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Moving into the sixth month of the year, this article seems to hold true to the growth of international tourism. In relating articles you will find that tourism has hit an all time high so far this year. With the economies slowly bouncing back from the recession people are starting to jump back into traveling. I must agree with the UNWTO Secretary- General, Taleb Rifai, when he stated that tourism should be supported by all governments around the world for economic growth. Tourism is a business in itself and there is always room for growth and potential money gain.

This article spotlights this new virtual concierge system that is used in the hotel sector. The Petit Denit virtual concierge service is located in the hotel reception and was initially an application used for the home and now was adapted to the hotel sector for the first time in Barcelona. The Petit Denit "allows the hotel reception to create a small tourist guide tailored to each guest." This a fast system that allows the hotel to print instantly a customized guide for each guest on all the tourist attractions in the city. I think this saves time and money for the hotel because you have a small machine doing the work of an individual. When the staff is busy, this allows the Petit Denit to do all the work and satisfy guests staying at the hotel. In addition, it's practical because the design can be adapted to mobile devices and tablets since we live in a world that is very technologically advanced and everyone is always on their smart devices. Finally, it's important that the hotel sector stays on top of every technological advance because there is a lot of competition.

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.

Here, NCR reviews the how Mobile POS impacts customers, manager/owrners, and the staff beyond the general buzz and excitement of being able to pay for your dining via mobile device. Starting with the benefits to the customer, it is noted that there is added security for the customer because it is no longer required for the server to take the customer's card away from the table to take payment. The customer never loses sight of their card. As a result the guest is not overcharged for their tip, something that can happen often and they can be assured of the amount they are paying. Another added benefit for the guest is faster more attentive service, with expectations immediately set and met. If something is no longer available in the kitchen, it does not show up on the screen. Preventing the customer from setting an expectation for something that is not available. From a manger's perspective, Mobile POS shortens the order-to-service cycle. This shortens the wait time for potential guests and enables the establishment to serve more people more quickly. Also, having the ordering available table side, it will lead to fewer comps. So they are able to generate more money by serving more guests, and keep money because orders are taken and verified tableside. Having Mobile POS available also adds to the reputation of the establshment. It makes them seem more forward thinking and innovative. Finally, the article sites the benefits for the servers. It first helps server-to-customer relations by verifying every detail of the order right in front of the guest. The server is able to get the order right and be more attentive to the guest by having to do less walking. The server is able to have a higher level of productivity. And because they are more productive and able to provide better service, this results in increase tips and stronger attachment to both the customer and the restaurant.

This article give relative brief summary of green technology trend and benefits for hospitality industry. Green technology' s prosperity results from eco awareness increasing of the customers. Nowadays, about 70%people would like to care whether the hotel is eco-friendly, engergy efficiency and low carbon dioxide when they are travlling around the world. They also would like to pay extra money to this trend. This social cocious require hotels to react as soon as possilbe to meet cusoterms new demands. From the article, we learn that to better meet customers' requiements, geen techonlogy application will be the one of the most effective way to realize customers'needs. However, one of the most difficulty problems for supporting this requirement is implement fees so costly, which set barriers to many hotels. Thus, there are still monetary issues to think about for hotelers.

Second Life is a website that provides companies to use a virtual world to benefit their companies. It hasn't worked that great in small stores and traveling ideas such a cruise lines but education is one idea that has used the virtual world to a great advantage. "The Second Life Educators (SLED) community has an e-mail list that included more than 4,700 working in or interested in education in Second Life." Many universities have made exact replicas of their campus so that students couldn't feel as if they really traveled to get to class. I feel this is the best perk for students because they won't have to spend money on gas when they could just wake up and communicate through a microphone to their instructors. One thing that is surprising is, Second Life is free to join for students and teachers. Its important to keep up with the fast growing technology and this is the perfect way.

This article contains the belief that the "green initiatives" of the hotels are more for saving the company money than saving our planet. The article continues to tell how some hotels give their customers rewards for not requiring housekeeping assistance. This leaves the question of whether this initiative is actually saving the company money or harming the employment of the housekeeping staff. I believe that going green is a proper step to take, especially looking at today's economy. Going green could improve our environment. However, this is not what I am seeing in today's companies. The companies are too reliant on profit. So, they use the green initiative as a way to actually cut costs, without actually going green. Companies should focus more on how the green initiative will affect the world as a whole in the future instead of completely focusing on profiting for now. Focusing on profit and covering it with the supposed green initiative will only drive up unemployment and create more problems with today's economy.

In order to stay competitive in an industry as tough as hospitality, it is now as important as ever for hotels to accomplish an important goal: improve guest experience by making customers feel valued. The key to this is creating a personalized experience for each individual. One way to go about this is to learn more about customers by offering coupons, discounts, and other promotional material based on preference. Geofencing and proximity marketing are designed to encourage repeat visits and customer loyalty. What we are trying to reach is the situation of "The customer is happy because he or she received a personal invitation to the bar with a free drink coupon." and "The hotel bar manager is happy because he or she potentially received an interested patron who will most likely spend more money." Geofencing with proximity marketing is the solution to providing relevant content to consumers quickly, easily and cost-effectively.

This article give us two main method to in increase hotel marketing performance, one is improving customer experience another one is increase local customer foot traffic. The important things in mraket competition is attract customers.

Optima Go Green allows hotels using the Optima Hotel Management Solution property management system to go the extra mile and reduce the total amount of paper used by implementing Optima green solutions. The Optima Go Green solution includes features such as advance up to 24hours before using a smart phone; guest checkout allowing the guest folio to be viewed via an iPad; scanning of IDs to save time and ensure accuracy, managerial reports being able to be directly sent to the appropriate manager without having the need of being printed; allowing managers to check rate strategies and availability online on their smart phones. The maon concept of Optima goGreen is a cost effective solution which is all about managing documents without wasting time and space. This article tied in with the previous weeks discussion about green initiatives. A hotel's priamry office expense is paper and toner. By printing less we are drastically saving money by not having to waste paper. Storage is also cut down because the need of storing paper is eliminated. In such a tech savvy world, this is definitely the way to go.

This article discusses a couple of ways in which hotels are extending themselves to go green. Specifically the article lists three ways in which these hotels are initiating themselves into going green, which are through low water consumption Power saving, and solid waste disposal. The article also discusses energy efficient lighting.  Along with discussing these processes, the article explains that its not easy to be green in this sector, but the hotel industry now has a new environmental conscience. This being great for hotels. its one step in opening a new way to help get our environment back to where it needs to be and with there being such a large scale of hotels why not get them in the best order that we can get them. 

As the article states"The hotel industry has long been associated with excessive waste: using powerful chemicals for cleaning and wasting energy for maintenance rather than being environmentally friendly. Moreover and as result of tourism industry growth, the demand for resources from the hospitality sector has exponentially increased. However, the new popularity of Eco Tourism has encouraged hotels to adopt new green practices that allow them to reduce their negative impact on the environment" The hospitality industry can help improve the environmental problems we are going through at the moment by simply adding: low water consumption, power saving, energy-efficient lighting and solid waste disposal. Furthermore, the guest are starting to become more aware and loyal to brands that are making changes to become green and there is where eco tourism starts and its getting bigger. In the future, all hotels will have to follow the LEED requirements which makes them follow certain rules to help reduce energy and go green. This will help the hotel managers and industry save money and at the same time help the environment.

Venture capital firms ask themselves tough questions these days. Among them: how can they dig out of the dot-com collapse? How should they invest going forward? How should the leader of a firm strike the right note for the future? And is it a field that graduating MBAs should aspire to enter? According to experts at the conference session titled "From Bubble to Recession: The Current State of the Venture Capital Industry," none of the answers are simple, but a sense of perspective remains one highly valuable commodity. According to Walter Kuemmerle, a Harvard Business School professor who served as panel moderator, the money flow in venture capital may have been down 51 percent in 2001 compared to 2000, but the sum total was still greater than the previous eighteen or so years combined.

this article goes over the on going change of the types of telecommunication technologies Hotel guests are using. The article mentions the shift from the use of in-room phones and faxes, to the now popular use of internet connectivity. Mentioning how nowadays it actually costs hotels more money to offer phone services to guests than what they actually make from these services. lastly, it also talks about how more and more hotels are charging internet access fees in order to balance out the loss of revenue from telecommunication services.

An unssuspecting person check into a hotel like any normal person would. The ever so common exchange, credit card for room key took place. The only difference was that the person that checked had done so with other intentions. The "guest" utilized an IP Telephone that was in this hotel room to hack into the hotel credit card database and steal credit cards, transmit them to a foreign country and then have money transferred to his offshore bank account. This happened but at the hands of Jason Ostrom, aa Vigilar senior security consultant. Ostrom was able to unplug teh telephone in his room, plug in the phone's ethernet canle into his laptop and hack away. Of course, he did this as part of his job in testing a company's security agaisnt viral hackers. His company offers free security testing using a downloadable software called VolP Hopper This article was extremely interesting because as a frequrnt traveler as well as a perosn in the hospitlaity industry I was very shocked at the ease that the credit card information could be stolen. When it comes to credit card security it is of the utmost importance for companies to be PCI compliant and spend whatever it is necessary to safeguard the information of their customers. The detrimental damage that a security breach can have on a person can be debilitating as leaders in the hospitality industry we must do everything possible to prevent attacks like this from happening. made me become extra cautious about using my credit cards.

Hotels going green! Why not care about the environment? This article discusses the benefits as well as the common sense to go green in our industry hotels. Not only does going green help to save hotels money, it also helps to make a more environmentally sound universe.

Bartech offers an array of customizable automatic minibars that are designed to maximize revenue and save hoteliers time and money through increased efficiency. Bartech is also the only minibar provider to incorporate three different types of sensor technologies into their advanced product design, including infrared, magnetic and micro-switch. This allows Bartech minibars to use the most effective and reliable technology for each type of product dispensed, maximizing reliability and efficiency of the minibar operation and minimizing guest disputes.

This paper describes the PMS definitions, characteristics and applications in many industries. For example, the real estate, the hospitality industry, government offices, manufacturing and many other agencies and industries. As for the hotel industry, it provides timely and effective information to the front desk clerck what are required of the guests in hotel room. Also, it helps hotel staff handling reservations, checking guests in and out, assigning rooms and managing room inventory, and handling accounting and billing. Based on my internship experience in Raddison Hotel of Tianjin, China, the PMS increase efficiency and maximize profits. This hotel use the Opera PMS, which connected with the Internet, the information provided are in time and accurate. What's more, it's easy for hotel employees to learn and use in daily work.

Property management systems, also known as PMS, have been around for centuries but with the introduction of computers, they have been streamlined and optimized to save both time and money. These systems are used in many industries to increase efficiency and maximize profits. For computerised systems, some people also termed them as property management software. Property management systems, also known as PMS, have been around for centuries but with the introduction of computers, they have been streamlined and optimized to save both time and money. These systems are used in many industries to increase efficiency and maximize profits. People do use them for personal property but property management systems are also used in real estate, the hospitality industry, government offices, manufacturing and many other agencies and industries. Property Management Systems exists in many different terms, for example, hotel management system for the hotel industry; real estate management system for the real estate industry. For computerised systems, some people also termed them as property management software.

This article discusses the different aspects of choosing the best PMS for a companies specific needs. It offers several points to consider when selecting a PMS including what features to look for and hidden cost traps. The first and main point in selecting a PMS is to identify exactly what it is you need. This will help to eliminate unnecessary features that add to the cost allowing you to focus on more useful features or collect the savings. This is a very good tip it seems because PMSs have many different options, some of which that wouldn't benefit certain types of business. It would be wise to consider all the features included and their necessity for this reason allowing more efficient programs or savings. The next points discuss several traps that PMSs can include like hidden costs and technical support problems. Sometimes products may require costly upgrades that you are forced to buy in order for the system to run properly. This is definitely a factor to investigate when choosing a PMS as it could result in significant expenses to a company. Also if technical support is needed make sure the conditions are fair. This is also important because when the technology breaks down it will directly effect the cost and repair time. These are all excellent factors to consider when looking for a PMS because they all effect the main focus: money.

As we have discussed WebRezPro Property Management System early in this week, which considered as the TOP one hotel PMS technology, the Hoteliker counts the second place. Centralize, manage & distribute operations of your property with the worlds easiest Hotel Management System on Cloud. Multi-lingual, multi-property & multi-currency system with anytime-anywhere access. Like WebRezPro, Hotelogix has several similar advantages. It allows you to manage all your hotel operations from a central PMS, no matter where you are; It saves money a lot and simple to use. What is more important, it shows status and progress in real-time

The Kimberly hotel located at 145 East 50th Street in New York City became Manhattan's and New York's first hotel to utilize touch screen technology in its guest rooms. The technology is provided by Intelity, an Orlando based hospitality software solution company. The touch screen use a prgram called ICE (Interactive Customer Experience) to allow guests to order room service, check flight status, express check outs, check destinations using Google maps, and even the ability to print their boarding pass. This software and touch screen technology will definitely increase employee custoemr service and reduce guest wait time. Hotel personnel will be able to spend more time with the guest because many of the tasks will be literally at the guests fingertips. The hotel will save money because they will not need to staff as much because of the automated system. Fantastic technology.