This article is a result of qualitative research that was conducted in the hospitality industry properties in Ghana. The authors interviewed several hotel HR managers to analyze how HRIS influenced the manpower activities in the company. Among the rationales of using HRIS in the hotels, the following were mentioned: HRIS gives general and holistic knowledge about operations (this information could be shared with other departments); gathers data to improve decision-making process; provides a variety of reports to boost organizational and administrative functions. One of the opportunities that were mentioned was identifying strategically important key staff and preparing successors for them. HRIS also finds the unfilled positions and selects the most appropriate candidacy who is later trained and waits his turn to succeed. Talent management within the company was named the most important part of the system. The advantages of the HRIS include a possibility to fill a position fast with promoting the right trained person to the team. The research identified the challenges of the HRIS in the hospitality field such as forecasting demand and supply of labor, access to information, cost of recruitment and workforce shortage. However, HRIS is extremely important for maintaining the functional waiting list for training programs so that the pipeline of new employees could be implemented and appropriate training for the right persons in the right time would be made. The holistic nature of the HRIS was outlined in the article making it crucial for management and no-management personnel to understand the new working realities.

This article discusses the importance of the Computerized Maintenance Management Systems for the hotels. In the hospitality industry, the emphasis is made on the customer satisfaction. Thus, every issue including proper, thorough and timely maintenance is extremely important in making a guest happy. The maintenance manager may experience a large workload. The CMMS is intended to help in organizing the work and keeping it done fast and efficiently. Here are some functions of the CMMS. The assets are easily tracked with the detailed reports of the layouts, scheduled or completed repairs, etc. The guests' requests are responded faster as they are sent directly to the person in charge of the particular situation. It also provides effective scheduling procedures so that every request would be reacted in the best possible way. CMMS also schedules preventive maintenance for the most appropriate time. Regular preventive maintenance would save money on emergency repair. Thus, as the physical plant in the hotels becomes more complex the maintenance issues are getting more difficult to manage. The CMMS is able to assist the management in maintaining the facility in a way that will be satisfying to the customer.

The aspects of email marketing for the hotels are discussed in the article. It is stated that e-mail remains a very important e-marketing channel. Although smartphones are considered to be the most effective way to reach the customers nowadays, there are as many e-mail users as smartphone users worldwide (3.7 billion). There are two main reasons why e-mails are still relevant for marketing purposes. First, people are more likely to provide their e-mail addresses rather than phone numbers. E-mails are less invasive. Second, personalized e-mails are strong engagement channel. It is very important to tailor the e-mails according to the demographics and behavioral data that can be obtained from the transaction information and hotel management systems. I suppose, that technology is very important in marketing efforts, but the personal touch is a key to success.

This article highlights the importance of event registration stage. According to the survey, registration produces up to 48% of total event revenue. Thus, it is crucial for the event planners to make this stage easy and effective. As internet gives an opportunity to easily submit registration information online the event planners need to make sure that they make the whole process simple and convenient. First, mobile integration is very important. Since more and more people access internet from their smartphones and tablets rather than from their desktops, a great attention should be paid to the mobile compatibility of the service. The prefilled fields could be automatically offered to save registrants' time. Mobile integration could also imply automatic check-in with RFID badges at a conference or surveys that are pushed to the attendees' phones after they are checked in. To increase registration numbers some easy steps could be undertaken. The form could contain easy links to share the event on social media. The "no" registrants may be offered "regret surveys" and asked to reference those who might be interested to attend. Electronic event registration provides the event planners with plenty of structured personal information. It could be used for personalization and customization of services and further engagement of the attendees. So in my opinion, event registration software gives the event planners a powerful tool to engage the people coming to the event and make their experience unique by the means of customization and personalization. It also helps to keep the track of all registrants for further marketing.

The article describes the main cyber threats that the hospitality companies face. Over past few years, nearly every major hotel group has been attacked. The same is true for the F&B industry. One of the reasons for that is that the hospitality companies are the ones that process credit card information more than in any other industries. Moreover, hotels and restaurants have many access points for the malware: from wifi networks to POS's. The attackers may also use the third party suppliers (for example, OTA's) to access the hotels' systems. Verizon 2017 Security Payment Report states that less than a half of all hospitality businesses have full credit card payment security compliance. The main type of the attack is POS intrusion. Denial-of-Service Attacks constitute about 20% of the total number. Although they are not so dangerous in terms of sensitive information, they can disturb the company's operations causing significant losses as well. Thus, the hotels and restaurants need to invest in early detection protection provided by the effective firewalls and antiviruses. However, it is also very important to understand that no technology may ever fully substitute the security culture of the company's employees. Many attacks are conducted due to the personal weaknesses of the associates answering the calls, for example. So, in my opinion, in addition to the cyber security systems, there should be appropriate personnel training as well as well elaborated procedure protocols.

The article discusses the aspects where technology is applied in the hotels. First, it is argued that although the hotel industry is considered to be among the slow adopters of technology, still the hoteliers are monitoring the innovations that can increase their efficiency. With the millennials constituting more than a half of all travelers by 2025 the industry should be ready to accommodate their needs for effective service with the help of technology. Bookings are made not only through traditional websites or OTAs but also via Twitter or Facebook. Online check-in process on a mobile device allows the guests select the exact room they want and open the door with the keyless access without stopping at the reception. The hotel rooms design is also changing to provide high connectivity opportunities. Traditional phones are substituted by tablets enabling guests to control the room features and connect with the hotel staff if needed. Internet of Things (IoT) is also considered as a way to improve the guests' experience and hotels efficiency. Finally, every guest now may have a great impact on the hotels' reputation through the social media. I believe that the article highlights the spheres where technology is applicable in the hotel industry and emphasizes the technological issues that should not be overseen by the hotels in order to remain competitive.

The article discusses the advantages that the electronic accounting systems could provide for the restaurants. Restaurant accounting has some difficult aspects due to the great number of suppliers that can bring the monthly number of invoices well over thousands. Suppliers also operate on a very thin margin, making the timely accounts payment management essential. Along with electronic accounts management, these systems also provide an opportunity to precisely calculate costs of every dish to make sure the widest margins are gained. Despite the traditionalist habits in the restaurant industry, electronic accounting systems become more widely spread as a convenient alternative to paper bookkeeping. The restauranteurs appreciate the pros of electronic accounting as they see that their competitors are turning to them.

In contrary to most of the articles that state the advantages of POS in the hospitality industry, this article is focused on the cybersecurity threats that the usage of POS imposes to the hotels and restaurants. It is said that hospitality became the attractive target for the hackers and accounted for 14% of all breaches. Most of the attacks happen through the POS's. Additional security measures such as encryption to transaction data are usually difficult to apply to POS systems making it easier for the breacher to enter the system. Moreover, once they are inside they act slowly to get access to the key asset, the payment processing center, but traditional prevention security solutions are not designed for post-infection detection. Also, many POS are still operating on Windows XP or even DOS meaning that new vulnerabilities can be easily exploited. This all should be taken into consideration by the hospitality organizations while building their security systems. Deception-based detection that sets traps that make the attacker reveal himself becomes a popular solution. So in my opinion, the security issues of using POS should be the priority for the hospitality industry. Creating of effective mechanisms of customers' personal data protection is crucial for maintaining their trust and loyalty.

The article highlights the crucial points of recent PMSs. The systems are developing constantly providing hotels with additional features and, thus, giving them more opportunities. About 48% of hoteliers are planning to upgrade their PMSs this year. Moving to the cloud is becoming a trend, mainly because of the high costs of the traditional PMSs and necessity of frequent server upgrades. This allows hotels shift costs from capital expenditures to operating expenses. Mobility gives more flexibility both to the guests and the hotels. Managing hotel becomes more hands-on experience than before. Modern PMSs significantly improve communication with guests as well as help hotels in gathering essential data to better understand and serve their customers.

This article discusses the implementation of computer technologies in hotels' green practices. Electricity use accounts for 60-70% of the utility costs and average daily water consumption per occupied room is 218 gallons. Management is permanently under pressure to cut these costs, however, this should be done without impacting guests' comfort. Installation of water-efficient fixtures and energy-efficient lighting helps to reduce utility bills. Computer operated systems aimed at consumption data collection, analytics and remote control are an essential addition to energy-saving equipment. Energy harvesting wireless sensors, thermostats, and other products help collect data that later is processed by IBM Watson, which applies predictive analytics to guest behavior to drive greater energy efficiency of HVAC and other equipment. Wireless networking in energy management enables the hotels to create customized profiles for different rooms depending on their exposure, season, occupancy, etc. based on historical data. Furthermore, satellite technology that tracks the weather and ground moisture helps limit excess irrigation. Computer technologies are meant to substitute guest's active efforts in resource savings. Yet sometimes the sustainability technologies become the selling point for hotels. For instance, guests, especially millennials, might be attracted by the hotel's energy panel that demonstrates how the power generated while using fitness equipment immediately adds to the hotel energy grid.

This article demonstrates the way how relationship between the airlines (United) and the technology companies which serve as middlemen is build. According to the estimations, the airlines pay to the gds's about $18 per round trip ticket reservation, which results in 7 billion in fees that are payed to the gds's annually. The air companies consider these fees unfair in regard of the gds' performance. To compensate for these payments as well as to promote direct bookings, the airlines (namely, Lufthansa) have added a surcharge for any external bookings. GDS's, however, fight back and start litigations against Lufthansa. The decision on this case will either stop such a practice, or force other airlines to follow LH and add surcharges for gds's too. Another problem that airlines experience with GDS's is the presentation of non-standard products that the airlines offer. For example, it took the GDS's several years to correctly display the Ecomy Skycouch by Air New Zealand (buy 3 seats at the price of 2 to sleep across all of them during the long-haul flight). United is going to introduce its Basic Economy Seats with no carry-on luggage and no qualifying miles. However, they are not sure that the GDS' s will be able to display this product to the customers in a proper way so that they could fully understand what they are buying. The reason for that is that GDS's are mainly reluctant to invest in technologies that are focused on product differentation. In this regard, it becomes more difficult to compare fares since different set of services is included in different products. Thus, the customers might be mislead. Moreover, there are antitrust issues with the gds's. The airlines claim that Sabre has a stranlehold on the US domestic market. Such position allows it to ultimatum the airlines and voluntary decide on search display order. The airlines expect the GDS's to be more prone to partnership ralations. This would imply the fair compensation for what they add to the

This article describes the implementation of SaaS (software as a service) in the hospitality industry. It is forecasted that by 2020 the packaged software will decrease to 10 % of all new installations. Hospitality industry, a 24/7/365 fast paced business, is totally dependent on the functionality of its internal systems. On demand platforms in every category are needed in the hospitality industry to maintain continious performance. Essential property management systems (PMS), point of sales systems (POS), service and marketing systems as well as guest engagement platforms are often provided as SaaP nowadays. Cost savings, flexibility, scalability, employee productivity, and guest service are named among the benefits of SaaS. However, there are some disadvantages such as the issue of integration and interfacing. Sometimes there are more than 50 systems used to manage a single property, so the provider should be able to guarantee their complete integration. The author states, that SaaS will enable hotels gather information about the guests, their preferences and habbits not only from their own records, but also use other resources, including those from different industries. This gives the hotels an opportunity to provide excellent service to the guests. However, I suppose that using guests' profiles gathered by other institutions might be not legal in some states. Thus, hotels need to consider that while making a decision.

This article tells about the perspectives of Hotspot 2.0, the new standard for public WiFi, in the hotel industry. The WiFi Alliance has been working on designing this new standard which is supposed to be much friendlier to the users while making Wi-Fi usage more akin to cellular. It allows automatic WiFi network detection and eliminates the public Wi-Fi log-ins, providing automatic access to secure Wi-Fi networks using a Passpoint profile stored on a device. For hotel guests, this means they would be able to go from using their mobile devices on their personal mobile networks to the hotel's Wi-Fi without having to re-enter their authentication credentials every time. This feature, in my point of view, would be very useful, especially for the business travelers who value every second of their time. Another major benefit of Hotspot 2.0 is improved security by means of enterprise-grade WPA2 encryption, which makes it safer than open public networks. This also will be appreciated by the travelers who often use hotel's WiFi networks for booking different travel services and insert security sensitive data. However, the cost of implementation of this new standard in the hotels is rather high. Thus, hoteliers do not wish to force its realization until they are sure that there is demand from the customers. The polls show that the guests are still unaware of the benefits of Hotspot 2.0 and don't consider it as a key point while choosing a hotel. Yet some hotels try to be before the competition and become early adopters of this technology. They believe that quality of internet connection, as well as additional options, will be a differentiating point for hotels in the future. However, in my opinion, it would be wise to conduct appropriate research and wait until this technology will be close to becoming the industry standard before making significant investments. There is always a chance that the trend will go another way.