MICROS-Fidelio Hong Kong SEMINAR DAY MARCH 18

Systems integration is changing the hospitality industry in important ways for owners, operators and guests alike. It's enabling travelers to check-in using their smart phones (and will soon put room-key functions on them, allowing guests to bypass front desk formalities completely). Designed for a more wireless world, integration is driving lighter, yet much richer applications -- increasingly hosted off property -- dramatically improving guest services while providing powerful tools to help owners and operators improve returns.

It's putting more services in handheld devices, changing the way reservations are made, shrinking distribution costs, eliminating conflicts, and routing more sales through hotel websites -- shifting control of room inventory from third-party wholesalers back to hotels.

These game-changing hotel and restaurant applications ushered in by systems integration will be extensively covered in a series of presentations by MICROS-Fidelio on March 18. The event is designed to help operators make their businesses more competitive and profitable -- and better at enhancing customer experience so guests come back again and again.

MICROS-Fidelio executives will explain how property management systems (PMS), point of sale (POS) technology, customer relationship management (CRM) and other tools interact in real time to put more usable information in the hands of owners and operators, and guests alike.

Hotel systems

Michael Ferrier, Senior Vice President, Hotel Systems, MICROS-Fidelio Asia Pacific, whisked through some key points he'll be addressing in the hotel session.

    -- On room inventory: "Pre-integration, hotels handed out blocks of

       inventory to wholesalers at fixed rates on yearly contracts and watched

       any unsold basically go to waste. With integration between PMS and

       electronic sales channels (GDS, ADS, and Internet), hotels can open up

       inventory to anyone prepared to sell rooms at the hotel's prescribed

       rate within agreed periods or based on the hotel's yield strategy.

       Similarly, integration enables hotels to take ownership of inventory

       back so they're not reliant on third parties to sell their product."

    -- On reducing channel costs: "The least-cost sales channel is the hotel's

       own branded internet site, so why not use it? MICROS-Fidelio provides

       services which allow the hotel's web designer to interact in real time

       with inventory in the PMS or central reservation system: A potential

       guest in New York searching for inventory in Hong Kong has exactly the

       same access to the reservation agent sitting in the hotel's reservation

       department. The other advantage is the hotel owns the relationship, not

       a third party, so it can tailor the reservation process to capture

       information about the guest, inform the guest about services provided

       by the hotel, and maximize revenue opportunities by allowing the guest

       to purchase additional products or services."

    -- On rate integrity:  "Integration between the CRS or PMS and the hotel's

       electronic sales channels, helps guarantee rate integrity and ensure

       the best rate your customer will get is on your website."

    -- On system deployment: "Chains have to ensure corporate and property

       infrastructure match up. Even now, you see chains standardizing the PMS

       but not the point of sale because they increasingly see point of sale

       systems as a commodity. However, integrating the PMS and point of sale

       allows hotels to share guest profile and preference information, and

       recognize the true value of guests by capturing consumption data for

       non-resident guests, or guests paying by cash or credit card in the

       outlets.  Without this level of integration, only consumption charged

       to the guest folio would normally be attributed to the guest history

       record."

    -- On IT trends impacting guests: "The most visible changes the

       hospitality industry will see is the shift to handheld technology

       MICROS is already trialing MyStayManager, a hosted software application

       that allows guests to use their smart phones to manage their

       reservations, check in, check out, order up room service, book a

       treatment in the spa or make a dinner reservation in the restaurant,

       and soon even to unlock their doors."

    -- On IT behind the scenes: "Hotels will be moving more IT off-site to

       MICROS-Fidelio or other hosted data centers to streamline processes,

       reduce costs, minimize risk and, most important, ensure compliance with

       payment card industry data security standards (PCI-DSS) to reduce risk

       of guest data being compromised. Fee-based software as a service (SaaS)

       is now a huge part of what we do and our product strategy moving

       forward. Close to 50% of our PMS sites are now 'above property' in a

       MICROS-Fidelio or third party data centre facility, and we have plans

       to release a true SaaS PMS product designed specifically for the

       limited service market. MICROS-Fidelio will also be rolling out more

       products as 'hosted services' -- like MyStayManager which is also

       provided on a subscription basis -- again using the 'utility' model

       increasingly adopted by industry and services globally."

    -- On better analytics: "'Above-store' POS are changing the way systems

       are implemented and more management applications are being added in the

       above-store cloud. The quality of general management reporting and the

       facility these applications give you to drill down into the sales data

       is unmatched. "We developed a comprehensive cube of data with a

       graphical user interface that allows a manager, regional manager or

       owner to look at all different sides of the cube. So if you want to see

       top menu item sales for lunches, for example, you can select days or

       weeks or a combination of dates from a very user-friendly calendar. You

       can create different views of the data in near real time because data

       is uploaded every 15 minutes. From an owner's perspective, it allows an

       instant enterprise view of overall sales, and the ability to drill into

       sales at any time. From a manager's perspective, it gives real clarity

       to what's happening at the employee level; or what's happening at the

       meal period level. In most Asian operations, where multiple waiters

       handle the same tables, sales-per-employee data isn't applicable.  That

       said, you could still see different views of employees' voided

       transactions, discounts and other items that are useful from an

       auditing standpoint."

    -- On web order integration: "MICROS-Fidelio is now trialing an online

       application that links a restaurant chain's website with MICROS-

       Fidelio's online order engine, and in turn interfaces with the chain's

       POS.  When an order goes in, mapping software identifies the nearest

       restaurant (that's open), and once it's confirmed, that order is

       immediately posted to the store's POS system. This is matched with an

       iPhone app for those who want to order on the go."

    -- On local customization: "Because hotel restaurants here are more

       popular with locals than in other parts of the world, POS systems

       require integration to table management & restaurant reservations

       systems which enable operators to take reservations and service

       restaurant customers as well as hotel guests."

    -- On lighter IT: "Our next generation POS solution is developed with

       service-oriented architecture (SOA), making it lighter at the site

       level, and eliminating the dependency on property-based servers. We'll

       host POS from our hosting center and all that will be required at the

       hotel or restaurant level will be a router, terminals, and printers.

       There will be no degradation of service if the internet connection goes

       down. The only thing you'll lose is enterprise-level consolidation of

       reporting -- which is restored once the internet connection comes back.

    -- On minimizing upfront investment and staffing: "With Software as a

       Service (SaaS) in the future, you'll sign a two-year contract with a

       monthly fee. The burden of IT management, compliance and other

       headaches is passed on to the vendor, which restaurants especially

       should welcome. It's always been a challenge for owners to deal with

       ongoing IT issues because restaurant managers typically don't have

       strong IT skills. On the hotel side, SaaS will allow some consolidation

       and overall savings by reducing property-based requirements for IT

       staff. For hotel groups, the emphasis can then be placed on regional

       pooling of resources."

     Sandra Pang (+852 2540 6872; +852 9077 7001)



     Issued by:  Pronto Communications

     Tel:   +852-2540-6872

     Fax:   +852-2116-0189

     Email: [email protected]