Jon Inge

ALIS acknowledges value of technology, so why is it still under-funded?

Jon — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 00:06:45 +0000

As you’ve read elsewhere, this year’s ALIS conference was a happily high-energy event, with a palpable sense of confidence in the recovery of business – in this case, the business of buying and selling hotels. It’s by no means a technology conference, but a couple of break-out sessions brought out how critical technology is to hotel operations, and how little that fact is appreciated by owners.
One was a presentation of the recent AH&LA/STR-sponsored Distribution Channel Analysis survey, given by Cindy Estis Green and Mark Lomanno, both of whom absolutely know what they’re talking about in this area. Their key findings were that marketing doesn’t generate new business overall, it just shifts it from one hotel to another and one channel to another, and that each new entrant into the distribution game (e.g. Google, and possibly Apple) will inevitably add new intermediary costs to the room inventory it offers. Hotels’ distribution costs are therefore likely to increase to generate the same level of traffic. The only way to stay ahead is to know your guests’ profiles and preferences in enough detail to make specifically-appealing offers to them on their preferred channels, and to be very thorough in including all channel costs in deciding how to price and where to place each offer. And the only way to be successful at that is through good technology, to collect and analyze the data and to act swiftly on its findings.
The other session was a discussion on what asset managers have learned from the challenges of the last few years. The panel included representatives from a hotel chain, a management company, two owners and an asset management consultant, and their universal response was the same: “we didn’t use technology as well as we ought to have done.” Yet when asked why their CapEx plans never included funds for management technology (though they do for regular re-painting of the door trim in the front desk area, according to a CapEx survey), the responses were “no-one ever tells me when I need to spend money on it” and “we know we have to spend funds from time to time to bring it back up to scratch, but beyond that…”
The sad part of this is the general perception that despite giving face value to the need to do a better job with it, technology is apparently still too often seen as a burden that will only be addressed when it’s fallen so far behind as to be embarrassing. There’s a real case to be made for a technology CapEx reserve as well as an FFE one, to provide funds for regular updates to stay competitive. Any property or chain occasionally “bringing it back up to scratch” will always be out-performed by competitors who recognize its essential contribution to effective management in a complex and fast-changing world, and thus invest in it regularly to stay ahead of the game.

2011 Year-End Hotel Technology Review (long)

Jon — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 19:18:18 +0000

Well, it wasn’t the year we’d hoped for; initial optimism that we were at last coming out of the recession was replaced by reminders that there was still a long way to go. Nevertheless, many properties took advantage of slow business to upgrade their systems and lay the foundations for more efficient operations once traffic does return, and equally as many vendors enhanced their systems for greater integration and flexibility.
The importance of IT innovation in the hospitality world was recognized once again by InformationWeek’s listing of the U.S.’s 500 most innovative business technology users, which included seven hospitality companies in the top 250. The highest-ranking hospitality company honored this year was Vail Resorts at #10, whose EpicMix Web and smart-phone application appropriately highlighted the integration of guest service with mobile technology.

The year of mobile technology

It was definitely the year mobile devices of all types became mainstream, along with a growing integration of social media sites into more traditional hotel systems. IHG (InterContinental Hotels Group) released iPhone booking apps for each of its seven brands, launched 120 free iPad Concierge Insider Guides and reported a nearly 1,000 percent increase in room night bookings from mobile devices. MGM released Android versions of 12 hotel applications for booking rooms and activities, and Motel 6 released an app for Apple devices. Genares and InnLink released mobile booking engines, Expedia announced an app for the iPhone and iPod Touch, and RIM released a BlackBerry Travel app integrating itineraries, profiles and flight status updates into BlackBerry Calendar.
To help international travelers, FCS’ i-Guest Hotels Finder app played recordings of directions to a hotel in the local language for lost guests to play back to taxi drivers, and Marriott offered its mobile app for Apple and Android devices in Chinese, Spanish, German and French. RateTiger released a Blackberry version of its revenue management RTSuite, and Alloso Technologies ported its hospitality business intelligence app to the iPad.
Bringing social media into the mix, Availpro released a Facebook booking engine and RateTiger used Cultuzz Digital Media’s CultBay to post hotel availability on eBay. Sabre’s SocialConversion product suite helped hotels maximize their social media presence; Appnostic and Genares integrated their hotel booking apps with Facebook, and Regatta Travel Solutions launched a Facebook booking engine tool for Destination Marketing Organizations (DMOs). VFM Leonardo released a Mobile Media Player for its VBrochure, formatting hotel photos, virtual tours, videos and marketing copy for mobile devices.
Protel introduced an iPad “bookatonce” version of its GMS and released its Voyager browser-based mobile app for Apple, Android or BlackBerry. ResortSuite released ResortSuite MOBILE; Resort Data Processing (RDP) announced four new mobile modules. Fuel Interactive’s Guestdesk Mobile Booking Software added mobile booking of tee-times and other activities, as did Open Hospitality for food and beverage, special amenities, event tickets, flowers and other add-ons. W Hotels unveiled an iPhone app that lets guests order room service and request other services, in addition to booking guestrooms; Crave Interactive’s GuestService+ in-room application included food and drink ordering for Room Service or in Hotel restaurants.
POS wasn’t left out; Agilysys released InfoGenesis Roam mobile POS software for the iPod, and Squirrel put its Professional POS system onto Apple iPads. MICROS integrated Tabbedout into its POS systems, allowing guests to pay restaurant and bar tabs with their smartphones. All in all, look for mobile F&B ordering to become much more common in this coming year.
On the guest services side, Acentic’s mobile versions of its high-speed Internet and iTV services platform allowed users to check a hotel’s offering of movies or other services from their own phones and to use them as TV remote controls. Intelity released ICE Mobile for Android, and TAC developed a phone-based loyalty card app. Starwood offered FaceTime video calling for loyalty-club members to contact customer service agents, and GoConcierge released native iPad and iPhone versions of its system. MTech released an Android app for H2GO, its mobile version of HotSOS, and hotel SystemsPro released its hotel ServicePro asset management system for the iPad. Adaco extended procurement system to iPads and touch-screens.
Conference/event software also went mobile. Passkey’s GroupMAX used OneClick Mobile to generate customized mobile sites for events, and released a widget to embed availability on event websites and social networks. QuickMobile launched MobileEvent Express Edition, an iPhone app for meetings and events. StarCite’s Mobile Attendee tool delivered key information (including agendas, logistics, maps and news alerts) directly to meeting attendees’ mobile phones and devices; Swank Audio Visuals released its SwankDraw iPad-based room layout application. Intriguingly, The Knowland Group’s SmartPhone Leads, a location-aware augmented reality app, lets hotel sales teams focus their smartphone cameras on a hotel and see on-screen pop-up bubbles showing groups that have held meetings or stayed there, with contact data.
Speaking of cross-system integration, OTRUM launched its Enterprise portal, combining check-in information with details from a hotel’s CRM database to profile guests as to type, gender, age, language and home country, thereby letting the hotel send customized communications, advertising, service offerings and price points to each individual guestroom TV. MConcierge Systems rolled out a Guest Relationship Management system that links hotel profiles with guests’ social media profiles and rewards guests using the hotel’s mobile application for every activity performed using it, with loyalty points for immediate on-premise redemption.
And if all that wasn’t enough, Marriott even released a hotel-themed online game (My Marriott Hotel) and InterContinental released a Kitchen Cookbook iPad app of its hotels’ recipes. Where will it all end?

Guest Management Systems

The new breed of GMSs all made progress this year. Agilysys’ Guest 360 officially came out of beta with installations at the Gotham Hotel and two GrandLife Hotels, all in New York City. Infor-SoftBrands’ HMS found its first customers in the Larkspur Landing Hotel in Hillsboro, Oregon and the Fitzpatrick Hotel Group’s two hotels in New York. Dynamique Hôtels Management (DHM), with 150 properties, became the first customer for Amadeus’ new centralized Hotel Platform, which combines central reservation, global distribution and guest management systems. PAR Springer-Miller launched its ATRIO system with a strikingly new visual approach in its user interface, and Stoney Creek Inns was the launch customer for the first module of MICROS’ new OPERA 9 suite, channel management.
Central hosting of management systems continues to grow in popularity, for all the usual reasons of greater data consistency, system security and ease of reporting. Germany’s Rilano Group installed SoftBrands’ Starlight for all five locations, AC Hotels by Marriott picked MICROS’ centrally-hosted OPERA and Simphony POS for 91 properties, as did Cedar Point Amusement Park for its six hotels. Joie de Vivre added MICROS OPERA Customer Information System, Business Intelligence and Sales Force Automation to its already-centralized implementation of OPERA, and Orient-Express Hotels picked MICROS’ OPERA and POS systems for its 49 properties. Hospitality International named SKYWARE its preferred GMS for all 300 franchise properties, and Jebel Ali International Hotels installed protel MPE at all five sites.

Cloud Computing

After the massive hype of the last couple of years, true cloud computing settled in as a viable architecture for specific needs, although some costing issues still need to be ironed out. EZYield upgraded its infrastructure to run on a 40-gigabit InfiniBand network and Amazon’s Cloud, and OTRUM moved all of its Digital Signage services to IBM’s SmartCloud Enterprise. Online travel network TravelShark (née Swiftrank) moved to Amazon’s Web Services (AWS) cloud platform. Libra OnDemand expanded the functionality of its Force.com cloud-based CRM/Hospitality Management System significantly, and Dolce Hotels and Resorts implemented it across all 27 properties.

Guest Reviews

Guest reviews and feedback continued to have high importance. GetThere, with its Hotel Traveler Reviews, let corporate travelers share online hotel reviews, and Starwood launched its own online review function. Lodging Interactive extended its Guest Review System to let hotels collect and share guest reviews directly from their Facebook pages. Whiteboard Labs used FeedMagnet’s social curation technology to power Telltales, allowing hotels to integrate content from social channels into their websites and marketing programs. RateGain launched its BrandGain guest satisfaction and online reputation management system to consolidate and analyze feedback, and, to try to keep things honest, researchers at Cornell University developed software claimed to be able to identify fake hotel reviews by their linguistic structure.

CRS

Google got serious about the hotel market with the launch of its Hotel Finder search tool, a rival to several meta-search engines, but the traditional CRS vendors saw strong growth as well. Regent Hotels & Resorts properties and Vantage Hospitality Group switched to Sabre’s SynXis, and Castle Resorts & Hotels (25 properties) and Kosmopolito Hotels International (22 hotels) went with TravelCLICK. Destinations of the World joined Amadeus and took it past the 100,000 property mark. Orient-Express Hotels picked Pegasus’ RezView NG for 40 properties, and relative newcomer Whiteboard Labs picked up Centerstone Inns, Hotels and Plaza Hotels for its Windsurfer CRS, along with a number of independent properties.

Revenue management

Revenue management showed strong growth, as properties not only expanded their use of it but began integrating it into more of their guest management and marketing operations. EZYield had a strong year, picking up Swiss-Belhotel International (20 properties), Fairmont/Raffles (100+ hotels), N. Daskalantonakis Group (30 Grecotel Resorts and Classical Hotels), Lindner Hotels (34 properties) and developing an interface with Passkey for conference rooms booking. IDeaS integrated with RateGain’s ChannelGain and PriceGain as well as SiteMinder’s Channel Manager, and gained Dusit International (13 properties), Scandic Hotels (chain-wide) and Anantara (15 hotels). Toga Hospitality installed EzRMS in fifty properties, Guoman Hotel Management in another 37 and Brazil Hospitality Group in 20.
RateTiger launched RTSuite Content to distribute and manage marketing content centrally, Brook Hotels implemented its RTSuite channel manager at 12 locations and NH Hoteles adopted RTConnect for all 400 properties. China’s New Century Hotels & Resorts picked RateGain’s ChannelGain for 14 properties, PROS built Lixto’s competitive price data into its price optimization software, and Best Western International adopted Lixto for all 4,000 properties. TravelClick added over 200 Hotelligence360 clients in Europe in two months alone, in July/August.

RFID

RFID seems finally to have become a mainstream technology, especially for guestroom door locks in all sizes of property. VingCard’s Signature RFID locks were adopted by Starwood’s Aloft flag, the 500-room Royal Palm Plaza in Campinas, Brazil, the Holiday Inn City of Knowledge, Panama City and Kyriad Marseille Centre-Rabatou in Marseille, France, two Starwood properties in Greece and, brand-wide, by Mexico’s first extended-stay brand ExtendedSuites. KABA’s Saflok RFID locks were installed by the Peabody Orlando (1,641 rooms), the Holiday Inn Knoxville, Hotel Harrington in Washington, DC and Howard Johnson Admiral Inn on Tybee Island, the Comfort Hotel Xpress in Oslo, Norway (with OpenWays acoustic couplers built in), the YOTEL New York (669 rooms) and the 70-room Arnold Palmer’s Bay Hill Club & Lodge.
Peninsula Hotels is replacing the guestroom door locks in all properties with Saflok RFID units, and is reported to be looking at much wider use of RFID for guest services. Looking further ahead, ASSA ABLOY introduced its Mobile Keys Platform for the NFC (Near Field Communication) mobile phones as they come into more widespread use, and partnered with RIM to develop NFC-enabled door key software for Blackberry phones. Outside of locking systems, InvoTech’s UHF-RFID version of its GIMS uniform and linen tracking system gained several new orders as its viability and cost-savings became apparent.

Multiple-property orders

Many chains extended a single-system philosophy by placing chain-wide orders for all types of application. Roadchef rolled out Guestline’s suite at 14 properties across UK, Richfield implemented ProfitSage Financial Business Intelligence throughout its portfolio of 500 hotels, SKY Hospitality selected Aptech’s Execuvue business intelligence system for nine Microtel Hotels, and Ameristar Casinos picked Teradata Data Mart Appliances for its seven casinos. Royal Caribbean selected InfoGenesis for additional seven ships, and Resort Collection of Panama City Beach picked Springer-Miller for six condo properties. The Trump Hotel Collection standardized on MICROS’ OPERA and Newmarket’s Delphi MPE across all seven properties, and Lindner Hotels and Resorts moved 32 properties on OPERA and myfidelio.net to MICROS’ Data Center. Lane Hospitality implemented hotel ServicePro across 19 properties and Loews migrated all 18 properties to MTech’s HotSOS.

Guest services

Integrated guestroom services continued to gain ground. Intelity had a banner year with its ICE product winning HTNG’s 2010 Most Innovative Hospitality Award and being implemented by many properties, including the Plaza Hotel, JW Marriott Indianapolis Downtown, Mondrian Soho, Hotel Beaux Arts, Miami, Eccleston Square Hotel, four Chicago hotels and the Hilton Inn at Penn, Morgan’s Delano in Miami and Hudson in New York, the Four Seasons Los Angeles at Beverly Hills and the Dorchester Collection’s Hotel Bel-Air, and its first properties in Asia (L Resort Krabi, Thailand ) and South America (three Hoteles Charleston Colombia). Runtriz was adopted by The Westin Riverfront Resort Spa at Beaver Creek Mountain and the Hôtel Americano in New York. Roomlinx was adopted by Prime Group’s new 610-room Chicago property and the 216-room Holiday Inn Resort Orlando – The Castle. iRiS unveiled its Personal Valet Application for iPads and smart phones, ZDirect’s Mobile Passport offered guest services via smart phones, and SuiteLinq interfaced with MTech’s HotSOS for fulfillment of guest requests. KoolConnect announced that its implementations in the first nine months of 2011 significantly exceeded those of any previous full year, and introduced its 1Connect concept covering FTG TV, HSIA, TVs, iPad/mobile apps, network services, digital signage, single-remote control, PVRs and more.
WiFi became an even more essential service; although the cost of providing ever-increasing bandwidth to meet guests’ demands is significant, an iPass survey indicated that hotels may very well lose business travelers through bad Wi-Fi offerings. iBAHN launched dynamic Bandwidth Management to help hotels provide tiered pricing for different service levels. Swisscom’s ConnectedHotel TV/digital services platform gained several new clients, as did iBAHN’s IPTV application (ETVi).
Digital display boards expanded their functionality; JANUS added boarding pass printing to its Concierge Board touch screen display, enabled an interface to guests’ and meeting coordinators’ tablets, and released motion-triggered signage using a Kinect device. Courtyard unveiled version 4.0 of its GoBoard digital lobby display, developed in partnership with Four Winds Interactive and expanding the range of interactive guest services offered.

Inventory/procurement

Keeping an eye on cost controls, many hotels implemented inventory/procurement systems. Wyndham Worldwide deployed Adaco’s .NET system enterprise-wide, the Imperial Treasure Restaurant Group picked Eatec for 13 locations in Singapore, and relative newcomer Yellow Dog Software found success with five independent clients.

Energy management

Energy management seems to be keeping up its slow but steady growth levels, with some interesting developments. The Peabody Orlando, for example, integrated HotSOS with Control Green guestroom monitoring to pro-actively deal with rooms running at less than optimal efficiency, and both Encelium Technologies and Verve introduced new low-voltage occupancy sensors, the latter being self-powered. Telkonet’s SmartEnergy platform was adopted by the Springhill Suites Las Vegas and Crowne Plaza Times Square Manhattan. The Waikiki Beach Marriott Resort & Spa installed INNCOM’s Deep Mesh Network, and the Atlanta Marriott Marquis installed Inncom Guestroom Occupancy Sensors in all 1,569 guestrooms.

M&A

It was an unusually active year for mergers and acquisitions. Sabre Holdings acquired GMS vendor SoftHotel and its 4,500-strong client base, NCR took over Radiant Systems, Infor picked up Lawson Software, Newmarket acquired both MTech and Libra OnDemand, and RTP was taken over by The Active Network. GMS vendors AutoClerk and Bay Lakes Information Systems merged, as did InnPoints Worldwide and CARINO Hotels and Resorts to form Centric Hospitality.
EZYield was acquired by TravelClick, which also took over Rubicon. PAETEC acquired XETA Technologies. Passkey International gained UK-based Velvet Software, and Safemark Systems acquired Best Lockers. Xn Group sold its Leisure Systems subsidiary to Jonas Computing, and Philips transferred its television business to a joint venture set up with TPV Technology. Web developers were in demand; Pegasus took over Open Hospitality, Cendyn acquired RoundTableHQ, eRevMax acquired Lunar Logic Polska and TripAdvisor bought GPS-app developer EveryTrail and mapping vendor Where I’ve Been before being spun off from its parent, Expedia. Quadriga acquired pay-TV specialist SmoovieTV and Los Angeles-based NxSystems, intending to use the latter’s NXTV brand as the basis for its entry to the Americas market.

Overall

Overall, a surprising amount of progress was made in what turned out to be a much more difficult year than most in the industry had hoped for. We’re not out of the woods yet, but my sense is that last year’s optimism that “this year will be different” has been replaced by a much more solidly-based and confident “we’re going to make this year different.” I think the industry has turned a corner, and we’ll see many more systems and technology developments and upgrades than in recent times. One thing’s certain, though; we’ll all need more WiFi bandwidth!

Can truly personal offers exist when CRM must be automated to cope with the huge volume of personal data?

Jon — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 05:51:24 +0000

With the ever-growing emphasis on gathering information about us from as many sources as possible, I’m curious as to whether we’ll ever get a good handle on CRM. By this I mean a way to gather complete (or at least pretty full) and accurate information about our clients, analyze it properly to understand what’s really significant to them and then provide truly meaningful personalized service to them based on that information.
We can now pull in data from a guest’s social network to gather information on their travels, preferences, regular Twitter posting topics, past employers, etc. but how many hoteliers have the time to analyze all this on an individual basis to make truly personal special offers to them? It has to be automated, but automation based on incomplete or inaccurate data can lead you to the wrong conclusions. Tech writer Robert Scoble talked about this (http://scoble.it/vrIngR) in relation to Facebook’s latest intrusion into our private space, its ability to repost your activity on sites such as The Washington Post, Spotify and about 60 other sites (at the moment) for all to see what news articles you’re reading, what music you’re listening to, and so on. Except that it doesn’t; it reports what your device (PC, phone, tablet, etc.) is displaying whether or not you’re actively looking at/listening to it, have let it play while you’re doing something else, or have let a friend borrow it.
This necessary reliance on automation makes it especially important that the humans who write the CRM rules for action base them on a holistic view of the guest, using their general information trends rather than specific, one-time actions, and go beyond simple responses based on one or two criteria. For example, two people in the last week alone have mentioned to me that they’d cashed in frequent-stay points accumulated over many, many stays to book family vacation rooms, and had been given small rooms next to the elevator and the ice machine. Is this really the message the chain wanted to send loyal guests? To show them in front of their families how little they value past loyalty, even if they did get a “free” room on this visit?
Call me cynical, but maybe we need to accept that the vast, increasing, incomplete and inaccurate data floating around about each of us makes it virtually impossible for vendors – including hotel marketing departments – to really care about us as individual humans instead of individual sources of revenue. In a bottom line-driven world, they’ll be happy as long as they can increase revenues through getting “personalized” special offers right for enough people most of the time. Those annoyed by the inevitable blunders will be seen as just the cost of doing business, leaving it up to the hotel staff to recover from an increasing number of marketing gaffes. We the people will recognize and accept the artificial nature of these marketing offers – and will place ever more value on the level of truly personal service and care we experience once we arrive at the hotel. No amount of automated CRM personalized offers can replace a real connection with someone who cares.

Are LinkedIn connections becoming debased?

Jon — Sat, 26 Nov 2011 22:42:49 +0000

Is it just me, or has the world in general decided to use LinkedIn contacts in a different way and I just didn’t get the message?
I thought that LinkedIn was intended to be a way to find people who knew someone you wanted to contact, a way of making an introduction to them via someone they knew, already had a relationship with and trusted. You could search for someone in a particular position or with specific experience, and then check through your network of contacts to see who knew this person, or knew someone who did, and then work your way through the chain to make the final connection.
Just lately, though, it seems that the stream of people asking for a direct connection with me on LinkedIn just keeps growing. Some of them are complete strangers, but claim to be my Friend; others are already linked to me through several other people, but want to upgrade that link to a direct connection. But why? If we both have a friend in common, why not ask that friend to make the introduction if they have something to ask me? What benefit do they gain from claiming a connection that doesn’t exist?
My ego may suggest that I’ve become a trophy, but as my friends will readily confirm I’m not such a prize that gaining a direct connection to me grants instant fame, immortality and access to the highest echelons of the industry. More likely it may just be that, like FaceBook, people are competing with each other for the largest number of Friends/Direct Connects. They may want to show how connected they are, but going about it this way just debases the whole concept of a personal relationship. I’m happy to be contacted by pretty much anyone who has a question, but I’ll continue to restrict my direct connections on LinkedIn to those I’ve worked with or known long enough to ask a personal favor or to personally recommendation them from experience.
Oh, and a side note about the need to keep your contacts’ profiles accurate. LinkedIn’s suggestions of people you may know and want to re-connect with are often useful, but recently it twice suggested that I connect with someone who, sadly, passed away over a year ago. In the traumatic aftermath of losing a loved one, it’s completely understandable that friends and relatives would place a very low priority on removing their on-line profiles. Nevertheless, this does emphasize the dangers of relying on automated CRM systems to contact past guests without constantly checking and re-checking your database to make sure its profile information is both accurate and current. Sending the wrong “personal” message is worse than sending no message at all.

Newmarket buys MTech and Libra OnDemand: what next?

Jon — Wed, 02 Nov 2011 17:35:54 +0000

Fascinating that Newmarket International has acquired both MTech and Libra OnDemand, two well-respected companies that have been developing increasingly close ties with each other. Newmarket says that both will continue to operate under their current names and with their current leadership, but its plans for them are unclear beyond that. While they will bring clear benefits to Newmarket through tighter integration with its Delphi and Daylight products, it will be interesting to see how Newmarket approaches the wider market segments beyond Sales & Catering where MTech’s HotSOS and Libra OnDemand’s comprehensive CRM application have both found solid respect and success. Is this a sign of Newmarket’s wider ambitions in the hospitality tech area?

Check whether your message still fits your current audience

Jon — Fri, 14 Oct 2011 17:54:40 +0000

Sometimes it’s easy to slip into a rut without knowing it. This is a small industry – hotels, vendors, consultants, many of us have been in it for a long time. We know each other well, who we are, what we do, how we do it, and as the years slip by it’s easy to forget how many new faces have come into this space.

The recent economic turmoil has brought in new players, many from other industries. We may not know them, they may not know us, and it’s easy for us to forget that and keep churning out the same message that’s worked for years. While we may take advantage of new tools and technology to reach them, we may not have updated our message to catch their attention and let them know, succinctly, what we do, how we can help and why we’re worth contacting.

Old messages may still be true and accurate, but sometimes they need to be re-worked to address a new team of players who don’t have the industry background to fill in the sub-text about us themselves.

Hospitality companies again rated highly for tech innovation in InformationWeek 500

Jon — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 00:44:03 +0000

Once again disproving the old line about hospitality companies being slow to adopt technology, this year’s InformationWeek 500 listing of the U.S.’s most innovative business technology users includes seven hospitality companies in the top 250. The rankings are made through statistical analysis and qualitative assessments of the companies’ innovation projects, and showed up some interesting trends across all industries.

It’s notable that not one of these innovative projects was specifically an IT project, focusing instead on business and customer-facing priorities. These included making business processes more efficient (54%), new customer products/services (45%), getting better business intelligence to more employees, more quickly (40%), improving Web operations and customer experience (30%), lower IT and business costs (29%), engaging customers in new ways (26%) and improving customer service (22%).
Remotely-hosted applications are increasingly attractive; 79% of IW 500 companies use software as a service, compared with 61% two years ago. Use of infrastructure as a service, such as on-demand computing and storage capacity, is also up from 37% two years ago to 59% now. Not many vital production systems run on public infrastructure services, but several companies are turning their own data centers into private clouds.
The authors conclude that IT organizations that focus too much on internal matters risk losing relevance; they must embrace a flexibility that lets them anticipate and react quickly to the changing needs of customers.
The highest-ranking hospitality company honored this year was Vail Resorts (#10 on the list), recognized for its EpicMix Web and smart-phone application that lets skiers track the vertical feet they ski or ride, collect digital awards for feats such as riding every lift at the four resorts, and share their exploits with friends via Facebook.
Other hospitality companies in the top 250 were:
# 25 InterContinental Hotels Group
# 31 Sabre Holdings
# 48 Marriott Corporation
# 96 Kimpton Hotels and Restaurants
# 133 Caesar’s Entertainment
# 213 Hyatt Hotels and Resorts

Phone-tracking services expand. What price liberty?

Jon — Sat, 27 Aug 2011 01:05:38 +0000

How do you feel about being tracked wherever you go? As with many privacy issues, I think most of us are in two minds about it. On the one hand, as Apple and other smart phone vendors found out when it was revealed that the phones report their location at regular and frequent intervals, we generally hate the idea of someone knowing where we are at all times. What business is it of theirs? Especially if, as happened multiple times to friends of mine who checked Apple’s data for their phones, the locations are wrong?
Four recent news items highlight this issue. A survey of more than 4,700 international business travelers by International SOS reported that over 75% respondents, when visiting destinations they perceive to be high-risk, are comfortable or very comfortable with being tracked via their phones, both to receive alerts and to have their location reported to their employers. Then BCD Travel and American Express Global Business Travel both announced offerings that provide precisely this service (among several others – see the news items below), including automatic alerts when an executive unexpectedly leaves a safe zone.
Fair enough for risky locations, but how comfortable would they feel about it in their own home city? And who defines where it’s permissible to visit without being tracked (or at all) and where not? If we want to use location-based services, such as when following a map route or asking “find me a nearby coffee shop,” then obviously the service does need to know where the phone is. But I think most of us are uneasy about it regularly storing our phone’s location for future reference.
Until we want it to. If we lose our phone, it’s handy to know where it was last tracked. Or if we fall or have a car accident, we’d want help services to contact us immediately and to know where we are. What we really want, therefore, is control over when that location data can be accessed, by whom and for what purpose, not to mention the ability to verify its accuracy. Any takers on that happening any time soon? Or on correcting data being simple and painless, if it’s allowed at all?
Lastly, Apple has advised app developers to stop tracking users and their behavior through the Unique Device Identifier (UDID) built into each iPhone and iPad, because the new version of its iOS operating system will no longer support it. While this sounds like a welcome move towards greater user privacy, it’s undermined by Apple suggesting that developers could instead create their own tracking identifiers. Understanding who tracks what information about us is about to become infinitely more complex, and probably impossible.
Whoever said that the price of liberty is eternal vigilance probably didn’t have in mind that our tools would be eternally vigilant about us.

HFTP Survey on Travelers’ Tech Wish List

Jon — Fri, 12 Aug 2011 21:58:13 +0000

An HFTP survey on which technology features guests want when they travel showed that 15% carry at least three devices that need charging overnight, so “sufficient power outlets” is an obvious need! The device breakdown was laptops (90%), smart phones (82%), tablet computers (15%, but watch this one grow), media players (15%) and game systems (3%).
The top answer to the question, “what is the number one piece of technology you’d like to see universally added to the guest room?” was overwhelmingly (and unsurprisingly) a secure, reliable, fast, wireless Internet connection.
As for the guestroom television and the many options available on it, HD programming was the highest-rated desire (79%), followed by a virtual tie between room environment controls (lights, temperature, etc.) at 49% and connectivity panels for guests to replay content from their own (multiple!) devices (48%). On-demand TV shows tied with in-room messaging at 29%; first-run movies showed surprisingly strongly at 27%, followed by consumer subscription services such as Hulu, Netflix, Pandora, etc. (22%). Not really surprisingly given its current lack of quality programming, 3-D came in at less than 3%.
Other guestroom items ranked “important or very important” included:
* A simple telephone for room service, contacting the front desk, etc. (71%)
* Adjustable desk and chair with universal charging plugs (66%)
* A simple alarm clock (65%)
* Bio-metric safe (18%)
* Internet-enabled telephone capable of ads, valet, maps, local attractions, etc. (17%)
* Voice activated lights, curtains, temperature (12%)
* “Find Me” mobile phone issued by the hotel (11%)
Note the emphasis on “simplicity”; traveling is complex enough without having to wrestle the technology supposed to help you.
One aspect that surprised (and pleased) me was that 86% of the respondents still prefer to check into a hotel with front desk personnel, i.e. to interact with a human being. Only 10% prefer a self-service kiosk, and so far less than 5% would prefer a smart phone or computer method. That may be due to either the slow spread of such options in the industry so far, or to the small number of über-geeks who really do prefer to use their phones for everything. I expect it to rise over time, but the human element at check-in is still overwhelmingly important to a majority of travelers.
The survey was conducted just before HITEC, and received responses from around 450 travelers, 64% of whom spend more than ten nights a year in hotel rooms.

Quality is about more than software code

Jon — Fri, 29 Jul 2011 01:24:23 +0000

I’ve written before about the difficulties of quality control in modern software development, due in no small part to the enormous complexity of the applications. Even the best-written programs, though, can be let down by careless usage and data entry. The software may be functioning perfectly, but the end result still produces confusion, inconvenience and a small but definite loss of trust in the company.
A couple of travel examples from a trip I just took:
- I like to select my airline seats in advance (window – I love to take photographs – and as far forward as I can get), but the seat plan offered on the airline’s Web site differed from the actual aircraft. It wasn’t a question of one aircraft type being substituted for another (they only fly a single type on the routes I was taking) and the seats I had weren’t that different from the ones I thought I was getting. But if you’re going to offer me a choice, the choices ought to be accurate, or why bother?
- I rented a car for point-to-point travel. TripIt (truly useful software) pulled in to my itinerary the addresses of the pick-up and drop-off locations from the rental company’s database – and both were wrong. The pick-up point was listed as being at an Amtrak station, but was two miles away at a small local airport. The drop-off location was described as off-airport with a shuttle to the terminal, but was actually at an unmarked parking lot at the terminal with the return desk inside the main building. Fortunately the phone numbers of both were accurate so I was able to sort things out without too much of a problem, but only after confusion and the loss of both time and trust.
Other examples include press releases with spelling and grammatical errors; I can usually work out what was meant, but they interrupt my thought process as I’m reading and make me wonder what else is wrong. Similar errors in vendor presentations raise doubts that the software was written with any more care than the PowerPoint text. Programmers assure me that “the compiler catches stuff like that” but clearly errors do get through, and text typos lower my trust that the company cares about quality at any level.
None of these things are that big of a deal individually and can usually be worked around, but they all compromise the message. To err is human, certainly, but given the high expectations we’re all encouraged to have about personalized service, such mistakes are disappointing and undermine our trust that the company really does know who we are – or cares.
Have you checked your Web site lately to see if you’re sending mixed messages?