An overview of the latest hotel cleaning technology advancements is the topic of the winning blog in a competition for graduate-level students. The competition was sponsored by the Hospitality Financial and Technology Professionals (HFTP®) Foundation and held for students earning their HFTP-UH Global Masters Certificate, a program with candidates of the Master of Science in Global Hospitality Business, a partnership between the CN Hilton College at the University of Houston, the School of Hotel and Tourism Management at Hong Kong Polytechnic University and EHL.

The need to be reassured that your night’s stay is cleaner than ever has never been this critical before in the hospitality industry. With the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, heightened measures for cleaning and sanitization need to be imposed, as the safety of both the guests and staff remains paramount in this so-called ‘new normal.

Okay – raise your hand if there were times in this last year you had had enough or hit a challenge that you knew was impossible to overcome – Believe me, my hand is up and waving. But we faced and overcame those challenges and now we are in a brand-new year: 2021! It is a new beginning for you personally and professionally and new opportunities to serve our great association, HFTP.

The final HFTP Europe Hangout of the year made a few requests of its participants: wear some fun holiday garb, bring your sense of humor, tell a few stories about how 2020 put everyone through the ringer – and, on a lighter note, share what we hope for in 2021.

At the beginning of 2020, no one could have predicted how a global pandemic would upend lives so drastically in a matter of months. Freedom to travel was compromised — and still is, for some. During these unpredictable times, the way of travel and how we see luxury travel has changed, and the new way is here to stay (Phagura, 2020).

One of HFTP’s longtime supporter members, Bernie Trieber, unexpectedly passed Friday, December 4, 2020. The circumstances were unrelated to COVID 19. After spending 42 and a half years at the USA Social Security Administration (SSA), as an IT senior security analyst, Bernie found HFTP when his son Jerry was inducted to its Global Board of Directors.

We sat down (virtually, of course) with Jon Davis, CTO of Village Hotels to chat about their efforts in reacting to the various lockdowns throughout the UK. He talked about how they leverage technology to be more operationally flexible and ensure not only a safe guest experience but an exceptional one.

Cyber HITEC featured a new virtual session this year that built a bridge across the Atlantic Ocean and brought together two regions separated by a common language. This engaging session was called the “HFTP Europe: Technology and Tea” Hangout, and featured an interview-style discussion between me, this year’s HFTP Paragon Award-winner Ian Millar, CHTP and hospitality technology executive Barry Thomas, CHTP.

Part of HFTP's Cyber HITEC, this tea time meet-up offers a Euro-focused discussion for tech professionals, but offers items of commercial interest to all hospitality professionals from across the globe.

With the remarkable growth of the food and beverage industry, the issue of food waste management seems to be increasing. It has been identified that in the United States alone more than 86 billion pounds of food is wasted per year (Charlebois, Creedy and von Massow, 2015).