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Definitely Doug 12/8/23: Top 5 Hotel Technology Trends from 2023
Posted: 12/08/2023

Technology in the hotel industry does not change quickly. Every year, we see a few new ideas emerge. Some turn out to be fads and never get much traction. Many others get a fair amount of adoption, but only within certain niche markets. Only a few really start to take hold. Today I will assess which of the new technologies that have emerged in recent years are likely to be in this last (and most important) category, recognizing that they can still take years (often decades) to work their way through the industry.

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Definitely Doug 11/17/23: The Hotel TV Dilemma
Posted: 11/17/2023

In case you missed the memo, people no longer watch television the way that they did ten years ago. Not at home, and not at hotels. Nielsen reported that streaming services cornered 34.8% of TV screen time in July 2022, when they overtook cable for the first time.

Property management systems (PMSs) fundamentally have changed very little since the 1980s. And many hotels still use systems that were built in the eighties, nineties, or aughts. Since then, massive technology changes have occurred: the mobile revolution, cloud computing, distributed ledgers, AI-based large language models, Web 3.0, and other innovations have fundamentally changed both the technological capabilities of software, the way it is designed and built, and expectations for user experience.

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Definitely Doug 10/20/23: Gluing It All Together
Posted: 10/20/2023

Hardly a day goes by that hotels do not express frustration about the inability to tie together key data sources and technology systems. This is not a new problem; it has been around for decades. Progress has been made on many fronts to be sure, but digitalization has created new issues much faster than solutions.

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What’s the Buzz Among Today’s Hoteliers?
Posted: 10/17/2023

What’s on the minds of hoteliers? What’s keeping them up at night? And what makes travelers happy and eager to return? Some of the best places to have these candid discussions are at the industry’s conferences and events, and this year’s lineup has not disappointed. From AAHOACON and BITAC, to HITEC and The Hospitality Show, I’ve been traveling steadily, attending 13 events since January.

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Dangerous Phishing Scam Hitting HR and Payroll Departments

02/08/2017

by Better Business Bureau

The IRS, state tax agencies and the tax industry issued an urgent alert to employers that an email scam involving Form W-2 content is spreading. Scammers are attempting to steal employee W-2 information by targeting payroll or human resource departments.

Here’s how the scam works: Cybercriminals use various spoofing techniques to disguise an email to make it appear as if it is from an organization executive. The email is sent to an employee in the payroll or human resources departments, requesting a list of all employees and their Forms W-2. This scam is sometimes referred to as business email compromise (BEC) or business email spoofing (BES).

“This is one of the most dangerous email phishing scams we’ve seen in a long time. It can result in the large-scale theft of sensitive data that criminals can use to commit various crimes, including filing fraudulent tax returns,’’ said IRS Commissioner John Koskinen.

The latest twist to this scam is a follow-up email where a cybercriminal, disguised again as a company executive, requests a payroll clerk or comptroller to complete a wire transfer. Some companies have been hit with both these scams so they appear to be connected.

Employers are encouraged to create an internal policy on the distribution of employee W-2 information and wire transfers.

Steps Employers Can Take If They See the W-2 Scam
Organizations receiving a W-2 scam email should forward it to phishing@irs.gov and place “W2 Scam” in the subject line. Organizations that receive the scams or fall victim to them should file a complaint with the Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3), operated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Employees whose forms W-2 have been stolen should review the recommended actions by the Federal Trade Commission at www.identitytheft.gov or the IRS at www.irs.gov/identitytheft.