Category Archives: Technology

by | September 25, 2014 · 8:45 am

Hospitality Industry Technology Update: “Why the Hotel Industry Needs Google, Amazon or Priceline to Clean Up the Mess It Has Created”

 It is time to understand that spectacular innovation will disrupt our industry, and embracing this will help to make this transition go smooth.google-76522_640 Creating a level playing field will cause players in this industry to seize their business. Travelocity seems to be closing down in the next year, and my prediction is that we will see a rise of new players in technology, that can finally interact with us, and cause traditional PMSs, to go under, and with that all kinds of legacy companies that made their business out of the mess we created.

Have you ever wondered why you automatically get the newest version of Facebook on your phone, have made Google a synonym for search, Booking.com has just signed up its 500.000th accommodation and hotels are stuck with legacy systems for decades already, and new initiatives seem to never really take off or struggle to get traction at least? Surely these new systems seem to provide a modern solution to topics we are struggling with (online travel agencies, technology, demand management and pricing)? I started to work in the hospitality technology industry in 1999, to start up SynXis in Europe. We had a revolutionary product, ‘cloud based’, that would connect the PMS to the land of distribution, be a central reservation system for a hotel call-center and would make your scanned brochure (website) come alive with a booking engine that connected directly to the system. In 1999 Google was just starting up, hotels still received the majority of their reservations through their callcenter/reservations department and Booking.com was still Bookings.nl and just signed up their first hotel in Amsterdam.

For more: http://bit.ly/1uJF5ii

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by | September 23, 2014 · 8:56 am

Hospitality Industry Technology Update: “Starwood’s Digital Initiatives Connect with Guests”

“Mobile increasingly will be at the heart of consumer-branded interaction and offers a plethora of opportunities for customization, communication, promotion, and loyalty.”…digital initiativesThe new reality is that tablets, iPads, smartphones, and wearable tech empower guests to travel and do business the way they want to do business. And if hotels aren’t on these devices, there’s a good chance guests won’t be doing business with them.

If you’re looking to get your guests’ attention, smartphones can be a good place to start. More than ever, guests are turning to mobile devices like these to research travel, book rooms, and interact with brands. From receiving instant directions to the hotel when the plane lands to requesting a bike to tool around town, tech-savvy guests can now cover their needs and desires with a finger tap or even a voice command. To catch the attention of the modern guests, however, hotels need to develop the right backlit content to run on these mobile devices.

No hotel company understands better than Starwood Hotels and Resorts. “People check their mobile devices every six minutes,” says Starwood President and CEO Frits van Paasschen. “We can say ‘welcome’ when a guest gets off the plane in New York, Dubai, or Shanghai. ‘It will take you 45 minutes to get to the hotel. Can we have your favorite drink ready?’ That ongoing dialogue didn’t exist before mobile technology. Ultimately, being able to have direct conversations with their favorite brands is what people are expecting.”

For more: http://bit.ly/1rlLgKw

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by | September 22, 2014 · 9:16 am

Hospitality Industry Security Update: “Those ‘Secure’ Websites Aren’t Always Secure, Study Finds”

“InterContinental Hotels Group, for example, last year used Ghostery to discover the source of unauthorized digital vendors that were collecting data on some of the hotel company’s web pages,laptop which were slowing down the sites’ response times…’Every millisecond of page latency costs thousands of dollars in lost sales,’  said InterContinental Hotels Group Director of Web Delivery Chad Westfall.”

As brands invest in marketing technologies that make it easier to engage with consumers online, their concerns about digital security are growing.

Companies have encrypted web pages that are designed to prevent third parties from accessing customer data entered online. But many of these sites still have marketing technology that isn’t secure and that could expose a brand to potential data breaches, according to new research from privacy tech firm Ghostery.

Ghostery examined 50 encrypted websites in the airline, financial services, insurance, news and retail industries using data collected from its panel of 20 million consumers. According to Ghostery, 96% of the web pages studied that were supposed to be secure had a security blind spot due to the presence of non-secure code.

For more: http://on.wsj.com/1mCbsAJ

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Filed under Crime, Hotel Industry, Management And Ownership, Risk Management, Technology, Theft

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by | September 18, 2014 · 8:13 am

Hospitality Industry Update: “2014 Trends in Hospitality” (Infographic)

To view at full size, click on the image below!
 
top-5-trends-in-hospitality-for-2014-infographic

For more: http://bit.ly/1udIk11

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by | September 11, 2014 · 10:16 am

Hospitality Industry Technology Update: “The Apple Watch Will Help You Unlock Hotel Rooms Without a Key. But is That a Good Idea?”

“But moving systems to a smartphone or other mobile device that has built-in computing power that could be used to run algorithms to break that security could ‘open up a big can of worms,’ Apple Watchhe said. Although he assumes Hilton and other companies considering this move have taken ‘great care’ to reduce risk, he still worries that the additional attack surface and communication abilities of mobile devices might make them more difficult to secure.”

At least one app for the Apple Watch will allow the wearer to unlock a hotel room with the wave of a wrist. But using mobile devices to provide keyless entry to hotel rooms isn’t a novel concept — and could come with added security risks.

Hotels have been experimenting with mobile apps to unlock hotel rooms for some time. The Starwood Hotel group, which is reportedly working on an Apple Watch app, had been testing a similar feature for smartphone users at least since earlier this year. And in July, Hilton Hotels announced guests would be able to use digital check-in and room selection at more than 4,000 properties around the world by the end of this year.

For more: http://wapo.st/1lYgLda

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by | September 8, 2014 · 9:01 am

Hospitality Industry Management Update: “Hotel Loyalty Programs: No Longer Just About Building up Points, Status”

“Turning casual visitors into active loyalists may be easier said than done, as travelers expect services traditionally considered perks to now be a standard part of the hotel experience.Loyalty Program For example, the study revealed that for frequent traveling millennials, free WiFi ranked with cleanliness and comfort as a top three hotel attribute—not a perk, but as an expected basic.”

Two-thirds (66 percent) of millennial high-frequency travelers rate “unique rewards” as an important factor when choosing a hotel loyalty program, compared with just 43 percent of their older counterparts, according to a new Deloitte study, Winning the Race for Guest Loyalty.

“Our study indicates that customers will wait and see which program will provide them with the greatest rewards before they start to behave loyally, but they will not wait for too long,” said Guy Langford, vice chairman, Deloitte LLP and U.S. Travel, Hospitality and Leisure practice leader. “The race is on for brands to provide swift gratification, particularly for the savvy millennial travelers, who are quick to share their positive experiences or broadcast their discontent over their social networks, and who are acutely aware of the rewards that come to loyal customers. As such, the brand that locks in the customer’s loyalty first and wins that race is the brand that wins that customer, and potentially their loyalty, for life.”

For more: http://bit.ly/1qwWBY5

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by | September 2, 2014 · 9:51 am

Hospitality Industry Legal Update: “Kari’s Law Pushed After Murder, Failed 911 Call”

“Kari’s Law has received support from nearly 500,000 online signatures and would require that all who dial the three digits 911 would be connected to an emergency dispatcher regardless of the multi-line telephone system (MTLS).hotel-phone Right now, dialing 911 at an office building, school, or hotel MLTS may or may not get the caller they help they are seeking. As Hunt travels the country to speak about Kari’s Law, he takes notice in each hotel room where he stays.”

One of the most well-known and obvious lessons taught to children and remembered through adulthood makes Hank Hunt feel angry, yet guilty.

“We all teach our children to dial 911,” said Hunt about the three digits ingrained in everyone’s head in case of an emergency. But it took tragedy for Hunt to realize those three digits do not always work.

In December of 2013, Hunt’s daughter Kari Dunn was stabbed to death inside a Marshall, Texas hotel room. Her estranged husband is now charged with her murder. Dunn’s 9-year-old daughter was inside the hotel room and dialed 911 four times.

Each time, the call failed.

For more: http://bit.ly/1plHxXt

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by | August 27, 2014 · 9:30 am

Hospitality Industry Technology Update: “The Hotel Booking App That Will Change Everything!”

“Also, unlike most apps, Roomlia has no ties to a user’s credit card information. It passes the credit card data on to the hotel securely,Roomlia which means that the user can handle booking changes directly with his or her hotel of choice, making it much easier on the traveler and the hotel.”

I am an avid hotel-booking-app user. I regularly toggle between Hotel Tonight, Expedia, Travelocity, and Orbitz to hunt for rooms and deals when I travel. Sometimes I use them even when I don’t have travel plans as a way to decide where I want to go. I’m cheap!

I like to search Gogobot to browse by destination. I think Hipmunk offers a stellar user experience. I am not altogether unhappy with the app landscape right now, so I’m not necessarily in the market for a new hotel booking app, but I am always willing to try something new.

For more: http://yhoo.it/1qKUGuJ

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by | August 25, 2014 · 8:47 am

Hospitality Industry Technology Update: “Savioke’s First Robot Begins its Career as a Hotel Bellhop”

“It rolls down the hallway from the lobby, communicates with the elevator wirelessly to know when it can board and then travels the final leg to the guest’s room.robot Botlr calls guests via their room phone to let them know it has arrived. The touchscreen guides the guest through retrieving their item and then asks for a rating out of five stars. If the feedback is good, it does a little dance.”

If you call down to the front desk at the Aloft hotel in Cupertino, Calif., to replace that toothbrush you forgot to bring, a human will not come to your aid. Beginning tonight, a robot named Botlr will take the elevator up to your room and deliver it instead.

Botlr is the first product out of Savioke, a robotics company that received $2 million in seed funding in April to bring helpful robots to the service sector. Just 10 weeks after announcing the funding, Savioke closed a deal with Starwood Hotels to begin testing a robotic bellhop at the Cupertino Aloft. Other hotel locations could follow.

For more: http://bit.ly/1p926fM

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by | August 18, 2014 · 10:19 am

Hospitality Industry Technology Update: “Don’t be Alarmed by That Robot Delivering a Toothbrush to Your Hotel Room”

“We think this is such a huge opportunity to deliver better service to our customer.Botlr-in-Hallway-lr  The mundane task of running a razor behind the scenes goes away, you’ll see our associates more because they’ll be more front and center than they’ve ever been,” McGuinness said. “This is by no means replacing the human element of hospitality.”

The situation usually plays out like this. You’re unpacking in a hotel room and realize you forgot something. Rather than trek to whatever store might be near, you call the front desk and ask for a razor, toothpaste or whatever you need. The hotel then sends someone up with the delivery.

Except for the Aloft Hotel in Cupertino, Calif, which will begin using an R2D2-esque robot for such trips. Fittingly, Aloft’s parent company, Starwood Hotels, tests the latest technology at the Silicon Valley hotel. Guests can enter their rooms with a smartphone app and bypass the traditional check-in process at the front desk.

For more: http://wapo.st/1o63HNa

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