Pullman hotels – designed for the modern business and leisure traveler, announced today the addition of 5 more hotels (in addition to the 5 announced in mid August) to its ever growing network in Asia. The 5 hotels are located in the key growth markets of India and China. These hotels take the development commitments for the Pullman brand in Asia to 22 hotels, in addition to the 12 operating Pullman hotels in the region.
Michael Issenberg – Chairman and Chief Operating Officer, Accor Asia Pacific says “The Pullman brand is experiencing a major spike in development within Asia. Whilst we expected the brand to establish a foothold in the Asian region, we did not anticipate the speed with which this would happen. The tightening of credit markets and the slowing tourism arrivals has hotel owners and developers looking for contemporary hotel brands that appeal to the modern traveler, priced and distributed efficiently and offer a high quality product without the clutter of more traditional 5 star hotel brands. The Pullman brand is fitting this demand nicely.”
3 new Pullman’s for India
Pullman Gurgaon Central Park – will be a new built 284 room hotel located in Gurgaon – the corporate satellite city of New Delhi. The hotel will feature extensive food and beverage outlets including 2 specialty restaurants, bar and deli, along with 2000 square metres of event space. The hotel will offer the Pullman signature connectivity lounge combining state of the art technology and personal IT services, keeping guests connected and efficient. The hotel is scheduled to open in late 2010 and is 30 minutes from DelhiInternationalAirport.
Pullman Lavasa will open in mid 2011, featuring 258 guest rooms and perched atop India’s first hill town. Lavasa is located 1 hour from the new PuneInternationalAirport. The hotel will offer 2 restaurants, patisserie and a 500 square metre ballroom and an integrated meeting centre for smaller business events. The hotel will be connected to the Lavasa Lakes Convention Centre.
PullmanDelhiInternationalAirport – located within the “Delhi Aerocity” precinct will be this 270 room hotel. The hotel’s outlets will include and all day dining restaurant along with a specialty restaurant, lounge bar and deli. Signature Pullman spaces such as ‘Connectivity Lounge’ and Chill Out space will form part of the meetings and event facilities, which includes a 1000 sqm ballroom and extensive outdoor entertainment area by the hotel’s swimming pool. The hotel is scheduled to open in 2012.
An additional 2 Pullman Hotels for China Pullman Wuxi T-Park is scheduled to open in 2012, with 350 guest rooms including 64 executive floor rooms. Situated in the Wuxi New District in JiangsuProvince, the hotel is close to Government Hall and 15 minutes from the airport and the Shanghai – Beijing High Speed Train Station. The future metro link station is located below the hotel. Facilities will include 3 restaurants, lobby lounge, indoor swimming pool, fitness and business centre. There is also a 1,200 square metre pillar less ballroom and nine meeting rooms at the hotel.
Pullman Tianjin Kunlun is a new 300 room (including 38 apartments) hotel located in the heart of Tianjin commercial area, 30 minutes drive from the airport. The hotel will offer 3 restaurants and comprehensive business and leisure facilities and is scheduled to open in mid 2013.
Recently announced Pullman Hotels
5 Pullman hotels were announced in mid August 2009. These hotels were: Pullman Shanghai Pudong Zhangjiang and Pullman Shanghai South in China, Pullman Pattaya Aisawan and Pullman Phuket Arcadia Naithorn, both in Thailand and Pullman Hanoi Horison in Vietnam.
Pullman stands apart with signature products and services
All Pullman hotels throughout the world have signature products and services, designed for travelers to fully indulge or partake in a more self service arrangement. These include products specifically designed for today’s busy business traveler – IT Solutions Manager and Pullman Welcomers, both roles ensuring efficiency and high levels of service. Co Meetings is designed to enhance the meeting experience at Pullman hotels, and with a dedicated event manager assigned to each event, events with Pullman are care free and efficient. Other items in Pullman guest rooms provide sanctuary, connectivity and comfort.
The Pullman network today
Today there are 12 Pullman hotels and resorts throughout Asia and 39 around the globe. The brand is on track to achieve its development ambitions of 50 hotels globally by year end and 300 hotels by 2015.
Issenberg added “The prospects for the Pullman Brand remain strong throughout Asia, where we anticipate having 100 Pullman Hotels by 2015. Whilst ambitious, we are well on our way towards achieving this objective.”
***
All Pullman hotels throughout the world have signature products and services, designed for travelers to fully indulge or partake in a more self service arrangement. These include products specifically designed forcurrent customers.The hotel has special position related ICT system. China is the first branch to has IT solution manager of Pullman hotel then expanded to India, Malasia, Thailand.They have to have expert about ICT system following hotel policy. IT Solutions manager is a manager who concerns all of IT activities in Pullman Hotel. Pullman hotel group support about high& modern service and all of technology in hotel managed ad improved by IT solutions.
Opening Address By Mr Chan Yeng Kit, Chief Executive Officer, Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore At Chinese Media Briefing Session on 30 May 2005, Shangri-La Hotel, Pudong, Shanghai.
Distinguished members of the press,
1. First of all, I want to thank all of you for taking time to join us today and for your continued support towards IDA in the past four years.
2. China is a country that is close to my heart. From 1993 to 1995, I served as the Executive Committee Secretary of the consortium leading the development of the Singapore-SuzhouIndustrial Park. I am really glad to be back here again and to have the opportunity to meet with all of you today.
3. Over the past 25 years, the transformation and rapid growth of the Chinese economy and the development of its information, communications and technology (ICT) sector has been one of the brightest spots in the global market and global economy. China as a whole has been putting in a lot of emphasis on the use of ICT as an enabler for government as well as for businesses. Shanghai is also a contributor and one of the brightest stars in China's software industry. This contributes about 47.7% to the industry's national revenue with Shanghai's overall Information Industry registering RMB438B. Shanghai is also very active in driving some of their e-Government efforts and I am honored to be able to contribute to that effort by sharing some experiences of our e-Government Journey during CIAPR earlier this afternoon.
Singapore is China's Committed Partner in the ICT Market
4. Singapore and China share many similarities in our goals and plans to improve access to ICT, bridging the digital divide and empowering our local communities and businesses to use ICT for their own development. At the same time, we are committed to incorporate ICT into the government and society because we believe that this will help to spur socio-economic developments as well as build greater competitive advantages for our countries.
5. Today, Singapore is well known for its established status as one of the leading trading and commercial centres in Asia Pacific and in the world. We are also indeed fortunate to have achieved some success in developing a networked society. The World Economic Forum recently ranked Singapore first in its Global IT Report for our innovative use of IT. Accenture ranked Singapore's e-Government as one of the top 3 in the world for 5 consecutive years.
6. There are obvious synergies between China and Singapore, as our collaboration extends beyond just knowledge exchange and transfer. We believe there is considerable potential to maximize complementary strengths and reinforce a strong and enduring partnership between the two countries.
7. Since IDA started our presence in China in 2001, I am pleased and excited about the successes we have achieved. Through the years, we have established a very strong relationship with the Shanghai Informatization Commission, the Shanghai Communications Administration and various government departments in Shanghai, Beijing,Guangzhou, Nanjing and Hangzhou. Through these strong relations, we have built up the confidence and reputation of the "Singapore ICT" brand.
8. Many Singapore companies are today working closely with Chinese companies to spearhead technological projects in various industries from healthcare and logistics to banking and e-government. These projects are just some of examples of how Sino-Singapore collaboration has generated greater socio-economic benefits: - The Hospital Information System (HIS) project for TongrenHospital in Beijing and SongjiangDistrictCentralHospital in Shanghai (2004)
- E-Payment system for XiamenCity (2004)
- E-Logistics consultancy project for GuangzhouCity (2003)
- E-Payment kiosks for BeijingCity (2003)
9. The Singapore Solutions Centre (SSC), set up in May 2004, celebrated its first year anniversary recently. The RMB15 million SSC,which showcases our ICT development and regional hub status in the Transport, Logistics, Healthcare and Financial Services sector, is a further endorsement of our strong commitment to work with China as a long-term ICT partner.
10. Singapore is a living lab and business accelerator for ICT development, where e-Government solutions have been thoroughly tested and can be easily introduced and implemented in China to meet the needs of the Chinese government and companies. I am confident that all the companies within the SSC will continue to offer Chinese companies easy access to a complementary suite of integrated solutions that have been tried, tested and in some cases, won awards in Singapore and overseas.
11. At the same time, IDA will continue lend its resources to facilitate networking of Chinese and Singaporean infocomm companies beyond China and Singapore. In the past few years,IDA has organized several mission trips to various Chinese cities so as to encourage greater exchange and collaboration between Singapore ICT companies and their counterparts in China. Two more such mission trips have been planned in the next few months - one to the southern cities in China and another to the Zhejiang province.
The Singapore e-Government Journey
12. As I have mentioned at the CIAPR conference, our foray into eGovernment is not by choice. Singapore is a very small country with no natural resources. Our key assets are our people. In order for us to operate more efficiently and to overcome our lack of size and numbers, we have to use information and communications technology (ICT) as a force multiplier and help us to be more efficient and productive. We see ICT as a strategic tool to help us achieve greater competitiveness.
13. Singapore is serious about fulfilling its vision of a dynamic and vibrant global infocomm capital with a networked government that delivers accessible, integrated, value-added services to the citizens. Today, we have over 1,600 government services available online. In 2003, we continued our e-Govermment journey and launched the e-Government Action Plan II which essentially delivers more one-stop, integrated services to meet the needs of our public and businesses. My colleague, Yuk Wah, will later share with you more about the Singapore e-government journey.
14. However, today, I am extremely delighted to receive the United Nations Public Service award for one of our e-Government Services initiatives - the Online Application System For Integrated Services or OASIS - on behalf of the Singapore government. On example of an integrated service is the Online Business Licence Service or OBLS. The OBLS is spearheaded by Singapore's Ministry of Trade & Industry, project managed by IDA and developed by Ecquaria Technologies and National Computer Systems. Both of them are leading Singapore software solutions companies who are very active in the Chinese market.
15. This is a significant win for Singapore and it will spur us on to create more innovative avenues that will provide greater convenience for businesses and individuals to interact with the government. Our vision is to be a networked government that delivers accessible, integrated, value-added services to the citizens.
16. The OBLS is a pioneering one-stop eService, integrating 69 licences from 19 government agencies, for new company/business registrations and licence applications. Previously, businesses need to go to each agency individually to apply for different licences. Today, 80% of start-ups in Singapore can go to www.business.gov.sg to apply and pay for their business licences online.
Nowadays online booking hotel room become the most popular way that you be able to identify a range of hotels such as location, price and specific facilities. But the first problem of using the internet is the fact that you do not have access to one single individual who could perhaps provide with you with a better idea of what you will be able to get for your money. Whilst the photographs on the web page might look smart and sophisticated, speaking to somebody on the phone gives you a good idea of the kind of service you might expect. For example, how long does it take them to answer? What is their manner like? How well do they listen? Are they prepared to go an extra mile in order to make you a happy customer?
Another problem when using online booking is that you have no opportunity for negotiation on price. It is still remarkable how many people assume that the price printed is the price everyone pays, or that you certainly will have to pay. This is most definitely not the case, and most hotels have between a 30% and 40% negotiation border. The fact that most people don't bother to use it is clearly the hotel's gain. Booking online gives the hotel the opportunity to charge everyone the maximum price they can. Whereas, either in person or over the phone, you have the chance to barter on that price, and more often than not, achieve a far lower rate.
These are some problems from customer's complains:
"Usually the hotel doesn't answer when you send a query for a booking that you made through an online company."
"I tried to book tickets for reservation from the hotel website on Jan 5th but tickets were not booked and the amount go deducted from credit card."
"This hotel's online booking took money out of my account i want to cancel what ever it is and don't know how. they can put the money back on my account cause i will never use it."
"I need ask more hotel's package rate, then i try to post on their webboard. But no answer receive back from them. Call contact is also silent and busy all times."
______________________
References:
“The Problems of using the internet to book a hotel.”. [Online]. Available: http://www.streetdirectory.com/travel_guide/216576/hotels_and_hostels/the_problems_of_using_the_internet_to_book_a_hotel.html
eZee Technologies, eZee Front Desk Hotel Software’s builder, has been operational since 1998, started by a small local software development company in Surat city, India. The company designed this software to accommodate the needs of various types of properties with the hotels, motels, resorts, clubs, B&B’s, small hotel franchisees, clubs, condo’s and apartments. eZee Front Desk is installed in more than 46 countries round the global with a support centre in 10 countries, available in English, Spanish, Arabic, Thai, French and German.
eZee Front Desk software is the modern solution which has whole range of integrated modules to cover every aspect of property management. The generalized version of eZee Front Desk Hotel reservation software is wide accepted worldwide with due to its state-of-art technology and extremely easy to use in nature.
The major modules of the latest eZee Front Desk constitutes of easy check-in/check-out, to click guest reservation, group management, house keeping, night audit, travel agent, guest history and lot other.
Thus eZee today becomes a one stop I.T solution provider for hospitality industry.
_________________________
Reference:
“eZee Front Desk Hotel Software.”. [Online]. Available: http://www.ezeefrontdesk.com/
UNCTAD (United Nations Conference on Trade and Development)’s Information Economy Report 2005 (1) (IER), notes that a major source of income in developing countries are finding tourism. It can be greatly enhanced by setting up domestically run websites that enable potential customers to research, reserve, and pay for trips and hotel stays electronically. Tourism’s profits often drain out the world’s poorer nations and back to the large travel firms, hotel chains, and booking and transportation providers based in the United States and Europe that are responsible for arranging most foreign vacations.
Recent studies from Increasing of Tourists’ Internet Shopping which released in US report that 56% of Internet users are planning their vacations online, including making hotel and airline reservations. Because the internet offers a chance to change for online shopping and countries in the Caribbean, Africa and Asia have the that chance to court these customers directly by offering domestic flavor, unique experiences and local knowledge that can trump overseas competition. The report notes, is to reorganize tourism services and set up well-linked websites that allow domestically owned hotels, banks and travel firms to provide the entire package of services necessary for tourists to arrange their trips such as reservations, plane flights, currency exchange and payments.
However, developing regions that have low levels of Internet access and use can find that setting up such networks is difficult, the report points out, but the Caribbean Tourism Organization has demonstrated the payoffs for succeeding. http://www.doitcaribbean.com/ was established in late 2000 by focusing on vacations flavored with local culture and heritage, and helps Caribbean countries, especially smaller ones, compete for tourism profits in a region where tourism accounts for 25% of GDO and generated US$21 billion in revenues in 2004.
Therefore, by the increasing number of this revenue, Governments and National and Regional tourism organizations in poorer countries need to focus on spreading Internet access and on setting up linked websites that can cover the entire “value chain” behind international travel. A particularly daunting task will be overcoming domestic bottlenecks in technology, payments, telecommunications, and computer adoption and use.
The effectiveness of e-tourism marketing can help developing countries to build their own brand images, develop new products, promote their tourism resources, expand their customer bases, and keep a much higher share of tourism profits.
References:
Informations Econony Report 2005, Developing Countries Keep Tourism Profits at home by Helping from E-Tourism, United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, 15 Nov 2009, http://www.unctad.org/en/docs/sdteedc20051_en.pdf
Background Thaistralia Hotel is a 3-Star holiday hotel with 100 rooms, which is located in a world-famous tourism destination. The hotel was operating well, and obtained good reputation in the industry. However, in the past quarter, the complaints increased by 25 percent, and 50 percent of such complaints was about the reception’s low efficiency in check in and check out processes, as well as slow response speed to customers’ demand.
External environment Thaistralia Hotel is located in a tropical island country, which attracts millions’ of tourists from all over the world every year. Also, there are many other holiday hotels in this region as well. Therefore, the competition is becoming increasingly intense. In addition, the tourist season is coming soon, and normally the big amount of tourists’ coming burden the hotel, especially the reception, with heavy workload.
Internal environment Currently, the hotel is still applying telephone booking and manual check in approaches. In the tourist season, the reception tends to employ more part-time staffs to do the check in and check out job. Nevertheless, sometimes the service speed still can not satisfy customers.
Problem The hotel received increasing complaints in the past quarter. Furthermore, the employment of extra receptionists in the tourist season increases the hotel’s salary payment by 10,000 dollars every year on average.
Information system solution An information system is introduced to Thaistralia Hotel, which is basically composed by an e-booking system and 100 sets of scanning equipment (which will be installed outside each room of the hotel). A tourist can book rooms online by the e-booking system conveniently; also, they can even check in online as well after pay the room rate by online payment or telephone payment. The system will send a barcode to the customer’s mobile phone after online check in; with such barcode, the customer can go to the booked room directly when arrive at the hotel, and enter the room by scanning the barcode on the equipment on the door.
Benefits The application of such information system will improve the efficiency of the reception. Additionally, it will help the hotel to reduce labour costs.
Goal and indicators The goal is to reduce the complaints by 30 percent and reduce the labour costs by 8,000 dollars within the next 3 months after the implementation of the information system.
Furthermore, such goal can be used as one of the indicators as well. After those 3 months, the executives of Thaistralia Hotel can evaluate the effectiveness of the system by examining if the goal has been achieved. In addition, internal and external surveys- which are respectively for employees and customers- can be made to obtain the feedback on the information system, in order to improve it and make it works more effectively and efficiently.
As Buhalis (2003) suggested, strategic management is composed by four stages, which are ‘where are we now’, ‘where do we want to go’, ‘how do we get there’, and ‘how do we know we got there’ in turn. ‘Setting of indicators is critical at each stage, in order to enable organisations to assess developments in the external environment, assess competitor moves and react effectively’. [Buhalis 2003, pp49] Basically, indicators are set in order to evaluate the effectiveness of a strategic plan, and let us know if ‘we got there’.
Indicators are set according to the requirements of the organisation, or the goal of the strategic management plan. For instance, as mentioned in the previous article- ‘ICT Infrastructure Plan for Melbourne Airport’, Frame developed an enterprise service provider (ESP) framework to satisfy the airport’s requirement that to consolidate ICT services across tenants and airlines in order to reduce the cost of operating. [IDG Communications 2009] In terms of this case, one of the indicators which can be utilised to measure the effectiveness of ESP should be a goal level of operating expense after the implementation of such strategy. If the actual operating expense exceeded the goal level, the strategy would be lack of effectiveness; otherwise, it would be effective.
Additionally, customers and employees’ satisfaction is another necessary indicator which needs to be used in the evaluation. The approach of survey could be applied. The feedback would help the organisation to assess the new information system and improve it if necessary.
Generally, a successful plan should contain SMART goals- which are specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and timely, as well as clear indicators, which can be used to measure the effectiveness in order to help the organisation react effectively. [Nikitina n.d] On the other hand, it should not contain any goals against SMART, which would make it difficult to set indicators in order to evaluate the effectiveness.
References:
Buhalis D., 2003, Strategic management and competitive advantage, eTourism, Pearson Education, Malaysia
IDG Communications, 2009, The Frame Group Develops ICT Infrastructure Plan for Melbourne Airport, viewed 9 Nov 2009, http://www.computerworld.com.au/article/323507/frame_group_develops_ict_infrastructure_plan_melbourne_airport
Nikitina, n.d, Smart goal setting, viewed 10 Nov 2009, http://www.goal-setting-guide.com/smart-goals.html
The Frame Group, an Australian technology services company, announced that it had completed a 20-year ICT infrastructure plan for Melbourne Airport- which is owned by Australia Pacific Airports Corporation Limited. The ICT strategy was distilled into four separate strategic plans covering: data centre, network and systems infrastructure, applications and disaster planning.
A key requirement of the strategy was to identify how to consolidate ICT services across tenants and airlines in order to reduce the cost of operating at Melbourne Airport. To do this, Frame developed an enterprise service provider (ESP) framework: putting the focus on managing services (like wireless and email) rather than their infrastructure components in isolation (servers, routers). The model supports the organisation’s desire to consolidate and centralise business functions. And with the accompanying financial model, the Airport is able to attribute costs to services and to normalise capital expenditure with operations expenditure.
Link to the original (skip the advertisement, though) Reference:
IDG Communications, 2009, The Frame Group Develops ICT Infrastructure Plan for Melbourne Airport, viewed 9 Nov 2009, http://www.computerworld.com.au/article/323507/frame_group_develops_ict_infrastructure_plan_melbourne_airport
