and systems that respond to a property water usage patterns. By having systems generate usage reports, property manager could react timely to leaks and faults and act proactively by calculating lifespan depending on usage. Depending on property location, those predictable and recurrent drought conditions would not benefit of rainwater recycling and those that experience rain often could incorporate rainwater harvesting an integrate it with greywater recycling.

Swipely a social commerce company has users who can publish their purchases online. When they swipe their credit card, the transaction is shown on the site and this is discussed by other users. Company wants to transform shopping online and offline . There are two generations of e commerce sites: first, essentially digitized mail order catalogue and second, few emerged from Silicon Valley or sometimes they drive customers to actual shops. Many made money from flash sales, meaning time limited offer of high discounts. Buyers spread the word on social networks because these sites offer different services of local business for eg. restaurants and spas at a discounted price. Groupon could be a third generation of social shopping sites. It's hard to predict whether second or third generation of e commerce sites will continue to grow because they may get tired of flash sales.

It is clear that email is one of the most effective and efficient ways of reaching out to your consumers directly, however there are always the ups and downs to this form of marketing. It is predicted that by 2015 there will be an increase of nearly 4.1 billion email accounts compared to the 3.1 billion email accounts as of 2011.   The most common form businesses used email marketing was to send out newsletters, coupons, ads, alerts, etc., now consumers also are looking for more interaction with the business through social media. They want instant responses through Twitter, LinkedIn, blogs and other social networks.  With using all the social networking sites in relation to the business, consumers can also see other consumer reviews.  Using these forms of communication for the business and client, helps to build their customer relationship with each other. As businesses track the movement of their website and emails by monitoring what the consumer clicks on, they gather information on what the consumer is looking for and can then cater to their needs. As positive as social media can be for a company, it can also be negative with bad user reviews and complaints.  Word of mouth is the fastest marketing tool for consumers when they have a bad review.  

Hotels compete with others by providing excellent service which has been defined as giving outstanding technology. It means technology innovation has become one of the most important strategies to attract customers. WiFi has become one critical success factor in hospitality industry. Besides, people tend to interact and shop more through social media. Research shows that Facebook usage is up 40% since last year. 2.5 billion photos are uploaded to @Facebook each month. It's estimated that there will be 76.9 billion apps to download in 2014. And customers are predicted to spend $35 billion on apps in 2014. According to high demand of iPhone and iPad, some hotels set up iPad in concierge to assist guest with further information and iPad in rooms to help guests to control room temperature, light and TV. As going green has shaping a big trend for hotels, LED light and PlugOut Gym attract hotelier's attention to catch up with. Thus, technology is not only a way to give convenience to guests but also a way to ease management team.

This article gave us a five new online travel trends.Because travel is a hyper-competitive industry, the most pertinent emerging themes in onine travel are considered and experts insights and predictions are provided in the Las Vegas TDS North America event. First trend is the travel industry need be ready for a mobile-only world. Researches indicates that the mobile sales will increase extremely. Because it is expensive to develop mobile app, so traditional travel companies and online travel companies do not such into launching a mobile app in a short term. Convergence, commerce, content and how these impact customer behavior will be an ongoing theme. There is a risk of firms focus too much on one channel, Customers are using a range of different devices to plan, research, book and review their travel experiences.  Revenue management became essential for the business. It needs to integrate with sales, marketing, channel optimization, loyalty marketing , and operations. Think new markets and new customers like China, India, Brazil and Russia. Firms need to be actively targeting this market and make adjustment such as develop local website etc. Last trend is that there are lots of new development in the industry. Facebook start to monetize travel. Google and Apple are also developing their travel related products. This social travel planning tools become successful. Technology develops and standards emerge, mobile bookings may not just be for the last minute.

In Amazon's last quarter, net income dropped by 57 percent from a year ago. Sales for the three months before December 31 came out to $17.4 billion, lower than Wall Street expected over the traditionally busy holidy season. It is predicted that for the next quarter outlook, there could be anywhere from a gain of $100 million to a loss of $200 million. While Amazon continues to profit in sales of its best selling Kindle devices, there were a variety of factors that contirbuted to its losses. The flooding in Thailand slowed down production for many tech companies. Third-party sellers (which give a 13% commission to Amazon as oppsoed to 100% commission when Amazon sells themselves) were used more than usual. Promotions such as the Amazon Prime program which allows the customer to pay a fixed rate and get umlimited two-day shipping hurt the retailer hard over the busy holiday season with shipping costs. Other reasons were lower demand for skimwords

To create a global resource for the hospitality finance industry, Hospitality Financial and Technology Professionals has begun development on a global hospitality accounting system users guide. HFTP is the only global association dedicated to hospitality finance and technology and our Global Board is investing heavily to create a benchmark that stakeholders can use to compile accounts, compare regional differences and define the value of a hospitality operation.

This article was pretty brief, but it stated that Hospitality Financial and Technology Professionals has begun development on a global hospitality accounting system users guide. This would create a global resource for the finance industry. Frank Wolfe, HFTP's CEO, says that the company is the only global association dedicated to hospitality finance and technology. They are hoping to create a benchmark that stakeholders can use to compile accounts, compare regional differences and define the value of a hospitality operation. What I found interesting about this article was that it greatly involved final year bachelor students at Ecole Hôtelière De Lausanne in Switzerland performing research for this project. I also think that a global hospitality accounting system users guide would be beneficial, especially since many managers/employees do not have the strongest training or skills in a financial or technical area.

HFTP (Hospitality financial & technology professionals) begins developing a global hospitality accounting system users guide. This kind of users guide is totally new to the hospitality industry and currently there is no global resource like this. The global guide will provide the hospitality industry with a glossary of inventory terminology, accounting charts and other accounting-related information. This project is developed using technology that can provide users with a benchmark that stakeholders can use to compare regional differences and define the value of hospitality operation. This project is a three-step process. First, bachelor degree students from all over the world who are interested in this project will work as data collector. Second, the assembled and analyzed data will be processed into professionals in different regions all over the world to create new sample charts. Finally, the initial guide will be published in multiple languages and distributed globally. This new accounting system technology is predicted to help the hospitality industry increase the ability in financial management, accounting, cost control and the sharing of global accounting data sources.

This article is based on Novotel Hotels. The company has launched The Virtual Concierge last month in June 2013. I picked this article because I have never heard of a virtual option of using a Concierge before. The Virtual Concierge is located on a screen availble for guest use in the lobby of the hotel. "Guests can use it to browse through information about the brand and the hotel. They can also obtain recommendations on places of interest near the hotel (restaurants, museums, etc.); practical information such as the weather forecast and flight information, and a host of other innovative services including sending virtual postcards." The hotel has even introduced free mobile applications for smartphones that will allow guests to access the virtual concierge's services from anywhere! "The service is unanimously approved by everyone who has used it! " I could definitely see virtual concierges making a strong addition to hotels around the world. Unfortunately I predict it will eliminate several jobs in the market, as it eliminates a key position to hotel staffing.