CHICAGO (October
17, 2011) – Participants
attending the annual European conference of the non-profit trade
association
Hotel Technology Next Generation (HTNG) will benefit from the
real-world
experience of top industry experts about planning and deploying a
wide range of technology advances in hospitality.
Topics on the agenda for the event in
Berlin starting 14 November include a keynote about the global travel
market as
well as sessions covering above-property systems, data security and PCI
compliance, open-source software, environmentally friendly hotels,
entertainment
systems, and more.
As part of an annual event planned by hospitality technologists for
hospitality technologists, HTNG’s
conferences are renowned for providing unmatched thought-leadership
sessions
that have brought together the top technology minds in the industry for
six
consecutive years, and created the largest conference in Europe
dedicated to
hospitality technology. To expand on
this mission and ensure the greatest benefit to the industry, HTNG has
this
year opened up the event, which was formerly limited to HTNG members,
to all
hoteliers – members or not (vendors are still required to be
members). In addition, the association has
significantly reduced the registration fee for hoteliers, to only €100
for the
entire two-day conference.
“Hotel technology executives who have
attended in past years tell us this is the most valuable hotel
technology event
in Europe, and we want all of their European peers to have the
opportunity to
experience it first-hand,” said HTNG’s CEO Douglas Rice. “In
addition to a best-in-class conference
program, it is an excellent opportunity for hoteliers to learn about
many of
the ideas that HTNG members are developing to benefit the entire
industry, and to
learn why large and small hotel groups from around the world are
joining our
cooperative efforts to advance the state of technology in our
industry.” Hoteliers can also view many of the latest
technologies from leading vendors in the conference exhibition
area. “We are extremely pleased to see the caliber
and numbers of hoteliers who have already registered for this year’s
event,”
said Rice, who noted that this included 25 of the top global and
regional IT executives
from the region’s best known hotel brands, as well as numerous
corporate
distribution and technical leaders, IT managers at major hotels, and
others.
The conference is the main event within a full
week of HTNG meetings. Immediately
preceding this year’s conference will be the third annual Hotel IT
Directors’
Roundtable. This exclusive collaborative
event is available at no charge to qualified hotel IT executives, who
share
experiences and perspectives on the greatest challenges facing their
hotel IT
teams. The Hotel IT Directors’
Roundtable convenes on Monday 14 November at noon, just prior to the
HTNG European
Conference. The main conference starts
with a Monday evening welcome reception and continues with general
sessions on
Tuesday and Wednesday, 15-16 November. The
HTNG Infrastructure & Device Forum, where working groups of members
collaborate
to implement many solutions to the industry’s technology challenges,
will meet
on Thursday and Friday.
The agenda for the main conference includes
sessions from some of the leading technology names in the hotel
community,
technology vendor community and industry associations. These
distinguished experts and some of their
unique sessions include:
- Keynote:
A Global Outlook on Travel and Tourism - Geoffrey Breeze, Marketing
Director for World Travel & Tourism Council. Budget
airlines in
Asia, Japan’s recovery from tsunami, the Arab Spring, environmental
awareness
in India, America’s homeland security, the price of oil – CHINA!
What’s going on in the world that changes the
Travel & Tourism business? And how
are those changes impacting the hotel industry in Europe? Sixty
years on from Conrad Hilton coining his
motto "World Peace through International Trade and Travel," are we
closer or further away from his ideal?
- Guest
Entertainment: Challenges &
Opportunities, Richard Barnes, Editor-in-Chief, Cleverdis, Panel
Moderator. Few aspects of hotel technology have changed
as fast in the past two years as guest entertainment. This lively
panel will include two senior
hotel IT executives, two senior executives from display manufacturers,
and two
senior executives from integrators, and will address such issues as
Internet
TV, whether to invest in bandwidth or content, and the changing role of
the
integrator in a world of IP-ready TV sets.
- Journey towards PCI
Compliance - Christian
Palomino, IT Operations, Network & Security Director, Meliá
Hotels
International. PCI compliance has been the biggest
challenge of
recent years for global hotel companies, and the need for security has
never
been greater. Meliá Hotels International,
the largest hotel group in Spain, recently completed a major project to
bring
its IT systems into PCI compliance. Speakers
who led that effort will describe that journey and the challenges and
obstacles
that they needed to overcome. They will
also discuss a major industry effort being led by HTNG members and
supported by
most of the world’s major hotel groups, to help simplify the process of
securing credit card data in hotels and removing most hotel systems
from PCI
scope.
- Above-Property Hotel
Systems: PMS and
Beyond - Bryan Hammer, Regional IT Director for EMEA, Starwood
Hotels
& Resorts Worldwide. Starwood Hotels & Resorts has
been moving key
systems above property for several years, and has recently completed a
European
migration of the Property Management System.
This session will help you understand what they have found to be
feasible
and practical, as well as some of the challenges.
- Guest Experience &
Customer Profile
- Micah Friedman, Director, Hospitality Industry, Oracle.
This session will
define Customer Experience Management and explain how it can help you
increase
customer satisfaction while increasing revenues. Focusing on
decomposing customers, their
needs, and experiences, the speaker will identify the components of a
CEM
strategy and how it can help hotels keep up with changing customer
expectations
and create a differentiated experience.
He will also highlight HTNG's new workgroup to expand and standardize
the definition of customer profile, and how this will help hotels and
vendors
alike.
- Open
Source Hospitality: No Free Lunches
- Mark Regensberg, Director of Information Technology, Extrabold
Hotel Management. The
Travel and Hospitality industry have always been forerunners in the use
of
technology, and our reliance on technology to deliver the best guest
experience
possible has never been greater. The
session will cover a hotel management company's use of Open Source
Software in
daily operations, examine open source from a vendor and support
perspective and
offer a view on the future of open source in the hospitality industry.
- Impact of Search Engines
on Technology -
Jérôme Destors, IT Director-Hospitality, Amadeus.
Search engines have
undergone massive changes in recent years as they have become socially
and
location-aware. Amadeus will bring its
perspective, providing insight about the impact on hotel technology
from these
news channels (changes in search patterns and volumes’ implications)
and also
about the technology solutions to respond to those changes.
- Impact of
Mobile Devices on the Hotel
Wireless Network - Tom Duke, CTO, iBAHN.
Guests routinely
bring two, three, or even more mobile devices into the hotel, and are
using
them not just for e-mail and web-browsing, but increasingly to stream
entertainment programming and to run video-rich applications.
This trend isn’t slowing down, and will have
dramatic implications for the hotel’s wireless network
infrastructure. Hear about the latest research into guest
behaviour as well as expert forecasts of the future, and learn what you
can do
to prepare to meet your future guests’ expectations.
- Lessons from the Leading
Edge: Technology in New Opening Hotels - Mark
Campbell, CIO, The Dorchester Collection.
New 5-star boutique
hotels can be a great testing ground for new guest-room
technologies. There are many new opportunities to deliver
superior guest service, but integration is always a challenge. 45
Park Lane is one of the newest high-end
boutique hotels in London, and has implemented some of the latest
ideas. This session will highlight both the
successes and challenges of getting systems to work together to serve
the
guest.
- Mobility: A Multifaceted
Impact on Hotel IT –
Daniel Krisch, Director Client Services, H2C Consulting.
Not a day goes by
in the life of a hotel IT executive that something new isn’t happening
in
mobility. Mobility is changing distribution,
the way guests interact with the hotel, the way they entertain
themselves while
at the hotel, and the way that hotel staff receive and act on
information. This session will explore the nature of these
changes and help IT executives and software vendors cope with the rapid
pace of
change.
- Using Technology to Save
the Environment -
Michael Zetterlund, Project Manager IT Development, Nordic Choice
Hotels. Nordic Choice
Hotels has always been at the forefront of energy efficiency in its
hotels. In recent years it has
implemented numerous energy-saving measures based on technology,
including some
that required modifications to its PMS that have not been implemented
at other
hotel companies. With energy being the second-largest
controllable cost at most hotels, this session will provide you with
practical
ideas for using technology to reduce the carbon footprint of your
operation,
without inconveniencing guests or staff.
- Leveraging HTNG Efforts to
Benefit Your
Hotels Several short sessions will highlight industry
efforts led by HTNG, which can help you better meet the needs of
guests, staff
and owners – while saving money.
The association’s Executive Vice President
& CEO, Douglas Rice, will also provide an update on the HTNG’s most
recent
accomplishments in meeting the association’s purpose and share plans
about its future
direction.
In all, the meeting will provide hotel technology
experts with leading-edge knowledge on technology best practices,
improving the
guest experience through faster and more robust deployment of
technology, and a
better understanding of gains to be made by upcoming enhancements in
hospitality technology. For more details
about the meeting, specifics on the sessions, the Hotel IT Director
Roundtable,
or registration for any of the week’s events, visit http://www.htng.org/europe.
About
Hotel Technology Next Generation
The premier technology solutions association
in the hospitality industry, HTNG is a self-funded, non-profit
organisation
with members from hotel and hospitality companies, technology vendors
to
hospitality, and other industry members including consultants, media,
and
academic experts. HTNG’s members
participate in focused workgroups to bring to market open solution sets
addressing specific business problems.
HTNG fosters the selection and adoption of existing open
standards. Where necessary, it also develops new open
standards to meet the needs of the global hospitality industry.
Membership in HTNG is open to hotel and
hospitality companies, technology vendors to hospitality, consultants,
academics, press and others. Currently
more than 400 corporate and individual members from across this
spectrum,
including most of the world’s leading hotel companies and technology
vendors,
are active HTNG participants. HTNG’s Board of Directors alone
represents more
than 2.3 million guest rooms. Workgroup proceedings, drafts, and
specifications
are published for all HTNG members as soon as they are created,
encouraging
rapid and broad adoption. Specifications
are released to the public domain as they are ratified by the
workgroup. For more information, visit www.htng.org
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