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An effective HRIS could benefit a company a lot. First of all, all the numbers, payrolls, employee information is easy to track and very clarified. It could bring a better administration function like enrollment, status change and some company's document. Especially some of the HRIS could let employees enable themselves to update their information and free HR people for more strategic works. And the most important thing is employees could use data for their knowledge development, job growth and development. From my personal experience when I was doing internship in hotel, for the day they hired me they already got me a lot of information, and later offer me an website, saying that I can see some rules documents in the intranet. That was impressive, I saw some of training information on it and downloaded it. Those materials are very useful that I still keep it in my drive. I believe a lot of people may have the same situation with me.

Interesting article! The author appeals hotel managers to stop, look and listen before investe hotel teches. He point that in-room technology makes provide a good experience for the guests however the hotel owner have to pay much and the ROI decreased. In addition the writer notice that the manager should understand the real demands of travelers instead of installing high-end devices in the guest room.

No matter in what kind of biz, before we make a decision to adopt new technology, it's better to do a SWOT analysis at first. In the hospitality industry, everything related to the relationship with people. What kind of service will accept by customers and what's the best method to provide are the basic questions need to be answered before take a new investment approach. In this artical, it piont out to be wait and see before tacking a new investment. There are some benifits to do this. 1, save money. 2, get the experience from others. 3, lower risk. No matter what kind of method you take, the basic rule is making decision from customer perspective.

Here Forbe magazine offers some tips on how to do proximity/mobile marketing right and some of the advantages. Companies need another marketing avenue to reach customers in this diverse field where competition is so intense. Technological advances will help one stand out in this large crowd.

This article give us an idear about use technology to promote marketing. In 21st century the mobile device is indispensable for everybody, for company, we have to keep forefront on technology.

This article analysis the future of the GDS for airlines from both the airline company's perspective and the marketing perspective. The conflicts between airlines and GDS and the agencies is a recycling battle. It has been back and forth with the airlines withdraw from the system and ended up renewing contracts. The most recent war initiated by American airline pulled its inventory from Orbitz in December, 2010, in order to force GDS Travelport to drop the distribution cost. The two parties need each other and it is time for them to reach common ground and have mutual benefits.Delta has done something for that by adopting three second-tire OTAs. http://www.tnooz.com/2010/12/22/news/delta-cites-apple-experience-exits-cheapoair-bookit-com-onetravel/ But those are the short-term issues. In the long term is that " airlines' long-term strategy to advance distribution from fare- and schedule-led selling to merchandising. " The article also give a marketing perspective. It shows the intention of American Airline to build a system that link directly to the airline that don`t have to obey the searching rules of the agency. It also listed nine unanswered questions and wild cards, which indicates the risk of this strategic shift.

The AutoClerk Property Management System (PMS) is designed to be the most powerful, intuitive PMS on the market. At the core of every hotel operator's business is the guest experience. It is the yield management tool. AutoClerk Yield Management Rules offer sensitivity to your occupancy by allowing you to define what levels will trigger different room rate tiers. These rules can also take into account the number of days into the future the guest is booking the room. In that way, quoting a guest a room rate is kept quick and easy. It is the room allotments. AutoClerk has built-in support for wholesaler room allotments with rolling cut-off dates and pickup reports. Each day of an allotment can have its own setting for number of rooms allotted, and AutoClerk will not allow reservation entry which overbooks a given allotment. Is also called guest history and profiles. AutoClerk's "profile lookup" searches the entire AutoClerk database, including past stays, current check-ins and future reservations. Profile lookups can identify by guest, company, group, or travel agent and can be made to be automatic, so that a reservation name entry will invoke a profile list of matches. Besides, channel auditing, availability snapshot, easy audit, customer packages, email options and housekeeping exist as some other functions.

CBS Sports debuted their improved technology during their recent Masters telecast with the help of high-speed wireless radio frequency (RF) cameras. The cameras followed the leaders on the ground to provide viewers more access to the 365-acre golf course. This enhanced technology has never been used before at the Masters, a traditional venue that is notorious for its cell phone ban. In this day-and-age spending a day without a cell phone is unfathomable to some. However thousands of patrons attending abide by the rules for the love of the game. The Masters is comparable to the Super Bowl in terms of media coverage and hype. The event also generates higher room rates and occupancy levels due to increased demand.

This article illustrates the importance of security and safety in hotels which is caused by the high expectation of guests to the hotel. It is emphasized that it is essential to secure the guest and make him feel safe. Moreover, there are some relevant points mentioned to security matter including personal safety, pool & spa regulations and security staff.

Sophisticated automation is changing the method by which reservations are requested and accepted. Never before have hotels had reservations coming into their property from so many varied directions. Legislation is being considered for presentation to Congress which would require divestiture of CRS by individual airlines. The bill would prevent any airline from owning more than ten percent of a CRS system that list flights and schedules of other carrier. The justification for this is that the airlines often find a way around any rules the US government enacts, including present ones.

computer security is definitely still a "hot topic." But why are we spending all this time and money and still having problems? . Systems based on "Default Permit" are the computer security equivalent of empty calories: tasty, yet fattening.The most recognizable form in which the "Default Permit" dumb idea manifests itself is in firewall rules.Another place where "Default Permit" crops up is in how we typically approach code execution on our systems. 2.Why is "Enumerating Badness" a dumb idea? It's a dumb idea because sometime around 1992 the amount of Badness in the Internet began to vastly outweigh the amount of Goodness. "Enumerating Badness" is the idea behind a huge number of security products and systems, from anti-virus to intrusion detection, intrusion prevention, application security, and "deep packet inspection" firewalls. 3."Penetrate and Patch" crops up all over the place, and is the primary dumb idea behind the current fad (which has been going on for about 10 years) of vulnerability disclosure and patch updates. 4.Hidden in Parker's observation is the awareness that hacking is a social problem. It's not a technology problem, at all. "Timid people could become criminals." The Internet has given a whole new form of elbow-room to the badly socialized borderline personality.If you're a security practitioner, teaching yourself how to hack is also part of the "Hacking is Cool" dumb idea. 5."Penetrate and Patch" can be applied to human beings, as well as software, in the form of user education.Dealing with things like attachments and phishing is another case of "Default Permit" 6.There's an important corollary to the "Action is Better Than Inaction" dumb idea, and it's that: "It is often easier to not do something dumb than it is to do something smart."

This article was divided into five parts to introduce the computer networks. The first part is why do we need computer networks. I guess there are a lot of reasons ,but the most important one is to share information from others,everyone can visit information which is provided by other users,also they can simply access the same server machine. The second part is types of computer networks. It can divided by three different types 1.LAN when a certain number of computers within an organization are connected with the use of data transfer cables, it is called Local Area Network. 2.WLAN the goal of LAN and WLAN is same ,that is connect computers with networks.But cables are not used for forming the network. 3.WAN it can connect computers all over the world. The third part is computer network connections 1.Bus network .It is the easiest setup technology which is also easier to make mistakes 2 Star network. It is also a common setup technology 3.Mesh network. This is one of the primitive ways of forming a computer network The fifth part is information transformation . Using this technology, the data is broken into small pieces called packets of data. Every packet of data, has a head and in some cases a tail. The head contains various information, like the destination address, the checking bits. The final part is the definition of protocol. The computer protocol is a set of rules ,information travel from one to another. These set of rules will define, when to send a packet of data, when an acknowledgment signal should be given.The most common protocol, that we must have heard and which is used over in the largest network

Source: Successful Meetings; Mar2005, Vol. 54 Issue 3, p28-34; Author: Ben Chapman bchapman@successfulmeetings.com I am posting this article because if points out another netiquette issue, which is having consideration for those outside your internet access zone, such as the public nearby, companions, and most importantly, your business supervisors and peers. This article discusses the pitfalls of technology when it comes to conducting meetings, whereas the attendees are not fully engaged due to their focus on their personal devices. While it was posted in 2005, and stating that establishment of etiquette rules are yet to be established, I still do not see indication seven years later that this trend of attentiveness towards one's device over the person next to you (or presenting to a group) has changed for the better. Not only that, but apparently meeting attendees have actually emailed the presenter to express their boredom with the meeting, and while it's good for coordinators to know how engaged the audience is, it still is very rude. The article does say that "awareness of etiquette is rising as technology matures" and "it's hip to have manners," but I don't see it in school nor in the workplace. Employers have all adopted guidelines regarding use of personal devices to limit use during work hours, and even to constrain employees online social activities to forbid use of their company name or to post disparaging comments. I find it sadly amusing that the very instruments which are meant to increase productivity and provide increased communication and professional interaction is becoming the very opposite in the workplace and during professional development venues.

Many hotels may want to chance their accounting systems but at the same time are trying to avoid all of the new costs and possible disruptions that come with a new system. By staying with their old systems though it could end up costing them more money in the long run if the system decides to just stop working and then you lose all of your data.

This article describes what basic capabilities an accounting software for a hotel who is trying to expand globally should have. As well know, it is very important for a company to be able to adapt to changing times. Hotels are an industry that is constantly facing challenges, especially when trying to expand globally. This article gives some very important tips on what hotels should looks for when putting their financial management system in place. For example, expanding globally means a hotel would have to handle different currencies at one time. This is somewhat of a complex task for a company who is new to the global arena. Hotels should make sure to have a system that would make following different sets of accounting and business rules easier for the company. Another example is hotels should have a system that is able to utilize multiple accounting standards. "GAAP, IFRS and local accounting standards require different accounting treatments", therefore, software for hotels should be able to accommodate these variations.

I found this article very interesting as it discusses various aspects that a financial system should have in order to provide the most accurate and timely financial reports and analysis to help hotels to be more efficient and increase profit. According to the article, as all the hotels are evolving and changing at all times and the financial system has to be able to keep up with all the changes. One of the few things a financial management system should be able to do is to handle currency complexity and make sure that the hotel's accounting system can handle multiple currencies. A good financial system should also be able to handle multiple different languages for employees with different language backgrounds and also units of measurements and formats. The system also needs to be able to support multiple charts of accounts. According to Ventana Research 2011, "maintaining multiple charts of accounts may prove to be both simpler in the long run and more productive." Another important aspect of a good financial system it to handle tax complexities for hotels operating in various countries. The accounting software should be able to "handle complexities associated with different tax regulations and help defending tax audits." The last important fact it that the software should web based therefore accessible from anywhere and anytime. I find the last one the most important one as our technology and our PMS are moving into cloud based systems, it is curial that we are moving in the right direction with all of our systems and have them synchronized.

This article explains the basics of Cloud Computing and how more companies are converting to the "Cloud." The article will also detail the pros and cons of Cloud Computing and highlight current issues concerning this growing technology.

This article relates back to our discussion post for the week; employee theft and fraud. It explains how hotels create quite the opportunity for employees to steal and however you try to filter potential employees you never hire someone expecting they will do such a thing to your business. Because you can not be 100% sure your employee is a trustworthy person who would never steal you have to set the proper rules and precautions. Prevention is the first and likely most important step in keeping your company safe from internal theft because once it has already happened there are several contingencies. The article explains the many laws and crimes that an be committed when accusing an employee of theft and from terminating them because of it.

The following article does a great job outlining different aspects of cyber security within the hospitality industry. Security is one of the main departments that need attention and an additional budget in order meet todays security requirements. After doing some research, it is clear to see that all employees must have the same focus in order to provide the best security for their guest. Hotel security can provide things like: facility protection and control, guest and visitor monitoring and assistance, security command center monitoring (cameras, alarms systems and surveillances), maintain emergency response plan, etc. "Security has a difficult job of enforcing the rules and regulations of the establishment while making the guest feel welcome." The article goes over different security systems and what differentiates them, I thought that it gave a lot of insightful information into various cyber security systems.

This blog post talks about how you can effectively reach your customer base through the use of email marketing, pre and post arrival. One of the benefits is being able to build guest rapport by creating a relationship through this channel. Sending them a few offers prior to arrival or a unique message to follow your twitter page creates this positive relationship and vibe about your brand. This leads to getting a farther reach on your online presence via social media and what not. This is a cost effective marketing channel that leads to more followers, more likes, and more brand awareness. Lastly, you can discover great guest feedback by sending post stay e-mail marketing. It has been reported that the majority prefer to receive a guest feedback e-mail rather than being stopped while they are checking out. This also opens the doors to opportunities, by keeping the relationship, creating customer loyalty, and reaching them through email marketing for special deals. The use of email marketing is one of the most cost effective and leads to the greatest ROI. It creates customer loyalty and leads to repeat business.

The article titled "3 Reasons Why Email Marketing is Essential for your Hotel" provides interesting points in terms of the impact of email marketing. Building guest rapport, specifically a personalized point of contact, is crucial for the guest to feel that there is a connection, and in turn will become loyal. According to the article, "Effective hotel email marketing starts the minute a guest has booked and nurtures your relationship with them long after their stay. It's a chance for you to build rapport with your guests-which translates into positive reviews and repeat customers". Therefore, how can hotels create a positive guest experience and environment? Email marketing, when used efficiently, such as through pre-arrival emails, will allow guests to feel appreciated and taken care of. In addition to this, email marketing is an excellent opportunity to extend the brand's online presence and receive guest feedback. Thus, email marketing should not be seen only as communication from the hotel to the guest, but a great start to a conversation.

This article brings us into a deep insight of whether pricing technology offered by OTA is reliable or not. Firstly, two views should be considered before answering this question: one, there is a conflict of interest between an OTA and a hotel property; two, what data goes into their formulas, where it comes from and is it sufficient to make reasonable pricing recommendations. The author provided deep analyses for these two main point and came to the conclusion that: being sure that you know the game rules before utilizing those free pricing intelligent tools.

The focus of the article is to highlight how the event industry is becoming more popular among the hospitality industry in Nigeria. It mentions the Events Market Nigeria (EMN) group aims to provide a places that allows for growth and development within the event industry with the newcomers and experienced event planners. The event that was hosted by the EMN, provides free gathering that offer different speakers to offer advice and their experience to those attendees willing to listen. Throughout the article, it states that the country of Nigeria has a population of "almost $200 million people and a reputation for an ostentatious culture", which makes it a perfect place to invest in the event industry. Especially due to the fact that the industry is a source of a more favorable return on investment even though other sources in Nigeria are considered more attractive. What makes the event industry profitable, is the ability to venture with other businesses such as venues, catering, event planning and more. But with all the good, the article does point out the issues such as liability and the lack of rules that are set for the industry. I think that it's an important topic to consider because hotels are implementing a source of revenue with renting out meeting spaces and catering services to outside companies. With more and more events being planned, I think it's a great business to venture in. The ability to have an events department within a hotel or even a restaurant gives the establishment to produce more revenue within other departments. Such as a hotel, the planning of a meeting not only brings in the revenue of the space being rented but also to Food and Beverage with the catering aspect and the front desk with the rooms being occupied by the clients and attendees.

The most desired amenity is not a comfy bed, good location its actually something we can not without, fast and secure Wifi!  Studies show 94% agreed that above every other amenity they wished all hotels offer quality wifi. But not all hotels offer high quality wifi which leads to more spending to fix issues, and poor guest experience. The article mentions how to build a good wifi network from the ground up first thing is Security comes first. Creating a secure system for what your guests needs. Next, comes planning for capacity. Planning for this means plan for what applications your guest use. Then comes access point placement. Where should the network stream from that is the most effective?  Now comes listening to your guests regarding the wifi connectivity and keeping up with demand which all ties into choosing the right partner to setup your wifi connection. It is surprising that out of all the lavish amenities one would like 94% want high quality wifi. In these times without internet connection, it feels as if were in the stone age. The article talks about the importance of having high quality wifi for guests to have a great experience which we cannot stress enough of the importance. The first step of establishing a good wifi network is to do a needs analysis of your guests what type of apps will they use? If its normal email, surf the web you can build a standard network, but if its high data usage like video apps then you have to establish a higher connection. With all this having a shared network is always risky so you have to have the most secure network one can have so you don't Put your guests in cyber harm's way. An effective way for hotels to manage all this is to contract with a wifi company so they can manage, provide and upgrade as needed. So the importance of choosing a right partner that knows your guests' needs is important. Hotels rely so much on keeping up with technology from being able to check in online, manage hotel guests services, and j

This article talks about how events constitute an invaluable source of information that can be utilized in a number of business processes such as fact finding and decision making. It talks about how various laws also mandate that logs have to be maintained and reviewed. Events are records generated and stored in specific locations by processes within a computer system. Events are triggered either by a user or by an automatic/background process. An example would be the installation of new software generates a wide range of events detailing the installation procedures and the file details. Events management is the management, analysis and reporting process involved in the management of computer and user generated events data and the logs within which the generated events are stored. A main purpose of events monitoring is legal compliance. The article talks about legal compliance which has current laws and regulations oblige corporations to assess their internal control architecture on a regular basis. As a subset of information system security, employee performance metrics can be used to measure employee resource use against configurable rules and rule sets. This article explains modern day card and keyless access systems, PABX or VOIP systems are all integrated to operate over the corporate network and most of them generate a log that can be used with GFI EventsManager. Reducing system downtime to a minimum is critical to organizations, since it leads to customer attrition, loss of brand reliability and revenue.