Now in its fourth year, EURHOTEC aims to highlight technology's potential as a competitive weapon that can boost revenue, reduce costs, enhance guest loyalty and add value for shareholders.  Experts heading the EURHOTEC '99 conference will also convey the importance of thinking ahead when implementing tech-based solutions.  As hotels and restaurants battle to protect their computer systems against the millennium bug, IT specialists are cautioning executives to ensure that new business processes installed will reap bottom-line benefits after Y2K. 

"The drivers of change post-2000 will include mergers and acquisitions within the industry, but changes in customer expectations and the availability of new technology to meet these could become much more significant," warns Dries De Vaal, head of Deloitte Consulting�s 
European Hospitality Practice, and one of a panel of consultants addressing "The Second Wave - Beyond Y2K" in Vienna. 

For Serge Schultz, general manager of the Hotel Metropole, Brussels and member of the EURHOTEC '99 planning committee, knowing how to optimise technology is a must in today's business environment, especially for small, independent establishments whose competitivity is often undermined by the distribution and marketing muscle of the large hotel groups.  "Technology amounts to more customers and a better bottom line, whatever the size of the property.  EURHOTEC '99 will highlight, in a hands-on, practical way, the current and future hi-tech solutions that will help realise this vast potential." 

The EURHOTEC business programme will be structured to reflect the range of tech issues at stake, and to meet the diverse needs of European hoteliers and restaurateurs.  An anticipated 1,500 participants will be encouraged to select their own, custom-made educational programme from a 
total of more than 25 high-powered business sessions, divided into two tracks. 

The first track will bring together prominent users of hospitality technology to share their expertise on the hot issues impacting the European hotel business at the end of the '90's - the millennium bug, the euro currency, data privacy and protection and telecommunications deregulation.  Guest room systems, data warehousing and mining, project management and systems architecture will also be high on the agenda.  A series of interactive sessions will present IT case studies highlighting successful use of technology in restaurant management, environmental 
management, employee training and in independent hotels. 

The second educational track will feature a series of vendor presentations by EURHOTEC corporate sponsors designed to prime delegates on their latest products and services.  Product areas include reservation systems and services, Property Management Systems, Point-of-Sale systems and tech-based security solutions.  Speakers will also be showcasing products at the EURHOTEC exhibition. 

Programme highlights include: 
 

• The Millennium Bug: contingency planning and damage control for the Year 2000.
• European Single Currency: gearing technology to cope with the introduction of the euro.
• Room of the Future: meeting the diverse needs of the technologically demanding business traveller and the leisure guest.
• Database Marketing: how to successfully target guests, travel agentsand conference organisers through current database marketing,warehousing and mining applications.
• Data Protection: insight into the legal implications of holding guest history information.
• Project Management: Plan-Build-Run-Use - how small chains and independent hotels can use IT to improve their operating efficiency.
• Mission POSsible: a session for restaurateurs on turning Point of Sale investment into profit.