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A GDS system is a massive advantage for a hotel because it will increase demand which directly increases revenue. A GDS system can be even more beneficial if the hotel is targeting corporate travelers. However, a GDS system is not without its drawbacks. While there are options, it is not uncommon for a hotel to pay an initial fee and agency fee.

This article gives a solid big picture overview of what GDS is and why is there a need to use a GDS. Also, it tells who are the three major players and what are the associated costs of using a GDS.

This article signifies the use and importance of Global Distribution System (GDS) in hotels. GDS is a network that travel agencies are provided with information to help hotels book more. Hotels that target corporate travelers have an advantage using the GDS system. Businesses still turn to travel agents rather than booking directly. The GDS system will give a wide range customer base, more booking and more.

This article highlights several important security issues in the hospitality industry, followed by the practice of protecting data from loss. The data structure of the hotel industry is complex, customers mainly use bank cards to pay, and the staff turnover rate is high. There are certain internal threats. In order to solve these problems and avoid data loss, it is not enough to strengthen network security. It is also important that employees are trained and familiar with and comply with relevant regulations.

Hospitality offers an ideal target vector for conducting Cyber crimes such as identity theft and credit card fraud due to the existence of multiple databases and devices containing both Payment Card Information (PCI) and Personally Identifiable Information (PII). Restaurants, hotels, and other companies in the hospitality sector often have complex ownership structures with an individual owner or group of owners, and a management company that acts as the operator. Each of these groups may use different computer systems to store information, and the information can also frequently move across those systems.

In this article, we learn about the top five data security risks as well as best practices to help prevent data breaches. According to the article, the hospitality industry is a prime target since it stores a vast amount of sensitive guest information like names, phone numbers, addresses, and credit card numbers. Some of the five risks included complex ownership structures, reliance on paying by card, and insider threats to name a few. In order to avoid these threats, the article suggest that companies become PCI compliant, use cybersecurity measures like firewalls, and know where exactly their data is stored.

This article discusses research that shows four hotel technology challenges in 2019. These challenged include Interoperability, Data Management, Security & Privacy, and Responsiveness. It argues that hotel management should be aware of these technologies because they can either help or hinder your business.

This is an excellent article that explores that businesses in the hospitality face in their day to day running. The challenges that the article points out identifies include the interoperability of hotel technology systems, the management of data, the security and privacy of data, especially in the current era of cloud computing, and the responsiveness of hotel technologies. Although hotel technologies improve guest experience and foster efficiency in hospitality companies, such challenges may adversely their efficiency, and thus, adversely affect guest experience.

This article discusses what we talked about this week in regards to the different types of technological disruptors in the hospitality industry. It discusses data management issues, privacy issues, and how responsiveness can be improved within hotels. This article will be useful for future research as I look more into artificial intelligence within the hotel industry.

The article introduces a new digital management tool for corporate events, which is called EventO. EventO is a platform that can help the venue managers, event planners and the customers, for it can help manage registration, promotion, networking, scheduling, social media and feedbacks. Furthermore, it can be used in different platforms, such as desktop, smartphones and tablets. It is convenient that people can get in touch with each other and know the meeting before it is actually held. During the event, EventO can also help register the guests and convey speakers' notes and presentations. After the event, people can get feedbacks and follow up with EventO. Regarding the cost, it can be varied based on its complexity.

This article discusses about the importance and benefit of adopting social media to your business. At the beginning of this article, the author trying to help us understanding the growing trend of social media by throwing some shocking numbers. Then he brings out the idea that more and more businesses included social media in their marketing tools. The he reminds us while the size of fans is important, that the interaction with customers is the true value of social media. At the last part of this article, the author gave out some suggestion on make the best use of social media. He mentioned that besides using social media as a channel to connect with customers, companies can also discover new employers via this medium, and get to know your customers' inside thoughts by responding to them. At last, the author reminds us the importance of social media once again.

Cvent, a meetings technology company, has gathered feedback from meeting planners and venues and responded by adding 100 enhancements to their online product. The company is looking to better the users experience and provide easy to use technology. The company's web survey, event management, strategic meetings management, and supplier network have all been improved with new technology. I think this type of business between suppliers and buyers in the meetings/events industry will be the main form of communication in the future. 

This article is about the disadvantages of the point of sales system, which is including the cost of web access, system updates, and the security risks. Firstly, the POS that allows the user to connect a single register to a larger network of information that would otherwise be unavailable or inconvenient to access, thus, some companies decide to go with a web-based system rather than a software-based system, which direct bring additional cost. What is more, if the companies decided to undertake the software-based point of sale system, they need to continue updating the system with new versions from the manufacturer or software company, which means addition cost/fee. Moreover, customers who use the debit cards with POS system, that will face the security risks problem, If the companies use the web-based system, the customer will under the security and privacy risks that come with doing business on the Internet.

Actually, an offline business could be very resource consuming in terms of cost of advertising and promotion through postal mails and networking similar business partners through tele-calling and organizing physical interactive sessions. In e-marketing, the cost of establishing your presence and networking with identical bloggers is nothing compared to offline business. The E-business through the internet obviously has huge benefit for the business nowadays.

Most of the marketing efforts that cater to the organized sector are open 24 hours and 7 days a week. Moreover, the reach is global and customers feel convenient to shop/communicate anytime they want to. The clients are updated immediately about any new modifications and alternations in information through RSS feeds.

This article describes a new tool to measure and aid in guest satisfaction. Through a strategic partnership, Infor (a business application software company) enlists TrustYou (a market leader in online reputation management) to help create a system used to provide real-time access to positive and negative feedback from guest. There are three widgets designed to search through data and streamline them into summaries that hotels can use to enhance their customers experience. All information reported is current information, that way hotels can quickly respond to their guests. This technology is key in creating the best guest experience possible and it allows hotels to do so within a matter of minutes. The real time access feature would allow hotels an opportunity to turn a would be negative experience into a positive one. Hotels rely on "word of mouth" Marketing, especially with social networks, blogs and message boards becoming such a huge part of the daily exchange of information. We must admit, a lot of us value the opinions of our Twitter followers. It is vital for hotels to keep up with these different areas of communication so they can strategically position themselves in an ever growing and competitive market. They can address concerns immediately while at the same creating opportunities to build their brand. Hotels must utilize this advanced approach if they want to survive in this industry.

This article describes the infor company（a leading provider of business application software） and trust you（a market leader in online reputation management） built online reputation management software for hospitality industry. Hoteliers could access to the social senciment on a real time. From the customer's perspective, there are many factors related to choose a hotel form more than hundreds choices. Not only the hotel's facilities and services, but also the reputation on the internet will influnce customer's slection. Nowadays, with the rapid development of social networks, the senciment plays a great role in people's life. For example, in China, there is a web-site, named as "Quna". On that web-site, people share the travel information, rate the restaurants and hotes. The new travelers could get some ideas about the hotel choosing. Therefore, the hotel manager must pay attention to the public reputation management in time. Now, the hoteliers could access to the social senciment in real-time via a series of dashboard, embedded widgets. What's more, by this tool, the hotel employees could correction error, redeem hotel's reputation, improve customer satisfaction, and improve hotel's occupancy rate.

Illasi Valleys, which is composed of 52 companies, has been created in Verona, Italy. Even though the area in the Province of Verona is not that well-known, many popular brands of wine and olive oil are exported from there. The purpose of this network is to "promote local hospitality, increase visitors to the area, and to share the benefits between all members". Illasi Valleys is a network made up of companies from the wine and olive oil, hospitality, and manufacturing sectors of Verona. Illasi Valleys is expecting an ambitious budget of 1,200,000 euros. Part of this budget will fund the activation of an E-Commerce website. Important partnerships and collaborations are forming to implement this project. According to the article, "a network of international brand ambassadors located in various countries has also been created and a contract with US tour operator TourCrafters has been signed". The focus of Illasi Valleys is to increase the numbers of Northern European and US visitors.

From the fore going, the computers are valuable in the management of a business when applied with information communication technology. Correctly and controlled systems are indispensable to a well-run business that wishes to maximize effectiveness and keep one step ahead of the competitions.  Therefore the impact of information and communication technology to the hospitality establishment can not be over emphasized if effectively applied will out perform others in the face of competitions.

Mobile users are not just playing Angry Birds or checking the local weather, 38% have used their mobile devices to plan a trip and 60% of respondents said they have downloaded travel apps on their mobile devices, according to a TripAdvisor survey. While travelling, 62% of travelers said they use their mobile devices to research restaurants. 51% check their flight status and 46% research attraction, 28% have checked in to a restaurant, hotel or attraction using their mobile device while on a trip, according to TripAdvisor. (travelmole, May 2011). A research conducted by PhoCusWright shows that 75% of frequent business travelers (those making at least five trips a year) are smartphone owners. About half of frequent leisure travelers have smartphones. There's more than enough evidence for the hospitality industry to use mobile apps, and some hotels have already started and are successfully doing it.

It will be an interesting experience that you can place a drink or food order with your special requirements and to pay the bill if using a card by your own iphone, iPad, or Android smart phone? The product, dubbed 'the waiter in your pocket, made this become true. The app uses a cloud-based system, hosted by QikServe, to receive orders, connecting with the restaurant's own EPOS system, so the front and back of the house can view the order as soon as possible. It is time efficient and cost saving. Since it is cloud-based, there are no hardware or software requirements for the operators. Besides the staff costs can be reduced to a large degree because a lot of work can be done by the system. We can also expect improvements in service quality for most of the causal restaurants or chain restaurants. Staff spend more time taking care of  each table with less time spent on ordering and cash handling. The system can help to capture consumer behavior and send target offers to them. QikServe is linked to social networking sites, so we can view feedbacks posted by customers directly. It is a good choice for casual restaurants and chain restaurants to apply this system.

The business of Event Planning is booming and continues to grow largely in part due to social media. This article explains 10 reasons why they complement each other so well and it all revolves around the social aspect of our daily lives. Social networks bring people together and with today's technology, event planners can target specific groups or individuals quickly and efficiently at relatively little cost. I believe that social media is the driving force behind Event Planning. Without social media like Facebook and LinkedIn, Event Planning would be very costly and time consuming since these social media networks connect you to millions of people with the click of a button. I believe that without them, the task of reaching out to people and the cost of postage would hardly be worth the time.

Social Media can impact not just a specific group but also many different groups. The need for meeting planner to utilize Social Media will benefit both the client/planner. We are so connected with our social media i.e. Facebook, twitter, Skype that neglect to read regular mail and even emails at times. Our phone technology has helped us stay focus on our social media networks (http://mashable.com/2009/04/29/events-social-media/).

The article I read was called, "Restaurants, Beware: Hackers Want Your Customer Data." In the article it talked about how cyber criminals want credit card information from people so that they can make money off of them. Criminals find new ways everyday to breach systems and steal information from guests staying at hotels or eating in restaurants. It states that many restaurants and franchise businesses use unsecure and public WiFi networks are connected to the point of sale system. "Franchise businesses are particularly at risk primarily because franchises tend to have the same POS system duplicated at all locations." A lot of times businesses don't have trained security on staff, they just assume that their IT person will be talking care of the security. According to the article the best detection systems are neither the technology nor the security but it's the employees who work there. The employees can tell when something has changed in the system and as soon as they realize that, they need to report it to their manager. I never even considered people breaking into the systems and stealing credit card information but it does happen and it's important to know what to do in these kinds of situations.

This article discusses how tourism networks are an increasingly important tool for economic development. At a local destination level, such networks have a potentially significant contribution to make towards sustainable tourism embracing community and commercial interests.

Swipely a social commerce company has users who can publish their purchases online. When they swipe their credit card, the transaction is shown on the site and this is discussed by other users. Company wants to transform shopping online and offline . There are two generations of e commerce sites: first, essentially digitized mail order catalogue and second, few emerged from Silicon Valley or sometimes they drive customers to actual shops. Many made money from flash sales, meaning time limited offer of high discounts. Buyers spread the word on social networks because these sites offer different services of local business for eg. restaurants and spas at a discounted price. Groupon could be a third generation of social shopping sites. It's hard to predict whether second or third generation of e commerce sites will continue to grow because they may get tired of flash sales.

In this article the results of a study conducted by Motorola Solutions Inc to understand emerging trends in enterprise and government mobility markets are discussed. One of the main findings was that as way to enhance guest experience, information technology (IT) investments in the hospitality industry are expected to increase. From the survey it was found that 68 percent of the hospitality venues that are already using mobile technology have seen an improvement in costumer satisfaction. It was also found that 91 percent of hoteliers are aware of the importance of mobile and wireless technology and how mobility creates a competitive advantage. More than 50 percent of the hoteliers that are already using mobile and wireless technology according to survey have witness an improvement in their employees efficiency and productivity as well as an increase in sales. All of this is forcing hospitality venues to invest in powerful wireless networks not only for customer use but for mobile workforce. From the survey it was found that already 75 percent of the hospitality venues surveyed have wireless installed and one third of this venues are using 802.11n. The main drivers found for adopting 802.11n were improving throughput and reliability, and extending range of current wireless data networks.

This entry-level IP video solution is designed for systems from 1 to 16 cameras, and it is ideal for hotels or other small businesses that need easy-to-use and future-proof video surveillance with HDTV quality. This new solution allows small owners to use HDTV network cameras to help them clearly identify intruders, shoplifters and other incidents. Video can be viewed live and recordings played back from anywhere - on-site or remotely over the Internet. The system supports motion detection and pan/tilt/zoom control. Video clips and snapshots can be easily exported to colleagues and authorities, and the system supports third-party apps for viewing live and recorded video on leading smartphones and tablets, such as iPhone, iPad and Android. Furthermore, all images are recorded onto a standard SD memory card in each camera, and even if a network fails, the cameras keep recording. This reduces cost, simplifies installation, and makes the system more robust as there is no single point of failure.

E-commerce has been going through a faster, sustainable and overwhelming developing era, particularly in China. Within over 450 million of people using internet to communicate, China has been potential to lead the development of E-commerce and E-business. This article talks about 3 proven strategies helping China to well improve the E-commerce industry which are to build our own networks, outsource to third-party providers and form partnerships or acquire existing firms. i do believe these kind of methods will boost a brand new ending for our E-commerce development.