Green meetings and environment concerns are becoming more and more known and hotel are opting for green programs in their hotels. This article talks about a hotel in Vail, Colorado that has committed to decreasing their environment footprint by going more green in many ways. As an event planner you should ask your hotels that you are using how they are making an effort to being green in specific areas.

Water conservation is a big green initiative that we are seeing in a lot of hotels by having signs up if you want your towels washed leave them on the floor but if you will reuse them to hang them up. This is conserving a lot of water by saving on laundry. Hotels that have conference centers can really make use out of the green initiative with an alternative to bottled water. If they give out complimentary refillable bottles and put in water dispensers in easy and convenient locations it will help to support waste reduction.

When thinking about hotel security we do not necessarily jump to anything other than terrorism or things like that but in this article it talks about five different things that can be issues in hotel security. IT is a large issue due to mobile and cloud technology. There are so many devices used that it is easy for hackers to get in the system. Terrorism is of course an issue even though it is not so prominent as it has been in the past. Skimmers are becoming more popular in hotels and restaurants having someone working on the inside who swipes the credit card though a machine before processing the payment to take all of the information off of it. Liability and Insurance Fraud can be something as little as stubbing a toe to a large workers comp case. This is the most expensive security issue hotels face. Security is still taboo in hotels because it scares some guests but at the same time once one thing happens all of the bad things will happen. If nothing happens than it will stay like that.

This article makes great points that we do not think about as normal people. Before taking this class I would never think of all of these issues that could be happening to me while at a hotel or restaurant but anything is possible.

Many hotels may want to chance their accounting systems but at the same time are trying to avoid all of the new costs and possible disruptions that come with a new system. By staying with their old systems though it could end up costing them more money in the long run if the system decides to just stop working and then you lose all of your data.

Any hospitality organization should look for all of these things when considering a new financial management system. It might end up being more expensive but in the long run will end up saving the company lots of money.

Food Trucks no longer have to worry about internet connections, cables and loss of power. This system is on the go and perfect for them and even has a way for them to reach out to customers when they are in a slow time. If food trucks are having a slow day they can just tweet to all of their followers special deals or locations even to attract more business.

Having the iPad POS system in the food trucks is a great idea because the owners no longer have to worry about lots of hardware in the truck just to be able to take payment from customers.

In Dallas, hotels are trying to bring in technology to make things easier while bringing in a CRS system has just made it more complicated. Since there are so many online requests for hotel rooms the Central Reservation System cannot necessarily keep up with that which could be problem because if it cannot keep up then it is not going to be in a search for a new guest. InterContinental Hotels Groups is updating their CRS with a newer one that can handle the large amount of requests at one time but there is still a problem of speed. We like to see things happen immediately when we want it done and if it does not happen like that we might decide to leave the page and go somewhere else to book causing the company to lose out business. Before the internet when people needed to book hotel rooms and they went to a travel agent the agent would have to call around to see which property had availability, then find out if they property they wanted had specific rooms and rates they are looking for and then finally book the room at the specified rate. As soon as the internet came along the process became easier because it was all right there except not that much easier because it still could not do everything that we wanted it to.

Central Reservation Systems via the internet are good when they want to be and bad when they want to be. If there is a huge meeting booked last minute in a popular city during peak time there is going to be a huge influx of people trying to book hotels online at the same time and the CRS might not work as people would like it to causing people to get angry and not want to go to that specific hotel.

Americans eat out at restaurants almost as much as they eat at their own houses. Customers would prefer to eat at a certified green restaurant than one that is not. Americans do care about the environment and want to do things that can help it survive longer. For restaurant the Green Restaurant Association has steps to help you make the changes necessary to become green certified. Some little things that can be changed immediately are using recycled paper products or purchasing locally grown foods. There are immediate and long term savings that are a positive to this as well. Some of these include: installing an energy efficient lighting system, and fixing gaps in any doorways to prevent air from leaking out making the system run harder to produce the air.

The La Jolla Beach and Tennis Club in California has had many problems with time cards for their employees over the past several years. They used to use swipe cards with bar-codes to tell when people were coming in and out of work but there are a lot of problems with that technology. If people misplaced their cards or knew they were going to be late so gave it to a co-worker to punch them in is not a very smart thing to have in the hotel. After a lot of problems with this system management finally went in a new direction. They decided to move to newer technology and go with Biometrics. The hotel now has a hand reader system that makes every employee get there hand measured to clock in. This technology measured length, width, thickness, and surface area of the hand to store in the system so it knows each persons hand every time they go to clock in any time there after. When going to clock in the system asks for the employee number and then is ready for your hand on the little screen for your scan. The entire process of this takes under 1 minute. This technology of the HandPunch 3000 not only allows the employees to clock in but also allows management to collect data for pay codes, tips collected, and to allow the employees to go back and view their past times in and out. This system is a very green way to go in the hotel industry because there is no paper for records of clock in times, and there are no swipe cards that need to be made for clock in times. Ever since this hotel got the HandPunch 3000 they have not had issues of other employees clocking in other people. The system of course had some glitches to it in the beginning but they were fixed immediately while the staff was there installing it. My only question to this article that is not answered is : since it is a machine that has to be plugged in, what happens if the power goes out? Can employees still clock in to work because the hotel still is functioning?