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Hilton launches meetings-focused Signia brand | Hotel Management - 0 views

www.hotelmanagement.net/...-meetings-focused-signia-brand hotel management business hospitality tech
shared by kpony001 on 02 Mar 19 - No Cached
  • At a launch event in New York City, Hilton President/CEO Christopher Nassetta noted
  • “There is a gap, we believe, in the upper end of the meetings and events space.
  • [They wanted] the type of technologies that will help them run their meetings much more efficiently and make it better [and] more customizable for their meeting attendees.”
  • ...9 more annotations...
  • While luxury hotels may be popular for some events, all of the details and fixtures that separate an upper-upscale hotel from a five-star property can push the price point out of reach. 
  • With that input in mind, HIlton decided  a new brand was necessary to capture the shifting market.
  • They wanted more flexibility, much more daylight, modern architecture, an impressive space.”
  • The Hilton team talked with owners and developers of meeting-focused hotels for several years to get a handle on the brand.
  • an upgraded culinary experience—“not only in the banquet and catering spaces, but in the restaurants and the grab-and-goes and the destination bars,”
  • Over the years, the team talked to existing customers, members of its Honors loyalty program and even travelers who aren't part of the program, asking what it would take to get them into the ecosystem.
  • The more customers we talked to, the more they say that they think a premium meetings and events product would really be something that would resonate for them.”
  • Looking ahead, the team sees international potential for Signia Hilton, particularly in Asian countries that are looking to host large-scale events in upscale spaces
  • Most Signia Hilton properties, he added, will probably be new-build, and the team will work with both existing partners and new developers alike as each opportunity comes along.
  • kpony001 on 02 Mar 19
     
    At a recent even at NYC, the CEO of Hilton, Christopher Nassetta, announced that the Hilton team is developing meeting focused hotels as a means to get the upper hand on event management. These hotels are being built with events such as conventions and business meetings in mind while constructing a five-star property. Thus, a new brand, Signia, was created as a means to improve upon flexibility in its architecture, as well as more daylight, modern design, and more spacious volume, as well as an upgraded culinary experience, and technologies that help run meetings more efficiently, likely updates in their event management system. This premium quality is something that has been constantly asked by them from customers. In the future they are planning to stretch out internationally.
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Meeting the Threat in 2019: Cybersecurity for the Hospitality Sector | Modern Restauran... - 0 views

www.modernrestaurantmanagement.com/ity-for-the-hospitality-sector technology hospitality software hotel business safety threats 2019
shared by jorgeegutivav on 18 Feb 19 - No Cached
  • With a reputation as less well guarded than similar institutions, hospitality companies are a popular target for cyberattacks.
  • Experts warn other hackers, like those working for a nation-state, could exploit hospitality breaches like Marriott’s to acquire details on the travel and spending habits of espionage targets, like CEOs and diplomats.
  • permeable security in the hospitality sector threatens consumer privacy, shareholder value, and national security.
  • ...15 more annotations...
  • many hospitality companies are reconsidering their cybersecurity infrastructure. However, industry specific challenges like high employee turnover continue to expose the sector.[6]Additionally, even by adopting cutting-edge cybersecurity technologies, the important question of strategic implementation remains.
  • Are newly introduced technologies simply bolstering traditional methods of cybersecurity, or are they being used for methods of cybersecurity that are new and innovative, instead of simply faster or more efficient versions of the same product?
  • Traditional cybersecurity approaches are focused on reporting about intrusions after the fact, in what is known as an “incident response.”
  • Regardless of how they gain access, once an attacker is discovered, the forensics about the attack, including basic information known as Indicators of Compromise (IOCs) like IP addresses, domain names, or malware hashes, are shared across the cybersecurity community. These IOCs are then used broadly to thwart future attacks. 
  • The problems with this approach are twofold:
  • someone has to be a victim first so that IOCs can be derived and shared with others; additionally, blocking IOCs has a very short half-life.
  • All an adversary has to do is come from a new IP address or recompile their malware so that it has a new hash value (both of which are extremely trivial) and their attacks will sail through defenses that depend on IOCs.
  • As hackers repeatedly gain access to valuable systems and data using the same methods, cybersecurity teams continue to chase after them to secure compromised systems.
  • Very little cybersecurity effort is put towards addressing the methods used by adversaries; instead, security teams are locked in a pattern of waiting for inevitable attacks, trying to minimize the damage they cause, ensuring that remediation occurs as quickly as possible, and blocking only exactly identical attacks.
  • Incident response only helps prevent attacks that exactly replicate past ones.
  • a more proactive, sophisticated approach is needed. It will need to be designed to successfully recognize adversary methodology (and all the manners in which an adversary attempts to obfuscate their methodology) before attacks occur and at a meaningful scale.
  • Instead of seeking discrete, static IoCs based solely on what has already occurred, proactive cybersecurity analysts can instead use the intelligence they have derived about adversaries’ methodologies – commonly referred to as tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTP). 
  • From these TTPs, analysts can identify the general form and components of an adversary campaign. In addition, they can determine abstract indicators like how the adversary is attempting to hide his actions. 
  •  A proactive cybersecurity tool would be able to recognize possible adversary TTPs and indicators that describe a threat (or threatening behavior) in general terms. The system would then act on any traffic which met this pattern before it reaches inside a network, as the attack occurs, and do so in a way invisible to adversaries.
  • Using this basic model, a cybersecurity tool could truly prevent common exploits before they were executed, and could even predict and protect against future, not yet seen exploits.
  • kpony001 on 18 Feb 19
     
    In the wake of the Marriott International cyberattack, the article presents the issues with the current issues in the methodology of cybersecurity; first explaining the data of how popular they are in the hospitality industry, and what it means for the industry, before going into the process of how a cyberattack happens and the measures taken to prevent it. Traditional cybersecurity is one of an "incident response" which can only be implemented once a cyberattack occurs and can only prevent it temporarily as a hacker can do similar tasks with different IP addresses and new malware. In order to circumvent this failure of cybersecurity, the article offers a new method in which TTPs (tactics, techniques, and procedures), are used to identify certain components of a hacker and identify how they would carry out an attack, before acting on it before the attack would "reach the network".
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Wild Rose Casinos & Resorts Implements Agilysys' PMS and POS Solutions at Each of Their... - 0 views

www.apnews.com/d351162cda456abeb7d3d3f77695f5 resorts pos pms technology hospitality hotel tech
shared by kpony001 on 11 Feb 19 - No Cached
  • Agilysys, Inc.
  • a leading global provider of next-generation hospitality software solutions and services
  • In their efforts to deliver an enriched guest experience, Wild Rose Casinos required an enterprise-ready, all-in-one PMS solution and a full POS solution that combines convenience through mobility with complete functionality.
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  • “The Visual One PMS and InfoGenesis POS solutions incorporate an accessible user interface with a variety of reporting tools to help us improve productivity and capitalize on revenue opportunities.
  • InfoGenesis® POS
  • , a leading point-of-sale solution among luxury hotels and resorts, is a comprehensive POS system that combines highly interactive terminal and tablet touchscreen applications with industry-leading offline capabilities.
  • item configuration capabilities
  • nu and
  • multi-language support, help to drive service flexibility and increased operational efficiency.
  • Visual One® PMS is a comprehensive and fully integrated property management system that offers
  • a wide range of features and functionality, including
  • front office operations, guest history, housekeeping, reservations management and more.
  • user-friendly interface is laid out
  • with quick-feature icons and drag-and-drop capabilities.
  • has modules for accounting, activities,
  • guest marketing
  • spa management
  • catering
  • with Visual One supporting their hotel operations, Wild Rose can improve productivity and focus on creating lasting connections with guests that encourage repeat stays.
  • Agilysys has been a leader in hospitality software for more than 40 years, delivering innovative guest-centric technology solutions for gaming, hotels, resorts and cruise, corporate foodservice management, restaurants, universities, stadia and healthcare.
  • Agilysys is known for its leadership in hospitality, its broad product offerings and its customer-centric service.
  • kpony001 on 11 Feb 19
     
    Agilysys Inc., is a "leader" in hospitality software that is known for its guest-oriented innovations that increase revenue for many facets of the hospitality industry such as hotels and cruise lines. Recently they created a solution to POS and PMS that have a very accessible user interface with the ability to use tools to help the ability to capitalize on revenue.These interfaces are widely used in hospitality locations such as resorts and hotels as they have the tools needed to be functional, such as front office operations, guest history, housekeeping, reservations management, with modules for accounting, activities, guest marketing, and many more.
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Japan theme park to replace a third of staff with robots - Nikkei Asian Review - 0 views

asia.nikkei.com/...e-a-third-of-staff-with-robots hospitality hotel travel tech technology
shared by kpony001 on 30 Jan 19 - No Cached
  • Japanese travel agency and resort operator H.I.S. plans to cut the number of workers at its Huis Ten Bosch amusement park by a third in three years
  • About 1,200 full-time and part-time employees currently work at the Dutch-themed Huis Ten Bosch in Nagasaki Prefecture.
  • The displaced workers "will be reassigned to growing businesses within the group,"
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  • The company is counting on robots and the "internet of things" to pick up the slack. It has already introduced about 250 robots at the park and a neighboring Henn na Hotel
  • It also is running a pilot program to automatically monitor and collect garbage at the park.
  • There are more than 200 robots at the Henn na Hotel there, handling a variety of tasks from checking in customers to cleaning and landscaping. The entire 144-room facility requires just seven human employees, just a quarter of a regular hotel its size.
  • "We will turn the park cashless in a year,"
  • He is also trying out an electronic payment system
  • "We will introduce customer service robots at the park in a few months
  • this would "reduce the number of cashiers and wait times."
  • H.I.S. is adding another wing to the hotel by the end of the year, which will be equipped with film-like solar cells and plant-based storage batteries.
  • completely energy-independent, so that the company will pay nothing for its heat and electricity -- two major costs for any hotel.
  • kpony001 on 30 Jan 19
     
    H.I.S., a Japanese travel agency, cut the amount of human workers at its Huis Ten Bosch amusement park, and its neighboring hotel, Henn na Hotel, significantly wherein only 1,200 workers still labor at the park while the others will be reassigned to other branches within the group. Instead of human workers, H.I.S. has replaced with with robots that handle a wide variety of tasks severely limiting the amount of employees that have to work there. Among the tasks that they accomplish, there is a program which collects garbage in the park, as well as cleaning and landscaping. H.I.S. also plans to add customer service robots, an electronic payment system (hoping to go "cashless" in the future), as well as a new wing to the hotel, that will be an energy-independent generator made from film-like solar cells and plant-based storage batteries.
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Air Canada Begins Using a New Way to Distribute Fares to Partners - Skift - 0 views

skift.com/...o-distribute-fares-to-partners technology hospitality software tech business travel
shared by kpony001 on 28 Jan 19 - No Cached
  • The shape of the future is unclear.For a glimpse at what may come, look to Air Canada, which this week processed its first transaction via a new platform called NDC Exchange.
  • For several years now, Air Canada has offered internet-based connections for online travel agencies and travel management companies to access its airfares. These worked outside of the incumbent three giants of travel distribution, Amadeus, Sabre, and Travelport.
  • About 40 to 50 agencies access Air Canada’s application programming interfaces, or APIs, to process about a million tickets a year via direct connections that avoid the intermediaries.
  • ...21 more annotations...
  • it enables the airline to have enhanced control over how the content appears on travel agency reservation systems to make sure they’re presenting their full-service products in the best way and not encouraging customers to shop by lowest price.
  • Air Canada
  • began using NDC Exchange, a platform that does the work on Air Canada’s behalf to transform data from its web services into a way that’s readable by sellers using any of the different versions of New Distribution Capability.
  • NDC Exchange was created by airfare filing clearinghouse ATPCO
  • and SITA,
  • the airline industry has heavy control of both organizations, which may help keep costs below what they would probably have to pay third-party distribution giants to do the same work.
  • The platform could become more valuable if it effectively enabled the cross-selling of ancillary services between airlines.
  • If the vision is mostly fulfilled, the NDC Exchange could take on a life of its own. It could become more than a mere data transformation tool that acts as an integration layer during a presumably temporary spike in updates to the New Distribution Capability standard.
  • “There is a nominal cost to use it for airlines and a nominal cost to use it for the sellers, but if the costs stay low and the system has low latency, then the value would be worthwhile,”
  • Wallis said, “My wish would be to put all of my partners in the NDC Exchange, though it would take more than a year to get there.
  • For this platform, SITA is taking on the role of providing the IT networking for messaging and data services to power the exchange, while ATPCO transforms the data.
  • The NDC Exchange runs on SITA’s cloud-based infrastructure and airlines use its 24/7 call-center support to handle any troubleshooting.
  • Amadeus’s Elena Avila, executive vice president, head of Americas, airlines, said, “Air Canada is a long-term partner that we’re thrilled to be working with both on the IT and the distribution side.
  • Amadeus Anytime Merchandising will equip Air Canada to address evolving industry initiatives, such as NDC.”
  • Sabre announced “a commitment to advance at an industry level” new technological and business practice methods with American Airlines and several key players in corporate travel
  • A Sabre spokesperson said in an interview, “Efforts like the one you highlighted [by ATPCO] are often focused only on offer creation, whereas Beyond NDC is focused on developing end-to-end solutions that let airlines retail, distribute and fulfill across the entire traveler journey.
  • Amadeus announced an NDC-X program that’s working with Qantas and American Airlines and with travel sellers like Flight Centre, Travix, American Express Global Business Travel, Carlson Wagonlit Travel, and BCD Travel.
  • The traditional masters of this task — Amadeus, Sabre, and Travelport — could choose to plug into it. But they might have to accept commercial terms that would be less lucrative than past arrangements.
  • Verteil Technologies, an Indian IT provider, will use the NDC Exchange to aggregate the New Distribution Capability content and then enable Indian travel agencies to issue standalone New Distribution Capability tickets.
  • Australia- and New Zealand-based corporate travel technology company Serko is plugging into NDC Exchange.
  • Other vendors launching on NDC Exchange include Airlines Reporting Corp., Innfinity and Atriis.
  • kpony001 on 28 Jan 19
     
    Air Canada's new platform, NDC Exchange, which works outside of the GDSes, allows the airline to manage the way its bookings appear on travel agency registration systems. The system was created by ATPCO (Airline Tariff Publishing Co.) and SITA, the latter of which transforms the data while the former provides the data services that make it have the ability to run,. Recently, several GDSes, such as Sabre, Amadeus, along with other entities like Verteil Technologies, Serko, and more, have also began to utilize their own NDC Exchange program.
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Cloud security: The reason hackers have it so easy will infuriate you - 0 views

www.fastcompany.com/...-it-so-easy-will-infuriate-you cloud security technology hackers tech
shared by kpony001 on 21 Jan 19 - No Cached
  • hackers time and again have outwitted the cyberguardians.
  • HashiCorp offers an open-source tool called Vault that stores sensitive credentials, encrypted themselves, and strictly limits what people, servers and programs can access them
  • The mass movement of company and personal data to the cloud has only complicated things.
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  • Companies have uploaded VPN and cloud access credentials to cloud storage systems that are easily accessible.
  • security breaches are routinely made worse when hackers who enter one system are then finding the keys to another lying around unencrypted.
  • developers are still regularly storing the digital keys to company assets and even user data in source code, configuration files, and other miscellaneous, unencrypted locations.
  • Unlike typical users who can memorize their passwords or store them with a secure password manager, developers and IT workers often need to keep security credentials in places where automated software can find them.
  • Cloud managers are playing catchup to close the door on the critical data left out in the open.
  • Sophisticated new cybersecurity tools designed to securely store these kinds of credentials in a way that legitimate, automated processes can access, and intruders can’t
  • hackers time and again have outwitted the cyberguardians.
  • cloud industry leader Amazon launched AWS Secrets Manager, its own credential management tool. And Microsoft offers what it calls Azure Key Vault to securely store and monitor and control access to this kind of data.
  • The main problem is that companies really don’t have policies for it or they don’t follow up and make sure those policies are followed
  • Until recent hacks made it clear that few organizations can hope to keep their networks entirely free from intrusion, many companies paid less attention to the security of data within their firewalls
  • UpGuard, known for its frequent role in detecting leaks tied to data stored on insecure cloud machines, has released BreachSight, which scours the internet for its clients’ exposed code, credentials, personally identifiable information, and other sensitive data.
  • Since last year, Amazon has also offered a service called Amazon Macie, which uses machine learning to detect unusual access patterns to cloud storage and uploads of potentially sensitive data like access keys.
  • Amazon also released open source software to help prevent accidentally storing passwords and keys to source code repositories
  • other developers have offered similar tools to scrub credentials from existing code.
  • it’s possible that those types of tools will automatically be provided as part of cloud computing contracts, as standard as seatbelts in new cars.
  • kpony001 on 21 Jan 19
     
    Cloud computing has created a very hacking prone storage system because companies have not been paying as much attention to security as they should. Thus, by not taking the logical measures such as not uploading credentials to cloud storage systems, they are becoming prone to hacker raids. However, with the turning of the tide, new methods of security have presented themselves in the form of online tools such as HashiCorp's Vault Microsoft's Azure Key Vault, and Amazon's AWS Secrets Manager, which stores sensitive credentials in very limited access windows, as well as UpGaurd's BreachSight which detects online data leaks containing exposed and volatile client data, and Amazon's Amazon Macie, which learns the access patterns of your cloud storage,
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Guests want smart technology, but security concerns remain | Hotel Management - 0 views

www.hotelmanagement.net/...vices-to-connect-guestroom-tvs hotel management technology security innovation
shared by kpony001 on 14 Jan 19 - No Cached
  • More than 96 percent of hotel guests travel with a smartphone and nearly 46 percent of guests travel with at least two smart devices, representing a 10 percent increase in just two years
  • More than 80 percent of guests indicated a desire to wirelessly cast content from their devices onto guestroom televisions and more than 90 percent of surveyed hoteliers agreed that today's guests would prefer to be offered wireless casting abilities, rather than traditional video-on-demand services.
  • With hotels around the world universally experiencing diminishing profits from VOD, the survey points to entertainment platform functions that hoteliers can deploy alongside wireless casting in order to regain these revenues
  • ...12 more annotations...
  • more than 60 percent of surveyed guests indicated that they would like the ability to order amenities and services via the guestroom television, if given the option. Sixty-five percent of guests would like to be able to surf the internet on the TV entertainment system
  • Another 61 percent of guests also indicated a preference to access information on available hotel services, such as restaurant hours, via the guestroom television.
  • 65 percent of guests are “highly concerned” about inputting usernames and passwords into a guestroom television app, according to HIS. 
  • As voice becomes the preferred interface for guest and staff interactions with technology in hotels, there must be safeguards in place to ensure that no data falls into the wrong hands,
  • The same is true for protecting hotels’ proprietary data from disclosure
  • Hoteliers have a duty to protect their guests personally identifiable information and we’ve built our technology atop the leading natural language processing platforms to ensure they meet this duty.
  • How are you protecting the privacy of my guests? Are recordings associated with our guests’ personally identifiable information?
  • How are you protecting the security of my hotel’s proprietary data?
  • Many travelers have unique accents or dialects that aren’t well understood by popular voice assistants. Does your solution improve the accuracy of interactions? 
  • How are you measuring return on investment? How will your solution drive efficiencies and increase revenues?
  • Can I easily change and update interactions with my guests once deployed?
  • Without the right integrations, even the best product can add complexity and cost. Hoteliers need to make sure any vendor they consider has the integrations they need to set their team up for success.”
  • kpony001 on 14 Jan 19
     
    The article reports that the great majority of hotel guests desire to have state of the art innovation for their convenience, such as casting and voice interface technology. The type of innovation stems largely from guests being able to use their laptops or phones on the TV, while also access hotel services such as restaurant hours and possibly food services from the same interface. They assert. however that it is important for hoteliers to know how guests may be able to keep their identity hidden from potential practices such as "integration with the platform that may use this data for remarketing", integrate a system that can understand an manage foreign accents. It also brings up concerns of how to measure return on investment, showing a increase in revenue and that it is possible to update the interactions with guests once the technology is deployed.
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