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Hospitality Employees Play Big Role In Sustainability Efforts

When it comes to the environment, employees leave a big footprint, Gaines says. "Employees are aware of their footprint and it yields a lot of returns," he says. "As a result, they're watching their fellow employees and holding each other accountable because they understand that every little bit counts."

With employees outside of the facilities department, it's often the little things that make a big difference, such as getting employees in the habit of turning off lights and checking thermostats in unoccupied meeting rooms, as well as having them remind each other to keep an eye out for potentially wasteful use.

Over the past few months, Google has started to work with a handful of software providers in order to provide a more seamless search and reservation experience for customers wishing to book a vacation rental for their next trip.

The vacation rental market has been eagerly waiting for Google’s foray into the industry, which has traditionally been dominated by the Big 5: Booking.com, Expedia, Airbnb, HomeAway and TripAdvisor.

Now Google has successfully integrated vacation rentals into the Hotel Search function,

adio Frequency Identification (RFID1) Devices – These devices allow speedy payment processing. Consequently, they reduce checkout time and the ease of payment often increases average purchase. Depending upon the level of sophistication, some systems can even transmit loyalty and CRM data. Such systems are especially useful for QSR and, indeed, some restaurants have already started using them.

Wireless Devices/Mobile POS – When these were introduced, they were not very popular. Line of sight was an important issue and, more often that not, servers were busy looking at their handheld screens as opposed to focusing on their guests. The net result was handheld terminals stayed away for a while.

Like hotels, restaurants have access to a wealth of data about their customers, which can be collected and put to good use. For example, data can be used to track customer preferences and buying habits for frequent diner programs and other loyalty offerings. It can also be used for effective and customized service delivery. In addition, DRM has a highly complementary value for the lodging industry, where customer behaviors and preferences are already tracked. Challenges for restaurants include how to store and use customer information on the front line.

It’s been over 40 years since direct deposit was introduced, arguably the last major development in the payroll world. It’s amazing to think that, with the speed of technological innovation these days, you have to go so far back to find the most recent payroll innovation that had such a significant impact on both employees and employers.

technology has infiltrated the payroll landscape in recent years, innovating time reporting and flexibility in pay. Payroll is also being forced to adapt to a workforce comprised heavily of two types of employees: those who require immediate income, and millennials and Generation Z workers.

Paycards According to a 2017 FDIC national survey, 25.2% of U.S. households are “unbanked” or “underbanked.” Those who are “unbanked” do not have any traditional banking relationship (i.e., a checking or savings account), while those who are “underbanked” have a financial institution account but also obtain services from providers outside the banking system.

The Internet has become a central destination for those seeking the ultimate options in variety, value, and availability.

one of the most powerful influencers of an e-commerce site today is social media.

1: Personalization E-commerce brands can identify habits of individual social media users to create more targeted advertising campaigns

you need to talk to people who are already using it. And the biggest question you should ask them is what happens when things go wrong.

Before closing a deal, use the software with the data and in the environment intended

Using them in context is key in determining if the software performs the desired function, handles problems correctly, and deals with the scale and scope of the data you plan to process.

Trends in the marketing and advertising space occur because consumer habits are constantly evolving—and they always will.

consumption patterns have a direct impact on the ways we as marketers and creatives consider how the customer will interact and engage with a brand or product.

When business owners notice competitors start feeling familiar and sales take a dip, it’s absolutely time to reevaluate their position in the marketplace.

a recent study showed that in 2015 on average 4.9% of hotel revenue was allocated to the IT budget vs. 2.6% in 2014. Similarly, software accounted for 12% of hospitality IT spend but is forecast to grow at 7% pa from 2015-18, outstripping other segments and 22% of hotels earmarked migrating to the cloud as a top tech priority in 2015.

Waste is one area with the potential for big improvement. In many cases, hotels end up throwing out a lot of waste that could have been recycled. The reason is a lack of local support for recycling programs, Jachimowicz says. "We would move forward with recycling if the local trash haulers had the ability to do that today," he says. "We're recycling at 60 percent of our properties. We'd like nothing better than to get that number up. Short of separating it and hauling it ourselves — and we're not in the trash-hauling business — we're at the mercy of the local haulers." One way to work around the recycling challenge, Gaines says, is to reduce potential waste brought in the door in the first place. "We eliminated the USA Today," he says. "That's huge. All those newspapers? They're gone. Everybody's reading it on their iPad."

"You want to continue to give people a comfortable, acceptable shower without sacrificing using more water,"

On the operations side, facility management staff has a large role to play as well. The first thing they have to do is understand that it is a balancing act when it comes to what guests want versus sustainability efforts.

Cloud

it’s also dynamic and scalable for the future. In addition to these savings, cloud-based PMS also offers immediate advantages like remote login allowing for anytime, real time access, distribution management, automated tasks, multi property management, mobile guest journey, and real-time data analytics, to name just to name a few.

Mobility

The Keys to Marriott's Success Long before the economy went south, Marriott had a reputation for finding creative ways to wrest the most value from every IT dollar.

The devil is in the details—success is in the system.-The Spirit to Serve Metrics drive Marriott. Talk to an IT associate on any given day, and he can tell you exactly how much business the company processed via its systems that week per second ($3,568 when this reporter visited).When implementing the PeopleSoft enterprise service automation module for project tracking and time reporting within IT, for example, programmers developed a tool so that project and productivity metrics are automatically computed after time is entered. Another rule for metrics is to make sure that the right people get the right data in a form that’s meaningful to them. "You need to measure a lot of things, but the trick is to publish the right information to the relevant audience," says Melnick. "Having Marriott.com up and running is not as important as the dollars running through it," explains Keppler. Melnick adds, "For each system we try to focus on the core metrics. And that changes. What might have been important the day you go live becomes a nonevent a few weeks in." For example, five years ago the critical metric for Marriott.com was uptime. Today, it’s how much business the website books. Last year, metrics fueled the IT department’s decision to invest in an upgrade to the site that would make it easier to reserve rooms. Today, more than 75 percent of rooms booked online come through Marriott.com, saving the company $12 million annually.Keeping its eye on the numbers lets Marriott revisit business cases for IT projects each quarter. "The project itself may not change that much, but something external may happen—something like SARS, something from the competition," Melnick explains. "Just because you start a project and it’s on track doesn’t mean you want to keep the same pace. There may be something that comes up that’s even better." Success is never final.-The Spirit to Serve Though the IT department’s resourcefulness is helping keep Marriott afloat during hard times, Wilson and his peers aren’t taking anything for granted. They say they can’t let their culture of resourcefulness wither away when the economy turns around. They’re reminded of how easy it could be to let their guard down each time they flip through Mr. Marriott’s book in which he quotes Somerset Maugham: "The unfortunate thing about this world is that good habits are so much easier to give up than bad ones."But Wilson believes the principles and procedures put in place for prudent and resourceful IT decision making should keep the company on the straight and narrow and ahead of the competition."I have a firm belief that the only real sustainable competitive advantage we can get with IT is making sure our people understand conceptually what IT can and can’t do and apply it better than competitors," Wilson says. "Anything we do in IT, a competitor can install. What they can’t capture that quickly is having a team of people throughout the company that really gets this and follows it all the way through. That’s sustainable."Marriott has valued resourcefulness—on paper if not always in practice—for decades. But resourcefulness is not an end in itself. It’s a tool one uses in the ongoing construction of value, a project that’s never finished. Or, as Mr. Marriott says succinctly in his book, "Success is never final."

n the hotel industry there is an urgency not only to go greener but also to become more tech-friendly, according to recent research by energy leaders E.ON.

The first stage is to check the rate at which they’re paying for energy, and to get a greater sense of how much their business is affected by this cost. The second is to address the easiest fixes to bring that cost down – such as replacing inefficient bulbs or heaters and minimising wasted heat or light. The third is to put energy at the heart of the business’s strategy and to make committed investments that promise long-term reward, such as installing solar panels, or investing in waste heat-recovery systems to slash heating costs.

The changes in travelling habits and the demands of guests will have a significant impact on hotels both small and large,” says Phil Gilbert, director of energy solutions at E.O

Guests will notice how AI technology can enhance their hotel stays and experiences on the casino floor.

Guests can text Ivy, powered by Go Moment, for food or entertainment recommendations, dinner reservations, housekeeping requests, or ask common questions like Wi-Fi passwords and pool hours.

companies like Konami and Scientific Games have developed AI technology for slot machines. It incorporates facial recognition capabilities to identify who is playing their games, and tai

With a reputation as less well guarded than similar institutions, hospitality companies are a popular target for cyberattacks.

Experts warn other hackers, like those working for a nation-state, could exploit hospitality breaches like Marriott’s to acquire details on the travel and spending habits of espionage targets, like CEOs and diplomats.

permeable security in the hospitality sector threatens consumer privacy, shareholder value, and national security.

don't exactly expect to be asked to be part of conservation efforts beyond deciding whether they want their towels washed every night or not.

When it comes to the environment, employees leave a big footprint, Gaines says.

it's often the little things that make a big difference, such as getting employees in the habit of turning off lights and checking thermostats in unoccupied meeting rooms, as well as having them remind each other to keep an eye out for potentially wasteful use.

Valet may be replaced by self-parking and a guest may not see a bellman rushing to grab their bags as they enter through the automatic doors already wearing compulsory face masks. All staff will be masked up, and many will wear disposable gloves for additional protection. Guests will probably skip the front desk as they have already chosen a room online and prepare to stand on the outline of socially distanced feet or lane markers in front of the elevators.

Guests will also be greeted by the welcome addition of extra towels and toiletries in the bathroom to avoid the need for room cleaning and turndown services during their stay. This is both a cost saving and hygiene effort though there have been several anecdotal reports that, counterintuitively, guests have recently pushed back on this economy. Service has long been the cornerstone of hospitality and old habits (or expectations) are still highly valued by guests.

Gone will be the generously appointed buffet, most likely replaced with a boxed preparation or a grab-and-go option.