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Las Vegas casinos delayed their anticipated reopening by several days due to civil unrest and protesting. Digital marketing including a new ad campaign was ultimately pulled due to the heightened sensitivity surrounding recent events. Once the strip was eventually allowed to reopen, preliminary data was promising, but nowhere near pre-covid numbers, and capacity at resorts like MGM was being kept under 35% for the time being.

New technologies are helping hotels with ways to open up after Covid-19: Tablets with thermal imaging cameras, UV light sanitizers that guests walk-through, touchless F & B ordering & touchless tipping apps, and social distancing for pools & beaches. All of these innovative ideas and many more will be needed if there is to be a reopening of hotels and if the reopenings will lead to a sustained resurgence in room occupancy. Guests will expect hotels to offer them reasonable health safety measures and hopefully, these new technologies will help them do just that.

Heil and Carman (2020) begin by highlighting the current changes in the restaurant business, where social distancing, protective gear, and reduced capacity are the norm as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. The resulting effect is the limited interaction with customers, eliminating the warm, welcoming customer service nature of waiters and waitresses. The focus of the paper, in this case, is on Georgia, Alaska, and Tennessee, which allowed the reopening of restaurants and other eateries. Some of the provisions instituted include limiting the restaurant capacity to 25%, such as in the case of Alaska. Resultantly, with expected low revenues, only approximately 5% of restaurants in Alaska have opened. However, in Georgia and Tennessee, restaurant owners provide that they may not be able to implement safety guidelines among their employees, given the surprising nature of the reopening provisions. However, some businesses are prepared, instituting internal measures to couple the governmental regulations (Heil and Carman, 2020). However, those reopening are faced with logistic challenges, as issues such as storage space for extra furniture are required. Other costs, such as air scrubbers, which are expensive, may also be required in addition to the mandatory sanitizers, increasing the costs of operations. With regard to technological focuses by the restaurants, some have developed disposable menus, while others have generated QR codes for customers to get access to digital menus. On the other hand, restaurants have had to pay above minimum wages, as they seek to attract employees back to work despite the coronavirus pandemic. The creation of the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) is highlighted as the underlying survival of businesses during the pandemic period. However, while the pandemic appears as having resulted in a need for high adaptability, Heil and Carman (2020) provide that "opening at limited capacity means (ability to operate) at full force once normalcy

This article is about two schools that used Event Manager Software to help them get and stay organized. From knowing what areas/classes were clean and ready for use to knowing where certain groups were going to be located on campus for events. They were able to apply the same issues with organizing large groups for events to organizing the daily needs of the school.

This article talks about the reopening of the Statue of Liberty after the 9/11 attacks. With increasing concern for security, yet being a tourism hot spot, the operating managers at the Statue of Liberty came up with security measures that would increase safety yet help lines and the screening process go along faster. They found refuge in biometric locker technology. The rules were simple, no bags were aloud to go up in the statue of liberty with its owner. This alleviated the struggle it would have been to thoroughly search each bag for safety, Not only did I find this convenient, but I also think that by taking fingerprints and being able to track that person and their belongings, had there been anything found in a bag in a locker, it would be traced back to the person that place it there via fingerprint. This is also extremely safe for the guest's belongings, as we know fingerprints are unique, therefore no one else could simply break into the lockers. This shows that the people at the Statue of Liberty understood the need to still satisfy the customer but also protect themselves and the guest from possible harm.

As we see more and more venues reopening for in-person events with COVID-19 restrictions being lifted, technology is helping to guide the way to ensure a safe event for guests. Technology firms have developed tools that feature contact tracing, COVID-19 vaccination test results tracking, health surveys, etc. With this technology, there are many reporting tools as well that include making sure their health objectives are being met and contacting those who may have been exposed.

Jack Li, of Datassential, says safety is the main thing consumers want and that restaurants must provide as more and more of the country reopens. He also stresses that discounts and other promotional methods should be limited and used for a short time only. Consumers are looking for foods they could not cook themselves while locked in their homes. Lastly, eating out is something that most people associate with providing a sense of normalcy and most liken it to visiting friends and relatives.

The Doubletree Dallas/Richardson hotel did a total overhaul of the security system and reopened. They choose the VISIONLINE and Signature RFID by VingCard to meet the travelers' demand of security, efficiency and reliability. What's more it is a cost-effective system which facilitate reliable wireless two-way communication by the host security and PMS systems. The VISIONLINE is a security control from the central location, utilizing RF-online communication capabilities that eliminate the need to travel to each guest room. The Signature RFID, advantages included remotely cancelling guest and staff keycards with one click, or identifying and changing low batteries communicate with multiple rooms at once, reducing the number of network components required for installation and so on. For the company, it is ease and exclusivity. The staff can maximize their efficiency to spend less time on maintenance and more time on customer service, increased reliability and performance at an affordable cost, highly reliable security, unprecedented convenience and ease-of-operation, decreasing the overall workload.

OYO Hotels & Homes was a young hotel startup in 2013. Now it holds 44,000 locations and over 1.2 million in rooms. Sabre Corporation is one of the leaders in technology and software that powers the global travel industry. Sabre's SynXis increases efficiency by delivering rates and inventory to all major GDS systems and OTAs directly to partners. OYO Hotel & Homes connected its first group of hotels to Sabre's SynXis. This partnership with Sabre has given OYO the global tools to reach a global market. The platform has given them the power to book through Sabre's own GDS as well as others, corporates, travel management companies, and almost 900,000 travel agents and tour operators.

This article explains how theme parks are look for ways to ensure safety for all of the guest and employees during the Covid-19 pandemic. By using Far-UVC light technology to help clean and disinfect attractions and restaurants.

The article "How technology Will Reshape the Hotel Industry Post COVID 19 Pandemic" talks about how this industry is taking necessary measures in order to promote safety and security within their companies while implementing new technologies. It states that this pandemic has impulsed the implementation of new technologies into hotel operations. Contactless solutions, hotel check ins, mobile room keys, etc.. are just some of the examples hotels are taking in order to minimize contact and enhance customer experiences

This article mainly describes how the hotel industry can use technology to help it recover after COVID-19, and how to enhance the confidence of employees and customers. With the development of the epidemic, the hotel industry and even the entire hospitality industry are widely promoting contactless technologies. Therefore, various mobile and self-service AI technologies are integrated with hotel operations. In the future, with the development of this normalization, reasonable monitoring technology, non-contact communication technology, location detection technology, super sterilization, and robotics technology will all become important aspects of the future development of the hotel industry.

Consumers behaviors have changed due to Covid-19. They demand more sanitary practices on places. One of the things of the 'new normal' lifestile is e-menus. The Interactive Firm has launched MyMenusOnline which is a touchless digital restaurant menu. With MyMenusOnline consumers simply scan with their phones a QR Code to view the restaurant's menu. Besides the digital menu presented by the professor in the discussion, this could be the future of menus in restaurants.

This article talks about the hotel industry and the inside scoop on their efforts to getting back out their and marketing themselves after COVID-19. There are a few things they need to consider while they are beginning to strategize their plan. One of them is timing. If the company remained staff, then they may begin marketing faster than those that furloughed employees. In that case, they may need to get that together before they invest in marketing. Another item to consider are their goals. Companies must think about what they can afford. They need to think about if they are able to have some leeway and able to take things slower, even if it means breaking even for a while or does your company absolutely need to be at the same profitability level pre-pandemic? Another consideration would be regions. Certain regions were hit harder than others. Therefore, recovery will be by a case by case basis. Some regions will be able to market and get back to business faster than others. Yet another consideration is channels. This refers to social media and other types of media in order to market. Travelers follow many travel pages on social media, therefore this should be a priority when trying to ramp up customer traffic again. All-in-all, the travel and hotel industry will make a comeback. Although it will be a slow comeback, the industry will prevail just as it has before.

This article briefly sumarizes the uses of Beason technology which are potentially to be applied in 2021 under the pandemic. They includes tracking the spread of COVID-19, tracking social-distancing, tracking of missing items, remote ordering for restaurants and inventory management.

This article is about touch less payments after COVID. It focused on three options: Paying at the table, the value touch less POS brings, and Near Field Communications which is used with Google and Apple Pay.

The company Bartech is offering hotels and casinos in Las Vegas solutions regarding the coronavirus pandemic for guests.

The bartech e-bar is convenient as hotels can seamlessly control these functions, and now it makes more sense than ever due to reduced capacity at hotels bars, that implementing a bartech mini bar will enhance customer satisfaction. There is a downloadable application to control the functions of the e-bar. Since guests are spending more time in the room and less in the hotel bar, the e-bar is a convenient way for hotels to increase their profits during this difficult time. It can also monitor when and what the guest is taking, and store this data for reference. In another way, it can monitor its touching by guests usage which eliminates the need for hotel staff to enter the room and check the bar--which reduces the touching and entering of people into rooms.

Besides ensuring guests of new safety protocols, the electronic mini bar reduces touch and saves costs to hotels because hotels can remotely change settings on the bar, for example, by locking, unlocking, remotely shutting off or reducing temperatures during non-occupancy. The article then suggests that a "well-run mini-bar" is a profit center to any hotel and to implement an e-bar makes sense for guest satisfaction and also to save costs, especially during this time.

Robots can increase efficiency and productivity in hotels, but they also pose challenges which include cost, skill deficits, and changes to the culture of hotels. With the COVID-19 pandemic there is more interest in developing these robots in hotels to limit human interaction. These systems would require someone for upkeep to the robots and software involved.

This article discusses the benefits of utilizing influencer marketing to give your hotel/restaurant marketing strategy a more competitive edge. They noted that influencers inspire an already established audience and provide inspiration to followers to live more fully and "experience something out-of-the-ordinary." I learned that the key to a great influencer is finding someone who matches both your brand values and the values of your audience. They also discussed how influencers add authority and trust and how they are seen by their audience to be unbiased and objective. This puts the influencer in a position of great trustworthiness when it comes to purchasing decisions. The article also discussed how influencers help marketing departments by coming up with fresh and exciting content that their audiences will want to see. Lastly, the article touched on that since the COVID-19 pandemic social media has become more powerful than ever before. People are spending an additional 3 minutes on Instagram per day. The best way to leverage this new increased usage is to get an established influencer who understands your band and who already has a relationship with your targeted audience to work on your campaigns. Overall, influencer marketing is here to stay and if carefully researched you'll see a strong surge of engagement on your social media platforms.