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As the topic suggests information is the key for decision making in any business. Computerized modern information technology should make this process much quicker and more efficient. But, of course, as the old saying goes "Garbage in Garbage out." So it is a combination of the Right People and the Right System that makes a business successful. Computers cannot replace men. Good people along with a good computerized system is necessary. The software used for any hospitality business needs to be tailored to the specific needs of that organization depending on whether they primarily sell just room service or whether they offer a lot of food and beverage service or other services. Good I.T personnel should have good knowledge of all three components: System (flow of each activity), Software (that translate the activity in measurable terms both quantitatively and qualitatively) and Hardware (media through which we can see these activities) To achieve this at least two months of training should be done, of which one month must be on the job training. Once an appropriate mix of competent people and a good system is set up this should reflect in guest satisfaction, staff satisfaction, management satisfaction and owner satisfaction.

This article shares results from an environmental sustainability study of 100 US resorts and a separate survey of 120,000 hotel guests. It discusses a variety of sustainability initiatives such as water and energy conservation, recycling and waste reduction, LEED construction, and guest engagement. While guest engagement was significant, indicating 75% of guests surveyed actually participated in sustainability initiatives during their stay, the effect on guest satisfaction is modest at best. At best, only 0.6% of guests selected specific properties based on environmental sustainability. Guest participation in sustainability efforts were highest at extended stay locations, followed by luxury and upscale properties, with economy properties placing last. The most effective and commonly used aspect of sustainability efforts was towel and linen reuse, showing up in 91% of the survey responses. Overall, while the traditional drivers of guest satisfaction remain consistent across brands and property types (room, facilities, food and beverage quality), sustainability programs do not lower guest satisfaction, but are increasingly becoming a standard expectation of both guests and employees, and have significant cost-savings potential when implemented and managed effectively.

"The Motorola Solutions 2011 Hospitality Market Barometer reveals that 91 percent of hospitality decision makers realize the increasing importance of mobile and wireless technology, while 78 percent recognize the role mobility plays in ensuring a competitive advantage for their business. As a result, hospitality venues are investing in new technology, as well as powerful wireless networks to handle greater data volumes and increasing demands for high-speed access from the customer and mobile workforce. "

The article analyzed why hotels do investment to It in 2011. It concluded three main reasons, which are elevating the guest experience, empowering the mobile worker, and enabling operational efficiency. It's already 2013 now and things can become different. Hotels should invent carefully according to its specific necessary and customers' necessary.

Dear team! I found an article, very old but to me, very actual and interesting about how the Internet Technology is improving and progressing, and the investment bring benefits only. In 2011 , only 4 years ago, we can see that the companies were having a clear plan to improve the communication system. By introducing wireless, tablets, WLANs , to improve network reliability... Today we have it all on hands. We are using all the devices online , wireless and with no problem to access. No cords on the floor, no telegrams ... Internet technologies is a big progress in our century and is developing and growing, by leaving some of us behind. :)

Four key elements to successfully planning an event in the hospitality industry include but aren't limited to: Client Satisfaction - The event should follow through as planned between the planner and client. Anything that goes wrong should be fixed in a timely manner where the client won't notice. A successful event leads to client loyalty most of the times so they'll book with you again. Profitability - Ensure each event doesn't result in a loss Guest Experience - What the guests experience will ultimately determine how the client's satisfaction of the event will be by the end of the night. A guest's experience will be based off of service and quality. The quality of the chairs, the plates even right down to the utensils they're eating from, the music, the drinks, and most importantly, the food. Happy guest = happy client Perceived Value - Adding a special touch to an itinerary that the client wasn't expecting makes all the difference

This article outlines several factors to focus on in order to host a successful event in the hospitality industry, including customer satisfaction, guest experience, profitability and perceived value. Among them, customer satisfaction is the primary factor that needs attention, and improving customer satisfaction will get more business opportunities. In addition, meeting customers' needs and solving customers' problems can give customers an unforgettable experience, which is also conducive to the success of the event. As an operator, you must also consider profit. Profits come from customers. If you can improve the perceived value of customers, it is a memorable experience for customers, improve customer satisfaction, and profitability comes naturally.

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A good information technology system consists of three parts, namely system, software and hardware. Choosing the right system type is the most important for any hotel operation. Choosing the right system requires expertise in hotel operations. Good IT personnel should have knowledge of all three components, namely the system (the process of each activity), software (software that can quantitatively and quantitatively translate activities) and hardware (the media through which these activities can be viewed). All these should be mainly reflected in guest satisfaction, employee satisfaction, management satisfaction and owner satisfaction. Proper training is the key to effective implementation. Many times, the hotel does not fully use the software. Although the system can provide various reports and usages, they have not been fully utilized due to lack of proper training and induction in the use of software.

This article goes about discussing the issues around full service hotels and fees for WiFi internet connection. Travel Professionals do have changes throughout the years in the hotel and tourism industry, but some are really serious that is affecting the rating of customer satisfaction in hotels. According to experts, they do present a theory that something must be done in order to increase revenue and also hotel's ratings; no all hotel managements agree with such theory. Therefore, they are still pushing for continuing the fees and strive for customer satisfaction all at the same time. In essence, the hotel industry is constantly adapting to new and more changes everyday, as technology also changes and have new innovations.

This article is about customers' satisfaction related with quality of internet service during the hotel staying. Internet usage during a hotel stay continues to steadily increas, it remains a top problem. Among guests who report complaints, 31% had an issue with their Internet serivce in terms of connection and speed. However, despite all these complaints about Internet issues, hotel guests are satisfied with their hotels than last year. According to 2013 North America Hotel Guest Satisfaction Index study, overall guests satisfaction arose 20 points from 2012, it averages 777 on a 1,000-point scale.

Aptech Computer Systems, Inc., the leading provider of hospitality software for business intelligence and enterprise financial accounting, announced about four new hotel companies who have selected their hospitality solutions to improve their business intelligence, budgeting and forecasting, and accounting. M&R Hospitality Management in New York and San Ysidro Ranch in Santa Barbara, CA, are among the companies implementing Aptech's financial solutions. Excuvue is a web based hospitality Business Intelligence application which gathers and coordinates data from different hotel systems, including the Smith Travel Research report. This system can convert written online ratings, comments, and the guest satisfaction ratings into metrics. This basically helps in optimizing the revenues as they can match up with the customer's idea and with their current daily performance and also with their competitors. It is very essential to bring about changes in the department where your competitor is excelling at. This sort of information can help them make quick changes for profitability and customer satisfaction. The interesting part is that companies are looking outside to leverage financial solutions in order to better manage their standards and keep up the pace. and many more hotel companies are implementing this to streamline their back office processes.

This article focuses on how hotel companies are implementing a new system that has been introduced to simplify financial accounting. Aptech Computer Systems claims to be a leading provider of such software, allowing companies to improve their budgeting, forecasting, and accounting. Many hotel companies utilize Quickbooks to effectively manage their budgeting and forecasting needs, along with their accounting needs, and as these companies grow, they need a better solution to effectively manage these aspects. Companies with multiple properties need a system that can manage data from all of their different sources, and combine them to strategically analyze their profits, revenues, and their losses, as well as to make budgeting decisions and forecasts. Execuvue, a web based business intelligence application created by Aptech, combines data from a large variety of hotel systems, such as STR data, which is extremely valuable in assessing where each hotel stands in its competitive set, and how much of its market share that it is currently obtaining. The system also provides insight to operators as to recommended actions for the hotel to take with the data that is collected. The system also measures online ratings, comment card details and other guest satisfaction measurements, enabling hotel operators to utilize guest satisfaction ratings along with their profit standpoints and their current financials. This system seems to be a valuable resource in today's economy, and with the evolving technology. It allows users to utilize data from all sorts of sources to make decisions and assessments. Any operator or manager knows that seeing data quickly and efficiently, where the answer is simply laid out in front of you so that you do not have to seek information from multiple sources and then compare it with the other sources, allows you to make informed decisions much more quickly and be much more assured with your choices. It also enables those operators to find ways to opt

The fashion merchandise retailer store, Nordstrom, has joined the venture of equipping employees with mobile POS devices in order to increase customer satisfaction, in a focus toward convenient efficient checkout. The fundamental incentive is to minimize the customer's inclination to over analyze their potential purchase by waiting in the line for a lengthy period, thus, maintaining the impose of the customers to purchase the item. The mobile POS devices are equipped with a scanner and credit card slider in order to complete the transaction for the customer, the same type of technology is visible in Apple and Home Depot stores. According to the company's sale report, a visible increase in sales has occurred for the Nordstrom Company, an estimated 15.3 percent from $1.5 Billion to $1.73 Billion in the same fiscal year of 2011. As well, the creation of a Nordstrom app allows salespersons to check inventory and availability, in a further aim to increase customer satisfaction and their business. Without a doubt POS system are branching into different spectrum of business in order to increase efficiency and customer satisfaction.

This article is about an innovative system named REX (Room expediter) that is able to improve the efficiency of the hotel and improve guests' satisfaction. With REX, the Fairmont Scottsdale Princess is able to efficiently assign rooms and reduce labor costs associated with the housekeeping department. REX is the only system in its kind that streamlines the entire room assignments and clearing process with mobile devices such as IPOD, IPAD and the like. REX is also using information from the hotel's PMS such as name, bed type preferences to room attendants so that they can optimize guests' satisfaction. Another important feature of REX is the ability to use information from the Property management system such as status changes and others to define the order to which rooms are assigned to rooms attendants. In conclusion, REX is a powerful system that can increase guests' satisfaction, reduce labor costs and in return increase profits for the hotel industry.

The article about "smart glass" discusses a new glass product that has Internet protocol and electrical power connections that allow the tinting to be adjusted or follow a program. Mentioned briefly in the article is another electrochromatic glass, SageGlass, produced by the French materials giant, Compagnie de Saint-Gobain SA. The pitch of the American company reviewed in the article, View, is that it will lower temperature control costs by 20% and that installation is also significantly less expensive than traditional glass. When installed as a test for DFW airport the restaurant in that area benefited from the more confortable atmosphere and lingering customers with an increase in alcohol sales of 80%. The intended benefit of saving on cooling cost and customer satisfaction is actually resulting in improved profits, this is the type of green technology that companies will gladly implement, because it helps their bottom line. I think this product is an all around win and improvement for airports, hotels, stadiums and any desitnation that has lots of large windows, the product is cost effective, improves customer satisfaction and increases revenue while using less energy for cooling.

This article discusses the event planning aspect of the hospitality and tourism industry. Topics such as client satisfaction, guest experience, profitability, and perceived value were taken into consideration in regards to the makings of a successful event. According to this article event planning can be profitable is it is done in a manner that encompasses both experience and satisfaction for the client and the guests.

This article is talking about what makes a successful Event in the hospitality industry. There are have many popular event such like business meetings, celebration dinners or weddings in hospitality industry. According to the Convention Industry Council, they spend $263 billion for meetings and events in 2009. Everyone trying to make their even successful and satisfied their customer. Therefore, the article introduces the important factors can make the even successful. Firstly, client Satisfaction, client satisfaction for a small business very important because the first priority is the satisfaction of the client, the customers who booked the event and is paying for it. Customers will know if this company good or not through the event. Thus, the company have to plan it well and trying to make the customers happy. Any problem must ne solved as soon as possible without impact customers. A successful event that can help company grad a lot of customer's attention. Secondly, guest experience. Business have to provide the better experience for the customers all the time. Their experience depends on the quality of the food, staff and other facilities in the room. The success event should have a friendly server, good food and comfortable temperature. A little detail that will influence the customers feeling. As a owner of the business, we have to always focus on the detail of the event.

Aloha has a mobile pos that has been proven to increase turnover, customer spending, and customer satisfaction in restaurants.

This article describes a new tool to measure and aid in guest satisfaction. Through a strategic partnership, Infor (a business application software company) enlists TrustYou (a market leader in online reputation management) to help create a system used to provide real-time access to positive and negative feedback from guest. There are three widgets designed to search through data and streamline them into summaries that hotels can use to enhance their customers experience. All information reported is current information, that way hotels can quickly respond to their guests. This technology is key in creating the best guest experience possible and it allows hotels to do so within a matter of minutes. The real time access feature would allow hotels an opportunity to turn a would be negative experience into a positive one. Hotels rely on "word of mouth" Marketing, especially with social networks, blogs and message boards becoming such a huge part of the daily exchange of information. We must admit, a lot of us value the opinions of our Twitter followers. It is vital for hotels to keep up with these different areas of communication so they can strategically position themselves in an ever growing and competitive market. They can address concerns immediately while at the same creating opportunities to build their brand. Hotels must utilize this advanced approach if they want to survive in this industry.

This article describes the infor company（a leading provider of business application software） and trust you（a market leader in online reputation management） built online reputation management software for hospitality industry. Hoteliers could access to the social senciment on a real time. From the customer's perspective, there are many factors related to choose a hotel form more than hundreds choices. Not only the hotel's facilities and services, but also the reputation on the internet will influnce customer's slection. Nowadays, with the rapid development of social networks, the senciment plays a great role in people's life. For example, in China, there is a web-site, named as "Quna". On that web-site, people share the travel information, rate the restaurants and hotes. The new travelers could get some ideas about the hotel choosing. Therefore, the hotel manager must pay attention to the public reputation management in time. Now, the hoteliers could access to the social senciment in real-time via a series of dashboard, embedded widgets. What's more, by this tool, the hotel employees could correction error, redeem hotel's reputation, improve customer satisfaction, and improve hotel's occupancy rate.

This particular article on hospitality and tourism accounting states that the global travel industry is expanding at an accelerated rate. Although there are high demands in corporate travel and high level of satisfaction in the economy, the ever growing industry is vulnerable to many risks given by its consumers. Just as much as the guests utilizing these hospitality services are becoming more pressing towards great prices and expressing concern in the quality of service they receive, hotel businesses are adamant about increasing awareness in cost and profit. To balance all these exclusive challenges, hotels are insisting on being educated and equipped with the most up-to-date technological advances to keep up with the ever demanding industry. With this in mind, the article states three methods to conquer the challenges faced today. The first method is to utilize a cloud based system to keep track of all the innumerous activities present to keep the business running. Due to the fact that a hotel is run by an overflowing amount of employees, all with different jobs and tasks, all using different systems respective to their departments, and require several types of pay (part-time, full-time, tipped employees) methods, it is a challenge to keep things efficient without a proper system. This is the reason why the article recommends using a cloud based system to keep track of the daily labor costs, overtime management, daily payroll transactions, and incorporate easy accessibility to reporting functions. The cloud based system will be beneficial in keeping everything in record beginning from the moment an employees clocks in to the end where they receive their paycheck, as well as, the ability to manage transactions. The second method is to centralize all the various sources of data. Hotels have a countless amount of data being stored. That can range from guest satisfaction satisfaction survey and comment reports, PMS data, to financial reports. With all these busy ac

The article discusses how hotels can overcome accounting obstacles. Firstly managing payroll is cumbersome, so a cloud-based reporting system can provide an easy way to monitor labour and manage overtime, and daily payroll transactions. Secondly, hotels have a difficult time to read data as data can come from a huge variety of sources: STR reports, PMS data, satisfaction surveys, comments. Hotels need a centralized dashboard which combines all critical accounting and performance data to assist hotels in making better decisions. Lastly, the article talks about hotels needing a back-up accounting team in case of disasters. In-house accounting teams may not be able to tackle on one-time event disasters and there must be a back-up team in place in times of urgency. The author, Scott Watson, executive vice president of sales and marketing at a cloud-based financial platform, sees that hotels are becoming more "cost and profit conscious" and I agree with him. Technology solutions are what hotels are craving right now to increase revenue, minimize costs, and maximize profits without sacrificing service quality.

This article helps guides hotels in how to overcome challenges when it comes to the accounting department in any situation that deals with staff tracking, how to decipher intricate data, and what to do in emergencies. The article details the usefulness of the Cloud and keeping track of staff members that are FOH and BOH that are both hourly and salary. That the accounting department could simply look them up in the cloud rather than searching through paperwork to understand exactly what their role is in the hotel and pay them accordingly. The article also goes over how having multiple centralized data sources can help accountants understand information from reports, guest satisfaction questionnaires, and other forms of reporting to pinpoint exactly what needs to be changed to become more efficient in the company. Lastly, the article covers how having back up accounting teams could be a definite positive just in case of emergencies (i.e. weather) so accounting can still be in progress no matter what situation occurs and the hotel can run smoothly.

Sam Colt wrote an article for Business Insider titled Tablets Are Making Waiters Obsolete - An Chilli's Is Leading The Way. This article bothered me a bit, because knowing what I know about Hospitality we build our brand around customer service and customer satisfaction and how can we do that if we are eliminating the person to person interaction. In his article Colt mentioned Chili's "has recently introduced tablets in dining rooms nationwide that customers can use to place orders, browse the menu, and entertain otherwise noisy children". I understand the thought behind keeping your guests entertain while they wait for service; however, I believe it should be just that, entertainment not self-service. Dine in restaurants should not be treated like a fast food restaurant and guests should expect a reasonable wait time. Having that person to person interaction makes a dining experience more enjoyable. E la Carte co-founder and CEO Rajat Suri argued "if someone does not want to spend time with a server, they're going to ignore the server anyways." My thoughts are why would you dine in a restaurant if you do not want to be severed, why not go to a fast food restaurant. Chili's states the tablets are solely for increasing customer satisfaction and increase revenue and suggests the tablets are making the life of waiters better.

Recently, hoteliers all around the region will rely on Agilysys software systems to ensure smooth delivery of services. These agilysys solutions will increase the satisfaction of guests from all around the world to check in and check out more efficiently and decrease the working time. Plus, the service providers are very proud of this way to helo venues there deliver superior service. And this system really do help managers for both high demand and peak demand and meet the high satisfaction standards for customers all around the world.

Recently, hoteliers all around the region will rely on Agilysys software systems to ensure smooth delivery of services. These agilysys solutions will increase the satisfaction of guests from all around the world to check in and check out more efficiently and decrease the working time. Plus, the service providers are very proud of this way to helo venues there deliver superior service. And this system really do help managers for both high demand and peak demand and meet the high satisfaction standards for customers all around the world.

This is an interesting article about SynergyMMS software which is basically a software aimed at enhancing asset management and preventive management. This software is designed with the hospitality and tourism management in mind since it allows seamlessly communication among various departments of the hotels to improve guests' satisfaction. This system provides real time information about the workflow and maintenance for assigned villas and tracks when the work is completed . Additionally, this system can help monitor water consumption reduce energy consumption enhancing life of equipment cycle have an impact on guest satisfaction ( lower complaints) and less tear down for the hotels.

Technology trends have revamped the way the hospitality and tourism industry is doing business and providing ultimate guests satisfaction. However, there are some implications when implementing new technology trends and how it can impact the overall business and guests' satisfactions. This article is about a panel of leading experts in the hospitality and tourism industry that will be discussing some key fundamental issues concerning new technology features offered by hotels such as the ability for guests to download their own movies and much more.