IT parade
While the hospitality industry has been comparatively slow to adopt things new and innovative, it has now begun to actively embrace the Internet for dealing with suppliers and customers.
That was the conclusion from a global study completed by international management consultant Andersen in conjunction with New York University and released at this year's HITEC show.
However, the report also stated that despite the upsurge in bookings via the Internet, only half of hotel organisations had an e-business strategy in place to meet this growing demand. Only 4.9% of hotel bookings around the world are being made through the Internet at present, but within three years this should have more than trebled to reach 15.4%.
The report surveyed hotels in every continent and found that 42% of all large hotel organisations are now using the Internet for dealing with suppliers. Of the hotels surveyed, 18% of purchases are made via the Internet. That figure is forecast to grow to almost 30% within 12 months.
The Internet is just one of many technological tools helping to move the hospitality industry forward. At the HITEC show, there were more than 300 trade stands, ranging from industry giants IBM and Microsoft to dotcom minnows eager to target the sector with new ideas. Caterer examines three of the hottest developments.
Speech recognition telephone reservations from Central Point Technologies
Speech recognition has been around for several years, but the information technology has been taken to a new level with the launch of the Speechway online reservation system. A business traveller in search of a room dials into the Speechway property management system (PMS). If the guest is a first-time caller, Speechway will ask for some profile details and issue an ID number before listening to the guest's request for hotel location, date, budget and special preferences. It will then offer hotel options verbally.
Having used the system once, the caller will be recognised in future, either through the phone being used to dial in, the ID number the PMS system has allocated, or simply by the caller repeating their name. Complete guest history is remembered, including the preferential room rates previously negotiated. Where the preferred location is not available, the system will search for the nearest hotel with availability.
The Speechway language memory bank has every principal language of the world and even breaks down into variations, such as UK English and American English. If any word is not recognised, the system will ask for additional information until the request is identified. One benefit for the business traveller is that the search for a hotel room can be done towards the end of a working day through a mobile phone.
Central Point Technologies launched the system in North America at the HITEC show and hopes to have it available in Europe later this year. The cost is either outright purchase or on free loan with a transactional fee per booking of $3.50 (£2.45).
Contact: Central Point Technologies www.centralpointtech.com or www.hotelpms.com
Pegasus Central from Pegasus Solutions
Pegasus, one of the world's largest hotel room reservation handlers, has launched the first Web-based hospitality management service, Pegasus Central.
Access is through a standard PC and, apart from the existing function of room bookings, Pegasus Central will handle a hotel's room management, food and beverage, customer profiling, housekeeping management, cash till management and all front of house transactions. Telephone management is not yet available, but is on the agenda.
While many of these management functions are run from separate computer programs, which may not interface with each other, Pegasus Central runs everything from the same software program, meaning that integrated management is straightforward.
Aware that the cost of such sophistication is beyond independents and small hotel chains, Pegasus is offering its new system on a purely transactional basis, with a hotel paying a nominal fee for each room booking. In the USA, this is set to be 50 cents (35p) per transaction. Large hotel chains are likely to pay a subscription for the service. The system is going live in the US and will be global by next year.
Pegasus was formerly The Hotel Industry Switch Company (THISCO). Set up in 1988, its complex software facilitates understanding among all the different hotel booking software systems in use by the industry.
THISCO adopted the name Pegasus after moving into public ownership with a flotation on the US stock market in 1997.
Contact: Pegasus Solutions UK office020 8490 5912 or www.pegs.com
Work Rule Interpretation from Intellisol International
Rostering staff to meet both the business needs and the needs of the employee is made easier with the launch of Work Rule Interpretation from Intellisol International.
The Windows-based software creates templates for each area of employee activity, taking into account the level of staffing required, those employees who are skilled in a particular function and their skill level, along with employee preferences, such as "don't mind working one day over the weekend, but not both", preferred shift patterns and holidays.
The result is a printed-out roster that ensures there is the right head count and a balance of experienced and inexperienced staff. Work Rule Interpretation can act as a time clock, with employees registering when they enter and leave the workplace. All the information will then interface with the payroll department, including overtime hours worked and payment due.
There is a package already available for companies with a large number of employees, while one for smaller numbers of staff is being developed.
Contact: Intellisol International www.intellisol.com
Broadband access: the waiting game
Expensive recabling of hotel rooms to get the technological advances of broadband access, such as on-demand movies, multipoint telephone lines and better Internet access, may not be the wisest way forward, warns Mark Haley of High Touch Technologies.
Wireless technology for telecommunications may still have some development snags to overcome, but when the glitches are corrected, it can offer hotels all the benefits of broadband technology without the disruption, installation costs and loss of room revenue, he says.
Haley was speaking at one of HITEC's technology seminars and his view was echoed by a survey of the show's delegates. During a keynote address by conference chairman John Cahill, they voted that it was better to wait for further advances in wireless communication before committing to recabling.
Tuning in to customers
The hospitality industry has still not grasped the value of customer relation management and how a simple IT system can deliver instant information on regular guests. This was the message from Dick Dunn, vice-president of marketing for Carlson Hotels in the USA.
He quoted from an American Express survey among regular hotel guests, which revealed that more than half of those polled wished hotels would remember what their individual preferences were and would deliver them on each visit.
