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This article emphasizes how imperative it is for hospitality businesses to stay on the cutting edge of technology as a part of their business design and strategy if they want to survive in today's competitive market and remain in it, in the near future. The author expresses that today's hospitality market is being driven by Millennials' "the largest generation in the country's history" who patronize businesses that are socially and environmentally responsible. Armed with this information to capture their targeted market, more and more hotels are now incorporating from inception within their physical blueprint infrastructure that is environmentally sustainable and cost-effective. As well as obtaining Green certifications and implementing sustainable software to reduce waste and minimize leakages. This concept has also been adopted by cruise ship operators to reduce environmental impact through the use of technology.

This article introduces the different initiatives that the hospitality industry is taking with regard to technology in order to align with their target market or a large segment of their market. As being perceived, millennials are sought to be the largest generation in the country's history which leads companies to infer that they have a massive amount of buying power in their hands. Hospitality companies are now making strides to become more environmentally conscious. Some of these initiatives is incorporating LED lights throughout the facilities to reduce energy waste and cut down on costs. Another initiative is incorporating new systems in the guest rooms that enhance the stay while keeping it green like systems that adjust temperatures in the rooms, remotely powered shades, etc. Other companies are even using systems as a tool to help track, measure, and reduce food waste for more sustainable and effective restaurant/bar operations. It is no secret that technology is ever-evolving, and it will continue to develop as new features are discovered.

Article discusses millennials as the largest generation in U.S. history, and the speed at which technology progresses. In addition to paying attention to millennials' purchasing decisions, other industries must also meet their financial expectations. Many brands are taking steps to become more sustainable in the hospitality industry despite its reputation for producing massive amounts of waste.

Cecilia is bartending technology that uses AI to create an experience that is more personable than the Smart bar. Cecilia's clients thus far seem to be large corporations (Microsoft, KPMG), but is being marketed for event rental, and used as an educational tool at FIU. Though no machine can replace human interactions, Cecilia provides a viable contactless service alternative.

This article is about how hospitality and tourism have been reshaped through IT, eMarketing and how it has helped prove sales, information, made destinations more popular and also help travelers plan. eMarketing also is a massive platform for word of mouth. This study also shows what helped eMarketing become what it is. When certain things are typed into search bars, this data is collected and used for eMakreting and to target specific groups of people.

It is very important for hotels to provide excellent security. It makes the customers feel safe and enhance their confidence and safety.Security officers patrolling the hotel's grounds can look out for suspicious activity.Security officers can prevent hotels from incurring property damage, particularly if officers are patrolling the hotel's grounds. They can also assist in incidents involving guests damaging their rooms.

I chose this article because it is an opinion article from the Huffington Post about the balance of luxury and being eco-friendly. Joanna Zelman shares her views on green hotels. She presents the question of whether living luxuriously during your hotel visit means sacrificing our planet. She also shares that hotels are indeed recognizing the major amounts of waste they have been producing. Zelman feels that hotels are trying to be green, but in the end they let the guests decide how green they want to be.

"Some hotels now recognize the astronomical amount of waste they produce daily, and a green hotel movement is underway. The Hilton Americas-Houston generates a reported 675,000 pounds of dirty linens per month. With the purchase of an AquaRecycle water recycling system, they reduced their water usage by 75%, from 630,000 gallons to 157,500 gallons per month."

Some hotels now recognize the astronomical amount of waste they produce daily, and a green hotel movement is underway.Element Times Square West is Starwood's most recent endeavor, an "eco-chic" hotel located on W. 39th street in New York City. The hotel proudly touts recycling bins in every room, complimentary bikes, reusable laundry bags, silverware instead of plastic, dispensable bath products, and an organic on-site pantry.But right next to the reusable laundry bag is a plastic laundry bag, beside the ceramic mugs are paper cups, across from the dispensable soap is an individually wrapped bar, and after consuming your organic food, you can rest your guilt-free head on a bunch of down feather pillows. Someone suggests that guests unplug chargers when not in use, turn lights off, and take advantage of linen reuse policies.

This article is introducing the POS Software in Anand Systems Inc. ASI-POS is general purpose point of sale software which can retrieve a great amount of data in a fraction of seconds. This POS software handles the selling process by a salesperson accessible interface. Since with the installation of this POS software, the particulars of customer purchase history, inventory status report and other details can be retrieved in just a few clicks. What is more, ASI-POS can be used to manage the sales outlets at hotels, resorts, restaurants, bars, and so on. As a part of ASI Front Desk, ASI-POS can manage all standard POS task like room service. As an independent application, ASI-POS can be used in any kind of leisure like food service, entertainment. ASI-POS is the windows based rich, featured filled, easy to use and affordable application. It helps enables you to have a total control over the business and improve your sales and profits.

This article talks about the new bedside controller, TBL-70 tabletop controller, designed by INNCOM for Grand Hyatt Dfw hotel rooms. The TBL-70 controller is a multi-purpose device, it enable guests to control the room lighting, temperate, drapes, sheers, privacy, make-up room and other service requests. This controller enhances the room security, all services requires guests' fingerprint. This controller is also eco-freindly, its glass touch surface is availbale in standard designs or as a blank canvas for the designer wishing to customize a look with colors, fonts, images and functionality, it is also equipted with an on-board photo sensor which detectes the light level in the room and automatically adjusts the intensity of the backlighting.

The Schlage HandKey-2 has many possibilities in the hospitality industry, guests will not be hesitant since fingerprints are not recorded or used as an identifier. It also has the advantage of having an antimicrobial coating on the contact surface which will limit the spread of germs. It can be a great advantage to hotels since it will eliminate completely the use of key cards. This technology can be costly, there is no telling whether it is here to stay.

I think this article goes along with our "Smartbar" discussion. The Smartbar may actually be useful in certain locations where a full time bartender may be too costly. There are obvious legal regulatory issues to contend, but at least some room for growth for the Smartbar. For other products like cupcakes, donuts or small bites, established restaurants are now tapping into the 24 hour convenience business model through the use of vending machines. I think this is a great idea for customers who want more variety than what we have been seeing at vending machines the past 10 or 20 years, which is potato chips, candy bars and nuts. For the company, this would give them more exposure and increased revenue stream at locations such as airports, hotels and hospitals where there is always people around. Some companies like Apple or Sony have been doing this for years. I can understand that they are selling a non-perishable good and the customer is ultimately only paying for the end product only. Restaurants are often involved with proving a level hospitality service as part of the product they sell and automation was not really in their best interest. But now with the explosion of Ipods and automated POS taking over the servers job, we may see more of these stand alone units serving customers. Overall, I think this is a business concept/technology that we are behind in. The article mentions that Japan has been using this concept to sell fresh food items and other items such clothing as well. From a business standpoint, given the increasing rise of competition, rent/property prices and variety of choices consumers have, these are some major recent factors which will propel this concept more.

A German hotel software company, protel, has been an iinnovative leader in the software PMS since 1994. Protel became a leader in the hospitality software field by introducing the first property management system with a grpahic user interface (GUI). Once companies began going mobile, they again were the first to offer a complete front office application on a mobile touch screen device. Protel offers several web-based applications that can be assessed through the internet on any type of device, any operating system and in any language. This particular articel I found interesting because I had never heard of the company but they have paved the way for many of the large hotel franchises to utilize mobile based apps for their hotels. With so many of the larger hotel chains, I would imagine that they would have been one of the original innovators of the mobile web based technology but instead it was a German company that helped pave the way for the hospitlaity industry.

Trends in the hospitality industry are changing. Hotels were once considered the place to indulge and splurge a little, but now we are beginning to see hotels change their approach to attracting customers. Properties around the world have begun to make changes that are reducing their carbon footprint, but those changes cannot always be seen by the guest. This means that many guests do not even realize that its happening. Many changes will begin to happen as customers express their concerns more publicly. Surveys are showing that a growing number of guests want to see green initiatives within hotels, and wouldn't mind paying a little more to stay at green hotels. There is work being done to measure a customer's carbon footprint and this knowledge will give hotels some consistency in the way they report their emissions. Although still in its early stages, green initiatives provide great marketing opportunities for hotels, and they are starting to see that they can attract more people through these initiatives. Green Initiatives are will continue to becomes increasingly more popular for guests. As guests continue to become aware of the effects of their carbon footprint they are going to look for ways to help reduce it. One area will be in the hospitality industry. This is a great opportunity for hotels to increase profits, by marketing to this type of traveler.

This article introduces a new check-in technology, it will effectively increase guest satisfaction. This new system works by sending a confirmation email to guests with a bar code attached on the day they are scheduled to arrive. After scanning the code using a smartphone or a print out at the kiosk, a prompt asks the guest how many keys they would like and then prints them out. They are then free to go to their room upon completion. Also it introduces the online guestroom selection system used by Hilton Worldwide. Hilton Worldwide has already found success in its attempt to put the check-in process in consumers' hands. Within 36 hours of arriving at a Homewood property, guests receive an echeck-in reminder and a prompt to select which guestroom they'd like to stay in on a virtual floor-plan map. This article points out the digital check-in challenges as well: 1. Ensuring that the global Web platform communicates effectively with the local hotel system is always important. 2. Some training must take place at the operational level. 3. It's very rare that the suite that a guest desires is actually available at the moment they want to book it. This article presents the bright side of online check-in and the effect it brings to improve guest's satisfaction but the challenges remains which makes it difficult to implement vastly. But it could becomes a trend for the future check-in system.

this article is very interesting, going over the future of hospitality and social media. It goes over 6 major changes they believe are affecting hospitality directly. The one that i found interesting is the use of twitter as a concierge as well as a method to improve costumer service. I never thought about the ability to use this technology as a concierge with the ability to have access to hotel services!

Almost everyone has a smart phone now and days. Apps are used for almost anything and this article gives evidence to how much you can do with an app. The article focuses on Las Vegas and how many hotels have different apps for every occasion. Vegas Mate caught my attention from how it has things such as "a listing of resort fees, top suites, information for travelers on getting around, conventions, gambling and more" that other Vegas apps don't have. I believe it takes great time and money for these companies to keep up with the ever changing schedules for each hotel. I'm a planner and I was really intrigued on how this certain app pulls up the latest update and weather from around the city and even "keep all those show tickets, dinner reservations and hotel bookings in order." I mean who can beat that? There's no excuse to why hotels and many other tourism spots don't have an app for all the amenities that are offered. It'll surprise guests and make them really pleased with their stay.

Restaurants and hotels were among the first businesses to offer mobile-friendly websites as a way to improve the customer experience. Now, the hospitality industry is looking for new ways to reach consumers who have come to see technology as an integral part of the customer experience.

* It's ease of use: look for software with a user-friendly graphical interface. And you can have entry of sales information. Most systems allow you to enter inventory codes either manually or automatically via a bar-code scanner. Once the inventory code is entered, the systems call up the standard or sales price, compute the price at multiple quantities and provide a running total. Many systems make it easy to enter sales manually when needed by letting you search for inventory codes based on a partial merchandise number, description manufacturing code or vendor. Updating product information: Once a sale is entered, these systems automatically update inventory and accounts receivable records.

This displays a video that describes just how valuable a reliable POS systems is

it can track theft which would eliminate the need for camera installation. You can track your best and worst sellers, promotional items and inventory control. The best part is you can even do this from the privacy of your own home. There are a lot useful photoshots of how the images will be displayed and financial sheets. Interesting!

Being ahead of the curve in IT investment can assist in an increase in ADR's and occupancy percentages, which translates to revenue. Mobile technology can assist streamline the guests' check-in/check-out process and offer other amenities via mobile technology. Social media technology offers a plethora of information for marketing and revenue management purposes as well.

This article expounds how technological advances in POS systems are changing the way different organizations in the hospitality industry do business. The article explains how each business can gain a competitive edge with speedy POS payment systems as well. According to the article, there are three new ways for customers to pay that includes contactless methods of payment , prepay, and mobile ordering. All of these new features are having an especially beneficial effect, allowing lines to move faster as transactions are processed more efficiently. The article further explains how future POS trends goes beyond faster payments and quicker queues. Modern POS systems offer the unprecedented access to detailed customer data that focuses on individual customers' patterns and preferences. In conclusion, with all the benefits that the latest technology offers, it stands to reason that he latest POS systems hold the key to the future of hospitality.

This article was really interesting. I liked the different methods it referenced with regards to how customers can pay, as I know those methods are really becoming integral to the industry. I also like how it talked about how businesses can use data mining to find out exactly how fruitful these innovations will be or how they are helping the businesses that have already installed them. I'm interested in seeing what new technological innovations occur in the future, especially with regards to how people pay for their meals.