Hospitality Financial and Technology Professionals (HFTP®) and the GUESTROOM 20X Task Force, a group of hospitality technology leaders and experts, are searching for the latest and near-future technologies for the newest version of GUESTROOM 20X. The 2012 version of GUESTROOM 20X, a special exhibit showcasing the most innovative technologies for the guestroom, debuts at the 2012 Hospitality Indus...

Kelly McGuire, executive director of the hospitality travel and global practice at SAS, has been confirmed to speak on the "Innovation in Hospitality Technology" panel at the 87th Annual Hotel Ezra Cornell (HEC 87), a student-run industry conference at the Cornell School of Hotel Administration (SHA). McGuire, who earned her Master's of Management in Hospitality and PhD degrees from SHA in 2001 a...

There's a new sheriff in town, and it's designed to protect a hotel's Internet Access Gateway like never before. This appliance is streamlining guest-computing on the front-end while saving hotel owners and operators considerable costs from licensing fees and bundled multi-vendor services on the back end. The XcessPro Multi Services Controller (MSC) from Guarded Systems is the only full-service s...

Over the past 25 + years of attending the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) I have witnessed the birth, and quick demise of many new technology innovations. One item that I recall fondly was the first showing of an item called "Bluetooth". I was immediately struck with the possibilities of this new technology, that I spent most of CES at the Ericsson booth. I could see how it could be used in numer...

Mobile technologies are a unique opportunity for hoteliers to fulfill growing guest demands and expectations for new services. A key service area that needs to be addressed is finally being able to offer an alternative to traditional front desk check in. This is now achieved by providing the option to bypass the procedure altogether using mobile technology.

Two hospitality technology players are concerned that the industry is not applying sufficient urgency to its adoption of PCI DSS payment processing standards. They got together to voice their disquiet. Nigel Allport of Agilysys and Andrew Brooks of Servebase see too many hotels and hospitality operators paying lip-service to the need to put PCI DSS at the heart of their business. By operating i...

A major new global study released today outlines how transformative technologies and evolving social values and trends will combine to establish a new era of collaborative travel over the next decade and beyond.

Well, it wasn’t the year we’d hoped for; initial optimism that we were at last coming out of the recession was replaced by reminders that there was still a long way to go. Nevertheless, many properties took advantage of slow business to upgrade their systems and lay the foundations for more efficient operations once traffic does return, and equally as many vendors enhanced their systems for great...

Mobile Key by OpenWays was recently recognized by Lodging magazine as an innovation that is "poised to make a splash in hospitality." As the official magazine of the American Hotel & Lodging Assn., Lodging examines critical trends and state-of-the-art solutions being used by leading lodging executives. As part of its 2011 Innovation Showcase, Mobile Key by OpenWays was hailed for its ability to "...

Last year the economy remained in "recovery mode," allowing the industry to focus its efforts more on marketing to the travel consumer and less on scaling back budgets for the first time in several years. The convergence of social media, mobile Web and location-based services, increased personalization and relevancy of marketing messages, the continued onslaught by social buying/flash sales sites...