Hospitality Technology

I would like to share an article I just read. It's related to the topic of Sustainability, which I am really interested in, and is very important

This article basically talks about how much technology has changed and what directors of softwares predict technology will be in the near future. The article informs how the Peachtree Plaza hotel like many other hotels replaced the keys to all the rooms with electronic key cards. Which increased security for the guest and cost saving. Hospitality consultants agreed that in the future mobile phones will be the way to open guest room doors and will probably occur through infrared or wirelesss access to rooms. Neil Roodyn the director of software developers informed that he predicts that in the future people will be sitting around touch sensitive table top computer in lobbies where they can searchfor places to go in the area and make their own restaurant reservations. Neil predicts this can also influence more communication and interaction between guest. My thoughts on this article is that the younger generation is far more technology oriented and feel more comfortable with working all these new gadgets, but for the baby boomers and older crowd have the want and need of having that human interaction. Technology seems a bit to advanced for them. The more technology advances the less human interaction will occur. I think that technology advancement is great for everyone, but human interaction needs to remain for those that are not very technology savy.

This is an informative article, and I also understand Mary's opinion. Over decades, technology has rapidly advanced and it seems to be quite hard to catch up with all the new technology released quickly. For example, I stayed in a hotel called Aria, one of the newly built hotels in Las Vegas, and the hotel is equipped with state-of-the-art room technology (not just room but all over the hotel). To get into a room, unlike other hotels, I just put a room key on a sensor instead of inserting a key; as well as, I just touched a button right next to the door for privacy instead of putting the "Do not Disturb" card on a door knob. This is not something really huge, however this is how hotels are technologically changing. As a person studying Hospitality Management, the change was very impressive, but at the same time, it was intimidating. Obviously, our parents generation should have harder time to use new technology and/or to get used it than I do. I totally agree that there should be a balance between technology advancement and human interation.

I agree with Mary regarding baby boomers may not be as quick to adapt to the advancement of technology, however what is noticeable in resort hotels is that more people are taking family vacation and the kids are the ones driving the technology. It will therefore just be a matter of time where the use of technology within hotels will be just like a regular lifestyle activity.

This article talks about the changes happening in the restaurant and retail industry regarding POS systems. Since the appearance of the cheap tablet business owners have been asking why do we have to spend $600 on a POS station if a simple tablet cost $100 and has the same computing power. Imagine a restaurant where you come in sit down and order your food and drinks on a tablet that is on the table, a food runner brings you your order, and whenever you are ready you can swipe your credit card on the tablet and get a receipt send to your email. This reduces payroll for the business owner, and also makes the industry a less capital intensive one. All that is left is for a company to write the programs, sell the tablets, and give the same kind of support you would get with any other system.  

So Best Buy is becoming more environmentally friendly by turning it's home energy section into an interactive layout, designed to get people talking about saving the earth. "Home Energy control panels are connected to refrigerators, lamps, lights, heating and cooling systems, showing shoppers how the digital energy home could be connected. An interactive booth where customers can turn lights on and off and an employee can talk to potential customers enabled shoppers to learn about the benefits and price points of LEDs vs CFLs. For many Best Buy shoppers, it could be the first time they've even thought about using these types of efficiency tools to cut home energy usage." What we have, in this store that focuses mainly on video games, DVDs, and flatscreens, is an initiative centered on all of us who need to be educated on the reality that the earth is losing it's natural resources because of our selfish overspending and lack of care. Hopefully they will be able to expand to all of their stores and not just the few they are doing this test run in.

This article talks about 7 tech issues to keep your GM up at night which are convergence, reputation management and review tracking, bandwidth, PCI compliance, in-room technology, technology and ADA, in-room television. In my opinion, as a hotelier, he or she should stand both on manager and guest position to consider operate a hotel. From a manager view, they are trying to make maximum profit with minimum cost. The profit comes from comfortable environment, convenient electronic devices, considerate human interaction. Those 7 tech issue provide a detailed list about how to improve hardware in hotel to reach a cozy and speedy living environment goal. From a guest view, they are trying to gain more delight experience with less expenditure. The devices that hotel provided and service that they rendered lead guests into a homelike place. So those 7 tech issues are beneficial for both two sides.

A relatively unsophisticated group of hackers stole millions from Subway by hacking through their poorly secured POS systems. These franchise businesses possibly failed to adhere to the standard required by Subway Corporation and failed to establish two points of entry for remote access into the POS system, making it easy for hackers to steal credit card information. These types of crimes are likely to increase in the future as hackers from around the world take advantage of sub-par security systems. Businesses can no longer concern themselves only with the sale of an item, they also need to offer a sense of security to their customers and accept the reality that cyber theft is a rising problem.

It seems everybody should check their online accounts frequently=_=

Jeremy, I can appreciate the transparency of those restaurants. I wish more businesses would be open about their security. People are wound pretty tight about money right now and need to feel that the business world does care enough to protect their information.

This article provides a brief overview of the emerging trends for hotel management information systems. The trends focus on easy mobile access, unattended point of sale, radio frequency identification and near field communications. An increasing number of hotel are using the the cloud for on the go mobile connectivity to their POS systems and revenue management software SaaS. You can manage your hotel from anywhere and be up to date instantly. This trend and the next eliminates the need for desk or office time. Lilipad has created an I-product that allows guests to perform their own transactions at I-Pad kiosk which eliminates time at the front desk. The other large emerging trend is tracking devices that can be implanted in phones or even loyalty cards that link to bank and credit card accounts replacing the traditional wallet. While other articles say there is no rush to cellphones replacing wallets just yet, hotels like Aloft are using RFID's in there loyalty cards eliminating the issue of room keys. Notice in all these trends that the face to face contact with guests that we hospitality students enjoy and train for is decreasing with every new technology.

Hotels.com recently conducted a hotel amenities survey where they asked potential travelers insight as to what amenities mean the most to them when booking a hotel room. An overwhelming response for free wi-fi in their hotel rooms indicated how important this perk is to travelers. "35 percent reported it is the simple amenity they want to see more in hotels, with 31 percent wishing it would become a standard in all hotels in 2012." Other interesting aspects of the article were that guests also stated their favorite modern in-room amenity was the use of iPads for guest services, local information and personal use. There is a bit of irony in the fact that widespread use of these devices in hotels amongst business travelers may contribute to poor free and paid wi-fi networks. What would be interesting to me is what quality of wi-fi do these respondents expect for free wi-fi services, as as we discussed in another article the quality of these wi-fi networks even at a paid level are not performing to the standard of the average business traveler. Often times in a scenario where something is free, you can expect to get what you pay for.

This article is about a customized service provided by Google to hotels in Las Vegas. first they rolled out the Google Maps function to provide indoor floor plans for assorted airports and shopping centers. Then they customized Maps to display the convention center lay-out for CES '12 so attendees can more easily locate booths. This service makes travelling a more convenient and enjoyable experience for customers and business people.

Two Companies have come together to provide services to hotels at a cost efficient price that can provide features, control, and reporting capabilities of an expensive system. Frontdesk Anywhere Inc. will provide their software capabilities with RingCentral's telephone services. Frontdesk Anywhere Inc. provides web- based hotel management software that enables hotels and hotel groups better manage sales and guest interaction processes. RingCentral is a business phone system provider that offers cloud- based systems that can be accessed from anywhere via softphone desktop software, allowing access to any room from anywhere and in particularly their front desk. These two companies combined services will allow hotels to focus on their guests rather than their IT needs. I think this is a great investment for hotels. Most people spend a lot of time trying to figure their systems out rather than putting their extra effort into their guests. I believe that having the ability to access these services from anywhere also offers them a great advantage. And, most importantly it comes at a low monthly rate.

This article is about why hotels should use atleast two internest browsers. Simple yet very informative article about how two browsers can not only ease operations but also prevent problems that sometimes occur in browsers. The article is filled with lot of day to-day problems of browers which can be so easily be prevented. Having a hospitality business with so much online activity in todays world , this article shows how simple it is to manage online activities. A must read.

Most of the time, two browsers work perfectly fine on the laptop. I think it's necessary to install to browsers just in case one of them doesn't work fine sometimes. However, the two browsers on my laptop would conflict with each other. There was a period that I could not open them at the same time otherwise my laptop will completely shut down. For the hospitality industry, installing two browsers may benefit the guests. It saves guests time and money when they use the computer devices with two browsers because it provide them two ways to browse the internet.

I totally understand that there are lots of benefits to have at least two browsers. Actually I used to have more than two. And I was happy at that time that I have more than one browser because my Internet Explorer was infected by a virus and my computer would shut down by itself with no reason each time I opened the explorer. I didn't have time to fix my computer and remove the virus because I was preparing a final paper and I had to turn it in next day. So I just easily searched for information through other website browsers. For a hotel, that would be more important to keep the daily operation smooth with more than one browser in case that one of them was not working.

For the hotel industry, Revenue Management is able to steer the overall revenue activity reporting efficiently on For the hotel industry, Revenue Management is able to steer the overall revenue activity reporting efficiently on all segments and channels at the hotel level. Complicated pricing situations within each market and the variations from day to day have made Revenue Management rely heavily on the assistance from systems to price correctly. I can see this every single day as I work for the Sales department of a hotel in South Beach and our prices have been fluctuating tremendously in the past few months. This article covers: - The evolution of analytics for hotels - Expertise in the industry - How hotels deal with the uncertainty - How crucial these IT systems are going to be in 2012

This is an interesting article about Google, who is quickly becoming a big name player in just about every business segment out there. The article addresses Googles new search tool called Hotel Finder, which is still in testing phases. This tool is designed to make it easier for users to find, compare, and book hotels, by drawing on a map around an area they want to stay in a certain location or city and it lists the hotels in the search area, with prices, availability, star rating's and reviews. In addition it lets you filter the results by price, price compared to usual, Hotel class, and user reviews, and allows the user to book directly through the hotel or through an intermediary site with a click of a button. This article also talks about a possible downside to Googles new service in the online travel agency segment. The article explains how some are concerned, because Google is placing comparison ads in premium space on top of the Google search results for hotels, which when clicked by a user takes the them to the full Google site and pushes OTA sites like Expedia, Hotels.com, and Orbitz and hotel websites farther down the search results list, which is making them pay more for premium Comparison Ads. Also the OTA's are concerned about how the Price Per Click may go up, making the OTA's pay more to Google. I went on and played around with Hotel Finder, and I have to say it is very easy to use, and allows you to really customize your experience and pick exactly where you want to stay. http://www.google.com/hotelfinder/#search;l=miami+florida;d=2012-01-22;n=1;v=l;r=0;s=m;fv=

I love the part of the Google Hotel Finder about the comparison ads that help me know how much I would pay if I book the same hotel from other websites by only visiting one Google Hotel Finder website. I hate to search the same hotel on different websites to choose the best price. It costs me much time to make a plan of travel. The page of Hotel Finder is clear and easy to understand how to use it. All results of hotels would be sorted by price and I could get best price fast. Yesterday was my first time to use Hotel Finder and I used it just like I already knew how to use. I don't need to spend much time to study the search website and the page has several recommended words to help me get what I want.

This article shows how hotels are using technology to improve their loss prevention and security systems. Hotels, like the ARIA in Las Vegas, are implementing radio frequency identification systems (RFID) to efficiently track their employees' uniforms. This specific hotel has the advantage that it is a new hotel and therefore can start with a blank slate, versus other hotels that will implement it as their budget allows. The RFID chips are sewn into the uniforms and then entered into the inventory system. This allows the hotel to monitor where and in whose hands the uniforms are. Other hotels, like the Arnold Palmer in Orlando, are using RFID for security. The RFID locking technology audits locks and tell the hotel when and who entered a room. In addition, sophisticated cameras with intelligent software are being used throughout different points of hotels' perimeters to safeguard guests. These sophisticated technological breakthroughs are only efficient if organized data management and communication processes are put in place. I think that the use of technology to better monitor theft and security is a great area for hotels to invest their money on. The use of cameras to detect alarming fast speeds of boats near hotels with ocean perimeters is not something that guests look for when deciding on hotels, but it is an added feature that adds value to the hotel in the long-run and one that can save lives.

This article is about the wider range use of Wi-Fi in hotels and how hotels could capitalize from it. It is reported that, in the United States, with the cellular-service providers reducing the use of unlimited data plans, the heavy data users will be more reliable to Wi-Fi connection. Whether the hotel has a wireless network will be an important aspect for the guests making the decision to choose this hotel, which means wireless service will have effect on the amount of hotel's guests, especially when people will be charged for data usage under an unlimited data plan. So, some research shows that 65% hotels offer their guests free wireless. With the guests' increasing demand for wireless service and the increasing demand for more bandwidth, hoteliers should take this as an opportunity to generate revenue. Shawn Tsetsilas, director of business development for Cellular Specialties, provided four suggestions for hotels to capitalize. Firstly, he suggested charging guests for Wi-Fi with little fees, like $1 to $5, which can be used to recoup the costs of installing the operating the wireless connection. Secondly, he suggested controlling the guests' interface for the hotels' wireless access, and better way to control is the hotel have its own Wi-Fi system instead of leasing the hardware from a provider. Thirdly, he suggested that the cellular providers pay hotels to direct users from the cellular network to the Wi-Fi network to reduce the traffic from their network. Finally is, capping the amount of bandwidth each guest can consume and then capture revenue for the additional services. Hotels should take Wi-Fi as a sales model for services, and capitalize from this service, otherwise, they will lose revenue and competitiveness.

Agilysys, Inc. (Nasdaq: AGYS), a leading provider of innovative information technology and hospitality software solutions, announced that The Hotel Modern New Orleans has selected the Agilysys Guest 360(TM) property management system (PMS) and the Agilysys InfoGenesis(TM) POS solution to streamline operations and deliver personalized guest service. The 135-room property, which is owned and managed by August Group NYC, opened Dec. 16. The Agilysys InfoGenesis POS system is an award-winning point-of-sale software solution that combines powerful reporting and configuration capabilities in the back office with an easy-to-use touch-screen terminal application. Designed for multi-unit operations common in hospitality environments, the system can manage any combination of dining, bar service and retail operations. Features include real-time reporting capabilities, packages and prix fixe menus, signature capture, multi-language capability and advanced sorting, filtering and grouping options.

Labor costs are likely one of the largest expenses for almost all business. Although each business have different situation, reducing labor expenses is one of the fastest ways to realize more profit. After reading this article, I realize hospitality industry have some difficulties to control labor cost, such as peak hours, high season, part-time workers and a variety of job positions to schedule and multiple shifts to cover. So I think great labor schedule software could make creating work schedules and controlling labor budgets more efficient. Great labor schedule software should have below features, 1. Easily. This software could easily create rolling schedule for unlimited number of workers, define schedule and operational constraints. Easily publish schedules, calendars and any reports to staffs and managers. Manage labor costs and avoid over/under staffing with ease. 2. Flexible. Adjusting individual shift assignment start time, end time and payable hours when necessary. Quickly and efficiently find a substitute worker to fill a cancellation. 3. Comprehensive. Tracking all training, vacation, sick leave, and other off-work requests. Could visually assign tasks of any length from 1 minute to several hours. 4. Analytic. Numerous available reports can provide different kinds of detailed and summary information, such as labor cost data, payroll, employee position and etc. In a word, an efficient labor scheduling software will alert staffs when to work, and will reduce the amount of time that managers spend performing scheduling.

These five requirements are basic for staff tech training. I think the last one is more important than other four. Trainers must have experience in hospitality industry before, then they can understand what tech knowledge they can teach and train others.

In the staff tech training, the trainer plays a very important role. I think the basic factor is the trainer should have rich knowledge about the new technology and the working experience in the hotel. The most important factor in my mind is trainer should know how to adapt the technology to the hotel. The new technology can't be used by every hotel, so the trainer should know which technology can bring more benefit to the hotel.

Agreed, the training typically is better for the users if they have a trainer that can relate to their specific needs. I also think #3 is of great importance as workers often times get so used to working with a previous system, they are opposed to a new one simply because of how unaware they maybe of how the new system will increase productivity and make their workday easier.

Reservation Nexus is a reservation system for bed and breakfasts and inns. It has quickly become the system to beat in the hotel software arena with a fresh approach to online reservations, guest management and automated marketing, bed and breakfasts, inns, hotels and lodges will have many advantages such as increasing reservation, more time, freedom and profit. It helps hotels to offer customers a better service when feedback, such like sending a blessing email for customer's birthday, a thank letter after customer check out, and offering the travel map before customer come to hotel. All of these are automatic. In other words, this is Automated Marketing, which revolves around capturing and utilizing guest information. Reservation nexus holds a spirit of Red Carpet Service, a popular service spirit in US, they treat hotel just like hotel treat customers, kindly, patient, and professional. Besides, it can save money for hotels, it updates itself instead paying to update. It is providing on-line non-downloadable software to store, manage, track, analyze, and report reservation data. By some settings, Reservation Nexus can eliminate time consuming tasks for hotels to manage business and customers. Making it easy for guests to book online means more reservations, Reservation nexus did this.