After 27 months of absence, the in-person HITEC event finally returns next week. I plan to be in Dallas for all four days, and I look forward to seeing what innovations the exhibitors will have on display. As usual, I will spend most of my time scouring the booths of first-time exhibitors, since that’s where most of the truly innovative ideas are usually found. But if you’re an established industry technology company with something that is truly new and different, please reach out to me so I can find time to see it as well!

More than ever before, technology is playing an even larger part in the hospitality industry as a direct result of the pandemic. It’s being explored in new ways to support social distancing and a contactless guest experience. Paper based in room compendiums and room service menus are replaced with QR codes which allow guests full access to a range of facilities via their own mobile phones. Many hotels are implementing web check-in and in many cases, extending that further to keyless entry by again using guests mobile phones. The ability to deliver these services ideally requires integrated or interfaced systems within the hotel.

In the hotel industry, technologists usually leave basic infrastructure elements, like electricity, water, and ventilation, to the engineers. But digital convergence has brought this into question in recent years. While technology and engineering may be separate departments in the hotel, no longer are they independent. Technologists and engineers alike need to expand their horizons.

Humans are powerful. We constantly impact one another. It can be as simple as someone cutting you off as you are dashing down the highway. BAM! Their emotional energy jumps out of their vehicle and into yours. Before you know it, you go from perfect happiness to ticked off. Scarier yet, their ripple can continue unless you toss it aside and choose not to pass it on.  

Welcome to my fourth installment of helpful tips to prepare for HITEC 2021.  Today’s topic deals with financial management systems (FMS).  This includes those applications that you may refer to as accounting software, also known as enterprise resource planning applications (ERP), and cover tasks such as: