“Kontactless represents an amazing step forward for the hospitality industry, and we are proud to work with such exceptional brands to bring this solution to the marketplace,” noted Gabriel Weisz, CEO, and founder of Kontactless. “We began work on Kontactless in 2019 to meet growing guest preferences for a more efficient experience when dining out and attending events. Having built a significant footprint in the hospitality industry over the last decade, we were well-positioned to address customer concerns while at the same time increasing efficiency and productivity for operators.”

To use Kontactless at a restaurant, bar, hotel, or event venue, guests simply scan the unique QR code at their table or seat. This automatically brings them to a custom responsive webpage where they can place orders, make payments, track progress, and leave feedback. Additionally, QR codes can also be featured outside and in parking spaces, so customers can order from multiple locations in their immediate vicinity. Orders can also be placed in advance and customers can alert the venue once they’ve arrived. Kontactless can be seamlessly integrated into many POS systems, and the company provides customized design and printing of QR codes on behalf of operators.

While Kontactless wasn’t created for the COVID-19 pandemic, renewed awareness around increasing hygiene, reducing non-essential human contact, and limiting use of commonly touched surfaces makes this solution particularly relevant now. Just as importantly, Kontactless offers guests the opportunity to leave honest feedback about the overall experience and remain in full control of when orders are placed.

To sign up for a demo, click here.

Does your company have news it would like to share with our readers? If so, we invite you to review our editorial guidelines and submit your press release for publishing consideration.

The post Kallpod Launches Kontactless™ Mobile Food Ordering and Payment Solution at Select Hotel Locations appeared first on .

However, these latter two, card-not-present methods can be quite compromising to one’s credit card security. Now that it’s the start of summer and operations are ramping back up after the stay-at-home lull, it’s imperative that all hotel properties and brands implement the necessary updates to ensure that these remote transactional channels are as secure as possible, lest hotels be vulnerable to chargebacks.

In these oft-nauseating disputes, the merchant (which is us) is not likely to be favored by the credit card companies, meaning that it’s both a drain on your time as well as your coffers.

Working as an asset manager for an independent property, there were numerous times when I had to sit down with the accounting office to review invoice discrepancies and all the other nuisances that can jumble the recording of revenues or expenses. Dealing with chargebacks or fraud cases was always a major pain point that came to impact nearly every outlet where credit cards were accepted.

Not only does someone on the accounting team lose a ton of time in locating the records of the transaction but the property also incurs an agonizing ‘retrieval request fee’. Most of these disputes arise from card-not-present transactions where there’s always a degree of doubt in the hotel’s case and, given the present circumstances, it’s important we double-down on card-not-present security measures.

In today’s security-everywhere environment with pin codes, CCV (card code verification), AVS (address verification service) and other fraud prevention measures, you would think chargebacks would already be a thing of the past. The problem is that most card-not-present transactions still require some form of paper authorization form or manual posting to the correct ledger within the PMS, thereby breaking the chain of evidence that’s all electronically collected.

To gather some more perspective on the issue, I reached out to Saar Fabrikant, CEO of b4, a hospitality tech provider specializing in automated credit card payment solutions, where he said, “Chargebacks have become a problem we tolerate as the cost of doing business. Whether it’s a guest folio, a group master, spa, golf, restaurant or any other merchant terminal, taken together this is a ton of work for accounting to handle. What a hotel really needs is a PCI-compliant payment portal akin to something like PayPal but without the need for a separate accounting ledger.”

Indeed, there are now digital platforms that can replace the paper-based verification of transactions while also passing information right into the proper PMS ledger. I’ve seen these in action and all that’s really required from the hotel is the customer’s email address to then send a private hyperlink that contains a payment form.

For these types of processes, the reservationist, front desk agent or any other hotel employee never sees or hears the guest’s credit card information; it’s all done online. Meanwhile, the accounting office is saving time in having to post all these transactions, especially when you are dealing with complex situations like those that require recurrent installments from multiple payees for a big event.

This is what has really inspired me to write about this lingering pain point in the first place. Enhancing electronic payments not only means winning far more credit card disputes – that is, reduced chargeback costs – but also less time needed to post the myriad of countless authorization forms, along with the aforementioned physical distancing advantage.

Then at the small hotel level, the top benefit comes from seeing your controller smile because posting and aligning the various ledgers at the end of each month is a monotonous task that these hoteliers no longer have to worry about, allowing them to focus on more important issues.

Of course, once you get to larger properties, the number of merchant terminals multiplies threefold to fivefold because of all the in-house amenities. With each outlet comes the possibility of chargebacks, making that task a horror show to manage, especially in lean times such as now when you need to be hyper-efficient with your labor. For just about any property, the advantages are clear, making this one big project you should seriously consider resolving while we are all toiling through Covid.

One of the world’s most published writers in hospitality, Larry Mogelonsky is the principal of Hotel Mogel Consulting Limited, a Toronto-based consulting practice. His experience encompasses hotel properties around the world, both branded and independent, and ranging from luxury and boutique to select-service. Larry is also on several boards for companies focused on hotel technology. His work includes five books, “Are You an Ostrich or a Llama?” (2012), “Llamas Rule” (2013), “Hotel Llama” (2015), “The Llama is Inn” (2017) and “The Hotel Mogel” (2018). You can reach Larry at larry@hotelmogel.com to discuss hotel business challenges or to book speaking.

This article may not be reproduced without the expressed permission of the author.

Are you an industry thought leader with a point of view on hotel technology that you would like to share with our readers? If so, we invite you to review our editorial guidelines and submit your article for publishing consideration.

The post Why Hoteliers Should Focus on Avoiding Chargeback Costs for Physically-Distanced Credit Card Payments appeared first on .

Website Simplicity

A recent study of 2,000 people looked at how people book their hotels and the factors involved in room cancellations. It was found that over a quarter of people take into high consideration the quality and detail of a hotel’s website (such as photographs and information) before making a direct booking online.

Investing money into the simplicity of your website in all stages of the guest journey will help acquire traffic, increase conversion rates and drive more people to book direct. The simplicity of website use (including fewer re-directs) will result in in trustworthiness of the potential customer. Hotel management may also find reporting efficient with less redirect windows to consider.

The booking ecosystem will be an interesting area of change in 2020, as Airbnb, Google and others start to enter, many of these will create options to drive people to your website but also more competition. If you can show your offering more easily, make booking slick and then integrate it to an onsite experience it will encourage guests to use you for converting their search to a reservation.

Upselling Tech to boost profitability

Carefully choosing the right time to upsell a guest’s hotel booking is crucial to a hotels’ additional revenue stream. After a booking has been made there is a fresh window of opportunity to upsell, as guests will reflect on their budget spend and perhaps feel there is room to spare on extra luxuries and see what they may be missing out on.

Upselling is an important aspect of hotel revenue. Upselling is also a conversion killer if done at the reservation confirmation stage. Don’t mistake upselling with configuration, configuring a booking needs to happen but upselling can happen subsequently through nudge marketing via emails, push notifications or even on arrival at the hotel. Many systems are developing to help you keep conversion rates high but total revenue retained.

Technology such as Upsell Guru offers options to schedule notifications and alerts through different communication platforms to guests after collecting their details from a booking. The added value can range between upgrading to meals to booking a premium room.

Secure payment systems to increase consumer confidence & credibility

Where credibility issues are concerned, payment systems are the leading topic. It made headlines in 2019 for fake bookings, hacker attacks and unsafe jobs in hotel operations.

An investment in secure payment gateways protects the data of hotel guests and the hotel’s credibility. For example, if a guest was to see the wrong value on an invoice, they may become wary of how secure that hotel’s payment system is and look elsewhere.

A secure payment gateway also checks in advance whether the credit card exists and is covered which could reduce chargebacks. This way, the hotelier can make sure that the booking via the credit card is genuine and at the same time protect the guest’s data.

Hotel payments have adjusted to new legislation and as hotels move towards a more integrated guest experience, all payment aspects need to combine seamlessly and accurately. Nothing erodes trust like a rekeyed payment amount being wrong and the guest having to challenge it.

Self Service and Automated Check-in

In a recent survey of 2,654 consumers by the Travel Leaders Group, 78% of respondents said they would like to see self-service kiosks more widely available for check-in.

Consumers are becoming accustomed to self-service systems as they appear across retail, leisure & transport industries. Another study suggested that guests favor hotel self-service check-ins as these provide faster service, results in more privacy and waiting time/lines are much shorter.

Hoteliers could consider how their core data system might be centralized as much as possible in order to make it a less complex & more efficient guest journey from booking to check-in. Technology such as guest portals can be efficient for customers to retrieve their invoices quickly and will centralize all the data for the hotelier.

An omnichannel platform which centralizes operations

Payment processes are often a slow funnel for hoteliers with multiple payment gateways and PMS providers, data stored in different areas and revenue segregated. Month to month reporting can be difficult and productivity of staff slowed.

Omnichannel platforms enable you to centralize operational systems, take back control of your revenue flow and transparency of guest data, so hotel management can focus on creating the best experience for customers.

Andrew Metcalfe is Chief Technical Officer at Guestline, which provides innovative property management and distribution software to the hospitality industry. Andrew has previously been Chief Technology Officer at Ve Interactive and is an expert in consumer websites and people management solutions. With over 14 years of experience in technology and hospitality, he’s knowledgeable in supporting hotels to drive their best performance. Founded on cloud technology, Guestline’s revenue-generating solutions enable hotel groups and independents of all sizes to achieve maximum occupancy at the most profitable rate. Fully integrated into the Guestline distribution and central reservation platforms, the property management software is currently growing revenues in businesses in 25 countries across five continents.

The post How Upsell, Payment, Self-Service and Other Technologies Can Help Hoteliers Stay Competitive in 2020 appeared first on .

RoomKeyPMS Payments was designed as a hotel-centric solution to simplify the entire payments process and benefit hoteliers in the following ways:

● Save time with one solution and one team: integrated within the RoomKeyPMS platform, the unified tool automates batching and night audit procedures, reducing payment discrepancies and reconciliation errors.

● Integrated reconciliation report: with no need for a secondary 3rd party portal, the batch reconciliation report is available directly within the RoomKeyPMS platform, allowing hoteliers to scan and compare RoomKeyPMS and credit card processor batches, and quickly drill down to spot imbalances, map and reconcile.

● Protect your hotel and guests: tokenization and EVM / Chip-and-PIN compliance will keep your hotel PCI DSS compliant and keep your guests’ information safe.

● Use one reliable product: simplified into a single account that works with your bank, RoomKeyPMS Payments is quick and easy to implement, and handles all credit card types via swipe, dip and tap through innovative POS devices.

Does your company have news it would like to share with our readers? If so, we invite you to review our editorial guidelines and submit your press release for publishing consideration.

The post RoomKeyPMS Rolls Out Simplified Hotel PMS Payment Processing Solution appeared first on .

Shangri-La Group, which ranks as one of Asia’s premier developers, owners and operators of hotel and investment properties, earlier this month launched WeChat Mini Program and WeChat online pay services. This service will eventually cover all its over 100 hotels globally including Shangri-La, Kerry, Hotel Jen and Traders properties.

This makes Shangri-La, which currently owns and/or manages over 100 hotels globally in more than 70 destinations under the Shangri-La, Kerry, Hotel Jen and Traders brands, the first hotel company to offer a range of e-services under the WeChat ecosystem including online pay and offline deposit for guests with WeChat accounts.

By personalizing guest experiences through WeChat functionalities, Shangri-La aims to provide its guests with improved convenience and a better overall stay experience, as well as enhanced communications via social media engagement on WeChat, which is a Chinese multi-purpose messaging, social media and mobile payment app developed by Tencent. First released in 2011, the app has grown to become one of the world’s largest standalone mobile app, with over 1 billion monthly active users.

These initiatives are a result of the Shangri-La and Tencent strategic partnership on digital transformation that the companies inked in November of last year. By leveraging Tencent’s strength in technology and connectivity, and by incorporating Shangri-La’s hotel experience and business resources, the partnership was formed with the goal of driving technology innovation and business transformation of traditional industry models and enhance service quality and guest experience for hotel operators.

As of this month, the WeChat Mini Program and WeChat online pay service are available in all 50 Shangri-La properties in mainland China. The full suite of WeChat e-payment functions will reportedly be followed in stages for other properties worldwide. The introduction of Shangri-La WeChat Mini Program will also enable Golden Circle members to link their membership with WeChat ID. Shangri-La’s official WeChat service account will also be upgraded by adding the access to the mini program.

The goal is to provide guests with a seamless digital journey from the time they search, book, check-in/check-out to payment. As WeChat supports Shangri-La’s e-direct channel, hotel management are able to tap into a wide range of platform resources and to engage with a broader base of WeChat users in China and globally.

By integrating the multiple transaction touch points within the WeChat APP, Shangri-La can bring a one-stop payment solution to guests through the e-payment tools of WeChat Pay. According to reports, 46 Shangri-La hotels in mainland China will also allow offline WeChat deposit pay for check-in at the front desk from the end of May. Guests can also track the offline deposit transaction via their WeChat account and get instant refund upon check-out.

Shangri-La Group has also brought the Golden Circle membership and WeChat ID together under one platform. Existing Golden Circle members can opt to manage their account from the WeChat end, while WeChat users can enrol to the Golden Circle programme directly via the platform.

The post Shangri-La Aims to Enhance the Guest Experience with Launch of e-Services Utilizing the WeChat Platform appeared first on .

When searching for a POS system, Ruby Hotels was looking for a system that was intuitive, flexible, and able to grow with them. With Infrasys, Ruby Hotels can expand its portfolio quickly and seamlessly. The native cloud-based platform makes it easy for Ruby to track revenue, manage pricing and much more, anytime, anywhere; for their entire enterprise.

“It has been great working with the Infrasys team to bring modern cloud technology to our hotel. Our goal is to provide a contemporary and affordable form of luxury hotel to our customers, and to do that, we rely on technology where it doesn’t compromise individuality. We needed a POS solution that was flexible, modern, and integration friendly. Infrasys proved to be the best solution to meet the needs of our centralized organization,” said Tobias Koehler, Group Director Systems & Commerce of Ruby Hotels.

As an added benefit, Infrasys allows Ruby Hotels to utilize their existing POS hardware. “Being able to keep our existing hardware, which was in great shape, not only saved us money, but made the installation process much easier” stated Koehler.

Infrasys, a Shiji Group Brand, delivers a cloud-based POS designed for enterprise hotel operations. With over two decades of building POS systems for the hospitality industry, Infrasys is one of the most versatile and proficient systems on the market and has over 7,000 installations today.

Does your company have a success story it would like to share with our readers? If so, we invite you to review our editorial guidelines and submit your case study for publishing consideration.

The post Ruby Hotels Selects Shiji Group’s Infrasys Cloud POS Platform to Power Operations appeared first on .

The post INTELITY Partners with MyCheck, Giving Hotel Guests a Digital-first Paying Experience appeared first on .

Infor is one of the world’s largest providers of hospitality software. Its products are in use at almost 20,000 hotel and casino locations worldwide. Infor hospitality solutions include robust capabilities for hotel property management, restaurant management, revenue management, asset and incident management, analytics, and artificial intelligence. Jason Floyd is the vice president and general manager of Infor hospitality solutions. He is responsible for all global operations of the business unit, including sales, services, product management, marketing, support, solution consulting and P&L management.

First the big news. As we reported, Infor received a $1.5 billion dollar investment earlier this year. Congrats! What is the impact of that massive funding round on Infor Hospitality’s plans for the future?

Everyone was super excited about this investment. It was the additional investment Infor sought from our board to help better position Infor for a potential IPO. Investments of this size and nature certainly lend aid to Infor’s acquisition strategies, and Infor Hospitality having acquired three companies in the past 9 months definitely was on the receiving end of such benefits this investment provided.

The recent acquisition of ReServe Interactive is a big deal. Can you talk a bit about that? What was the reasoning behind that acquisition? What are the benefits to both your organization as well as to your customers?

A big deal indeed. The acquisition of both Reserve Interactive and Vivonet were extremely strategic for my team and I. Infor has spent the last several years building a world class next generation Hotel Property Management System, for which we are seeing great adoption globally. Sales & Catering, and Point-of-Sale (for which we discuss next) we felt were major gaps in our suite of solutions. There is a lot of demand for fully integrated suites of modules in the Cloud. Infor as a company has the Infor CloudSuite product strategy where we offer customers multiple highly integrated solutions. The challenge Infor had was until now we didn’t have all the cloud solutions to offer in our suite like Sales & Catering that customers wanted. We often would be told that our HMS Property Management System was exactly the new technology a hotel company was seeking but that an integrated Sales & Catering solution in our cloud was also a requirement. Reserve Interactive not only allows us to offer an integrated Sales & Catering system with our Property Management System, but Reserve Interactive also has a full restaurant table reservation and floor management suite that Infor now has to offer our restaurant clients and hotel food & beverage customers.

We also reported on the acquisition of Vivonet. Can you talk a bit about that, as well? What was the reasoning behind that acquisition? What are the benefits to both your organization as well as to your customers?

The acquisition of a point-of-sale company was another strategic initiative of my group for some time.   Infor has a well-established Hospitality point-of-sale business in Europe, but that solution was not in the cloud and not one we felt could be lifted to the cloud and taken globally. When Vivonet came along, it really caught our interest.  Not only is it a cloud-based solution that we felt we could invest in and introduce globally under the Infor banner as Infor POS, but it also allowed Infor to expand Infor Hospitality into Food Service Management. Infor Hospitality now has a strong Food Service Management customer-base thanks to Vivonet that we can offer a multitude of different solutions to.   At the same time we now have a fantastic cloud point-of-sale to offer our hotel customers. Can’t get much better than that.

Can we expect that Infor will be buying up additional companies to enhance the hospitality group’s platform capabilities and provide a competitive advantage? If so, over what period of time? Are there any specific plans you can share?

Nothing is currently in our line of sight, and if it were, I couldn’t share it with you anyway – companies like Infor like to try and keep acquisitions a surprise. That being said, if there is a company or solution that complements our go to market strategy, it is a safe assumption that we will review it for a possible fit in our product family.

Tell us a bit about your career trajectory. What led you to your current role at Infor Hospitality? How long have you been in this position?

I have been the General Manager of Infor Hospitality for 9 months. Prior to that I was the Vice President and Chief of Staff for 6 years.  I started my career with Kimpton Hotels after earning my degree in Hospitality Management from Kansas State University. I love everything about the Hospitality Industry, but quickly learned early in my career that I was better suited to be a vendor versus remain an operator.   I actually could see myself retire as an operator running some small Inn somewhere, someday but I knew long ago that I could do the most good for the industry I love as a vendor. After leaving Kimpton, I started as a PMS installer with National Guest Systems Corporation in the late 90s. Soon National Guest Systems Corporation had evolved into Visual One System and I was promoted to be a Product Manager and one of the chief architects of that solution. My knowledge of Visual One propelled me into sales and before I knew it I was a Vice President of Sales for Visual One. When Agilysys acquired Visual One I continued on in a sales role leading their hotel and resort sales. A few years after the acquisition of Visual One, I felt it was time for a change and wasn’t sure I was still contributing to my industry at the same level as I once did. Stewart Applbaum who I had worked with before had started something great at Infor Hospitality and asked me to come over as Vice President and Chief of Staff and so I did – and 7 years later here I am, running the joint. Infor Hospitality remains one of Stewart’s many businesses of Infor.

What do you do in your job on a day-to-day basis? What do you like most about your work?

Chief cook and bottle washer. My job on a day-to-day basis is all about supporting my vast team. I am responsible for the global sales growth, product development growth, and overall business unit growth of Infor Hospitality. It keeps me extremely busy for sure, but regardless if I am sitting with my sales staff, my development staff, my services staff or any other employee it is my team that keeps me going and that makes Infor Hospitality a true contender in the hospitality technology sector. Working with customers and my team and witnessing the passion I see in team about doing right by our customers is what I love most about my job.

How has the hospitality industry changed and evolved, especially in terms of hotel technology and the solution provider landscape, since you began your career however many years ago?

Over 20 years ago when I started in this industry, many hotel companies were trying to retire their large IBM-based solutions for smaller footprint based, best-of-breed Microsoft platform-based solutions. The challenge was that just like the big IBM solutions, it still took an army of IT people to support all the servers and not so great interfaces between different solutions. For many, the answer was to move to technology providers that offered single server fully integrated solutions. This is how Opera, Northwind, Visual One and many others made so much progress in the early 2000s. As all things evolve, integration technology (such as XML) and cheaper hardware allowed for a comeback of single purpose best-of-breed solutions. The cloud changed it all and in my opinion brought us full circle. The cloud allowed for the technology footprint in a hotel to massively shrink and along with it a lot of the resources required to it. The end result that many companies like Infor saw was an increased demand to get as many cloud solutions from a single cloud provider as possible.

How about with respect to the restaurant sector?

I am admittingly not as well-versed in the restaurant sector as I am hotels. However, as a consumer and provider of restaurant technologies I see more of a shift to self-service through consumer devices than I have noticed before.   Hotels have also seen more of a self-service technology adoption, but I don’t believe at the same rate as restaurants. Uber Eats, Grub Hub, Dine & Dash, and so many other apps are changing the restaurant sector at lightning speed.

What, in your view, are the biggest obstacles and challenges hotel operators are likely to face over the next few years, especially in terms of technology?

Staying relevant with the Millennial Generation. I believe my generation and the generations before me are still all about loyalty programs, points, and standardization.  Millennials are not wired the same way, at least not that I have witnessed. Millennials are all about new experiences and the instant hotel brands appear to have become stale in their offering – Millennials will find the next shiny hotel brand to try out.  Hotel Operators while they can reduce their technology footprint, cannot reduce their technology offering. Guest room technology, consumer device technology, revenue management and analytical technology is going to be even more critical to keeping the generations behind mine engaged.

How about with respect to the restaurant operators?

I believe much the same as hotel operators.  Though I believe Restaurant operators have the added challenge of managing the symbiotic reliance of point-of-sale software and hardware.   Whether it be apps on consumer devices, new point-of-sale terminals, self-service kiosks, or pay-at-table devices hardware is still a critical component in the restaurant sector and it is a component that has to be continuously refreshed for restaurant operators to stay engaged with younger generations.

Do you think hotel operators are prepared for the challenges that lie ahead? If not, what do they need to do to better prepare themselves – and, hopefully, ensure their ongoing success?

Generally speaking, yes I do.  Most operators I know are well on-top of the challenges they face.  Organizations such as HFTP, HTNG and HSMAI (as well as many others) do a fantastic job of educating operators and helping vendors like Infor understand the challenges that operators face so that we can try and face them together. The challenge I think most operators will face is IT budgets. Ownership groups have to understand that keeping pace with technology is important. I was once told that an owner would prefer to purchase new pool cabanas versus buying new software as they felt there was a more measurable return on investment. While I can’t say in today’s world that they are equally important, I will say it does no good to replace the pool cabanas if you haven’t invested properly in the technology that is going to get a guest to book the cabana!

How about with respect to the restaurant operators?

I think there is probably more education and programs available to restaurant operators to help them stay ahead of challenges than there are for hotels just due to the much larger size of the restaurant industry.   However, I do believe that restaurant operators face similar challenges as it pertains to budgets as hotel operators.   Technology is one of the biggest drivers of the younger generation so it can’t be ignored by ownership groups.   One key difference, and it is an important one is hunger and cravings.  I am not kidding!  I don’t care how old you are, if you are hungry for ice cream you are going to go the best ice cream establishment you know of regardless of their technology or infrastructure…but once you get there it sure would be nice to have an app that rings up your order in the point-of-sale without you having to wait in line to tell the kid behind the counter that you want rainbow sprinkles.

What, in your view, are the biggest opportunities that are now available to hotel operators due to recent advances in technology? How can they best take advantage of these opportunities?

Cloud – plain and simple.  Moving as many on-premise applications to the cloud as possible is the greatest opportunity a hotel operator has. Not only does such a move reduce their infrastructure and human resource costs but it also allows for better mining of data and analytics.

What about with respect to restaurant operators?

Same as hotels but restaurant operators have it bit harder than hotels. Cloud is critical for restaurant operators but it can’t be 100% cloud as if the cloud goes down your hardware and point-of-sale can’t go down with it. Restaurant Operators need to find opportunities to move as much of their technology to the cloud as possible but do so with vendors that can provide redundant on-site infrastructure in case the plumber accidently cuts the internet line.

In your experience, are most hotel operators making the right decisions in terms of their technology infrastructure? Are their properties generally achieving their potential in terms of revenue performance as well as the quality of the guest experience, or is there a lot of room for improvement?

Hard to say. Many hotel operators believe that because their vendor is “hosting” their solution they have made the right decision in their technology infrastructure to achieve proper revenue performance that is dependent on technology, and many operators are still in the business of self-hosting. To a certain extent I will defer to the theory of “to each their own”. I can’t say with absolute certainty that cloud is always better than a vendor that is just hosting a legacy application, but I believe the day is very quickly coming where hosted solutions will not be able to keep pace with true cloud solutions and that it will impact revenue performance. I would say that a significant amount of operators see this as well because Infor and other vendors are seeing rapid adoption of cloud from vendor hosted, self-hosted and on-premise solutions.

As far as technology is concerned, where should hotel operators be focusing their time, energy and IT resources? What technology-enabled business initiatives are likely to provide the biggest payoffs?

I believe Property Management and Revenue Management will continue to provide the biggest payoffs.  It is hard to measure an ROI from a property management system, but if that system provides the ability for new technologies to emerge in a hotel operation that can cater to all generations of guests and have them coming back for more than the return on the investment is beyond measure. Revenue Management system are critical for any operation large or small and if proper revenue management practices are in put in place utilizing a solid revenue management tool the return on the investment should be easily measured.

What about with respect to restaurant operators?

Harder for me to say, but I would probably say operators need to focus their energy on self service solutions and on point-of-sale solutions that have fully integrated self-service options. Sorry Alice, but I foresee a day where even in a Cheesecake Factory I sit down in a booth and review the menu, order and pay all through my phone. Technology to do so is already available, it just is more readily adopted by quick service restaurants versus sit-down restaurants but I believe that will change.

We reported on the recent upgrade of EzRMS. Any other new product releases on the horizon that you can share?

Infor is entering our beta pilot stage of our Hospitality Price Optimizer.   This is a new revenue management tool we have been working on that is more lightweight than our full EzRMS suite.   The tool is a rate engine on steroids and can either be used stand-alone or in conjunction with EzRMS. Infor’s HMS Property Management System also is releasing soon with expanded features for housekeeping, mobility, casino hotel operations, and luxury hotel operations.  I am also excited to say that within the next few months we will be releasing new versions of both Reserve Interactive and Infor POS (formerly known as Vivonet) that have large amounts of new features and enhancements. The goal is to debut many of these new features or design concepts at HITEC in June.

What will be the primary focus areas for Infor Hospitality over the next year, particularly in terms of enhanced platform capabilities and/or entirely new solutions?

The primary focus will be to take all of these new and fun solutions that we have built and acquired and create the best fully integrated CloudSuite of solutions available to the market today – globally. Not only focusing on integration, but mobility, and user operability across the entire suite as well. We will also be paying close attention to what we call “last mile functionality,” where we can take specific modules of a piece of software and vastly enhance them to create true feature functionality differentiators against our competition. This is the stuff I live for and where I believe Infor, my team and myself can truly contribute to the industry we love.

Any other thoughts about the hospitality industry, particularly with respect to technology innovation and emerging trends? Is there anything about where the industry is today that surprises you?

I have been doing this long enough that not much surprises me anymore. Trends change and we change with them, because if we don’t, we will wake up and discover our products and services are no longer relevant. My goal is to never allow that to happen as long as I am at the helm. I always tell my development staff that if you think you’re close to finished with a product or even a single feature within a product – think again. It only takes the next hotel or restaurant operator we are wooing to tell you they like it but…they would like it better another way instead. Innovation and emerging trends are changing so fast that it can be hard to judge what is truly a trend that will stick or what is a fad that will soon fade. Luckily, I have a great team of industry professionals and fantastic customers to help Infor Hospitality establish proper priorities. In regards to the industry as a whole – sorry, the AirBnb concept eludes me.   Not sure that anyone could ever convince me to stay in someone’s house when I could be staying in a nice hotel room streaming my media on a hotel room television while eating room service and sipping a martini  – but again, that’s just me.

The post Spotlight Interview: Jason Floyd, Vice President and General Manager, Infor Hospitality appeared first on .

SkyTouch is known for its innovative cloud-based property management system (PMS) that is accessible via mobile devices and is capable of managing properties of all sizes. The cloud-to-cloud integration between the SkyTouch PMS and the INTELITY platform will gives staff access to a comprehensive set of management tools that work in combination to improve the quality of the guest experience.

The INTELITY Staff back office platform seamlessly connects to the SkyTouch PMS providing staff with updates to guest information and reservation status, as well as real-time updates regarding check-in/out and room changes. INTELITY Staff also features a comprehensive ticketing system that allows operations teams to better organize and manage daily tasks, work orders, and service recovery.

Because both platforms are available through a multitude of devices, including mobile, management and operations teams on property can be completely mobile and while still tracking and managing all staff and guest activities.

Last year, INTELITY merged with KEYPR. In January, as reported here, the company secured a $44 million investment to further strengthen its position in the hospitality sector and also accelerated its move into other key markets, including Europe, Asia Pacific and the United Arab Emirates.

SkyTouch is a subsidiary of Choice Hotels, which has made its hotel PMS available to any hotelier in the world. So far, more than 750 non-Choice hoteliers have become customers owing largely to the platform’s ease of use and end-to-end platform capabilities.

Does your company have news it would like to share with our readers? If so, we invite you to review our editorial guidelines and submit your press release for publishing consideration.

The post INTELITY and SkyTouch Announce Technology Integration, Giving Hotel Staff Access to Back Office Platform appeared first on .

Still, it remains unusual that a major hotel group would form a subsidiary to compete in a crowded technology solution provider arena that includes hotel property management systems. But that’s exactly what Red Lion Hotels (RLH) has announced it will be doing, perhaps inspired by the success of Choice Hotels. Last week, the company unveiled the launch of RLabs, with the stated goal of building new technology platforms for the hospitality industry including software, robotics, and artificial intelligence.

The first offering from RLabs is Canvas Integrated Systems, which, not unlike the Skytouch offering, is being billed as “an all-in-one cloud-based hospitality management suite” featuring a collection of seamlessly-integrated tools designed to drive revenue, secure more revenue opportunities, automate channel management and reduce cost and friction for independent hotel owners.

While the integration of best-of-breed solutions is hardly a new concept, the company makes the bold claims that it will utilize technology not currently accessible by most independent hotels to provide revenue management, channel management and global sales at the fraction of the price of existing options. According to a company spokesperson, Canvas Integrated Systems will provide additional platform capabilities such as personalized loyalty programs and keyless entry.

The company has stated that it expects that Canvas Integrated Systems will be able to provide a savings of up to 50 percent over what typical independent hotels are currently paying, and potentially even more for hotels that are part of a soft brand. Those are high expectations and should provide a significant competitive advantage if the company can deliver.

Reduced cost of ownership is a big part of the value proposition. According to RLH, hotel operators will receive many of the advantages and transactional costs of a well-established larger system structure without having to incur costs and meet expensive brand standards required by soft brands.

Not surprisingly, Red Lion Hotels is the first customer.  Seven Red Lion hotels will begin using Canvas Integrated Systems early this year, with the first hotel, Monterey Tides, said to have already implemented the system in December. No word yet on how well the new solution is performing.

The post Red Lion Hotels Gets Into the Hotel Technology Solutions Business appeared first on .