Los Angeles. June 17. 1998--The Hospitality Industry Technology Integration Standards (HITIS) project, spearheaded by the American Hotel & Motel Association (AH&MA), successfully alpha tested several HITIS draft interfaces at the recent Hospitality Industry Technology Exposition & Conference (HITEC) in Los Angeles, Calif. These interfaces involved point of sale extensions to property management systems. In addition, a HITIS panel provided attendees with a project update, and advisory and technical committees met throughout the conference.

"Our response from the information technology industry has been extremely supportive, and we especially want to thank Ibertech and MSI for their efforts in bringing HITIS to the forefront by conducting alpha tests in our project area at HITEC," said Thierry Roch, AH&MA vice president of industry and corporate affairs.

Joe Paiva, managing director, CynterCon Group, noted "HITIS testing is an iterative process that enhances public input and ensures the standards are market ready. HITIS alpha tests are a series of iterative processes designed to ensure the functionality of three critical implementation components: Transferring a HITIS model to a vendor and having the vendor be able to open and read the model file in their developmental tool of choice, generating code (stubs) from the supplied HITIS model, and integrating generated code into a developer's application."

HITIS beta tests, which will be announced shortly, follow successful and multiple, iterative alpha tests after two separate developers have successfully incorporated a HITIS-based interface into their applications. Beta testing occurs in two phases: Two developers run their applications off line to see if they actually work together and function (i.e., pass information) as designed, and developers install and run their applications in lodging facilities simultaneously in real time.

Three technical committees - Central Reservation Systems & Yield Management, Posting Devices, and Remote Devices - will complete up to 14 HITIS interfaces by November 1998. Last year's draft POS to PMS Folio Posting standard has been reconstituted into five new standards by the Posting Devices Technical Committee. The new interfaces are folio query, folio posting, room status, event notification, and guest messaging. Additionally, a data dictionary is being developed to promote continuity between all HITIS standards. Ml 14 standards are expected to be demonstrated in real time at the Hotel Information & Technology Show in September.

"We applaud the work of our committee members - in particular Chairmen Dick Moore, Bill Geoghegan and John Steer - to ensure that the standards are being developed with true platform independence," said AH&MA President and CEO Bill Fisher. "AH&MA's technology and project consultant, CynterCon Group, has done a remarkable job over the past few months using their expertise to keep HITIS abreast with cutting-edge technologies as we progress with our initiative."
 
 

Current Principal sponsors (those contributing $10,000) include Hitachi Telecom, HSI, and Ibertech, Inc. Current Sustaining sponsors (those contributing $5,000) include MicroScript Corp., Whitbread Hotel Co., and KPMG Peat Marwick, LLP.

Initiated in October 1996, the HITIS project seeks to eliminate the problems associated with incompatible hospitality technologies, such as expensive retrofitting procedures and custom rewrites. For additional information on the HITIS project, visit the HITIS Web site at www.hitis.org or contact Thierry Roch at [email protected]. For more specific technical information, contact Bob Elliott at relliott@ahma. corn or Joe Paiva at [email protected].

AH&MA, founded in 1910, is a federation of State lodging associations throughout the United States, with some 11,000 members worldwide, representing more than 1.4 million rooms. AH&MA provides operations, technical, educational, marketing, and communications services plus governmental affairs representation to the lodging industry.