U kash offers a new solution to make cash less transactions over the internet - and judging by the level of interest at their booth at Internetworld ‘business for the digital age’ (Earls Court, London), they could be on to something here.

So how does this work? Customer takes cash to the nearest ‘charge outlet’ and gets a receipt for the cash amount they want to spend. In the UK, and in some other countries in central Europe, this is possible through newsagents and convenience stores just as one tops up a mobile. Once you have this receipt the consumers simply enter the Ukash value and unique 19 digit number at the payment page - just like entering a credit card number - which is then validated in real time. If change is required a new 19 digit number and value is issued online to the consumer.

So what arethe major advantages for consumers? - Anonymity and protection from identity fraud. The downside being the charging and keeping change issues, plus if you lose the receipt without writing the number down, it is the same as losing cash.

And the retailers? U kash quote some key ststistics in the UK market and this is the reason they beleve it will work.

• 16% of the adults in the UK do not own a payment card
• 2.8 m consumers in the UK are unbanked
• 1 in 5 consumers in the UK are refused credit
• 72% of the credit card holders do not use their cards to transact online

I can only think that these figures will only be higher in the emerging markets - and according to their Commerical Director Andrea McGeachin, they are intending to expand into Asia as well. There is of course the fundamental dependency on the number of outlets which exist in a country to buy Ukash before using it online. But this could be solved soon by their plans to join forces with Vodafone to allow customers to buy Ukash through their mobile.

Hotels which face resistance to online bookings with cards would do well to take note and give the consumer one more option to get that next booking….

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According to a Travolution report, British Airways has joined forces with Microsoft to develop a media rich research and booking tool for its website.

The project is based on Microsoft Silverlight rich media technology and aims to move away from traditional web selling by trying to inspire customers with detailed tourist information, pictures, video and other graphics.

The ‘Inspire Me’ tool tries to get behind people’s emotions when they come to the site looking for a holiday by breaking it down into what they want to do in destination, what their perfect night out is, what they like to eat and what style of place they want to stay in.

So will BA give the Online Travel Agencies a run for their money? We’ll have to wait and see……..

Check out Swissotel’s new website which they launched last month - very smart and stylish with the only hitch being the loading times on some pages.

The site also includes a good online group RFP tool using Starcite at the back end.

Here is what they say about the RFP tool

”Unlike a conventional Request for Proposal (RFP), our Online RFP helps you build a complete meeting request by walking you through each step. You can fill in as much or as little information as you want. Your profile, as well as each RFP, is automatically saved and can be copied, forwarded or modified for future meetings, reducing data entry errors and saving time.This Online RFP is fully integrated into a Hotel & Facility Search Directory. Simply select the facilities you are considering, create the RFP and submit the request instantly to each of the hotels you have selected.”

More at http://swissotel.plansoft.com/global/rfp/index.asp

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Websites like Starcite will play an important role as a group channel for some time to come. And so will some of the software solutions that support them in improving sales management. 

StarCite is a leader in this market and offers on demand global meeting solutions that help hotels market, get and manage leads and book more revenue. StarCite’s Marketing Programs help suppliers gain a competitive edge showcasing their properties against thousands of others. Once you get the leads, StarCite’s innovative Response technologies help respond fast and track the progress of leads. www.starcite.com
 
Some other event websites include
www.worldmeetings.com
www.conventionplanit.com
www.sitevisit.com

When it comes to meetings and events, and supporting sales operations effeciency, here are two leading players - one is PASSKEY which is big in the US but not widely used in the European markets - they are a provider of web-based applications that automate the group housing management and reservation processing for the meetings and convention industry. www.passkey.com
 
And when it involves saving double entry for group booking and reservations teams, then a major player is MEETINGBROKER (part of Newmarket International). It is a web-based information service that distributes and manages leads from multiple business channels (example: starcite, company websites). MeetingBroker receives requests for proposals (RFPs) sent by meeting planners and provides a suite of online tools to more quickly assign, respond to, and analyze these leads. It allows the leads to be created directly in the sales and catering system used by hotels provided they are interfaced or if they use Delphi Sales & Catering.  
www.meetingbroker.com

A recent survey conducted by HSSO in association with Nexus World Services found that over half of respondents do not use any technology at all to assist in planning trade shows, while 47% believe that their existing systems do not assist them in managing tradeshows and events.

The survey is part of a series designed to understand sales challenges better and to optimise sales management in the hotel industry. It focused on sales and tradeshow/event management and questioned over 30 top hotel groups about how they organised tradeshow participation and measured their performance. With a number of important industry events like Confex London, ITB Berlin, Imex Frankfurt and ATM Dubai happening in the early part of the year, the survey was carried out in February/March.

Survey participants were all active sales and operational persons at different levels of the hotel industry. More than half of respondents were directly involved in organising attendance at the ITB Berlin and a large percentage of their work involved co-ordinating with other team members within the company.

Some of the key aspects on tradeshow management that emerged include:

• 47% find it a time consuming exercise with 7% rating it as very difficult
• 53% say that it takes over 20 hours to organise a show like the ITB
• 57% do not use any technology to assist in planning such a show
• 47% of those surveyed believe that existing systems are not be able to assist in management of tradeshows and events
• All companies track effectiveness through a combination of the number of leads generated (80%), the number of visitors at the stand (66.67%), the number of new contacts made (66.67%) and actual conversion of leads into sales (73.33%).

With a minimum of twenty hours dedicated to organising a single tradeshow (albeit a large one like the ITB), the number of total hours sales teams spend organising shows and events are multiplied many times over. And with sales persons expected to sell more and administer less, optimal sales management processes combined with the right technology tools, will have a dramatic impact on the productivity of the sales force.

More details on the survey are available and free to download at
http://www.hospitalitysalessolutions.co.uk/MEDIA_ARTICLES.html

Hostec Europe is on in London this week - and their website said it was the ”premier technology event for the foodservice and hospitality sector”. So I ventured out to Excel exhibition centre with a colleague in the hope of discovering some new ideas and technology - particularly in the area of marketing with mobile technology.

It was quite disappointing! Yes, there were quite a few Point of Sale products (POS), some Property Management Systems (PMS) and some integrated PMS/Sales and catering products like Springer Miller, Evo-soft and of course Micros Fidelio. There were also some automated check-in kiosks from Ariane which seemed to be the most popular stand. On asking some of them about mobile technology, they were all quick to say that it was under development, but no details were forthcoming.

Further casual conversations also did not give the sense that there was new thinking in these areas - most products are still primarily built by technology professionals for the business and not through a real collaboration.

And just when we were resigning ourselves to no new discoveries, we spotted a small stand, where a gentleman sat at a small machine with a biometric scanner. Intrigued, we started talking and he invited us to try out CLOAKSCAN which called itself ‘the world’s first biometric cloakroom and lost property management system’. It aims to simplify one of the issues which plague both event organisers and venues - the issue of lost cloak room tickets. Instead of issuing a ticket you scan your fore-finger. This information is stored in the system for as long as your item is deposited. And this is backed up by camera technology which captures images as well!

Also worth a look is their Blue2, a bluetooth broadcasting system which allows venues and promoters to communicate to users via Bluetooth-enabled mobile phones. More information at http://www.idscan.co.uk/

Some innovation at last …..but the search for more mobile technology for hotels continues!

The range of sales management tools in the industry is as bewildering as the types of hospitality organisations there are…this has in turn always meant that all companies struggle with their sales management tools. The advent of all the latest technology has not brought the hotel sales person an all-in-one system which would look after all their requirements and leave them with the time to do the one thing that they are supposed to be doing the most - SELLING.

But now there just may be some hope on the horizon with the latest product from Nexus World Services, called Hotelworx which is to be launched in March. This image is all I was able to capture from a sneak preview. This new system incorporates both the corporate RFP and group RFP requirements along with Account Management as well as event planning possibilities. Some further enhancements to improve sales analysis is also expected. While not competing with specialist Sales and Catering software like Delphi or Property Management Systems like Opera, Hotelworx from Nexus seems to provide a hospitality specialised sales management tool that is absolutely unique to the industry.

You can find more information at http://www.nexusworldservices.com/