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SAN FRANCISCO, March 23, 2006 � On Monday, Carnus Systems unveiled its vision for the future of the hospitality industry in a panel discussion hosted by the Cornell Alumni Association of Northern California at the Sir Francis Drake Hotel in San Francisco, CA on March 13, 2006. Speaking at the discussion were panelists Vicky Lee, CEO, Sandra Carrico, VP of Engineering, and Timothy D�Auria, Director of Data Analytics for Carnus Systems. Moderating the discussion was Chinmai Sharma, Corporate Director of Revenue Management at Joie de Vivre Hospitality. At the discussion, the panelists reviewed a brief history of hospitality technologies and IT investment. As Vicky Lee noted, hotels have generally been fast to implement new front end technologies, such as cable and internet services. However, back room technology adoption has been slow, particularly with respect to demand forecasting and staffing. Oftentimes, when hotels must choose between IT investments or tangible upgrades, such as room renovations, they choose the latter. As a result, the industry has grown to accept a lackluster and inconsistent standard of service, one where over- and understaffing is common due to a mismatch in labor supply versus demand. �While the hospitality industry is beginning to adopt IT solutions such as POS, PMS, CRS, CRM, revenue management systems, and internet reservation programs, accurate operations-based forecasting that impact staffing throughout individual departments has remained unseen,� said Sandra Carrico. Currently, most hotels implement �capture ratios,� or percentages of total hotel occupancy, to provide forecasts of expected dining guests during each meal period. However, as noted by panelist Tim D�Auria, �Capture ratios have shown to be highly inaccurate. Aside from attempting to model a complex, non-linear, human motility problem using a simple linear technique, capture ratios fail to take into account group demographics, historic trends, weather, season, community events, and hundreds of other variables that are known to have an impact [on meal period covers].� Furthermore, the panelists went on to describe how other techniques, such as regression, moving averages, or other excel spreadsheet analyses are also inaccurate due to their inability to take into account complex non-linear interactions. �Understanding customer behavior is the future of the hospitality industry, and this is where Carnus Systems seeks to make its mark,� said Vicky Lee. Carnus Systems is the first hospitality-specialized software vendor to implement non-linear artificial intelligence technologies. �By better understanding customer behavior and motility within a hotel, customer satisfaction will be improved via more consistent service quality. Furthermore, employee, manager, and owner experience will be improved via more reliable scheduling that may be completed inside of two minutes, more floor time to assist guests, and increased profits,� said Vicky Lee. As pointed out by Sandra Carrico, �Careful scrutiny of records using a product like the Carnus Forecaster will also enable managers, staff, and owners to form a better understanding of their operations via centralization of hotel data in the software�s secure data repository.� Despite the recent success of the Carnus Forecaster, panelist Tim D�Auria explained resistance the company has experienced while attempting to change the industry. �Often, it is human nature to take on a sedentary approach to adopting change; we become attached to an antiquated status-quo and reluctant to accept novelty and innovation. Carnus Systems seeks to challenge this nature, a nature that has governed the dynamics of our industry for too long. By paving the road towards a synergy between astute management and state-of-the-art technology, a new day of improved service efficacy shall be realized.� Carnus Systems can be viewed on the web at: http://www.carnussystems.com.
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