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For years now European cities have been facing water shortage issues due to high consumption and lower than normal supplies. The Student Hotel Group has came into a partnership with a few European universities and startup, Amphiro. Their main goal is develop new tools and technology to make a real impact on reducing the water consumption in European countries with known water shortage issues. Amphiro has developed a water meter that will be attached to showers in new Student Hotels and it will also display the water and energy consumption usage. The idea behind this is to show students and others how much water they are consuming, while in the shower. They hope by putting the actual meter and reading display into the showers, people will choose to be more eco-friendly and waste less water. According to the article, WUR found that students and guests used an average of 20% less water. This is a significant reduction and is a great way for hotels to incentivize guests to be more eco-friendly. They are expanding the initiative to more European countries in hopes of conserving water and energy use throughout Europe.

This article describes how often, the security breaches that hotels suffer are actually not a result of their own lack of security, but that of their third party vendors. Brands such as Four Seasons and Hard Rock Hotels have suffered breaches because of security failure from their reservations system, SynXis. The challenge is that to the guest the fault lays with the brand, and the brand thus suffers from the loss of loyal guests.

The article describes the main cyber threats that the hospitality companies face. Over past few years, nearly every major hotel group has been attacked. The same is true for the F&B industry. One of the reasons for that is that the hospitality companies are the ones that process credit card information more than in any other industries. Moreover, hotels and restaurants have many access points for the malware: from wifi networks to POS's. The attackers may also use the third party suppliers (for example, OTA's) to access the hotels' systems. Verizon 2017 Security Payment Report states that less than a half of all hospitality businesses have full credit card payment security compliance. The main type of the attack is POS intrusion. Denial-of-Service Attacks constitute about 20% of the total number. Although they are not so dangerous in terms of sensitive information, they can disturb the company's operations causing significant losses as well. Thus, the hotels and restaurants need to invest in early detection protection provided by the effective firewalls and antiviruses. However, it is also very important to understand that no technology may ever fully substitute the security culture of the company's employees. Many attacks are conducted due to the personal weaknesses of the associates answering the calls, for example. So, in my opinion, in addition to the cyber security systems, there should be appropriate personnel training as well as well elaborated procedure protocols.

This blog article relates to the merger between Mariott and Starwood Hotels. For decades Starwood hotels had been investing in a technology transformation program to move Starwood properties from their old mainframe technology to a more modern reservation system called Valhalla. Valhalla is an all in one system and manages reservations, call center, eCommerce Web, Property management and Rev mgmt systems. One would expect Mariott to migrate their current properties to Starwoods PMS however this was not the case. After the merger Mariott announced that they would be migrating the 1200 acquired Starwood properties to their reservation system. I don't understand why Mariott would do this as this would be a backward move. It's a bit strange because their purchase price for Starwood factored in a $500 million Starwood IP technology value which was not owned by Mariott.

Today event technology is on the growth and it is very evident that event technology will be of growing importance in the hospital and heal sector. The reason for this is not only due to the events that are being held, it is because the health industry s focusing on how to integrate technology to help their patients better. They are looking for apps and technology that can increase the efficiency of care that can be used by many different people such as nurses, technicians etc. During this event they used the Giant iTAB to project many of their findings linking event technology and its importance with the importance of technology in the health industry.

This article gives you 8 of the best choices of POS systems linked to their websites, so you can explore the options and compare. It suggests recommendations on choosing the proper POS system based on experts' reviews. It shows the many reasons why businesses would benefit when choosing a POS system over a traditional cash register. It says that any business would benefit from POS systems, but it suits better the retail and restaurant industry. I think POS system is perfect for restaurants!

This article describes how technology will affect accounting system, and the reason to adapt new technology. The world has been dramatically changed over 20years. Paper was dominant back in 1990' but now most jobs are done by computer and Internet, and furthermore, the monthly fee for the Internet has been going down a lot. Everyone in the world enjoys the advantages of the Internet, and job efficiency increases. Especially, this article said technology will impact accounting profession a lot in the future. When we consider the current technology development in accounting area, the Web, mobile and social media have had a huge impact on company's operation. This article introduces that artificial intelligence(AI), cognitive computing/machine learning, natural language processing and blockchain will be adapted highly in next 20 years. For example, tax systems will guide us through the calculations and highlighting review section, and provide advice. A Huge amount of data will be collected and generate real meaning about the data and guide the business. Furthermore, continuous and real-time audit will be available. Fraud detection also will be faster and easier. As can be seen here, the profession will evolve very rapidly in next 20 years, which means it will be completely different from what we see today. This disruption challenges us to catch up with the fast pace of change but the potential of new technology provides opportunity, so adjustment for new pace is needed.

This articles brings importance to the fact that companies should take initiatives to modernize networking. It explains how new technologies will improve every area of a business.

E-commerce is currently one of the most important buying and selling platforms. As a result of conducting business via the internet there's plenty of competition in terms of online presence. In order to make it a smooth process for customers and a company to conduct business with one another there are a few e-commerce strategies that will assist in doing so. For starters it is most definitely important for hoteliers to maintain a search-friendly web site design, improve conversion and usability, and ensure that the website is mobile device friendly. As online bookings continue to rise, word of mouth via the internet steadily increases, and internet advertisements takes precedence over T.V, it is now most important for hoteliers to use the internet to conduct business. However, it is even more important for them to do so in the most influential manner.

There has a report about the travel agents are booking less with GDSs, the customers booking air tickets 15% less than they did in 2006 and they found they are booking tickets from the company the airline website 65% more than before. According to the research, more than 32,000 travel agencies in the US in 1998, but there are less than 10,000 travel agencies in the US today. According to this report, the article trying to find the answer about if travel agents are doing significantly fewer bookings with GDSs. Online travel agencies are very popular led by Priceline.com, Expedia, and Orbitz etc. More and more people would like to book the hotel rooms, airline ticket via the OTA. The benefit of the OTA is the customers can see the price of the different hotels or airline companies on one website rather than several websites. That can help customers save the time and money because they always can show you the lowest price. OTA make the booking easier and clear. We know how popular of the Online travel agent in these years. That's why this article trying to find it out of why the percentage of direct booking more than their booking via GDSs. Travel agents attract a lot of customers that can directly influence the number of booking with GDSs. "ASTA's survey found that American agents use GDSs to book hotel rooms 29% less today than they did in 2006 but agent reservations made on hotel websites have increased 58%". But if we change a perspective, TravelClick found that GDS room grew 5.3% in the 2013 year over year. Therefore, we can found that travel agents use of the GDS for hotel booking growing very fast than direct booking via the company website.

This article discusses the implementation of computer technologies in hotels' green practices. Electricity use accounts for 60-70% of the utility costs and average daily water consumption per occupied room is 218 gallons. Management is permanently under pressure to cut these costs, however, this should be done without impacting guests' comfort. Installation of water-efficient fixtures and energy-efficient lighting helps to reduce utility bills. Computer operated systems aimed at consumption data collection, analytics and remote control are an essential addition to energy-saving equipment. Energy harvesting wireless sensors, thermostats, and other products help collect data that later is processed by IBM Watson, which applies predictive analytics to guest behavior to drive greater energy efficiency of HVAC and other equipment. Wireless networking in energy management enables the hotels to create customized profiles for different rooms depending on their exposure, season, occupancy, etc. based on historical data. Furthermore, satellite technology that tracks the weather and ground moisture helps limit excess irrigation. Computer technologies are meant to substitute guest's active efforts in resource savings. Yet sometimes the sustainability technologies become the selling point for hotels. For instance, guests, especially millennials, might be attracted by the hotel's energy panel that demonstrates how the power generated while using fitness equipment immediately adds to the hotel energy grid.

ConnectMe enables to simplify HR tasks. According to this article, ConnectMe sits on top of the existing software a company already uses and integrates it with other HR services. Some of the ConnectMe features that are mentioned in the article are, its ability to quickly and efficiently answer questions asked by employees via chat or email, which can also attach relevant article, files, and blog links. It also has integrated support channels which helps provide quick answers. It also has an advanced analytics system integrated observing user interactions which allows HR to improve content based on what is important to the employees.

Bitcoin and other crypto-currencies are slowly making their way into every industry, but the hospitality industry is of extreme interest to these due to the size and worth of the market.

This article mainly describes the use and benefits of intelligent technology in restaurants. For chain stores and fast-food restaurants, often pursue speed more than service experience. Therefore, it is profitable for enterprises to replace employees with technological equipment. Of course, this is not to say that restaurants pursuing high-end service experience do not need intelligent technology. As a mobile system, MPOS can effectively simplify the ordering process, increase the rotation speed of the dining table, while also saving guests' time and improving their dining experience. The intelligence of the restaurant table management system also simplifies the reservation process to a certain extent, helping restaurants and users to effectively deal with these complicated processes.

This article explain how different hotels are using robotic technology to help serve the hotels guests and help hotel staff.

This article focuses on current packaging trends along with the diversification of brand management. Additionally, how companies, through smart packaging with QR Codes and NFC tags, can keep up with the below-mentioned trends and achieve higher ROI for their business. Successful incorporation of these technologies will help companies achieve product transparency and authenticity, supply chain visibility, elevated consumer experience, and many more positive outcomes.

This article is about an experienced digital marketer and who's also the co-founder of the New York-based digital marketing agency, Francis Volpe, and he talks about how although so many businesses and industries especially the Hospitality Industry have been harshly impacted by Covid-19 Pandemic, there are some positives coming out of it. Since Covid-19 digital marketing has become very essential for businesses to stay open and survive for the year.

This article examines the current and upcoming updates in AI technology and how hospitality companies are using AI to their advantage. From helping airline companies deal with disruptions in real time to improving the breakfast experience at a hotel, AI is being employed successfully to instantly solve problems and mitigate new ones from occuring.

This article mainly describes examples of how the hospitality industry uses intelligent data to influence its value chain. Such as intelligent travel planning customization, intelligent travel search, travel assistant, intelligent social media data analysis, intelligent forecasting, and so on. With the continuous development of the intelligent trend, many tourism and hotel organizations have begun to continuously introduce AI equipment, which has also promoted the transformation of enterprises to experience-driven and asset-light businesses.

Proximity Marketing yields tremendous benefits to both the consumer and companies. There are six benefits that companies take advantage of inclusive of geotargeting being able to measure the roi on advertising as opposed to traditional advertising methods.

This article not only describes the 6 benefits of proximity marketing but also how to execute it. It explains what is proximity marketing, its benefits in detail, and how it's the future and is here to stay.

Proximity marketing is more beneficial than I originally thought. Geotargeting is the biggest advantage when using this marketing method and I think that a company can definitely take over a certain area by using this method.

This article discusses how AR has been around for a while but has now had a boost thanks to the pandemic. The article mentions how companies such as Lenovo, Panasonic, and Apple are going about the implementation of AR through their product offerings as they are sensing and responding to demand created by the pandemic in order to adapt to changing consumer preferences.