Feature

IT And The Indian Hospitality Industry

Albert Raj highlights the various technology implementation areas that would ensure that internal and external customers are kept satisfied.

Technology, which was formerly not considered an important factor, has already become one of the most important assets of the hospitality industry. In order to provide 100 per cent guest satisfaction, use of the right technology is very important.

Technology plays a pivotal role in all the sections of the hospitality industry, starting from reservations, lodging, food and beverage, communication, human resources and finance. The hospitality industry in India is now looking to technology to reduce cost and manpower and maximise its profits while providing better guest services.

Hotels are now willing to invest huge amounts of money in different types of technology to keep ahead of the competition. Better technology ensures better performance, which in return results in a larger and more loyal client base.

The demand for better service is an integral part of any industry's survival and the basis of the hospitality industry is better service, or rather 'best services'. The investments in technology are in the initial stages of set-up, and the correct mix and implementation of software and hardware would ensure that the internal and external customers are kept satisfied.

Integration

Hospitality information system applications makes use of real interfaces used in today's hotels and restaurants, including the Property Management System (PMS), Global Distribution System (GDS), Point of Sale System (POS), Restaurant Mana-gement System (RMS), Catering Management Soft-ware, Back Office and Enterprise systems, databases, Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems, etc. The proper integration of the software modules with each other through interfaces reduces lot of workload and manual transactions.

Take the case of a reservation booked through an agent. The agent takes the reservation, uploads it into the central reservation system, which in turn flows down to the PMS software of the specific hotel. Here, integration of the PMS with the door locking system would allow only genuine guests to access the rooms for the specified number of days and would automatically disable the locks after the guest have checked out.

Wireless Fidelity (Wi-Fi)

The role that the Internet plays in Indian hospitality has taken a quantum leap with many hotels installing broadband Internet access. With the rates of broadband going down the average bandwidth speed has increased from 256 Kbps to 2 Mbps or more for hotels, depending upon the usage. With Wi-Fi enabled laptops becoming increasingly popular, business travellers prefer to remain connected throughout their stay, not just in their rooms. Hotels are now converting most available areas of a hotel into 'hotspots'. Internet facilities are now available in the lobby, restaurants, swimming pools, business centres, ballrooms and other public areas. Some hotels in India have even gone so far as to make all rooms Wi-Fi enabled.

What business travellers and most hotel guests look for is technology that give them mobility, freedom and flexibility.

Data Centres

Major hotel chains are now setting up shared services or data centres, which provide the basis for reservations, queries and other related aspects. The concept of data centres or reservations centres is not a new one. The centralised reservations centres are connected to all the hotels of the group through a Wide Area Network (WAN). The servers are connected through the WAN and the connectivity is always monitored by the technical department throughout, so that there is no breakage of link. This is an effective way to do away with having reservation offices in each unit, thereby reducing the cost involved in setting up multiple reservations offices and employing reservations staff for each unit. This also acts as a single point junction where all the reservations of the hotels are accumulated and consolidated.

E-commerce

E-commerce, or electronic commerce, refers to transactions occurring through the combination of computer technology and communication. Any transaction which is processed electronically is e-commerce. In the Indian context e-commerce involves both B2B (Business to Business) and B2C (Business to Consumer) transactions. An Internet reservation for a hotel room is a B2C transaction while a travel agent booking hotel rooms is a B2B one.

In India, e-commerce transactions through the Internet has gained popularity and we have hotel bookings through the Internet being done frequently. All major hotel sites provide for reservations online with the use of secure online credit card payments.

Another source of reservation is through e-mail to the hotel reservations centre for bookings or making any additional enquiries. The hotel websites also provide a wide range of information like types of rooms, the number of restaurants, the types of cuisines, banqueting facilities, spas etc. Many websites also allow customers a view of select parts of the hotel including guest rooms, restaurants, banquets and other facilities on offer. Many hotels have invested heavily in these websites and update them regularly with additional facilities.

Management Information System (MIS)

MIS involves conversion of data into usable information by combining the hardware, software, database and application. Almost all the major hotels in India use this data or information to increase the customer base. In addition to being used for increasing their customer base, it is also used to analyse market trends and company profiles. If used effectively it could be a boon for the hotels in increasing their market share and revenue.

Accounting

Accounting is one of the critical areas in any hospitality industry. All the accounting functions like accounts payable, accounts receivable, cashiering, auditing, etc, are inter-linked with other operating departments. This eases the operations and ensures proper control of finance. Accounting software is always interfaced with the PMS software so that relevant data flows in automatically instead of manual entry.

Human Resources

The Human Resources (HR) department is responsible for the recruitment, selection, development and retention of the employees. Job openings are announced through the hotel website or other relevant employment sites. In the Indian context, almost all major hotels use their websites to announce job openings. Certain hotels even allow online applications to be posted, making the process easier.

Technology implementation in the hospitality industry is definitely here to stay and will revolutionise the face of the industry in the years to come.

The author is information systems manager at Hyatt Regency, Kolkata