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Guest blog: How technology is enhancing festivals | Event Industry News - 0 views

  • It’s important that organisers embrace new technologies to ensure that they can keep up with attendee-demand for the most immersive and seamless experience possible. New technologies can also provide great insights for festival organisers into the behaviour and habits of attendees throughout a festival to make sure that every year gets better. /* custom css */ .tdi_2.td-a-rec{ text-align: center; }.tdi_2 .td-element-style{ z-index: -1; }.tdi_2.td-a-rec-img{ text-align: left; }.tdi_2.td-a-rec-img img{ margin: 0 auto 0 0; }@media (max-width: 767px) { .tdi_2.td-a-rec-img { text-align: center; } } Advertisement
  • Technology can be integrated throughout the festival whether that’s through apps, cashless payment, sensors and wristbands to track festival-goers’ behaviour such as queue times, popular areas in the festival grounds at particular times and food and drink habits.
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    Cloud based technology allows attendees to interact with events and enhance their experience which provides festival producers the data needed to make business decisions that can increase profits and make an event safer. RFID wristbands can store data such as contact information while wireless payments can provide insight to sales trends to better equip those point of sale locations with the products needed to meet demand based on the historical data.
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8 Hospitality Digital Marketing Trends to Watch in 2021 | WEBITMD® - 0 views

  • If there is one industry that was adversely affected by the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, it is the hospitality industry.
  • And now, with a vast majority of consumers shifting their activities to online platforms, it has become imperative to make use of digital hospitality marketing to maintain a competitive edge.
  • Perhaps the number one most trusted content online is user reviews. This includes everything from testimonials, comments, forums, social publications, and blog posts.
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  • Influencer marketing is one of the fastest-growing strategies in the marketing arena at the moment.
  • By doing so, you get access to a broader audience while establishing credibility and trust. It has been associated with an increase in direct bookings
  • Remarketing basically involves focusing your advertising efforts on users who show interest in your business. You can do this by collecting statistics on users visiting your website or engaging with your content on YouTube or social media.
  • At the moment, remarketing ads have a 400% larger click-through rate and nearly 150% higher website conversion rate
  • The trick is to re-engage the users who’ve visited your website but didn’t go all the way booking.
  • Chatbots are becoming an almost standard component of business websites. They apply more so in the hospitality industry, where users need rapid responses to queries they make online, regardless of whether there is staff available to give answers.
  • With a VR headset, you can catch a glimpse of a remote location and feel like you are actually there.
  • Due to the impact of COVID-19, revenues in most hospitality-based industries are a fraction of what they were in 2019.
  • Online reputation scores are basically a measure of the rate that people like and trust your brand. There are tons of paid and free tools which you can use to run automatic assessments for your company. It takes into account positive, negative, and neutral critics made about your business, which is then rated from 0-1000.
  • Perhaps the most fundamental trend in the hospitality industry in the wake of the COVID-19 virus is showcasing your facility’s abilities to guarantee the safety of your customers.
  • The way you advertise your service, be it food or massage and gyms, should be done so they appeal more to the local residents and the popular cultural ideals.
  • Keep in mind that any company’s primary aim in the hospitality industry is to enhance the customer experience and create a more lasting relationship. Therefore, as you try out these techniques, your strategies should ultimately achieve that goal.
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    This article discusses digital marketing trends in the hospitality industry for 2021. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, businesses have had to shift a majority of their activities to an online platform. The number on most trusted form of eMarketing for 2021 has been the focus on User generated content (UGC). Restaurants, retailers, and hoteliers have been encouraged to take advantage of UGC and use their guests experiences to share to their social media pages. Another important detail to note from this article was the focus on remarketing/retargeting ads. Currently, these ads have a 400% larger click-through rate and nearly 150% higher website conversion rate. They also discussed how VR has helped with online booking for hotels and highlighting safety protocols have impacted businesses during this pandemic. Ultimately, a "company's primary aim in the hospitality industry is to enhance the customer experience and create a more lasting relationship."
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Employees' perception of robots and robot-induced unemployment in hospitality industry ... - 4 views

  • As service paradigm and customer expectations shift from conventional customized and personalized services towards a digitalized service environment, such customer orientation may favor using service robots at scales that could render service employees redundant.
  • Beyond digitalization, other service concepts, such as contactless services with highly reduced human interaction, are becoming more prioritized by hoteliers and consumers
  • The notable exception, Ivanov et al. (2018) denoted that employees might resist working with the service robot as they might see them as a threat, while Lu et al. (2019) believed that collaborating with a service robot can have adverse effects like frustration, discomfort, and confusion for service employees.
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  • However, researchers and practitioners have emphasized the essential role of robots in the service industry have a positive impact on productivity and customer satisfaction (Lu et al., 2019), which directly affect the organization’s structure, culture, decision-making processes, and employment (Xu et al., 2020).
  • Hospitality 5.0 may influence the hotel industry’s high-tech adoption, and during COVID-19 technological use was increased dramatically in hospitality service (Zeng et al., 2020) due to contactless services and safety in customer journey touchpoints (Pillai et al., 2021). Specifically, COVID-19 enhances the use of service robots as a helping hand to provide necessary services to consumers and employees
  • On the other hand, the existence of robots in restaurants may induce some risks (privacy, financial, time, performance, psychological) that can negatively affect the attitudes and intentions of customers (Hwang et al., 2021). Furthermore, robots are perceived as a threat that may lead to unemployment (Vatan and Dogan, 2021) and adverse outcomes due to job insecurity (Koo et al., 2021, Lu et al., 2020).
  • They also showed that employees prefer to work with human colleagues because they should be replaced by human communication and colleagues. However, employees select robots as a replacement when it approaches their employment.
  • According to former studies, robotic advancement directly impacts unemployment; directness’s negative and substantial influence on unemployment is comparatively more significant, specifically during and post-pandemic periods (Du and Wei, 2021). According to Keynes : p-325) (1930), “We are being affected with a new disease of which some readers may not have heard the name, but of which they will hear a great deal in the years to come – namely, technological unemployment.” COVID-19 is one of the main reasons for decreasing employment, whereas increasing the use of robots (Parvez et al., 2021). Therefore, the robot that induces unemployment is a challenging concept.
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    Good Morning Emily, Thank you very much for sharing this article! It is a rather interesting one which will certainly generate varying opinions. Me, from a management standpoint, I believe that robotics does have a place in the workplace (a greater presence in manufacturing and less in customer service). Dealing with humans on a luxury vacation tends to enhance my experience. Honestly, I cannot possibly imagine going on a vacation and not having the opportunity to converse with an employee!
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    This article comes in lieu of the COVID-19 pandemic and originally stems from keeping people safe by having contactless service. With service robots being so popular during the pandemic they started to take the place of actual humans. This can cause issues in customer service where people would prefer human to human interaction. This article also discusses how humans feel about having jobs replaced by robots and their perception on how they feel about working WITH robots.
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What is the digital outlook for 2021 in business travel? | PhocusWire - 0 views

  • The GDSs are finally competing with a wider group than the traditional oligopoly group that they have been complacent with for so many years.
  • I imagine that at some point in the next few years the GDSs and the airlines will finally figure out their commercial challenges and we will get NDC content in the GDS as mainstream. If they do not, a huge amount of development cost by the GDSs has been wasted. 
  • It will be interesting to see how the NDC specialists will adapt to NDC becoming mainstream in the GDS. To compete with the GDS they would need to fill some gaps quickly around hotel, car rental, and I expect they will utilize the wealth of API options. 
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  • With more and more airlines adding surcharges for booking on the GDS as well as removing lower tiers of fares, the GDS is simply becoming a more expensive environment to book in. As has been said many times, this model needs to change.
  • The OBTs will face some challenges in 2021, one being with respect to resources.
  • The OBTs might have added to their roadmaps the integration of new information sources that deal with COVID-19.
  • In some respects, the OBT workflows are ideal with regards approval processes, which are likely to be more complex in 2021 compared to a year previous. So, from that perspective the OBT’s have a strength to play on.
  • Automation is no longer a nice to have in 2021, TMCs need to find ways of working that avoid the costly touch of a human being. Fully touchless bookings are the holy grail.
  • Still missing is a system able to grab GDS bookings, NDC bookings, other direct booking sources (e.g. low cost carriers, bed banks) and offer one single place to be able to view and interact with the bookings (modify, cancel). 
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    This article focuses on GDS emerging competitors now and in the future. Online booking has become more attractive to the consumer, with no surcharges unlike the GDS system airlines use for booking.
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Is it safe to go on a cruise during Covid pandemic? 2021 restrictions - 0 views

  • Are cruises safe right now? Experts say they’re ‘a recipe for Covid transmission’Published Sat, Aug 28 20219:30 AM EDT
  • The cruise required vaccination,
  • approximately 96% of all
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  • but nobody was required to present a negative Covid test before boarding.
  • the first such reported death since cruises restarted in the United States in June.
  • Travel of any kind is currently a very high-risk activity
  • And even with safety measures in place, cruises come with residual risks that can’t be ignored, like unavoidable close quarters and potential for breakthrough infections.
  • cruises are challenging environments from an infection-control standpoint
  • indoors
  • touch all kinds of surfaces,
  • you’re restricted to the boat, which can make the outbreak harder to contain and treat.
  • more opportunities for prolonged exposure
  • It’s a good start, experts say 60— but not enough.
  • like wearing masks and maintaining social distance
  • The level of community spread in the place where you live — or, in this case, where a cruise is departing from
  • — significantly affects your risk level.
  • Norwegian Cruise Line sued Florida’s top health official in July, requesting a preliminary injunction to let the company implement its vaccine mandate for all passengers and crew
  • The company won the case earlier this month, with U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams writing that Norwegian “demonstrated that public health will be jeopardized if it is required to suspend its vaccination requirement.”
  • To make cruises genuinely safe, he says, companies would need to require mandatory two-week quarantines for each passenger and crew member, negative Covid tests 24 to 48 hours before boarding and another negative Covid test immediately after boarding.
  • regain a sense of normalcy by spring 2022. But even then, travel and cruises will likely be high-risk activities.
  • no matter what happens, you’re taking a risk.
  • Then, look for cruises that require vaccination proof and only allow reduced capacity 60
  • always dining outdoors.
  • Are cruises safe right now? Experts say they’re ‘a recipe for Covid transmission’
  • they’re
  •  
    Insight on cruising. Will we be able to cruise anytime soon? How can we make cruises safer?
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Why Augmented Reality Is Having a 2021 Moment - Moonshot - 2 views

  • (AR) has been around for some time now, but AR is getting a fresh take in the young new year.
  • At the annual CES event, AR is already making its presence known early on.
  • The New York Times reports that more retailers are making AR a priority in the new year especially as popular apps such as Snapchat make it easier for retailers to reach shoppers with AR filters.
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  • “The pandemic accelerated a lot of conversations that we were already having,”
  • Deborah Weinswig, the chief executive of Coresight Research, says people stayed engaged with AR experiences for three times as long as they do with traditional e-commerce websites.
  • Retailers hope that will mean fewer exchanges and returns.
  • Meanwhile, we’ve seen a spike in news reports about Apple unveiling its much-anticipated AR eyewear in 2021.
  • This news is another example of how savvy businesses are sensing and responding during the pandemic to adapt to changing consumer preferences.
  • they want shopping to be more of an utilitarian search and click on the internet.
  • As we enter another stretch of prolonged social distancing, retailers in particular are looking for ways to apply AR to make shopping more natural.
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    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.
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New Far-UVC Light Technology Can Help Disney, Universal Battle Pandemic | Inside the Magic - 0 views

  • The theme parks around the world — including both Walt Disney World Resort and Universal Orlando in Florida — have implemented several different safety protocols in order to operate during this unprecedented time.
  • UVC light is a very effective disinfectant and kills viruses just by shining light on it. But UVC light is different from far-UVC, which is the new groundbreaking technology that could help control the COVID-19 virus.
  • Far-UVC light inactivates viruses the same way as UVC, but the main difference is that it does not penetrate the skin or the eyes. Instead, it is absorbed by the dead skin layer and the tear layer within the eye, making it safer as there is less of a chance that a person would develop keratitis
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  • It is important to note that the far-UVC light will not eliminate coronavirus on its own. It needs to work in connection with the other safety protocols already put into place, including face coverings and social distancing, as well as the COVID-19 vaccine.
  • hing about U
  • If Disney Parks, including Walt Disney World and even Disneyland, or Universal theme parks decide to invest in these new far-UVC light devices, it could help them continue to operate safely during the pandemic. The major theme parks in Florida have already implemented several safety protocols including temperature checks, social distancing measures, face coverings, paperless payment methods, mobile ordering, and more, ever since they reopened their doors in summer 2020.
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    This article explains how theme parks are look for ways to ensure safety for all of the guest and employees during the Covid-19 pandemic. By using Far-UVC light technology to help clean and disinfect attractions and restaurants.
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Why 2021 Will Be The Year Of Adaptive Cybersecurity - 0 views

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    This article describes the changes that cybersecurity will see in 2021. This comes from a PwC research article that based on surveys from over 3200 businesses, there is going to be a huge increase in spending for adaptive cybersecurity. "cybersecurity needs to become more adaptive using new technologies, including artificial intelligence, machine learning, behavioral analytics, multi-factor authentication, crowdsourcing and security-integrated DevOps (DevSecOps). "
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Vaccine mandates and restaurants: Arizona hospitality groups respond - 0 views

  • The plan mandates that all employers with 100 or more workers must require COVID-19 vaccinations or weekly testing.
  • The president's plan requires companies to provide paid time off for employees to get vaccinated.
  • companies that are not in compliance could face fines of up to nearly $14,000 per violation, CNN reports. 
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  • Employees were given the choice of when to return to work. They were also required to get tested for COVID-19 weekly. 
  • When vaccines became available, Genuine Concepts held a vaccination event at Ladera Taverna y Cocina and encouraged all employees to get their shot.
  • Not all of these shots were given to Genuine employees, as the team extended invitations to other local restaurant and bar employees. However, a large percentage of Genuine's employees were vaccinated at the event.
  • "It's important because if we protect our employees, then it protects their families, our customers and their families, the vendors that go on site to our places and their families," Cramton says. 
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    After a recent announcement by President Biden, new mandates are being put in place requiring any U.S. employer that employs over 100 people to require vaccines within the establishment. This new action plan was developed in response to the widely spreading delta variant and is hopefully going to be curb the infection and hospitilization rates. Although many of the specifics have not yet been revealed, it can be assumed that organizations will be required to maintain current and up to date records of vaccine status for all employees for the coming future.
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8 Disruptive Hotel Technology Trends to Watch in 2021 - 6 views

  • For those of us keeping an eye on technology in hotels, it can be difficult to discern what trends are here to stay and what trends are simply a marketing stunt.
  • Venture capitalists are finally starting to recognize the opportunity to invest in tools and platforms that allow hotels to capture new levels of hotel operations efficiency and revenue growth.
  • Cloudbeds offers an all-in-one suite of tools, including a property management system, channel manager, booking engine, and revenue manager, growing revenue and automating workflows at more than 20,000 properties.
    • ldevaul
       
      This is definitely something to look into. SaaS programs, nowadays, are super robust and offer so much data and opportunity for large and small businesses.
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  • Despite being one of the largest and most dynamic segments of the US and global economy, penetration of cloud-based technologies in the segment remains incredibly low, and the vendor landscape remains tremendously fragmented on a global basis,” says Matt Melymuka, co-founder and partner at PeakSpan Capital.
    • ldevaul
       
      This is very interesting...one of the largest industries and they are the slowest to invest in cloud-based technologies. A lot of companies clearly prefer to print everything and leave an actual paper trail!
  • Hotels use Zingle’s messaging tools to deliver five-star service at scale; Medallia’s investment in Zingle gives hotels the opportunity to provide frictionless guest service and streamline time-consuming interactions, such as check-in.
    • ldevaul
       
      I'm sure companies who invested in this program during the height of pandemic were very thankful!
  • Life House, a tech-first hotel experience, shows proof-of-concept: that hotels that invest in technology drive higher revenue, better guest reviews, and a higher star-rating.
  • Hotels are catching on, adding convenience through streaming, voice activation, guest-room tablets, and food ordering tech.
    • ldevaul
       
      The guest room tablets that can order room service and manage the operating system in the room is a game changer. Hotel Mousai in PV Mexico has this installed in all of their suites and it was super impressive!
  • White labeling is a practice in which a product – in this case, hotel software – is manufactured by a third party and uses branding by the purchaser, or marketer, so that the end product appears to have been produced by the purchaser.
  • Oaky, one of the industry’s leading upselling tools, raised a Series A funding round of $9.5 million led by PeakScan Capital. Oaky’s appeal to investors stems from the app’s data-driven approach to driving incremental revenue. Their deep understanding of customer behavior makes Oaky one of the top-rated upselling tools on the market today.
    • ldevaul
       
      This would be great for hotels who are struggling to increase their revenue.
  • For instance, feeding data from your PMS into a business intelligence tool leads to real, operational data to analyze trends and provide recommendations for better marketing campaigns, smarter staffing decisions, seasonal trends, and market competition. Hotels that are comfortable using APIs can automate tasks that take up much of their employee’s time with manual data entry.
  • On-demand convenience dominates our lives, and guests expect this level of ease from their hotel experience as well.
  • An API, application programming interface, is simply a messenger of data between applications. APIs allow your various hotel technology tools and programs to work together, connecting your RMS to a PMS, or your PMS to your upsell software, or your business intelligence software to your PMS. An API makes your technology user-friendly and efficient; when your tools work together, you capture each platform’s full capabilities.
    • ldevaul
       
      This is super useful! When all of your software can speak to each other it improves productivity so much!
  • Hilton is taking a different approach, partnering with Netflix to allow guests to control their streaming straight from the Hilton Honors mobile app.
    • ldevaul
       
      This is genius! Definitely will be trying this at my next Hilton stay.
  • As far as voice-activation, Volara is leading the way in providing a thoughtful, Alexa-esque guest-room solution. Volara integrates with the most popular work order management systems so that guests can make requests and get confirmation when the item or service they need will be delivered.
  • And for savvy marketing managers, tablets provide a new channel through which to send targeted, automated messages generating $5,000 per month in additional revenue.
    • ldevaul
       
      This is great for hotel marketers! Proving their value and having the company invest in tech that shows an huge ROI. Love this!
  • 2nd Kitchen is a godsend for hotels without a kitchen on-site: guests can order room service from restaurants near your hotel, taking care of care of orders, menus, payment, fulfillment, and customer support for your property.
  • Hotels are a prime target for hackers. “Only about 25% of all U.S. businesses, including hotel operators, are fully compliant with current data security best practices. That means that three out of four are not and are potential disasters waiting to happen,” reported one cybersecurity expert.
    • ldevaul
       
      This is definitely worth exploring more!
  • Numerous high-profile malware attacks on the hotel industry have led to hundreds of millions of guests’ data being compromised and millions of dollars in damage. Just this February, MGM Resorts revealed they were the target of a massive data breach that compromised personal information for more than 10.6 million guests. Files leaked in the MGM attack included information on celebrities, chief executives of technology companies, reporters and government officials, according to Skift.
  • Expedia and Booking have taken some pretty big hits in recent months.
  • Why the dive in stock price? There are two factors outside Coronavirus that are impacting OTAs. First, hotels are getting better at capturing direct bookings. Hotel tech like direct booking platforms, metasearch ad managers, and messaging integrations help properties draw more visitors to their site and convert more direct bookings, circumventing the high OTA commissions in the process.
  • Secondly, Google has entered the travel market in a big way. Google has expanded from traditional AdWords to include hotels everywhere via its Hotel Ads product.
  • 5G may be getting all the buzz, but for property owners, WiFi 6 is much more relevant. WiFi 6 is the term used to describe the next iteration of Wifi, a faster, more efficient connection enabled through new technologies. WiFi 6 is about 30% faster than our current WiFi.
  • With WiFi 6, your property can leverage in-room technology to provide better service, driving positive guest reviews and repeat business. Smart thermostats, smart speakers, and smart locks will all perform better with the adoption of WiFi 6 over the next five years.
  • Investors in Oaky already recognize this next insight: data has become the world’s most valuable resource. The sooner you start to mine guest data for better customer insights, the better positioned your property will be against your competition.
  • Data can fuel smarter marketing campaigns, inform your pricing, and help you capture a higher market share than your competitors by knowing your guests on a deeper level.
  • Earlier this year, Revinate launched the hotel industry's first Guest Data Platform to aggregate, clean and deliver rich guest profiles for hotels and property groups of all sizes. The platform combines data from multiple sources to provide a complete picture of a hotel’s guests, delivering the information needed to increase guest satisfaction scores, direct bookings, and ultimately, profit.
  • Brands in the alternative lodging sector include Stay Alfred, Sonder, The Guild Hotels and to some extent groups such as Selina and OYO. 
  • The biggest distraction or barrier these next-gen hotels face is that they’re taking the wrong approach to tech. The companies that win will be the ones who stop acting like tech companies – using buzzwords like AI and virtual concierge – and focus on being more innovative and agile real estate businesses than traditional market players today. Those that succeed will be tech-enabled businesses; not tech businesses.
  • Smart hotel rooms use technology to allow guests to personalize their stay experiences.
  • Technology is becoming more important to hotel operations because it can deliver increasingly high value for hoteliers and guests.
  • The most important software in the hotel industry is the property management system, which acts as “mission control” for hotel operations. Hoteliers use a PMS to manage reservations, check guests in and out, and handle billing.
  • While exciting technologies present new options for hoteliers to enhance their offerings, these new innovations also mean hoteliers must focus on data security and continued training when implementing the technology that guests expect.
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    This article takes a deep dive into the emerging tech trends in 2021. They briefly touched on how SaaS is slowly taking over the traditional PMS and how venture capitalist can't get enough of these programs. Another honorable mention in this article is the explosion of guest room tech such as streaming services, voice activation, and guest room tablets. OTAs that have traditionally been top dogs when it came to hotel bookings are slowly declining and big data is becoming super insightful to hoteliers. This article touches on so many avenues of tech and it's definitely a must read!
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What will ChatGPT mean for the travel industry? | PhocusWire - 1 views

  • ChatGPT (which stands for Generative Pre-trained Transformer) is a free artificial intelligence chatbot that has incredibly human-like communication skills (and a fee-based premium version in development)
  • Microsoft is reportedly considering a $10 billion investment in ChatGPT owner Open AI according to multiple media outlets.
  • Because of this, tech companies are seeing value in data-driven personalization solutions and ChatGPT fills that need. It can help save companies time and money to allocate resources to solve more complex and specific problems.  
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  • With a large dataset already in place, integrating this technology into our platform could hyper-personalize search results for travelers and supports our vision of offering open-ended, flexible search options. 
  • saved more than eight million hours in agent time, allowing travelers to resolve issues faster with self-service. 
  • but the technology is still in a relative state of infancy
  • ChatGPT really captured everyone's attention when it launched,
  • - it's already dividing opinion with responses that can range from entertaining and creative to glaringly inaccurate
  • It's too early to say whether the likes of ChatGPT can truly emulate those very human instincts.
  • First, people need to recognize that it's not generating anything new as much as scraping and regurgitating the internet
  • Every single tour operator, even single hotel, every transport company now has the same opportunity to be as productive as a company much bigger than themselves. I see that as a commodity – everyone has access to it therefore, in some ways, where’s the value. But it’s the most productivity-enhancing thing I’ve ever seen. 
  • However I don’t think that’s the real impact. I think that’s just the start of the game. Once AI starts to get into the actual experiences – not just tour experiences but hotels, airports… the ability to speed up and enhance the actual experience, especially in something that is not a good experience at the moment like an airport, is going to be quite dramatic.And the real game changer... is once the general public has it, it changes everything. You are a tour operator, and you create itineraries. The consumer can now do exactly the same thing as you and do it in real time. And 1,000 people can create 1,000 different experiences tailored to what they like. So the creation of a travel experience on the ground, which tour operators have dominated, is going to be disrupted by travelers being able to do it themselves. 
  • it’s not the live data, it’s not up to date, the facts may not be 100% and it doesn’t have geolocation.
  • The weakness at the moment is it’s only scraping data through 2021. So
  • This could make entirely new businesses or it can destroy businesses.
  • will save hundreds of thousands of dollars on freelance costs, so there's big disruption to come.
  • For basic service copy – simple product descriptions, basic articles, email campaigns, that sort of thing, it's going to be very useful for brands and very painful for content creators.
  • There’s some interesting use cases that we hope to explore such as improving automation and responses for common customer service requests through chat (and eventually even speech and video), as well as concierge-like services to recommend travel destinations, create personalized itineraries and the like.
  • . So there are issues with accuracy and truthfulness, and it needs human expertise to fact-check the output.
  • ChatGPT might herald a revolution in automated content creation, but I also think it could create a new premium for genuine human expertise too.
  • ChatGPT has been trained with information existing until end of 2021. Travel is a super dynamic category where this morning’s information is no longer relevant a few hours even minutes later. Inventory availability, prices, category of rooms/seats/cars change by the minute. You need good old-fashioned technology like CRS, WBE, RMS, etc. to handle these dynamics, not ChatGPT.
  • Google can provide a much better AI-powered chatbot than ChatGPT that spews much better answers in milliseconds, but how are they going to make money?
  • Specific to ChatGPT, I believe that this technology will eventually be used in conjunction with a brand’s own content, in addition to the internet as a whole, so that it can be trained and customized by the brand to answer questions.
  • What’s also really interesting is how this once again demonstrates that the most disruptive innovations often come from outside the travel industry.
  • ChatGPT is gaining that trust in its ubiquity and daily usage, so I think travelers could be much more likely to accept its itinerary recommendations without nearly as much research and shopping around. This has implications for human agents too.
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    ChatGPT is a new technology that is hoping to take over the travel industry. It is an AI product, similar to google, which will generate answers to questions that travelers may have via a chat service. It is meant to replace tour guides, travel agents, and concierge experts and can either save business time and money, or create chaos and the need to speak to an expert human instead. Like all technology products, there is always room to improve and grow in the initial stages, and not all roles are better off being completed by a computer, rather than a human. Although AI may have access to more information at a quicker pace, and may even be able to write better than most people, some companies believe that the possible errors and inaccuracy provided by ChatGPT will make content creators and human expertise way more valuable. ChatGPT accesses data from 2021 and prior, which means it is not current and up to date. This is a major flaw that will need to be improved.
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10 Ways to Reduce Cybersecurity Risk for Your Organization | UpGuard - 0 views

  • ‍Cybersecurity breaches have been on the rise, and it's expected that by 2023, they'll have grown to 15.4 million
  • a hacker may send an email impersonating leaders in the organization asking for personal details
  • Saving your data in normal-text format only makes it easy for hackers to access
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  • Some data encryption software even lets you know when other people try to alter or tamper with the information
  • You should also conduct regular backups for your important information
  • statistics show that over 3.4 billion phishing emails are sent globally
  • Make sure all your sensitive data is encrypted
  • make sure you use a patch management system to automatically manage all updates and uphold information security
  • over 80% of organizational data breaches result from weak passwords
  • Chances are that your cyber security is highly dependent on third-party vendors, which is why you can’t afford to ignore vendor risk management
  • Conduct a security assessment and determine whether your critical infrastructure is safe from security breaches.
  • have your IT security teams analyze all server logs frequently and conduct cybersecurity framework audits to make sure their integrity is intact.
  • you should defend your networks from cyber attacks by installing firewalls
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    In this article, the author discusses many different ways to help a business reduce their risk for cyber attacks. The article touches on a statistic about cybersecurity, stating "During the first half of 2021 alone, over 118 million people were impacted by data breaches". There is quick talk about how the policies that a business implements is the make or break of the cybersecurity for your business. For example, one of the main tips to reduce cyber attacks in your business is to make sure your data is encrypted. "Saving your data in normal-text format only makes it easy for hackers to access. Data encryption, on the other hand, limits data access to parties that have the encryption key". Another tip to prevent cyberattacks highlighted in the article is to keep all your employees educated and informed about malicious emails. Conducting regular employee trainings about the dangers of these types of emails could save your business. These types of emails are known to send links that could hack the system, as well as pretend to be higher-up employees in the company asking for personal data or financial information. The article is extremely educational to every business, as well as just the everyday consumer. Keeping your confidential information as confidential as physically possible is very much doable, as long as you make sure you follow these 10 simple tips.
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Top proximity marketing trends for 2021 - 1 views

  • Proximity marketing is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 1.6% through 2021, expanding well beyond retail applications to benefit other businesses such as gas stations, restaurants, movie theaters, and hotels. Companies that now begin to make strides in understanding and integrating proximity marketing trends into their current strategic models will be at the forefront of their industries. 
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    This article speaks about how companies from retail to hotels are using proximity marketing to reach their target markets. One constant with all is data capture. This trend is booming. As cited in the article, "Proximity marketing is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 1.6% through 2021, expanding well beyond retail applications to benefit other businesses such as gas stations, restaurants, movie theaters, and hotels. Companies that now begin to make strides in understanding and integrating proximity marketing trends into their current strategic models will be at the forefront of their industries.
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Product Packaging Trends 2021: For Brand Managers - 1 views

  • Packaging is now seen as a gateway to reinforce consumers’ trust in a brand. 
  • price sensitivity, higher digital engagement, a rise in attention to wellness and hygiene, and a redefinition of brand purpose. 
  • CPG brands should leverage smart packaging technology such as QR Codes and NFC to digitalize their product packaging and transform the way consumers interact with them. 
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  • Packaging designers should make use of recyclable materials to create innovative and sustainable packaging designs.
  • QR Code-powered digital product labels that communicate the sustainability practices are the easiest way to achieve this.
  • The campaign incorporated QR Codes on the packaging of their free-range grass-fed meat to direct consumers to farmers’ stories and the farm of its origin. 
  • Customers could tap the cap using their smartphones to access in-store information about the brand, along with its history and food pairings.  
  • The World Economic Forum indicates that there’s now a whopping increase in consumer demand to understand the product’s journey; from its manufacturing to point of sale.
  • The pandemic accelerated the adoption of e-commerce. Most customers now prefer to shop online given the convenience and safety.
  • brands should make essential product information available through digitalized product packaging, coupled with the relevant certifications.
  • Consumers don’t look at product packaging the same way anymore.
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    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.
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Proximity Marketing Market 2021 Business Trends, Size, COVID - 19 Outbreak, Sales, Supp... - 0 views

  • The global Proximity Marketing Market is slated to expand owing to the growing importance of business intelligence, coupled with the rising adoption of smartphones and the advances in analytical tools. Moreover, the growing adoption of smartphone and expansion of the analytical tool is one of the noteworthy factors driving market growth over the review period.
  • North America is one of the leading regions in the proximity marketing market and is expected to record a major market share over the review period, followed by Europe.l This remarkable growth is attributed to the presence of major market players in the region, established technological industry which is introducing and encouraging the adoption of advanced, cutting-edge technologies, especially in the advertising sector.
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    This articles discuses how proximity marketing is slated to expand globally.
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Tripadvisor: Half of U.S. Travelers Are Planning Trips This Spring 2021 - 0 views

  • between March 1 and May 31, 2021
  • According to the survey results, millennials are more optimistic and eager to return to travel than any other generation: 58 percent are planning a trip this spring compared to 50 percent of all age groups; 71 percent feel comfortable dining out this spring compared to 62 percent of all age groups; 54 percent believe day-to-day life will return to normal within three months compared to 38 percent of all age groups; and 56 percent of millennial respondents believe they will be better off financially in the next 12 months than they are today compared to 41 percent of all age groups.
  • the vaccine rollout may be prompting increased confidence in bigger trips.
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  • Many are searching for sunny destinations near the ocean; the fastest-growing destinations this spring (i.e., those with the biggest increase in searches on Tripadvisor year-over-year) are in Florida, Mexico, and the Caribbean.
  • Tripadvisor survey finds that half of U.S. respondents are planning a trip this spring
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Restaurants in 2021: Technology and Hospitality Search for Balance | QSR magazine - 0 views

  • And the end result is going to benefit guests, which opens opportunity for restaurants
  • At the intersection of much of this conversation is technology. Roughly half of full-service, fast casual, and coffee and snack operators, said they devoted more resources to tech during COVID, including online or in-app ordering, mobile payment, and delivery management, according to the National Restaurant Association’s 2021 State of the Restaurant Industry Report.
  • Percentage of restaurant operators who say they devoted more resources to customer-facing technology since the beginning of the outbreak in March
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  • Despite tech’s position in convenient, contactless ordering, so key in today’s environment, the Association pointed out, customers miss personal service. Given the choice of ordering from a server or ordering from their phone or a tablet at the table, most want the server.
  • Up next is the server versus tablet dilemma. Given a choice, most consumers prefer table service when they’re dining in a restaurant, the Association said.
  • Only one in five said the option of ordering and paying through a tablet or smartphone at the table would influence their restaurant choice
  • For example, the burger brand is deploying a “server partner” in tandem with waitstaff. Now, with handheld technology in tow, servers can spend more time roaming dining rooms and less on side tasks, like ringing up orders and delivering food. The server inputs orders at the table as they come in.
  • Among guests who plan to dine-in in a restaurant or fast-food venue in the next few months, 64 percent said they’d choose to sit in a section with traditional table service. This preference was strongest with older diners, with nearly 69 percent of Baby Boomers and 67 percent of Gen Xers saying they’d go for the section with traditional service.
  • Tech was more of a draw with Gen Z—55 percent said they would choose to order and pay electronically from their table.
  • COVID, however, forced restaurants to start listening again
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Ford's adding Amazon's Alexa to 700,000 vehicles this year - Roadshow - 0 views

    • balle028
       
      As many cars are embracing smart features, Ford an American vehicle is implementing the smart feature as well, at one point on star was prevalent however applications have emerged
  • Amazon's popular Alexa voice assistant is about to hitch a ride in a lot more Ford vehicles. On Thursday, the automaker announced upcoming over-the-air software updates will bring Alexa to 700,000 vehicles this year. Millions of other vehicles will gain access in the coming years after Ford inked a deeper "strategic engagement" with Amazon for the next six years.
  • The strategy includes the possibility of releasing Alexa skills (Alexa's equivalent of apps) specific to Ford vehicles. Maybe Alexa will be able to flick on Ford's BlueCruise hands-free driving system. That'd be pretty cool. For now, though, the goal is to simply put the voice assistant into Ford vehicles via "Power Ups," as Ford calls its over-the-air software updates.
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  • They'll first land in the new Bronco, Edge, F-150, Mustang Mach-E and Super Duty this fall. Do note, only vehicles equipped with Sync 4 will be eligible for the OTA update.
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    As we look at capital expenditures in technology vs income we see that many vehicles are implementing apps. On star was thriving at one point and available in many American made cars however due to the sudden fall off, other replacements have come up. Ford has now emerged to put in place amazon Alexa in over 700,000 of their vehicles. this will offer an Alexa skill that coincides with the vehicles smarts features and offer a much easier use of car adjustments and car controls for many ford owners.
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How restaurants are bringing tech to the table in 2021 | Restaurant Dive - 1 views

  • Sit-down restaurants have traditionally abstained from digital innovations and other kinds of consumer-facing technology out of fear that these changes could cheapen the diner’s experience and undercut their value proposition
  • One-hundred percent of foodservice operators reported in a December Panasonic survey that the pandemic has intensified their sense of urgency to adopt transformational technology, and respondents are implementing tech that prioritizes safety and self-service in response.
  • This prioritization seems to directly reflect diner sentiment, with 21% of consumers planning to dine inside a restaurant reporting that contactless payment options would factor into their restaurant choice. This is especially true for younger consumers: 29% of Gen Z diners said contactless payment solutions would influence where they eat compared to 24% of millennials and 18% of Gen X consumers. 
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  • Fifty percent of full-service restaurant operators said they have added digital menu access via QR codes since March 2020, according to NRA’s 2021 State of the Industry Report. But it hasn’t become a point of differentiation in the mind of the consumer — only 1 in 5 diners said the option of accessing a restaurant’s menu through their phone or a QR code would make them more likely to choose one restaurant over another in the next few months. 
  • "People were less inclined to look up drinks, cocktails and wine through the QR code, so more often than not we would drop the beverage menu with each guest [that featured] a QR code for the food menu, and if they wanted a [physical] food menu it was available upon request."
  • The functionality of an NFC tag or a QR code on a table brings so much digital transformation opportunity that maybe the aesthetic that used to be a primary concern is now a secondary concern."
  • among diners who plan to eat inside a dining room or fast food concept in the next few months, 64% say they would sit in the section that offers traditional table service
  • Allowing diners to order and pay at their tables without a waiter, however, could have a material impact on sales and diner satisfaction, he said, because it takes pressure off restaurant employees and diners when the dining room is very busy.
  • There was a stat we were able to generate that paying on your own device rather than waiting for a server to drop off the check actually saves 21 minutes of table time on average across our network… and that’s great for a restaurant because they have the ability to increase their revenue per hour per seat,
  • Digital integration at the table also primes diners to become more loyal customers and gives restaurants greater customer ownership in and outside of the restaurant
  • I can automatically redeem my offers and my coupons from a loyalty program. And from a digital transformation transformation perspective, I'm now a user within that restaurant's ecosystem," May said. "So that means online I can be provided offers that are tailored and personalized to what I had [during] the meal at the restaurant."
  • Some experts believe that air technology within restaurants could eventually become featured design elements as well.
  • According to NRA data, 85% of adults believe going out to a restaurant with family or friends is a better use for down time than cooking at home, and 67% of consumers surveyed between Dec. 4-6 reported they aren’t using restaurants as much as they’d like. 
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    This article talks about how we have seen technology in restaurants change in the past year as well as what to expect moving forward. Restaurants have begun to see how new technologies like contactless pay are allowing them to expedite services and benefiting their businesses. It also discusses how even though things like QRs have become more common they won't replace aspects of service experience that are crucial to hospitality.
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Trust will be "deciding factor in cloud service provider competition" in 2021 - 0 views

  • The trend of companies embracing digital transformation during the COVID-19 pandemic was the driving force behind the continued investment, according to Canalys, aided by the economic recovery and subsequent restart of some delayed projects. 
    • balle028
       
      There have been a lot of shifts to digital transformations due to the pandemic, many companies are welcoming this change. This article touches on the embracing of transformation due to COVID-19. Alot of recourses have been poured into developing this change. Companies like Amazon and Google Cloud have accounted for close to 70% of spending.
  • An International Data Corporation (IDC) published last week, revealed that the worldwide public cloud services market grew 24.1% year over year in 2020 with revenues totaling $312bn (£219.75bn). This market includes Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), System Infrastructure Software as a Service (SISaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS), and Software as a Service (SaaS).
  • Rick Villars, group VP of worldwide research at IDC, said: “Access to shared infrastructure, data, and application resources in public clouds played a critical role in helping organisations and individuals navigate the disruptions of the past year. “In the coming years, enterprises’ ability to govern a growing portfolio of cloud services will be the foundation for introducing greater automation into business and IT processes while also becoming more digitally resilient.”
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    Companies are leaning more into digital transformations for cloud services.
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