Yep, you guessed it. I got to Dallas and my bags didn�t.  It was approximately 7:30 pm, it was near 40 degrees and raining, and I am wearing shorts, a short sleeve shirt and had nothing else with me except my laptop. I was actually embarrassed to go to the mall to go shopping and those of you who know me, I don�t embarrass easily. Oh well, live and learn.

Thanks to the many who sent me email on what your plans are for New Years Eve. Give me a few weeks and I will put something together for you.  If you want to add to the list, just email me at [email protected]. I won�t use anyone�s name without contacting you first, so send them in.

I am only here in Atlanta for the day. I am off to New York City tonight so I can attend the all day planning session for next year�s HITEC.  I will bring my laptop so if you have any suggestions, email me! For those of you going to the International Hotel/Motel & Restaurant Show, please come by the Technology Center that UPDATE Magazines is doing. We did fill the Pavilion and there is quite a range of technology that is going to be demonstrated.  There is something for everyone.

One last thing. What are your feelings about high-speed Internet access for the guest?  I know every hotel in the world wants to offer it, but do you think that the guest really wants it? Will they pay for it? Or, is it an amenity that you think has to be offered to remain competitive? Should it just be high-speed access for those carrying a laptop or do you think the PC in the room is the way to go? The industry is talking non-stop about this, but I honestly am not sure. Mark Haley did another great article in our Fall issue.  Also in the latest issue we interviewed some guests at the Royal Sonesta in Cambridge, Massachusetts. They had some interesting comments. I am interested to know your thoughts. Email me or post some comments on our feedback forum at http://www.updateplus.com/ . Inquiring minds would like to know! Remember, if you don�t already receive our Hotel & Restaurant Technology UPDATE Magazine you can subscribe via our web site or just email us at [email protected] and put subscribe in the subject line and your mailing address in the body of the email. It is a free publication for those in the industry.

Okay, here now is the news.  I will see you at the end with my never-ending attempt at humor!

James T. ("Tim") Harvey, Promus' popular and capable CIO, has been recognized as a key player in the revised senior management team of Hilton Hotels Corp, which will come into effect immediately on the completion of Hilton's takeover of Promus (scheduled for Nov 30). As Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer, Tim will report directly to Hilton President and CEO Stephen Bollenbach. In this role, Harvey will be responsible for integrating the technology operations of the merging giant and overseeing infant e-commerce initiatives while managing day-to-day operations. No announcement was made regarding Harvey's predecessor at Hilton, Joe Durocher. 
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The concept of Application Service Providers - companies offering software applications to rent over the Internet - got a boost recently from RFS Hotel Investors, Inc. (RFS), a Memphis-based real estate investment trust (REIT) that owns 62 hotels in 24 states. RFS unveiled Centrafuse, a new business unit which will deliver RFS' hospitality accounting systems and support to owners and managers of hotels via the Internet on a monthly rental basis.

Centrafuse has already signed a systems consulting agreement with Promus Hotel Corp, manager of 55 of its RFS hotels. 
***
MeriStar Hotels & Resorts emphasized its technological awareness recently by re-broadcasting its 1999 third quarter earnings conference call over the Internet. The re-broadcast was available online at www.meristar.com or at www.streetfusion.com, an Internet-based information exchange targeted at the financial community. 

Property Management Systems

Paris-based Accor, the third largest hotel company in the world, has designated MICROS-Fidelio's Front Office Version 7 and OPERA as the preferred systems for its Sofitel, Novotel and Mercure hotels in North America, South America and Asia-Pacific, as well as for some locations in Europe.  (Other Accor brands include Parthenon, Coralia, Thalassa International, Atria, Ibis, Etap Hotel and Formule 1, as well as Motel 6 and Red Roof in the US.)  Accor will also install MICROS 3700 and 8700 point-of-sale (POS) systems in select properties throughout its global hotel chain. 

Reservations

WORLDSPAN agreed to furnish travel information to Motorola's Internet-access-enabled phones and pagers, via Motorola's Mobile Internet Exchange (MIX) communications platform. WORLDSPAN currently offers real-time flight arrival and departure information through the MIX platform; users are expected to be able to get airline flight availability, purchase airline tickets, and change air itineraries in the first quarter of 2000, followed by hotel and car rental booking capabilities. 
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Sprint PCS signed an agreement with GetThere.com (formerly Internet Travel Network) to provide travel services via the Sprint PCS Wireless Web, a suite of simple wireless data services it launched in September. Wireless Web customers can already track flight departures, arrivals and other travel-based information from the MiniBrowser on their Internet-ready Sprint PCS Phones. 
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And London-based Digital Mobility launched its Pocket Portal system for wireless application protocol (WAP)-based service companies. WAP is the underlying data transmission protocol for mobile multimedia (MMM) microbrowser-based services that can be interactively accessed on a user's mobile phone. Digital Mobility has tapped the Official Airline Guide (OAG) for the new service, which will allow travelers to check a variety of travel-oriented data using their mobile phones. 
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Affiliate selling also received a boost from two different companies:

Cendant�s Travelodge subsidiary has adopted New Paradigm�s BuyBanner affiliate booking technology, which allows consumers visiting other websites displaying a Travelodge BuyBanner to make a hotel reservation on-line immediately without leaving that site and without going to the Travelodge Hotel web site. Affiliate sites are paid a commission for any hotel reservations booked. 
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USAHotelGuide.com introduced its similar CommissionClub, an on-line booking link available to any website owner and which pays the site owner approximately 4 percent of online hotel bookings made through the link.  Rate discounts of up to 65 percent are available when reserving online; USAHotelGuide.com also features MapQuest interactive mapping, including the option to map the participant�s location relative to area hotels. 
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Pegasus Systems announced record operating results for the quarter ended September 30. Revenues increased 29.1 percent to $10.1MM. Earnings per share of $.20 continued Pegasus track record of exceeding analyst estimates by growing revenue streams. The Electronic Distribution unit drove much of the growth, with Internet bookings increasing 25 percent over the previous quarter and tripling the third quarter of 1998. The Commission Processing unit contributed substantially, adding numerous agency and hotel company clients to the service.  The most recent addition was Extended Stay America and its 356 properties. (www.hccnet.com) 
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PeopleSupport.com, a vendor of customer support solutions, launched a new service aimed at travel related businesses on the World Wide Web. The goal is to provide a support service for these businesses� customers buying travel-related products online (airline ticket, hotel reservations, etc.) and needing help. Teams of travel counselors will handle inquiries through live interactive chat sessions, email, and telephone. PeopleSupport.com�s existing clients include MGM and Time-Warner. 
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Two tour/travel systems companies are combining; Datalex has acquired tour company software specialist Advanced Travel Systems (ATS), and will rename its tour system module BookIt! TOUR. Datalex� line of Internet travel reservations products already includes BookIt! CONSUMER and BookIt! PRO, Web-enabled reservations systems that include travel packages along with airline, car and hotel reservations via CRSs and Global Distribution Systems. 
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Golfers gained a couple of extra services: online golf and leisure travel booking engine GolfStar.com is adding MapQuest maps and driving directions to its site for all its golf courses and hotels. GolfStar claims a database of over 13,000 golf courses and 30,000 hotel sites. And golf travel service Player�s Choice Golf & Sports Tours introduced a new web-site with detailed information on more than 500 courses and resorts throughout the United States and Canada. (www.pchoice.com)
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HARS Systems subsidiary VIP International Corp has launched a proprietary hotel and car rental website, descriptively named carsandhotels.com; it provides for the on-line interactive booking of VIP�s 3,200+ hotel and car rental locations. Real time hotel rate, inventory, property descriptions and amenities information is already on-line, and VIP plans to integrate the car rental product by the end of November. VIP is not connecting to an airline GDS, but is connecting the site directly to its booking engine to reduce distribution expenses. VIP reports that approximately 8 percent of its hotel and car rental bookings (over $12 million revenue annually) comes through the Internet. 
***
VIP International also reported a 100 percent increase in its hotel and car rental clients in the year ended September 30, 1999. The company now serves in excess of 3,300 hotel and car rental clients in 68 countries; it reported a 24 percent increase in bookings for the 1999 fiscal year, with 9 percent of its total bookings being generated from Internet sources in September. (www.carsandhotels.com)
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Hotel Reservations Network (HRN) and Preview Travel (in the process of merging with Sabre unit Travelocity) announced an alliance. HRN consolidates demand and negotiates rate and availability with hotels, marketing the inventory on-line and via a call center. Preview Travel will feature HRN inventory and rates in certain cities. This will be transparent to the customer. The Preview Travel customer gets HRN�s rates, and HRN gets the significant demand generated by Preview to use as negotiating leverage.
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On-line leisure travel specialist WorldRes.com is making its entire inventory of independent hotel properties available over the Sabre network of more than 190,000 travel agents, as well as through Sabre Business Travel Solutions, the Travelocity.com online travel portal and its distribution partners. The WorldRes.com/Sabre program is available only to properties that currently do not participate in Sabre. 
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Boutique Hotel Group has ordered a xenonCRS central reservation system from Hotel Data Systems (HDS) for its central reservation call center in New York City. Boutique Hotel Group, which operates a collection of several small, luxury hotels in New York City and Los Angeles, will also implement HDS� xenonWeb tools for on-line reservations, plus GDS interfaces and a 2- way interface with its Sulcus LANmark PMSs. 
***
Baymont Inns & Suites also activated HDS� xenonWEB Internet reservations utility, on its own Website.  Availability for the chain�s 160+ hotels is linked into its xenonCRS database, to ensure that CRS, GDS and Web channels all work from the same data. 
***
Galileo International deployed its new paperless Automated Service Fee system for U.S. travel agents, streamlining the process of calculating, reporting and collecting service fees in the Apollo system. The new product is available to all Apollo customers in the U.S. who use ARC�s Interactive Agent Reporting (IAR) product for electronic settlement and who have a signed Travel Agency Service Fee (TASF) agreement with ARC. 
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Boulevards.com agreed to place Turbotrip.com�s booking engine on 22 �city.com� sites, encouraging visitors to use Boulevards.com as their in-bound travel solution to book their accommodations. Boulevards.com is creating an international, branded network of city-specific Websites that integrate advanced community features with content and commerce systems. Turbotrip.com (formerly RoomFinders.com) covers all types of property, has a free membership program for specific consumer needs and operates a 24/7 central reservations office in New Orleans.
***
REZsolutions added a Spanish-speaking reservation line to its Utell reservations service, acknowledging travel agent customers needs and increased demands. REZsolutions� North American reservations office also offers a Canadian line fluent in French. 
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Online restaurant guide and reservation service RestaurantRow.com launched Top Table, with access to some of the most exclusive New York City restaurants including the Jean Georges, the 21 Club, the Four Seasons and Moomba. The restaurants listed will make blocks of tables and times available every Monday exclusively for on-line booking by registered RestaurantRow users on a first-come first served basis. 
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Sabre released Planet Sabre v2.0, its latest graphics-based travel agent system, available in six languages and six countries, with access a wide range of travel products and services via Sabre and the Internet. Planet Sabre highlights preferred vendors, sorts information and automatically enters customer preferences into the booking, and displays twice as many flights as a standard availability display. 
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WorldRes.com also became the exclusive hotel booking engine on Ask Jeeves, the natural language question answering service at Ask.com. It will provide hotel inventory through its consumer web site PlacesToStay.com, which features over 9,000 properties worldwide, many of which are not directly bookable elsewhere. 
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The Hotel Guide AG formally changed its name to Hotelguide.com, and launched a new version of its international hotel directory with what it claimed as the largest international hotel directory on the Internet, covering over 60,000 hotels in more than 200 countries worldwide. The new site includes online booking using the Amadeus central reservation system, and uses interactive maps provided by Vicinity.com. A total of 12 European countries will be live with maps by year end.
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Vail Resorts jump-started its Internet presence by purchasing Colorado ISP VailNet and InterNetWorks, a provider of information about Colorado�s mountain resorts which maintains www.vail.net, www.breck.net, and www.colorado.net. Vail Resorts operates the Colorado resorts of Vail, Beaver Creek, Breckenridge and Keystone, and the Grand Teton Lodge in Jackson, Wyoming. (www.snow.com)
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Preview Travel followed Microsoft Expedia�s lead in launching a Family Travel area, a resource for planning family getaways with trip suggestions, practical advice, travel bargains and information on family-friendly activities and destinations. 
***
Online hotel reservation service Room Finders Inc., in business since 1991, has changed its name to Turbotrip.com to reflect its intent to expand its services. With a free membership program and operating a 24/7 central reservations office in New Orleans, Turbotrip.com covers all types of lodging from full-service deluxe accommodations through bed & breakfasts to extended stay properties.

Sales & Catering, Meeting Planning

On the meetings distribution front, StarCite.com announced numerous executive appointments. The Philadelphia-based spin-off of meeting management house McGettigan Partners has brought on board several senior-level executives with background in technology and consulting to add to the StarCite team. They intend to formally launch the e-marketplace at the end of November, offering interactive bidding for meeting business and tools for meeting planners.
***
On-line auctions come to RFPs: E-commerce event and meeting planning vendor EventSource.com held what it claims was the first online auction between corporations and international hotel chains, aimed at reducing the time and cost associated with securing hotel rooms and venues for corporate meetings. While the process might be seen as driving down prices - EventSource claims that its auctions have saved participating corporations 10 percent - 32 percent from opening bids which began anywhere from 25 percent - 40 percent lower than current market prices - it was welcomed by hotel chains as a way of reaching a larger pool of customers that may not have been accessible in the past. It certainly seems to save time; in less than 20 minutes, the winning properties were collectively guaranteed over $200,000 in room-night revenues. EventSource.com acts as an intermediary between corporate meeting planners and its database of 10,000 property sites. 
***
The Seattle-King County Convention and Visitors Bureau is the latest CVB to contract with Passkey.com for its Internet-based convention and group reservation management technology, to be brought on-line in January 2000. A key factor in the Bureau's decision was reportedly Passkey's recent alliance with Pegasus to integrate its electronic distribution system with Passkey's group hotel reservations transactional database. (www.seeseattle.org) 

Point of Sale

Park Place Entertainment's new Paris Las Vegas hotel-casino opened recently with another complex POS implementation by InfoGenesis.  The 2,916 guestroom property installed a Revelation POS system with 116 IBM 4695 touch screen terminals, in a Windows NT/ SQL Server environment serving over a dozen outlets. 

Guest Services

Emphasizing that there is no universal solution, many different vendors were winners as hotel companies across the globe picked their suppliers for guestroom high-speed Internet access:

Australian in-room Internet access provider NetPort Hospitality Systems has been offered a government grant of AUD$1 million to support its technology development for the international marketplace. This will include the capacity for all NetPort products to support multiple languages, and to include connectivity options to reflect local technological environments; it has already established representation in ten countries in Asia and the Far East. 

And in Australia NetPort was awarded a contract to install direct in-room access in 20 Mirvac hotels by the end of 1999. Mirvac hotel guests will have the use of a NetPort-Connect high-speed Internet connection and access to other NetPort-Office in-room technologies; the contract also includes the NetPort-Boardroom suite of services for hotel conference centres, meeting rooms and business centres. 
***
The Pan Pacific Singapore has contracted with Singapore telecoms services provider StarHub�s CyberWay subsidiary for high-speed Internet access to all 784 guestrooms, 26 meeting rooms and the business centre, plus other fixed and mobile telephony services. The installation will use StarHub�s predominantly fibre-optic infrastructure and IP-based network, and should be complete by year end. The additional telephony services include a hotel mobile virtual private network (VPN), allowing hotel guests to remain contactable on their single hotel telephone number at all times anywhere in Singapore via the telephone unit in the guestroom or a mobile handset provided by the hotel. 
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South Africa�s Sun City resort has contracted with TTS for in-room Internet access via its Guestlink Global system, which also includes in-room access to hotel and local information/entertainment systems such as Pay-Per-View (PPV), to property management and environmental control systems, and links to hotel reservation and information systems.
***
Le Chateau Moncton in Moncton, NB, Canada, will install Global Net high-speed Internet guestroom access and Global Meeting conference room service from NBTel and Guest-Tek Services. (www.aliant.ca)
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The Hilton Tokyo is including Tut Systems� high-speed Internet services as part of its new Business Class service, which also includes in-room fax machine and printers, two phone lines per room, a laptop computer-sized personal safe, and in-room digital video-on-demand. Business Class service is currently available in 257 hotel rooms on 10 specially designated floors. 
***
The 400-room Royal Sonesta Hotel in Boston has selected Wayport for high-speed Internet access in all guestrooms. 
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Emerald Springs Holiday Inn aims to be the first Las Vegas property to provide high-speed Internet access for hotel guests, using StarView Communications service to each of the hotels 150 rooms over the hotel�s existing cable TV infrastructure. 
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Bass Hotels & Resorts appointed Darwin Networks a preferred supplier of high-speed Internet access to their hotel brands. Darwin will be positioned to compete with Bass� other preferred supplier, CAIS Internet, for placement in Bass� 400,000 guestrooms worldwide. Services include high-speed access to guestrooms and meeting rooms, plus internal networking, public kiosks, laptop docking stations in conference and lobby areas, and portal content programs including on-line purchasing, Internet music and movies. CAIS will provide broadband guestroom access, portal content, IPORT kiosk solutions, meeting room and back office solutions; it also recently announced major contracts with Staybridge Suites by Holiday Inn (250 properties) and Cendant Properties (over 6,000 properties). 
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Darwin Networks was also selected by Allied Hospitality Group to provide high-speed Internet access to its 14 properties in Michigan, Illinois, and Florida, using Elastic Networks� Etherloop technology and YesWare software suite.
***
Solar Communications Group launched a $13.5MM advertising campaign intended to raise consumer awareness of their product offering. The print and broadcast campaign is aimed at travelers, hoping to distinguish PCRoomLink-equipped properties from others. The Solar offering is built around PCs placed in guestrooms rather than plug-and-play laptop connectivity or subscription services.
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Go Online Networks Corp (formerly Jones Naughton Entertainment Inc.) announced that its Kiosk Division has signed 70 more site agreements for its public-access Internet kiosks, bringing the total to approximately 275 locations, including hotels owned by Days Inn, Ramada Inn, Radisson and Holiday Inn.

Communications

In a different approach that by-passes businesses' monthly phone bill audit effort and costs, Australian telecommunications company Telstra launched Flat Bill, a new billing package targeted at the medium sized corporate market. Under the plan Telstra will fix companies' bills for the next 12 months at 5% below their lowest bill during the previous 12 months. 
***
Comdial Corp is expanding sales of its Impact Concierge hospitality communications system to Canadian franchisers and owners. Already available in some Canadian markets through independent dealers, Comdial will now also sell directly to large hotel chains, in cooperation with local Canadian resellers who will assist in installation and ongoing maintenance. Aimed at hotels with up to 200 rooms, the Windows-based Impact Concierge handles guest telephone privileges, call costing, wake-up calls, security alarms, and several other features. Options include voice mail and the Tracker paging system. 
***
NEC Business Network Solutions signed a national distribution agreement with Teledex Corp, giving it access to Teledex's line of hospitality and business telephones and related services. NEC BNS will market a customized version of Teledex's phones with the NEC logo on the handset and faceplate to its existing and prospective customers throughout the United States and Puerto Rico. 
***
Notes from FS/TEC �99

Great show for foodservice and beyond � way beyond.  The Emerging Buzz was all about enterprise resource management, regional human resource scheduling, data warehousing, and that e-stuff.  The sessions were so popular that attendees filled the seats instantly leaving the overflow to sprawl across the carpeting around the speakers like kids at a slumber party.  Meanwhile, the vendors up on the sold-out convention floor were saying the numbers were down, but the people who did attend were all upper management decision types.  Numbers were way up, however, for John Dvorak�s lunch presentation on �point-and-click addiction� and his horror predictions for Y2K  (Wild dogs run loose; women go bald). Speaking of Y2K, Host Marriott�s VP and CIO, Martyn Holland, gave a chilling account of their massive Y2K preparedness efforts: Out of all Host Marriott�s thousands of pieces of hardware only 27 were non-compliant � but two of them were big walk-in freezers.  Many questions for him on that one after his presentation.

A special congratulations to Aloha by Ibertech for receiving the Best of Show award.

One of the things I really enjoy today is that people send me jokes that they think you will like. Recently I received one from Steve Bearden who is the Vice President Hospitality Technology for Fidelity Investments who operate what Steve claims is the most high tech hotel in the world, the Seaport Hotel in Boston. I am not sure if he is correct in his claim, but he definitely was correct in thinking that most people would like the following story.