Group items matching

in title, tags, annotations or url

This article tells us about 10 new innovations in the hospitality world. Mostly it is talking about some innovations in the hotel industry such as face recognition at the registrations, voice-controlled rooms, and smart amenities.

This article announces the global collaboration between Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Wyndham Hotels & Resorts Inc. This collaboration is going to allow the Wyndham to upgrade their infrastructure tech and deliver an entirely new way to experience customer service. What I found to be very interesting, besides Wyndham being 90% cloud based, was that AWS is going to help the hotelier develop a new way for guest to automate check-in and leverage AWS partner to deliver customized offers. It will be able to recommend local attractions, restaurants, and entertainment.

Cybercriminals are constantly coming up with novel schemes to kidnap their victims. A recent cyberattack on a five-star resort should act as a cautionary tale for your company. In Oregon, the Allison Inn & Spa recently became the target of a ransomware assault that revealed the personal data of its staff and visitors. The stolen data was published in easily accessible form on the public internet and includes details from 1,500 employees and more than 2,500 guests, including dates of the guests' hotel stays as well as employee birthdays, phone numbers, and Social Security numbers. The "dark web" is typically the only place where stolen private information like this is released, making it harder to find through regular online searches. The goal of the cybercriminals was to coerce the company into paying a ransom. The public disclosure of the private visitor and staff information seems to have been an "experiment" to see if it would increase pressure on the company to pay the ransom. Cybercriminals may use this new strategy frequently in the future to demand ransom from their victims. The implementation of thorough cybersecurity risk management procedures should be considered by resorts. In the event of a cybersecurity attack, determine which systems were affected by the attack and immediately isolate them. Then, prioritize those systems for restoration and recovery. After which, involve internal and external stakeholders and retain legal counsel for advice. It is crucial that you hire a third-party incident response provider and notify law enforcement. Multifactor authentication should be used by businesses to protect network access, and they should also annually train all staff in cybersecurity best practices and keep offline encrypted backups of all internal data.

This blog post delves into the world of location-based marketing, shedding light on its mechanisms and significance within the hospitality industry. It demystifies the workings of location-based marketing, where businesses use location data to target and engage potential customers. The post explores how accurate location information enables personalized offers and advertisements, enhancing customer experiences. Furthermore, it emphasizes the importance of location-based marketing to the hospitality sector, as it empowers hotels, restaurants, and travel services to reach the right audience at the right time. By leveraging location data intelligently, the hospitality industry can create compelling marketing campaigns, foster customer loyalty, and ultimately boost revenue and customer satisfaction.

In the article, "Green and Eco-Friendly Hotel Amenities" it talks about how many different hotels are doing their part and keeping the planet green. The first place that the article talks about is the Mayakoba, Riviera Maya, it uses no motorized vehicles instead the guests can use electric golf carts or electric boats to ride around on the nine miles of canal. "Each resort also has an onsite biologist to lead educational boat tours through the lagoons." At the Palmer House Hilton in Chicago they built a rooftop garden to provide fresh vegetables and herbs for the hotel's restaurant, they are also considering making space to put several beehives, this will lead to a natural approach of producing honey. One of the most interesting and easy ways to stay green was at the Calistoga Ranch in Napa Valley; they have sheep that eat the grass replacing all lawnmowers and on top on that, their manure helps fertilize the soil. It's a win, win solution! In New York they have a restaurant called Habana Outpost and you really have to work for your food, literally. At this restaurant you have ride a bike that powers the eatery blender and if they generate up to 100 watts of energy, they will earn a free meal, such an amazing and creative idea! This "is part of the hotel's larger commitment to eco-friendliness, which includes a CO2-neutral building, solar panels, and groundwater-based heating and cooling systems." At Jicaro Island lodge in Nicaragua, they used all of they wood from trees that were knocked down in Hurricane Felix and they also use a good majority of their wastewater that is recycled to irrigate the trees and plants. Before reading this article, I never knew that so many hotels were doing their part at staying green and I'm surprised by all the new and unique ways that they have come up with, it gives me hope for the future!

Prince Hotels and Resorts partners with FastBooking for website creation and related services and e-marking. FasBooking, one of the world"s leading e-mearking and online technology solutions providers for the hospitality, drives more visitors to hotel websites and convert these visitors to direct bookings. FastBooking iCRS increases the hotel's net revenue  by maximizing highly profitable direct website bookings and by retionalizeing inventory and pricing across all online sales channels. Prince Hotels and Resorts will benefit from traffic building activities designed to channel visitors to the hotels' official websites. In addition to e-marketing campaigns, the hotel will be visible on FastBooking distribution websites, FastBooking parter websites as well as the major international tourism and travel websites. This emarketing will help Prince hotels to ensure their success and maximize net revenue through direct booking.

The following Press Release describes the Marriott La Jolla was showcased by a tour by the Department of Energy of its Better Building Challenge participants. The three-day tour took place in California and highlights the energy-efficient and energy savings practices and technologies in which the hotel offers.  The Marriott La Jolla-is owned by HEI Hotels & Resorts and recently was selected by President Obama to the Dept. of Energy Better Building Challenge as a part of the initiative to reduce energy consumption by 20 percent. HEI's commitment has led to enhancing its properties by energy efficiency upgrades and renovations-HEI has installed Energy Looking Glass (ELG), as well as the Energy Set-Point (ESP) program which defines optimum settings for key systems (domestic hot water, chilled water, etc.). Additionally, the hotel's BUZZ Committee gets all hotel associates engaged in conservation efforts. Core energy upgrades such as lighting and HVAC are proven technologies that were adopted and implemented years ago by the Marriott La Jolla and other properties in the HEI portfolio.

This article primarily discusses HEI Hotels & Resorts' Marriott La Jolla and their past showcase during "Tour of Department of Energy's Better Buildings Challenge Participant Facilities". Fundamentally, this hotel is using and produced an energy efficiently program which will allow the hotel to annually save $200,000 each year. That is an incredible savings that will keep the hotel tremendously environmentally friendly, while hopefully starting a trend for other hotels to do the same. This hotel is now facing great benefits with their energy saving initiatives and great operational systems such as HVAC, ELG, and ESP which will overall save water, the consumption of energy, and reduce waste.

San Diego, CA - August 30, 2012 -The Marriott La Jolla, owned and operated by HEI Hotels & Resorts, was showcased on Tuesday by the Department of Energy during a tour of the facilities of its Better Buildings Challenge participants. The visit was part of a three-day tour in California to highlight the energy-efficient and energy saving practices and technologies implemented by the participants.

The San Francisco Chronicle released that Maestro Modules, a hotel software property management system of hotels, resorts and multi-property groups has been selected by Luxury Ski Spa, Golf and Yachting resorts to upgrade to a better PMS for more profitable operations and high-touch guest service. Maestro has been selected by five independent resorts and hopes that this software will increase revenue, lower cost direct web bookings and greater operating efficiency. Maestro is the industry leading hotel software and reservation software and empowers hundreds of high-touch independent operators and hotel groups to stay ahead of competitive innovative technology. Maestro offers beyond a PMS it delivers revenue generating tools and expert services that allow operators to maximize revenue and increase productivity so guest can keep coming back.

This article talks about the recent hack of HEI Hotel & Resorts that occurred in June of this year, where 20 HEI-operated hotels were breached via their POS system. The malware had been discovered in June but the company reported that it could have been active since March 1st, 2015 in some systems. The article also talks about how POS systems are common targets for hacking and goes on to mention some of the other recent cybersecurity risks that have occurred in the industry, where their POS systems were the targets of hacking. The American Hotel & Lodging Association met with a group of other associations to discuss the issues of cybersecurity and look for possible solutions. However, the industry has not taken measures to amplify their security, probably due to the history with certain IT standards, the cost of starting over, and potential privacy issues. The article claims that, overall, the industry has not done much to change the inherent security risks with regards to technology.

This article talks about the advantages that the implementation of MICRO'S OPERA ENTERPRISE to all of the MGM properties, will give to the company. By making this, MGM will be able to integrate all the information of their guests as well as the global distribution system. According to Aldo Manzini, EVP and chief administrative officer of MGM Resorts International this integration is an extremely important step in order to become more efficient, it will decrease the training time for employees and it will improve their reward program. This will also create a single image inventory from the main property management system to the different channels. This made it easier for the implementation at the two City Center properties were 1,500 employees were trained on the system. MICRO'S system is used by seven of the ten largest hotels in the U.S. This shows how they are solidifying their PMS market share not only in the U.S but all around the world.

Its really amazing to see how these systems such as Micros and Maestro have evolved. I remember when Micros was simply used as a POS system in the hotel I worked at. But according to your summary it is now fully integrated and used an overall PMS as well. I'm glad to see they are remaining competitive in the market. In the past I had predicted they would become outdated and not relevant in the future market. I was obviously wrong.

I found this article to be extremely interesting. It is from 1999, and is discussing the Genting hospitality management system. Having worked at hotels I know and understand the importance of having a property management system. The article states, "Genting is the first company to have developed a hospitality software in the country." The property management system can be incorporated into many different aspects of the hospitality industry: resorts, gaming, theme parks etc. Genting's managing director described the system explaining that that the software "customized to meet the needs of modern travelers". By using this PMS, hotels would be able to improve their customer service, meet the needs of modern travelers, and schedule maintenance more effectively. Not only will this PMS assist with better catering to the guests, but it will also provide a new source of revenue for Genting as they can sell the system worldwide. The article continues to discuss the amount of internet users being able to surpass the one million mark. It is difficult for me to remember a time when there was no internet as almost everything can be done online now. PMS play a very important role in the hospitality industry, especially when it comes to hotels. They assist with keeping track of how many guests are in the property, the names of the guests, their arrival and departure dates, special requests and much more. Genting paved the way for all the PMS in the industry today.

This article briefly summarizes how the The Serai resort in the coffee country of the Indian state Karnataka has been harvesting rain water to use for watering their gardens. This article doesn't go into too much detail itself but I did some other research and found that this region of India only gets 8% of their annual rainfall in the months of January-May. This really puts a strain on the region and being able to harvest and store rainwater from the wet season helps especially with superfluous water usage like watering and maintaining hotel gardens. The state made it mandatory to reduce water waste and The Serai has created a surplus. (http://www.karnataka.com/profile/rainfall.html) The Serai resort also uses other green techniques like using waste wood to make furniture for the resort. (http://theserai.in/en/responsible-citizenry.html) I think it's great that the government there has made laws requiring the saving and re-using of rain water. It is especially important for them due to the drastic differences of the dry and rainy seasons but this could be applied almost anywhere. Part of the draw of some hotels is their scenery and gardens but watering these can get expensive and become a waste, especially if there are people in the area who go without a reliable source of drinking water. I think policies like this should be instituted everywhere. I have to give the Serai resort a lot of credit too. Yes, they were forced to start capturing and storing rain water but it seems like they have taken their green initiatives a step further and do more than the bare minimum.

Trump Hotel Collection has just purchased Doral Golf Resort and Spa. To enhance the appeal and functionality of the well-known hotel, Trump Hotel Collection has teamed up with MICROS to gain outstanding benefits from their operating system and pos system. Benefits are having all customer data in one place while allowing customers to make purchases at ease.

When working in a hotel, the majority of the reservations that come in are done through online booking but what about the reservations made over the phone? Are they still booked as a result of online marketing efforts?  This article from Virtual Strategy Magazine is discusses a brand new data interface developed by NAVIS, the leader in reservation sales systems in North America. NAVIS teamed up with RDP (Resort Data Processing) to create an interface that allows clients to measure how much online and offline revenue is generated from online marketing. Currently, NAVIS is the only company able to offer this service to its clients. The ability of NAVIS to provide this information gives clients the opportunity to decide on where exactly there marketing money needs to be spent and where it needs to be spent less. Having access to all of this new data and information regarding source of revenue will ultimately make a company more successful in the future. 

Once again technology proved to complement our industry's practice. Monarch Beach Resort story is a great example of the benefits we can derive from investing in technology. In this particular case the RunGo app not only was greatly appreciated by the consumers because they were able actually to enjoy the view while receiving step by step directions. It also reduced printing expenses for the resort and at the same time made it easy for the employees to direct them around the property. There is still a lot more to discover regarding the benefits from investing in technology, but definately after reading articles like this, we can be certain that we are moving in this direction.

I chose this article as I am an avid user of Trip Advisor! After watching the E-Commerce lecture, I actually started researching more on facial recognition used in the hospitality industry, both in marketing and to keep guests safe. Using facial recognition for safety actually came up quite a bit; specifically as Professor Cilli mentioned on cruise ships to help track and potentially stop a predator or threatening guest. This article is on Trip Advisor's new badge system, that intends to flag hotels if reports or media comes out including sexual assault, crime, and other potential threats to travelers. The idea started from a case filed against Trip Advisor for taking down comments claiming a security guard at a Mexican resort had sexually assaulted a guest who had stayed there. Trip Adivisor claims that at the time, the comment was removed due to explicit material. Not only has Trip Advisor promised to keep comments like this published on their pages, but if taken down they will tell users what exactly flagged their system to take it down. Users will easily be able to adjust their wording and repost. While the exact wording of the badge does not specifically detail why the hotel was flagged (see wording annotated above), as a traveler it would definitely make me think twice. From a management standpoint, getting flagged like this on one of the most used travel websites could completely halt business and create financial strain for months. The badge will last for at least three months and in that time could be seen by thousands of visitors. I hope this small step for Trip Advisors forces hotels to take big step in terms of safety and security with who they are hiring and tracking who is on property.

This article highlights how several large chain hotels have taken on the initiative to reduce/eliminate their resource and energy consumption to sustain their communities for tourism. The four main steps taken include: saving the coral reefs, energy and water conservation, preserving food and repurposing waste, and creating eco- minded communities. Hotels have taken on a number a projects such as creating underwater structures to preserve and enhance the coral reefs for guests experience, filtering water from the local river, starting a food waste program to turn left over food items into reusable water, and hosting seminars to discuss sustainability and clean ups to name a few.

This article is about the use of beacon technology throughout hotels and resorts. It explains how this particular technology works and discusses the benefits to using beacon technology within the hospitality industry. The article also mentions how tech-savvy millennials are steering technology trends toward the use of beacons.

This article discusses the new technology software and hardware being introduced into this resort in Kauai. This boutique oceanfront resort will introduce in-room tablets that will allow guests to place in-room dining orders, access information, and stream their favorite movies and shows. There is also a mobile app that will allow them to check-in and check-out, this also will work as a room key as well. In addition to the guest benefits to this upgrade, Intelity's will also have a new software that will streamline staff workflows and drive operational efficiency. This new dashboard will allow teams to track, manage, and organize service requests, work orders, daily tasks, housekeeping, and maintenance. This new technology and software will allow this company to increase their revenue and guest turn-over rate.