CHICAGO (October 6,
2010) - Participants attending the annual European conference of the
nonprofit trade association Hotel Technology Next Generation (HTNG)
will learn from top industry experts about a wide range of technology
advances in hospitality. The association plans meetings of its
member base to bring them together to collaborate, learn, network and
determine how to capitalize on the latest advances in hospitality
technology to improve their operations-whether as hoteliers or
technology providers.
As an association whose direction is determined by a board that
consists of many of the world's leading hotel company CIOs, HTNG
meeting content is truly the top-of-mind issues for hotel
technologists. Key topics on the agenda planned for this year's
event in Berlin include: hotel data security, virtualisation,
sustainability, CRM, cloud computing, and new services available
through application programming interfaces (APIs). Presenters
include a large number of hotel technologists who are sharing from
their own experiences as well as leading industry experts.
Hoteliers and technology provides alike will see practical examples of
how to efficiently develop and deploy a variety of hospitality
technologies.
Immediately preceding this year's event will be the second annual Hotel
IT Directors' Roundtable. This exclusive collaborative event for
senior level hotel technology leaders is available at no charge to
these technologists, who together to share experiences and perspective
on the greatest challenges facing their hotel IT teams. The Hotel
IT Directors' Roundtable convenes on Monday afternoon, 25 October, just
prior to the HTNG Members' Meeting, which runs from Monday evening
through 27 October.
The agenda for the main Members' Meeting includes sessions from some of
the industry's leading technology names from the hotel community,
technology vendor community, and industry associations. These
distinguished experts and some of their unique sessions include:
- Thinking Outside the Hotel Box, Anna
Pollock, CEO of DestiCorp & Leon Benjamin, social media expert and
author of Winning by Sharing
At a time when all marketing is becoming social, when "push" is being
replaced by "pull" and customers' trust is at an all time low,
hospitality suppliers must find creative modes of
differentiation. By acting as the vital coordinating hubs in what
is, in fact, a complex, networked ecosystem of services, hotels can now
offer a broader scope and level of care that builds loyalty and peer to
peer referrals.
- Virtualisation in a Small Hotel Company,
Mark Rupert Read, IT Director, Firmdale Hotels Firmdale
Hotels used virtualisation technology initially to reduce costs from
suppliers for costly engineering days when migrating existing
applications on to new servers. It then used the same technology
to reduce physical hardware, energy costs, heat/noise generation in the
hotels' back offices, and return much need space back to the hotel
operation.
- Why Cloud Computing in the Hotel and
Services Industries, Jesper Stormholt, Territory Manager, Google
Enterprpise The IT industry is in the progress of
changing. The 25 year old Client-Server IT architecture is
undergoing transformation due to pressures from the business to get
more money out of every IT-dollar spent. Key requests are better:
Availability, Performance, Mobility, End-user Experience, Accessibility
and Prices. Utilizing the capabilities of the Public Cloud
Computing vendors like Google, these needs are being addressed.
This session will review why cloud computing is important to the hotel
business, explain some examples of it being utilized today, and also
review the challenges it raises.
- Sustainability Case Study: The
Implementation and Management of NH Hoteles Sustainability Plan in
Germany, Andreas Ecker, Environment & Engineering Manager, NH
Hoteles Andreas Ecker's presentation will address
the plan to save at least 20% of energy consumption. He will
address which operational and technical measures he enforced to gain
those objectives from a very different initial position for almost 60
hotels. He will also discuss how to deal with different types and
generations of technical installations. His presentation will
address the following questions: What are the demands on controls,
building management, and energy management? How do you ensure the
right investments and what do future-proof investments look like?
The session shows practical experiences with innovative technical
solutions, wireless, and open communication environments such as
EnOcean, Bac-Net, and LON.
- A Changing European Hospitality Landscape:
Customer Acquisition & Implications on Technology, Anton Hell,
Managing Director, hit-CONSULT GmbH and Daniel Krisch, Director Client
Services, h2c consulting Using multiple distribution
channels, customer relationship management (CRM) is a key factor for
value creation. Social media goes hand-in-hand with CRM and
increases customer awareness and interaction. How can hotel
chains compete in a fragmented and mature market like Europe where 3rd
party channels are predominantly using state-of-the-art
technology? This session will explore some of those trends and
discuss the implications for the technology roadmap for hotels who
build or buy these systems, and for vendors who provide them.
- Open APIs Enabling Application Innovation,
Richard Pulliam, Head of Enterprise Business Development, Application
Enablement, Alcatel-Lucent This talk will present
the "art of the possible" through open innovation and application
enablement from a convergence of the network with industry APIs.
It will cover the trends of the "always on" and mobile application
space and open API trends in different industries, which are now moving
into the travel and hospitality industry. Scenarios discussed
will include this convergence enabling everything from location-based
services and communication, content delivery from living room to hotel,
"connected traveler" apps and concierge services, mobile wallets and
carrier billing, integration of social networking/media and much more.
- Data Security. The final
speaker set is still being finalised, but this session will focus on
the critical issue of credit card security. Hotels have become
one of the most attractive targets to professional credit card
thieves. This session will include important perspectives of
credit card companies, hotel companies, and forensic experts.
- Cloud Computing and Virtualisation, Jerome
Destors, Director Hotel IT, Amadeus Group S.A. These
days, we hear a lot about "cloud computing", but what exactly is
it? Amadeus will bring its perspective, providing insight about
what cloud computing means, how current implementations are set and the
challenges faced. Good and bad recipes will be shared as food for
thought. Amadeus will then share its vision for the next steps in
virtualisation.
The
association's Executive Vice President & CEO, Douglas Rice, will
also provide an update on the organisation's most recent
accomplishments in meeting the association's purpose and share plans
about the future direction of the association. In addition to all
of these sessions, attendees will also receive real-life implementation
examples demonstrating the many benefits of deploying standardized
technologies across a wide range of hospitality systems already in
place. Updates from HTNG's workgroups will cover newly released
specifications as well as highlight future workgroup goals,
demonstrating their applicability for event attendees of all types.
In all, the meeting will provide hotel technology experts with
leading-edge knowledge on technology best practices, improving the
guest experience through faster and more robust deployment of
technology, and a better understanding of gains to be made by upcoming
enhancements in hospitality technology. For more details about
the meeting, specifics on the sessions, the Hotel IT Director
Roundtable, or registration for either event, visit http://www.htng.org/europe.
About Hotel Technology Next
Generation
The premier technology solutions association in the hospitality
industry, HTNG is a self-funded, non-profit organisation with members
from hotel and hospitality companies, technology vendors to
hospitality, and other industry members including consultants, media,
and academic experts. HTNG's members participate in focused
workgroups to bring to market open solution sets addressing specific
business problems. HTNG fosters the selection and adoption of
existing open standards. Where necessary, it also develops new
open standards to meet the needs of the global hospitality industry.
Membership in HTNG is open to hotel and hospitality companies,
technology vendors to hospitality, consultants, academics, press and
others. Currently more than 400 corporate and individual members
from across this spectrum, including most of the world's leading hotel
companies and technology vendors, are active HTNG participants. HTNG's
Board of Directors alone represents more than 2.3 million guest rooms.
Workgroup proceedings, drafts, and specifications are published for all
HTNG members as soon as they are created, encouraging rapid and broad
adoption. Specifications are released to the public domain as
they are ratified by the workgroup. For more information, visit www.htng.org.
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