Siegel Sez- UPDATE THIS / September 10, 1999

Siegel Sez -

UPDATE

THIS !
September 10, 1999 - Issue #3

Technology N E W S T A N D

By Jon Inge

Technology Tips News You Can Use

By Mark Haley

Hospitalitys Location for Automation

Atlanta, GA - September 10, 1999 - I was at a party on Sunday of the Labor Day weekend when a stranger came up to me and said, "I know you, but I don't know from where." Before I could suggest, he said, "I know, Siegel Sez." I said, "Wow, that is pretty cool," and we laughed. He is a big shot with Bass Hotels (also here in Atlanta) and he said that he loved the email. Once every two weeks was perfect. It is easy to read like Hotel-Online and he loved the joke at the end. You know, it made me feel pretty good. Not because he liked us doing this, but because he gave me feedback (okay, I admit, it helped that the feedback was positive). But even negative stuff is okay, it can inspire change and change for the better does benefit us all, right?

Okay, before we start, I must mention that with the summer over it is back to work. If you are planning on attending the International Hotel/Motel and Restaurant Show in New York on November 6-9, then I have good news. The Hotel & Restaurant Technology UPDATE is going to do our Technology Pavilion again. This will be our third year and it has gotten bigger and bigger each year. If you are a vendor and were going to skip NY because of the cost, well, you now have no excuse. We will provide you space, electricity, signage, literature distribution and great exposure for a very nominal fee.

There is limited space, so if you are interested, please email me at rsiegel@updateplus.com or give us a call at (770) 953-2300. Again, there are limited spots available, so if you are interested please call sooner than later.

Okay, onto this week's news. I will be back at the end with this week's bad joke and an Amy update.

Technology N E W S T A N D By Jon Inge joninge@earthlink.net

The big industry news of the week, of course, is Hilton's takeover of Promus. While there seems to be a great match between the various brand names owned by the two companies, it'll be interesting to see how the systems scene shapes up, since both have strong, capable IT departments.

Hilton's brand-new, REZsolutions-developed CRS seems like a natural to serve the expanded company, but the PMS scene is less clear. Both companies have modern PMSs developed in-house: Hilton with its HPMS2 (based on Springer-Miller's Host application), and Promus with its System 21, written from scratch with assistance from Microsoft. At least they should all be ready for Y2K!

* * * Another survey of travelers' preferences was released, this time from Greenfield Online, whose Executives in Motion study covered 1,000 men and women who travel at least once a month on business. Apart from determining their preferred brand names for hotels, airlines and car rental companies, the survey reported that most such travelers want to be able to go online, but only 31% generally find the room wired for digital Internet access.

Also, 51% carry laptops, 70% cellular phones, and 40% pagers. Topline findings from the study are available at http://www.greenfieldcentral.com

Property Management Systems

HSI merges with ClubSystems

Hospitality Solutions International (HSI) has merged with club software and systems developer ClubSystems Group, which will operate as a division of HSI. ClubSystems was formed from the merger of Diamond Management Systems and Country Club Systems, and brings its 2,700-location user base to HSI's worldwide presence at 2,600 sites.

Internet Reservations

UK-based PhoneLink plc's Online division launched Tel-Me Global Traveller, claiming it to be the web's first travel service with a customer reward scheme by way of e-miles, and offering hotel room booking facilities, consolidated discounted fares, and an inbound flight tracking system to anticipate any delays to scheduled flights. Services are coordinated via PhoneLink's Seaforths travel agency subsidiary and call center. Flights booked through the web site will attract e-mile points, in addition to any applicable airline frequent flyer points, which can be redeemed against future flight bookings or holiday packages.

* * * Discount hotel accommodations provider Hotel Reservations Network (HRN) announced that its Internet affiliates program now has more than 3,000 members. HRN builds sites for its partners, incorporating the look and feel of each individual partner's own site, and uses the HRN booking engine as its sales backbone, paying a commission on each booking. HRN affiliates include Best Fares Internet Travel Network, Cheap Tickets, Costco Travel, the Washington D.C. Convention & Visitors Association, and RealMetros.com's city information provider HotelGuide.net. * * * WorldRes.com has added ResortQuest.com's inventory of over 16,000 privately owned homes and condominiums available for vacation rentals to its online travel distribution network.

WorldRes.com also appointed Wolfgang Kitza, 38, as Managing Director of WorldRes.com Europe, effective immediately. Kitza, an experienced start-up manager in the IT/Internet sector, was most recently General Manager of German on-line service Cityweb Network, which he grew to the fifth largest online service in Germany in nine months.

* * * HARS Systems' subsidiary VIP International Corp contracted with Pegasus Systems for the distribution of its 1,600 hotels through Pegasus' TravelWeb.com travel site, and for access to Preview Travel's travel site. Pegasus reports that it processed more than 860,000 Internet reservations in the first half of the year, equivalent to over $170 million in hotel room revenue. * * * REZsolutions contracted with Camino Real Hotels to provide private label voice and Global Distribution System (GDS) services for its 16 luxury category properties in resort, metropolitan and colonial cities in Mexico and the United States.

REZsolutions also introduced NetRez, a secure, Internet-based tool for managing hotel rates and inventory within the RezView central reservation system, along with one-day training courses in rate management, and ongoing refresher courses to ensure its continued effective use.

* * * Rezworks released Avail 5.0, a Windows-based reservation application targeted at bed & breakfasts, inns and vacation rental property managers that enables online availability and reservations via the Internet. Avail 5.0, successor to the WinROOM product line, tracks guest information and sources and posts availability information to any Web site, in either calendar or date-query form. When used with a Travel Network listing on VacationSpot.com (also operated by Rezworks), reservation requests can be sent directly to a property management system for immediate processing. Avail can also add a live calendar of availability on a property manager's own Web site.

VacationSpot.com's online lodging inventory and booking functions have also been added to InfoSeek Corp's GO Network.

* * *

LastMinuteTravel.com released My Travel Minder, an e-mail notification system that alerts customers to last-minute discounted travel, hospitality and entertainment offers that match their pre-defined preferences.

Inventory providers include: American, Continental, US Airways and United Airlines; Hilton, Hyatt, Marriott, Swissotel and Westin hotels and resorts; Carnival, Commodore, Norwegian and Renaissance Cruise Lines; as well as opportunities for car rentals, vacation packages, theater tickets, sporting events, etc.

* * * Fast-expanding Luxe Worldwide Hospitality, formed only in January but already representing more than 225 hotels with 30,000 rooms, launched its Website this week. The site includes on-line reservations functionality and a special-requests entry facility for guests to make their needs known pre-arrival. Luxe, focused on the boutique hotel market, claims to be the seventh largest reservations system in America and the ninth largest in the world. * * * Sight & Sound Software unveiled BookSmart 2.0, an enhanced version of its online travel booking engine middleware, with a simplified configuration and open architecture for better integration and to allow for third party customization. An earlier version of BookSmart was installed on American Airlines web site to handle its worldwide e-commerce traffic. * * * AcrossFrontiers International unveiled Country Facts & Figures, a new source of free online travel information on 185 countries. Information includes travel safety tips and essentials, climate, major holidays, historical highlights, governmental structure, economic conditions, visitor highlights and a complete listing of all embassies within each country, compiled and updated by teams of in-country specialists. * * * Aaron Corporation launched SearchHotels.com, a lodging search engine that offers keyword-search capabilities through more than 100,000 property listings in 19,000 cities worldwide. Reservations can be made on the internet through sister site TravelHero.com, also owned by Aaron Corp.

Revenue Management

IDeaS, Inc., has appointed Edwin (Ed) Booth as President and CEO. Dr. Subhash Gupta, one of the founders of IDeaS and former President and CEO, stays on as the Chairman of the Board. Mr. Booth is the former President and CEO of JobBOSS Software, of Minneapolis, MN, a leading supplier of enterprise management software and services for job shops and small contract manufacturers.

* * * Opus 2 Revenue Technologies has appointed Mike Webb as Director of its Project Management Office, with special responsibility for managing the multi-year thin-client development program with Starwood Hotels & Resorts. Webb comes to Opus 2 from Westin Hotels & Resorts Technology Center in Salt Lake City.

Sales & Catering, Meeting Planning

Newmarket International announced that Delphi 7.1.2 has been installed at several properties in Europe and Africa, including the Novotel London Hammersmith, the Sheraton Pretoria in South Africa, and the Hotel & Kasteel Vaalsbroek in the Netherlands.

Newmarket also announced the appointment of Paul Nevelos, formerly with the Sheraton Oman Hotel, as training manager for its EAME Division.

Newmarket's Asia Pacific Division announced that the Jakarta Convention Centre has ordered CCBreeze, Newmarket's Windows-based application for convention centers.

* * * Daylight Software announced an Open Data policy, applicable to all past and present releases of Daylight products. The new policy commits the company to making all data in Daylight systems fully accessible, including opening its database to third party vendors. It also provides for a Push Button Export feature, which will allow a Daylight user to extract all data from any Daylight application into text format, simply and quickly. The policy is intended to simplify the transmission of data to PMSs, third party mailing products, report writers, etc. and to forestall possible user concerns arising from current difficulties in accessing data needing to be transferred from earlier systems to Daylight's "enterprise" S&C system. * * * SecurFone America's IXATA.COM subsidiary has signed an agreement to provide Choice Hotels International with its RFP Express service to manage Choice's responses to corporation and travel agency requests for preferred lodging rates and special negotiated rate programs. * * * Painted Rain Interactive announced the eBusinessCard, a uniquely shaped CD-ROM as small as a business card. Intended to give hotels and resorts a new approach to showcasing guest rooms, meeting facilities, and property amenities, eBusinessCards can be made in many shapes to suit a company's marketing efforts, can hold interactive text, music, 360-degree photos and Internet hyperlinks, and play in a standard computer CD-ROM drive. * * * Exchange Applications showed its new emarketing CRM software solution at the recent DCI Customer Relationship Management Conference Expo. Developed by its GBI subsidiary, Exchange's emarketing manager is available both as a stand-alone product and in an ASP model, can manage both human and machine responses to emarketing efforts to ensure that customer responses are "listened to" and routed appropriately, has flexible reporting and can generate electronic communications in 18 languages, including Japanese, Korean and Chinese.

GBI's software is already in use at several large client sites, including Microsoft's Expedia.com.

* * * BusinessMeetings.com, which provides an online service supplier and availability research Website, has added hotel videos to select property sites under an agreement with Visual Data Corp's HotelView Corporation subsidiary. The two-to-four minute video tours can be accessed from HotelView members' sites, the HotelView site or through a distribution network of more than 650 travel, leisure and business web links, including BusinessMeetings.com.

Point of Sale

InfoGenesis has been designated a Premier Business Partner of IBM, providing computerized point-of-sale systems for customers in the hospitality and foodservice industries, and is the only developer of point-of-sale for hospitality and foodservice to qualify for the Premier Partner designation.

* * * POS developer Javelin Systems Inc. has acquired Restaurant Consulting Services Inc. (RCS), an ASP in the foodservice industry. ASPs provide a contractual service to provide all of the specific activities and expertise aimed at managing a software application. The acquisition gives Javelin the capability to roll out and support remote LANs in customers' stores, link them in a Wide Area Network, and then accumulate all the remote site data and feed it into a central financial system.

Guestroom Services

Wingate Inn Hotels announced that all of its open hotels now have complimentary guestroom high-speed Internet access, plus rental connections for meeting rooms and boardrooms, using LodgeNet Entertainment Corp's On Line by LodgeNet system. Guests' laptops must have an Ethernet card installed, but no software installation or re-configuration is required.

* * * Marriott International has reached an agreement with Salt Lake City-based STSN (Suite Technology Systems Network) to install high-speed Internet access over existing phone lines in its properties. Installation will begin this October at Marriott Hotels, Resorts and Suites; Renaissance Hotels and Resorts; and Courtyard by Marriott locations. The roll-out schedule provides for STSN to be available in all guest rooms, meeting rooms and business centers at a minimum of 100 hotels by year-end 1999, and in more than 500 properties by the end of 2000. Marriott will charge guests a nominal $9.95 per 24-hr period.

Purchasing

FoodTRENDS On Purchasing, a new survey by Thomas Food Industry Register and American Express, shows increasing use of electronic conveniences (such as sourcing on the Internet and using credit/charge cards for wholesale purchases) by food industry buyers. The survey examined three key market segments: restaurants with fewer than 6 units, wholesalers / distributors, and food processors. Among the findings:

use of the Internet or CD-ROMs to locate suppliers has risen from 5% three years ago to over 50% today.
only 24% of restaurants are sourcing online, valuing the ability to look for products outside of business hours (84%) and to comparison shop (81%).
60% of restaurants now use credit/charge cards to finance general business expenses and 54% use their cards to buy food, equipment, or supplies, valuing the freedom to look for supplies in more places (74%), to establish credit more quickly (68%) and to make bill payment easier (57%).
47% of restaurants see the possibility of buying most of their supplies with a credit card by the year 2001.
67% of wholesalers/distributors are on the Internet, using proprietary software to communicate with customers, or looking for suppliers to represent; 45% of those not currently online say they expect to be in the next 6 months.
51% of food processors have Web sites where their customers can look over product offerings (83%), request more information on products (85%), send e-mail to sales reps (81%), and order products (47%).

Data was collected via telephone interviews with 800 food executives nationwide, including 300 restaurants (with fewer than six units); 250 wholesalers/distributors; and 250 food processors. * * * Aon Corp's RiskNet Worldwide subsidiary announced a new e-commerce site, to be available by 4th quarter thisyear, that will offer hundreds of safety-related products at discounted prices. RiskNet already operates the Safety Forum Website, which gathers, distributes, reports and archives safety management information; current Safety Forum subscribers include Bristol Hotels and Resorts and National Hotel Management, Inc.

Communications

Choice Hotels International has awarded AT&T a $233 million, twelve-year agreement by to provide domestic and international long distance and toll free services, digital access and network remote access for calling cards to its more than 4,800 hotels.

* * * Motorola announced its HT1250*LS two-way radio, targeted at the hospitality industry; it operates on any UHF LTR trunking system, for a wider calling area, faster channel access, and greater privacy with no airtime charges.

A talkgroup feature allows hotel departments to communicate internally without disrupting other groups' radio communications.

* * * Teledex Corp has appointed Julian Haddon as Director of Sales for Southern Europe, Mideast, and Africa (SEMEA). Most recently Director of Sales and Marketing/EMEA for Fourth Communications Network Ltd., Julian has spent ten years with ITT Sheraton, two with Inter-Continental Hotels and four with Forte and Le Meridien Hotels and Resorts, in various senior sales and marketing positions.

Technology Tips - News You Can Use By Mark Haley mhaley@hitoucht.com

Telecom

Interesting insight from a conversation with Ron Tarro, CEO of SDD Systems, a call accounting vendor. On the subject of declining telecom revenues, we puzzled over the apparent passivity of most hoteliers. Very rarely will a hotel company executive or GM suggest any response other than "raise rates", which is one of the things that got us into that situation.

Ron's comment "Compete! Hotels are unregulated and can set their own prices, so get creative." A few minutes thought about different telephone pricing models takes one down some interesting roads.

* * * Speaking of declining revenues....Bell Atlantic and Vodaphone report discussions about a possible business combination that would create another nationwide cell phone network. Such a combination would allow them to make their cellular single-rate plans more competitive with AT&T's ground-breaking One Rate program. One Rate dented hotel telecom revenue enough. What will another nationwide network do?

In-Room Internet

Consolidation continues: the acquisitive CAIS Internet continues to move aggressively following their IPO. In addition to the previously announced acquisition of ATCOM/INFO, CAIS is rounding out their product line with the purchase of Business Anywhere USA, a provider of unattended business centers in hotels and other public locations. The Business Anywhere devices are built around remote management and administration via the Internet and will offer plug & play Internet access in addition to PCs, printers, fax cand copier tools.

* * * Wingate Inns announced the installation of the On Line by Lodgenet plug & play Internet access service in every Wingate property. This includes guestrooms and meeting rooms. Note that this isn't the announcement of a deal: it is an announcement of deployed, installed and operating systems being used by guests.

Guestroom access is available as a complementary amenity, meeting room services as an incremental revenue stream. Costs of implementation were shared between Wingate and the owners of the franchised units. Kudos to Wingate and Lodgenet for achieving this milestone, which strongly reinforces Wingate's technology-friendly value proposition.

* * * Marriott International and STSN announced an exclusive agreement to install STSN's high-speed Internet service into over 42,000 Marriott guestrooms in the next four months. Marriott brands to be serviced include the core Marriott Hotel brand, Renaissance and Courtyard. The service will be on a paid basis. In addition to Ethernet connectivity, STSN offers a Universal Serial Bus (USB) interface to their network as well. Most laptops ship with USB ports built-in.

Management

A quick survey of area and regional IT personnel for major hotel companies shows a major common thread: Property-level Y2K. The regional teams from all the major brands are focused on that only. In addition to straightforward Y2K tasks, these busy people are kept even busier with a few system replacements driven by Y2K requirements. While the hotel companies completed Year 2000 assessment and remediation for their strategic central and corporate systems last year and early this year, evidence indicates that properties are behind the curve. Many are still in assessment and few are on contingency planning. January 1, 2000 will be an interesting day in the hotel business.

Distribution

You thought Priceline.com was really big? Microsoft's Expedia.com on-line travel services unit is coming after Priceline's "customer-driven" bid model in a big way. The new Hotel Price Matcher offering allows shoppers to submit nonrefundable, noncancellable bids for hotel rooms of a given quality in a given market. Expedia system then automatically seeks matching confidential rates in their GDS connection. Like Priceline, Expedia is subsidizing transactions to buy market share. Unlike Priceline, Expedia is claiming immediate, on-line turnaround (vs. email) and the standard ability to book a room in chosen hotel at the price offered by the hotel in the GDS.

* * * REZsolutions is profiling their NetRez tool, using a browser over the public Internet to securely manage inventory controls for any REZsolutions user property. Status and inventory changes propagate to all distribution channels. The implications for multiple-property administration are evident. REZsolutions is backing up the product offering with a variety of user-education services available to customers.

Siegel Sez- AGAIN

I hope that you found Issue #3 of Siegel Sez via Hotel-Online enlightening and useful. We actually have gotten some very interesting (notice I didn't say good) feedback. If you would like to share your comments, please email me at rsiegel@updateplus.com or visit our web site and leave your comments on our feedback forum. You can do it anonymously if you want.

Okay, as promised here is the update, Amy is now officially out of the picture, so stop asking! I thought that before I leave this week I would share with you a story I heard while on a recent trip while sitting in the hotel bar.....

An able-bodied seaman meets a pirate and they take turns recounting their adventures at sea. Noting the pirate's peg-leg, hook and eye patch the seaman asks, "So, how did you end up with the peg-leg?"

The pirate replies, "We was caught in a monster storm off the cape and a giant wave swept me overboard. Just as they were pullin' me out, a school of sharks appeared and one of 'em bit me leg off."

"Blimey!" said the seaman. "What about the hook?"

"Arghhhhh..." mused the pirate, "We were swingin' this way and that. In the fracas me hand got chopped off."

"Zounds!" remarked the seaman. "And how come ye by the eye patch?"

"A seagull droppin' fell into me eye," answered the pirate.

"You lost your eye to a seagull dropping?" the sailor asked incredulously.

"Well," said the pirate, "it was me first day with the hook."

Siegel Sez -

UPDATE

THIS ! September 10, 1999 - Issue #3

THIS !
September 10, 1999 - Issue #3