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All about  Mobile Wireless Cell Phone Recycling This articles states how  people know everything about using their cell phone, such as taking picture, recording and dialing but when it  comes time to dispose of the cell phone they are clueless of what to do . Knowing how to dispose of one's cellphone is very important  for our health because improper disposal of one's cell phone  can lead to the intoxication of the ecosystems due to all the  toxins that our cell phones contains such as lead, mercury, arsenic, cadmium, beryllium,  antimony and nickel. Taking in consideration that most used cell phones can be refurbished, it is important that we use proper disposal process so the cell phones can  be fixed to be given at a better price in third world countries or even if they cannot be fixed, manufacturers can  use the materials that are still good  to make a new cell phone instead of working with raw material to make new cell phones. If  one doesn't know how to dispose of their cell phones properly  they can always give the  to a " Recycling for charity" because these programs  dispose properly of used cell phone and therefore reduce  the toxicity of our landfill.

It is true that most used cell phone can be refurbished for future use. We should aim to go green and make most cell phones restored to full function faster and economically.

This article is about the new new anti-spam laws that will be enforced in 2013 by the Canadian government. What was pretty interesting was the fact that 60 percent of American marketing companies were unaware of the new law. Funny thing is that most of those who were aware decided that they would simply resort to other forms of spam like telemarketing and postal mail.

The article mainly introduced software called Propertyware. Propertyware is an on-demand software solution that serves the tracking and management needs of residential property managers with between 20 and 5,000 units. The key funcation of this software is to help the owners to do some accounting, screening. Additional helpful tools in the system include visual data-driven dashboards, summaries of portfolios and lease statuses, management summaries, and electronic owner statements. This kind of software can be applied in residential properties, condos, homeowners associations (HOAs), and multi-family units. Propertyware is based in San Francisco, California, and has served over 2,000 different businesses and organizations in 7 countries. This kind of software can be developed and implanted quickly with little money.

The reason for my choice is to show that GDS is still preferred in this age. No matter what evolution takes place with direct booking, GDS would never fade away. It is proven that via GDS, the occupancy in hotels are greater than direct booking, once again due to the fact that people have used this before and are comfortable with it and will not want to change.

Hotel booking transactions have increased by 8.8% since April which is the highest year increase through GDS since August 2011 setting a new record. Previously January lead with the strongest growth at 7.9% over 2012. Bookings are primarily business travel and have helped set an increase of 4% with rates .1% ahead of last years. When reported in 2011 it was said that the hotel industry is heavily influenced by the economy verses today reporting positive economic indicators which is definitely welcoming business and leisure travelers to book their travel plans using GDS. Not only did business travel increase so did leisure travel increasing by 6.2% from April 2012. This year in April growth reached its highest growth pace thus far at 5.4% with an increase in rates by 1.2%. Seems like people can always find money in their budget to travel. For the "condition" of the economy I am happy to see that leisure travel is still increasing and people are still using GDS to book. As we discussed in our discussion board, GDS should continue to be used. It is obviously growing and people have not stopped using it. All ages are using GDS and are finding it to work for them. As far as business travel, my company requires us to use our online travel agent even when booking through Expedia or another site is cheaper. They say it's the way they track our expenses for the year. I think businesses have started hiring less people and are requiring their employees to work remotely and then travel when needed. This could be where some of the increase in business travel is coming from.

The new relationship between hotel marketing automation provider ZDirect and global travel technology company Sabre Hospitality solutions has proven to be a very successful new way for connect a company with its customers. Customers can make reservation easier and faster way through this new technology. This technology also increases brand-recognition for customers and two way communications between customers and retailer. It also help a company from building up its brand to make sure the brand will operate smoothly to make this combination a very powerful technology for hospitality industry. One of its very successful technique is that it will create a unique personalized profile for each customer based on his or her behaviors.

The Hilton Family of hotels has launched a new feature for event planners to create their own custom web pages for groups of 25 or more. The feature will be called e-Events and will be available at the following brands: Hilton, Conrad, Doubletree, Embassy suites, Hampton Hotels, Hilton Garden Inn, Hilton Grand Vacations, Homewood suites by Hilton, and the Waldorf Astoria Collection. The service is customizable for business groups, special events and sports trips at hotels in North America. Bob Brooks, vice president of eSales feels the service will give more choice and better control to a meeting planner because the service will be available 24/7. One of the features for planners is the Guest List Manager. This feature will give planners real time access to their group's reservation details.

The explosion in mobile devices has created a new distribution channel for hotels. Approximately 55% of United States households have a smartphone and 44% a tablet, according to the Consumer Electronics Association. The difference is how you make your apps work to your advantage. In this article, Michelle Grant identifies couple of hotel operators using different strategies in their app developments focusing on brand strategy, loyalty / reward programs and different market segments. It is an interesting article.

The article highlights what Pegasus Solutions can offer their customers, and who those clients are tending to be. Pegasus Solutions offers many different pieces of software for an affordable rate to their customers and this is a large reason as to why customers are using their services. It also touches on a few differences in Western hotel business and Indian hotel business.

Vantage Hospitality Group utilizes ZDirect's Zmail to market to guests behaviors and preferences. The company has teamed up with Sabre Hospitality Solutions to simplify reservations. ZDirects data collection has created a personalized communication that seems less automated, while Sabre Hospitality Solutions has expanded their audience. They work together to achieve "maximum profit from unsold perishable room inventory."

This article is about the success eMarketing of ZDirect and Sabre Hospitality Solutions. The emarketing provides the hotels online and mobile communication tools which is a good improving of two-way communications. It is an efficient and dependable process that help guests to receive email confirmation immediately. 

Although a POS system is a big investment. You need to purchase the new system, train the employee and maintain the system. But the system indeed can provide a lot of benefits.It can not only calculate payment and process customer payments, but also track the invenyory and labor costs. They still can manage the information and save cost.

A local restaurant in LaSalle Illinois, Uptown Grill, has turned their full menu into an e-menu, or electronic menu. All customers are to use an android-based tablet in replacement of the traditional paper menu along with their entire wine menu. The e-menu is simple to use. There are two apps available to the customer one of the apps it the restaurants menu. The other renders the tablet useless if a patron were to walk out of the restaurant with, their way of decreasing the thought of theft of their new tablets. The e-menu allows for guest to find out more information for any food item on the menu, all they have to do is tap the image. It pulls up with a full description of the item along with another option, wine pairing. Their menu comes equipped with a wine paring, or suggestion, for each dish. They sell, "hundreds of different wines", and this is a great way to help guests who are inexperienced with wine. For those patrons that have not adopted the e-menu, Uptown Grill provides their paper menus.

The Casino MonteLago which the company has a 40,000-square-foot casino with 241 state-of-art slot machines and 38 high-tech electronic table games and full-service restaurant and a bar selected the InfoGenesis™ POS system with a leading developer and marketer of proprietary enterprise software, services and solutions to the hospitality and retail industries to enhance their guest service. Casino MonteLago thought the the InfoGenesis™ POS system is the most right one fit their operation because that system's openness, accessible user interface and real-time reporting features were big selling points which combines the powerful reporting and configuration capabilities and maximize efficiency, gain tighter control over costs and enhance guest service in dining, bar service and retail operations. The InfoGenesis™ POS system works efficiently by not only boost productivity at the property, but also will help reduce potential losses, maximize revenue potential and enhance the guest experience.

This is an amazing technology. A customer can use his cellphone to do the reservation, check-in, enter the room and pay the bill. If  this technology can be widely used in this industry. It really can bring a lot of convenience to both the hotels and the customers. It is also very safe, because only your cellphone can open your room and the cellphone is also a identification of a customer. But there are two concerns. First is the cost of this technology and the hardware. It can be too much to afford for the hotels. Second, is it really that safety. What if someone lose his mobile?

Forbes magazine named an event planner as the 6th most stressful jobs behind military general and police officer. An event planner must manage and navigate through multiple venues, proprieties and customs. This article identifies aspects of event planning that are now being dominated by technology. First, attendees are no longer limited to have to show up to the venue. Guests now are video streaming from anywhere around the world. Second, guest expectations are high. Attendees are savvy and knowledgeable about new technological trends and expect to be wowed at events. Third, electronic such as touch screens, wifi, and broadband are norms in the industry. Fourth, social media has monopolized marketing. Fifth, mobile technology allows for access anytime/ anywhere. Apps are everywhere! And finally, online management systems are designed to integrate invitations, check-ins and registrations online to speed up and streamline the process.

This article explains the basics of Cloud Computing and how more companies are converting to the "Cloud." The article will also detail the pros and cons of Cloud Computing and highlight current issues concerning this growing technology.

I found an interesting article about how the big computer companies can recycle the computers. This can solve some of the main problem about the recycling. The article is referring to idea that computers may become bigger size but easier to recycle. In other words we might wanna make a step back in the past, when we was able to just replace one detail from the computer instead of throwing it away.

The Doubletree Dallas/Richardson hotel did a total overhaul of the security system and reopened. They choose the VISIONLINE and Signature RFID by VingCard to meet the travelers' demand of security, efficiency and reliability. What's more it is a cost-effective system which facilitate reliable wireless two-way communication by the host security and PMS systems. The VISIONLINE is a security control from the central location, utilizing RF-online communication capabilities that eliminate the need to travel to each guest room. The Signature RFID, advantages included remotely cancelling guest and staff keycards with one click, or identifying and changing low batteries communicate with multiple rooms at once, reducing the number of network components required for installation and so on. For the company, it is ease and exclusivity. The staff can maximize their efficiency to spend less time on maintenance and more time on customer service, increased reliability and performance at an affordable cost, highly reliable security, unprecedented convenience and ease-of-operation, decreasing the overall workload.

Hospitality Industry is seeing a increase in bookings of hotel rooms, airplanes reservations, and even dining reservations through mobile devices. Expedia website belives there will be an increase to 32 million people using mobile devices to book hospitality venues in 2016. Expedia has also noticed that many people are booking same night hotel reservations from their mobile devices. Many people who are using their mobile devices for booking are under the age of 30 years old. National Restaurant Association also confirm that a younger generation is using mobile technology to find a restaurant, from booking a reservation, to looking at menus, also even ordering their meals and paying for it using their mobile devices. Another thing is that mobile devices are being used to do research on restaurants and reading reviews before choosing a particular venue. A downfall to this mobile outbreak is how do hospitality establishments respond to bad reviews. The response to a bad review can make or break your establishment in my opinion. Many restauant owners are asking themeselves how can I take this social and mobile technology and introduce it to my concept and goals. So my feeling is that the hospitality industry is embracing mobile and social technology as it grows. However, are they embracing it fast enough? It seems to me the customers who use mobile and social technology are growing more rapidly.

It will be soon that all hotels go to using mobile check-in. We have implemented it on our current Hilton hotel and this technology gives the guest the power to pick their own room within the hotel, electronically check in from their phone, as well as use their phone screen code to unlock their room door. It all but eliminates the need of a front desk staff upon a guest's arrival. Without the personal communication I believe that some of a guest's experience is taken away, however there is no slowing down this technology and the use of it within the hotel industry. I agree in the fact that management has to stay educated and up to speed about how all of this technology operates as well as the affects it can have on their operational scores. On a positive side, management might cut some of their labor costs by having this technology act as a sort of hourly employee.

This is a great article highlighting the cons of of cloud-based PMS. In India, the infrastructure is not developed enough for hotels to rely on a cloud-based PMS. While the hotel industry is slowly adopting things such as mobile check-in, there is great hesitation to adopt the cloud-based PMS. The Internet in India is not reliable therefore it would not be efficient for hotels to send all their data to the cloud. In the event of an outage, the hotels would not be able to operate. There are also many concerns over data security; Indian hotels are worried about transferring secure information to an "unknown" place. Yet, individualized properties are looking forward to centralizing PMS and perhaps embracing cloud-based PMS in the near future. Only time will tell how long it will take the Indian hotel industry to become more technology oriented. 

This article serves as a good reminder that as hotels adopt certain technologies to enhance the guest experience, it is also important to remember to test and retest these new technologies for possible security concerns. The thought of being able to open your hotel room door with your cell phone is appealing and convenient, but also comes with some security concerns that traditional key cards do not. On the other hand, some argue that RFID chips would actually make door locks more secure, and make it easier to track who enters the hotel room and when. Either way, security concerns always have to be considered when adopting new technologies.