Food Delivery Robots Mark New Era for Hospital Catering

WA’s Fiona Stanley Hospital will be home to free-roaming food delivery robots along with cutting-edge cooking and fully traceable food safety protocols when it opens next week.

The hospital will feature 18 automated guided vehicles equipped with a combination of GPS, proximity sensors, wi-fi and powerful computing with the capability of delivering up to 2,200 meals direct to wards each day. Furthermore, this is all completed without human intervention once the robot has left the hospital kitchen, The West reports.

According to Serco’s soft services manager Breffni Doyle, (Serco being the patient catering service at the hospital) the robots have the ability to communicate with the hospital systems by wi-fi, enabling it to deliver food right across the campus. The technology is so sophisticated that the robots can even call for a lift to deliver food across numerous levels of the complex.

Serco’s head chef Steve Newson said that the robots will significantly improve efficiencies in the kitchen, in addition to providing a more enjoyable dining experience for patients.

“The technology means food is not held too long and the time between cooking and delivery is significantly reduced,” said Newson.

“We want to make the dining experience as rich and enjoyable as possible. We buy in fresh vegetables, steaming them and chilling them ourselves. All our wet dishes are made on site from scratch.”

Patients at Fiona Stanley Hospital will be able to order their meals via a patient entertainment system.

Source: www.hospitalitymagazine.com.au

Mayor Helps Deliver 100s of New Hospitality Apprenticeships & Jobs for Young People

The Mayor of London, Boris Johnson is today helping to deliver hundreds of new apprenticeships and jobs for young people in the hospitality industry. The Mayor has joined forces with the British Hospitality Association (BHA) to host a City Hall ‘Hospitality Conversation’ bringing together business executives from companies including Nando’s, Whitbread and Costa and matching them with unemployed 16-24 year olds who are eager to start careers in the sector.

The British Hospitality Association have joined the Mayor’s Apprenticeship Campaign and pledged to create 7,000 new jobs in London by the end of 2016. Today’s event will focus on roles in the restaurant trade and include a careers fair where employers can interview potential candidates and offer on the job opportunities and placements.

A recent report1 found that 16 per cent of UK hotels and 13 per cent of restaurants complained of consistent, long-term difficulties in filling vacancies, overwhelmingly due to widespread skills shortages.The Big Hospitality Conversation is a joint initiative between the British Hospitality Association, Springboard and Business in the Community aimed at bringing together business leaders in the sector with young people to deliver skills and employment and boost economic growth.

The Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, said: “Apprenticeships are a fantastic way of getting young people into work and offer invaluable training and insight. Businesses of every scale can benefit from having bright, hardworking, ambitious young people in their company and I want to thank all the firms in the capital who have already hired an apprentice and urge even more to get on board.“

Ufi Ibrahim, CEO of the British Hospitality Association said:  “Hospitality is a successful industry with even greater growth prospects offering a vast range of job opportunities for all job seekers of any age.  The breadth of job roles and the training available means that bright and focused young people can succeed very quickly.  We welcome young people to come along to the event to hear from insiders about how they started out in their careers.  At the City Hall event businesses will be offering on the spot job opportunities, so a young job seeker could start the day unemployed and leave with a job.  Where, in any other industry, would that happen?”

Keynote speaker at the event, the Deputy Mayor of London for business and enterprise, Kit Malthouse, said: “Helping London businesses to succeed and getting young people into meaningful employment are top priorities at City Hall. The hospitality sector is having a significant impact on London’s growing economy, but our job market still has work to do in reducing youth unemployment and training a skilled workforce. The sector is well placed to create apprenticeships and work experience, so I am thrilled that that the Big Hospitality Conversation has arrived here in City Hall to marry the experience of sector professionals with the enthusiasm of eager young people.”

This is part of the Mayor’s wider work to boost apprenticeships and yesterday evening (Tuesday 23rd September) the Mayor was joined by his training and enterprise ambassador Tim Campbell, and some of the capital’s brightest young apprentices at the London Apprenticeship Awards. The Mayor met young people fresh from placements at a range of top companies based in London, including Google, Lloyds Bank and Visa. The Awards also recognised businesses with a strong record of offering outstanding opportunities to young people, including British Airways who currently employ 300 apprentices, Lloyds Banking Group who are working with 1,000 and ITV London Barclays Bank who offer a wide range of roles to 86 young people.

This week the Mayor launched a major campaign to encourage more of the capitals 800,000 small to medium firms to hire apprentices. The campaign will be advertised across the city including on London Underground posters, advertising screens, digital media and newspapers.

The Mayor’s Ambassador for Training and Enterprise, Tim Campbell, said: “The brilliant apprentices I met at the awards are the tip of the iceberg of young talent in London. Apprentices are hard-working, highly motivated people with the initiative and courage to find ways of learning new skills and earning money at the same time. Far from being a cost to business, apprenticeships should be seen as an investment by employers. Where that investment is nurtured, the returns to the businesses are tremendous .”

One of the young people taking part in the awards, Apprentice Shaida Khanom, aged 20, is currently on a placement at Visa Europe. She said: “This has given me the foundations to build a successful career and everyday I’m challenged with exciting projects. Apprenticeships build character knowledge, expertise, maturity and the skills needed by tomorrows business leaders. Apprenticeships are a great alternative to higher education.“

The Mayor is working with the National Apprenticeship Service and London businesses to help over 40,000 people start an apprenticeship every year in the capital. Since launching his Apprenticeship Campaign, around 160,000 new apprenticeships have been created.

Source: http://www.biznews.com/

Marriott asks Millennial ‘tribe leaders’ to envision guest rooms of the future

Marriott Hotels in the UK has asked five thought leaders including TV presenter and charity founder, Katie Piper, and England rugby ace, Danny Care, to share their vision of the hotel guest room of the future.

Marriott Hotels is now calling for the public to vote on their favourite elements of the rooms on www.travelbrilliantly.co.uk/guestroom before 20 October 2014.  All voters have a chance of winning a four day trip to Marriott’s new hotel, Istanbul Marriott Hotel Sisli, Turkey.

From an interactive Instagram wall and selfie sticks to mind controlled projectors, the room designs are packed full of innovations and technology that reflect the needs and wants of the Millennial traveller.  Visitors to the site will vote on the best elements of each room design to create one winning concept that will be built as a show room in Westfield London (from 27 October to 2 November 2014). While the show room will not be replicated at Marriott Hotels; it represents a creative example of co-created innovation that aims to inspire the future of travel.

How the tribes were born

Following the launch of Marriott Hotels’ global campaign Travel Brilliantly in 2013 that represented a move in amplifying the brand’s dedication to leading the future of travel, Marriott Hotels in the UK set out to discover more about the lifestyle habits of Gen Y’s – 18-35 year olds – in Britain.

The survey findings identified the emergence of five Gen Y Tribes grouped together by similar attitudes, lifestyles and aspirations. The tribes are:
1. The Desirable Digerati: Early adopters of all hi-tech gadgetry and digital inventions. These fit, sociable, fashionable males are well travelled and often use their tech prowess to create start-ups. Tribe Leader: Jason Bradbury, TV Presenter & Author

2. The Fashionista Mumpreneurs: Fashion forward, savvy, self-employed, likely to have had a career change after having kids to fit around their lifestyle. Big in the blogger sphere and on social media. Tribe Leader: Katie Piper, TV presenter & Charity Founder

3. The Competitive Challengers: Fitness super-fans who thrive on the challenge of physical competitions from Iron Man to Tough Mudder. Keen sharers on social media, this group travels in packs, always on the look out for adventure. Tribe Leader: Danny Care, Harlequins & England rugby team player

4. The Social Media Savvies: Lovers of the Selfie and fans of every social app under the sun, these well groomed, young and carefree spirits love nothing more than a good party at home or away. Tribe Leader: Victoria InTheFrow, Celebrity Blogger & Lecturer

5.  The Financial Foodies: Tribe Leader: An emerging group of foodie fans who are ditching high powered jobs in the city in search of a fulfilling career in the food industry where they passion can flourish. Tribe Leader: Luiz Hara, Investment banker turned blogger, Editor of The London Foodie.

Marriott then invited these five personalities to design their vision for the ideal hotel guest room, ensuring that the characteristics of their tribe were represented in the design.

Trends in the hospitality landscape

With the emergence of Millennial travellers, the Marriott Hotels survey was inspired by an observation that these travellers – while a single demographic – significantly differ in life experience and career stages.
Osama Hirzalla, Vice President Brand Marketing & eCommerce Europe Marriott International says: “Every day we see discussion on the lifestyle habits of Millennials, but everyone seems to speak to this group as if they are one person. Marriott Hotels wants to throw out the generic term ‘Millennial’ and recognise their many faces.  As we continue to reinvent the travel experience and ask guests to co-create with us through our Travel Brilliantly campaign, we are excited to see the different guest room designs and how the public reacts to the creativity and innovation displayed in them.  We will take inspiration from the designs to celebrate and promote the importance of extraordinary design for the future.”

– See more at: http://ehotelier.com/news/2014/09/24/marriott-asks-millennial-‘tribe-leaders’-to-envision-guest-rooms-of-the-future#sthash.eGqGt3Jb.dpuf

Marriott Hotels in the UK has asked five thought leaders including TV presenter and charity founder, Katie Piper, and England rugby ace, Danny Care, to share their vision of the hotel guest room of the future.

Marriott Hotels is now calling for the public to vote on their favourite elements of the rooms on www.travelbrilliantly.co.uk/guestroom before 20 October 2014.  All voters have a chance of winning a four day trip to Marriott’s new hotel, Istanbul Marriott Hotel Sisli, Turkey.

From an interactive Instagram wall and selfie sticks to mind controlled projectors, the room designs are packed full of innovations and technology that reflect the needs and wants of the Millennial traveller.  Visitors to the site will vote on the best elements of each room design to create one winning concept that will be built as a show room in Westfield London (from 27 October to 2 November 2014). While the show room will not be replicated at Marriott Hotels; it represents a creative example of co-created innovation that aims to inspire the future of travel.

How the tribes were born

Following the launch of Marriott Hotels’ global campaign Travel Brilliantly in 2013 that represented a move in amplifying the brand’s dedication to leading the future of travel, Marriott Hotels in the UK set out to discover more about the lifestyle habits of Gen Y’s – 18-35 year olds – in Britain.

The survey findings identified the emergence of five Gen Y Tribes grouped together by similar attitudes, lifestyles and aspirations. The tribes are:
1. The Desirable Digerati: Early adopters of all hi-tech gadgetry and digital inventions. These fit, sociable, fashionable males are well travelled and often use their tech prowess to create start-ups. Tribe Leader: Jason Bradbury, TV Presenter & Author

2. The Fashionista Mumpreneurs: Fashion forward, savvy, self-employed, likely to have had a career change after having kids to fit around their lifestyle. Big in the blogger sphere and on social media. Tribe Leader: Katie Piper, TV presenter & Charity Founder

3. The Competitive Challengers: Fitness super-fans who thrive on the challenge of physical competitions from Iron Man to Tough Mudder. Keen sharers on social media, this group travels in packs, always on the look out for adventure. Tribe Leader: Danny Care, Harlequins & England rugby team player

4. The Social Media Savvies: Lovers of the Selfie and fans of every social app under the sun, these well groomed, young and carefree spirits love nothing more than a good party at home or away. Tribe Leader: Victoria InTheFrow, Celebrity Blogger & Lecturer

5.  The Financial Foodies: Tribe Leader: An emerging group of foodie fans who are ditching high powered jobs in the city in search of a fulfilling career in the food industry where they passion can flourish. Tribe Leader: Luiz Hara, Investment banker turned blogger, Editor of The London Foodie.

Marriott then invited these five personalities to design their vision for the ideal hotel guest room, ensuring that the characteristics of their tribe were represented in the design.

Trends in the hospitality landscape

With the emergence of Millennial travellers, the Marriott Hotels survey was inspired by an observation that these travellers – while a single demographic – significantly differ in life experience and career stages.
Osama Hirzalla, Vice President Brand Marketing & eCommerce Europe Marriott International says: “Every day we see discussion on the lifestyle habits of Millennials, but everyone seems to speak to this group as if they are one person. Marriott Hotels wants to throw out the generic term ‘Millennial’ and recognise their many faces.  As we continue to reinvent the travel experience and ask guests to co-create with us through our Travel Brilliantly campaign, we are excited to see the different guest room designs and how the public reacts to the creativity and innovation displayed in them.  We will take inspiration from the designs to celebrate and promote the importance of extraordinary design for the future.”

Source: ehotelier.com

Gaming Industry Mobile Solutions Leaders Form Resort Mobile Solutions Alliance (RMSA)

Several of the gaming industry’s most innovative mobile solutions providers today announced the formation of the Resort Mobile Solutions Alliance (RMSA). RMSAwas formed to help resorts and casinos to: a) understand the opportunities for enhancing operational efficiencies and improving customer service using enterprise-class mobile technology, and b) select the most appropriate mobile apps and infrastructure to bring them to life at their properties.

Resorts, and particularly casinos, face unique challenges of regulation, privacy and performance parameters as compared to other industries. RMSA will offer best practices white papers, educational events, and other reference information to help resorts and casinos keep abreast of evolving mobile technologies, as well as provide guidance and appropriate assessment to successfully deploy them for maximum competitive advantage.

RMSA‘s initial focus includes helping resorts understand, select, configure and deploy Wi-Fi systems for best performance on a given budget with special emphasis on reliable coverage, encryption, extensibility and performance during emergencies, including power outages.

Additionally, RMSA will help the industry to define operational standards including appropriate jurisdiction certification minimal requirements, enterprise system connectivity best practices, mobile device app and user management guidelines, and mobile app interoperability / compatibility recommendations.

Lastly, RMSA will strive to ensure the mobile apps provided by its Member Organizations are capable, within the limits of technology, of operating on mobile devices that simultaneously run apps from other providers.

RMSA‘s founding Member Organizations include:

• Acres 4.0, a leading provider of operations-enhancing mobile solutions
• Resort Advantage, the recognized leader in mobile compliance solutions for the gaming industry
• William Ryan Group, a trusted provider of Real Time Action™ solutions managing every customer interaction

“Our commitment to heavily invest in the development in our cutting-edge mobile technology solutions will provide our casino customers with enhanced patron experiences with immediate cost-savings,” said John Acres, Founder/CEO of Acres 4.0 &RMSA Co-Founder. “RMSA will allow us to revolutionize the resort and casino industry with our combined innovated mobile technology solutions.”

“RA is excited to provide our wealth of mobile solutions knowledge and real-world mobile experiences to the gaming industry,” said Brian Ferrilla, Managing Director of Resort Advantage & RMSA Co-Founder. “Forming this much-needed RMSA association will provide the resources to help properties invest in the right mobile technologies that yield the biggest return for their mobile app investments.”

“The customer journey, brand interaction, and internal operations of each resort and casino are counting on management to deploy trusted mobile systems across all departments,” said Robert John Hendrickson, President of The William Ryan Group, Inc. “RMSA leverages the consolidated solutions and experience of our expert partner organizations to insure that Casinos and Resorts adopt the appropriate strategies to support seamless mobile implementations.”

RMSA membership is open to anyone in the casino-resort industry. To participate in our trade association, or to receive updates about our progress, please email your contact info to info@rmsa.mobi.com.

About Acres 4.0
Acres 4.0 designs cutting-edge casino solutions that allow operators to take advantage of the newest consumer technologies today rather than years down the road. These innovations allow immediate cost savings and enhanced customer experiences at a price casinos can easily integrate into their existing budgets. For more information, please visit www.acres4.com or hear what Kai customers have to say at ilovekai.acres4.com. Visit us at G2E Booth #1636

About Resort Advantage
As the makers of the award-winning Title 31 Accelerator™, Slots Jackpot Accelerator™, SAR Workflow Accelerator™and Incident Report Accelerator™ suite of desktop and mobile compliance applications, Resort Advantage continues to lead the gaming industry with its innovations. Resort Advantage’s Complete FinCEN / IRS Compliance Solution has set the gold standard for desktop and mobile FinCEN / IRS compliance management and reporting and is the solution of choice for the industry’s most prominent casino properties. For more information, visit www.resort-advantage.com.

Source: www.hospitalitynet.org

Teleporting and Robots: It’s Time For Hotels to Quit the Gimmicks

Will this little box really transport us to a tropical beach? (Photo: Marriott Hotels)

The latest hospitality trend these days is taking extreme, and often unnecessary, measures to impress hotel guests. We’re not talking basic room upgrades and an artisanal chocolate on your pillow.

We’re talking teleportation chambers and robot butlers.

In some ways, we commend these hotels for making such an effort and introducing us to unique experiences. But we also wonder if it’s really worth all the money they are spending.

Last week, Marriott began offering guests teleportation. Sort of. Marriott’s latest publicity stunt is the teleporter, based in Oculus Rift technology. It transports guests to Maui and London in a fully immersive 4D virtual reality experience. All you have to do is step inside the booth.

To be fair, the teleporter is an interesting step in the right direction of revolutionizing in-room entertainment in hotels, but it still feels awfully gimmicky. Check out eight other ways hotels are trying to attract attention these days.

1. Robots!

Great for robot selfies, but not much else.

Only a month before Marriott launched the teleporter, robots invaded a Starwood hotel. Starwood is testing new robot butlers at its Aloft Hotel in Cupertino, California, and plansto expand to the rest of Starwood’s hotels in 2015. Aptly named Botlrs, these machines can navigate the hotel and fulfill guest requests, allowing the actual humans working to spend their time doing other things.

Forget the robot butler, though. How about a robot that records your sleep? It’s not as creepy as it sounds; there is no actual robot in the room with you. For their Sleep Art campaign, a few Ibis hotels filled select beds with sensors that send signals as you sleep to a robot that turns those signals into art. It actually sounds pretty amazing, albeit extreme and a little uncomfortable.

Source: www.yahoo.com

Dennis Jung appointed Hotel Manager at The Ritz Carlton, South Beach

Luxury Miami Beach hotel, The Ritz-Carlton, South Beach, has announced the appointment of Mr. Dennis Jung to the position of Hotel Manager. With more than 15 years of experience in the hospitality industry, the seasoned international hotelier will lead and oversee the operation of the 375 room hotel in Miami Beach, Florida. The oceanfront restored 1953 Art Moderne building, in the famed Art Deco district, is located at the epicentre of South Beach.

Mr. Jung’s tenure in the luxury hotel industry has led him to exotic locations around the globe, working in 6 cities, across 3 different continents. He began his hospitality career as a Night Auditor at a 285 room hotel in Frankfurt, Germany. After 10 years and 8 employment positions in the Rooms Division – holding executive positions in Munich, Switzerland, Shanghai, and Beijing – Jung decided to join The Ritz-Carlton family in 2010.

Most recently Mr. Jung held the position of Hotel Manager at The Ritz-Carlton, Moscow. In Moscow, Jung began as the Executive Assistant Rooms Manager, and would eventually expand his role to The Director of Hotel Operations followed by Hotel Manager. His hard work and talent served vital as the Opening Team Trainer at The Ritz-Carlton properties located in Hong Kong, Vienna, Dubai, and Herzliya, Israel, in addition to serving as Project Zenith in Berlin and Hotel Arts Barcelona.

Jung earned a degree in International Hospitality from Hotelfachschule Heidelberg in Germany and also studied at Cornell University.

The hotelier, born in Germany, speaks 4 languages including German, English, French and Mandarin. Jung is excited to add Spanish to his roster as he absorbs Miami’s culture with his wife and their two children. “South Beach is one of the world’s most glamorous and exciting resort towns,” said Jung. “Having worked in pure business hotels in the past, it was very exciting to accept a new and different opportunity in a property with great history and legacy.”

Sorce: www.ehotelier.com

Why you should offer cross-training opportunities

Cross-training offers many benefits to supervisors and the organizations that employ them beyond covering for coworkers who are out. And cross-training is beneficial to employees as well.

Those benefits include:

• Development of new skills
• Better appreciation for what coworkers’ jobs involve
• Opportunities to meet and network with employees in other departments
• Greater flexibility to cover for employees while they are on vacation or absent
• Better understanding of organizational procedures

Programs to provide cross-training opportunities for employees, supervisors, and managers can take shape in different ways. For example, your organization might develop a program where employees can express interest in the type of training they would be most interested in receiving. Or, the organization might develop a standard set of cross-training opportunities appropriate for each job.

Either way, employees will appreciate being given a chance to learn new things and will be motivated to continue to expand their knowledge of the entire operation. The more flexibility that can be built into the program, the more employees will be encouraged to participate.

Source: www.hr.blr.com

WiFi – Free or Pay?

Most articles on this subject prompt a veritable tsunami of comments from social-media-literate, business travelers, who find it inconceivable that any hotel could ever be justified in charging for Internet access. Do they have a point?

The Guest’s Perspective

The need to remain connected has become almost ubiquitous and it isn’t just a business requirement. Leisure hotels now show the largest year on year growth in WiFi usage. Hotels.com recently released a survey where hotel guests stated that free WiFi was the most desired in-room amenity. Some people have even adapted Mazlo’s traditional “Hierarchy of Needs” to illustrate how the WiFi has taken over our lives.

Given that background, it is hardly surprising that protagonists such as Andrew Zobler CEO of The Sydell Group state: “To charge for WiFi is just terrible. It’s like charging for water, something you just don’t do. Having really good WiFi and having it free is critical.”

Others take a more financially based approach, and compare the cost they are charged in a hotel with the price they pay for access at home. They typically conclude that the former provides very poor value for money in comparison with the latter, and that hotels are therefore fleecing customers in the same way as they did with telephony, before mobile phones turned hotel-provided in-room phones into “the most expensive paging system in history” (according to Nick Price former CTO of Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group).

There is also the paradox of where free WiFi is available. This applies both not only within hotels but also across the hospitality industry. The argument goes along the lines of: why should hotels charge for WiFi when cafés and restaurants often provide free access? The paradox becomes even stranger when you consider that the majority of budget / select service hotels provide free access, whilst luxury hotels continue to charge. To those who are used to the way airlines operate, it is counter-intuitive for the premium hotel brands to have add-ons when the “no frills operators” bundle everything in the headline price.

The Hotelier’s Perspective

Hoteliers with whom I have worked have often complained of “amenity creep.” Is WiFi in 2014 just another example of this, or are there reasons why some may hold out against offering the service free to all?

Let’s look at some of the arguments. Since these are usually ignored when this topic is discussed, I have decided to go through them in a little more detail.

First of all, the investment in the network. Many hotels would argue that to provide an enterprise grade WiFi network throughout a hotel is expensive. There are three main factors driving this:

• Handheld devices now account for over two-thirds of hotel connections
• Congestion in the 2.4 GHz wavelength has led to a requirement for 5 GHz connectivity
• Density rather than coverage is the driving factor in public and conference space

Many of us have noticed the phenomenon in our own homes, that good WiFi connectivity for our laptop does not mean good WiFi connectivity for our mobile phones or tablets. This is a result of the weaker antennae in handheld devices. It is the same in the hotel environment. However, it is clearly not acceptable for two-thirds of desired users to be unable to access the WiFi, so additional Access Points (APs) have to be installed.

The beauty and the curse of WiFi is that it is that both the 2.4 GHz and 5.0 GHz wavelengths are unlicensed spectrum (does anyone in Europe remember the costly auctions for licensed 3G spectrum?). However, the fact that it is unlicensed also means lots of other devices can use it. The 2.4 GHz spectrum is particularly crowded with interference from WiFi itself, cordless phones, microwaves, etc. This has led to a significant increase in the number of so called dual-band devices, which can operate in both the 2.4 GHz and 5.0 GHz wavelengths. Although potential speeds are greater and interference is currently lower in the 5.0 GHz spectrum, the downside is that the area of coverage from a given AP is reduced. This has also led to a need to install additional APs.

Unfortunately, the requirement for hotels to install more and more APs does not stop there.

According to the recent iPass Hospitality Findings Report, the average business traveller now carries 2.68 devices. Anecdotal evidence suggests that leisure travellers now exhibit similar characteristics. Enterprise grade APs can usually cope with between 50 and 100 simultaneous users per aerial. Because of the number of devices we now carry, it is possible to fit more devices into the coverage area of an AP in an open space than that particular AP can support. As a result, hotels with large conference rooms or public spaces again have to install more APs.

The end result of all of these technical issues is that a typical European hotel installation in a luxury hotel can now easily cost in excess of €80,000 for a 200 bedroom hotel.

Secondly there is the ongoing cost. There are two aspects to this – the costs of the data line and the support fee.

Data lines are an area where the overall speed bandwidth requirement has grown massively over time and that growth looks set to continue for the foreseeable future. This growth is being driven by growth in all the different drivers for bandwidth. More people want to be online, more devices are being brought to hotels by guests and these devices are consuming more data than before. As a result, most hotels should now be looking at fibre data lines providing 100 Mbps or above. Whilst in metropolitan areas this might cost about €1,000 per month, in more remote locations it could cost considerably more to get a circuit with business level SLAs.

The requirement for support is an area where expectations differ greatly between the hotel and restaurant sectors. Within cafés, I have often experienced situations where obtaining fast secure reliable WiFi access was difficult, but have been left to my own devices to try and resolve it. This is not acceptable within a hotel, where the service must not only be properly supported but also provide enterprise grade security. Not surprisingly, the major international brands all require 24/7 multilingual support. Even though average call rates have dropped from about 5% of users in the wired days to less than 0.5% of users now, the requirement to provide quality multilingual support and rapid replacement of equipment drives cost. Overall the cost for this would be nearly as much as the data line, resulting in operating costs of c. €10 / room / month for a quality service, roughly equaling the initial capital cost of the network over a three year period.

Additionally, despite the widespread use of WiFi and the vociferous comments of these users, WiFi is not used by everyone. Certainly not everyone requires large datalines. This gives rise to the classic economist’s problem of the so called “free rider” issue, where someone uses a service without bearing the cost of providing that service.

There is a Solution

An international hotelier once told me, “Ideally, we would like to charge the high usage guests an amount which means we could provide free access to everyone else.”

Is this practical? Well maybe.

Here is some of the data I have derived by looking at numerous hotel networks in recent years:

• 70% of users transfer 125M or less of data in a session – these are the people who are just checking email and ensuring they are up to date on news, sport and social media
• 5% of users transfer more than 1G of data in a session – some even transfer as much as 700G in a session
• These “super-users” account for more than 70% of all data transferred across the network
• The majority of the “super-users” upload more data than they download – to me this implies either they are using hotels to “spam” others or they are transferring large amounts of data to other people

So data usage in a hotel network is even more skewed towards super-users than the 80:20 rule would imply. Were these super-users to be charged €10 per session, our standard 200 bedroom hotel would be able to generate over €1,500 per month, covering most of their operating costs. Although this does not the cover the infrastructure investment, the data analysis of the myriad of guests’ interaction tools opens up even more possibilities (which I may talk about in another article).

It seems logical to me that the small number of users who are driving the majority of the cost should pay, whilst the large number of users who are merely “dipping their toe in the Internet pool” should be provided with free access.

It isn’t enough to just offer tiered WiFi. However, if all hotels offered tiered access, for six devices, using in-room dual-band APs, on fibre data lines wouldn’t the world, or at least the hospitality industry, be a better place!

Source: www.hospitalitynet.org

Marriott International Launches Hospitality Education Program in China

Marriott International, Inc. (NASDAQ:MAR) today announced a “Marriott Apprentice Program” (MAP program) in collaboration with the prestigious Nankai University and American Hotel & Lodging  Association Educational Institute for China. This is a pioneering hospitality education initiative that innovatively integrates a sustained internship with both campus and online learning.

Nankai University is going to enroll students nationwide for the MAP program. It is also responsible for providing the curriculum, classroom instruction and coordinating the program. The enrolled students are expected to undergo a five-year comprehensive hotel education program that consists of 18 months of learning on campus, 38 months of combined online learning and internship at Marriott hotels in two phases, as well as a final evaluation featuring progressive performance appraisal of the internships.

Students who have successfully completed the MAP program will receive graduation certificates from Nankai University,  as well as the internationally recognized certificates from the American Hotel & Lodging Educational Institute.  They will also receive supervisory job offers from Marriott International. For those outstanding graduates of the MAP program, they will seamlessly be connected to the Global Voyage Program, Marriott’s proprietary “future leader incubator” targeting elite university graduates worldwide.

“We are honored and excited to work with Nankai University and American Hotel & Lodging Association Educational Institute on the MAP program. This collaboration will not only benefit the long-term growth of Marriott International in China, but also help take the country’s hospitality education to the next level,” said Regan Taikitsadaporn, Chief Human Resources Officer for Asia Pacific of Marriott International.

“The MAP program is another vivid example of our company’s purpose that we open doors to a world of opportunity. China has an abundant supply of talented youth – Giving them the right kind of training, coaching and support, they will shine and become high caliber professionals for our industry,” Taikitsadaporn added.

“The MAP program represents the state-of-the-art local and international hospitality education that is being backed by one of the most established hotel groups worldwide. Marriott International plays a pivotal role in the MAP program as it provides our students with internship opportunities, systematic on-job training for all positions within the hotel including managerial ones, as well as supervisory job offers for those outstanding performers,” said Guan Naijia, Vice Chancellor of Nankai University.  “The three partners are offering our potential students a unique package of theoretical and on-the-job internship education and training that is exceptional in China.”

“Our institute has over 60 years of experience in providing working hospitality professionals with education and training. We are continually elevating our programs to ensure the industry will get a variety of hospitality solutions that reflect the best practices in the hotel and lodging sector. We are pleased to work with Marriott International and Nankai University to make a contribution to the development of the hospitality industry of China,” said Leon Shi, Country Manager of Operations – Greater China of the American Hotel & Lodging Educational Institute.

Nankai University is going to enroll students for the MAP program right after the three partners sign the co-operation agreement today (August 26). The annual enrollment of students will be determined in accordance with Marriott’s projected demand for supervisory associates in China over the next five years. The 2014 enrollment will be 150 students.

Marriott International, Inc. (NASDAQ: MAR) is a global leading lodging company based in Bethesda, Maryland, USA, over 4,000 properties and 690,000 rooms in 79 countries and territories and reported revenues of nearly $13 billion in fiscal year 2013.

Source: www.hotelnewsresource.com/

Revinate Announces inGuest™, a revolutionary Guest Engagement Platform for the Hospitality Industry

With inGuest, hotels can maximize revenue by knowing their guests, anticipating their needs and executing precisely targeted marketing campaigns

Revinate, the San Francisco-based technology company that is reinventing the hotel guest experience, today introduces inGuest, a new platform that turns guest data into revenue for hoteliers. Already launched at leading hotels, inGuest increases guest satisfaction and revenue by improving the way hoteliers engage with guests before, during and after their stays. inGuest delivers social guest profiles and extends hotel services to guests via their own mobile devices, increasing engagement and opening new communication and revenue channels.

The core of inGuest’s revolutionary value is the power to connect reservation data with both social data and guest feedback to build rich social guest profiles, considered “the holy grail” by many hoteliers. For the first time, hoteliers can deeply know their guests, personalize their service, identify VIPs and automatically surface guest preferences and interests. To fuel this new level of engagement, inGuest delivers precisely targeted engagement campaigns based not only on booking, loyalty and PMS data, but also Revinate’s treasure trove of social, feedback and online reputation data.

The groundbreaking guest intelligence delivered by inGuest fundamentally improves the way hotels engage with their guests. Never before has a single solution allowed hoteliers to manage guest interaction across the entire guest cycle, from booking to post-stay in such an easy and fully integrated way.

“Before inGuest, hoteliers looking to better understand and engage with guests needed to cobble together numerous legacy systems,” says Jay Ashton, Revinate’s co-founder and CEO. “The result was an expensive, complex system that could not produce a singular guest profile. inGuest harnesses all guest data into rich social profiles and enables precise, dynamic targeting. Our goal is to make it easy for hoteliers to better engage with guests in order to maximize revenue and satisfaction.”

Always seeking to better understand guests, increase guest engagement and raise the bar of its service levels, Hotel Griffon in San Francisco, a Revinate customer since 2010, was among the first properties to deploy inGuest. Norbert Mede, General Manager, says, “We are always looking for ways to extend our world-class service to our guests. inGuest provides a platform enabling guests to reach us 24/7, tailoring our communication options to an increasingly tech savvy guest base and ensuring our guest outreach is on-message and targeted to the individual. With inGuest, we now have a powerful solution that enables new levels of personalized service and targeted marketing, while opening up new revenue streams and increasing guest satisfaction.”

The inGuest platform incorporates:

• A Fully Customized Mobile App (iOS, Android & Mobile Web) for each hotel, including:
  • Advanced Check-In: preferences and upgrade requests can be made before arrival to ensure a frictionless experience and drive new revenue.
  • Room Service Ordering: guests can use their own mobile devices in their room, at the pool or anywhere on site to order food and beverages.
  • Service Requests: any need can be addressed and serviced quickly through the mobile app and text messaging.
  • Reservation Requests: an easy way for guests to reserve a table, book a tee-time or set a spa appointment at the hotel.
  • Concierge Connect: the fastest way to request restaurant reservations, book tours and get local recommendations.
• The Request Center: a sophisticated request management solution that includes tracking, escalation and two-way communication with guests via email, text messaging (SMS) and app notifications. inGuest can also integrate with existing solutions.
• Guest Profiles: Rich guest data, including PMS data, stay histories, historical requests, on-site requests, preferences, social activity and status on sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, online review data from top review sites across the web and post-stay feedback.
• Guest Marketing: A powerful platform for sending targeted, automated communications and event-driven or recurring promotions to past, present or future guests via text message (SMS), email and app notifications, driving new revenue.
• Revinate’s Guest Feedback Suite: a powerful solution for hotels to capture, measure and optimize the guest experience by bringing together all online reviews, survey data and social media mentions into a single, integrated system.
  • The Guest Feedback Suite includes Revinate’s market-leading solution for Online Reputation Management, Post-Stay Surveys and On-Site Surveys.

After a highly successful pilot program with proven ROI and rave reviews from both hoteliers and guests, inGuest is currently launching with many leading hotels including Hotel Durant, Jefferson Street Inn, Hotel Jerome, Sentinel, and many more.

Source: www.hospitalitynet.com