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jnoll001

Hackers steal casino's customer data via connected fish tank | Internet of Business - 4 views

  • According to a post from www.bestuscasinos.org, rather than gaining access to the vault of the unnamed establishment, hackers were able to pinch the casino’s high-roller database after gaining access to its network via the smart thermostat in a fish tank in the lobby.
  • “The attackers used [the connected thermostat] to get a foothold in the network,” said Eagen. “They then found the high-roller database and then pulled that back across the network, out the thermostat, and up to the cloud.”
  • “There’s a lot of IoT devices – everything from thermostats, refrigeration systems, and HVAC systems, to people who bring their Alexa devices into the offices. There’s just a lot of IoT. It expands the attack surface and most of this isn’t covered by traditional defences,”
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    I find this to be an incredibly fascinating story, and borderline embarrassing for the company involved. However, it highlights just how something as simple as a connected thermostat within a casino fish tank left an organization vulnerable to a data breach. Additionally, I see this foreshadowing the immense importance IT infrastructure security will play within organizations in our time.
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    I hope this company had that Cybersecurity insurance. As the previous student noted, it is amazing how creative data breaches can be. Hospitality companies will be at a crossroads soon, as new technology is constantly introduced and implemented on the daily. It will be important to have a strong system in place to protect data from hackers in general. Moving forward, perhaps companies will have to do thorough research on technological products they use and how they can be a potential threat. So the company can strengthen their data security measures to avoid additional attacks in the future.
galca008

Top 5 Tips to Streamline Your Hospitality Facilities Management - 0 views

  •  CMMS solutions can automatically track everything from guest room availability to preventative maintenance schedules for your property’s most valuable equipment. Automation frees up your facilities management staff to focus on even more parts of the guest experience.
  • Many of the best CMMS options on the market will include features such as: Asset and equipment management The ability for staff, or even guests, to electronically submit maintenance requests Generation of checklists for regular tasks such as housekeeping or pool maintenance A comprehensive dashboard for facilities managers and staff.
  • Energy Star, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s voluntary certification program for eco-friendly products, also offers an online tool to take the guesswork out of tracking your property’s carbon footprint.  Portfolio Manager can measure and track greenhouse gas emissions, energy and water consumption for all kinds of properties, including hotels. The tool can be used to benchmark the performance for just one building or a portfolio of properties.
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  • Another eco-friendly way to streamline your facilities management operations and reduce energy costs is to connect the thermostats in guest rooms to the property management system that tracks guest reservations, check-ins/check-outs and housekeeping. When a guest checks out, the system will automatically set their room’s thermostat to “standby” status so you aren’t paying to unnecessarily heat or cool a vacant room.
  • Investing in a fast, reliable wireless network can mean fewer complaints from guests and less time your facilities management staff will have to spend responding.
  • One surefire way to streamline operations, lighten the load on staff – and the environment – is to reduce the amount of waste generated by your property.
  • Switching from offering paper copies of newspapers to digital access passes. Using refillable containers for toiletries and other products rather than offering small plastic bottles. Collecting and re-using materials leftover from conferences and events Donating food and beverage leftovers to local food pantries or shelters, or toiletries and linens to area shelters.
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    This article gives us a few tips about how to streamline the facilities management systems, to make the processes easier to track as well as reducing cost and waste. The first tip is to implement a computerized maintenance management system for the property. This CMMS would allow you to track preventetive maintenance schedules, which would alleviate excess labor on the staff. CMMS also allows the staff and even guests to submit maintenance requests electronically. Another tip is to adopt Energy Star's Portfolio Manager, which helps to track the property's performance and use of gas emissions, energy, and water. Third tip is to connect thermostats in guests room to the PMS. This would be able to not waste unnecessarily when rooms are vacant. Lastly, streamlining the property's waste management operations by producing less waste. Switching from paper copies to digital, using refillable containers, re-using leftover materials, and donating food and beverage leftovers to shelters should be adopted. Hotels these days need to be going green, and all of the above are ways in which we could start. This is a great article with helpful tips for hoteliers who are beginning.
galca008

Green IT | Green Hotelier - 1 views

  • With the world becoming ever more reliant on IT, from computers and laptops to smartphones, the issue of how you make it more sustainable, in terms of reducing energy requirements and electronic waste, becomes ever more pressing.
  • In 2010, it was estimated that 360 million computers were manufactured. A computer is one of the most resource-intensive pieces of equipment, requiring over 10 times its weight in fossil fuels to make
  • The production of a computer requires 22kg of toxic chemicals, 240kg of fossil fuels and 1,500 kg of water. 80% of life-cycle energy use is accounted for before we even switch a PC on for the first time. Computer Aid International About 2% of the world’s total energy is consumed by building and running computer equipment. BBC Office equipment is the fastest growing energy user in the business world, consuming 15% of the total electricity used in offices. This is expected to rise to 30% by 2020. In the UK, the cost of running this equipment is estimated to be around £300 million annually and rising each year. Carbon Trust 200 million computers and 550 million mobile phones reached the end of their life in 2008.  Computer Aid International 50 million tons of e-waste was generated worldwide, but only 13% was recycled. US Environmental Protection Agency Reusing working computers is up to 20 times more energy-efficient than recycling them. Computer Aid International
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  • A data centre is a facility used to house computer systems and their components, and it can be far and away the biggest contributor to an organisation’s carbon footprint. A data centre’s life expectancy is relatively long so it is imperative it is built to the highest standards in terms of efficiency as any excess energy use will lead to significant cost implications over the years.
  • 1. Build the most energy-efficient data centre possible. This will save energy and costs over its lifespan. 2. Only get the data storage capacity that is currently required and forecast for the lifespan. Many data centres have excess capacity that burns energy (and therefore costs) unnecessarily. Don’t have servers or equipment that will not be used. 3. Cooling data centres. Traditionally cooling has been done by air circulation, which is very inefficient. Larger data centres already use other technologies to cool more efficiently, such as water cooling. 4. Virtualisation technology. Improve your system’s resource utilisation through virtualisation technology. Virtualisation is the creation of a virtual (rather than actual) version of something, such as an operating system, server, network, etc. and allows a single user to access several physical devices on one terminal. A computing device dedicated to an individual member of staff or allocated for one software application is highly inefficient and expensive. Virtualisation consolidates resources, requiring less power and cooling. 5. Consider cloud computing. This is a location-independent IT service, typically available over the internet, where shared servers provide resources, software and data to computers and other devices on demand, increasing IT capacity and capabilities without an organisation having to invest in new infrastructure. Keeping data virtually, or “in the clouds”, means less information stored on IT systems and therefore less energy being used to run the systems. Systems such as BT’s Virtual Data Centre, a hosted data centre that enables businesses to create, deploy, monitor and manage their own service through a self-service portal, claim to offer savings of up to 40% of the total cost of running one’s own data centre as well as reducing the space required, the level of emissions produced and the power consumed.
  • 6. Measure and monitor power usage. Once you know what’s using the power, focus on why and whether it’s possible to reduce consumption.
  • 1. Upgrade. Before buying new, investigate options to upgrade with the latest energy-efficient components to extend appliances’ working life and efficiency. 2. Green labels. Look out for the certification labels denoting more energy-efficient equipment, from Blue Angel in Germany to TCO in Sweden and Energy Star in the US (see below). 3. Screens. Opt for flat screen monitors, which reduce energy use by over two-thirds. 4. Get the right equipment. Consider your information technology needs against the tasks required. For example, laptops may be a better option in some circumstances because they have been developed to be energy-efficient and generally match the computer to the task required. Remember: not all staff have the same needs. 5. Consider running costs. Look at the life cycle costs, not just the purchase cost. Take note of running and standby costs of equipment. These can vary enormously.
  • Top 10 Tips to reduce running costs of office equipment (source: Carbon Trust) 1. Computers. Activate energy-saving features. In fact, most office equipment will have these features, so make sure they’re activated. 2. Standby features. Introduce a policy to activate standby features, don’t assume employees will do it. 3. Turn it off. Buy seven-day timers. These can save up to 70% on energy costs. 4. Monitor and manage the equipment that is peripheral to computers, such as speakers, printers, etc. and consider installing intelligent switch-off solutions. Printers can consume 30%-40% of their peak power demand when idling between printing and standby modes, so minimising this can produce cost savings, reduce heat output and increase its operating life. 5. Educate your staff. Consider a screen saver with an energy-saving message. 6. Rationalise your equipment via networking to reduce the number of printers (for example) in any office area. 7. Printers Use only black and white for internal documents and colour only when absolutely necessary. Consider the benefits of inkjet printers v laser printers. Inkjet energy use is much lower than that of a laser printer. Encourage staff to use print preview functions. Set default printing mode to double-sided. Use lower-specification printers, such as inkjets, for internal documents and encourage staff to use these for day-to-day use.
  • 8. Photocopiers High volume copiers use more energy so should be used sparingly. Use low melting point inks (available from stationery suppliers). Encourage staff to copy in batches to increase standby time. Stick to black and white copiers and only use colour when absolutely necessary. Set default copying to double-sided. 9. Invest to save and purchase only what you need. 10. Don’t forget to motivate staff. Keep repeating the message of the importance of energy saving in ways that they can understand (for example, a computer monitor switched off overnight saves enough energy to microwave six dinners).
  • WEEE (Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment), or e-waste, is the term used for old or disposed electronic equipment. It covers both the toxic and valuable materials found in appliances. The most important lesson is to reuse, not recycle. With so much e-waste, and electrical devices such as computers and flat screens often being replaced well before the end of their shelf life and ending up in landfill, it’s imperative that the most is made of these materials by reusing them productively.
  • Options to investigate when trying to reduce e-waste are: 1. Can you upgrade your equipment with new energy efficient components? 2. Can it be used by someone else in the company? 3. Can it be given to a charity? (Note: charities must be registered to take WEEE.) 4. Will the manufacturer take back the old equipment and reuse parts in new products?
  • Developments on the horizon include: 1. Smaller, more efficient processors. The continuing development of microprocessors means a mobile phone can have around the same computational power as the average desktop computer back in 2000. 2. Memristors. Electronics giant HP is in the process of developing “memristors” (see photo above), which have greater memory storage capacity while requiring less energy and space. They are due to be on the shelf in about three years. 3. Specialist data centre design. Siemens recently launched its transformational Data Centre Solution, a groundbreaking strategy in data centre energy-efficient design and operation. It claims the system, which uses virtualization and efficient power and cooling, offers many benefits for businesses, including up to 50% energy savings through ground water cooling and IT costs reduced by 30%. 4. Outsourcing. Hotels of all sizes are starting to view IT outsourcing as a viable option to gain flexibility and reduce short-term costs and increase transparency of cost structures and processes. 5. Optimisation of resources. This will become a necessity either through virtualisation, networking or cloud computing. 6. Water cooling. IBM is currently working on a supercomputer that is cooled by water (a given volume of water can hold 4,000 times more waste than air), which claims to be 50% more energy efficient than the world’s leading systems. The Aquasar stacks many computer processors on top of each other with cooling water flowing between each one. IBM’s Dr Bruno Michel told the BBC in November 2010: “We plan that 10 to 15 years from now, we can collapse such a system into one sugar cube — we’re going to have a supercomputer in a sugar cube.”
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    This is a great article that provides tips on how to use green practices within the IT realm. It starts by giving statistics on how much energy can be consumed by equipment, and also how much electronic waste can be done when not reusing or recycling such equipment. There is tips on how to increase efficiency with your technology and also providing tips on how to properly purchase needed equipment. Another set of tips covers reducing the running costs of office equipment and reducing e-waste by the 'reduce, reuse, and recycle'. Lastly, developments for green technology and equipment are provided for us. My opinion is that this article is very informative and should be read by all hoteliers to look into and apply the tips given. Showing the statistics paints a great picture for the reasons why we should be going green with technology.
sliu043

Hotel Green IT - Hospitality - Siemens - 0 views

  • Siemens
  • Greening the Hotel IT environmentThere are many different aspects to address when looking at the energy efficiency of data centers and server rooms.
  • Our expertise encompasses:Power monitoringApplication harmonization and consolidationActive Energy ManagementVirtualization
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  • Using IT as enabler to lower carbon footprintIT solutions can be used to help a hotel to manage its environmental impact (CO2 emissions, energy consumption).
  • Benchmark customer’s own position in sustainability issues vs. competitors and improve own sustainability processes to become best-in-class.Integrate sustainability / energy management into company strategy, organizational framework and corporate behavior Target setting for company-wide KPIs (e.g. CO2) and creation of transparency by setup of IT supported controlling process Support fulfillment of regulatory requirements, voluntary reporting (e.g. GRI, DJSI, CDP) and company positioning (e.g. sustainability report) Manage environmental and other sustainability projects
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    "IT solutions can be used to help a hotel to manage its environmental impact (CO2 emissions, energy consumption). Siemens analyses the customer requirements and then implements best-in-class solutions. In addition we provide the required process consulting to establish sustainability reporting within an organization. Here are a few highlights of our "Sustainable Impact" offering: Benchmark customer's own position in sustainability issues vs. competitors and improve own sustainability processes to become best-in-class. Integrate sustainability / energy management into company strategy, organizational framework and corporate behavior Target setting for company-wide KPIs (e.g. CO2) and creation of transparency by setup of IT supported controlling process Support fulfillment of regulatory requirements, voluntary reporting (e.g. GRI, DJSI, CDP) and company positioning (e.g. sustainability report) Manage environmental and other sustainability projects"
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    in order to keep the green hotel the manger should use the IT solutions. especially in the environment impact, we cannot control the hotel environment sustainability development only by the manual. using the IT solution is fast and convenient. we can use it to analysis and conclude the best solution or advice for the sustainability development of the hotel. we put the data, operation statement and expenses into the system and then the computer can help the hotel to establish the frame for building the green hotel. also we can use the Siemens technology to assign the employees everyday so as to avoid the situation that is over-staff or under staff. moreover we can use the Siemens system to decline the waste of paper, water, energy and so on. This way can save the money and protect the environment.
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    Nowadays, all hotels are trying to improve their IT with their sustainability efforts. In this article, Siemens has introduced a new system "IT for Sustainability". The new system will help hotels improve energy, resource-efficiency, and save costs in two ways: greening the hotel IT environment and using IT as enabler to lower carbon footprint.
lderi004

Waste Management And LG Provide Hotel Operators New Sustainability Option, Convenient D... - 0 views

  • The leading provider of flat-panel HDTVs to the lodging industry, LG Electronics USA, Inc., and the nation's leading recycler, Waste Management, Inc. (NYSE: WM), today announced the first recycling program for hotel operators to responsibly dispose of outdated television sets and computer monitors.
  • To support this growing trend, LG Electronics will now offer environmentally conscious hotel, motel and resort operators a convenient, cost-effective opportunity for recycling the obsolete hotel TVs.
  • "This program will encourage hotel operators to dispose of outdated electronics in an environmentally responsible manner," said Teddy Hwang, president, LG Electronics USA, which established its successful nationwide electronics-recycling program for consumers with Waste Management over a year ago
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  • The hotel TVs and computer monitors collected under this program will be processed in an environmentally responsible manner at one of four regionally designated Waste Management recycling facilities that are ISO 14001 and 9001 certified to protect the local environment in those communities along with the people handling this waste.
  • "As the lodging industry seeks to increase its environmentally conscious initiatives, the LG program gives hotel operators the opportunity to conveniently recycle electronic waste responsibly and economically," said Patrick DeRueda, president of WM Recycle America.
  • "By recycling used, unwanted, obsolete or damaged electronic equipment, useful materials such as glass, metals and plastics may be recovered for reuse in other products," he said.
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    This article caught my attention because it was not just the Waste Management service offering a new sustainable option for hotels, but an actual electronics provider as well, LG. It appears that since 2009, LG has been partnering with Waste Management, and helping hotels dispose of their old electronics, such as older LG tv models, in a much safer and environment friendly way. This gives hotels no excuse to not dispose, or recycle, electronics in a safer manner. I believe a partnership like this is a perfect demonstration of a social responsible company, who is aware and active of the damages their products can make toward the world. I hope more electronic companies start partnering up like this; as it brings awareness, and convenience to not just hotels, but many industries that use, and frequently update, electronic devices. 
anonymous

AirBnB leads to horror story - 0 views

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    This article was about a young man who booked an AirBnb in Madrid and was sexually assaulted by the landlord. He sent texts to his mom asking her to help. When the mother called AirBnb to report this, they didn't respond in a timely manner and told her to call the Madrid police. The article brings up the question of security when booking AirBnb. One assumes when booking on this website, that AirBnb will try to protect its customers as much as possible but this was not the case in this particular situation. This matter was brought to the attention of AirBnb executives who want to bring about change and reinforced the policies and processes of a guest being in danger to the employees. They were better trained to know to call the police right away when the receive a report from a guest in danger.
glope143

Can Disney's Magic Bands be Hacked? - MouseChat.net - Orlando News & Reviews | Disney W... - 0 views

  • While it is still certainly possible to potentially clone a MagicBand (and thereby gain access to protected resources by impersonating the original band holder), the fact that the band operates on the 2.4 GHZ frequency inherently presents some challenges to any would-be malicious users. Admission to the parks is fairly expensive (Fig. 5) and the cost of the hardware required to conduct such a cloning attack far exceeds the cost of a legitimate day pass. For the attack to even be considered economical, the malicious user must clone many passes over time.
    • glope143
       
      This paragraph brings up an interesting point when it comes to the security of Disney's RFID MagicBands. The primary information on the Band itself that could be most "easily" accessed if cloned is a ticketed theme park entrance. The author believes the chances of this happening are slim to none given the amount of theme park entrances that would needed to be stolen in order to justify the cost of expensive RFID cloning hardware. For arguments sake, should a hacker clone a MagicBands individual RFID code there are still a variety of hurdles to cross before being able to walk away unnoticed. Since every RFID code is individualized, should the Band that was hacked enter the the theme park prior to the duplicate, the duplicate will be stopped and questioned by security. There are also bio-metric scanners in the front of each entrance that require the scanned fingerprint to match that on file. Should the fingerprint scanner fail, a cast member with access to the original MagicBand owner's photograph will deem the duplicate band a fraud.
  • Part of the MagicBand system allows guests to make purchases with the band at specific registers provided they have tied a credit/debit card to their account via an external process. This can be seen as a very big convenience to guests who do not wish to continually use their cards to make purchases while in the parks, or for those who find themselves wishing to buy merchandise when they had not initially anticipated in doing so and do not have their wallet/purse/money clip in their possession. Yet in order to make purchases, a user must first swipe their band against a specially designed reader (Fig. 6) and subsequently enter a matching PIN number. Even if our malicious user had an RFID token that was a working clone of a legitimate one, it is somewhat unlikely he would be able to successfully guess the matching PIN number within a reasonable number of tries in one sitting before the cashier would begin to get suspicious.
    • glope143
       
      One of Disney's star features for their MagicBands is the ability to go hands-free throughout their vacation by having everything necessary stored on one device, including credit card information. This gives guests the ability to make purchases across the Resort without the additional moral barrier of having to remove their wallet from their purse or pocket. Should a MagicBand be misplaced, or duplicated as in the context of this article, a four digit code is still required to make purchases with the credit card on file. This code is not available for viewing on the band and cannot be changed though any means besides visiting the front desk with property identification.
  • While multifactor authentication certainly adds to the security of the system in a significant way, biometric  hardware is not flawlessly reliable. Florida is a rather humid place [5] which inevitably affects the performance of sensitive electronic hardware like fingerprint readers. To address this issue and counteract the likelihood of the system presenting users with false negatives, it would be fair to assume that the fingerprint readers themselves are configured to fail open (ie, when in doubt, allow entry). This gives malicious users the potential benefit of knowing that they merely need to intentionally cause the reader to malfunction to be granted access. Social engineering could also potentially play a factor in the exploitation of the MagicBand system by using Disney’s own customer-service policy against itself. Suppose our malicious user is successfully stopped dead in his tracks at the gate. He has been beaten to the entry gate by his victims and has lost the calibration race; there is no hope the machine will accept his cloned band. Yet he scans it anyway, and is denied access immediately. He knows he will not gain entry, but he continues to scan it. The employees at the gate attempt to help him, scanning his band for him, fiddling with the machine, etc, all to no avail. Yet a large line is beginning to form behind him.
    • glope143
       
      This article does a great job at playing devil's advocate in the situation of MagicBand cloning and creates a sound argument at what could happen should a hacker attempt to enter a Disney park with a previously used RFID code. As someone to frequently visit's the Disney theme parks, I would not be surprised if a cast member simply waved a guest through in order to avoid a line back up, especially during peak season times.
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  • Despite the inherent arms-race between malicious users and system security mechanisms, overall the MagicBand system seems to hold up under scrutiny and is fairly well designed. The high cost of the hardware required to compromise the system via an RFID cloning attack combined with the multifactor authentication process provides sufficient layers of systematic defenses; even the most judicious adversaries may still fail to successfully thwart system security.
nicolettevelez

9 Ways to Help Boost Hotel Security for Guests and Employees - 0 views

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    Security is extremely important in the hotel industry and not just for guests but for employees too. Travelers are very sensitive to how secure the location and their accommodations are. Prioritizing hotel security has to be a top goal for all management teams. Some easy ways to make sure that hotels are secure is by updating room keys and locks. New lock systems come have integrated a system where the lock can be audited to read all the keys that have been used against that lock. Actively engaging with guests is really important. Although you may not get to know every guest it is good to talk with guests and get to know why they are staying with you. This helps spot any trouble when it comes. Another point I think was extremely important was having a clear emergency response plan. It is so important to not only have a plan but to regularly review, drill and update your plan so that in case of an emergency everyone is protected.
itzdchang

Businesses See GDPR as an Opportunity to Improve Data Privacy and Security - 0 views

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    A new study done by IBM has discovered that nearly sixty percent of organizations are embracing the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), having their sights set on improving privacy, security, and data management. This is a relief to see as this particular subject in the hospitality industry has frequently come up as a major talking point with the developing technologies in the industry; the fact that industry leaders are viewing the GDPR in this manner rather than a compliance issue/restriction is refreshing. Seventy percent of survey responders are disposing data ahead of the deadline for compliance in an attempt to reduce their exposure. IBM did a separate poll that found only twenty percent of US consumers completely trusted organizations to maintain the privacy of their data. Due to this, businesses are using the recent GDPR compliance as a statement to consumers that they're looking to build trust and reliability with customers and drive innovation. However, even with the opportunities at hand, only thirty six percent of responders believed they will be fully compliant by the deadline. To minimize the amount of data an organization is managing, companies are taking measures such as reducing the number of people who have access to personal data or simply cutting down on the amount of data stored. Additionally, studies have found that the primary challenges organizations are facing with the GDPR include finding all the of the personal data stored in their business, ensuring the accuracy of said data, and making sure this data is in compliance in how it is shared or used. Another challenge to the new compliance is that companies are to report data breaches to regulators within 72 hours of the breach, yet IBM has found that only thirty one percent of companies have taken a look at the measures they have in place for incident response to account for this new rule in compliance.
hchiebooth

Eco-Friendly Hotel Ideas You Need to Implement Now - 1 views

  • Eco-friendly travel options are projected to increase up to 36 percent in 2017 in order to meet green travelers’ demands. Business travel is also going greener
  • Reducing energy can enhance guest experience and add extra padding to your bank account.
  • As more consumers are choosing to engage in eco-conscious lifestyles at home, it’s unsurprising that their tastes in hotels and travel destinations are noticeably greener, too.
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  • Using water in excess can also lead to groundwater contamination if sewage systems overflow. Conserving water also reduces energy use, thus saving your business money.
  • Making just some simple changes to how your hotel uses energy can make a big impact.
  • Energy-saving kitchen, laundry, and air conditioning equipment can also drastically reduce energy use in hotels. If your hotel or resort has a pool, consider purchasing a solar water heating system.
  • it’s crucial for your hotel or resort to adopt more eco-friendly practices so your business can stay competitive, attract more travelers, save money, and do its part to protect the planet.
  • Linen reuse programs for hotels and resorts are another great idea in terms of reducing water and energy waste.
  • Swapping out conventional cleaning supplies with green cleaning products can help your hotel or resort offer a safer, more natural environment to travelers.
  • hotels are now using bio-based cleaning products
  • Implementing just some of these sustainability efforts in your hotel or resort will help your business stay competitive, save money, and reduce your negative impact on the environment.
  • Many hotels and resorts are now composting their food waste to divert food from landfills.
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    In the era of green travelers, the demand for eco-friendly hotels is on the rise. Since the interest is increasing, a lot of hotels have changed their routine practices and policies to become eco-friendly. Hotels have found ways to implement greener alternatives and have abandoned practices that create waste. Eco-friendly hotels have adopted practices that prove to be less harmful to the environment. For example, hotels can install energy saving thermostats, air conditioners and use solar water heating systems to conserve energy. Green travelers will appreciate these changes and it will also make a positive contribution to the hotel's bottom line. Eco-friendly hotels ultimately look at every facet of the guest experience to implement green changes. Some hotels offer programs where guests, that stay multiple nights, receive additional benefits for not having their linens washed. Some hotels have even replaced there chemical cleaning products for bio-based cleaning products. This is a great start toward a better tomorrow and within time more hotels will become more environmentally friendly.
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    Great article, the majority of hotels are currently implementing the paper straw and remove all plastics. Our hotel as well have changed the lights throughout the hotel. Not sure if that helps with the electrical cost but a lot of change is being made to be Eco-friendly.
brobb009

Beach Retreat & Lodge at Tahoe Installs STS Cloud to Manage Groups and Events at Full-S... - 0 views

  • Beach Retreat & Lodge at Tahoe launches STS Cloud Hotel Sales and Catering software by SalesAndCatering.com to sell and manage events at the resort destination.
  • STS Cloud is a full-function, cost-effective hotel sales and catering software system
  • SalesAndCatering.com hosts Beach Retreat & Lodge at Tahoe's STS Cloud system from its secure hosting facility to ensure timely updates and data protection.
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    This article highlights the benefits of the STS Cloud Hotel Sales and Catering software. STS Cloud is a comprehensive Sales and Catering system with account management and contact profiles that support sales team in selling and managing events. This software is said to be fully functioning, web based, fast, and affordable.
naram003

Indicators System For Monitoring Intellectual Property Management In Companies - 0 views

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    Organizations and companies that deal with a high level of competitiveness have been compelled to develop intellectual property management systems that aim at insuring information accuracy and determining indicators for decision-making. This systematization and monitoring of information on intellectual property management contributes to the improvement, reliability, quality and managerial efficiency, with the goal of offering the company a competitive advantage. The main purpose of this work is to identify a reliable system of indicators or benchmarks that can be used for monitoring through self-evlauation of the IPM as part of a methodic approach on research. The benchmarks determined and suggested by the study include; Elements which characterize the invitational activity, Indicators which are specific to expenses incurred by the invitational activity and development/procurement of IPO's, Sources of information in the area of IPOs creation, human potential, legal protection of products/services, activity on the IPO market, the structure of the intellectual property management, and indicators which characterize the impact of intellectual property management. To conclude, The systematization of information on intellectual property management at the company and its monitoring would improve reliability, quality and efficiency of management decisions in this area.
corrie242

Importance of Marketing for the Economic Development of a Country - 0 views

  • Importance of Marketing for the Economic Development of a Country!
  • attaining the object of social welfare
  • early stage of development it was considered to be the last activity
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  • Delivery of standard of living to the society:
  • A society is a mixture of diverse people with diverse tastes and preferences. Modern marketing always aims for customer satisfaction. So, main liability of marketing is to produce goods and services for the society according to their needs and tastes at reasonable price.
  • Marketing discovers needs and wants of society, produces the goods and services according to these needs creates demand for these goods and services.
  • liability of marketing is control the cost of distribution
  • can reduce their distribution costs to a great extent. Decrease in cost of distribution directly affects the prices of products because the cost of distribution is an important part of the total price of the product.
  • Increasing employment opportunities
  • Marketing comprises of advertising, sales, distribution, branding and many more activities.
  • services of different enterprises and organisation such as wholesalers, retailers, transportation, storage, finance, insurance and advertising. These services provide employment to a number of people.
  • Protection against business slump
  • Increase in national income
  • Successful operation of marketing activities creates, maintains and increases the demand for goods and services in society.
  • effective marketing leads to exports adding to the national income.
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    This article outlines the importance of e-marketing and the basic forum of how developing countries sustain their economy from marketing.
afigu115

Data Security in Hospitality: Risks and Best Practices | By Limon Wainstein - Hospitali... - 0 views

  • Information security is a pivotal aspect of many industries, not least the hospitality industry due to the nature of the data collected by companies operating within hospitality.
  • hospitality appears to offer an ideal target vector for conducting crimes such as identity theft and credit card fraud due to the existence of multiple databases and devices
  • ybercriminals use this reliance on cards to infect point-of-sale (POS) systems with malware that steals credit and debit card information by scraping the data.
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  • Restaurants, hotels, and other companies in the hospitality sector often have complex ownership structures in which theres a franchisor, an individual owner or group of owners, and a management company that acts as the operator.
  • A vital part of protecting data is training staff to securely gather and store personal information.
  • The high level of turnover and high degree of staff movement between different locations makes it a real challenge to maintain teams of well-trained staff
  • Industry and political regulators are becoming stricter in governing how organizations process and store personal data.
  • This type of data risk is more subtle and it involves employees selling data to third parties without the knowledge of the organization that employs them.
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    Information security is absolutely crucial within the Hospitality industry. There is so much important guest and customer information that is submitted via technology. This includes, credit card details, addresses, and phone numbers, with so much of this information being sensitive companies need to install security systems. The hospitality industry depends strongly on credit card as a form of payment which is why the POS needs to be secure. It is also extremely important that staff members are trained to gather and store guests personal information. The industry overall has become stricter in the ways that information gets gathered and processed in order to avoid cyber attacks. The last thing that companies must keep an eye on are insider threats, a lot of the time it's the employees from the company that are giving away valuable and confidential information to third parties. This is why I believe that technology has had a great impact on this industry but there needs to be strong security systems in order to avoid cyber attacks.
brianamfernandez10

You're Not Backing Up Properly Unless You Have Offsite Backups - 0 views

  • if you’re just performing regular backups to a nearby external hard drive or USB drive, you’re missing an important part of your backup strategy. You need your files stored in separate physical locations.
  • An offsite backup is literally backup that’s stored “off site” — in a different physical location from where your main files are.
  • You could use an Internet backup service like CrashPlan, Carbonite, BackBlaze, or Mozy
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  • Once a month (or every few weeks), you could grab that external drive, bring it home, and back up to it before taking it back and storing it in a different physical location.
  • Offsite backups are crucial for protecting important data.
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    This article discusses a prominent topic discussed this week: off-site back ups. It is crucial to any company, or even for personal use to keep an off-site back up of all important data and information you have. This is to ensure that no matter what happens to your system, or the location is is at; there will be a back up to go to.
kmert005

The Most Common Types of Restaurant Theft - 0 views

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    This article goes over the main types of restaurant theft. It first starts by stating ways to protect your restaurant against food and beverage theft. Which is having regular stock checks at unpredictable times, comparison of purchase orders, monitoring of bartender habits when pouring consistency, review of comp practices, policies enforced on break and meal habits, and security monitoring. It also talks about the theft at a POS: Noticing lower profit margins even with the same number of meals and drinks can be a red flag that receipts are not matching sales. More subtle signs of theft can be a change in employee morale as honest staffers witness others taking advantage of the system.
zeyupu

POS Systems for Your Restaurant | Transaction Services - 0 views

  • As with all forms of payment systems that are accessible by the public, there are some security risks.
    • zeyupu
       
      This may not be conducive to protecting the privacy of guests
anonymous

POS System in Cannabis Industry Leaks 85,000 Files | 2020-01-22 | Security Magazine - 0 views

  • Led by internet privacy researchers Noam Rotem and Ran Locar, vpnMentor’s research team discovered a data breach in THSuite, a point-of-sale system in the cannabis industry. 
  • an unsecured Amazon S3 bucket owned by THSuite that exposed 85,000 files of sensitive data from multiple marijuana dispensaries around the U.S. and their customers.
  • leaked data included scanned government and employee IDs, exposing personally identifiable information (PII) for over 30,000 individuals.
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  • US. Cannabis dispensaries have to collect large quantities of sensitive information in order to comply with state laws,
  • the THSuite platform is designed to simplify this process for dispensary operators by automatically integrating with each state’s API traceability system.
  • The vpnMentor team says that the breach affected many more dispensaries, and that it’s possible that all THSuite clients and their customers were involved.
  • The researchers also found photographs of government-issued photo IDs and corresponding signatures of dispensary visitors and patients alike.
  • Under HIPAA regulations, it’s a federal crime in the U.S. for any health services provider to expose protected health information (PHI) that could be used to identify an individual.
  • the researchers say that THSuite could be subject to HIPAA violations, which can result in fines of up to $50,000 for every exposed record, or even in jail time.
  • hackers and scammers can take advantage of personal details exposed in the data breach about dispensary customers and employees to create highly effective personalized phishing attacks.
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    There was a huge data breach at THSuite which exposed 85,000 files, some of those files being personal identification information. Dispensaries usually collect a lot of information to comply with U.S State laws. The files that were retrieved by the hackers means they can take advantage of those profiles. THSuite is looking at fines of up to $50,000 PER record or jail time.
yyr997

POS Terminals Rich Vein for Gold-Digging Hackers | Cybersecurity | TechNewsWorld - 0 views

  • Hackers are like gold miners. Once they find a rich vein for their malware, they mine it until it's dry. Point-of-sale terminals are such a vein, and it doesn't appear that it's one that's about to run dry any time soon.
  • Banks Buy Stolen Numbers
  • Patent King
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  • The FraudFox Browser
  • Protecting Mobile Privacy
  • Upcoming Security Events
  •  
    POS System has provided convenience for many company and stores, but at the same time, Internet security issues cannot be ignored.
hectorpachon

Security and tech trends in the hospitality industry for 2019 - 0 views

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    This article addresses the importance of cyber security throughout the hospitality industry. The hospitality industry in recent years has made huge advancements with technology and this is only the beginning. With the amount of hackers there are, hotels and restaurants will be a large target to gain customer information and steal their credit cards and other information. The importance of security in the industry grows with the advancements as well.
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    The article mentions the trends and the necessities for the hospitality industry not only to be technological appealing to the guests but also to give them peace of mind that all of their information and transactions are safe on the web.It is important that companies create a balance between getting all of them. More importantly than the necessity of being trendy and fashion about what is out there to benefit our hospitality industry, is very important to recognize that every new day, there is a new treat and we have to protect our reputation and the information our guests are trusting us. Hector Pachon
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