E-marketing is a tool used by nearly all businesses nowadays. It is through this form of marketing that we are able to spread our word across the globe. When E-marketing, it is important to invest in search engines so that your products, in our case our restaurants and resorts, appear first. Our marketing can appear in the form of ads and pop ups, but also in emails. A big one is using social media platforms such as twitter, youtube and instagram.

This article highlights all the necessities to make sure your hotel is safe and secure for all your guests. It specified for cyber security, however, that switching to a VLAN server would be massively beneficial for the hotel as it becomes a private server that has multiple stages of security to bypass. In addition, it advises the modification of passwords every few months because apart from cyber breaches, people also try to con others out of their passwords by word of mouth and manipulation.

IT investing is a very 'grey area' subject as there are so many different routes a company can take in terms of what exactly to invest in. There are many questions that needs answers before money is allocated to these investments like: what kind of return should we expect and exactly how much will be going into said investment and will it affect our other departments?

Hospitality businesses are becoming more and more profit-focused and guests are thinking that higher prices mean higher level of service. This simply isnt so. Perhaps not all hotels have the same amenities and activities, however, all hotels and resorts should have more or less the same exemplary service so that prices become less of an issue in the future.

A point of sale system is where a customer goes to pay for a product or service. A store's POS system is the "Grand Central Station" of your operation, everything goes through it. Every transaction, knowledge of inventory and customers goes through your POS. Many retailers havent made the jump because of how scary and expensive it can be.

A hotel PMS is often defined as the software used to manage bookings, room rates, check-in/check-out times, and much more. However, through the years, hotels' PMS has evolved to better allow for a seamless guest experience. For example, with an advanced PMS, front desk is capable of directly notifying housekeeping employees what rooms need what service and any specifications they might have. In addition, PMS has evolved to be a cloud-based software. This means that hotels can keep up to date with the newest version of the PMS, they lower IT costs, they can more effectively influence room rates and better manage expenses along with income, and they allow them to keep track of all guests and their specific requests to keep the experience perfectly personalized for them each time they come to visit.

Green IT is an aspect of technology that many people do even consider when thinking about sustainability. According to Computer Aid International, "The production of a computer requires 22kg of toxic chemicals, 240kg of fossil fuels and 1,500 kg of water. 80% of life-cycle energy use is accounted for before we even switch a PC on for the first time." This statistic alone should be enough for us to take action. Marriott has started taking action, however. They created an underground data center where the power consumption goes down and efficiency goes up. Cloud computing is also a massive help due to the fact that the physical software wont be on the desktop computers or laptops being operated so the power consumption will be lowered there as well.

Green IT is an aspect of technology that many people do even consider when thinking about sustainability. According to Computer Aid International, "The production of a computer requires 22kg of toxic chemicals, 240kg of fossil fuels and 1,500 kg of water. 80% of life-cycle energy use is accounted for before we even switch a PC on for the first time." This statistic alone should be enough for us to take action. Marriott has started taking action, however. They created an underground data center where the power consumption goes down and efficiency goes up. Cloud computing is also a massive help due to the fact that the physical software wont be on the desktop computers or laptops being operated so the power consumption will be lowered there as well.

The global distribution system in the hospitality industry is beyond vital in the act of keeping the ball rolling. GDS provides live products and offers to travelers across the globe. Whats really amazing about GDS is that live availability and rates are transferred through a channel manager directly to online booking sites. This allows guests to acquire the best rates the soonest as opposed to waiting to call a hotel or resort to see what they have and at what price.

E-commerce as a standalone concept is one that has revolutionized all business done throughout the world. However, when it comes to hospitality, it becomes more and more intricate. Innovations within the scope of the hospitality industry have made it very easy to track a potential guest and lead them to our resort/hotel/theme park/restaurant, etc. If a guest is looking for a romantic getaway repeatedly on our site, then we can better tailor a search for them so they can enjoy quality time with each other. This is done through the use of what are called cookies. Cookies are small files that are saved on your browser when you first start searching on any given site. These files allow companies to use target marketing and aim at you, knowing what you like. Another great way that e-commerce has evolved for us here in the hospitality industry is that we can now offer our guests virtual reality tours of our rooms and commodities from the comfort of home. This allows us to show off our properties while the guests decide without having to make the trip beforehand.

Cloud-based software is the future of the entire hospitality industry. The benefits of having this software heavily outweigh the cons. It would allow employees to better assist guests with check-in/out processes and it would also give them increased mobility throughout the system, accelerating the services we can offer to our guests. In addition, cloud-based systems allow for better data storage, giving us the tools we need to be prepared for returning guests and their accomodations.