Eleven, the leading provider of cloud-based guest Internet management software, officially unveiled their integration with Cisco Meraki cloud networking today. The joint Eleven-Meraki solution democratizes network functionality that used to be accessible only by enterprise-level infrastructure with complex architectures. ElevenOS complements the Meraki cloud networking feature set with value-added services that engage guests and deliver a consistently high- performance Internet experience. Eleven's enhanced portal can be customized to ensure brand consistency and engage guests by promoting onsite or local services to drive incremental revenue and future bookings.

Given their varying levels of loyalty, spending habits, and influence on future bookings, not every hotel guest is equally valuable.

CityHub Amsterdam, a new hotel concept opened in October 2015 that caters to its guests with a modern, pod- sized, themed guestroom environment, has ensured its ability to offer total guest security and convenience by implementing cutting-edge security access solutions from ASSA ABLOY Hospitality. Guests of the hotel can now expect a significantly improved experience, thanks to the installation of VingCard Signature RFID door locks and RFID card readers, which allow them to quickly access their guestrooms and enjoy a variety of other convenient features.

In an effort to help our peers compete, we at ALICE sat down with a roundtable of New York City's leading hotel General Managers to learn how they are leveraging data to run their hotels. We share our findings in our report, "The Data-Driven Hotelier."

FCS Computer Systems (FCS), a leading comprehensive hospitality solutions and services provider, announces the launch of e-Laundry, an automated alternative to manual laundry and linen tracking. The new e-Laundry solution is designed to help hotels eliminate paper trails, while gaining greater perspective into real-time inventory, operational needs by shift, and future consumption forecasting. e-Laundry is especially suitable for hotels with more than 300 rooms, mega resorts and casino hotels with an exceptionally heavy demand for laundry services.

The Riverside Company has entered a definitive agreement to invest in Guestline Limited (Guestline), a leading provider of mission critical software for the hospitality sector. The transaction is expected to close imminently. Guestline, based in Shrewsbury, UK, serves a broad customer base of independent hotels, hotel chains, pub companies and serviced apartments; delivering proprietary hospitality software solutions via the cloud. Guestline’s services essentially pay for themselves by increasing occupancy, average room rate and yield. Guestline is a trusted partner for properties in 20 countries across four continents.

We all know why hoteliers use OTAs. They are there to help you out, keep revenue up and room occupancy levels as high as possible. But over time, OTAs have become the hoteliers back brace during quiet times and now, a convenience for guests. Guests are used to an easy booking process with OTAs, limited search time when looking for a destination or hotel and over all of that, the ability to see immediate price comparisons. Instead of mulling over numerous ways to try and fight this, why not capitalize on it? As long as your getting more guests coming through the doors, having a good relationship with an OTA can actually be used to your advantage.

While most property management systems can generate reports with basic information about a hotel's occupancy and rates, our hoteliers are always on the lookout for more "breadcrumbs" of data around their guest habits, their real-time inventory status, and their employee productivity.

Guestfolio, the award-winning Hotel Marketing Platform, is delighted to announce the addition of three new hotel groups to its ever-growing 600+ client base. After a hugely successful start to the year for Guestfolio, these additional contracts bring the total number of hotel groups using Guestfolio to 39 worldwide.

One of the critical components of successful Solution Design is the thorough analysis and implementation of a highly effective technical engineering approach for each specific project that leads to the final product that is being developed. The lack of solid technical engineering processes can result in disastrous failures. An infamous example of this problem occurred in 2013, when the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services launched the Healthcare.gov website. The intention of the portal was to enroll approximately 7 million users over a six-month period. However, issues with the technological solution and framework were so extreme that two months after its release, only 29,000 users had succeeded in utilizing the website amid reports of massive access failures, including incorrect information, missing data, and dead-end applications during the enrollment process.