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Three Mistakes Hotels Are Making with Wi-Fi
Posted: 09/18/2023

Wi-Fi is now like the foundation for your hotel: if it’s not solid, it can jeopardize everything.
Your HSIA network has to deliver the performance and experience your guests demand; Wi-Fi has evolved from being an amenity to a necessity and key driver of guest satisfaction.
In the converged world, all your systems for business operations depend on a solid and secure Wi-Fi network. Without it, nothing else works properly—your staff and systems will struggle, and you will waste precious time, money, and resources trying to recover.
Here are three things you may be doing that put you and your Wi-Fi network at risk, and what you should do instead.

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Definitely Doug 9/15/23: Experience Matters!
Posted: 09/15/2023

Hotels are usually the first thing a traveler books within a destination. And hotels usually know that destination better than anyone else (or any website) a guest might consult. But are hotels connecting the dots?

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Definitely Doug 8/25/23: Check It Off the List!
Posted: 08/25/2023

This week I will cover software that goes under various descriptions, including quality assurance, audit, and checklist management. It includes anything that involves a standard list of things that someone needs to perform or verify. In hospitality, this is still an emerging field, but is growing very rapidly.

Between 2020-2022, traveler adoptions fluctuated drastically due to the lockdowns, the impact of the variants, and the vaccination schedule. As the pandemic is behind us and people start to travel in 2023, one question is on every practitioner’s mind: What are the traveler’s current expectations and preferences in the post-pandemic world?

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Definitely Doug 8/11/23: Charge Me Up!
Posted: 08/11/2023

Few things make travelers more anxious than a mobile phone with a low battery. For years, hotels have tried to play catch-up with evolving mobile device charging standards, and many seem to have given up. Guests can sometimes find desktop or bedside USB ports (dated but still relevant charging standard), but most hotels offer only an electrical outlet, and too many times it is in the most difficult-to-reach location possible. Others have made expensive decisions to install USB ports on bedside tables or work desks, only to find them out of date when the standards changed – or broken by frequent use.

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Which Hotel Brands Rank Highest for Travel Website Security?

05/29/2018 Tagged as: data breaches, security, travel websites

by Geneva Rinehart

Many reading this are in the overachieving travel superhero club, balancing between hotel technology guru implementing your own brand’s marketing and technology and frequent traveler yourself. You may have half a dozen (or more) travel websites that you use regularly. We NEVER ever would use the unsecured public Wi-Fi connection, but have you ever given security a thought when logging onto your favorite travel website – how secure is it?

With all the news about data breaches, a recent study ranking the security of travel websites caught my attention. Perhaps the time has come to force users to create more secure passwords, and from the travel side bring in technology to make access more secure. As a hotel industry, let’s grab that top ranking spot back from AirBnB.

The study was conducted by Dashlane researchers from April 16 – 20, 2018 (full disclosure – Dashlane is a digital security company that manages passwords). The researchers evaluated five security criteria on 55 popular travel related websites. A site received a point for each criterion they met for a maximum score of 5/5. A score of 4/5 was deemed as passing and meeting the threshold for strong user password security.

The rankings, which examined password and account protection security on 55 of the world's most popular travel-related sites, found that 89 percent of sites leave their users' accounts potentially exposed to hackers due to unsafe password practices.

The highest ranking for 2018 travel website password security went to AirBnB with a score of 5/5.
Honorary mention goes to Marriott, Hilton and Royal Caribbean for scoring a good 4/5 ranking.
Average ranking went to Best Western, Hyatt, Booking.com, KAYAK, Priceline and Travelzoo with a 3/5.
Below average, with a ranking of 2/5, are Disney Cruise Line, Expedia, HomeAway/VRBO, hotels.com and Travelocity.

In the set we can just label “needs improvement” (receiving a 1 out of 5) are Accor Hotels, Choice Hotels, IHG, Carnival Cruise Line, Hotwire and Trivago.

There is definitely room for improvement when we look at the results of this study. Recommendations to travel sites include providing two-factor authentication (2FA) and requiring users to update passwords that exceed 8 characters with a mix of letters, numbers and special characters.

"Big names in the travel industry often come under fire for their physical treatment of customers, receiving public blowback on social media for flight delays, egregious treatment of passengers, or even foodborne illnesses," said Emmanuel Schalit, CEO at Dashlane. "In many cases the result is a close examination of business practices and positive shift. The travel industry should treat their cybersecurity failings in much the same fashion, and make the necessary changes, such as adding 2FA, in order to protect customers' digital privacy."

To read the press release and study, click here. My next assignment is to visit my favorite travel sites to update some passwords.

About The Author

Geneva Rinehart
SVP, Managing Editor
Hospitality Upgrade

Geneva Rinehart is the managing editor at Hospitality Upgrade. For two decades, she has followed the world of hospitality technology. On occasion she will chronicle hospitality technology issues, technology trends, and new technologies for Hospitality Upgrade on LinkedIn and Twitter: @genevarinehart