HRIS is a computer software employers use to manage the human resources functions of hotels. There are lots of benefits of using this system. According to this article, the most advantage by using HRIS is that it helps create reports and presentation. For instance, the system holds all the informations about human resources in hotels. You can find your employees' personal information very easily and don't have to ask them to bring their documents any more such as I-20 or I-9 forms. The second benefit is related to recruitment, which means it can provide information not only internal staffs but also external job applicants. The third advantage is that by using HRIS, employees themselves can focus on their own profiles. They can log in themselves and change and update their status and required details, which becomes a better way to manage themselves.  

This website shows a meeting room app which is very helpful for hotel meetings and events. Planning meetings and events is not a easy task. Conference managers or sales directors have to introduce their meeting space and explain how they are going to hold an event or a meeting.  By using this application, managers can show the meeting rooms' features by 3D images or videos directly to clients, which is absolutely much easier for them. What's more, the usage of smartphone and tablets like iPad is increasing very fast. More and more people are owning their wireless devices and are drenched in IT persons.  Therefore, I think using different kind of APPs will be a good way for hotels to sell rooms and services. 

According to this article, it said that by the end of 2011, 91% of Americans  owned mobile phones, and Smartphone penetration have been doubled. Obviously, it becomes a trend in hospitality industry nowadays that more and more people use smart phones and tablets. Based on wireless such as bluetooth, it allows hoteliers to interact with customers much easier and more convenient. Proximity marketing is one kind of eMarketing which is very popular in daily life. It is well known that better marketing brings better sales which of course increases revenues of companies. By sending guests nearby informations about promotions and discounts, hotels attract more guests than before. However, too much informations sent to guests will make them sucks and they have no choice to select what they really want. So in my opinion, I think it should be improved.

In this article, the author pays attention to the balance between security technology and customers' privacy. Even though we all know that security becomes a big issue nowadays and technology is updating so fast, does it mean too much of them will also be  a good thing for hotels. In today's hotel, you can find monitors everywhere, which makes me feel bad because I feel like being in a jail. Obviously, with the growing treats and terrorism, it is necessary to put those monitors in hotels or even any other public places in order to make people safe. However, compared to being 100% safe, guests in hotels today much prefer privacy. They don't want to be monitored and feel inconvenient. 

Nowadays, technology becomes one of the most important issue in hospitality industry. More and more hotels are going to pay more attention to their technologies such as APP application. Besides those technologies benefiting leisure travelers, investment in hotel technology also pays off with increased group revenue. Conference and convention become important parts in hotels, which means lots of meetings or events are choose to be held in hotels and lots of hotels decided to target their markets as convention directly. As in this article, it is talking about creating cool technology to increase the revenue based on group business. It stated Hyatt Hotel as an example to put virtual concierge service on guest room TVs, which is object to attract new markets as well as group business. What's more, an on - site IT team are going to be required in order to ensure hotels' technology functions properly. Having this kind of IT team, any questions can be responded fast. Therefore, investment fo those kinds of technology not only can bring more new markets or customers but also lead to quick return on hotels' investments, especially in F&B. 

Long term financing in hospitality is often done for a period of more than one year. Such financing will have good impacts on hospitality industry like renewing its equipments and meeting operating costs with smooth cash flow. Therefore it is a cost-effective way to help hotels during their tough times in accounting and cash problems. Like we learned in accounting and financing classes, ratio analysis is the best  method to analyze finance in a hotel, which compares the current ratio with the past in order to make feasible investments in the future. What's more, long term financing in hotel industry gives lots of investment potentials. For example, by investing new sectors in F&B as well as accommodation, the job opportunity has also been increased. Besides the investments in hotels, hospitality investment also includes in airlines, cruise lines and tourism bureaus which can also bring profits. So long term financing help hospitality industry make a successful goal with experience and cost effective strategic plan in order to attract more and more tourists as well as guests.

After Lloyd Swords used Ipad POS for cash register for his coffee shop, lots of owners of small business started to think about using Ipad for their own business. Besides the coolness features of Ipad, or even Ipod Touch, there are still six advantages of using an Ipad POS. As I highlighted in this article, restaurant can save costs for more than $10,000 by Ipad POS. What's more, Ipad POS makes sales process streamlining, which means customers don't have to stand up and walk to a cash register and it makes them more comfortable because the payment process just happens under their eyes. Last but not the least, since the global warming and carbon dioxide emission, it will be meaningful to use Ipad POS because it makes the sales paperless and environmentally friendly. I have experiences of using this Ipad POS because I am right now working in a japanese restaurant which is using this system from placing order to checking out. And I think it will help sales because customers love this system. Every time I help them check out, they just give me their credit card and I just stand in front of their eyes and process the payment and email the receipt to them, which always makes them feel fantastic. Therefore, I think Ipad POS can be a trend in the future hospitality industry.

This article is talking about the optima PMS. According to the article, optima PMS is a windows based PMS that incorporates the lastest in advanced technology. As I highlight, the optima PMS enables maximum performance by efficient management. And optima PMS can be operated easily and friendly. For example, by easily using any combination of keyboard, touch screen or mouse, the users of optima PMS can enter data into this system and retrieve all information as well. What's more, optima is configuring flexible and customized. Different kinds of hotels will possess special characteristics and requests. It means each individual hotel can define unique requirement through this system. It is able to manage room allocations for special customers, such as room types, room category, wing and so on. Therefore, in my opinion, I think optima PMS is a very helpful tool for hotels since it is designed to meet each hotel's needs and procedures. 

The director of the Trade Service Division of China's Ministry of Commerce, named Di Jiankai, stated by media of China that nation is going to create 10,000 green hotels by the year of 2012. When I was working on my ecological part of remote environment analysis for another courses, I realized that "Go green" is so much important today even every nations are thinking about it, not only China. As we all know, pollution has been becoming one of the most significant issues in the world, such as CO2 emission, overuse of water, energy using by fuel fossil and so on. By different kinds of pollutions, hospitality industry, especially hotels, have to take more into consideration about the pollution trends and have to think more about the impacts from those pollutions. In my opinion, hotels have to pay more for new eco-technology. However, since "go green" will attract more guests, which means lots consumers come to the hotel just because its "eco-label" or "eco-brand". In this article, Gong Ping also said that not only decorations outside, even the materials using inside should change to be green. For instance, the bath tubs, which is more popular if it is organic.

According to this article, e-commerce such as online activities has been changing how retailers develop their global expansion strategies. As e-commerce is growing so fast, online booking, online shopping and online reservation are more popular than old days. Being a retailer, he has to be adapt to this new e-commerce trend and start to build an  online presence in order to maximize potential advantages from e-commerce. This article also showed top 10 countries in the 2012 E-Commerce index in which China is decided being the leader of the pack. China has 513 million internet users and 164 million online shoppers, which means that China's potential online retail market is expected to develop faster and faster. What's more, there are three main reasons that people in China like shopping online. The first is that there are greater products selections comparing with shopping in some malls. The second reason is that online shopping make customers be able to compare the prices by vendors. The last reason is also the simplest because online shopping make daily life more convenient than before.

Telecommunication is a kind of trasmission and information. In old times, smoke signal or colorful flags were used as telecommunications. Nowadays, telecommunication involves use of electrical devices such like telephones and videos.  I think there are lots of people among us working in restaurant right now. So I want to ask a question: Does it frequently happen  that the phone rings when you are crazy with customers' orders? I am always struggling in such crazy situation which leads me to bad working mood. In this article, it mentioned telecommunication method that help servers in restaurant handle with phone calls in rush hours. Instead of voice message, Automated Attendant will send voice messages directly to managers' emails, which means not have to pick up the phone to hear voice mails. It really makes sense because sometimes servers even have no time to listen to the voice mails in phones, which will let restaurant miss some important dinner reservations. So as a server in restaurant, I do think telecommunication is helpful and significant.

I was clearly remembering till today that when I was working in a Japanese restaurant, the manager there always made mistakes on staffs' schedules and employee shifts because she was writing schedules herself every week. As is mentioned in this material, doing like this can be very waste of time and the worse situation I met before is that when I dressed up and made up and arrived there but to find that some servers already working in the restaurant on schedule.  Therefore, I think a web-based scheduling program will be most helpful. Managers of restaurant can use this product not only for today's schedule but also for future schedule. What's more, it helps make the work environment more suitable because it trades shifts with other employees.  From the financial perspective, web-based scheduling also trace labor costs, which is one benefit part manager have to pay attention to.