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Those little cards may seem like token environmentalism, but they can actually result in significant water, waste and cost reductions.

The website Economically Sound reports that a 150-room hotel can conserve 72,000 gallons of water and 480 gallons of laundry soap every year by placing the cards in its guest rooms.

he Marriott chain reported saving as much as 17 percent in hot water and sewer costs at its hotels thanks to implementation of its Linen Reuse Program.

It’s important that organisers embrace new technologies to ensure that they can keep up with attendee-demand for the most immersive and seamless experience possible. New technologies can also provide great insights for festival organisers into the behaviour and habits of attendees throughout a festival to make sure that every year gets better. /* custom css */ .tdi_2.td-a-rec{ text-align: center; }.tdi_2 .td-element-style{ z-index: -1; }.tdi_2.td-a-rec-img{ text-align: left; }.tdi_2.td-a-rec-img img{ margin: 0 auto 0 0; }@media (max-width: 767px) { .tdi_2.td-a-rec-img { text-align: center; } } Advertisement

Technology can be integrated throughout the festival whether that’s through apps, cashless payment, sensors and wristbands to track festival-goers’ behaviour such as queue times, popular areas in the festival grounds at particular times and food and drink habits.

I set my luggage on the bathroom's tile floor and head to the bed for a thorough bug check.

Next, I go to the thermostat and reset it to a higher, energy-efficient number.

Finally, I take a look at the room's layout: Is it maneuverable? Are desks/dressers/closets easy to access and use? And last, but of utmost importance, what's the evacuation route?

1. New age customer relationship management programs prompt hotels to obtain information regarding guest preferences from different systems at the basic property level and spreads the same throughout the company. The process is operated by merging property level CRM data with a greater CRM system located at the headquarters for an entire chain of hotels. The information is used to provide customized services as guests check into a hotel of the same chain. It does not end here, historical transaction data of the guest is also supplied to avoid prior mistakes and ensure complete satisfaction. Various softwares like BizTalk Server 2006 and Microsoft Dynamics CRM help in information management and assist in comprehending the trends, behaviors and habits of various guests. 2. In-room systems incorporated by different hotels offer gaming options, bill display, thermostat and light control, in-room music apart from the privilege to watch first-run movies with wide screen plasma monitors. Some hotels also have device oriented interaction facilities that helps in reducing the hurdle of maintaining multiple service offerings for different areas of a multi-use property cum residence. The Microsoft Media Center with advanced plug-ins facilitates the process. 3. The new Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) system enable guests to locate each other at a ski resort and allow them to pay for a meal resulting in a cashless payment system that is capable of being used on and off property. It helps in yielding an immediate return on investment while raising the profit level. The whole process is facilitated through the implementation of Microsoft BizTalk Server and Microsoft MapPoint Location Server in combination with RFID and other location based services. It thus allows better security and freedom apart from the option to pay for meals. 4. Implementation of efficient business processes is possible through interchange of data. Creation of specific interfaces leads to integration between property-level systems. The process is operated through implementation of an "Information Hub" powered by Microsoft BizTalk Server at the property level which routers all collected informations to different systems and runs the business by streamlining data exchanges. 5. The dynamic platform offers a self-healing hotel technology for constantly monitoring a hotel's systems to solve problems before they spread throughout the property.

GrandStay® Hospitality LLC, franchisor of the GrandStay® Hotels and Crossings by GrandStay® brands, is growing by leaps and bounds. With 24 extended-stay and select-service hotels in California, Florida, Iowa, Minnesota, South Dakota and Wisconsin, and an additional 10 hotels scheduled to enter the system in the coming months,

GrandStay Hospitality selected ZDirect and its ZMail® electronic communication platform.

Direct has been providing hotels with eCRM solutions since 2002. The company's hospitality portfolio spans six out of seven continents, with more than 2,000 hotels and resorts using ZMail® and its Mobile suite, including: Mobile Passport, SMS Messaging, Apple Passbook and Responsive Email Design.

arketing power of the Internet in terms of reach and frequency. Nowhere is this better illustrated than through email marketing. Following the lead of the airlines, many hospitality managers are evaluating email marketing for its low cost, rapid dissemination, and measurability.

Following the lead of the airlines, many hospitality managers are evaluating email marketing for its low cost, rapid dissemination, and measurability.

Email marketing is a crucial component of the hotel eMarketing and online distribution strategy.

The environmental cost can include the additional cardboard — 35.4 million tons of containerboard were produced in 2014 in the United States, with e-commerce companies among the fastest-growing users — and the emissions from increasingly personalized freight services.

Dr. Sperling said that consumers shared as much responsibility for the environmental cost of the deliveries as the companies that provided the speedy services.

One recent study explored the environmental effect of Internet shopping in Newark, Del., and found that a rise in e-commerce in recent years by local residents corresponded to more trucks on the road and an increase in greenhouse emissions.

More than 44 percent of firms currently use Web analytics to evaluate customer behavior, researchers found.

Companies personalizing home pages and delivering targeted content are the ones realizing the most value from their analytical evaluations, the report suggests.

59 percent of industry-leading retailers list keeping pace with competitors as a top driver for their online initiatives.

Smart controls Hotel smartphone apps have become industry standard, but hospitality industry leaders are using the ubiquitous smartphone in another manner: They’re giving hotel guests the ability to control their rooms via their smartphones. So-called smart controls have been growing in popularity, but major hotel chains are taking them on, leading smart controls toward becoming an expected hotel amenity.

Smart controls Hotel smartphone apps have become industry standard, but hospitality industry leaders are using the ubiquitous smartphone in another manner: They’re giving hotel guests the ability to control their rooms via their smartphones. So-called smart controls have been growing in popularity, but major hotel chains are taking them on, leading smart controls toward becoming an expected hotel amenity.

Beacons Providing two-way communication with nearby Bluetooth-enabled smartphones, beacons went mainstream two years ago. Retailers led the way in experimenting with the technology, primarily using beacons to track shoppers’ habits and send promotional messages to consumers. Big names in retail, including Target, Walmart, and Macy’s have employed beacon technology in their stores. Beacons have become so widespread that Business Insider's BI Intelligence projected that beacons would create $40 billion in retail sales in the United States in 2016.

Orbitz Worldwide Inc. OWW 0.00% has found that people who use Apple Inc.'s AAPL +1.91% Mac computers spend as much as 30% more a night on hotels, so the online travel agency is starting to show them different, and sometimes costlier, travel options than Windows visitors see.

in this case, the fact that customers are visiting Orbitz.com from a Mac—to start predicting their tastes and spending habits.

Orbitz found Mac users on average spend $20 to $30 more a night on hotels than their PC counterparts

We like to pick our phone, our apps and our data plans and customize them to best meet our needs.

And we like the fact that we have multiple options when it comes to where to buy our phone and services, understanding that we benefit from competition, technology and the free market at work.

Rather, they now can customize their experience based on what they value and need, opting for choices such as in-flight WiFi, priority boarding, premium seating, meals or doubling their miles, among other criteria.

s a particularly complicated dilemma for hotel groups, which must answer not only to guests but to owners, members and franchisees. One black sheep in the family can tarnish the reputation of other properties and the brand as a whole.

Social media changes the rules of marketing.

Travelers don’t expect perfection, but they do expect transparency and authenticity.

HeBS digital Blog Archive for the ‘Online Travel Agencies (OTAs)’ Category The OTA Billboard Effect or the Lazy Man’s Approach to Hotel DistributionMonday, August 1st, 2011 The following article is Max Starkov’s latest contribution to the “Successful eMarketing” blog on HOTELS magazine’s website The existence of the so-called billboard effect is not a new marketing phenomenon. It has existed long before the online channel became a reality. As confirmed by many studies, any marketing exposure by a hotel produces a billboard effect:  when you launch a banner advertising campaign; when you purchase a full-page ad in the New York Times travel section; when you launch a paid search campaign on Google, etc. The OTA Billboard Effect Lately Expedia reps have been aggressively using a new Cornell Hospitality Report, namely “Search, OTAs and Online Booking: An Expanded Analysis of the Billboard Effect” to convince hoteliers that they should use Expedia in order to generate more bookings from the hotel’s own website due to the so-called “Billboard Effect.” The Cornell Report, based on data from Expedia and InterContinental Hotel Group (IHG) from 2008-2010, is a continuation of a previous report on the subject, heavily supported by Expedia. The report’s analysis determined that when an IHG property was listed on the first results page of Expedia, this created an increase of between 7.5% and 14.1% in bookings for the same property on IHG’s own brand website. In other words, this is a confirmation for Expedia’s billboard effect, which hoteliers should take into consideration when griping against the 25% plus merchant OTA commission. When these “billboard effect bookings” are taken into consideration, Expedia’s commission “would effectively be reduced to single digits,” states the Cornell Report. Hoteliers, rejoice! We have found the perfect recipe for success: we do nothing as far as marketing the property website is concerned. Instead, we plaster Expedia with our sales promotions and wait for the travel consumers to come to our own website and book. As discussed, the billboard effect is not strictly an OTA territory. In my view, the Cornell Hospitality Report is a one-sided research project, very proactively supported by Expedia, similar to the first report on the billboard effect published in 2009. Cornell, the finest hospitality institution in the U.S., should know better than to come up with this half-baked “scientific” research, which does not account for the complexities of hotel distribution as well as the “digital information cloud” we all live in and the resulting marketing and distribution channel convergence which directly affects the purchasing habits of today’s hyper-interactive travel consumers. This report makes conclusions that do not take into account, among many other things, the following: Complex Travel Planning Patterns in Hospitality Many surveys show that people are shopping around on a number of hotel and travel websites before narrowing down their search. Typically in hospitality, these sites include a hotel search on a search engine e.g. Google (65% market share), an OTA website, TripAdvisor, the hotel’s own website, etc. Therefore jumping from an OTA website to a hotel branded website and vice versa is at least partially due to particular travel research patterns unique to the users and not due to the so-called billboard effect: Step 1: “I always search on Google first where I identify a property I like” Step 2: “I go to Expedia and see what the rate for this property is” Step 3: “I visit TripAdvisor to read my peer reviews for this hotel” Step 4: “I visit the hotel website and book if I like the location, rate and what I have read and seen about this hotel”

It’s too soon to tell whether the system is a hit.

Robots may be more reliable than humans, in the sense that they can work around the clock without a break and achieve levels of precision and consistency that no Starbucks employee can match. But when something goes wrong, robotic systems tend to be less resilient than those that include humans, because humans are far better at reacting to novel circumstances—not to mention soothing the feelings of unsatisfied customers.

robots can also excel in controlled environments, like factory production lines, by performing rote tasks with higher levels of precision and consistency than humans could ever achieve.

An iPad looks modern and sleek, the device’s mobility gives a merchant greater flexibility in serving customers, and the cash-register software available for a tablet costs considerably less.