Hospitality Technology

After the tragic events of September 11th, 2001, the travel business was damaged for many years. Profits became much lower in the hotel business, but were not nearly as bad as airline profits. As a result, many larger hotel chains began innovation on their websites in order to streamline promotions, advertising, reservations and bookings. In the hotel industry, there are individuals who create hotel technology platforms and there are IT professionals that make sure they work properly when needed. Some of these IT professionals, for smaller businesses, work from remote locations. At larger hotels, however, they are often times required to be onsite. Onsite IT professionals are an important part of the hotel's staff. Some hotels, however, assign IT duties to hotel management, as well as other key employees, in order to not have to invest the salary of an IT manager. The author of this article, Christine Cadena, states that it is a better idea to invest in an IT manager with specific education and training, than just assigning duties to hotel management. She also touches on how many hotel chains fail to promote education and certification in IT, resulting in hotel managers learning the IT processes by trial and error or hands on experiences. As the hotel industry continues to recover, there has been an emphasis on improving technology onsite. Many hotel managers, however, are lacking the education necessary to help with technological improvement. When hotels begin to invest more in IT education and certification, they should see an improvement in levels of service, as well as profits.

Great Article Matt- I struggle with not having an IT department on site and not being too techie. Its a great advantage when you ring that extension, someone answers and can quickly identify why the credit card machine is not working or the projector has fuzzy lines right before a big conference. Too many times, we find ourselves being place on hold for countless minutes usually 10 or more for someone from support services to identify the problem. I'm a foodservice manager not the IT manager, so talking technology to me is like talking French. If companies invested in a manager with the proper training and skill level to fullfill the position of running the hotel, then the same should be done for IT.

This article introduce that the world's largest hotel company by numbers of rooms, IHG has installed a new system. Green Engage. This system is used to help hotel operators manage energy more effectively. It is estimated that the new system can save around 25% energy and $200 million for the company. According to the introduction, the system is developed by IHG and it will be used for all of the IHG brands' hotels. It works by hotels directly inputting data on side. It can reduce the waste and the use of energy and water. Green Engage is designed for the guest who is looking for better environment. More and more guests are willing to book sustainable hotels and after using the new system, hotel can respond the guest request. Also, the chairman of the IAHI Owners' Association though the green system is very good for business as it can save much more money in energy cost.

For this Green Choice program which is skipping maid service, in my opinion, it depends, For the pros, I think it is good because it can save time, money, labor, and housekeeping products. Hotels don't need to recruit a lot of housekeepers to clean rooms, thus, they save the salary of housekeepers, training time, and the wasted bath products. For the cons, I think hotel rooms will become more and more dirty day by day, which also decrease the age of a hotel. But anyway, the pros of this green choice program is more than cons of that, I think it is a great going green action actually.

How about finding a happy medium to this dilema. Perhaps Hotels can still offer housekeeping but give patrons the option of particpating in the going green program; by providing them with an incentive if they can go with out their sheets and towels being washed. This would save water, time, labor, and staff in the laundry department, while still giving guest a clean and happy room.

The director of the Trade Service Division of China's Ministry of Commerce, named Di Jiankai, stated by media of China that nation is going to create 10,000 green hotels by the year of 2012. When I was working on my ecological part of remote environment analysis for another courses, I realized that "Go green" is so much important today even every nations are thinking about it, not only China. As we all know, pollution has been becoming one of the most significant issues in the world, such as CO2 emission, overuse of water, energy using by fuel fossil and so on. By different kinds of pollutions, hospitality industry, especially hotels, have to take more into consideration about the pollution trends and have to think more about the impacts from those pollutions. In my opinion, hotels have to pay more for new eco-technology. However, since "go green" will attract more guests, which means lots consumers come to the hotel just because its "eco-label" or "eco-brand". In this article, Gong Ping also said that not only decorations outside, even the materials using inside should change to be green. For instance, the bath tubs, which is more popular if it is organic.

The article mainly introduced software called Propertyware. Propertyware is an on-demand software solution that serves the tracking and management needs of residential property managers with between 20 and 5,000 units. The key funcation of this software is to help the owners to do some accounting, screening. Additional helpful tools in the system include visual data-driven dashboards, summaries of portfolios and lease statuses, management summaries, and electronic owner statements. This kind of software can be applied in residential properties, condos, homeowners associations (HOAs), and multi-family units. Propertyware is based in San Francisco, California, and has served over 2,000 different businesses and organizations in 7 countries. This kind of software can be developed and implanted quickly with little money.

This article discusses the importance of technology in convention space.  The Benton Convention Center which helped bring over 95,000 visitors and $69 million to the Winston-Salem area, is realizing that their outdated technology could cost them all of this economic boost.  This article clearly explains the importance of technology in the modern world of convention and meeting management.

This article is about an integration between two businesses: Masetro PMS and SilverWare POS. Maestro PMS partnered with SilverWare which is the point of sale provider, in order to help hotels to perform processes in the more convenient and efficient ways with high quality of 360 guest services. Through the integration, hotels now have capability to perform not only processes that have done normally but also new things beyond normal one. Server now reports on guest status such as same-day checkout, as well as meal plan with integrated client synchronization. This integrated system gives hotels advantages, such as accounting accuracy and simplification of charge detail information, by sharing data from food and beverage outlets and retail stores either for one hotel or for multi-property group. This integration will finally enable hotels to increase revenue, helping them to track and analysis revenue from their guests' charge at every outlet.

This article talks about how Walt Disney World park-goers are able to enjoy a new app designed for iPhones, iPads and iPods that gives them real-time updates on park information and other services. The application allows guests to better plan their day with the ability to view wait times for shows and attractions; guests are also able to track what are the fastpass return times and the ability to book dining reservation around the parks and resorts. The application enables the guests to move through the theme parks flawlessly and helps maintain a neat order. It gives the guests the ability to view the maps and view what's happening right now at each of the parks. It is a great application that will help everyone be more organize as they enjoy the parks.

The author of this article, Jitendra Jain, talks about how there are many things to promote in hotels beyond rooms, yet there is not many e-marketers venturing into the world of hotels beyond rooms. A wide range of food and beverage options, spa, sports, and recreation are just a few of the perks that hotels offer. He explains that in the Middle East, dining in some hotels can contribute nearly half of the hotel revenue, giving the food and beverage department a loftier position than properties elsewhere. Revenues like this from food and beverage outlets are unheard of in North America and Europe, making it imperative to promote and sell other areas of the hotel. Jain goes on to outline a few ideas to comprise a good e-marketing strategy. They consist of starting off on the right foot, reaching the right people at the right time and in the right manner, capturing new customers, creating a buzz, making things interactive, tracking correctly, refining, and repeating.

Matt, great post! Marriott Corporation is utilizing eMarketing through emails. Once you book your room reservation, you will begin to receive information regarding dining, recreation and spa treatments that you can enjoy while staying at a specific Marriott. This allows the hotel to expand its products and enable guests to book prior to arrival. The use of eMarketing is a great tool for any business to capture new customers and anticipate guests' needs.

The article reveals how tablet devices offer many advantages to hotels, because many business processes become more and more independent of location. Allowing your employees to work more effective is the main objective for the hospitality and tourism business. A few examples: Hotels can use iPads as "floating front desks", offering guests mobile services like check-in or check-out. iPads could even be employed as support work stations to reduce demand peaks. The ability to having a floating front desk and being able to accomodate guest is beneficial." The app offers access to guest relevant functions of the property management system like booking services. It also offers access to location based services, advertising local events and facilities, and to the hotel's social networking sites" Having the application to allow guest to have 24 hour service is a convenience comparable to none.

         This article introduce us a new hotel software technology, the iPad property management system. Nowadays the table devices offer many advantages to hotel. Ipad is a good example for the table device use in hospitality industry. A German company design a PMS on iPad for hotel, its name is protel Air. Use this device, hotel can provide the mobile service like check-in and check-out to support the employee's job. Protel Air is a full-service solution and a true "Software-as-a-Service" application, that is hosted in a secure data centre environment. The only requirement of this device is the Internet; it can update and maintain the date through Internet. It also protects the data by its security system. They also design an application called protel Voyager for guests. It offers access to location based services, advertising local events and facilities, and to the hotel's social networking sites. The protel Voyager will encourage guests to report positive feedback.          I think to use new technology to help the operation of hotel is a good idea. Even it will cost some money to purchase the equipment and training the employee. It will save time for the employee especially in the peak season. My only concern is the app for guests. Guests may not use to this kind of new technology. They prefer the human service more. But it is worth to try.  

German protel hotelsoftware presented the world's first property management system for the iPad. The tablet devices give hotel a lot of benefits.  It helps the hotel reduce demand peaks, and offer guests more convenience. Protel doesn't need the support of additional hardware and installation. it can run in the internet browser. One of Protel's product is Protel Voyager, which is designed as a web app, the customers do not need to install this app, because it can runs in the mobile browser. It offers access to guest relevant unctions of the property management system like booking services. It also offers access to location based services, advertising local events and facilities, and to the hotel's social networking sites such as Twitter, Facebook or You Tube.  

Our B&B, Brewster House Bed & Breakfast, was recently in a position to re-evaluate its guest management software choice. You would think that the frequent evaluations (and upcoming reviews!) of various systems (we'll call them guest management software, though some call them property management software) would make this an easy thing to do, but it never works out that way.

This article talks about why so many hotels go for PMS, based on the advantages of PMS, hotels began to find out that PMS is really useful and helpful. And people would like to choose PMS as it is very convenient for people to use. It also talks about cloud computing ability of property management system. As people are used to use internet, PMS can equip to serve in many areas.

This article talks about hot hotel are using more PMS, especially big and small hotel of all kind. Property Management systems are used in a lot of hotel because it is a secured data base system. This helps hotels limitless data storage space. Also, since everyone is using the internet for almost everything. Guest are using more of the hotel property management system to find out what available in different hotel. Hotel employee love the property management system, especially when it managing multiple properties. For example, manage a chain of hotel distributed. This is the reason why hotel is using this application to improve their standard across the world.

This article is introducing the POS Software in Anand Systems Inc. ASI-POS is general purpose point of sale software which can retrieve a great amount of data in a fraction of seconds. This POS software handles the selling process by a salesperson accessible interface. Since with the installation of this POS software, the particulars of customer purchase history, inventory status report and other details can be retrieved in just a few clicks. What is more, ASI-POS can be used to manage the sales outlets at hotels, resorts, restaurants, bars, and so on. As a part of ASI Front Desk, ASI-POS can manage all standard POS task like room service. As an independent application, ASI-POS can be used in any kind of leisure like food service, entertainment. ASI-POS is the windows based rich, featured filled, easy to use and affordable application. It helps enables you to have a total control over the business and improve your sales and profits.

Areas USA has selected the MICROS Simphony Enterprise Solution as its standard SaaS, cloud-based point-of-sale system across its United States airport and turnpike operations. It provides the organization with a robust enterprise system, web-based reporting, and business intelligence functionalities with a high level of flexibility. MICROS's Simphony also seamlessly interfaces to Areas USA's Corporate Infrastructure systems. Simphony is centralized, allowing for the entire system to be managed from one application. The solution is also being hosted in one of MICROS's worldwide data centers, removing Areas USA's onsite servers and the responsibility of managing the servers from its internal IT department. MICROS and Areas USA have been partners for years, with the MICROS 9700 Hospitality Management System (HMS) installed at many locations. The sites with the MICROS 9700 HMS will be converted to the MICROS Simphony platform.

After Lloyd Swords used Ipad POS for cash register for his coffee shop, lots of owners of small business started to think about using Ipad for their own business. Besides the coolness features of Ipad, or even Ipod Touch, there are still six advantages of using an Ipad POS. As I highlighted in this article, restaurant can save costs for more than $10,000 by Ipad POS. What's more, Ipad POS makes sales process streamlining, which means customers don't have to stand up and walk to a cash register and it makes them more comfortable because the payment process just happens under their eyes. Last but not the least, since the global warming and carbon dioxide emission, it will be meaningful to use Ipad POS because it makes the sales paperless and environmentally friendly. I have experiences of using this Ipad POS because I am right now working in a japanese restaurant which is using this system from placing order to checking out. And I think it will help sales because customers love this system. Every time I help them check out, they just give me their credit card and I just stand in front of their eyes and process the payment and email the receipt to them, which always makes them feel fantastic. Therefore, I think Ipad POS can be a trend in the future hospitality industry.

This article tries to introduce the point of sale system. It recommends that it's time that your business did away with its cash registers and stepped up to a point-of-sale (POS) system. And the author lists seven reasons to convert businessman set up this system. First of all, your "sudden shrink" no longer goes undetected. It means that the system which has a receiving and inventory module that, when used properly, it can help you to pinpoint the cause of the shrink. Second, Markdown management is much easier. Compare with wrestling cash-register receipts at day's end, a POS automates the process of introducing markdowns and, in turn, tracking them accurately. Thirdly, Promotions can be tracked more successfully. Promotion is necessary for a business. However, the problem is recording shorter specials. Here, the POS system can help you. Then, you can maintain control in absentia. . Many operations suffer in employee efficiency and customer service when the boss is away. Automating a host of functions via a POS can help boost those areas, no matter where the head honcho happens to be. Besides, Your prices are consistent from one location to the next. If your business operates at more than one location, a point-of-sale system ensures pricing consistency. What's more, a POS system can help to keep stocks in proper balance depending on demand and other factors, which can vary from one location to the next. Sixes, you get many tools in a single package. At last, you can make better use of your personnel. The author thinks the greatest advantage to a comprehensive point-of-sale network is that it can afford your personnel to devote their energy to customers. In a word, the author gives us seven advantages of POS and recommends strongly applying it on business.

I liked the part that discussed how this would limit theft, as we know that is a big problem in most establishments. Anytime you can eliminate a calculator and human math is a plus. Recepits can easily be lost. Also consistency is a big part of it, especially if you have more than one establishment. good article!

Hey all, Here is an article I found about a POS system that is supported by either an IPAD or an Iphone device. There are many pros to buying a system like this for a company that is just starting out. If someone is having problem you can call and the ISISPOS system will provide 24 hours a day customer service. Because the world is getting faster and more demanding, it is becoming necessary to find other ways of pleasing the customer in a more efficient manner. With this technology, one has the ability to be completely mobile and is not restricted to conventional forms of typical POS problems. It is affordable and easy to use. With cloud computing, your business can save an enormous amount of money versus sticking to the traditional infrastructure. Instead of buying new hardware and software every so often, one can now rest easy with cloud computing technology because it updates on its own and has the ability to be accessed from anywhere, even home! It is literally like having your business in the palm of your hand.

Great Post! Two days ago, I had the opportunity to visit a restaurant where the staff utilized an iPad to take the orders. This was a non-franchise restaurant; I can't imagine how much money the owners spent on such technology. The food came out quickly, I am not sure if the utilization of the iPad helped expedite our order, however it was done quickly. Once we asked for our check, the server was able to send the request to a printer and brought the ticket very fast. I wanted to play with it, but didn't feel comfortable asking the server.

I really enjoyed getting to know more about these POS systems that are supported by Iphones and Ipads. They seem to be very advantageous to restaurants, and I agree with your point that they do not provide the typical POS problems. I feel that the cloud computing technology has really made these systems entirely beneficial. These systems are getting closer to becoming virtually perfected.

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.