Technology is taking over all aspects of the hospitality world especially event planning. Not only does it change things for the event planner but for the attendees as well. One of the biggest changes with technology and event planning is having engaged attendees. Before attendees were thought of as very passive but now with technology it is easy to participate in contests and polls. Another big technology game changer is wearable tech. Attendees can wear wristbands that allow you to gather information about the event you are attending. Disney is a great example with wearable tech with the wristbands that connect everything including payments to your trip. As you can see tech and event planning has come a long way. Technology effects every step of the event planning processes including planning and post event.I feel this is just the start of options the technology world will provide for the hospitality industry.

As technology advances so do hackers and criminals. Hotels are placing more cameras in public areas to keep their guests safer. Because cameras are becoming much more popular they are easier to attain and cheaper for hotels to have more than one. Another form of security hotels have been using is key systems. You can track what key and who it was that entered into any room. But hotels are even taking it farther where the guests must use their key in the elevator to get to their floor. All of these steps are in place for the safety and security of the hotel guests. But we still need to be careful as hackers and criminals are coming up with new ways to get hotel stayers. They have even gotten creative enough to make their own Wi-Fi to get guests information. Security teams and hackers will always be neck in neck for who is ahead of the game.

Mobile is the "it" thing for restaurants right now. Professionals believe that if your guests are not able to access your restaurant mobile apps that you are not reaching all of your guests. Although this is not the answer to everything but using mobile apps can allow you restaurant to be able to order off their phones and you can create loyalty programs. There are all types of opportunities when using this type of technology. It could help you branch out over your competitors.

Being a technology kid it is interesting to see how things use to be even just a few short years ago. The different 10 years can make in the POS systems restaurants use is a huge. As times continue to change, most restaurants will be going from POS terminals to POS tablets. Changing to tablets is much more cost effective especially for smaller businesses that need to save wherever possible. Just like when POS terminals came out, there are now a number of tablet POS systems to choose from. Big companies like Groupon and Square have POS systems created for different hospitality segments. Although there are some wonderful creations with the tablets, this form of technology is not made for every business. It gave an example of a company who opened with tablets but within a year forked over much more for the traditional POS system.

E-business is taking over one business segment at a time. In the last few years, hospitality and e-business have been going hand and hand. Hospitality is always trying to stay on top of trends and even more with e-business. E-business does not seem to be slowing down but only getting bigger with our industry. Most of our hotel and restaurant reservations are all via Internet. As well, most people search to find the perfect place to travel and book a hotel by using the Internets search engine. Hotels need to find the right channels on the Interest that our guests are using in order to get the most out of our e-business world.

It is hard by nature for hotels to be green. Between the constant washing of linens, chemicals being used to clean and the amount of products and waste they throw out it is hard for hotels to keep up. But good news is here as hotels step up their "green game". Hotels are starting to put more money into green savings and hoping to get more travelers in return. Green hotels bring in a much higher occupancy rate on travel websites than hotels who are not. These guests are looking for green hotels not only for what they believe in but for the experience the hotel is providing. Hotels that are going green with new cutting edge technology is something more other hotels are trying to jump on board with.

As technology comes around it is strange to think of a world before it. Before hotel reservation management systems hotels relied on mostly walk ins, arrival of guests and travel agents to fill their hotels. All systems were done manually and not dependable. The goal for a hotel is to sell all rooms in their hotel as you can never sell that room for that night again. With new systems in place to run reservations, occupancy rates and revenues are much higher. These systems know the status of all rooms and are able to confirm when the room is able to sell to the next guest. These software systems communicate to each other and are able to sell more rooms. These systems also allow pre-planning because of being able to see all future reservations. With every year better and newer software reservations systems come out and giving hotels even better options and more revenue.