This article explores how today's technology has changed/is changing the event planning industry. Modern technology has changed the way we share information with one another. This article covers: social media marketing, hashtags, live streaming, improved security, geofilters and online check in. Social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Pinterest have expanded the reach of marketing. Event planning professionals are now able to promote their event to a vast group of people. They can even set specific targeting parameters to reach the right audience. Social media also levels the playing field for even small businesses. Hashtags are a new way of identifying topics and they can be used to expose your event to large numbers of people. Creating a hashtag for an event can help create buzz and promote your event. Live streaming is a relatively new feature within social media sites like Facebook and Instagram. It allows users to share where they are and what they are seeing to their follower base. This is a great feature for event planning professionals because it allows more people to be apart of the event. Geofiters is a photo filter within Snap Chat. Geofilters are location based and only users near that location are able to view it. They are great features to have before, and during an event as they can help advertise your event to locals and interact with people visiting the area. Last but not least the advancement in technology has lead to online check-in via apps. A mobile app designed specifically for events can integrate with your guest list within a digital application. This can help identify VIPs and help provide logistics stats such as current headcount of attendees.

The article highlights the top five risks and security challenges in the hospitality industry. The following are the top five security risks according to the article. 1. Identity theft leading to credit card fraud - compared to other industries, the hotel industry is at more risk for credit card fraud and identity theft. This is because hotels are highly targeted by hackers. Hotel properties for the most part have credit card information for each and every guest that has stayed at a specific property. Hotels must be ahead of the technology curve when it comes to security however this is not always the case. 2. Silent invasions - This consists of all the cyber attacks that can affect a business by infecting the network. As discussed during the first module, hotels run majority if not all of their business using technology. If a hotel were to have their networks hacked it would leave them in a very bad situation. Since hotels operate their entire business using technology and multiple different systems, they would not be able to operate if they experienced a network breach. 3. Longer or no security audit cycles - Most branded hotels are required by the franchise to have consistent security audits done for each property. Independent hotels are deemed greater at risk for a security attack because they are not mandated to have security audits. These hotels sometimes skip audit cycles to save money. 4. Physical crime - This ranges from professional robberies to drug laps in hotel rooms. Hotels are at risk for armed robbery due to to lower chance of security compared to other industries that operate overnight. 5. Reputation risk - Hotels that experience a security breach almost always will see some sort of loss in competitive advantage. Nowadays with social media and the news travelers are more aware with what is going on and they would be more inclined to book their reservation somewhere else if they heard of the property having a security breach.

Although this article is not specific to the hospitality industry it discusses how new technology has changed accounting and how the role of an accountant has evolved. The author mentions five ways that technology is transforming accounting. I found the following very interesting and believe they relate to the hospitality industry. These include: cloud computing, innovations in tax software, mobile accounting, and OCR technology. We have already covered cloud computing and its benefits in previous modules. Cloud computing allows accounting professionals to perform tasks remotely by accessing the cloud. Advancements in technology has allowed tax software to be much more powerful and useful to accounting. In the past when tax laws would change accountants would spend months learning the new laws. It is now much easier with modern technology and software. OCR technology in my opinion helps all industries that require any soft of bookkeeping/ file keeping. With OCR technology you can convert scanned docs, PDF files, and even images into editable data. The best benefit of this technology is that it allows you to organize all data and make it searchable.

This blog article relates to the merger between Mariott and Starwood Hotels. For decades Starwood hotels had been investing in a technology transformation program to move Starwood properties from their old mainframe technology to a more modern reservation system called Valhalla. Valhalla is an all in one system and manages reservations, call center, eCommerce Web, Property management and Rev mgmt systems. One would expect Mariott to migrate their current properties to Starwoods PMS however this was not the case. After the merger Mariott announced that they would be migrating the 1200 acquired Starwood properties to their reservation system. I don't understand why Mariott would do this as this would be a backward move. It's a bit strange because their purchase price for Starwood factored in a $500 million Starwood IP technology value which was not owned by Mariott.

For years now European cities have been facing water shortage issues due to high consumption and lower than normal supplies. The Student Hotel Group has came into a partnership with a few European universities and startup, Amphiro. Their main goal is develop new tools and technology to make a real impact on reducing the water consumption in European countries with known water shortage issues. Amphiro has developed a water meter that will be attached to showers in new Student Hotels and it will also display the water and energy consumption usage. The idea behind this is to show students and others how much water they are consuming, while in the shower. They hope by putting the actual meter and reading display into the showers, people will choose to be more eco-friendly and waste less water. According to the article, WUR found that students and guests used an average of 20% less water. This is a significant reduction and is a great way for hotels to incentivize guests to be more eco-friendly. They are expanding the initiative to more European countries in hopes of conserving water and energy use throughout Europe.

I found this article very interesting as it covers some of the next technological changes the hotel industry would see. Hotel companies and property owners are spending lots of money to ensure they are able to satisfy modern day traveler's needs. As technology advances and more and more studies show travelers prefer to use their own mobile devices, companies have to constantly improve their mobile platform. Sooner or later hotels will have mobile keys that work via a phone on the customers phone or tabloid. Features like mobile keys, check-in, and communications via a mobile app will all require significant amount of investments by major hotel chains. All of these new types of feature also require more advanced security to protect hotel stayers while using the hotels' mobile apps. Over the long run the investment will pay off for large hotel companies as they will gain tons of data and data is very powerful and useful. I am interested to see how this affects small-scale motels as the investment in mobile platforms may not be feasible for an independent motel.