Hospitality Technology

This article introduces brief suggestions about how to select a hospitality call accounting system. And the best way is to have a checklist identifying requirements in descending order from mandatory through to "nice to have." Such as, (1). A call accounting software package must be proven and specific to the hospitality industry. (2). Because of the VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) PBX (private branch exchange) has now superseded the TDM (time-division-multiplexing) PBX, so the solution needs to be compatible with hotels' existing PBX and whatever comes along in the future. (3). Hotels should choose different call accounting systems based on Single-site or multi-site businesses they have. (4). And the hospitality call accounting systems should integrate seamlessly with all major accounting software packages. (5). Software updates should be provided regularly (6). Competent 24x7 support is essential to assure hotels cost recovery and protect against revenue loss. (7). Software is easy to use and clearly but succinctly documented due to the high turnover of staff in hotels. And a web interface is a nice to have, but not an essential feature. Of course the best choice can vary because of different operation in hotels.

For hotel managers, there are dozens of hospitality call accounting options to choose from and depending on the nature of a particular operation the best solution will vary. This article offers a checklist for selecting a hospitality call accounting system.

This article was particularly intersting to me because it highlights the active "green movement" in the industry, but it also points out that many hotels that claim to be "going green" are actually employing practices that are anything but sustainable. The "green" notice you see when you enter the property, is nothing more than a marketing ploy in case they may encounter a customer who actually values sustainability. As much as eco-friendly organizations may inspect, certify, and supervise the industry, it is still very easy for companies to take the cheaper, more traditional road of ignoring the very principles of sustainability they claim to operate by. As much as we may try to regulate this movement, our efforts are never enough. Becoming environmentally sustainable has had a global impact already, but the level of awareness is not high enough to reach a globally effective level yet. Sustainability is our obligation to the earth that lets us live rent free. It is our responsibility and we must all take the initiative to ensure our global destinations are still around for future generations to enjoy. The problem, as this article points out, is that you can still polute and waste energy and hide behind the sign on your property that says you are eco-friendly just in case you come across that customer out there who actually values sustainability. It is sad that with all the sustainable technology available today, we still don't appreciate its importance. We have the technology to manage HVAC systems, waste processing, and renewable energy to name a few, but it is cheaper and more convenient to employ the traditional methods that are not sustainable. Many travel industry organizations have figured out that all they have to do is post signs saying they have sustainable technology and what it does without actually having to practice what they preach. I believe government agencies need to move in the general direction of coercing sustainable practices under s

Highlights: Several of the recycling initiatives are housed in the delivery area, where you can see the following not-so-glamorous but significant processes: -The collection of aluminum, plastic and glass for recycling. -Baling cardboard so it can be hauled and sold. -The collection of office paper to be sold for newspaper manufacturing. -The containment of waste cooking oil to be sold to make biodiesel fuel. My Descriptions: The author had a back-of-the-house tour of this hotel in the 140 acres of Palm Beach island, and she regard it eco-tourism. She found this hotel separate different trash in different box, and then sell this recycling materials to local supplies. One special thing in this hotel is that Native drought-tolerant vegetation has replaced more exotic flora. This hotel also has an organic and vegetable garden providing its restaurant with fresh organic produce.The reverse-osmosis plant and 1,100-foot-deep well treats unusable salt water to be used for irrigation of The Ocean Golf Course. It is really a concrete example of a hotel present its green initiatives. This idea can be widely used in hotel landscaping and purchasing.

This article is a must read for any company looking at a new software implementation. At my last job I was part of the implementation team and we had to set up, test, and install our new software system. We had an implementation team in place but we didn't have a great plan in place before we started and it showed. We were all rarely on the same page and we each had our task list and did it without really communicating with one another. I ended up leaving the company before we were done but I know the actual "go live" date ended up being about four months later than the original target date.  If we had had more of a plan in place at the start I'm sure the implementation would have gone more smoothly. From personal experience, I can attest to the validity of this article. Researching and mapping out a plan is as important as researching and choosing the best software for your company.  

All about  Mobile Wireless Cell Phone Recycling This articles states how  people know everything about using their cell phone, such as taking picture, recording and dialing but when it  comes time to dispose of the cell phone they are clueless of what to do . Knowing how to dispose of one's cellphone is very important  for our health because improper disposal of one's cell phone  can lead to the intoxication of the ecosystems due to all the  toxins that our cell phones contains such as lead, mercury, arsenic, cadmium, beryllium,  antimony and nickel. Taking in consideration that most used cell phones can be refurbished, it is important that we use proper disposal process so the cell phones can  be fixed to be given at a better price in third world countries or even if they cannot be fixed, manufacturers can  use the materials that are still good  to make a new cell phone instead of working with raw material to make new cell phones. If  one doesn't know how to dispose of their cell phones properly  they can always give the  to a " Recycling for charity" because these programs  dispose properly of used cell phone and therefore reduce  the toxicity of our landfill.

It is true that most used cell phone can be refurbished for future use. We should aim to go green and make most cell phones restored to full function faster and economically.

This article talks about the growth and development of mobile technology has had positive effects on society. There are many advantages that are experienced from the implementation and use of mobile technology. It is obvious that mobile devices are intended to play and gradually more important role in the distribution and sale of travel services in years ahead. Hotel companies should capitalize on this technology and make the process of booking travel using smartphone. It will be a more intuitive process for guests. Mobile technology enables you to get real time hotel information and enable you to make speedy and informed decisions. With a big number of people using mobile technology growing each day, businesses are adopting the use of commerce to reach a larger pool of possible clients. By doing so, hotel businesses are able to increase their revenues and client base.

I agree with you, eventually more hotels will start using smartphones which will also give a more personalized service to consumers. For example if a guest has a request he can just send a text to a concierge or someone at the front desk who will meet and exceed his expectations.

The article is talking about the yield management system for hotel. It first introduced the importance of the yield management in hotel, and by using the proper yield management hotels can maximize their profit. Then the article showed us how a yield management works for a hotel and the regular pattern of the peak days in a week. The author wrote all of these just want to show us what the YM system can do better for the hotel, but I will take it to reconsideration. This system must be based on the data source to do the yield management, however, besides the price, the outside events or economic changes will have a very strong influence on the hotel occupancy. So this system is helpful for the hotels, but the hoteliers should not rely on it.

Yield management is the way of influencing consumer and getting more profit by manipulating the prices according to what season, month or weekday. The price of the room and the value of night is zero if this date passes. The owner must be very careful when changes the prices when its time to populate empty rooms, rates cannot be dropped dramatically. Customer can learn it and will always book at the very last day when the prices are the lowest but if your hotel focus on business travel weekdays make more revenue, if its more a leisure travel hotel holidays and weekends should bring more profit. The prices can be higher in peak season and holidays. The software for yield management might be afforded in order to get best results in price management, bookkeeping, human resources, customer service and what not. If you don't have enough resources you should subscribe this software and not risk with creating your own software for same purposes.

This article introduces the role of IT in tourism industry and then talks about how IT investments might pay in tourism industry. There are some roles of IT in tourism industry such as reduce costs of information handling, increase speed of information transfer and retrieval and increase customer involvement in the control of transactions. And the most important role is the development of competitive advantages by both reducing cost and enhancing differentiation. It's important to invest in IT since IT could really increasing the tourism economic growth. 

SalonPOS is setting the trend in utilizing the point of sale specially created for Ipad. This is following on apple's POS system created for Old Navy last year. SalonPos thought it beneficial to focus on a system for spas as most of the focus is usually on restaurants and perhaps other retail business forgetting that spas and wellness centres are becoming a large revenue generator and growing rapidly. SalonPro system for Ipad is entering the market at a very reasonable cost. The entire system including Ipad retails for under US$2,000.00. The system provides flexible access for manager to monitor business remotely. This POS system does not have much more capabilities than the traditional POS system except that 3G and Wi-Fi are included. A very good feature of the system is also that the Ipad includes close circuit camera that will allow managers to keep tract of activities even remotely. This will also be introduced to the Iphone later this year. SalonPro back up can be done on property as well as through iCloud with full access to apple updates. Though Salon Pro is not offering much more in terms of software capabilities to the spa system, it will be a good move to introduce this into the operations. Mobile check out where a guest does not have to go to a reception desk to sign out is also great. This will also give the spa an image of technological competence.

The iPad POS is a great innovation for the salon. I believe that it can be used very successfully for many businesses that rely on personal interaction; the best example would be hotels. An iPad check-in system would be a great integration that eliminates paperwork, cables, keyboards, mouse, etc. Since the iPad and Mac sofware are very user-friendly to operate, trainings costs could also be easily reduced.

due to people are able to buy more computer or devices the consumption or energy has increased dramatically affecting the global warming and companies are implementing new technology or methods to minimize the negative impact in our habitat.

Seems like going green is on its way to becom a trend. Business going green not only for protecting our environment and limited resource, but also one of the ways of competing with competitors.

I love this article and I am so glad to be told that something is changing to being green in high-tech sector. Going green is always a serious issue and all industries should pay attention to it. I am happy to see that computer industry realize that they need to focus on green things and they are really doing something to be green.

The federal government has recently promoted a new plan that will combine smartphone applications and energy companies to help consumers monitor and manage their utility bills. The Green Button initiative was first welcomed at the Silicon Valley event by California's biggest utilities companies. The government is now hoping that the rest of the country will be able to jump on the bandwagon. The initiative is led by Aneesh Chopra, the chief technology officer, who hopes that private sector utility companies will create a standard format across the board so that a wide range of consumers could potentially benefit. Consumers will have virtual access through applications to their energy consumption. Ideally, the plan is supposed create energy saving efforts for consumers who will have greater access to managing their bills and levels of consumption. There already are major energy companies, like Opower and Tendril, which are producing Green Button compatible applications. It shows how energy companies are treading the online and smartphone waters. This initiative will also require consumers to put their part in adopting smart meters and smart phone applications. I think this a great move by the government in a time where both energy consumption and costs are increasing. As a future homeowner, I would be more than willing to contribute to participating in this type of plan. People today are interested in having their life bundled up and having access to it through their online services, this effort was definitely inevitable.

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. 

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 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.

In the highly competitive hospitality industry, it is the intangibles that encourage guests to spend more, provide positive feedback and return to the property in the future. The most powerful of these intangibles is service. No amount of hiring, training or incentives can ensure top-notch service if employees don't have appropriate systems providing information at their fingertips. In addition, as properties incorporate more services and amenities, the need to integrate these functions becomes increasingly challenging - and important. Here more and more hotels use the PMS, Property Management System. As we know, the PMS also has the function that developed to administer a seamless process in the management of a hotel's room inventory and audit, customer relations, as well as invoicing and billing, the Amadeus PMS features inter-hotel communication capability for hotel chains and an email confirmation facility. We compare PMS to the other system webrezpro. We find that the PMS is more and more comprehensive now. The functions of PMS are useful and improve day by day. Another important thing is that PMS links to GDS technology, which means PMS should collect the data more and more effective and quick. From the GDS system, the materials that GDS provides are in details which are very useful for PMS to deal with and save the time for hotel. From the view of manager, it means more gross profit for hotel.

This article talks about Hotel H2O and Amadeus, they have come together in order to operate the Amadeus Property Management System. This system was developed to manage the inventory of room and audit of a hotel, as well as customer relations, invoicing and billing. The General Manager of the Hotel H2O mentions "We have conducted an extensive survey of the various hotel property management systems available in the market and have come to the conclusion that the Amadeus Property Management System (PMS) best meets Hotel H2O's requirements. With the growing sophistication and demands of hotel guests, the Amadeus PMS will enable us to properly cater to our guests' needs and provide them with the unique experience that only Hotel H2O can offer". Amadeus is the system that global travel and tourism industry chose to partner transactions processor. The company delivers distribution and technology solutions to assist its customers in the fast changing industry.

Running a hotel in the cloud is a very new technology and most of the hotels are still in the trying process. There are pros and cons of running a hotel in the cloud, the atticle has solved most of our concerns about the problems that be occured when running a hotel in the cloud. However the temptation of the cost will be the most competive advantages of the cloud based PMS system.

The article clearly cleared up some of the myths in terms of internet connectivity which is a major concern. It is clear that if cloud computing is used as the option then internet redundancy should be utilized as well. It was interesting to note that a major corporation like Hyatt as moved its micros Pos and accounting systems to cloud. This will certainly encourage other hotels to get on board. On the matter of security especially for credit cards, it is good to know that PCI compliance is a must when utilizing cloud computing. Great article.

Nowadays, there are many concerns for hoteliers to adopt the cloud computing PMS system. People are reluctant to use the new technology because of the issues of control, security and connectivity. Hyatt and some benchmark hotels put most of their systems into cloud. Actually, when using the cloud PMS, data is not in the property which decrease the risk of operator. Also, as backups, network disconnection is rarely found. There are many benefits of the cloud, such as low cost, easy to upgrade software. Besides, it also has financial benefits. Many servers replaced the cloud PMS saw ROI within a year.

I have found this creative system which is "innovation software" hotel PMS. Like the cloud-based PMS system, it is low cost and saves money. And it is also flexiable and simple to use. Which is more special it's that it has online training via its elearning portal which save time and money that all staff are fully competent in using the system. The most important reason for this system is that the SaaS is not like the others that the data is hosted locally at the hotel so if the internet is disconnected, the PMS system doesn't. This advantage is more pirior than the others because most of the cons for the other system will face this internet problem. And also, this system doesn't lock the company into a long-term contract which means it is possible to change or stop the contract if the hotels not satisfied with it. I think it is a good choice for the small hotels to choose. What's more, this system releases software to all clients every quarter, at the meanwhile, it would deeply value the clients feedback and use it. In its website, the client has the right to calculate the savings for detailed requirements. For instance you can enter the no. of the bedrooms and the average room rate, then the % commission charged on web bookings and so on. After you follow the fomula that it presented, it will calculate for you. It also has a online demo for free as long as you quickly sign up. And the clients are available to see clearly about all the services listed on the website. One of the service I want to mention is the ePOS integration which this software completely re-developed the way POS & PMS communicate with each other and eradicated the dreaded "Micro interface" standard. It's just like a wonderful package to deal with all the complex situations.

Unlike traditional collaborative software ventures which emphasize open communication across an entire organization, innovation management software is more selective in how different members of the company interact. It is ranked by reputation which reflect more accurate information.

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.