Tag Archives: Cybercrime

by | January 20, 2016 · 6:46 pm

Use a Lack of Confidence in OTA Sites to Your Advantage

OTA

A recent report from the Association of British Travel Agents (ABTA) revealed an increase in complaints about false OTA websites created by fraudulent travel companies.  Many customers have lost money to these sites, while others are calling hotels directly to ensure that they are indeed making a reservation at the hotel as intended.

This apparent trend of dwindling consumer confidence matches the booming growth of the online travel sector. While customers now have unparalleled choice and freedom to compare a range of deals, they’re also faced with uncertainty when dealing with unknown companies.

Common questions: Is this deal too good to be true? Is my payment secure? Who exactly am I dealing with here? With answers to these questions unclear at times, customers are increasingly cautious.

For a legitimate OTA, this clearly presents a challenge. How can an online business give people a sense that it can truly be trusted?  Having a quality website that has well-written copy, that features up-to-date content, and has a unique tone of voice can all help give off a sense of added professionalism and authenticity.

But the ABTA report shines a light on arguably the most important way people seek assurances: they pick up the phone.   In the end, nothing replaces the human voice. As a travel company, making sure customers can talk to you day or night offers your clients an instant way to check your credentials.

No doubt, investing in a quality website can convey an extra level of trustworthiness. But many customers will always want a more immediate and reliable way of making sure your company is legitimate.

So, at a time when online shoppers are becoming less trusting and more savvy about who they deal with, having a phone number clearly listed on your website and a system to ensure every call gets answered can safeguard potential bookings from cautious customers.

For more: http://bit.ly/1PhGonk

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by | January 15, 2016 · 6:24 pm

Booking Scams: Helping Guests Helps Hoteliers

Scams

Although online booking scams are a problem that should be resolved by the hotel industry as a whole, they also can cause headaches for individual front-desk employees at properties.

 

According to research from the American Hotel & Lodging Association, 15 million deceptive bookings were made in 2015 at a cost of roughly $1.3 billion.

So what should you do when prospective guests walk through your front door believing they’ve booked and paid for a stay only to find out they’ve been scammed? Sources said the answer to that question can be a difficult one, but it requires a delicate balance of education, compassion and long-term thinking.

Maryam Khan Cope, VP of government affairs for AH&LA, said one way these rogue websites operate is by taking photos from a hotel’s website and claiming to offer bookings to that particular property.

“We’re seeing this spike (in booking scams) and hearing from hotels that they essentially had their identities replicated on these scam sites,” Cope said.

Accommodating a scammed guest

Even though hoteliers did nothing wrong to cause a would-be guest walking onto their property with a sham booking, there is a lot on the line depending on how the situation is handled.

Roger Bloss, CEO of Vantage Hospitality Group, said his directive to owner-operators of his company’s brands is to honor stays of “a night or two” and charge it to the corporate office.

“We’ve got to think about the people booking in the economy lodging segment,” Bloss said. “(Scam bookings) can be a dramatic hardship on them. As hoteliers, we don’t want to see that happen. So, we’ve instructed our hotels to be hospitable.”

Bloss said covering stays for scammed customers benefits the company in terms of reputation management. Even though the hotel isn’t the source of the scam, leaving a would-be guest out in the cold can lead to a negative association with brands and possibly negative reviews and backlash online.

“At the end of the day, it always comes back to the brand, the property and the company,” Bloss said. “I don’t want to put our members in the position that they have to make a financial decision that affects the brand as a whole. In the days of social media, it’s a lot less expensive to keep a customer than attract new ones.”

Bloss said he sees this as a common sense approach.

“You have to think about all the money spent to attract guests to hotels,” Bloss said. “Would you destroy all that over a couple hundred bucks?”

Cope said AH&LA suggests taking a similar tact to what Bloss described.

“We suggest, because they’re in the business of guest service, that they do whatever they can to accommodate,” she said. “That might mean identifying an alternative at your hotel in your area.”

Cope said GMs try to “bend over backwards” to help scammed guests, but sometimes they’re caught in situations where no solution presents itself, such as if no rooms are available. But hoteliers should keep in mind that all efforts to help a scammed guest are positive.

“They should offer any additional support they can provide the guest especially because negative experiences often reflect on the hotel,” Cope said.

Chris Harvey, GM of the Crowne Plaza Charleston Airport & Convention Center, said he has been lucky enough to not encounter scammed guests at his hotel, but if it were to occur he’d instruct staff to offer a room at a reduced rate.

“You have to make sure you’re doing something for them and help them to keep the situation from getting worse,” Harvey said.

For more: http://bit.ly/1NbJKAJ

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by | December 7, 2015 · 5:48 pm

Credit Card Switch: Is Your Hotel Compliant?

Credit Card

Following the nationwide EMV liability shift on Oct. 1, in-person credit card transactions in the United States are safer and more secure than ever before. Instead of swiping a credit card, vendors will be required to scan a high-tech chip that creates a unique code for each transaction. This means consumer information will be more difficult to duplicate, leading to increased data safety. Additionally, the widespread use of EMV (Europay, MasterCard, and Visa) microchip technology protects vendors—including hoteliers—from liability in cases of fraud. And, now that the country has finally caught up with global security standards, the long-term maintenance and success of the program is of the utmost importance.

According to Karen Cox, vice president of payment and retail solutions at Toronto-based payment processor, Moneris, U.S. vendors are in a very advantageous position as this solution spreads throughout the country. “Because the United States adopted EMV technology after other major markets, there have already been solutions developed for common issues, making the process easier,” she explains.

Most properties have already installed the POS hardware that include chip readers, but as the new EMV systems are fully integrated, hoteliers may need to add new processes during transactions. “You have to prove that the card is at the hotel for the transaction, so even if guests book with a credit card online, they may need to present the card during check-in and either sign or enter their PIN,” Cox says.

However, once the system is adopted and processes have evolved to facilitate the technology, keeping EMV technology up to date should not be an issue for most hoteliers. “The chip technology is very solid,” Cox describes. “There will likely be software updates, but if the properties keep up with the regular maintenance and renewal processes, they shouldn’t have any issues.”

While some hotels may not be using EMV technology yet, Cox recommends that these entities implement the systems as soon as possible. She adds that hoteliers who don’t know where to start should partner with a provider that can provide end-to-end solutions for the EMV shift.

For more: http://bit.ly/1N6JVAS

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by | November 18, 2015 · 7:51 pm

What You Should Know Before Monitoring Your Employees and Guests

Employees

Employees can make or break businesses in the service industry. While customer service oriented employees create a luxurious experience at a lesser establishment, employees that don’t prioritize customer service can ruin a guest’s experience even at the most finely-appointed hotel.

However, managers and supervisors cannot always be present to recognize and reward desirable service practices, nor can they always be present identify and correct poor practices. With so many points of customer and employee interaction, surveillance is one of the most effective methods to safeguard employee safety and integrity, review employee performance, identify training points, and document “HR issues.” Of course, too much of a good thing can be a problem.

Employers must understand the difference between valid surveillance and illegal intrusions on privacy rights before taking advantage of video/audio recordings. This article aims to help employers stay on the right side of that fence.

1. What is a “Reasonable Expectation of Privacy”?

The law regarding privacy in the workplace was most recently defined by the California Supreme Court case in Hernandez v. Hillsides, Inc. The rule is subjective, yet straightforward—employers must not engage in any activities that would violate an employee’s “reasonable expectation of privacy.” This helps determine the degree to which a person can reasonably expect to be left unmonitored, but the problem is that it is a nebulous standard that relies on “widely accepted community norms.”

There are some obvious places an employee or guest will reasonably expect privacy, for example, in a bathroom stall. However, courts will look at several considerations to determine the reasonableness of an individual’s expectation of privacy, such as the customs, practices, and physical settings of the workplace. Other considerations include where the surveillance equipment will be placed, when it will be active, and who will have access to recorded data.

The time and place of activities is another important factor. This includes an inquiry into the physical layout of the area being monitored, whether the area is restricted access, limited from view, or reserved for performing bodily functions and other personal acts. On the other hand, if an area is open and accessible to coworkers or the general public, or work is performed in the area, employees are unlikely to have a reasonable expectation of privacy.

Courts will also consider who has access to any recordings or videos to determine the severity of an alleged invasion of privacy. In fact, even if an employer collects monitoring information legitimately, an employer may be subject to liability if the information can be accessed by the wrong people. A non-managerial employee should not have access to a recording of his or her co-worker. If the purpose is to monitor customer service performance, only managerial employees should have access. For this reason, employers’ must carefully control who has access to any monitoring data.

For more: http://bit.ly/1Nc7CLd

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by | November 9, 2015 · 11:55 pm

Wifi blocking is illegal (FCC fines Hilton Hotels)

wifi

FCC takes two enforcement actions on WiFi

On November 2, 2015, the FCC issued two separate news releases on Wifi blocking. In one action, the FCC announced a $718,000 fine against M.C. Dean, one of the nation’s largest electrical contracting companies, for blocking personal mobile “hotspots” of convention visitors and exhibitors who tried to use their own data plans at the Baltimore Convention Center to connect to the Internet rather than paying M.C. Dean substantial fees to use the company’s Wifi service.

FCC fines WiFi hotspot provider M.C. Dean

According to the FCC, as the exclusive provider of Wifi access at the Baltimore Convention Center, M.C. Dean charges exhibitors and visitors as much as $1,095 per event for Wifi access. Last year, the Commission received a complaint from a company that provides equipment that enables users to establish hotspots at conventions and trade shows. The complainant alleged that M.C. Dean blocked hotspots its customers had tried to establish at the Baltimore Convention Center. After receiving the complaint, FCC Enforcement Bureau field agents visited the venue on multiple occasions and confirmed that Wifi blocking activity was taking place.

The Enforcement Bureau’s investigation found that M.C. Dean engaged in Wifi blocking at the Baltimore Convention Center on dozens of occasions in the last year. During the investigation, M.C. Dean revealed that it used the “Auto Block Mode” on its Wifi system to block consumer-created Wifi hotspots at the venue. The Wifi system’s manual describes this mode as “shoot first, and ask questions later.” M.C. Dean’s Wifi blocking activity also appears to have blocked Wifi hotspots located outside of the venue, including passing vehicles. The Commission charged M.C. Dean with violating Section 333 of the Communications Act by maliciously interfering with or causing interference to lawful Wifi hotspots.

FCC fines and warns Hilton

In a separate announcement, unrelated except as to the subject matter, the FCC proposed a $25,000 fine against Hilton Worldwide Holdings, Inc. for “apparent obstruction of an investigation into whether Hilton engaged in the blocking of consumers’ Wifi devices”. A consumer complaint alleged that Hilton was blocking visitor’s Wifi in Anaheim, California in order to force them to pay a $500 fee to access Hilton’s Wifi. Other complaints alleged similar Wifi blocking at other Hilton-brand properties.

In November 2014, the FCC Enforcement Bureau sent Hilton a letter of inquiry requesting information concerning basic company information, relevant corporate policies, and specifics regarding Wifi management practices at Hilton-brand properties in the United States. After nearly one year, Hilton has failed to provide the requested information for the vast majority of its properties. The proposed fine and announcement to Hilton included a demand to immediately provide the essential information and documents about its Wifi practices, and warned that Hilton may face significantly higher fines for continued obstruction or delay.

For more: http://bit.ly/1lgp8Bz

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by | October 30, 2015 · 5:48 pm

Management Update: “How to Future-Proof Your Hotel Company”

Smart hotel executives spend time dealing not only with the challenges of today but also the challenges of tomorrow. I don’t mean tomorrow as in the day after today. I mean tomorrow as in the future, six months from now, five years from now.

Our copycat industry is historically bad at this. We often take note of obstacles only after we’ve hit them head on. In a daze, we then rush to adopt the tactics of our nearest competitor.

Why? Maybe we’re not looking far enough ahead. Or maybe we’re not looking for the right signals ahead.

Across all industries, executives’ future-proofing exercises typically revolve around the proverbial Next Big Thing—what’s coming down the pike that’s going to change the world as we know it.

During a keynote at this week’s Marketing Outlook Forum, J. Walker Smith of the Futures Company suggested a different tact: The “Vanishing Point” approach.

It’s hard to spot the “Next Big Thing,” Smith said. When they first materialize, they’re often too small to notice. And they come on quickly, which makes it difficult to react when you finally do notice them.

Vanishing Points are the opposite, Smith said. They are the points at which big, established factors of influence wane out of relevance. That creates a vacuum that must be replaced by something new.

Spot them early, and you can begin to anticipate what will fill the void.

It’s like a big tree falling the in the forest, Smith said. That allows sunlight to penetrate the canopy and foster growth for something new.

An example: Screens are getting smaller. What once was a desktop became a smaller laptop which became a smaller tablet which became a smaller smartphone. Now wearables are on the rise, and screens are getting even smaller.

“This is the big vanishing point,” Smith said. “The active digital screen is going away. It is being replaced by sensors, or passive digital.”

Shoes will connect to Google Maps and buzz the right or left foot depending on which way you need to turn. Embedded technologies will track your health and fitness.

Instead of inputting data into a screen, sensors will track your behavior and send you information before you even know you needed it, Smith said.

He called it the “pivot to passive.” In the ecommerce space, Amazon is working to patent anticipatory shopping software that sends you products without you even putting them in your online shopping cart.

Think of that in travel context, Smith imagined. The agonizing booking funnel becomes an intuitive, anticipatory process that actively monitors your behavior and schedules a hotel stay accordingly.

Will it happen tomorrow? I hope not. (I’m not ready for buzzing shoes.) But it could happen one day. Maybe it will even be the Next Big Thing. Time to get out in front of it.

For more: http://bit.ly/1LGI05j

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by | October 28, 2015 · 6:17 pm

Tech Update: “Hotel Apps – Nightmare or Blessing?”

Most hotel chains and many individual hotels have their own hotel apps – a small program for smart phones, which is supposed to facilitate the check-in process, provide additional information, replace the room key card, and eventually support and facilitate the next booking at the hotel.

But are apps really the ultimate solution? These small programs can easily turn into an expensive exercise and they have to be programmed for the various operating systems. Most importantly, an app should be embedded in a centralized guest-oriented IT structure.

The hotel business is often compared with the airlines business. This is, however, misleading, as frequent travelers – the target group hoteliers like to attract – mainly use the same airline. Surveys show, however, that this is not the case when it comes to choosing a hotel. On average, a frequent traveler has four loyalty cards from different hotel companies and eventually has to get used to several apps. Is this a client-oriented approach or just an IT trend, which managers cannot resist to follow?

At the beginning of the Internet age IBM’s slogan was “Jump in!”. But not the ones who just jumped in and followed the latest trends have become or are successful, but those who took some time to verify, analyze and then deliberately chose the right – client-focused – strategy.

On the one hand, an app has to suit the respective overall concept; on the other hand, it has to be accepted by the guests. This is the main difference between the OTAs that focus on the guest, and many hoteliers, who just love their product. The guest should always be in the focus. This rule is taught to every trainee or student in the first year of apprenticeship or studies.

The figures show that consumers increasingly consider apps as annoying. The result is that downloads are stagnating considering the increasing share of smart phones in the total market. Travel apps only come in seventh in the download ranking. There is not even a separate category for hotel apps.

For more: http://bit.ly/1OZ8AdN

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by | October 8, 2015 · 3:39 pm

Hospitality Industry Security Update: “Developing a Cyberbreach Strategy”

RM_10.15_cyber_strategy-630x420

Throughout the business world, breaches have become a constant reminder of the critical need to assess and take action on cyberrisk. But they can also make addressing the issue seem like an ever more daunting task, leading many to either put off substantive measures or blindly buy the latest insurance or software to “take care” of the problem and move on.

“The biggest mistake companies make in the breach recovery process is just not being aware of the risk in the first place,” said John Mullen, managing partner at Lewis Brisbois Bisgaard & Smith LLP and chair of the firm’s data privacy and network security practice. “You would be amazed—I do up to 100 presentations a year, and at 80% of them, people still look at me like it’s the first time they have heard about it, and I have been doing this for over a decade. The people in the know are in the know, but there is an amazing amount of people who have no clue.”

There are countless ways a cyberbreach can unfold, and countless ways response can go wrong, but laying the strongest possible foundation ahead of time ultimately makes the difference between successful response and absolute disaster for a company that gets hacked or otherwise compromised. According to Mullen, a breach coach who reports that his firm sees a new breach case every business day of the year, “If you don’t do all of the prep stuff, you’ll never get response right.”

For more: http://bit.ly/1GycVMP

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by | September 29, 2015 · 8:29 pm

Hospitality Industry Technology Update: “DIY Not the Answer with Hotel Technology”

For the first time, technology has become a real point of differentiation for hotel companies. As owners and asset managers become more involved and focus onDIY Hotel Tech technology and distribution, the pressure will grow for brand companies. It’s great the entire industry recognizes the problem, but the question becomes, how does it get solved? Or worse, what happens if it doesn’t?

After attending the summer season of hotel industry events, I was surprised to see a new found recognition from hotel brand companies that technology has become an urgent priority. It is refreshing to hear executives admitting that they have fallen behind the curve and are desperate for new solutions.

It wasn’t that long ago that technology and distribution were barely mentioned at these events, but now they are often the focus of general sessions at even the biggest investment conferences like NYU. And now we even have newer events like the Revenue Strategy Summit and the Hotel Data Conference where distribution is a main topic on the agenda.

It’s remarkable to see such a transformation, but that’s where my excitement stops. In the next breath, many of the same hotel brand leaders talk about a renewed commitment to building better technology. They want to compete with Expedia, Priceline, and Google by creating their own in-house platforms.

For more: http://bit.ly/1P4k8Lw

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by | September 25, 2015 · 5:03 pm

Hospitality Industry Technology Update: “The Present and Future of In-Room Tech”

“Hotels should focus on making room technology easy to understand, accessible and relevant. Do not focus the efforts only on creating ‘fun’technology such as mood lighting and such.Roundtable-Feature It’s important to pay attention to the devices used by guests and add tech features, which can assist in an improved hotel experience.”

From cathode-ray tubes to flat-screen televisions to smart screens. From dial-up Web access to Wi-Fi.

In-room technology in hotels has evolved over the years, and it will only continue to do so. But what are the changes hoteliers can expect next? And in an industry often accused of being behind the curve when it comes to technology, what do hoteliers need to keep top of mind to add to the guestroom experience?

Five leaders responded to these questions in this Hotel News Now virtual roundtable. This is what they had to say.

From where it stands today, where do you see in-room technology headed in the next few years?

Mehul Patel, chairman and CEO of NewcrestImage
“Technology, notably Bluetooth, will increasingly make rooms more ‘open’—both literally and virtually. For example, mobile technology will allow guests to unlock and enter their rooms. And after they are in their room, guests will open their room to the virtual world with customized entertainment content and room management. Because today’s travelers have their own mobile devices, it enables us as hoteliers to provide them with technology that makes their stay with us smarter and simpler—‘smarter’ thanks to Bluetooth and ‘simpler’ by facilitating their use of personalized content in movies, television and music.”
 
Joachim Högefjord, managing director, and Gül Heper, commercial manager at HTL Hotels
“We believe it’s most important to stay relevant to the guests and their needs. In-room technology is not about filling a hotel room with all possible gadgets; it is about enhancing the guest experience and especially simplifying the stay at the hotel.“We need to continue looking at existing behaviors and identify the right needs, what devices are the guests bringing with them and review how to incorporate this in the room in order to provide a better guest experience. One given area, where we already supply device independent solutions is in terms of in-room entertainment. Why equip the hotels with expensive hotel TV systems with on-demand movies when most guests today can and will be using their own devices to stream and mirror everything from movies to HBO and Netflix for free with their existing subscriptions?“Mobile access to the room is of course also an area that will continue to develop and be more and more standardized. Today there are few hotels and chains that are fully offering this to all guests independent of distribution channel. From the start we decided that this should be one of our standard features, and already in spring of 2014 we launched our own app with mobile key.“Of course there is a lot of talk about in-room control systems for lighting, heating, shades, entertainment controls, etc. They might grow in the future, but at the same time it is generally a learning curve to handle them, and with guests staying in general 1.5 days in a room, it might add more complexity to your stay than added value.”
 
Bashar Wali, president of Provenance Hotels
“In-room technology will focus on connectivity for the traveler’s personal phone, tablets and computer. Guest-provided media will stream to TVs, USB outlets will be within an arm’s length away from the bed and desk in every guestroom. Personal technology has surpassed in-room hotel technology to the point of no return. With annual upgrade cycles for consumer technology devices, hotels can no longer spend enough to catch up. Hoteliers, stop implementing technology of the day and just let travelers have power outlets, free, fast Wi-Fi and access to their own media.”
 
Anna Blount, market research manager of MMGY Global
“When asked which device they are most likely to watch television or cable movies on during a hotel stay, 86% of travelers chose the in-room television, while 13% chose their personal laptop, 6% their tablet and 4% their smartphone.“Similarly, 84% of travelers said they were most likely to watch pay-per-view movies on the in-room television during a hotel room stay, while 9% chose their personal laptop, 9% their tablet and 3% their smartphone. Although in-room television is still dominate, we expect usage of personal laptops and tablets to consume in-room entertainment to increase considerably over the next five years.”
 
Euan McGlashan, co-founder and managing partner of Valor Hospitality Partners
“Technology will soon control the entire guestroom, and that’s a good thing. A guest will be connected to every element of the in-room experience—for example, entry locks, television, music, lighting, temperature, roomservice and in-room deliveries or services—through simple switches, remote controls and hand-held devices, which are either theirs or provided by the hotel.”

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

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