I was trying to sit here and think of something that I could talk to you about in this second to last blog for my class. I have discussed a LOT of different issues that can be presented at a hotel. I have shown you many different sites that you could use to find a hotel at a reasonable price, for specific or general inputs. But, what I haven't written about it why its important. Think about it. If there was no Internet the hotel's would still have to advertise in the magazines or the newspaper, or television. Thanks to today's technology we are able to rapidly and rather fast find a hotel with just the click of a button. So what are some awesome technologies that have been developed for a hotel?
I don't know about you but when I think about going to a hotel I think about the check-in in process. Without a computer and database system for guest information, Hotels would still be trying to keep track of all their guests, and when they checkin in, and when they left on paper, which could lead to errors, and double booking (ironically this still happens even now with computers from my experience). I took a class in Hospitality tourism while I was at CNM and the entire purpose of the class was to determine the front desk operations. We even had a mock check in program to play with. Not surprising to me, is that I found features and codes and area's of the program my teacher could not even find himself. The computer database's that Hotel's function off of are extensive to say the least. Most have not only the guest list in them, but the employee schedules, and the records which keep track of which rooms are empty and clean. So for example you could see a section of the database that looks like such
Room: 312
Status- Occupied
general Cleaning- no
turnover clean- no
and another that says
Room 313
Status- unoccupied
general Cleaning- yes
turnover clean- in process
( the above would say a general tidying is done when guests are still there, but full out cleaning is not done yet by the maids to prep for the next guest.
Maids themselves have their own database's they sometimes have to maintain. How do hotel's check your not stealing their towels? They most likely have a database that keeps track of the number of pillows, blankets, and other accessorized items like the TV, desk and coffee maker. When 2 towels are taken to be cleaned, this can be put into the database system. Just think about how easy it would be for a person to bilk a hotel out of all their towels, sheets, and supplies if hotels didn't have database systems to keep track of them! On the same system they have all their inventory they probably have a system to put in for work orders at specific rooms so you would see this
Think about this logically. On the computer network you will have a employee database telling you who's working, and who's not, and a guest database to tell you who's all is there and who isn't. Ok are you ready for this? I'm going to add another dimension to this. If you are a rather grande hotel and have a restaurant and you cater you will most likely have more then 6 different kinds of database systems running for the hotel itself.
1) check in
2)Employee
3) Inventory
4) Food Inventory
5) Account management
6)food ordering system
7) restaurant reservations system
8) Room Card system
Ok... as you can see there are many different ways a hotel uses information technology. This is just the tip of the iceberg if you think about it. I feel there may be another blog after this one, so thats why I put Second to last blog at the top... So I will leave you this question.
If there was no internet and you couldn't book a hotel in advance through the web, how many of you would drive down with blind faith and just book the closest, nicest or cheapest hotel that you find? How does seeing the hotel pictures ahead of time affect which hotel you truly stay at?
I found an interesting article about information Security in and article by Cornell university that I thought would be an interesting read for everyone
Title: Hotel Network Security: A Study of Computer Networks in U.S. Hotels, Cornell Hospitality Report, Vol. 8, No. 15, September 2008
Authors: by Josh Ogle, Erica Wagner, Ph.D., and Mark Talbert
If you type in that exact wording above in the title onto google, it will direct you to the article I will be talking about it. Seeing as my last few blogs have been about network security in the hotel, I thought it might be interesting for me to find an article or something that pertains to it directly. If I was a hotel manager I would take the time to go through this report and see what the Students at Cornell University have discovered through their surveying process.
One of their issues tackled was well the fact that many hotels are providing unsecured- wireless networking for guests that stay at their hotel. This in my opinion is like opening a door for hackers to try and break into the system and steal important viable information over the airways. Not only that but to make the wi-fi everyone is trying to access to work or do their research or e-mail people from incredibly slow and inoperable. From a Human resources prospective here, I can see the hotels ending up with a few lawsuits on their hands. This article is one of the leading studies about security of guest information in hotels. I did a little research and found several articles that pinpoint the lacking security at hotels. Doesn't that just make you feel really safe about browsing the Internet at a hotel when you travel??
One of the reasons why this case is something all Hotel and IT managers should read is their simple way of describing everything. They actually give you a list and definition of some important key terms. For example. Do any of you know what the promiscuous mode is when it comes to computer mode? Well let me explain it to you, seeing as Cornell was so very kind to explain it to me. A promiscuous mode is going to give you every file that people in thatwi-fi spot, or hotel is receiving. So every file received over the Internet at that instant is not only available to those requesting it. But also available to them. Scary thought isn't it? If a hotel uses a Hub, It doesn't take a genius to steal people's information.
The smart blogger: This guy has the computer know-how to tell when there's something fishy going on in a computer network. I feel he puts it quite nicely at the end of his last blog about the hotel security by saying "Who on Earth would surf from the same PC they use for storing customer data? Certainly none of you -- right?"
Digital Investigations and Special Operations Group
So obviously part of the problem here is not only Hotel being smart and informed about what kind of programs they have to check and clean out any viruses or spy bots that might be slowing down the system, but perhaps they should have someone that guests could go to who is knowledgeable enough to remove software that is malicious and may cause harm to anyone who is accessing their Wifi.
Sorry this may not be the most interesting blog you can find, but I encourage you to leave comments if you will about what other issues you can find that deal with Hotel Network Security. I think in this day and age its very important
I shall leave you with this comment
" How safe do you feel your information is now? Considering you know how easy it is for someone to hack your Internet?"
Hello all!
So, as you all know I posted a review of the clubhouse inn and suites. So for this blog I am just going to give you my review of the site www.kayake.com! I personally did not know about this site before my friends used it. Just goes to show the number of websites that are popping up that can be used to find a hotel or website. Here is an option on kayake that I have not noticed with other sites. I have not seen so blatant a thing saying hey look compare us to all these sites. As you see all the "popular" sites are there for you to compare their listings too.
What an interesting feature, If your looking to be a friendly site, then this would be the feature to use. So I guess we should test out the comparison feature they have here then eh?
So lets see here is the input selection area. I realize you might be able to type in there. But really all I did is copy and paste so you see what i'm going to comment on.
I put Albuquerque, NM march 31, to April 1st 1 room 1 guest. The first options that hotwire gave me is
Ok if you use kayake.com for anything I would say use it to do a broad spectrum search for your travel plans. I'm sure once you use the broad spectrum search you could even come up with some more in depth search on those Sites. The only thing that Kayake doesn't do is give you pictures of the hotel. That's kind of odd considering many Americans are driven by how the hotel looks, and the aesthetics of the place.
Security is another issue that can come up in this realm of websites. How safe is it to use these websites to book your hotel? People use them every single day, so it appears that this would be generally safe. Kayake has a page tells you what they offer security wise for their clients. This is the disclaimer they provide about security. Seems to a my limited IT knowledge that their process for protecting information they have stored is decent at least.
Kayak has a sophisticated security program intended to keep the information stored in our systems protected from unauthorized access. We store your information in secure data centers located in the United States. Our systems are configured with data encryption, or scrambling technologies and firewalls constructed to the highest industry standards. We also use Secure Socket Layer (SSL) technology that protects the data you send over the Internet. Third party security firms review our internal security policies and documentation regularly. The bottom line is, when it comes to information security, we mean business.
Overall I would say that Kayake is a good site. Out of all the sites, I would say this one is not the flashiest, but by far is the most informative.* In all of the recent research I have completed lately I have found that security should be at the top of everyone's minds when they using sites such as these to find hotels. The fact that Kayake has a legitimate programs that they use to encrypt and store your information is rather comforting to a consumer such as me
2 Star
