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this article is about the increasing demands of cloud computing, and is also leading to a rise in dollar spending. Remote working has been the drive for the increasing demands of cloud computing but as the result of the Covid-19 pandemic and the slow down of large business advising led project. The concern is that while the demands are going up, the actual growth of cloud computing is not.

This article goes into great detail about how technology is growing within the hotel and tourism industry. The VP of American Express Meeting and Events states that new technologies are providing event planners with much more opportunities to increase participant engagement, obtain feedback and get more connected. The article also dives into the fact that event planners notice that new technology may be a distraction to people who are not accustomed to it. A fun fact I found about this article that event mobile applications can be customized to range up to thousands of dollars to develop and maintain. It seems that meeting applications are working well with larger events as opposed to smaller sized meetings.

This article is about the integration of social media in marketing for restaurants, and particularly how that has adapted and changed as a result of the pandemic. The article gives a brief introduction with some statistics outlining the particular usage of social media by different generations and how they make decisions regarding the content they see on that social platform. It then goes into detail about how Instagram is the primary platform that leads to success for restaurants marketing. It then takes a slight turn and explains that many consumers are looking to give their business and attention to entities that take social or other stands and seem to have a genuine care for making the world a better place. It has also been shown that outsourcing of marketing has reduced as a result of the pandemic and the need to save money during the hard times. Additionally, there is something that consumers find appealing about the genuine marketing that an internal employee is able to do on a platform such as instagram. The article concludes that even though the pandemic has been a terrible thing, it has forced restaurants to become more proactive and innovative in their marketing strategies.

The article "Ransomware attack on chip supplier causes delays for semiconductor groups," discusses the affects on a company due to a cyberattack that occurred February 3rd. The company is believed to have setbacks into March and that it would cost hundreds of millions of dollars in lost or delayed sales. The company also believes they will be unable to file its annual report on time and possibly have to resolve the issue by paying a ransom. This also cost a 15% decrease of shares for the Company.

The multi-bilion dollar NCR Corporation has invested in a new and innovative barcode scanner for a mobile POS system from a company named Socket Mobile. Socket Mobile has 20 years experience in the industry and offers a variety of products that increase productivity and drive operational efficiencies. The barcode scanner will allow its users to offer a greater standard of service to customers. The barcode scanner can be wirelessly used and brought around place to place using bluetooth. A great example in the article it mentions the product could be used outside the store at say a farmers market or street fair. The product has a high level of technology and offers better features than a traditional wireless scanner.

In the article "Would Your Crew Wear Mobile Apps?" it talks about a new way of advertising through uniforms. On the back of a crew members uniform there is a QR code and the customer just has to scan the code it shows them coupons and deals the restaurant is promoting. I feel that this way of advertising is easy and fun; people love using technology and what better way to incorporate it then by using your Smartphone! In the article they asked different fast food restaurants if they would use this product and although they thought it was a good idea they felt that it would be taking away from a fast paced environment. In the article it states that traditional media is not what it use to be, ""There are billions of dollars being spent on it, and [traditional ads] are driving consumers to the stores, but at that point consumers still don't know what they're going to buy." Overall, I feel that this product would bring in a lot of customers and it's a great way to advertise things on the menu, I'm all for this idea!

Kaene its a NTT data company that offers a technology solution to optimize and maximize customer value. Kaene designes systems and programs that bring convinence to people who loves to travel. Kaene develops applications such as check in, departure control, etc. In the hospitality industry, Kaene has created a new online credit card payment system, to secure millions of dollars in real time. Also, customer service has improved with all the hotel technology, and also has reduced costs....

"Recent global data released by TravelClick projects 2015 to be a record year for bookings through global distribution systems, the channel used when guests book through traditional travel agents. TravelClick is projecting 62 million bookings through GDSes in 2015, which is up from 61 million in 2014 and 42 million during the depths of the recession in 2009. According to the data, a total of $12 billion in revenue was booked across all channels in the second quarter in the top 50 global markets, encompassing 69 million roomnights. GDS bookings covered 16.3% of those bookings. The highest portion of bookings came through direct bookings (36.9%), followed by Web bookings (22.5%). Central reservations system bookings (12.8%) and OTA bookings (10.2%) represent the remaining portion. GDS bookings have managed to hold their share of transient bookings through the past two years, staying steady at 19.1% during the second quarter of each year. The total revenue from transient bookings in the top 50 markets during the second quarter grew year over year from $11.5 billion in 2014 to $11.8 billion this year. " This article elaborates the rise in current and predicted bookings by GDS systems in the Hospitality industry. Over 12 billion dollars in revenue has been recorded thanks to the rise of GDS systems. This revenue has managed to hold on to a steady rise since over the last 5 years. If projections are correct, revenue in top markets will only grow larger.

This article in USATODAY published in 2011 talks about the cost benefit analysis of RFID tags and hotel linens. Hotels are using this technology to keep an accurate count of all their linens: bathrobes, bed sheets, towels, bathmats, pool towels, etc. The benefit of having an accurate count is especially significant today with the rising price of oil which in turn raises everything including cotton. By investing an additional dollar per towel the Hotel can cut down on labor costs and improve housekeeping productivity. The initial investment is high which is why many hotels cannot afford the technology. I would recommend that high-end luxury hotels invest in the RFID tags however because of the higher prices of luxury linens. By preventing asset pilfering the Hotel will retain their initial investment in linens.

I saw that and I enjoyed your cruise ship article very much. However I am glad that cruise ships are still making RFID wrist bands optional because of privacy concerns, the last thing you want to worry about while on vacation.

In my opinion it's an ideal solution but a bit impratical. Is it worth spending that one extra dollar on all the linens in a hotel just to prevent 5% to 20% known loss? Intention of cutting losses might end with increasing cost. Don't forget the tracking RFID also requires maintenance, which also costs extra.

This article describes one of the worst situations that could occur when operating a hotel. According to the text, Wyndham Hotel Group failed to implement a strong enough security system, resulting in hackers breaching the network and stealing over 600,000 credit card numbers and over 10 million dollars in fraudulent charges. The FTC is suing Wyndham Corporation for failing to take the proper security measures to guarantee the security of the most important customer information. The FTC also states that Wyndham used improper software configurations that presented credit card information in a manner that was clear and easy to read. Michael Valentino, spokesman for Wyndham Worldwide, the company made prompt efforts to notify those whose information had been compromised and according to Valentino, no hotel customer had experienced a financial loss as a result of the attacks.  Despite Valentino's claims, the FTC is suing Wyndham for unfair and deceptive practices in failing to protect the privacy and personally identifiable information about guests. The FTC claims that Wyndham failed to address the security failures that occurred after the first breach in 2008 and did not implement technology that could have detected unauthorized access to networks. In 2009, hackers used similar techniques to break into the network again as steal as much personal information as they could. 

This article showed how online marketing analytic tools have become sophisticated and help hoteliers to develop more effective marketing strategy. For example, Adobe Site Catalyst has developed its segmentation capabilities that allow users to quickly dissect a slew of visitors to unveil special characteristics otherwise you would not be able to notice. This is a revolutionary way of data mining which was not in our marketing text book. As opposed to that Google Analytics is free, you have to pay to use this SiteCatalyst. Whether it is worth your dollar is depending on your size of business and branding strategy. 

This current events article discusses the forward motion of cloud computing.  Baidu Inc, China's leading search engine, is investing about 1.6 billion dollars into cloud computing.  This improves their hold on the young Chinese mobile internet space.  This should solidify them as the largest Chinese search engine, following Google's vacating in 2010. 

Here is something interesting for you Mac users. Did you knew that you are actually being charged more to use websites like Orbitz or Priceline? Don't believe me, well check it out. Over the last year or two Orbitz has been working on what they call "predictive analytics". Meaning they are able to predict where consumers will likely book their reservations based on what computer they are using. The article states that, Mac users are 40% more likely to book a four to five star hotel than PC users. Since companies like Orbitz (who took a 37 million dollar loss in 2011) are taking big hits from the lack of travelling thanks to the economy, they are trying to create any advantage they can in order to turn the market around. One thing to point out, is that Orbitz's competitors like Priceline and Expedia said that they do not base their sales on what computers the consumers are using, Apple had no comment. Orbitz said the effort to incorporate Mac vs. PC distinctions is still in its formative stages and isn't evident across the site. Other factors have more influence over results, Mr. Liew said, including a user's location and history on the site, as well as a hotel's overall popularity and promotions. Still, he said, use of a Mac can influence results.

CHECK THIS OUT MAC USERS

The best part of the article is how it states a good POS system is one that doesn't let you waste time with the POS. Instead your attention can be turned to your customers and staff. The system will do everything for you just by a touch of buttons from the screen. All you would have to do is print out the information and it will tell you everything you need to run a sucessfull establishment.

Electronic commerce is a booming business during these years. For example, the United States attributed $300 billion in transactions in 2002. There are two types of E-commerce through Internet, one is Intranet and the other is Extranet. Also, according to the former data, E-commerce is becoming more and more importance. Among e-commerce transactions, individual transactions donate a lot. There are lots of benefits about the E-commerce. Through selling on the Internet, they often have lower transactions costs. Also, E-commerce is faster and more convenient so that shoppers are able to take a lot of time to buy. Although there are lots of benefits, there are still drawbacks like searching better prices. Organizations usually go through four phases, including Web Presence, Web Service, Web Transactions and Integrated Web. The purpose of the first one is marketing enhancing. The second one is setting for responding to product and services inquires. The third one make company get their Web Sites ready for transactions. The last one creates the value chain among the customers. In the future, there will be greater integration of Web Sites with backend customer databases and other business information systems. The organizations are developing micromarketing decisions at individual level. At the end, the article also listed a lot of questions about the issues about the e-commerce in the future.

Did you know that by the year 2016 e-Commerce buying and selling online would have made over 8.6 billion dollars! This article discusses the e-commerce currently and its future trends in the hospitality arena, which is one of the fastest growing industries to date.

Intel has three main processors, the i3, i5, and i7. However the biggest market for Intel is the primary mid-range processor i5. It is targeted at the heart of the market, with pricing that is not at budget levels but still affordable, and performance that is extremely quick but not the fastest Intel offers. Intel Turbo Boost is a standard feature on all i5, and i7 processors. As expected, the more you pay, the more you get. For instance, the Core i5 2300 has a base clock speed of 2.8 GHz and a maximum Turbo Boost speed of 3.1 GHz. The Intel Core i7 2600, on the other hand, offers a base clock speed of 3.4 GHz and a maximum Turbo Boost of 3.8 GHz. Another significant performance difference is how the Core i7 and Core i5 products will be handling hyper-threading. Hyper-threading is a technology used by Intel to simulate more cores than actually exist on the processor. While Core i7 products have all been quad-cores, they appear in Windows as having eight cores. This further improves performance when using programs that make good use of multi-threading. However, all Core i5, processors have hyper-threading disabled and all i7 processors have multi-threading enabled. This is a major difference of the two different core processors and gives the i7 an edge over the i5 processors. Last but not least, the average difference in price between the two different processor is about $80 dollars with the i7 processor coming out to be $294 and the i5 processor ranging from $177 to $216 dollars. You are basically paying for the difference of 100 MHz clock speed on the processor and the ability to have multi-threading capabilities.

In this Article: "The Best Restaurant Marketing In the World" resiliently describes the marketing world and the amounts of money restaurants spend obsessively to bring in more customers. Instead of focusing on all the new technologies for new ways to advertise and spending thousands of dollars there are other things to consider such as bringing in more customers over the quality of the food, excellence in the service, cleanliness of the place, and having an agreeable unique dining experience. If all these requirements are not met that's when marketing comes in to place. There are many ways possible to improve your business such as changing or simplifying the menus, training the staff properly, making sure the restaurant is spotless, creating a nice ambiance and lastly making sure you have total commitment to all of these basic necessities. These requirements are essential when it comes to exceeding your customer expectations and important for your business in order to succeed. . With all of these categories fulfilled you will bring in a happier, lively and contented crowd; therefore, bringing in more regulars.

New York City union employees are trying to secure a contract that would include a 29 percent wage increase for workers in big hotels. Hotels will also increase contributions to worker pension funds to 10.5 percent of total payroll. That's opposed to the former 9 percent. The seven-year proposed contract would affect some 30 thousand employees and could raise some housekeeper salaries as high as 60 thousand dollars. In perspective, New York City has the highest yearly hotel occupancy rate of anywhere else in the world, at 85 percent. Room rates are well over 200 dollars. It's understandable how Hilton, Hyatt and other large brands can afford to negotiate with union demands. I foresee that the accounting departments in many of the big hotels will be quite busy making the adjustments if the proposed plan is accepted after Monday's vote.

The termination of South Carolina Hospitality Association's director of accounting and membership, Rachel Duncan, is the latest development in the Tom Sponseller suicide investigation. CEO Tom Sponseller, leader of the South Carolina Hospitality Association for the past twenty years, was found dead last Tuesday in the company's parking garage after a suicide note was found in his office desk. Although the Feds have been conducting an ongoing investigation into the agency's finances, Sponseller was not their person of interest. The hundreds of thousands of dollars missing from the South Carolina Hospitality Association is tied instead to Rachel Duncan, the agency's former director of accounting. An outside audit of the association's finances is still being conducted however there are several sources of money embezzling being brought forth. Who is to say this tragedy may have been avoided if the Hospitality Association had outside parties conducting internal audits on a regular basis, but it would most definitely have shed light on the situation sooner.

UK-based Diet Chef delivers ready-made low-fat meals to some 25,000 customers. With current sales of around 30m dollars in 2011, founder Kevin Dorren is planning an aggressive expansion into Italy, France and Germany.  Issues of payment methods (Germans don't use credit cards online), where to source ingredients, shipping to and from the UK, and whether or not it's blasphemous for an Italian to eat lasagna made in Britain are proving to be quite challenging. 

This article is about innRoad a New York based company that specializes in delivering SaaS and web based PMS and software solutions specifically targeted at independent hotels. The article mentions how the company just received almost $6 Million dollars to invest in expanding and and building their sales team. The CEO of the company brings up an interesting point about brands, and mentions that its becoming less and less about he size or name of the brand but rather how your peers and others rate their experience in a particular hotel. This will provide leverage for smaller independent hotels to gain popularity and grow. InnRoad's software is doing big things to help its clients better connect with customers and manage their properties.