STUDY ON SOFTWARES THAT ARE USED IN HOTEL INDUSTRIES
SYNOPSIS TITLE OF PROJECT: “A STUDY ON SOFTWARES THAT ARE USED IN THE HOTEL INDUSTRIES”
1: INTRODUCTION Software is a set of instructions, data or programs used to operate computers and execute specific tasks. Opposite of hardware, which describes the physical aspects of a computer, software is a generic term used to refer to applications, scripts and programs that run on a device. Software can be thought of as the variable part of a computer and hardware the invariable part. Software, in its most general sense, is a set of instructions or programs instructing a computer to do specific tasks. Software is a generic term used to describe computer programs. Scripts, applications, programs and a set of instructions are all terms often used to describe software. The hospitality industry is a broad category of fields within the service industry that includes lodging, food and drink service, event planning, theme parks, transportation, cruise line, traveling and additional fields within the tourism industry. The hospitality industry is an industry that depends on the availability of leisure time and disposable income. A hospitality unit such as a restaurant, hotel, or an amusement park consists of multiple groups such as facility maintenance and direct operations Hotel management software is technology that allows hotel operators and owners to streamline their administrative tasks while also increasing their bookings in both the shortand long-term. Your hotel management system is not only important for your own day-to-day operations, but it’s a vital part of the overall guest experience. From the beginning of your guests’ online booking journey until the completion of their stay and their feedback once they return home, it is necessary for your hotel management technology to enhance their experience with your brand. Finding a hotel management system that offers the features you both need and want is necessary to effectively managing your hotel in a global economic climate.
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STUDY ON SOFTWARES THAT ARE USED IN HOTEL INDUSTRIES
2: NEED OF STUDY
To study about the softwares in hotel industries.
To study about various types of softwares.
To understand the importance of softwares in hotels.
To explore the softwares amoung in the hotel field around the world.
3: OBJECTIVES OF STUDY
Significance of softwares in hotel industry.
To study the potentiality of softwares in hotel industry.
4: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
E-BOOK
E-JOURNALS
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5: CHAPTERISATION
INTRODUCTION’
LITERATURE REVIEW
CASE STUDY
FINDINGS AND COCLUSIONS
6: LIMITATIONS
AVAILAILITY OF RECORD DATA IS VERY LOW.
TIME IS VERY LIMITED FOR THE STUDY.
AVAILABLE
INFORMATION
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MEANINGFULLCONCLUSIONS
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REGARDING
SOFTWARES USED IN HOTEL INDUSTRIES.
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STUDY ON SOFTWARES THAT ARE USED IN HOTEL INDUSTRIES
7: BIBILIOGRAPHY BOOKS CODE COMPLETE CLEAN CODE REFACTORING MAGAZINE
Mag+
NEWS PAPER
HOSPITALITY TIMES
JOURNELS Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Management Editor-in-Chief: Professor Marianna Sigala
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STUDY ON SOFTWARES THAT ARE USED IN HOTEL INDUSTRIES
Chapter 1 INTRODUCTION
The word software was coined by mathematician and statistician John Tukey in a 1958 issue of American Mathematical Monthly in which he discussed electronic calculators' programs.
1.1 Software is often divided into three categories
System software serves as a base for application software. System software includes device drivers, operating systems (OSs), compilers, disk formatters, text editors and utilities helping the computer to operate more efficiently. It is also responsible for managing hardware components and providing basic non-task-specific functions. The system software is usually written in C programming language.
Programming software is a set of tools to aid developers in writing programs. The various tools available are compilers, linkers, debuggers, interpreters and text editors.
Application software is intended to perform certain tasks. Examples of application software include office suites, gaming applications, database systems and educational software. Application software can be a single program or a collection of small programs. This type of software is what consumers most typically think of as "software."
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STUDY ON SOFTWARES THAT ARE USED IN HOTEL INDUSTRIES
Computer software, or simply software, is a collection of data or computer instructions that tell the computer how to work. This is in contrast to physical hardware, from which the system is built and actually performs the work. In computer science and software engineering, computer software is all information processed by computer systems, programs and data. Computer software includes computer programs, libraries and related non-executable data, such as online documentation or digital media. Computer hardware and software require each other and neither can be realistically used on its own. At the lowest programming level, executable code consists of machine language instructions supported by an individual processor—typically a central processing unit (CPU) or a graphics processing unit (GPU). A machine language consists of groups of binary values signifying processor instructions that change the state of the computer from its preceding state. For example, an instruction may change the value stored in a particular storage location in the computer—an effect that is not directly observable to the user. An instruction may also invoke one of many input or output operations, for example displaying some text on a computer screen; causing state changes which should be visible to the user. The processor executes the instructions in the order they are provided, unless it is instructed to "jump" to a different instruction, or is interrupted by the operating system. As of 2015, most personal computers, smartphone devices and servers have processors with multiple execution units or multiple processors performing computation together, and computing has become a much more concurrent activity than in the past. The majority of software is written in high-level programming languages. They are easier and more efficient for programmers because they are closer to natural languages than machine languages. High-level languages are translated into machine language using a compiler or an interpreter or a combination of the two. Software may also be written in a low-level assembly
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STUDY ON SOFTWARES THAT ARE USED IN HOTEL INDUSTRIES
language, which has strong correspondence to the computer's machine language instructions and is translated into machine language using an assembler.
A diagram showing how the user interacts with application software on a typical desktop computer.The application software layer interfaces with the operating system, which in turn communicates with the hardware. The arrows indicate information flow. Technology in the hotel industry continues to advance at a rapid pace and hotel management software (HMS) remains essential for hoteliers looking to improve the running of their business. With software, hotel operators can streamline their administrative processes and improve their overall hotel management system. The key to reaping the benefits of an effective hotel management software system is to select the right one for your property. It’s critical that you know exactly what this hotel management technology is, and why it is important for you to implement it at your hotel.
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1.2HOTELS AND HOTEL INDUSTRY The primary purpose of hotels is to provide travelers with shelter, food, refreshment, and similar services and goods, offering on a commercial basis things that are customarily furnished within households but unavailable to people on a journey away from home. Historically hotels have also taken on many other functions, serving as business exchanges, centers of sociability, places of public assembly and deliberation, decorative showcases, political headquarters, vacation spots, and permanent residences. The hotel as an institution, and hotels as an industry, transformed travel in America, hastened the settlement of the continent, and extended the influence of urban culture.
1.3 Hotels in the Early Republic The first American hotels were built in the cities of the Atlantic coast in the 1790s, when elite urban merchants began to replace taverns with capacious and elegant establishments of their own creation. They hoped thereby to improve key elements of the national transportation infrastructure and increase the value of surrounding real estate, while at the same time erecting imposing public monuments that valorized their economic pursuits and promoted a commercial future for the still agrarian republic. Unlike earlier public accommodations, hotels were impressive structures, readily distinguishable as major public institutions due to their tremendous size, elaborate ornamentation, and sophisticated academic styles. They were often designed by important architects like James Hoban, Charles Bulfinch, and Benjamin Latrobe. Hotels also had a distinctive internal arrangement incorporating grand halls for the use of the public and featuring dozens of bedchambers, which for the first time offered private space to all guests. Building on such a massive scale was tremendously expensive, and hotels cost from eight to thirty times as much as had been spent on even the finest
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taverns. Early hotels quickly became important centers of politics, business, and sociability. The City Hotel in New York, for example, became the center of the Gotham elite's business pursuits and elegant society balls, and Washington's Union Public Hotel housed the U.S. Congress in 1814–1815 after the British army destroyed part of the Capitol. The first generation of hotel building continued into the first decade of the nineteenth century before being brought to a close by the financial failure of many of the first projects and the economic disruptions surrounding the War of 1812. 1.4 Nineteenth-Century Hotels A second period of hotel construction began around 1820, driven by the American transportation revolution. Steam navigation and the coming of the canal age, especially the opening of the Erie Canal in 1825, extended the range of movement along the nation's internal waterways and greatly increased the volume of travel in America. Urban merchantcapitalists constructed a new generation of hotels as part of their mercantilist strategy to claim expanding economic hinterlands for their cities and states. The first of these hotels appeared in leading commercial centers along coastal trade routes, beginning with Baltimore's City Hotel (1826), Washington's National Hotel (1827), Philadelphia's United States Hotel (1828), and Boston's renowned Tremont House (1829). These were followed by similar establishments built at key points along the Ohio and Mississippi rivers, notably Cincinnati's Pearl Street House (1831), Louisville's Galt House (1834), and the St. Charles in New Orleans (1837). These and other second-generation American hotels were much larger and more numerous than their predecessors and established the rectilinear, city-block hotel as a set architectural form that would be repeated in locations all across the growing nation. This phase of hotel development was brought to a close by the prolonged depression that followed the panic of 1837.
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The third generation of hotels was catalyzed by the rapid growth of the American railroad system in the decades after 1840, a development that freed long-distance travel from the limitations of the river system and recon-figured the nation's transportation network along an east-west axis. Hotels continued to multiply in the East and also proliferated along the advancing frontier of settlement, rising over the prairies and plains in the 1840s and 1850s and appearing in the mountain West in the 1860s and 1870s. The westward advance of hotel construction soon linked up with a counterpart that had originated with Anglo settlement of the Pacific coast and extended eastward. By the time of the centennial, America boasted both a transcontinental railroad and a continental hotel network. Hotelkeepers had meanwhile come to see their operations as constituting an integrated national system. In the 1840s, they embraced new theories and methods of hotel management based on closer supervision and regimentation of employees and regularized contact among managers. In the 1850s, hotel proprietors began to organize their first local trade associations, and in the 1870s they established specialized publications like Hotel World and the National Hotel Gazette that served the industry nationwide. Visitors from overseas constantly commented on the size, extent, and excellence of the nation's hotel system, revealing that as early as midcentury, the American hotel had surpassed the hostelries of Europe and become the leading international standard for public accommodation. Hotel development also involved diversification of hotel types. Most early hotels had been large urban luxury establishments, but newer variants quickly emerged. Resort hotels, designed to accommodate the rising tide of tourists, were built in scenic rural landscapes far from the cities where the hotel form had been born. Commercial hotels, more simply furnished and less expensive than the luxury variant, served the growing ranks of traveling salesmen and other commercial workers set in motion by the burgeoning economy. Railroad
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hotels were built at regular intervals along track lines to provide passengers and crews with places to eat and rest in the decades before the introduction of sleeping cars. Residential hotels, dedicated to the housing needs of families increasingly unable to afford private houses in expensive urban real estate markets, served as the prototypes for apartment buildings. And a frontier hotel form, characterized by wood construction, whitewash, and tiered porches, was built in hundreds of new settlements where travelers and lumber were common but capital was scarce. These and other hotel types soon far outnumbered luxury hotels, though the latter variety received the most attention from journalists, authors, and printmakers, and therefore tended to stand for all hotels in the popular imagination. Hotels were vital centers of local community life in American cities and towns. Their role as important public spaces was in part a continuation of traditional uses of taverns, one that was further amplified by hotels' conspicuous architecture, central location, and spacious and inviting interiors. Merchants and other businesspeople continued to use hotel space for offices, commercial exchanges, and accommodations, but the popular uses of hotels far transcended their economic function. Well-appointed hotel parlors and ballrooms were favored venues for card parties, cotillions, and other sociable events that involved seeing and being seen in refined public settings. By the same token, voluntary associations ranging from debating societies to ethnic brotherhoods and charitable organizations regularly hired hotel assembly rooms and dining halls for their meetings and banquets. Hotels also became major loci of political activity. Political parties and factions often set up their headquarters in hotels, where they held caucuses and made nominations. Hotels served as important public forums, a fact revealed by the large number of published images of political figures making speeches from hotel windows and balconies, hobnobbing in lobbies, and raising toasts in crowded halls. Indeed, such was the political importance of hotels that they were often attacked in
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periods of domestic strife. The Civil War era, for example, was marked by the burning or cannonading of numerous hotels by Southern sympathizers.
Hotels also extended their influence over distances because they functioned as a powerful system of cultural production and diffusion. Their role in accommodating travelers made hotels into a frontier between individual communities and the world beyond, with hotel guests acting as cultural emissaries who carried new ideas about aesthetics and technology along the routes of their journeys. Innovations in interior decorative luxury were among the ideas most commonly transmitted. Hotelkeepers spent heavily on refined furnishings as part of their efforts to attract guests, and in so doing transformed decor into a showcased capital good. Because a hotel could afford to spend far more on amenities than could a private family, its interiors constantly tempted guests to emulate a higher standard of living. Midwestern travelers who stayed at fine hotels in St. Louis or New York City, for example, were impressed with the elegance of their surroundings and sought to reproduce them back home in Illinois, Iowa, and Nebraska. Hotels similarly became showcases for household and communications technologies. Indoor plumbing, central heating, elevators, and gas and electric lighting first saw wide public use in hotels, as did the telegraph and the telephone. Authors from Stephen Crane to Bret Harte recognized the ways in which hotels were setting a new pace in American life, and in his classic The American Scene (1907), Henry James found himself "verily tempted to ask if the hotel-spirit may not just be the American spirit most seeking and most finding itself." 1.5: Hotels in the Age of Auto and Air Travel The rise of the automobile in the early twentieth century reordered the nation's transportation regime and marked the beginning of a new hotel age that lasted for more than two decades.
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The nineteenth-century American hotel system had been predicated upon long-distance, point-to-point, steam-driven water and rail transportation, and the gradual transition to automobility wrought major changes in the hotel industry. In an effort to secure the patronage of drivers, existing hotels added parking facilities, and new establishments incorporated them into their building plans. Other developers created the motor hotel, or motel, a new hotel variant which, instead of being located in cities and other travel destinations, was typically sited on inexpensive land along the roads in between. The automobile also influenced the hotel industry in construction and management techniques, as Fordist mass production fostered a corresponding drive for standardization and scale in hotels. E. M. Statler was the foremost figure in this cause. In 1908, he opened the first chain of hotels dedicated to his belief that hospitality should be made as similar as possible in every location. Statler's success with a business model based on cost cutting and scientific management made him the leading hotelier of his time and an important influence upon twentieth-century hotel administration. By 1930, as the Great Depression was putting a definitive end to this period of hotel building, the Census Bureau counted more than 17,000 hotels in the United States. The American hotel industry expanded at a previously unseen pace following World War II. The three-decade economic boom of the postwar years increased the incidence of commercial travel and sent incomes soaring, and the success of organized labor distributed wealth more evenly and made paid vacations a reality for millions of workers. Meanwhile, the creation of the interstate highway system and the emergence of safe and reliable passenger aircraft made travel easier and more broadly subscribed than ever before. Hotels emerged as an important terrain of struggle in the conflictual domestic politics of the era. When civil rights activists demanded an end to racial discrimination in public accommodations, the special legal status of hotel space became a crucial consideration in the litigation strategy of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). It was no coincidence that
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the constitutionality of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was definitively established by the Supreme Court's ruling in Heart of Atlanta Motel v. United States. Hotels were similarly implicated in international politics. Americans ventured abroad in increasing numbers during the postwar years, and the nation's hotel industry expanded globally in order to accommodate them. In the context of Cold War geopolitics, Americanowned hotels in foreign countries also served as exemplars of the benefits and vitality of capitalism. Conrad Hilton in particular spoke of his company's overseas properties, particularly those along the Iron Curtain, as valuable assets in the fight against communism. In a world simultaneously divided by politics and connected by transportation, hotels were important symbolic sites. The American hotel industry benefited greatly from the uneven prosperity of the 1980s and 1990s and entered the twenty-first century as a large and fast-growing segment of the national economy. The hotels of the United States employed well over 1.4 million people and collected more than $100 billion per year in receipts. They formed a dense network of 53,000 properties comprising some 4 million guest rooms nationwide. Internationally, the industry operated more than 5,000 overseas hotels with over half a million rooms. From its beginnings as an experimental cultural form, the American hotel became a ubiquitous presence on the national landscape and developed into an immense and vital national industry. The hotel system transformed the nature of travel, turning it from an arduous and uncertain undertaking of the few into a predictable and commonplace activity of the many. On the way, the hotel became instrument, ornament, symptom, and symbol of America's continental and international empire.
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1.6: What is hotel management software? Hotel management software is technology that allows hotel operators and owners to streamline their administrative tasks while also increasing their bookings in both the shortand long-term. Your hotel management system is not only important for your own day-to-day operations, but it’s a vital part of the overall guest experience. From the beginning of your guests’ online booking journey until the completion of their stay and their feedback once they return home, it is necessary for your hotel management technology to enhance their experience with your brand. Finding a hotel management system that offers the features you both need and want is necessary to effectively managing your hotel in a global economic climate.
1.7: The purpose of management systems for hotels Management systems serve several purposes for both hotel operators who manage large chains as well as independent hoteliers. These include:
1.8 Managing bookings Your property management system should help you efficiently and effectively manage your bookings. Neither you, nor your staff, should be tasked with manually inputting bookings and
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managing those across all your distribution channels. A property management system should automate the booking process for you, allowing you to escape the back office and focus more on interacting with your guests.
In addition, it significantly reduces the risk of overbooking your rooms, which directly improves the guest experience at your property.
more apt to book online than they are to call to finalise bookings or partner with a travel agent.
Direct bookings allow you to maximise the revenue that you generate per booking. You should only consider software that integrates with an online booking engine.
1.9 Channel management Hotel management technology should allow you to easily implement your distribution strategy. Creating partnerships with different types of agents in the industry, such as OTAs and GDSs, is necessary to survive in a competitive, global climate.
Managing hotel with software that offers a channel manager will allow you to create and implement a diverse distribution strategy that continually drives bookings.
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4. Hotel website: Your software should help enhance your online presence. Your hotel management system is only effective if your guests can reach your brand. Choosing a program that offers a web editor or website creator will allow you to create a clean, appealing and user-friendly website that will encourage guests to book a stay at your property.
1.10: Types of Hotel Management Software There are various types of hotel management software to consider. These include: Property Management Systems: A property management system manages your day-to-day tasks, such as accepting reservations, noting cancellations and creating your daily manifest. It’s a critical tool to effectively running a hotel of any size in today’s travel industry. Channel Managers: A channel manager is a distribution software program that allows hoteliers to connect with various agents. The agents have access to real-time availability and they are able to resell your rooms for a commission. Online Booking Engines: Online booking engines are a hotel technology tool that allow you to accept online bookings directly on your website. It’s an absolutely necessary technology component for any hotel. Pricing Tools: With a pricing tool, you can develop a more effective revenue management strategy. Instead of manually changing your rates and calculating the revenue that should be generated on each room, you can use an innovative pricing tool to automate the process. It minimises your stress while boosting your revenue simultaneously.
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Website Creators: Your website provides travellers with a window into your property, which is why it is necessary that you have a cohesive website with visual and multimedia elements that entice guests to book with you. An effective website creator will optimise your website for SEO while allowing you to create a personalised experience for your past, present and future guests. 1.11: How to Choose the Right Hotel Management Software Selecting the right hotel management software begins with identifying the features that you want and need. There are many options to choose from, some of which offer one or two of the features listed above and some that integrate with other technology to give you all the features you need. It is most important that you look for a solution that integrates all features, so you can optimise your hotel’s efficiency and increase your return on investment.
You also will want to select hotel management technology that is affordable. Your technology needs to work for your business, and not against it. You need to get the features you both need and deserve at a price that makes it worthwhile.
The only way to know that you have found the right technology solution for your hotel is to try it out. With a free demo, you are able to utilise the system and see how it works for yourself. You will discover that the features are simple to use and that they allow you to streamline your daily responsibilities while also giving you the ability to focus on the big picture. You might just decide that managing your hotel with software has never been simpler for you and your staff!
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SiteMinder is the leading cloud platform for hotels of all sizes, in all destinations. If you are looking for an all-in-one hotel management technology solution, then this is the hotel management software for you. To find out more about SiteMinder and how it can improve your hotel, begin your free demo today. 1.12: Importance of Hotel Software for Small & Mid-Size Hotels The importance of Hotel Management Software or Property Management System for hotels cannot be stressed enough anymore. It is one of the most important factors which contribute significantly to the long-term success of a hotel. In recent years, there has been a rise of budget travellers around the world which has led to rise in number of small to mid-size hotels in the industry. This has drastically changed the landscape of the Hospitality industry in general and also directly affected the Hospitality IT industry. Hotel Management Software (HMS) BuyerView 2014, a survey conducted by HMS research firm Software Advice, who surveyed 385 randomly selected buyers in 2013. The survey was conducted in order to discover what exactly buyers expect or want when they are choosing software for their property. According to the report, 54% of hotel management software purchasers in the industry are independent small to mid-size hotels. The report also states that majority of the buyers are adapting to the latest software in order to leave behind the manual management of their property and buyers who are specifically looking for a software which offer reservation and online booking facilities.
1.13: Majority of Purchaser are small to Mid-size Hotels
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Majority of the owners or managers, who are looking for a software solution represent (57%) properties which have 10 to 50 rooms. A combined 11 percent of buyers are from very small properties such as B&B’s, Inns, chain hotels, or large hotels with 500 plus rooms.
1.15: Independent Hotels, Resorts and Inns are the Primary Customer When consulted with various managers and owners of different property types, the report found that around 1 percent is looking for software for a large hotel or a chain hotel. This is not surprising as the big brands usually have to go for in-house or corporate-mandated software. The rise of independent properties is very evident from the fact that majority of the buyers (54 percent combined) comprised of independent hotels, inns, and resorts.
1.16: List of hotel management softwares that are used in hotel industries Finding the right software to run operations such as automated check-ins and concierge services is a big key to hotel efficiency. Luckily, many tools create seamless data sharing
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between machines and people, and open up a lot of opportunities when it comes to managing your business. Below you’ll find ten top hotel management software tools that are revolutionizing how hotels operate. 1. eZee Front desk Many hotels use this brainchild of eZee Technosys for hotel reservations, rate management, revenue maximization, and event management. In fact, EZee Frontdesk is rated among the fastest growing softwares in the property management realm. Plus, it makes linking of smart devices such as tablets and smartphones possible, which adds its versatility.
2. Hotelogix Hotelogix is used in over 100 countries worldwide. It entails a single-point dashboard and a multi-device booking engine capability. Additionally, the software is available in nine languages and allows the integration of third-party software such as Jovago and TripAdvisor.
3. Maestro PMS Maestro offers hotels and hospitality establishments a host of cloud-based solutions spanning front desk, hotel reservations, POS, and event management. It consolidates efficient property management into a single tool and gives you the option to install on Windows-based systems or run directly from the cloud. 4. Hoteliga
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Hoteliga is a cloud-based hotel management software that makes invoicing, hotel reservation, revenue control and customer management as easy as possible. It also incorporates multicurrency support which is an important aspect often overlooked in competing companies. 5. FCS CosmoPMS FCS Cosmo tools give hoteliers the power to create a seamless flow of data used for reservation confirmations, front desk operations, and real-time monitoring of resources. That’s why it’s a great choice to optimize room-assignment efficiency and simplify check-in. And you’ll love how it maintains company, guest, and travel-agent data to help you manage revenue, rate-setting, and customer discounts.
6. SkyTouch Hotel OS This property management software from Skytouch Technology is designed for desktops, tablet devices, and smartphones. It’s optimized to help with real-time operations monitoring,
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hotel reservation services, front desk operations, inventory management, resource distribution, sales, housekeeping, and catering management.This property management software from Skytouch Technology is designed for desktops, tablet devices, and smartphones. It’s optimized to help with real-time operations monitoring, hotel reservation services, front desk operations, inventory management, resource distribution, sales, housekeeping, and catering management. 7. Cloudbeds Cloudbeds is a hotel management software designed to simplify hotel operations management via its integrated management suite. That suite includes reservation management, room assignment, accounting, and housekeeping tools. As an added bonus, the software works seamlessly with top travel sites such as TripAdvisor and Expedia. And it’s been rated among the top choices in its class.
Consider these tools and see how you can automate your operations and increase your hotel’s efficiency. Your guests (and your employees!) will thank you.
8. Smart Hotel Software Smart Hotel Software contains a set of tools suitable for central reservations, guest relationship management, housekeeping, and more. It includes features like guest folios, check-in and check-out confirmations, advance deposit alerts, integrated POS, and information sharing capabilities across multiple platforms.
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9. Tracktik Tracktik is an intuitive piece of software that allows hoteliers to manage perhaps the single most important resource in any business: the workforce. It lets your management keep track of your teams and makes sure the business stays efficient. Not to mention that it streamlines operations via cloud management services, mobile-based solutions (both Android and iOS) and desktop platforms. It even offers powerful finance-management modules.
10. Hotel Management Software by Monkport Technologies This Monkport software entails a host of features aimed at automating hotel management. It can be deployed from the cloud, or on Windows, Android, iOS devices, and SaaS platforms. Generally, it’s used to manage reservations, front desk operations, guest experience, and employee management.
Consider these tools and see how you can automate your operations and increase your hotel’s efficiency. Your guests (and your employees!) will thank you.
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Chapter 2 Hotel Reservation System 2.1. Problem Statement
Hotels have been around for a very long time, using various methods of keeping records. Historically, hotels have kept paper records in filing cabinets. However, hotels are much larger now with many customers to keep track of with regard to types of accommodations, whether low budget, luxury, or somewhere in between, as well as smoking or non-smoking preferences. Keeping track of large customer bases and all their attendant details would require an inordinate space for file cabinets, not to mention the time employees would spend going back and forth to file cabinets looking up each client’s information Problem that will be faced by the hotel’s worker are:
Difficult to handle data accurately and security because of the data lost, viewing by unauthorized people, can’t collect the data at the time. Storage problems (Update, Search, Delete, Edit), these types of methods are not accessible and not carry with the manual method Unable to analyse past data Security wise is not guarantee to all information and data’s
2.2.The reasons why we proposed this new system are:
To build relationships with investors, secure hotel management contracts and successfully
manage the hotel investments, underpinning asset values.
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Manage hotels by human resource policies which encourage and reward individual and
unified effort and achievement, provide training and personal development opportunities
and create a working environment in which staff can feel a real scene of job involve.
The clients can make reservations, enquiries and cancellations via online or via phone.
Background
Miri is a growing tourist destination, there has been a good rise in the number of hotels and resorts in Miri and the tourist sector is broadening thus we have chosen this sector to do our project and we are making Hotel Reservation System. The rapid development and commercialization of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) for the travel and tourism industry has prompted hotels and other enterprises in this sector to increasingly adopt these technologies. The ICT based products and processes help the hotels to enhance the operating efficiency, improve the service experience as well as provide a means to access markets on a global basis. ICTs were used in the hotel industry from the late seventies in the form of Computerized Reservation systems and Global distribution systems Objective
Our goals and objectives are straightforward and seek to ensure we run a professional, profitable and ethical company, building relationships with customers, suppliers and investors, driving business at the hotels and developing the business as a whole. It is also to adopt best commercial practice and ethical standards in dealing with clientele,
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suppliers of goods and services and other contacts. Market the hotels through recognised and trusted Brands (if appropriate), selected agencies and direct marketing initiatives from the hotels, to high standards of ethics and taste.
The guest will pass the registration form of the system if he wants to check-in and the system will automatically give the vacant room to the guest. The system will produce a sales report to the manager and print a guest folio that shows the bill of the guest.
This system will help to make their booking and sales reports and also the manual recording of customer, to keep their records and accounts would be easier and to retrieve it any time they want.
2.3. The general requirements for a new customer are: in order for the customer to make a reservation:
They need a first and last name, valid address, credit card number, and phone number. They will be informed about the two towers we have, the different room types available, and the prices for each of the room types. Then the customer can make an informed decision in what they want. After the reservation is complete the hotel database will assign a customer ID number to the new customer. But as far as the customer is concerned they are simply given a confirmation number for their reservation, which they present upon arrival
How the current system work As the database development team, we will be creating a database which will have a three actor system. There will be the following actors: customer, employee, and administrator. Each will have a varied level of access to the details of the hotel and reservations made at the
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hotel. The customer will provide biographical information which will be entered in and alterable by any of the three actors. The main business process focused around the database will be creating reservations for the hotel. After the employee submits the customer’s preferences a query will be done to the database to find a suitable accommodation. As a secondary process we will allow modification of data states by the Administrator (i.e. change which floors are smoking/non-smoking).
a) Make a Reservation
Actor(s): Hotel Employees, Administrators
Description: Employee/Admin will be prompted with menu screen. After choosing “Employee” and “Make a Reservation”, they will enter in the Customer ID Number. (Note: If it is a new customer, they must enter in the Customer Information before making a reservation – see Use Case: Add a Customer). The screen should populate the customer’s first and last name, address, phone number, and credit card information. Employee must enter in the date of arrival and departure, tower choice, and room type. The room number will be populated by availability, so they may choose any room number in the list. After clicking button “Reserve Room Now”, a confirmation number will be created.
b. Add a Customer
Actor(s): Hotel Employees, Administrators
Description: Employee/Admin will be prompted with menu screen. After choosing “Employee” and “Add a Customer”, they will enter in the first and last name,
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address, city, state, zip code, phone number, and credit card information. After clicking button “Add Customer Now”, a customer ID number will be created. c. Cancel a Reservation
Actor(s): Hotel Employees, Administrators
Description: Employee/Admin will be prompted with menu screen. After choosing “Employee” and “Cancel a Reservation”, they will enter in the confirmation number. After clicking button “Cancel Reservation Now”, a cancellation number/date will be created.
d. Change Floor Smoking/Non Smoking Status
Actor(s): Administrators
Description: Administrators will be prompted with menu screen. After choosing “Administrators”, and “Change Floor Status”, they will select the floor to change and enter in either S or NS. After clicking button “Change Floor Status”, the floor will be changed to new status.
e. Change Room Pricing
Actor(s): Administrators
Description: Administrators will be prompted with menu screen. After choosing “Administrators”, and “Change Room Pricing”, they will select the room type and enter in new price. After clicking button “Change Room Pricing”, the price for the room type will be updated.
f. Change Contact Information
Actor(s): Customers, Employees,
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Description: They will be prompted with menu screen. After choosing “Change Contact Information”, they will enter in the Customer ID. Select from the menu what needs to be changed. They will enter in the new changes for customer. After clicking button “Change Contact Info Now”, the customer information will be updated.
g. Add Customer Preferences
Actor(s): Customers, Employees, Administrators
Description: They will be prompted with menu screen. After choosing “Add Customer Preferences”, they will enter in the Customer ID. Select the number of items requested for each preference. After clicking button “Add Customer Preferences”, the customer preferences will be added.
h. Change Customer Preferences
Actor(s): Customers, Employees, Administrators
Description: They will be prompted with menu screen. After choosing “Change Customer Preferences”, they will enter in the Customer ID. Select the preference that needs to be changed. Enter in new amount for that preference. After clicking button “Change Customer Preferences”, the customer preferences will be updated.
i Check Availability of Hotel
Actor(s): Customers, Employees, Administrators
Description: They will be prompted with menu screen. After choosing “Check Availability”, they will choose tower they would like to stay in. After clicking button “Check Availability”, the page should display the room types, prices for room types, and number of rooms available.
j. Profit by Date Report
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Actor(s): Administrators
Description: Administrators will be prompted with menu screen. After choosing “Profit by Date”, they will enter the start and end dates (this time frame will show the profit made). After clicking button “Show Me the Money”, the page should display the room types and profit made for those types.
k. Reservation Receipts Reporting
Actor(s): Employees, Administrators Description: Employees and Administrators will be prompted with menu screen. After making a reservation, they will enter the customer’s ID number where the reservation receipt page should display and print out the most current reservation information.
l. Popularity of Rooms Report by Date and/or Time
Actor(s): Administrators
Description: Administrators will be prompted with menu screen. After choosing “Popularity of Rooms Report”, they will enter the start and end dates (this time frame will show the profit made) and/or choose a time from (e.g. 9AM to 11AM). After clicking button “Print Report”, the page should display and print out the room types and amount of reservations made for those types.
2.4. Estimate Resource: a) Time Time means the time that required for a team of personnel to develop a system with a well structure and well defined purposes and scope.
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b) Cost Tangible cost Tangible Cost
Unit
Amount
Total
Analyst System
1
RM 5,000.00
RM 5,000.00 RM
Architect
1
RM 5,000.00
5,000.00 RM
Programmer
2
RM 5,000.00
10,000.00 RM
Designer
1
RM 5,000.00
5,000.00 RM
ProjectManager
1
RM 4,000.00
4,000.00 RM
Resource Manager
1
RM 5,000.00
5,000.00 RM
Clerk Accountant
1
RM 2,000.00
2,000.00 RM
Staff
1
RM 5,000.00
5,000.00 RM
20
RM 2,000.00
40,000.00
RM 15,000.00
RM 15,000.00
RM 13,000.00
RM 26,000.00
RM 2,000.00
RM 2,000.00
RM 1000.00
RM 1000.00
Development Costs System
Software Costs Software License Hardware Costs Personal Computer Pentium IV 1.7GHz Operating Costs
2
Stationary & Maintenanc Miscellaneous Costs
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STUDY ON SOFTWARES THAT ARE USED IN HOTEL INDUSTRIES
Conversion Total
RM 125,000
c. Development staff Like in most other businesses, managing people is the most complex and difficult aspect of running a hotel. Managers demand optimal and sustained employee performance because of the importance and frequency of interaction with guests. Consequently, managers and their organizations are required to provide the environment, compensation, and motivation to make it worthwhile for employees to deliver that level of performance. 2.5.This research document focuses on the following dimensions of personnel management: 1: Staff Capabilities: effective hiring practices 2. Structure and Design of Training Programs: building systems to support ongoing training (training manuals, flexible training schedules, accountability for training) 2: Performance Management: addressing and preventing absenteeism; the “levelling off” effect; instilling quality and sales mind-sets 4. Morale Systems: incentives and
and rewards; career
path planning Main Features • Save the client's information into the database prior to Booking or Check in.
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• Customize the type of Hotel rooms with prices. • Booking for the customer for specific date with advance payment. • Check in into the hotel for the duration. • Checkout from the hotel after payment operation. • Each time make a reservation, room status is updated and the customer details are added to your hotel database . • Better option for expensive CRM. • This system can be used by all of the hotels. • This project is web-based and is using PHP and Mysql with other web technology.
d. Hardware The equipment (computer) we currently used is still able to perform the system development task. We can only use whatever equipment we have. We cannot buy new hardware because we just change one year before this. Therefore the Project Manager is not allowed us to buy another new hardware. Now, we are using almost the latest hardware that can be found in the market. Application programmers use their own personal computers for coding process. e. Software We just use whatever software the company has to reduce the cost and increase the revenue. Some of the software is even ready with the computers. The software that we used in the development process is:
Windows 7
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Microsoft office 2010
Microsoft Project
Rational Rose
Avira Anti-Virus software
Java Programming Language
Visual C ++ Programming Language
2.6 : TYPES OF HOTEL SOFTWARE Hotel software is designed for all areas of hotel operation including property management, \accounting, Internet/GDS reservations, central reservations, reception, POS/hospitality, spa/club/golf management, guest management, inventory management, yield/revenue management, accounting, and web site design. Small hotel software is available for properties with less than 100 rooms and focuses on basic front and back office functions and/or reservations and guest management. One of the major types of hotel software used by the hotel/motel industry is hotel property management software (PMS). PMS is a comprehensive software package that manages all aspects of hotel operations, which has front desk, and back office modules that handle reservations, guest profile/folio, reporting, night auditing, and housekeeping, accounting, payroll and asset and inventory management. For reservations, there are two types of hotel software a CRS (central reservation system) and an IBE (Internet booking engine). An IBE allows guests to remotely make reservations accessing the hotel’s website. Hotel reservation systems will also have reservation software capability that allows guests to make reservations using a GDS service. A CRS books reservations for multiple properties. Hospitality management software includes sales and catering software, which will have a POS module to manage, and track sales from restaurants, lounge/bar, and room service. Event management is another important module of hospitality management software. Event management modules manage group/convention sales, room booking, function and layout.
Many hotel property management software, hotel reservation system software, hotel accounting software, hotel front desk software, and hospitality software companies provide
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free hotel software downloads for evaluation to help hotels select the best hotel software package that meets their operational needs. Free hotel software downloads can save time in researching the right hotel software package for your property.
2.7 : KEY FEATURES OF HOTELS SOFTWARE Hotels, motels and private resort locations must be up to speed of technology to be on the cutting edge of the hotel industry. Hotels that have the latest in computer technology are able to perform more successfully. The following information is a listing of hotel technology used in the 21 century.
The modules and key features of Hotel Software Systems are Multi-Module Systems (MMS), Select Module Systems (SMS) and Basic Reservation Systems (BRS).
Multi-Module Systems is a software solution is available to three to five-star-rated hotels or resorts. This software delivers a thorough software solution with hotels that have 100 rooms or more.
Select Module Systems is geared towards single property reservation. Basic Reservation Systems is software that provides a more basic reservation-processing unit for motels and hotels.
Imagine a major hotel chain without the use of top of the line hotel software. Top chain hotels and private resorts use state of the art equipment, so that they can cater to their customers’ desires and demands. They install their hotel reservation software onto the following computer hardware: IBM, Sony and Hewlett Packard, which are all state of the art computer hardware. When new hotel properties are built, amenities and location are on the priority list. Studies show that IT facilitated hotels will saturate the market by 2009. Property owners realize the value of having a sophisticated operating system within their hotels. Hotel reservation software systems are not only used for reservations, but are used for employee records as well as hotel security monitoring.
The features of hotel software will depend on the type of software module. The most common module used by hotels is a property management system (PMS), which will have some or all of the following integrated software: hotel management (front desk, back office,
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spa/golf/club management), reservation/billing, hospitality/sales and catering, POS (point of sale), Internet booking engine, and hotel accounting.
Reservation software features include group and individual bookings, check-in/check-out, rate management, and room management/availability. Multi-unit hotel properties will require a central reservation system (CRS), which can handle reservations from a central system for all properties. An Internet booking engine will allow real-time reservations to be made from web based sites.
Hotel management software has front desk and back office management features. Front desk features include daily ledger, night audit, guest folios/guest history, guest billing/accounting, housekeeping, and credit card billing. Back office features manage payroll, accounts payable, general inventory, general ledger and personnel/human resources.
Hotel hospitality/sales and catering software features are designed for food and beverage and event management and provides for the efficient operation of restaurant, lounge/bar, room service and kitchen. Hotel catering software can also track sales and analyze employee productivity and track inventory. Linked to the hospitality/sales and catering software is a POS module which records food and beverage, spa/golf/club charges and posts to the guest folio/ledger for one, comprehensive itemized billing.
Hotel accounting software features will have general ledger, accounts payable, accounts receivable, personnel, and payroll. Purchasing/receiving, inventory recording and reporting functions.
Hotel software features can be viewed on software manufacturers’ websites and most offer free downloaded trials of software products.
2.8. APPLICATIONS OF HOTEL SOFTWARE There are software applications to support, manage and operate every aspect of the hotel and hospitality industry. Examples of hotel software are hotel reservation and hotel booking software, hotel management software, hotel accounting software, hotel PMS software, hotel marketing software, hospitality software, hotel front desk software, and POS software. Online/Internet reservation software is used to enable guests to book online through a GDS or directly through the hotel’s website. Small hotel software for hotel property management is
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STUDY ON SOFTWARES THAT ARE USED IN HOTEL INDUSTRIES
designed for a single property reservation system, while a multi-module system is a more comprehensive hotel management software application for large properties. Hotel property management software offers both front desk and back office modules. Front desk modules are designed for guest and room management and include reservation, rate and guest profile management, check-in/check-out, housekeeping management, customer communication, night audit, and city ledger. Back office modules are designed to manage hotel resources, assets and inventory and include payroll, accounts payable. Hospitality management software has applications in the sales, marketing, event management, and catering operations of the hotel. Hospitality software has features designed to manage all aspects of the hotel’s sales and catering operations including special events, restaurant, bar and room service as well as account and inventory management. Other hospitality software features are available for spa, golf and club management, activity scheduling. POS (point of sale) software is designed to manage sales generated from restaurants, lounge/bar, room service, and retail operations in a hotel property. Hotel software can also be used to generate reports in all areas of hotel management for front and back office reporting, sales and catering, POS. 2.8.1. MICROS SYSTEMS MICROS Systems, Inc., is headquartered in Columbia, Maryland, USA. The company manufactures and sells computer hardware, software, and services for the restaurant point of sale, hotel, hospitality, specialty retail markets and other similar markets. Analyst estimates cited in 2003 put MICROS' market share at about 35% of the restaurant point-of-sale business. MICROS Systems' software and hardware is used in the restaurant industry and primarily includes touchscreen computers for the serving staff to place orders, which are then sent to kitchen and bar printers for preparation. The back-office and enterprise software allow different types of reports, such as total sales and total menu items sold, to be produced. MICROS provides different products for different restaurant sizes and styles, including products for single-entity restaurants, major chain restaurants (with centralized reporting) and multiple-restaurant properties, including casinos, stadiums and cruise ships. MICROS products have the ability to interface to other systems such as inventory control systems and hotel systems. MICROS-Fidelio, a division/part of MICROS, offers several products for hotel systems including Property Management Systems, Central Reservations Systems, and Sales & Catering software, and is often installed at the same site as MICROS point of sale systems for interface integration. . Products Point-of-Sale
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STUDY ON SOFTWARES THAT ARE USED IN HOTEL INDUSTRIES
Simphony is used in the entertainment marketplace, including restaurants, casinos, stadiums, hotels and cruise ships. Simphony, MICROS’s first Software as a Service offering, is an enterprise, service-oriented architecture (SOA), point-of-sale (POS), hospitality product. SOA allows organizations to deploy the hosted POS system using a design that provides flexibility, resiliency, and streamlined integration of applications.[ Simphony is designed for SaaS deployment into diverse environments to deliver the complex, mission-critical functions demanded by the most innovative customers. SaaS alleviates the burden of software maintenance, on-going operation, and support. Simphony allows the client to be fully resilient and capable of performing mission critical operations in the event of an upstream failure. SOA allows for the integration of business functions such as property management systems, paperless kitchen display systems, credit card interfaces, and reporting at the individual property or revenue center to ensure continuous system operation. Additionally, SOA allows for the elimination of costly local servers by allowing only the necessary SaaS services to be run at the property level.[ 2.8.2 HMS The MICROS 9700 HMS point-of-sale system is used in the entertainment marketplace, including casinos, stadiums, hotels and cruise ships. The 9700 HMS is platform- and database-independent. It can be installed on Multiple Windows platforms and can have the database run on MS-SQL or Oracle, including Oracle on Linux.[citation needed] 9700 HMS is installed at sites ranging from small, specialized operations to large enterprise configurations spanning multiple properties in large geographic areas.
2.8.3.MICROS RES (3700) MICROS RES offers a complete point-of-sales solution with comprehensive reporting, tools for the back-office, restaurant operations, and guest services. MICROS RES offers enterprise management for owners of multiple restaurant locations. MICROS RES provides end-to-end communications throughout operation to increase efficiency and speed of service. The latest release, as of January 2011, is RES 4.9.
2.8.4.MICROS e7 MICROS e7 is a point-of-sales system aimed at smaller restaurant locations. The system is not as customizable or detailed as 3700 or 9700, but is simpler and more user friendly. It has a built in limit of supporting at most 1 PC and 6 workstations. As of June 2010 the latest version is 3.0 MR2. OPERA is the MICROS property management system used in many large hotel chains, such as Travelodge Hotels UK, Hyatt Hotels and Resorts, Rydges Hotels and Resorts, Marriott
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Hotels, Resorts and Suites, Radisson Hotels and Resorts (subsidiary of Carlson Companies), the InterContinental Hotels Group and the Thistle Hotels. Opera can essentially be the only management software a hotel needs, as it can handle Reservations, Customer Profiles, Housekeeping Management, Maintenance logs, Cashiering, Accounts Receivable, Agent commissions and third party interfaces such as Minibar systems or Guest TV. Arrivals and in-house guests are served using the Front Desk features of the property management software. This module handles individual guests, groups, and walk-ins, and has features for room blocking, managing guest messages and wakeup calls, and creating and following up on inter-department memos. It is the successor to the popular Fidelio PMS (Property Management System)
2.9. Hotel Management System The project aims to build a system for managing the reservation of hotel. This system has a front-end by using ASP.net with VB and it has a back-end of database which will be built with Oracle by using Oracle 10g and dreamcoder for oracle. The system will be able to add, delete and update the room, guest detail, and transaction. This system will find a solution for recording guest detail, searching for specific guest or available room in easy way; also it will find solution for calculating the bill automatically. Technical Deliverables: 1) A database with tables that going to support the system. These tables will be used to store the information that are needed for reservation and payment; such as, guests detail, rooms detail, reservation date and employees, who do the reservation, detail. .2) A reception interface to add, delete and modify for reservations, guests, rooms, employees and payments. Searching for specific guest and reservation
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The relationships between the tables: 1.
The relationship between Customers to Transaction is one to many.
2.
The relationship between Identify Customer to Customers is one to one.
3.
The relationship between Room Category to Booking Detail is one to many.
4.
The relationship between Booking to Booking Details is one to one.
5.
The relationship between CredCard to Payment is one to one.
6.
The relationship between Employees to Transaction is one to many.
7.
The relationship between Transaction Details to Transaction is one to one.
8.The relationship between Transactions Details to Room Statues is one to 9.
The relationship between Room Status to Room Category is one to one.
10.
The relationship between Payments to Transaction is one to one.
11.
The relationship between Payment to Payment Modes is one to one.
2.10. Reception Use Cases Search available room Goal: Reception search for available room. Actors: •
Reception
40
many.
STUDY ON SOFTWARES THAT ARE USED IN HOTEL INDUSTRIES
•
System
Preconditions: The reception must insert the check-in and check-out date. Triggers: The reception clicks the button " Search " Basic Scenario : 1.
The reception specify the check-in and check-out date.
2.
The reception add room type.
3.
Reception clicks on the button " Search ".
4.
The system will show the available rooms with their type on the determined dates.
5. The reception choose the rooms the customer prefer depends on the floor number and the view and clicks the button "Booking" 6.
System will take the reception to the booking details page.
Booking Details Goal: Insert the booking details. Actors: •
Reception
•
System
Preconditions: The reception must be done with the room search. Triggers: Reception click on the button " Save" Basic Scenario: 1. Check-in date, check-out date and the first six rooms that have been chosen will upper automatically. 2. The reception fill the Guest Details " First and last name, Address, e-mail, telephone number and finally the guest identification number" .
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3. Then the reception must fill the guest credit card information " Credit card number, credit card holder name, and the credit card expire date". 4.
Then the reception clicks on "Save" to save all the information in the database.
5. The system will check the information before saving it in case the reception forget to insert any of the important information. Post condition: The reception have completed the booking details. Payment Goal: Reception Confirms the room booking. Actor: •
Reception
•
System
Preconditions: Reception must be done with the room search and the booking details. Triggers: Reception clicks button "Confirm" Basic Scenario: 1.
The booking details will upper on a table automatically.
2.There will be a booking number so the reception can do motivation for the booking on the future. 3.The reception will specify the payment date and the mood " Cash, check, or credit card" 4.
The credit card number and the total cost will upper automatically on the page.
5.
After completing all the payment details the reception clicks on confirm.
Post Condition: The room booking will be confirmed. Delete Guest Goal: Delete a guest form the system. Actors: •
Reception
•
System
Preconditions: Reception must be able to access the system via a web browser.
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Triggers: Reception clicks button "Delete Guest" Basic Scenario: 1.
Reception clicks button to initiate the delete process.
2. System prompts the Administrator to select a guest by searching using the guest identification or viewing a list of guests. 3.
System display guest information.
4.
System confirms deletion of selected guest.
5.
System displays home page.
Post conditions: A guest has been deleted within the system. Change Guest Information Goal: Alter properties such as telephone number or email of the guest. Actors: •
Reception
•
System
Preconditions: Reception must be able to access the system via a web browser. Triggers: Reception clicks button "Change Guest Properties" Basic Scenario: 1.
Reception clicks the button to initiate change guest properties process.
2. System prompts the Administrator to a guest by searching using the guest identification or viewing a list of guest. 3.
System displays the guest properties.
4.
System alters the guest properties.
5.
System displays the home page.
Post conditions: A room has been altered within the system. Customer Search Goal: Modify or delete a customer information. Preconditions: The customer information should be on the database. Triggers:
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The reception searches for customer by his ID or view all the customers list. Basic Scenario: 1. After the reception search's for a customer his information will upper on the page "First and last name, address, telephone number, and his email". 2. There are two options either to modify the customer information or to delete the customer. Post Condition: The customer details will be modified or deleted.
Remainder Email Goal: Send a reminder email to the guest two date before the check in date. Preconditions: Reception must be able to access the system via a web browser, Booking details must be on the database. Triggers: Reception clicks button "Reminder Email". Basic Scenario: 1. The Reception clicks to view a list with the entire guest who will check in after 2 days. 2.
The Reception clicks "Send" to send a remainder email to each guest.
2.11. Administrator Use Cases
Login Administrator Goal: To login to an Administrator account with the system. Actors: •
Administrator
•
System
Preconditions: Administrator account must already be registered. Triggers: Administrator clicks button to "Login" Basic Scenario:
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1.
Administrator clicks button to initiate process.
2.
System prompts the Administrator for User name and password.
3.
System verifies information.
4.
System display rooms details home page to Administrator.
Post Conditions: The administrator is logged into the system.
Logout Administrator Goal: Logout the Administrator account on the system. Actors: •
Administrator
•
System
Preconditions: Administrator must be logged-in on the system. Triggers: Administrator clicks button "Logout" Basic Scenario: 1.
Administrator clicks button to initiate logout process.
2.
System displays home page.
Post Conditions: The Administrator is logged out of the system. Add Room Goal: Add new room to the system. Actors: •
Administrator
•
System
Preconditions: Administrator must be able to access the system via a web browser. Triggers: Administrator clicks button to "Add Room" Basic Scenario: 1.
Administrator clicks the button to initiate Add room process.
2.
System prompts the Administrator to fill out Room number, view, and type.
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3.
System validates new room information.
4.
System creates a new room.
5.
System displays account home page to Administrator.
Post conditions: A new room is created within the system.
Delete Room Goal: Delete a room form the system. Actors: •
Administrator
•
System
Preconditions: Administrator must be able to access the system via a web browser. Triggers: Administrator clicks button "Remove Room" Basic Scenario: 1.
Administrator clicks button to initiate the remove process.
2. System prompts the Administrator to select a room by searching using the room number or viewing a list of rooms. 3.
System display room information.
4.
System confirms deletion of selected room.
5.
System displays account home page to administrator.
Post conditions: A room has been deleted within the system. Change Room Properties Goal: Alter properties such as view or type of the room. Actors: •
Administrator
•
System
Preconditions: Administrator must be able to access the system via a web browser. Triggers: Administrator clicks button "Change room Properties"
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STUDY ON SOFTWARES THAT ARE USED IN HOTEL INDUSTRIES
Basic Scenario: 1.
Administrator clicks the button to initiate change room properties process.
2. System prompts the Administrator to select a room by searching using the room number or viewing a list of rooms. 3.
System displays the room properties.
4.
System alters the room properties.
5.
System displays the account home page to Administrator.
Post conditions: A room has been altered within the system.
View Financial Report Goal: View a financial report for specific time. Actors: •
Administrator
•
System
Preconditions: Administrator must be able to access the system via a web browser. Triggers: Administrator clicks button " Report". Basic Scenario: 1.
System prompts the Administrator to select two dates.
2.
System will display the revenue for that specific time.
2.12..Use Cases Diagrams 5.3.1 Reception Uses Cases Diagrams:
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Figure: Reception
Figure : Edities
Figure : Payment
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2.13 Administration UseCase Diagram:
Figure : Administration
Software Requirements Specifications
The following subsections of the Software Requirements Specifications (SRS) document provide an overview of the entire SRS. Definitions, Acronyms, and Abbreviations. SRS – Software Requirements Specification HMS – Hotel Management System Subjective satisfaction – The overall satisfaction of the system End users – The people who will be actually using the system 5.4.1 Overview
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The SRS is organized into two main sections. The first is The Overall Description and the second is the Specific Requirements. The Overall Description will describe the requirements of the HMS from a general high level perspective. The Specific Requirements section will describe in detail the requirements of the system. The Overall Description Describes the general factors that affect the product and its requirements. This section does not state specific requirements. Instead it provides a background for those requirements, which are defined in section 3, and makes them easier to understand. Product Perspective The HMS is an independent stand–alone system. It is totally self contained.
Hardware Interfaces The HMS will be placed on PC’s throughout the hotel. Software Interfaces All databases for the HMS will be configured using Oracle 10g. These databases include hotel rooms and customers information. These can be modified by the end users. The room database will include the room numbers and if they are vacant or occupied. The customers' information database will contain all the information of the customer such as first name, last name, phone number, credit card number, confirmation number, check in date, check out date and time…etc. 2.13..Product Functions Reservation and Booking System Allow the reception to modify, add or delete reservation. Allow the reception to modify, add or delete guest detail. Allow the reception to provide the guest with the payment detail. Display list of on and off rooms. Search about specific guest. Display detail about reservation. General Management Services and Automated Tasks System Allow the administrator to modify, add or delete the room. View a daily, weekly and monthly report.
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User Characteristics Educational level of HMS computer software – Low Experience of HMS software – None Technical Expertise – Little
Apportioning of Requirements
The audio and visual alerts will be deferred because of low importance at this time.
.Specific Requirements This section contains all the software requirements at a level of detail, that when combined with the system context diagram, use cases, and use case descriptions, is sufficient to enable designers to design a system to satisfy those requirements, and testers to test that the system satisfies those requirements. External Interfaces The Hotel Management System will use the standard input/output devices for a personal computer. This includes the following:
Keyboard
Mouse
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User Interfaces
The User Interface Screens are described in table Screen Name
Description
Login
Log into the system as Administration
Reservation
Retrieve button, update/save reservation, cancel reservation, modify reservation, , accept payment type/credit card
Hotel Payment
Accept payment for room.
Customer Record
Delete or update customer records
Administer Rooms
Add, modify and delete rooms.
Reports
Select, view
.Software Interfaces The system shall interface with an Oracle. Hardware Interfaces The system shall run on a Microsoft Visual Basic (ASP.net). Communication Interfaces The system shall be a standalone product that does not require any communication interfaces. Functional Requirements Functional requirements define the fundamental actions that system must perform. The functional requirements for the system are divided into two main categories, Reservation/Booking, and Management. For further details, refer to the use cases.
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1. RESERVATION/BOOKING 1.1. The system shall record reservations. 1.2. The system shall record the customer’s first name. 1.3. The system shall record the customer’s last name. 1.4. The system shall record the mobile number. 1.5. The system shall record the room number. 1.6. The system shall display the default room rate. 1.7. The system shall record the customer’s email. 1.8. The system shall generate a unique confirmation number for each reservation. 1.9. The system shall automatically show the customers that have reservation after two days and send a reminder email to them 1.10. The system shall record the expected check-in date. 1.11. The system shall record the expected checkout date. 1.12. The system shall allow reservations to be modified without having to reenter all the customer information. 2. MANAGEMENT 2.1.The system shall allow for the addition of rooms. 2.2.The system shall allow for the deletion of rooms. 2.3.The system shall allow for the modification of rooms.
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NONFUNCTIONAL REQUIREMENTS Functional requirements define the needs in terms of performance, logical database requirements, design constraints, standards compliance, reliability, availability, security, maintainability, and portability. .PERFORMANCE REQUIREMENTS Performance requirements define acceptable response times for system functionality.
The load time for user interface screens shall take no longer than two seconds.
The log in information shall be verified within five seconds.
Queries shall return results within five seconds.
LOGICAL DATABASE REQUIREMENTS The logical database requirements include the retention of the following data elements. Booking/Reservation System
Customer first name
Customer last name
Customer address
Customer phone number
Assigned room
Default room rate
Credit card number
Confirmation number
Expected check-in date
Expected check-out date
Payment type
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.DESIGN CONSTRAINTS The Hotel Management System shall be a stand-alone system running in a Windows environment. The system shall be developed using Oracle and ASP.net. STANDARDS COMPLIANCE There shall be consistency in variable names within the system. The graphical user interface shall have a consistent look and feel. RELIABILITY Specify the factors required to establish the required reliability of the software system at time of delivery. AVAILABILITY The system shall be available during normal hotel operating hours. Security Customer Service Representative will have access to the Reservation/Booking. Managers will be able to log in to the Hotel Management System and will have access to the Management subsystem. Maintainability The Hotel Management System is being developed in ASP.net. Visual studio is one of the products that are used for building the system. This product is chose because it provides the user developers a compelling development environment for Windows and. NET platforms. This product helps in building Windows application, console application, Windows service, Windows mobile applications, ASP.NET application and ASP.NET web services with C++, C#, VB or J#. Also, you can add additional tools that help in building interface in easy way.
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For the end user, the ASP and VB is used in developing Hotel Management System. Also, it helps in creating Crystal report and connection with the database by using ODB. The other product that has been chosen is Oracle Database 10g Express Edition. It has been chosen for the background of the system. As it can build the tables and quires in easy way and connected with the end user in effective way. Task Analysis
Hotel management system has two use cases. First one is the administrator and the second one is the reception side. The administrator has the permission to use all task in the system but for the rooms setting he/she has to log into the system with successful user and password. The reception primarily concerned with siven tasks: searching available room, doing reservation to the available room, doing the process for paying or canceling the booking, doing the setting for guests and credit card, finding out information about specific booking and sending a reminder to the guests before check-in day. System Rules 1. The reception can use the system without authentication. But his/her use is limited. 2. The reception cannot insert the Room setting. 3. The admin needs to log in to use the Room setting. 4. The check in data has to be bigger or equal to the current date. 5. The check in data has to be smaller than the check out date. 6. The required text box has to be filled. 7. The Booking ID, Booking Detail ID and Payment ID will be inserted automatically by using automatically increment.
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SUBTASKS searching is almost a small system that is used as a sub system in the hotel management system to find available room. In order to do this, the reception must know the check in day, check out day, may choose the type of view or the type of room. Then the reception submits this information to the system and the system will find out the available room according to this information. And the system will generate a list of available room that meet these information. After that the reception can choose the wanted room to do a new reservation or to do update for old reservation. For the update process the reception will need the booking number.
To do a reservation to the available rooms, the reception needs the names of the required rooms. Fill the information about the guest and credit card’s information. Then the reception can submit the required detail for reservation or go back to the home page without doing the reservation. After the reservation is done, the system will show the reservation's detail.
The process for paying can be done after the reservation immediately or before doing the checkout day. In order to do the paying, the reception needs to know which booking he/she going to do the paying for. So this process needs the booking number, payment information; such as, mode of payment, if it is cash or by credit card the payment process needs the date of payment and the total cost.
As some information of the guest or credit card exposed to be changed, the reception needs the guest ID or the Credit Card ID and he/she needs to the new
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information to do the update according the change.
Some times the hotel needs to know information about specific booking, for that the system provides the user with ability to find this required information. In this case, the reception needs the booking ID.
For sending a reminder to the guest, the system has a button called reminder. When the reception clicks this button, the system will check all the check in days and it will send a reminder to guests whose check in day after two or one days.
For doing the setting for hotel rooms and it is category, user needs to be admin and needs to log into the system before doing the setting for the rooms. In this setting the user can delete, update and add room. For deleting the user needs the room’s ID. For updating the user needs the room’s ID and inserting the new detail. For adding the, if the user want to add new room needs to know the ID for the category and to insert new ID for the new room. If the user wants to add new category, needs to insert new ID, room’s floor, room’s category, room’s price.
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Hierarchical Task Decomposition
Figure : Search for available room
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Figure : Reservation
Figure : Paying
Figure : Setting
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SEARCH this task is needed to make finding out the available rooms easier. During the searching the system needs to ensure that there is no conflict in the chosen room. The system has to ensure that the wanted room in the specific time is not assigned to other guest in that time. Because the guest may demand specific room’s features; such as, the type of the room or the view of the room, the system provide the user with the ability of choosing the type of view and the type of the room. After the criteria of the search are determined, the system connects with the database to find out the rooms that concerned with these required features.
Figure : Search and Update Form
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If the user insert a date that is past or the check out date is earlier than the check in date the system will pop up a message box to notify the user about the mistake that has been done .
.
Figure : Checking inserted date
Figure : Checking date If the user clicks Detail, Modify or Pay button without inserting the Booking ID, he/ she will receive a message that said you have to enter a Booking ID.
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Figure : Notifying The User That the BookinNo is Empty If the search is done successfully, the system generates a list of available rooms in grid view with check box. This check box enables the user to choose the room from the grid view. After checking the box, the user can do a new reservation or can do an update to old reservation. The system has a text box for inserting a booking number which is needed to find the old reservation from the database and does the change.
Figure : Search Result
As the system aims to make the process in hotel management easy to the end user, the two
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text boxes which are used to insert the check in date and check out date are provided with calendar extender. So, whenever the user clicks on these two text boxes, a calendar will show up. The user can choose date from it and it will be written automatically in the text box.
Figure : Calendar
BOOKING
After the submission of booking is clicked, the system will forward to booking page with keeping the ID of the rooms and category that has been chosen by using the session. Then the booking page will load the session in the text boxes. In addition to that, the guest detail will be needed to fill other text boxes. Some of this information is mandatory; such as, first name, last name, ID and email. The first name and last name are mandatory to help the reception to ensure who reserve the specific room. ID helps in making the delete or the update for the guest detail. On the other hand, the email is important for sending the remainder to the user.
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Figure : Reservation Form Also, this page has a required for inserting the credit card information which has three requirements. One for credit card‘s ID, the second one for holder’s name and the third one for expired date. As the credit card’s ID is important in doing cancel or updating to the credit card this field is mandatory. When the user fills all mandatory information, has two choices, one is to click the save button which will transfer the page to booking’s details page. And the second one is to click the exit button which will transfer the current page to the home page which is the search page.
Figure 19: Credit Card Form
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For preventing the user to do a reservation when there is any field of the mandatory is empty, when the save button is clicked the system will check if any of the mandatory field is empty or not. If one of them field is empty, the system will not do the booking and it will pop up a message box that notifies the user about the empty field. Because the user could insert Invalid e mail address, the system is provided with the checker that going to check if the email address is written correct or not. The checker will check if the email address has a @ character and if it has a dot (.) character. If the written email is unveiled, a message will be written that tells the user that the email is Invalid.
Figure : Invalid Email
PAYING
after the reservation are done, the user can transfer to the home page or can transfer to the paying page. In the paying page, session is used to provide the page with grid view of the guest detail who want to do payment and his/her reservation’s detail. Also, this page has a text box for booking detail, which will be field automatically by the session value, also, it has a text boxes for total cost, payment date and credit card. In addition to that, it has drop down list for payment mode. The total cost calculates and field
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automatically.
Figure 22: Payment Form
Figure : Booking Detail in the Payment page
GUEST DETAIL
the reception can get all information about specific guest. He/ she can know the guest's first name, last name, telephone, email, address, his/her reservation room and payment statue by inserting a booking number and clicking on detail button. Also, the web site has a text boxes for enabling the reception to do update or delete the guest’s detail.
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Figure : Guest Setting Form
Figure : Finding information about specific guest
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Figure : Finding all Guests' information by clicking the all button
When the delete button is clicked message will show up to ask the user if he/she is sure that he/she want to delete, if he/she clicks Yes the delete will be done. But if he/she clicks No, nothing will be happen.
Figure : Confirmation Message
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LOG IN the administrator who is responsible for doing rooms setting. but before doing the room setting the administrator has to log in. the system has a authentication for the administrator when he/she log in will be in the home page but if he/she try to use the room setting page without log in the system will transfer him/her to the log in page.
Figure : Login Form
If the administrator inserts wrong username or password the system will notify the user by the mistake.
Figure : Log in Error Message
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If the login is done successfully, the web page will transfer to the home page or to application that wanted to use before login. If the page transfer to the home page, the home page will has the name of the username and the log out.
Figure : Login Report The web site has two different types for financial report. One views the financial report for one day. And the other is viewing financial report for specific period of time.
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Reminder The web site will send an email to the guests before there check in date by two days.
CHALLENGES The real difficulty was that we do not know how to start with a language that we do not know
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anything about. We did not know if we need to write the codes or to drags things, what are the properties and features of this language. What functions and keywords that can help in this project; such as, in printing a table of the wanted date, taking the value from the text box and uses it in functions, taking a single value from the data base(end back) and uses it in the interface (end front).
The first challenge that we faced is how to deal with ASP.net and what we shall use with a Visual Basic or a C#. we did a search for finding a solution to this, and most of the website shows how to write a ASP codes and Visual Basic or C# codes without saying where we have to write and because Dr. Ammar talked with us in data base theory about web developer with Visual basic, we try to search this software and we find that we can use a Visual Studio that has a web site developer with ASP. But until that time we do not know where we can use the VB codes or the C# code and with keeping search and trying we find where to put the VB or C# codes.
After that we keep searching about VB and C# to decide which support language we are going to choose. We have tried some codes with VB and C# and the first one that worked with us which is the VB we have depended it.
The most important step is how to connect the web with the data base (Oracle). We found the following way: Provider=Microsoft.Jet.OLEDB.4.0;Data Source=c:\ MymdbFile.mdb;User ID=Admin;Jet OLEDB:Database Password=You'rePassword;
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Chapter 3 : Software’s used in hotel industry 3.1.OPERA Property Management Software
At the core of the OPERA enterprise solution is our premier property management software, the OPERA Property Management System (PMS). Designed to meet the varied requirements of any size hotel or hotel chain, OPERA PMS provides all the tools a hotel staff needs for doing their day-to-day jobs — handling reservations, checking guests in and out, assigning rooms and managing room inventory, accommodating in-house guest needs, and handling accounting and billing. The property management software is configurable to each property’s specific requirements and operates in either single-property or multi-property mode, with all properties in a complex sharing a single database. OPERA Property Management Systems is fully integrated with OPERA Sales and Catering, OPERA Gaming and Comp Accounting, OPERA Vacation Ownership System, OPERA Quality Management System, and the OPERA central systems — ORS, the OPERA Reservation System; and OCIS, the OPERA Customer Information System.
3.2.Key Features of the OPERA Property Management System
Reservations: OPERA Reservation features are integrated with other functionality such as profiles, cashiering, and deposits. This property management software module offers a complete set of features for making and updating individual, group, and business block reservations, including deposit handling, cancellations, confirmations, wait listing, room blocking, and sharing.
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Rate Management: The OPERA Property Management System offers an extensive set of features for setting and automatically controlling rates, for rate quotation, and for revenue forecasting and analysis to create the most comprehensive rate management system in the industry. OPERA’s property management systems interface with the OPERA Revenue Management Systems and other major yield management applications.
Profiles: OPERA’s property management software also provides profiles - complete demographic records for guests, business accounts, contacts, groups, agents, and sources. Profiles include addresses, phone numbers, membership enrollments, stay and revenue details, guest preferences, and additional data that make reservations handling and many other activities faster and more accurate.
Front Desk: Arrivals and in-house guests are served using the Front Desk features of our property management software. This module handles individual guests, groups, and walk-ins, and has features for room blocking, managing guest messages and wakeup calls, and creating and following up on inter-department advisories, or traces.
Back Office Interface: Revenue transfers, market statistics transfers, daily statistics transfers, and city ledger transfers can be easily made from OPERA Property Management System to a back office system.
Rooms Management: OPERA Property Management System’s Rooms Management features handle all facets of room supervision including availability, housekeeping, maintenance, and facility management. The Queue Rooms feature of the property management software coordinates Front Office and Housekeeping efforts when guests are waiting for rooms which are not immediately available for assignment
Cashiering: Posting guest and passer-by charges (including taxes and other generates), making posting adjustments, managing advance deposits, settlements,
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checkout and folio printing are a few of the many activities handled by OPERA Cashiering. Cashiering accommodates multiple payment methods per reservation including cash, check, credit cards, and direct bill. In multi-property environments, guest charges can be cross-posted from any property in the hotel complex.
Accounts Receivable: AR is fully integrated with the OPERA Property Management System database and includes direct billing, invoicing, account aging, bill payments, reminder and statement generation, and account research. Old balances from external accounting systems may be entered.
Commissions: OPERA’s property management software also offers integrated features for calculating, processing, and following up on travel agent and other types of commission payments, either by check or via EFT.
Reporting: OPERA offers over 360 separate standard reports. Reports can be customized for each hotel and new reports may be created as needed using OPERA’s built-in Report Writer.
Fully Configurable: Choice of OPERA features, system behaviors and priorities, and system-wide defaults are controlled by the property. User permissions determine which property management software features may be accessed by each user and user group. Many OPERA screens may be customized by the property.
Global Perspective: OPERA Property Management System supports multi-currency and multi-language features to meet the requirements of global operations. Rates and revenues can be dynamically converted from the local currency to any other currency. The appropriate language for guest correspondence can be automatically determined by the guest’s profile language; country-specific address formats are supported.
Hospitality System Interfaces: OPERA PMS includes interfaces to hundreds of third-party hospitality systems including yield management, telephone and electronic
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switching, TV and video entertainment, key lock, restaurant POS, activities scheduling, minibar, and wakeup call systems.
OPERA Xpress: OPERA Xpress offers a scaled-down edition of our property management systems for smaller properties or properties offering limited services. Based on the core OPERA property management software product, properties may choose the features they want from a menu of product options.
MICROS 9700 HMS Point-of-Sale System MICROS 9700 HMS is the most widely used point-of-sale solution in the leisure and entertainment marketplace. Built on years of industry experience, the entire 9700 HMS product suite is technology independent, running on MS SQL, Oracle, and Multiple Windows platforms. All 9700 HMS modules are web-delivered and enterprise enabled, making them easy to use while reducing total cost of ownership. 9700 HMS has proven installations ranging from small, specialized operations to large enterprise configurations spanning multiple properties in large geographic areas. Whether you operate one restaurant or hundreds, 9700 HMS has the functionality to meet your needs.
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9700 Reservation and Table Management - Enterprise Reservations and Guest Experience Management using a single guest profile, updated with special requests, preferences and guest check details of each visit.
9700 Suites Management - food and beverage catering solution that allows you to facilitate web ordering, pre-orders/standing-orders, production management and pantry delivery management.
9700 Web Reporting, Auditing and Analysis - designed to deliver the information you need to run your business, right to your desktop. The web design allows you to view high level information, such as net sales and drill all the way down to individual check detail quickly and efficiently.
3.3. MICROSRES: Back-Office, Guest Services, & Restaurant POS Software
MICROS RES is a complete restaurant POS software solution that adapts to the way you run your business, with tools for the back-office, restaurant operations, and guest services. This fully-integrated restaurant point-of-sale system is both powerful and flexible and helps operations within your property flow more cohesively, efficiently, and profitably. The MICROS RES point-of-sale system offers restaurants multiple solutions that are designed specifically for table and quick service operations, as well as fast casual concepts.
This comprehensive restaurant point-of-sale system also allows restaurants to manage complex employee environments, monitor inventory levels, streamline ordering and receiving processes, enhance the profitability of your operation with customizable reporting and analysis tools, compare operational conditions against established standards, create waitlists and reservations, and implement gift card and loyalty programs for guests.
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MICROS RES is a Complete Solution for Your Restaurant Point-of-Sale System Needs
For owners of multiple restaurant locations, this restaurant POS software offers enterprise management. MICROS RES provides end-to-end communications throughout your operation to increase efficiency, speed service, and ultimately provide a better guest experience for your customers. The end result of the MICROS RES restaurant point-of-sale system is to increase customer satisfaction, maximizing their experiences at your restaurant.
When security, data integrity, easy software deployment, and real-time business intelligence top your list of requirements, MICROS RES restaurant POS software is your solution.
Point-of-Sale:
3700 TSR Whether you are an independent restaurant or an international chain, full service, counter service, or a combination, the MICROS 3700 TSR Point-of-Sale (POS) System is the one system that can adapt to your way of doing business. A comprehensive POS system that is both powerful and flexible, the MICROS 3700 TSR can help your operation be more efficient and profitable, because it’s faster, easier and smarter than any other system available today. As part of the Restaurant Enterprise Series, our complete suite of integrated restaurant
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applications, the MICROS 3700 TSR gives you instant access to the information you need to be successful.
3700 QSR The pressure keeps building, cutthroat competition, high employee turnover, increasing product costs, customer price sensitivity, and the constant demand to do it faster, increase margins, and serve a better product.
Today, around the world, the 3700 QSR is helping quick service and quick casual restaurants meet those pressures as never before. As part of the Restaurant Enterprise Series, our complete suite of integrated restaurant applications, the 3700 QSR gives you instant access to the information you need to be successful.
Enterprise Office: Labour Management Labour Management is an integrated human resources application designed to support the recurrent, high-maintenance requirements of employee data management. Its comprehensive modules help control your restaurant's labor resources to minimize labor cost and maximize productivity. Product Management Product Management is a comprehensive application designed to streamline a restaurant's day-to-day business processes for ordering, receiving and inventory. Using a unified database, Product Management (PM) maintains real-time information on inventory levels, recipe ingredients and costs, competitive bids, as well as actual versus theoretical reports.
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Financial Management Financial Management is an extremely flexible reporting and analysis tool. It allows operators to easily define and generate custom applications and reports that meet their specific needs. With Financial Management (FM), the user can access data from all applications in the MICROS Restaurant Enterprise Series's unified database, including sales information from the 3700 Point-of-Sale System, labor data from Labor Management, and inventory information from the Product Management application.
Enterprise Management Enterprise Management (EM) supports the requirement for chain operations to manage and control store level databases for both POS and back office applications. It provides the ability for a chain's corporate office to enforce menu and pricing consistency as well as respond quickly and effectively to the needs of the local restaurant market.
Guest Experience:
iCare
The MICROS iCare Solution provides a suite of CRM modules that deliver a 360o view of your customer’s activities. All the activities are tracked and controlled from a central database allowing you to recognize your core customers (most frequent and/or highest spending) and to determine methods to attract and measure the development of new trial, or less frequent customers, into the core customer base desired. By bringing your POS and CRM together as a single solution, MICROS is able to improve the return on your marketing investments.
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Guest Connection Guest Connection manages reservations and seating, and captures guest history. Guest Connection is designed for organizations that not only have multiple properties, but also have multiple restaurants within a property. This allows a central reservation office to take reservations for all of the restaurants at a property. A graphical display shows each restaurant's floor layout, with an icon for each table making the procedure simple to seat a guest. Kiosk Customer kiosks have become a common component of everyday life. From Automated Teller Machines (ATM), to tourist information kiosks, to Airline flight check-in, kiosks have proven to speed service and increase guest through-put at a lower labor cost. For businesses where customer order input is appropriate, kiosks have been identified as one of the primary initiatives in an overall marketing strategy. The MICROS RES Kiosk solution provides a simple, easy-to-use, fully integrated customer information or self ordering device. Running on robust MICROS hardware or any other appropriate hardware device, our scalable kiosk solution can be mixed and matched with traditional POS terminals or hand-held devices in any installation to increase your revenue, reduce labor costs, and provide a reasonable ROI.
3.4.Restaurant Operations: Alert Manager MICROS Alert Manager allows operations to manage by exception. The system monitors conditions and compares them to established standards. Exceptions are immediately identified and a notice or alert is sent to the pager, PDA, cell phone, or email of those who need to know.
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The MICROS Alert Manager provides exciting new integration with the RES products and the on premise paging and communications solutions made available by JTECH, a MICROS subsidiary.
Fully integrated with the MICROS 3700 POS System, KDS runs on standard PC hardware using the Microsoft Windows 95 operating system along with color touchscreen monitors or color monitors and bump bar. By managing food preparation, KDS provides a higher level of management control and customer service. Following are a few key features of the KDS system: Order Preparation
Highlights alert orders in yellow or red to indicate an order has exceeded expected prep time
Displays each order in either List Mode or Chit Mode and monitors time to prepare
Allows user to define preparation times for both appetizers and entrees
Intuitive icons display Rush Order, VIP and Void status
Display features such as All Day, Order Done, and Order Recall make information readily available
Speed of Service Displays
View the status of each table in the restaurant at a glance
Table buttons change color to indicate
Table Vacant
Guest Seated
Kitchen Working on Order
Entree Served
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Order Late
Reporting and Statistics
Captures service times for different courses at the various prep stations
Generates real-time reports on kitchen performance
Guest service solution GSS is a software product that allows a restaurateur to develop and manage a dining relationship with their guests through 3 major modules.
Frequent Diner
Deliver Plus
Gift Certificate Management
Table Management Solution RES Table Management is simple, easy-to-use software that seamlessly integrates customer preferences, seating capacity, and available staff, while effortlessly managing the customer’s dining experience. Capturing time-sensitive guest demands, RES Table Management puts you in complete control from the moment the guest is greeted until the next diner is seated. Digital Menu Board One of the latest tools to emerge in the quick-service market is the digital menu board. A fully integrated feature of the RES point-of-sale (POS) system, this novel technology displays
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menus while simultaneously drawing customers’ attention to other information, like current store promotions. While the quick-service market becomes increasingly aware of the benefits of digital versus traditional menu boards, restaurant owners seek a solid solution that will improve operations and boost customer experience. Typically sold as an added module or an interfaced product, MICROS includes the Digital Menu Board functionality as a core feature in RES. So when you’re ready to deploy this innovative technology for your business, MICROS is ready with RES Digital Menu Board Integration. Fingerprint ID Fingerprint ID technology is a fully integrated feature of RES that can be used in place of cumbersome passwords and or magnetic swipe cards. Fast and easy-to-use, your employees will appreciate the simplified logon process that fingerprint ID offers and management will value the enhanced security measures against fraudulent employee behavior. Eliminate or reduce password management, decrease costs, and gain new peace-of-mind. Conversational Ordering Conversational Ordering simplifies and expedites the order taking process by directing the server in entering the customer’s order exactly as it is placed. The feature eliminates the need to navigate between screens to locate a match to the way the order is being given. In addition, despite how the order is keyed in, the information is capable of being modified if necessary. Discounts Enhancements RES offers the ability to utilize online promotion codes to maximize the effectiveness of discount coupons. This feature improves the customer experience as it adds more flexibility and distinction to your promotional campaigns.
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Point-of-Sale Hardware Solutions
Looking for energy-efficient, superior point-of-sale hardware solutions? MICROS is committed to providing a variety of quality touch screen POS terminal solutions for every environment. The equipment is designed and developed with sustainability in mind; all hardware that MICROS ships is RoHS compliant. Furthermore, several MICROS hardware options are disk-less and operate without a fan, requiring less than half of the energy of typical PC based devices, cutting your power costs by 50%! Regardless of the type of business you operate, MICROS has a point-of-sale hardware solution that will work for you. l POS Terminal Techno ogies
WS5
MICROS reaffirms its commitment to providing industry leading Point-of-Sale hardware solutions and touch screen terminals with the new Workstation 5 (WS5). Building on the successful legacy WS4 and alongside the next generation WS4 LX, the WS5 demonstrates MICROS's unique ability to design rugged, affordable point-of-sale hardware that is easy to install & maintain, intuitive to use, and extremely reliable. The all new WS5 features a powerful processor running the latest Microsoft Windows Embedded operating systems and a large, bright 15" touch screen display. Other impressive characteristics include standard stereo speakers, 1G networking, MICROS CAL, and an advanced operating system recovery utility. The use of flash memory and passive cooling
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reduces the risk of costly mechanical failures, and improves system reliability and uptime. Improved I/O connectivity, a new, easy-to-use adjustable stand, and many modular options make the WS5 highly configurable and ready for use in a wide range of applications.
Workstation 5 Specs
WS4 LX
Since the release of the revolutionary MICROS Workstation 4 (WS4) point-of-sale (POS) terminal in 2003, MICROS has installed almost 200,000 units around the world. With the WS4, MICROS led a transition in POS technology away from complicated and costly PC-based point-of-sale hardware to lower-cost, more reliable solid-state POS appliances and touch screen terminals that provide superior functionality with the lowest total-cost-of-ownership on the market. Continuing that leadership, the Workstation 4 LX (WS4 LX) provides all of the same benefits of these touch screen terminals, while providing a 3X improvement in performance. Workstation 4 Specs
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PCWS 2010
The PCWS 2010 is a state-of-the-art, PC-based POS terminal. While it retains many of the design features and the overall look of the Eclipse PCWS, this point-of-sale hardware solution is a completely redesigned workstation employing the latest technologies. The fully open architecture combined with abundant connectivity and configuration options make it an ideal choice not only for MICROS POS applications, but for any application requiring touch screen terminals. The attractive, rugged design makes the PCWS 2010 at home in any environment. PCWS 2010 Specs
Keyboard Workstation 4
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Modeled after the highly successful Workstation 4, the Keyboard Workstation 4 delivers a robust POS terminal that is low cost, quickly deployed and easy to maintain. Designed for Leisure and Entertainment markets with limited menu items, harsh operating conditions and a large numbers of workstations, this point-of-sale hardware solution is perfect for arenas, stadiums and outdoor serving areas. The KWS4 retains the industry leading embedded technologies first seen in the WS4, including the Microsoft Windows CE .NET operating system, and the MICROS Client Application Loader (CAL), ensuring an open system that is intuitive to install and self maintaining. Keyboard Workstation 4 Specs
Mobile MICROS
MICROS is proud to offer its third generation handheld solution, the Mobile MICROS Handheld POS terminal. This point-of-sale hardware solution has been created specifically for the restaurant industry and is fully integrated with our 3700 and 9700 Point-of-Sale Systems. Mobile MICROS is powered by the acclaimed Windows® CE platform from Microsoft and supports magnetic card readers, scanners, and local and remote printers. This sleek yet robust point-of-sale hardware solution puts a wealth of profit-building power right into your hand. Mobile MICROS Specs
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Point-of-Sale Peripherals
To complete any point-of-sale implementation, MICROS offers a line of point-of-sale peripherals including printers, cash drawers, customer displays, barcode scanners, scales, and more. All of the peripheral products we sell are selected and tested to work with our point-of-sale workstations and application software. Servers and Networking Equipment
Through a strategic alliance with Hewlett Packard, MICROS offers a full line of servers, printers, and networking equipment to support the processing and communications infrastructure required to run our applications. As a certified HP reseller, MICROS is able to cost competitively deliver a complete, highly reliable, and well-supported data processing infrastructure for customers of all sizes.
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3.5 JTECH Solutions Paging Systems and Hospitality Software JTECH is the leading supplier of wireless communication systems for a variety of industries, including restaurants, with hospitality software solutions that include silent server, guest, and manager/staff paging systems. Providing the kind of fast-paced, intuitive technology that your restaurant or hotel needs to stay ahead, JTECH’s hospitality software solutions ensure guests receive rapid, top-notch service every time they visit. JTECH’s hospitality software also increases the level of customer service each person receives, improving both response times and profit generation. JTECH paging systems enhance profitability and create efficiencies by streamlining business communications within the restaurant, club, hotel or other hospitality environment and improving guest satisfaction. Innovative Communications and Paging Systems Learn more about JTECH’s effective, efficient hospitality paging systems, which offer fast, wireless, and silent communication strategies for industries such as retail, entertainment, hotels, and resorts. JTECH’s paging systems include:
ServAlert® – Optimizes efficiency by allowing chefs to page servers when orders are ready; featuring the new rechargeable ServerPass™ pager.
GuestAlert® – Manages customer flow in full-service and fast casual dining environments; featuring the popular “Glowster®” and new GuestPass™ pagers.
HostAlert® – Coordinates various aspects of restaurant operations to maximize guest flow; featuring the popular “Glowster®” and GuestPass™ guest pagers, plus the InstaCall™ Alphanumeric pagers for integrated server messaging.
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ValetAlert™ – Allows guests to page the valet and have the car delivered while paying the restaurant bill, or exiting/checking out of the hotel, elevating guest service levels; featuring StaffComm™ hand-held push button transmitters.
Connecting hotels to customers
myfidelio.net provides a single image of your hotel to multiple channels and increases your business with your website, with travel agents and with Internet portals.
Our solutions are scalable and designed to respond to the distribution needs of independents, corporate hotels, resorts and hotel chains. Because myfidelio.net is integrated to all MICROS-Fidelio Property Management Systems, it is easy to use and it saves the cost of manually loading the same data in multiple channels. With more than 20 years of experience, our global team will help position your hotel successfully in the channels and increase your business in all markets.
mymicros.net: Restaurant Enterprise Systems
mymicros.net creates the next generation model of restaurant enterprise systems and extends the capability for existing MICROS customers. It is a powerful data warehouse and business intelligence system that is easily accessed via a web browser.
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mymicros.net is a content rich Internet portal for the restaurant industry that includes access to back office, data warehousing, business intelligence, and other business and hosted pointof-sale applications and content. Providing a simple, powerful, single point of integration, the mymicros.net business intelligence tool for restaurant enterprise systems allows easy access to operational and financial information. An Intuitive Business Intelligence System
Requiring very little end-user administration, mymicros.net is a highly intuitive business intelligence system that enhances communications, consolidation, data storage, and quick access to files.
Enterprise Information Portal (EIP) – an elegant yet very powerful data warehouse that is easily mined with a simple web browser.
Enterprise Maintenance Services (EMS) – automates all store data uploads to the point-of-sale for on-the-fly changes to menu items, prices, discounts, taxes, and other POS-specific data.
iCare – a customer relationship module that provides an easy way to set up and manage gift cards and point-based loyalty programs with complete reporting through mymicros.net.
myinventory – an easy-to-use and robust inventory application that provides purchasing, receiving, and stock management functionality, along with full recipe and product costing capabilities at either a single property or multiple outlets.
mylabor – handles tedious human resource tasks in a simple, easy-to-use, online user interface.
mytasks – leverages the natural workflow of tasks and aids in the simplification of training.
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Loss Prevention – provides a way for operations to monitor and report problematic point-of-sale entries as soon as data is processed.
3.6TangentPOS: Event Management Software TangentPOS is the leading provider of technology for event point-of-sale and accounting systems for food service and retail operations at sports and entertainment facilities. TangentPOS delivers hardware and software designed to maximize your food and beverage profitability at concessions, premium seats, bars and restaurants, and vending, with similar solutions for retail operations throughout your venue. With almost 200 installations in venues in North America, TangentPOS continues to be the key player in the growth of technology for the sports and entertainment industry.
A Comprehensive Solution TangentPOS integrates with your overall ticketing, scheduling and accounting software, provides complete inventory control, and is designed to operate in all of your venue's sales environments. To suit the unique needs of differing venues, TangentPOS comes in several (combinable) models:
AllStar Model The technology and flexibility of the AllStar brings added capabilities to the process, optimizing performance and profitability, building loyalty and reward programs, and personalizing your fans’ participation. Designed for facilities of any size.
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Mobile The TangentPOS Mobile POS brings additional action to the fans. Using wireless technology, these handheld units give waitstaff the capability of performing all order functions in the stands.
Skybox TangentPOS Skybox is the extra resource that pushes your responses to the next level: orders are placed conveniently and efficiently, the kitchen has timely and accurate information for use in preparing and delivering the order, and guest checks are ready for presentation before the close of the event. With this system, your staff has the tools and technology to meet the needs of this very special group of fans.
Fine Dining TangentPOS Fine Dining equips your waitstaff with a resource to serve your fans meticulously and efficiently, while giving the kitchen the information required to get the orders out quickly and correctly, the first time. All this plus a complete set of management functions to assure your fans that their dining experience will be of championship caliber.
Retail Get your fans involved by bringing merchandise to them at every opportunity. With TangentPOS Retail, you have the technology to move high dollar items from the stores to the portables and temporary stands without losing accountability or functionality.
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MICROS MyStayManager
MyStayManager is a user-friendly mobile smart phone application that allows guests to create reservations and self-manage the details of their stay through their handheld device, when booking at participating hotels. Each hotel or hotel chain that subscribes to this service has its own branded and custom-designed MyStayManager application, unique to the individual business. MyStayManager’s ubiquitous real-time access to the OPERA database empowers the guest to an extent never before possible. Guests can conveniently interact with OPERA using their smart phone or other mobile device to manage the details of current and future stays in real time, wherever they may be. MyStayManager simplifies business or leisure travel for the guest and the hotel staff. From the hotel’s perspective, MyStayManager provides the basis for a comprehensive, custom-designed travel management tool that adds unique value to the hotel brand by leveraging OPERA information resources already available. In addition, MyStayManager can be used to encourage guests to enjoy hotel amenities such as spa, dining, and recreational venues, as well as special packages and loyalty membership benefits. Through partnerships with trusted web communities (such as cultural, entertainment, and restaurant websites) MyStayManager can extend the hotel’s own service offerings with timely information, special packages, and useful “local knowledge” that will make the guest feel comfortable and welcome. It’s all about fostering guest loyalty.
eCommerce Solutions
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Leading-Edge Approach to Hotel Internet Marketing Management
Interactive marketing success depends upon the ability to act a few steps ahead. Anticipate target sites. Appear in all the right places. Know how to engage customer attention- in an environment where navigational decisions are made in the blink of an eye.
When designing an interactive marketing program, one size does not fit all. MICROS knows how consumers use the Internet and we have the tools to convert them. Hotel Internet marketing begins with a solid foundation of knowledge- not only of the complex network of the Web, but a thorough understanding of the hospitality industry. Join more than 800 hotels, resorts, restaurants, and spas worldwide, who depend upon MICROS for results-driven hotel Internet marketing management- from small, independent boutique properties to large international brands, located in more than 20 different countries around the world. MICROS's internet marketing solutions deliver unrivaled revenue to its hospitality clients. These robust eCommerce tools seamlessly interface with MICROS’s OPERA Enterprise Solution, providing your business with a comprehensive solution.
web Hotel - The first e-commerce product and services platform to leverage OPERA-based hotel and customer data to strategically attract, persuade, and convert online travel consumers. It presents a seamless experience for customers to search for reservations, browse, and book in one place.
Web Proposal - A unique web-enabled tool for creating, distributing, and managing professionally designed, customized sales and catering proposals. Leveraging OPERA Sales & Catering, web Proposal allows hotels to quickly distribute custom, branded proposals that can be configured for various sized events and address the varied concerns of meeting planners, wedding planners, and more.
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