With California being prone to droughts, hotels are taking small steps to save water and become more environmentally friendly. This article takes us through several hotels around Los Angeles that are taking steps such as removing water from their water fountains and replacing the water with agave and drought-tolerant succulents. Their goal is not just to save money or water, but to create an eco-friendly image to appeal to environmentally friendly guests. These renovations are costing the hotels money, but officials expect the investment to pay for itself in about 17 months.

Marketing in the hospitality industry comes with certain strategies for success. To market a consistent brand is important when it comes to marketing, and splitting your marketing between past customers and new customers is essential to business. Some of the strategies for marketing include research, awareness, promotions, relationships, and resources. Research is needed to recognize attractive factors that make customers choose certain service. Awareness is necessary because if people don't know about your service, they won't buy it. Promotions are helpful when it comes to slower seasons, certain incentives will attract new or loyal guests. Relationships with these loyal guests also play a big factor, since repeat business is vital. Your resources are also a big role, with the right people with the right background, your marketing can be successful.

Tomorrow's World surveyed 250 restaurant operators and their customers on the their thoughts on emerging technology in the industry such as facial recognition, artificial intelligence, voice activation, among others. 50% of guests said this technology could improve the guest experience. Today's restaurant operators are finding ways to increase guest satisfaction, which involves having the ability to purchase products in the simplest of ways. EPoS has a huge role in this, and should be used to stay a step ahead . Technologies should be implemented and work together, operators should work on a collective, open platform with a POS partner willing to adapt, change, and adopt new technologies, which essentially can grow the business.

This article takes you through why your restaurant may want to switch to a Cloud-Based POS. There are many positive attributes associated with making the switch, such as; data accessibility, cheaper operating costs, easier upgrades, less frequent downtimes, increased security, and adaptability. If you are a growing business, the Cloud would grow with you.

Compared to large hotel chains and airlines, the GDS can play a different role for businesses of smaller sizes. For small hotels, it may be beneficial to make use of a channel manager instead of depending on sales from a GDS. The article suggests to smaller hotels that channel managers, who work directly with travel agents, can mean more profit for your business. Using the GDS and a travel agency, you are technically paying 2 commissions. With a channel manager, you would only be paying one. Having this business relationship will cut out a middle man, and hotels with smaller budget will find this strategy more efficient.

This article can be summarized by researchers analyzing how and what guests experienced staying in green hotels. Many hotels and hotel managers are becoming aware of the carbon footprint the hospitality and tourism industry is leaving on the world, and doing something about it. Many hotels have implemented actions such as; using solar panels to heat and power water, using low energy consumption lamps in guest rooms, and supplying cleaning products with certified quality. The surveys used for this research suggested that guests positively recognized the commitment these hotels had in becoming green, and that these guests were more likely to develop loyalty specifically towards hotels implementing green practices.

For three years now, Oracle has been the owner of Micros, a software that manages payments and reservations for more than 300,000 hospitality owners. This article speaks on how Oracle has been handling the transition, and the obstacles they are facing now, including competition from other hospitality softwares that hotels around the world are using. Most softwares today are using cloud based systems, but Oracle was having some mishaps with that transition, therefore making customers unhappy. To relieve some of the tension between customers and the company, there hired about 30% more representatives to handle the volume of requests, and questions from Oracle users. With more research and more representatives, 70% of customer support requests are being resolved within an hour. With time of the essence in the hospitality world, this is an important aspect for users of the system. Competition is out there, and price is a large factor for small and family owned businesses that cannot afford the Oracle system, but they are now working on widening their marker to independently owned hotels from anywhere around the globe. Being a user of Micros in my own place of work, the computer software makes it easy for both the employee and the guests, with straightforward prompts and payments that deliver little to no hassle. Oracle would like to keep on growing and with the rate that they have overcome their mishaps and learned to adapt to new technologies such as ApplePay and Bitcoin, it seems it can only go up from here.