Hospitality Technology

PAR Technology Corporation and Personality Hotels, announced the successful implement of a new management platform ATRIOt, at the Hotel Diva in San francisco, California. This installation brings an extraordinary advancement in the state-of-the-art of technology in the hospitality industry. It also helped to reduce costs considerably and it also promises to bring and increase on velocity.

SoftBrands, the second largest provider of hospitality software worldwide, has announced about the acquisition of Amadeus PMS, who is one of the biggest DGSs in the world. This acquisition benefits customers with access to complimentary applications to the latest technology and they will be served better, because of the global reach of SoftBrands.

This article firstly reviewed the development of the PMS. Twenty years ago, the value of a PMS was in its computerized capabilities as properties began to switch over from manual systems. Ten years ago, the more valid comparison was between a DOS and a Windows-based system. And today the PMS has more functions and can do better for the hotel. As a hotel director compared the new PMS with the old one. The old PMS allowed only 20 or 30 letters for notes while the new one allowed him to review guest histories after checkout as well as to write unlimited guest notes on reservations. Lisa Jane Gibson, director of revenue management for the six Vintage Hotel locations, concluded three main trends with front and back of house systems. First is the wider use of technology to enable properties to run more efficiently. Another trend is more personalized interaction with guests. Finally, Gibson notes the upcoming deadline for all businesses to comply with the Payment Card Industry (PCI) mandate for specific security guidelines. The guest trend has an effect on the PMS, and the trend will lead the direction of the PMS product development. More and more people are becoming their own travel agents. The PMS is also very useful for the food and beverage management. The PMS can help the hotels or restaurants with tracking inventory and cost of sale as well as setting up and running reports for key areas of the business such as returns, refunds and promos. The new POS products can help the hotels save costs and cost saving becomes the hot topic for the new POS. For example, hotel management consultant Paul Lynch of PGL Consulting has been able to deliver a cost benefit of up to five to seven per cent on wage savings with H&L Canada Ltd.'s Workforce Management control system. Lynch initially used it to monitor staff rosters daily but now has embraced the package as a complete information and management tool for the sites that he controls.

Cendyn and Vipe Inc, a video marketing sofeware provider, launches eFaceTime video sales capability for eProposal. By using this technology, hotels enable to offer personalized videos about their service, food&beverage, function space, amenities and staff to the event planners or customers through eProposal presentations. This technology only need a hand-held cameras to link the videos, can hotels' sales people produce a high quality promotion vedio with less cost. It also provides video libraries, sales people can compare the videos and inser the best one into the sales Proposals quickly. Moreover, the eFaceTime video provide an effective way for the hotels to welcome their patrons. This technology drive the eMarketing to go futher. Its unique personalized videos may help the hotels to attract more customers especially for the event planners.

The distance is not a problem anymore. The style of proposal presentations is more is more convenient and less limited.

I think this is a useful technology for a hotel because hotel can sale its product without limited by region. In this way hotel can increase its market share and increase the profit.

E-Marketing emerged because of the Internet, today, there has an app called 'Hotels with Me' lunched by Hotels.com as an affiliate program in Facebook. Owners of Facebook information pages in the UK, Italy, France, Sweden and Germany can now install this app and earn commission on bookings made through it. 'Hotels with Me' is a hotel search engine run entirely through Facebook. This app has been launched on UK Facebook page in 2010 and grows strongly across APAC and Europe. It enables people to browse, choose and book hotels from almost 140,000 properties worldwide. It is easily to install which just needs a few seconds. And Josie Shah, director of partner marketing at hotels.com regards the app as a unique innovation for them. He thinks the app will be interest to championing sports events, bands or concert tours. And this app is not only convenience for users but also a market expend for owners. Also a video explains how the integration works through a link. http://www.choosewithme.com/affiliate-marketing/

I read an article takes about a mobile app which can help customer makes reservation of same-day hotel room on their mobile rather than on the internet. I think these two apps have the same function which helps the customer browse and book properties much more convenient.

PAR Springer-Miller Systems, which is the leading provider of guest-centric hospitality management systems and Personality Hotels announced a successful implementation of the ATRIO Guest Experience Management platform at the Hotel Diva in California. ATRIO was built using Microsoft technologies and gives the look and feel of other innovative products from companies like Apple and Google. Simple to use, this system in the cloud reduced implementation costs. This is the first application purpose-built for true cloud computing.

Trying to go beyond the limitations of the "Like" as a standard metric for social media, a new Compete study combines a variety of measures to assess the success of online travel brands on Facebook. While the analysis focuses on the travel category, the approaches taken could apply to other industry verticals on Facebook.

Article discusses ways in the the practice of measuring social media success based on likes canbe misleading for travel sites and brands. The argument made is that the like is a cumulative metric rather than a current. Meaning You have an indication of what people think of your brand in general, but not at that moment. Unique visits is a metric that is a better indicator of engagement as it lends to give you an idea of how users/travelers are reacting towards your brand on an ongoing basis...

This article is related to IT security in hotels. Around six months back a panel of IT executives from Starwood Hotels, Hilton and other lodgings operators met at the LodgeNet's Customer Technology Symposium in Chicago to discuss on how protecting customer data is becoming their top priority. This type of situation was brought to a head earlier this year when marketing services giant Epsilon experienced a massive breach to its email systems. According to a SecurityWeek report, among those impacted by the breach were several hotel operators, including Hilton, Ritz-Carlton and Marriott. According to a 2010 Wall Street Journal report, the most common security vulnerability in hotels is point-of-sale software. Often, hotels do not require employees to change the default names and passwords of these programs, making it easier for hackers to break in and steal customer information. To overcome some of these and other concerns, McBeth said hotel operators are applying the best practices detailed by the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS), which aims to address data security for businesses that handle payment cards. However, he admitted that the task of ensuring protection throughout an organization is difficult, given the number of channels where vulnerabilities could be uncovered. This being the case, it is encouraging to see some hotels are making moves to lock down their data security practices. There is clearly a great deal of work that needs to be done, but if a hotel can demonstrate it is capable of protecting customer information, it may be more likely to inspire confidence in consumers, which, in turn, could afford the hotel a competitive edge.

Its a tough task to monitor this, because at the end of the day, the responsibility is at the property level to ensure that data is secure across the board. So training employees on the importance of data security and what a breach means could go along way.

Highlights: REPORT FROM THE U.S.-As revenue management becomes increasingly sophisticated and complex, many major hotel companies are rolling out new platforms and tools to help managers at the property level. Description: There are two main applications of property management system in major hospitality management companies. The first approach is to provide service for hotels without a revenue manager. The second prong is to give revenue managers a set of tools to control their own pricing structure at the property level. Besides combining hotels in a same region together, one advantage of property management system is to save related costs. In general, revenue management needs deep skill and expertise, so the price for hiring employees with these abilities is expensive. In addition, this revenue management system helps managers enter the system easily. With the immediately information about the marketing's pace, managers can open or close rates conveniently. And property level managers can sell strategies to various best available rates. Property management system provides brand supports to hotels. Hilton is making efforts to develop this revenue management system, at the same time, they hire more and more persons with skills to use it. This system provides franchises a new tool to learn customer experience or marketing situation of other areas.

Optima is global leading software in the hospitality industry, Designed for both the mid - market and luxury hotel sectors. All Optima line applications are integrated, using a single image open database, allowing full access to data across all modules and all hotel departments. Whether it is Reception or Banqueting, Spa or Accounts receivable, all modules read from the same database. And in addition all modules have the same recognizable user interface allowing staff to easily switch between applications. It's efficient,easy,flexible and customized configuration.

Considered the technology of the next generation Optima PMS, with advanced icons and color codes which gives managers an overview of hotels operations and maintain management controls. The windows graphical user interface helps simplify data entry by employees, user friendly, quick and easy. The system is able to change to a variety of languages, automatic or semi automatic night auditing procedures, guest history and mail merge, unlimited number of folios for guest, interfaced with all leading PBXs, housekeeping and room maintenance. Optima PMS has a report module with an extensive report generator which provides statistical reports and occupancy and work assignment forecasting reports. This new upcoming system seems to be well suited and user friendly, but does not seem very far from opera. Opera is a very user friendly system which really provides convenient use for the employees. It is even possible to email reservation confirmation through the system to a guest. In other PMS systems like brilliant or Epitome that was not possible. These new and improved systems really make a front desk and reservation agent life a bit easier. The system is interfaced with the phones in the rooms, which allows us to see in the system when a housekeeper is in the room cleaning which is called pick up status" so that we can provide adequate information for the guest informing them that the room is currently being cleaned instead of having to call housekeeping every 5 minutes.

When Room Key entered the pantheon of metasearch engines, initial reactions varied. While big chains were seemingly excited for this alternative to third-party search engines, independent hoteliers maintained a reserved skepticism, wondering what place, if any, there will be for them on the site. These independent owners are taking a wait-and-see approach when it comes to Room Key's potential influence on independents and hotel search-engine landscape.

Good example of the wait and see method as discussed last week. Be interesting to see how this one plays out for Room-Key as well as the smaller independent chains...

USA TODAY assembled five of the industry's top executives last month at the Americas Lodging Investment Summit in Los Angeles in the LA Live JW Marriott hotel for a discussion of the industry's latest developments. They were: Marriott International CEO J.W. "Bill" Marriott Jr.; InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) CEO Richard Solomons; Carlson CEO Hubert Joly; Choice Hotels CEO Steve Joyce; and Eric Danziger, CEO Wyndham Hotel Group. The discussion ranged from hotel Internet fees to iPad apps, new lobbies and chainwide hotel renovations. The hour-long event was moderated by USA TODAY's Barbara De Lollis . The text has been edited for clarity and length.

Thought this was a great article from the perspective of five of the top industry executives. Of particular note was about the issues of catering to the newer wireless data hungry traveler. Interesting to see all of their comments and concerns. Seems like this is an issue that is across the board and there is no consensus at the point about how to tackle.

The failure of hotels to properly store and transmit sensitive credit card data makes them an easy target for hackers. This article shows that in 2009 a whopping 38% of credit card theft was associated with the hotel industry. These thefts necessitate a level of uniformity for hotel security standards. The biggest key to this article is the reminder that hotels cannot be lacking in their technology security measures. The industry is based on service and must do its due diligence to protect its customers and retain their loyalty and trust.

That article is really eye opening. I couldn't help but notice the article is from a year and a half ago. I wonder how much improvement hotels as a whole have made on this front. I imagine it is significant or else I feel like we would be hearing more about it now. This really teaches you to keep a close eye on your accounts. I thought the Wyndham Hotels' spin about "sophisticated hackers" was kind of amusing. I assume someone forgot to "CYA" but they couldn't tell that to the people whose credit card information had been stolen.

I noticed the time frame as well. I would love to see a more recent article or study done. It is definetely a reminder to consumers that you cannot rely upon hotels or other industries to provide security. Consumers need to be more responsible for tracking their own actions. Hotels also need to recognize that this threat is not going to go away. They must continuously look for new attack angles. It seems to me that the very best amongst the hospitality industry are casinoes. Other hotels should use them as a model and avoid "sophisticated hackers."

This article discusses a new trend in hotels - women-only floors. Some hotels are starting to dedicate entire floors for women. I think this is an interesting concept. I would have thought this would only exist in places like hostels where there may be public bathrooms. However, this seems to be a growing trend in hotels that cater to business travelers. The floors are accessible only with the room cards and they are only given to women.  The article mentions a couple of times, that it makes women feel more secure but it didn't really explain why. One woman said she was new to the area and that's why it made he feel more secure. Seeing as how I am a man, I don't really see how being on a same sex floor of a hotel room could make you feel safer. Ladies could you help me out with this?

This article indicated the new technology and innovation of PMS which called intellectual property management system (IPMS). IPM helps organizations evaluated their patent portfolios. And organization have developed IPMS to cater these needs, and ensure availability of information and database for strategic decision-making. IPMS has five key area of responsibility are generation of IP, IP portfolio management, IP evaluation, competitive assessment and strategic decision-making. It also help asset management to analyse the data, maintain the inventory. This article also introduced the development of IPMS at IIT Bombay, and the whole process of this system and its development in India.

With Hotel Concepts' Integrated Distribution Property Management System, hoteliers can now tie together the Brilliant PMRO PMS and the 3CX telephony system. Unique features of the 3CX Hotel Module now integrated with IDPMS and PMPRO include:1. the ability to automatically reset the guest PBX upon check-in and checkout, adding or removing the guest's name on the voicemail system and deleting any leftover recordings; 2. the option to block external calls to and from particular guestrooms upon request; 3.the scheduling of automated wakeup calls; 4.Guests' names are displayed to receptionists when making in-house calls; 5.Call billing automatically integrated into guest folios; 6.The ability for housekeepers to deliver status updates and execute minibar charges through guestroom PBX phones. With these special hallmarks, 3CX hotel module specified PMS in room amenity aspect and provide a lot of convenience and considerate design for customers as well as improve standard service quality of a hotel. Meanwhile it also bring revenues and profits without large costs for hoteliers. This will be a trend for hospitality development and technology enhancement.

In the last 5 to 6 years, MGM Resorts Intl. has instituted a new cloud-based booking technology for its Las Vegas properties called GroupMAX. It was initially used as a way to work jointly with group planners for two of the Las Vegas properties but as a result of the technology's success, the software was implemented in other hotels in the Las Vegas area. All in all, this software enables hotels and planners to access all booking information of numerous hotels in a single location. The article states numerous benefits using the GroupMAX technology - which above all increase operating efficiency and profitability. I believe this technology is extremely beneficial to the corporation, especially because of the enormous amounts of group reservations they have annually among their various properties. Though it may be somewhat costly initially, the benefits far exceed any costs the company encounters.

This article explain the importance of have the evaluation team to value the property management system before purchase.  A good property management system could help the hoteliers operate their property efficiently and make better business decisions. However, some hoteliers don't ever see the demonstration of the product, or purchase just based on price.