I just love this time of year. Another year is in the books and we get to take a moment to come up for air and plan for next year. We really have had fun doing this and getting recognized as the source for technology in the hotel, restaurant and travel industries. We have received many more visits and activities on our www.updateplus.com web site, especially in the Feedback Forum. It has become less and less of a site about us and more of an industry site for technology issues. I think this is pretty cool. 

Okay, let’s move on to the news since we missed a week and have some catching up to do. If you have any comments, please email them to me at rsiegel@updateplus.com. For those of you following the ups and downs of my fantasy football team, after starting 0-3, I have not lost in ten weeks and am in the playoffs. Go George, James, Glenn and all, three more and I am the WAFL Bowl champion! 

I will see you at the end with my bi-weekly attempt at something funny. 

Now here is the news.  rsiegel@updateplus.com

Top o' The News  

Internet users increase their on-line travel bookings despite a small element of doubt... Of those Internet users flying during the Thanksgiving holiday, over a third (38%) booked their flights over the Internet, another 22% went directly to an airline by other means and 16% used a travel agent.  Of those who booked over the Internet, 55% were confident or comfortable about making online travel arrangements, while a nervous 10% said they were not confident about the online arrangements - but went ahead anyway.  The findings are part of a survey by PC Data Online. 

Newmarket International has appointed Thomas Gaillard as Chief Financial Officer. Mr. Gaillard was Vice President of Finance and Administration for NovaNET Learning, an educational software company based in Tucson. 

Emphasizing its serious intent in the hospitality Internet/guestroom services arena, The Network Connection, Inc. has appointed Theodore Racz as Senior Vice President and Scott Currier as Vice President for its new Hotel and Hospitality Division. Mr. Racz brings executive experience from LodgeNet Entertainment, MetroMedia International and Group W Broadcasting, and will be the new Division's chief sales and marketing executive. Mr. Currier was previously with both LodgeNet and On Command Corp. TNCi provides interactive information and entertainment systems via high performance networks in cruise ships (Cruise View), trains (TrainView) and hotels (InnView). 

Property Management Systems 

The 1,777 room Cosmos Hotel in Moscow has completed the implementation of MAI Systems’ HIS Lodging Touch PMS.  The installation, coordinated through HIS’ United Kingdom office and its Russian distribution partner, LIBRA International, is the largest international Lodging Touch implementation to date. 

Choice Hotels International has nominated Eltrax Hospitality Group as an approved vendor for international franchisees, under its Endorsed Direct Order Vendor Program.  North American properties will continue to use Choice’s own Profit Manager PMS.  Eltrax will provide its LANmark and Medallion applications, as well as hardware, implementation and support services.  LANmark already interfaces with ChoiceLink, Choice’s central reservations system; Eltrax is developing a similar interface for Medallion. 

Reservations 

A new Web-based CRS is launched - SynXis Corp has released SynXis Agent, a Web-based central reservation system and what is claimed to be the world’s first complete ASP reservation solution. In addition to seamless connectivity to the Global Distribution Systems (GDSs), SynXis Agent offers single image, real-time inventory to the alternative distribution channels and to customers’ own web sites. It also includes guest history data collection and PMS interface capabilities. First installations are at Utopia Lifestyle Inns (for connectivity and channel management) and in Marc Resorts Hawaii (central reservations). 

Providing live-person response - Biztravel.com, the business travel-focused division of Rosenbluth Interactive, has selected eShare’s NetAgent solution to provide real-time online customer service at its web site, claiming this as an industry first. NetAgent will provide online customer service capabilities, including instant messaging, e-mail correspondence and live chats with agents. 

On-line leisure travel specialist WorldRes.com has crossed its 10,000th property milestone; adding over 1,200 properties from Accor, Europe’s largest hotel company, puts WorldRes’ inventory at more than 10,500 hotels, inns, B&Bs and vacation rentals worldwide. 

Whiplash, Inc., an ambitious new e-commerce company, introduced what it terms an Internet-based global distribution system (GDS), “providing an Internet access presence for travel and tour providers and expanding their global distribution capabilities”. The aim is to allow agents to plan leisure and experiential travel on-line, as well as book what it calls commodity travel, through a single Web-based engine. The start-up management team includes some heavy hitters, including Louis Borders, Founder and CEO of Webvan and Borders Books and Music, Scott Abramson, ex-director of information technology for Pegasus Systems, and Richard Green, who was principal architect at Sabre during a 20-year career there. 

More restaurant bookings available on-line - OpenTable.com has expanded its real-time online restaurant reservations to Chicago and Seattle. The Seattle network is currently made up of thirteen charter member restaurants, the Chicago one of eleven. OpenTable.com predicts that Chicago and Seattle will quickly be among their largest markets. Diners can search for availability by cuisine type or neighborhood, get instant confirmations, relay special instructions to the restaurant, invite guests via the Internet, and view maps online; the service is free to diners. 

Pegasus makes it 8 of 10 - Carlson Wagonlit Travel has contracted with Pegasus Commission Processing to process hotel commissions in the U.S. and Canada. This brings Pegasus’ client list up to 8 of the top 10 U.S. travel agencies. 

Pegasus also announced that Ticketmaster Online-CitySearch has contracted for its TravelWeb real-time hotel booking capabilities for TMCS’ Reservations Center on the citysearch.com Web sites. TMCS is a local Internet portal company that offers comprehensive community information, ticketing services, and reservation and transaction capabilities. Pegasus’ Private Label Reservation Service is planned to be incorporated into TMCS’ Reservations Center on citysearch.com in first quarter 2000 and will complement citysearch.com’s existing hotel reservations capabilities. 

TappedInto.com and StateConnect.com have launched an online travel site, TappedIntoTravel.com, with a database featuring maps and information on more than 30,000 cities. End users can find information on travel and lodging (airline reservations, hotels, bed & breakfasts, boarding houses, vacation rentals, auto rentals); local interests (education, newspapers, lawyers, weather, doctors, city events, recreation and day care providers) and entertainment, including movie listings and start times. 

Reservations services company TRUST International, a joint venture of the media giant Bertelsmann and SRS-WORLDHOTELS, has established TRUSTCorp as a direct link between TRUST’s Central Hotel Reservation System and company Intranets. Availability and rates will be maintained and modified online by the hotels so that business travellers have current data at all times. BASF is currently using the TRUSTCorp system as a pilot program in Germany. 

REZsolutions has reached an agreement with TEN Online to make more than 5,500 REZsolutions hotel customers currently on its HotelBook.com web site accessible for bookings on the TEN Online Level 2000 system and affiliated Internet travel portals. REZsolutions has created an interface that lets TEN Online deliver data directly from HotelBook onto multiple web sites as a “private-label offering”, which allows for distribution under the HotelBook identity. HotelBook’s content is also currently distributed through all major Internet travel sites including TravelWeb.com, Travelocity.com and Expedia.com. 

Travelscape.com will add Digital Courier’s payment suite to its web site, covering risk control, on-line reporting and payment settlement services. Travelscape processes between 40,000 and 50,000 transactions a month for customers purchasing travel services over the Internet. 

Sabre announced that Motel 6 has made its 800 US properties available through the Sabre reservations system and Basic Booking Request product, allowing all Sabre connected travel agencies and Travelocity.com users to book rooms at any Motel 6. This is the first implementation of Sabre’s scaled-down product, which uses the Sabre Net Platform to make CRS distribution more affordable for economy-class chains. 

Revenue Management 

In a European parallel to the recent MICROS-Fidelio takeover of Opus 2, PMS vendor ProLogic  is merging with revenue management supplier TIMS .  The new company will be named TIMS-PROLOGIC, and will offer integrated hospitality software including ProLogic’s Visual Generation PMS and TIMS’ CityOptims Windows-based revenue management system. 

Endorsing the deal, Paris-based Accor designated CityOptims as its worldwide revenue management solution for Accor brands, which include Sofitel, Novotel, Mercure, Parthenon, Coralia, Thalassa International, Atria, Ibis, Etap Hotel, Formule 1, as well as Motel 6 and Red Roof in the US.  CityOptims will be interfaced with Prologic’s PMS systems, which are installed in more than 750 Accor properties in Europe, Middle East and Africa.  CityOptims will enable Accor to optimize revenue and control inventory for clusters of hotels in the same geographic area, as well as providing access to the same applications and technology at both property and corporate levels. 

Sales & Catering, Meeting Planning 

A new site for meeting planners, StarCite.com, has been launched. Offering a channel for properties to reach meeting planners, StarCite also posts industry news, and includes a Meetings Central area where planners can create, research, transact, budget and analyze meeting details. Custom, private-label versions are also available. 

Japanese hotelier ANA Hotels International has entered into a two-year agreement with Denver-based JBH Travel Audit to use its Hotel RFP Solutions. This web-based database product allows for the sharing of property details between all individual hotels and sales offices. 

The 286-room luxury Houstonian Hotel, Club & Spa (Houston, TX) has selected Daylight Software’s “enterprise” system for the hotel’s sales and catering operations. Installation and training is scheduled to begin January 2000. 

Internet-based convention and group reservation management vendor Passkey.com announced that it will offer event registration as an integrated component of its group housing solution. Three options will be offered for pre-registration integrated with housing: 

• Simple template-driven registration—Enables meeting planners to set up their own registration pages using pre-designed templates, and offers a comprehensive selection of online reports;
• Custom registration—Lets meeting planners design their own event registration pages, with Passkey.com’s technical staff building pages to their specifications. Meeting planners may also select from a library of online reports to address specific needs; 
• Linked registration—Passkey.com can connect directly to current event registration solution through an application programming interface (API) solution.

Xando Cosi, Inc., a chain of upscale coffeehouses and sandwich bars, has selected Aloha TableService as its point-of-sale solution.  The chain is also implementing Aloha enterprise.com, Ibertech’s Internet-based enterprise solution. 

Guest Services 

A new multi-vendor coalition offers guestroom Internet access solutions - the CopperPowered Hotel initiative has been launched by DSL supplier Copper Mountain Networks, Inc. The program aims to provide hotel Internet Service Providers (ISPs) with flexible, non-proprietary DSL solutions, ensuring end-to-end interoperability between property management systems (PMS), Service Selection Gateways, DSL concentrators, various end-user access devices, and guests’ laptops. The initiative also enables service providers to offer flat-rate or usage-based charges and to bill guests using existing hotel billing systems. Partners include Atreus Systems Corp. (with its guestLINK software set), Nomadix, Inc. (Universal Subscriber Gateway network devices) and Viator Networks, Inc. (HoteLink servers for plug-and-play PC connectivity, PMS-integrated billing services, room-level firewall security, and a customizable, ecommerce-enabled portal). 

Prime Hospitality Corp. has signed a five-year agreement with CAIS Internet for high speed Internet in-building access systems and custom portal pages for all guest and meeting rooms in its 209 hotels across the United States. Prime’s properties include its proprietary AmeriSuites and Wellesley Inn & Suites chains, plus full service hotels managed under franchises from major chains such as Hilton, Sheraton, and Radisson Hotels. 

GuesTech has contracted with NEC Computer Systems to use NEC’s all-in-one PowerMate 2000 PC for its SuiteLink guestroom Internet connectivity product. The PowerMate integrates the CPU and disk drives into the frame of its 15” flat-panel display, and so occupies minimal space on the desktop. The SuiteLink offering provides free-to-guest high-speed Internet access, as well as fee-based use of Microsoft Office software. The first installments with the PowerMate 2000 will be at the Marriott Annapolis Waterfront Hotel in Annapolis, MD, later this month. 

LodgeNet Entertainment Corp. has added a traveler-oriented portal to its OnLine by LodgeNet high-speed Internet access service. The portal page was developed in conjunction with online navigation company LookSmart, and is the default display page whether guests access the Internet access through the in-room television or their laptops. LookSmart’s design offers a more personal take on Web directories, providing access to over one million Web sites, selected, summarized and grouped into more than 100,000 categories by LookSmart’s editors. 

On Command has ordered over 95,000 infra-red wireless keyboards from Universal Electronics, Inc. for use with its @Hotel TV high-speed Internet service. The order will cover deliveries through the first quarter of 2000. 

Spokane, WA-based Cavanaughs Hospitality Corporation signed an agreement with Darwin Networks to install DSL-based high-speed Internet access in its guestrooms and meeting rooms. Seven hotels are expected to be completed by the end of 1999, and the remaining twelve by March 2000. 

Smart Traveller Network Ltd. (STNL), which provides hotel reservations system to over 800 independent hotels in Europe and Asia, has become an international distributor for COVENTUS’ eServices suite. EServices provides personalized guestroom Internet access and productivity tools to business travelers via COVENTUS’ Web presence. 

Purchasing 

Business-to-Business (B2B) e-commerce provider PurchasePro.com has signed a deal with two Southern California Holiday Inn properties owned and operated by San Francisco-based Pacific Hotel Management, LLC., the Holiday Inn Pasadena-Convention Center and the Holiday Inn Laguna Hills-Irvine Spectrum. 

PurchasePro.com also announced that it has been selected by Richfield Hospitality Services, Inc. to create a private e-marketplace for its 46 properties. 

And foodservice industry B2B e-commerce provider Tibersoft Corp. announced its TiberNet services, which will allow distributors to create an Internet-based order entry presence for their customers. TiberNet allows a branded one-to-one relationship between operators and distributors and facilitates the placement, tracking and reporting of orders. The service has four levels: 

• TiberNet Basic, which allows operators to sign up their distributors; 
• TiberNet Catalog, offering distributors a separately addressable presence for branding and merchandizing; 
• TiberNet Express, heightens connectivity with customer specific pricing and invoice presentation; and 
• TiberNet Real Time, which connects directly to a distributor host system for real-time order management. 

Much recent activity in Sweden: ASSA ABLOY AB, owners of VingCard and Elsafe, has now also acquired Timelox. As with Elsafe and VingCard, Timelox will continue to be run as a separate business entity; its product range covers card operated electromechanical locks and systems for the hospitality market. 

VingCard released DaVinci, the latest member of its lock family, a contemporary style with a modular construction. It runs on Windows NT, Windows 98 and Windows CE platforms, and can read both smartcards and magstripe cards, either separately or combined. The smartcard applications include download of the audit trail on chip as well as lock diagnostics, and offer various interface possibilities to restaurant systems and vending machines. 

And Vingcard's Elsafe division has been designated as the preferred provider of in-room electronic safes to all of Starwood's more than 700 owned, managed and franchised hotels worldwide. The agreement includes the purchase of 24,000 Elsafes for the company's US-based properties. 

The two latest customers for Bull and Computerized Security Systems' (CSS) SAFLOK SmartCard door locks are the 599-room Hilton Boston Logan Airport that opened in September and the 210-room Wyndham Hotel in Billerica, Mass., which opened in May. SmartCard locks accept keycards with Bull's embedded computer chip, which are used by hotel employees and guests. 

The conference theme encompassed new GDS marketing applications, improvements in current systems, Y2K issues (the vendors are ready, with some companies in a “hard freeze” on new development until mid-January), segment growth numbers and T/A initiates.  Several members stressed that the Internet was the real 800-lb gorilla at this year’s conference.  Flo Lugli, past president of HEDNA and WizCom’s current president, cited the Internet and chain consolidation as major trends to be addressed.  Similarly, Pat Tidmore, VP at Kimpton and another former HEDNA president, told the group Internet auction sites like Priceline.com and Expedia are causing reservation business to cross over from many GDS channels.  The result is that the GDSs are working hard to add value to their offerings, which can only improve the industry. 

This year’s HEDNA conference proved to be an excellent forum providing a powerful package of information for our industry.  For more info on HEDNA see http://www.hedna.org/.

We continually receive feedback about high-speed Internet access in the hotel industry and we are continuing to put the feedback in a readable format. If you have “two cents” to add, please do. Send me an email and tell me if you think that it is hype or something the marketing people are driving and nobody knows why. Will the guest pay for it? If so, how much? If not, is it an amenity that hotels must have? What kind of hotels? Everybody?  Just the Ritz Carltons’ of the world, or do the Holiday Inn Express’s also have to offer it to be competitive?  Let me know what you think...  rsiegel@updateplus.com or post on our feedback forum at http://www.updateplus.com/. 

Okay, I do have a tendancy to talk too much, so let me leave you with this little story.