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This article talks about the GDS and how it can help attract clients in particular business clients. It starts by giving all the benefits of the GDS. It then goes on to explain how the GDS works and who can access it. It ends by talking about the types of GDS systems and how they will evolve and stay relevant in the future.

This article describes the different types of GDS programs that hotels might use. The one my hotel uses is in here as well! It outlines why they are important, how they are used, and the massive reach that they have. Most companies use GDS to streamline their efficiency so it is interesting to read why it is so effective.

This article particularly caught my attention because it points out the major advantages of web-based PMS, but it does not mention the risk of transfering such sensitive guest information over the unsecure and unregulated Internet. Surely there are great cost-related and operational advantages to web-based PMS and that alone often motivates hotels to upgrade in that general direction. Afterall, the reason why the hotel is operated is to generate revenues. However, is risking the identity of thousands of your guests worth the money you will save? That is what this article does not cover. As the title points out, web-based PMS is the future of the industry, but securing the identity of the biggest drivers behind all revenue for your hotel is arguably more important. Is the risk worth the reward? I believe the Internet needs to become a more secure highway of information before the industry can fully embrace this new technological advancement. My thoughts on considering an upgrade to web based PMS: Research and proceed with caution.

This article indicated the importance of Internet for hotel industry and also assumed that web based property management systems will widely used in future. The author listed some advantages of web based property management system:1) Central Reservation System: One of the greatest advantages of using an online hotel software is that you do not have any more headaches about reservations.2)   Numerous Point of Sale: Keeping a check on the add-on services your hotel provides can easily be done with the help of the numerous points of sales.3) Sales and Marketing Console. With the help of this console, you can access the database of your customers get in touch with them notifying them of special offers and discounts. 4)Travel Agents and Corporate Clients:It is important that you properly deal with travel agents and Corporate clients as they play a very important role in bringing in more guests to the hotel.5)   Connected to 1000s of Travel Portals: Web based PMS help you get connected to many travel portals like Travelocity, Tripadvisor and Expedia helping you reach more people. 

t is the age of the Internet, the age when many businesses solely run on the Internet. From marketing to reaching new people, there is a lot that can be done with the help of this medium. The hotel industry too is not insulated from its effect. Almost all kinds of hotels, from inns to bed and breakfasts to resorts, everyone is trying to tap the energies of the Internet and make optimum use of the medium. The Internet plays a major role in improving the sales and customer relationship.

Marriott Corporation set up an eco friendly program, which is called LEED volume program. Towneplace Suites is the main leader of this program and they created it because of they would like to teach and tell about what it really means to be social responsible. The goal of the program is to provide a pre-certified hotel design as green hotels. More than $100,000 can be saved per project and company will do all the work with owners pre-opening and post-opening. They usually focus on lighting and towel. They prefer to use motion sensors rather than regular light bulb and try not to change sheets and towels too often. They are some hotels trying to be green hotels but it is very rare that big corporation hotels try to be the one and lead industry. I believe it will bring positive effects to whole tourism and hospitality industry.

SocialTables is one of the latest and most successful hospitality start-ups. It is essentially a hospitality SaaS. It was founded by Dan Berger, an event-planner turned programmer. Founded in 2012 and based in Washington D.C., one of the premier corporate hospitality locations in the US, the start-up has recently raised $8 million in Series A funding. The round was led by Bessemer Venture Partners, and followed by Thayer Ventures. This funding adds to the previous $1.6 million the company raised, which helped them streamline their event planning tools. According to its website, SocialTables is a cloud-based solution that offers event diagramming, seating, and check-in tools for event planners. The software can make room layouts that event planners can use to show clients, compose detailed seating charts and arrangements, and it offers a fast check-in app. All of this is done on a colorful, intuitive, cloud-based site with mobile integration. In two years, SocialTables has grown considerably. It has over 2,500 customers and 30,000 users. Additionally, two-thirds of its customer base is actually composed of venue-owners, including major corporations like Hyatt Hotels and Caesar's Entertainment. Academic institutions like Harvard Business School and The Ohio State University also subscribe to SocialTables. Additionally, one-third of its customers are private party planners. SocialTables is becoming an affordable, customizable, tech-progressive solution for event planners of all levels. Industry leaders like Hyatt and Caesar's already subscribe to its services. In the future, I think that the start-up should focus on increasing its ability to provide affordable and capable solutions for private event planners, particularly in the wedding category. While that is an extremely competitive and saturated market, SocialTables could provide an industry-leading software solution and use its credibility to entice private planners into its cloud-based ecosystem.

My article this week is about how GDS (Global Distribution Systems) can be compared to a seatbelt. The author opens the article discussing the main reasons we still continue to use seatbelts; even though they aren't the most comfortable or fashionable items to use, they still do their jobs in saving our lives when it comes to a collision of some sort. The author is in favor of GDS and makes the claim that like seatbelts, the GDS may not be the most up-to-date or may not appear to be as nice as other local systems to each individual airline, but they get the job done and there are no other systems out there like it that we know of (no other systems that do everything he GDS system does that is). The main topic of discussion that the article is concerned with is the recent decision made by the company Lufthansa to start charging its customers an additional surcharge for using GDS systems instead of going through its own system. The author clearly makes it know that she doesn't believe Lufthansa when they say they are charging this additional surcharge because GDS is the most expensive channel to go through. "Because there's no reason to think that an airline should expect to distribute its products without any cost, Lufthansa's recent gambit seems more of a tactic for increasing lagging direct distribution... Its strategy seems to rest in shifting distribution costs to corporate buyers" claims Rose, the author of the article. The author also points out some of the draw backs of using agency portals, the main reason being that a customer cannot compare rates of other competitors and that agency portals cannot handle high volume transactions like the GDS can. It is also made known that there are costs that come with other channels as well, like the prices you pay for building airline websites and keeping them updated. The author concludes that "Given the history of negotiations between airlines and GDSs, it's impossible to know whether Lufthansa is using DCC as

Hyatt Hotels Corporation has been in the green initiative game for over five years now. Hyatt plans to set higher goals to benefit the environment by 2020. They have set up three focus areas which are done by each sole property. Firstly, they have goals regarding the consumption of less water, less waste and opportunities to recycle. Additionally, corporate sets goals for individual properties to follow. Secondly, Hyatt wants to make sure that they are building environmentally conscious hotels that are efficient. They will start new construction in 2015 and continue with renovations. They hope for every property to reach LEED certification. Thirdly, Hyatt wants to innovate and inspire, they want to create awareness about environmental sustainability and the benefits to society it can have. Hyatt hopes to create waves in the hospitality industry and at the rate they are going they should be seeing success in the future. Hyatt is definitely going in the right direction when it comes to green initiatives. Setting goals and reporting deadlines will help Hyatt and there large number of properties reach the goals they have in place for a more sustainable future.

I found this article to be interesting - it talks about how one can improve one's corporate meeting or event by implementing/using these three elements: experiential meetings, technology, and localizing. In short, with experiential meetings/events one tries to keep the attendees attention by giving them a memorable experience. According to the article, this is achieved by having the attendees speak up, participate, and engage. With technology, it is recommended to stay up to date, to help connect with millennials and younger attendees. And finally, with localizing, it was recommended to team up with local businesses for instance, to help create a more unique experiences to your (corporate) event's location.

The Hutton Hotel that is a comparatively new and boutique style implemented new e-mail marketing in order to increase the clientele's awareness about their properties. The hotel developed this new e-mail marketing with the help of Spectrio that is an all-inclusive audio/video/digital marketing company. By using an existed short promotional film video of the hotel, Spectrio and the hotel created new video about hotel properties such as an event space to show the hotel and attract clientele without visiting in advance. This new e-mail campaign not only includes new video content but also still contain photos combined with music and narration and links to the Hutton Hotel's website like previous version of E-mail campaign. This new campaign increased the effectiveness of hotel's e-mail effort as well as enabled the hotel to raise the clientele's awareness .

By creating a video to showcase the hotel's major feature by the use of simple video they were able to create engagement with potential meeting planners that previously weren't aware that such a space existed. The video was not a significant cost since it was footage that already had been used for other purposes. But by using this footage for a new purpose has created a wider audience they previously had not been able to reach. This targeted strategy to meeting planners is much more effective than simply sending out traditional marketing materials. It reached the people the hotel was seeking to target to increase the awareness of the space, to create more potential business. The hotel also plans to send out a targeted email to corporate guests in the hopes of the same success rate.

This sounds like a great tool to have, monitoring, analyzing and improving is much easier with the help of HRIS. Determining which departments within a specific organization are not performing well and which ones need a different strategy is very beneficial, as future managers and owners it is important to see the importance of these systems. 

The following article mainly focuses on Human Resources Information Systems, HRIS for businesses in particular the article focuses on companies utilizing such IT systems. For instance, since different companies utilize different requirements for their employees customizing such HRIS's will benefit financially and timely; Companies will spend less time working on such types of data if in their requirements they customize their HRISs to produce such data required.    

The article believes that Human Resource Management System can boost business bottom line in several ways. It is an investment to most of the companies, instead of an expense. The system includes HR metrics, which helps the manager get a deeper look at his/her own company by tracking different data from the system. Another is that the system improves the working effectiveness of the HR department. The Human Resource system not only benefits the corporate HR department, but also benefits the non-HR employees by allowing them log in to the system and get some information about the company. Last but not least, the article emphasizes that the system can help boost corporate profits.

E-marketing is not unfamiliar for us and it has become a powerful tool for hotels to promote themselves. Hotels can make profit from it if it is applied in a proper way. This article introduces a successful example that IHG focuses on developing apps and mobil features to engage with guests throughout their journey and the monthly revenue from mobile booking reaches over $20 million. IHG's mobile strategy focuses on connecting with guests at all touch points throughout their travel planning and stay experience not just on the first step of room booking. IHG will continue their mobil strategy with launch of the Priority Club Rewards app for iPad that can help guests easily find and book rooms, check rates and increase flexibility to manage their reservation and view member details. This provides guests great convince and leaves them great feeling about this brand. Some new features, functions and offers will be customized for different category of guests such as corporate guests and leisure guests in IHG's e-marketing plan. So the efficiency in targeting the right market is increased. IHG benefit a lot from e-marketing and is multiplying more methods in this area to keep up with the trend. Success of IHG in e-marketing can be a good example for other hoteliers.

This article by Sean McCracken talks about hotels not utilizing GDS systems and travel agents to their full potential. A majority of the business booked through GDS channels is corporate and corporate travelers tend to choose luxury hotels, which drive higher ADR. These travelers are also more likely to upgrade to premium room types, which also helps ADR. While marketing through GDS has a high initial cost, many hotels are seeing a higher return on investment. The Hilton Garden Inn Overland Park made an initial investment of $600 for three months and saw about $10,000-$15,000 in added revenue per month. The marketing enables the hotel to be exposed to travelers so when the marketing ends, they will be able to build loyalty and hopefully have those travelers come back. Many believed GDS systems were a thing of the past, but a recent survey by TravelClick shows that travel agents were actually more likely to book through GDS. Rate is key and travel agents will stop booking hotels through GDS if those hotels are not offering their best rates.

This article talk about the Best Western International Hotel Corporation takes the Hansen Software Corporation for call accounting for CASH + Best Western properties. CASH+ is also compatible with all makes and models of telephone systems with particularly special relationships with Mitel, Avaya and Nortel. Our product has been approved, tested, or endorsed by these manufacturers. CASH+ is a software based solution that does not require a dedicated computer and can often be installed on the same computer as your property management system. CASH+ will affix the per minute rate of choice to the correct room and post this information to the guest folio on the property management system that you have.

This news tells us that the hotel management corporation upgrades online booking system. Oriens Travel & Hotel Management Corp., is an International Boutique Hotel Brand Operator operating hotels world-wide. On September 6th, it announced they had completed to upgrade its Online Booking System. As all we know, online booking system is an easy to use, web-based internet reservation system used internationally by a diverse range of accommodation providers. The upgrades included payment gateways for processing credit cards, PayPal payment solutions, Google Payment Solution, 128bit security encryption, and a more user-friendly backend platform being used by hotel revenue managers on a daily basis. What's more, the mobile App is being integrated into the system. These upgrades will make the booking progress more seamless and easier.

"Despite the challenges unfolding at a regional level in the Middle East and North Africa, hoteliers were still able to raise rates enough in February to achieve average rate growth worldwide and capture more bookings than last year. "Consumers are not only traveling, but they are also willing to spend more. Additionally, the corporate market is booking more groups and meetings business from corporations of all sizes as February bookings, rate and revenue growth was coupled with increases in length of stay and booking lead time. Even though at the time, hoteliers continue to raise rates, but people are still continuing to travel and spend money. The traveling public understands that their leisure time is valuable and are willing to pay for peace of mind. Also, bookings made through online channels provide a perfect virtual marketplace for travel inventory sellers.

This article post on the year of 2011, it said that the global GDS hotel bookings grew substantially by 23.5%, which driving revenue up by 36.8% in two years. And the monthly growth of more than 20% through July in 2010 to now. At the same time, the length of stay and booking lead time are also expanded. Compared with the booking rates in 2010, the business travel rates rose about 7% and rates paid by leisure travelers for hotel rooms increased 3.6%. The booking mostly through the ADS or online channels were all declined due to varieties of factors such as regional unrest in the Middle East and North Africa. Despite these challenges, the hotel managers still tried to achieve the high booking rates and capture more bookings than last year. Consumers are not only travelling , but they are also willing to spend more. People are tend to travel by groups in business or meetings, this will increase the length of stay and booking lead time. GDS bookings represent the mostly corporate market, despite of all the problems which could influence the travel rates, bookings made through online channels like GDS made growth rates keep increasing both in tourist on or off season.

This article speaks about, for the most part, how bookings done through systems are now only at an all time high, but continue to grow substantially.  ADS's on the other hand, declined from January's levels declined due a variety of factors including regional unrest, etc. However, growth bounced back in February and even set a new record for North America. Also, despite all the challenges throughout the middle east and north Africa, average rate growth was still achieved throughout the month of February and even outperform last years bookings for that month.

This article identified some factors that happening in the market which drives a trend for increased bookings through non-GDS hotels. Business travel buyers are increasingly looking at newer opportunities to cut travel costs. Business travel slowdown imminent, The Global Business Travel Association forecasts that the business travel growth is expected to slow in 2012. And business-travel growth will outpace anticipated GDP growth, despite uncertainties in the economy. Rate negotiation process is getting increasingly tougher With a declining market demand, hotels try hard to remain profitable, and have toughened the rate negotiations with buyers. Many are exploring alternative strategies to generate savings from their hotel programs. Some buyers are considering alternative negotiating strategies to derive savings. Due to the demand for wider range of rates to aid policy compliance, corporates are looking for a better value proposition in using hotel aggregators. Hotel aggregation offers key value proposition The latest versions of HotelHub indicate that hotel aggregation offers a major advantage in corporate hotel reservation process. GDS firms and non-GDS are realizing the gap, and aggregation makes Travel Managers save lot of time and cost in servicing booking requests. This article identified some factors that happening in the market which drives a trend for increased bookings through non-GDS hotels. Business travel buyers are increasingly looking at newer opportunities to cut travel costs. Business travel slowdown imminent, The Global Business Travel Association forecasts that the business travel growth is expected to slow in 2012. And business-travel growth will outpace anticipated GDP growth, despite uncertainties in the economy. Rate negotiation process is getting increasingly tougher With a declining market demand, hotels try hard to remain profitable, and have toughened the rate negotiations with buyers. Many are exploring alternative strategies to gener

A leader provider of outsourced staffing solutions for the hospitality industry, Hospitality Staffing Solutions, announced that it has completed the sale of its assets to HS Solutions Corporation. HS Solutions Corporation is an entity formed by LJC Investments 1, LLC and a group of investors including Littlejohn Opportunities Master Fund,LP, Caymus Equity Partners and Management. This transaction allows HSS to reduce its outstanding debt and responsibilities. It also gives the opportunity to emerge with strong financial backing of a new owner.

A successful corporate event will be down to many factors including location, food, atmosphere and, of course, the all important entertainment. This article gives a short guide on how to make your corporate event a success.

NASCAR has many green initiatives to talk about. As the 2014 Daytona 500 was ready to run NASCAR was trying out four hydrogen fuel cell generators to power cameras that take video from different staging areas during the race. These fuel cells replaced diesel-powered generators which reduced greenhouse gas emissions, noise and vibration. NASCAR has teamed up with the Department of Energy to further their use of new green solutions in racing events. They have also added EV charging stations at their corporate office locations in Daytona Beach, Florida, Charlotte, North Carolina and Concord, North Carolina. To show their support of electric automobiles. The NASCAR corporation continues to look for ways to be more environmentally friendly while improving the customer experience at their events.