External Articles

Digital Revolution To Change Business Tourism Massively | tourism-review.com

The ongoing digital revolution is not only changing the business tourism segment – it is already profoundly intervening in all processes. This is the key outcome of the GBTA Conference 2017, the largest business travel conference in Europe.

According to the second cross-cutting statement, travel managers are well advised to strategically redefine their role.

“Robots are the next level of automation,” said Yvonne Moya, associate of bot supplier Festive Road. Several sessions showed where Chatbots and artificial intelligence are already in use and which possibilities are about to become ready for the market.

A Bad Hotel Stay (And $9.5 Million From Expedia) Led Him To Revolutionize Hospitality Tech | forbes.com

During a particularly lousy hotel stay four years ago, Justin Effron had a vision of how the customer experience in hospitality could be improved through the application of technology. To pursue this, Effron, who had no hospitality industry experience (he was working a finance gig at Citibank) joined forces with Alex Shashou and Dmitry Koltunov, who added their hotel and technology backgrounds to the mix.

Four Seasons hotel guests can text a request for more towels in 100 different languages - latimes.com

Forgot to pack a toothbrush or need more towels in your hotel room? If you are staying at a Four Seasons Hotels & Resorts property, you can send a digital message using your smartphone, tablet or laptop to a hotel staffer to request help or information. The chat program has gone live at 56 Four Seasons hotels, including seven in Southern California. The entire 106 properties in the chain are expected to have the chat service by next year. Four Seasons is not the first hotel chain to promote an online chat feature. Marriott International, the world’s biggest hotel company, also offers a chat service — but only from 8 a.m. to 11 p.m. Eastern time, according to the hotel website.

Guests want king beds and free Wi-Fi – not chests of drawers or mini bars | thecaterer.com

Hotel guests want king size beds and free Wi-Fi – and could do without chests of drawers and mini bars.

This is according to the Perfect Hotel Bedroom report presented by Chic Retreats at the Independent Hotel Show this week, analysing data from a survey of nearly 2,000 hotel guests.

Just over half (53%) of respondents said they wanted to spend between £101-£200 on a night’s stay, just under a quarter preferred to spend less than £100, 18% from £201–300, and only 7% had budgets of £300+.

How Will Blockchain Help Regulate OTA Commissions And Who Are Some Of Its Early Adopters | nasdaq.com

Under Blockchain, OTAs Will Continue Doing Business But In A Fairer Playing Field. OTAs might still thrive through their services of aiding travelers in finding the exact property they are looking for from a curated list. However, they might start to face greater competition in the travel industry, as anyone can source rooms from blockchain. Hence, the bigger OTAs will not have an exclusive control over the inventory, a welcome change from the hotel and airlines' point of view, as not having this kind of control will also deter them from charging exorbitant commissions to the hotel and airline suppliers.

Hotel Industry Offers Jobs To Robots | tourism-review.com

Thinking of hotel run by robots is creepy? What sounds like a fantasy movie is reality in Japan. Instead of human employees, a local hotel is in the hands of robots. Even though this is an extreme example, innovative robot technologies are used in various areas of the hotel industry. So where exactly can one encounter such innovations?

If hotel alarm clocks tick you off, you’re not alone | washingtonpost.com

Mention alarm clocks to a frequent hotel guest and you’ll probably get an earful. Those ever-present digital clock radios frequently evoke feelings of confusion, frustration and even rage.

Why? Just check into any hotel and try to do anything with the timepiece next to your bed, like set it. Or try to turn the radio off that housekeeping left on. What does this button do?

Then again, you could just wait until 3 a.m., when the alarm, set by a previous guest (who managed to figure out how to set it, thanks to a PhD in rocket science), starts buzzing. Good luck trying to get back to sleep after that.

Hotels try to shut out noise from guestrooms | usatoday.com

Hotels are trying to lull guests to sleep by proactively minimizing the noise they can hear in their rooms.

From double insulating walls to adding thicker headboards to installing quieter air conditioning units to providing white noise machines, hotels are trying to provide a more calming sleep environment.

In the near future, your hotel room will know exactly how you like to sleep | marketwatch.com

Soon, you will be able to step into your hotel room and the thermostat will automatically adjust to the temperature you like. Netflix and Hulu accounts on the TV will be programmed to play your favorite shows, and your preferred beer will be chilling in the refrigerator.

Trivago Bought An AI Startup That Eased Peoples’ Fears About Giving Up Data | fastcompany.com

All types of online services are scrambling to meet the AI-driven personalization standard set by Amazon and Netflix. Fast-growing international hotel search engine Trivago is taking that path by acquiring machine-learning startup Tripl, which analyzes users’ social media profiles to recommend itineraries and link to offers from third parties like hotels or tour operators.

Top 5 Tech Trends To Impact The Travel Industry | Tourism-review.com

Technology is moving forward and with it all the other sectors that are related. Any industry not willing to stay behind needs to adapt to the newest demands in order to be successful. This obviously applies to travel industry, as one of the key sectors of many economies. Travel technology company Sabre Labs put together the Radar Report, analysing nine technological trends that are expected to affect the travel sector. Tourism-Review.com team named Top 5 Tech Trends to Impact the Travel Industry based on the report.

The Big Data Revolution In Tourism | tourism-review.com

As a first consequence, digital transformation and technological advances can radically change the way people consume and get informed. A digital scenario that brings with it new forms of business management. To ensure their survival, all businesses are being forced to adapt to the online environment.

Tourism sector is not an exception. The data analysis benefits tourism in all its areas, exploiting its possibilities and presenting new business opportunities.

Oracle Hospitality Stumbled in Micros Integration But Says It Has Recovered - skift.com

Three years ago, business software maker Oracle acquired Micros, a hotel and restaurant technology company, for $5.3 billion in cash. Micros was the market leader. More hotels used Micros’s software to check in and check out guests than any other company’s reservation management software. For more than two decades its servers hummed under the front desks and in the back offices at tens of thousands of properties worldwide. One of the knocks against Micros’ hotel software was that it was antiquated. One hotelier called it “a DOS pig with lipstick,” referring to the 1980s Microsoft disk operating system for computers.

Retail & hospitality struggle with payment card data security standards - zdnet.com

Enterprises are complying with the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) more, but the number of organizations in compliance is still low enough to leave the door open for cyberattacks, according to Verizon.

The Important Attributes of Big Data to the Travel Industry | insidebigdata.com

By 2022, the global travel industry is expected to grow to ten percent of Global GDP or a yearly revenue of around $10 trillion. Travel is a massive industry that could become much more efficient when big data is completely implemented in each and every aspect of travel. The travel environment is no stranger to data. Each and every airline reservation, every hotel stay, rental care reservation creates data. However, now travelers are making trip arrangements on the web, posting reviews, ratings, blogs and the like on social networks that result to more but highly fragmented data.

Introducing AURA, the room service robot | cnn.com

What's your favorite hotel perk: Is it the swanky gym, the fluffy pillows, the opulent spa? Or maybe it's the simple but luxurious treat that is room service. After all, once you've ordered an indulgent breakfast in bed, it's hard to go back to making it yourself. One hotel in Singapore is taking room service to a new level thanks to AURA, the room service robot. AURA works in the M Social Hotel in Singapore -- a lifestyle hotel designed with the business-traveling millennial in mind.

8 #Hoteltech Trends Disrupting Hospitality and Tourism | eventmanagerblog.com

Room service? There’s an app for that. Consumer demands are changing and hoteltech is responding. Here we look at 8 hoteltech trends currently disrupting hospitality and tourism. For many years, the process of booking into a hotel and accessing its benefits during a stay has remained largely unchanged. Although room and resource booking have been largely electronic for some time, some booking applications are little more than a simple electronic diary. However, things are on the move. Keyless entry systems are being linked to booking systems and many of these features are becoming accessible by way of an API (Application Programming Interface), giving access to external agents. This type of access allows event planners to manage room blocks in full with event management & ticketing software.

Special Report: What GDPR changes mean and how to stay compliant | travelweekly.co.uk

The EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) comes into force in May 2018, drastically changing the rules about how businesses hold and use customer data. We’ve teamed up with Abta and Travlaw to put together a guide on what the changes mean and the action businesses need to take now to make sure they are compliant. Amie Keeley reports