With the occurrence of new technologies, hotel and resort are constantly looking into running their operations more efficiently, reducing labor costs and enhancing guests' experience. According to the article Housekeeping communication gets more efficient, high-tech The Umstead Hotel and Spa has implemented tray detection technology from Axxess Industries that allows the staff at the hotel to track trays from room service that are passed by the entrance door of rooms giving a signal to the room service staff that they are located outside of the room now and needs to be picked up. Staff also is alerted when a room is available for cleaning. Guests click a button, which sets off another sensor, to indicate they are gone and the room can be cleaned. Another very beneficial technology is the REX system by M-Tech that works in conjunction with a property's PMS system using iPod touch technology. he iPod will show each house-keeper his or her list of rooms for that day, and once a guest checks out-or even leaves the room unoccupied-the housekeeper is notified a room is ready to be refreshed or turned over. Using the REX system allows hotels for more efficient communication between staff and helps tracking all the assigned rooms for the day that need to be serviced. There are many opportunities for hotels to cut enhance guest experience using technologies that allow for better tracking and communications between department resulting in the end of enhancing guest experience and even though hotels might be reluctant to the initial cost of implementation, I am strongly convinced that these solutions are the solutions for the future and will provide hotels with competitive advantage.

Every year technology plays a more significant role in the hospitality industry, including the event planning sector counting for direct spending of $263 billion in the U.S. market alone. According to the article, there are 5 trends that companies will focus on in order to demonstrate return on investment. Smart event will be taking center stage in 2013 therefore operators need to choose smart technology that will allow them to operate more efficiently and grow their business. Automation and streamline will help reduce costs and will allow for more transparency. The next trend is for planner to achieve greater efficiency through solution consolidation that will free up planning s time allowing them to focus on their creativity. Meeting planners will also leverage technology to gather in depth information about their attendees to find out what their preferences are so they can adjust their strategies. Lastly, event organizers will engage audience with smartphones. This trend I think is very crucial and will make events appealing to attendees who will be able to use app for the conference prior during and after the event allowing them to be connected to all the information and recourses at all times.

Nowadays more than ever does technology make a difference in how we run our operations, how effective our operations are which results in how satisfied our customers are. The article What's Driving IT investment in 2011 talks about the advances in the hospitality industry providing us with some important statistics in IT investments. According to the article, technology spending is expected to increase with the focus on customer experience. Fortunately, the statistics shows that 91 percent of hospitality decision makers realize the importance of mobile and wireless technology. As stated in the article, hospitality venues invest in new technologies to improve operational efficiencies and to enhance customer experience. As the survey shows, customer experience is the number on priority and driving force for implementing new technology. Hospitality properties also invest in technologies that enhance the check in procedures, wireless e-mail or table side orders and payments. After implementing new technologies, 59% of respondents to the survey taken could see improve employee efficiency and 55% saw improved sales results. According to the survey that was filled out by 161 respondents representing variety of hospitality enterprises, 58% saw improved customer satisfaction. Even though this article does not state which technologies in particular yielded these results, it is still important to see that investing in IT technologies does make a difference in customer satisfaction, employee efficiency and sales improvement. Many properties are afraid to invest new technologies, as they are unsure of the final results of the investment. I am strongly convinced that in order to keep up with the competition and the supply in the market, business had to take the technology route and use it to their fullest advantage.

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.

According to the article, a cloud-based PMS is required for all 4,600 hotels in the Choice Hotels International system and they have had a cloud-based system for 8 years. When they started to use PMS cloud based system, it was used primarily for he economy segment of the brand as they did not use that many functions. But overtime, they have been adding functionality to the PMS system and installed it at all of their hotels. The choice hotels found out that by using cloud based PMS, they would be saving $30,000 per property. "In addition to the costs of maintenance, cloud-based property management systems can make it much simpler for hoteliers to manage distribution and sales," explains the article. Using PMS system allows the hotel to focus on selling techniques instead of maintenance of the system. Also, cloud-based system allow for real-time data at anytime through out the day instead of waiting for nights audit as other systems. The more I read and find out about the cloud-based systems, the more I am a supporter of them. I find them very cost efficient and easy to use and maintain, therefore a cloud-based system would be my first option in choosing a PMS system for a property.

This article is interesting and in my opinion inspiring as well. According to the article "65% of Copenhagen's hotel rooms, representing nearly half the city's supply, have a globally recognized eco rating". IN the year of 2009, the United Nations climate change summit took place in this city, which started the rise of all the green hotels in Copenhagen. All of the hotels that participated in this summit had to be green certified which rose the percentage of green hotels by 30%. According to the Danish hotel, restaurant and tourism trade association there is also higher demand for green hotels by leisure and mainly business guests. Companies want to make sure that they take their employees to green certified hotels to show their support and awareness of sustainable behavior. The Crowne Plaza Copenhagen Towers hotel is truly represents a green hotel with first groundwater-based heating and cooling system and the largest solar panel coverage in northern Europe. The hotel also uses all kitchen waste and has it turned into organic fertilizer. Even smaller hotels in Denmark are turning towards being green and taking the matter seriously. "We practice this with energy-saving devices, sorting of (garbage), recycling of paper and organic foods. And we work with suppliers who share our beliefs," says owner of a small hotel Nicolas Hall. I enjoyed reading this article as it relates to the video we watched this week about who should take responsibility in waste management. I stated that the nation should take action in this matter but here we can clearly see that even companies can make a huge difference as they are the drivers of the economy and they can decide which product to choose.

According to the article The Role of the GDS in How Today's Travel Agents Look and Book, the technology has evolved in the past years and even though GDS system are still used, they do not take place in all circumstances. We need to divide travel agents into two groups: corporate travel agencies and leisure travel agencies. Leisure agencies have been moving their focus towards multi-component itineraries that account for more than half of their sales. This leads to the need for more information that has been traditionally available through the GDSs. As states in the article, travel agents use online sources outside the GDS to obtain information, which include supplier websites. Leisure agents are more prone in their search to use variety of online services (as for example travel bogs and reviews) when they research the products where as GDS remains the main booking system for corporate agents. Due to the shift of booking using direct channels, it has been though that GDS will soon disappear. But GDS still remain the main booking platform for airfare shopping. There is an interesting trend that this described in the article, that grabbed my attention. There are new systems in the market such as graphical user interfaces that are available for travel agents to use but veteran agents who have been in the business 10 years an more are resistant to use this system and prefer the old legacy screens. Younger agents on the other hand find this technology easier to use and are more likely to use GUI for their booking system. I enjoyed reading this article as it was connected to our discussion board this week and assured me in my opinion that GDS systems are still a main part of travel bookings and will probably continue to be a predominant booking channel for quite a while.

As technologies are evolving at all times, providing a good and reliable high speed Internet for hotel properties has become a challenging task. The ultimate goal of every hotel is to provide exceptional service to guests therefore the expectations for having a fast and reliable Internet are high as well. According to the Internet Access article by Jeremy Rock, there are a few factors that need to be considered when a hotel is planning to partner with an industry solution provider. The first factor is a hotel needs to consider is understanding the providers. As stated in the article, "the key difference between many of the providers come down to the backend solution, technical capabilities and overall support." The second factor is bandwidth management, which discusses is the number of devices that can be attached to the network. It is critical for a property to have the right amount of bandwidth to serve their guests. The next factor regards the usage of Wi-Fi. As we are moving forward with our technologies, more of our systems are connected to wireless network in a hotel and service providers have to ensure a secure storage and access of all of our data. The last key factor is the infrastructure and overall network design to ensure effective coverage throughout the hotel to ensure all of our guests can easily access the network at all designated areas. As we look at all the factors important in providers' selection, whom should we choose? We can either select guest Internet service providers, who provide consistent Internet service in guests rooms which is connected to the PMS for charging purposes. We can also select IPTV solutions providers who "have the ability to combine video and Internet access into single packages" as stated in the article. The last choice would be audiovisual companies that deliver solution between meeting spaces and guest rooms. In my opinion, this article was extremely educating and interesting. When we come to a hotel nowa

More and more are properties interested in having a PMS device that they can be accessed at anytime and anywhere. The answer to this challenge is to have PMS functions accessible via mobile devices which can be challenging for some of the systems, especially those that do not reside in cloud. For some smaller properties, the goal is to have no front desk at all and some have been quite successful in making this a reality. As stated in the Property Management Goes Mobile article, the ski resort Tremblant Elysium has been successful with using the cloud-based FrontDesk Anywhere. The guests receive a letter a week prior to check in containing a door code and 30 minutes after their arrival concierge comes to their room to complete their check in and sign the registration card. The CEO of Tremblant Elysium stated: "Guests love it because it is simple and easy and we do not have staff waiting around for people to check in." As stated in the article, guest require for Mobile PMS to include access to room availability and full front desk access including guest profiles and preferences, room/work order status, up-to-date pricing and housekeeping access for rooms statutes. Mobile-enabling PMS can be quite challenging to design, as it can bring difficulties with screen size, performance or choosing which device to use as the code must be re-written for each one. Another major concern for this type of PMS is the synchronization with other system with which PMS is integrated. As hotelier consider implementing mobile-enabling PMS device for their property, there are concerns about security as far as data storage or mobile check-in or the issuing of keys for guests. In my opinion mobile-enabling PMS is the future for smaller properties. Why would a hotel need to have a stand-alone front desk when we can use mobile phones to do the work for us as we are on the go? Eventually, we can have our staff cross trained in smaller properties all equipped with phones, all available to ch