Hotel Technology Next Generation

HTNG now counts 155 paid members, including 42 hotel companies, 79 technology providers, and 34 consultants, media, academics, and trade associations.

Among the 19 new HTNG members who joined during November were hotel company Best Western International; key technology executives from hotel companies Hongkong & Shanghai Hotels Ltd., Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group, MTM Management LLC, and Thistle Hotels; in-room entertainment and related services companies Hospitality Network/Cox Business Services, NXTV, Philips Electronics and Superclick; high-speed Internet access company Wayport, Inc.; telephony company Teledex; property management provider Maestro PMS; technology and infrastructure services companies Gowden Technologies, Inc., PRIZUM, Inc., and Unisys Corporation; locking/security company Saflok; and business intelligence software company Datavision Technologies, Inc. In addition, Marriott International converted from individual to corporate membership.

HTNG's first annual membership meeting (members only) will be held on 20-21 April 2005 at Bellagio in Las Vegas. It will immediately precede the Hotel Technology Forum (HTF), which is being organized by Hospitality Technology Magazine.

In our online survey, a number of members voiced the preference that our meeting be scheduled in conjunction with another industry event, with several hoteliers expressing a preference for HITEC. Vendors, however, told us they were generally overwhelmed during HITEC and the preceding days and weeks, so we searched for another industry event that would fit. Hospitality Technology has offered us substantial logistical support, conference discounts for HTNG members, and the opportunity to significantly influence their conference program, so we have agreed to coordinate our meetings with them this year.

Registration information for the HTNG meeting will be sent to HTNG hotel members in the next few weeks, and will also be available on the home page of the HTNG website (). For more information on the Hotel Technology Forum, please visit or contact Tracy Tynan at +1 (973) 252-0100, ext 319, or ttynan@edgellmail.com. Discounts of 25% on HTF conference attendance (for qualified hoteliers) and for sponsorships (for technology vendors) will be offered to HTNG members.

From noon until 6:00pm on Wednesday, April 20, HTNG will hold workgroup breakout sessions. The active workgroups will present and discuss their activities and directions and may also demonstrate some preliminary capabilities. However, the workgroups are targeting HITEC in June as their primary deliverables date, so demonstrations may be limited and/or scripted rather than live. Based on survey input, we are currently planning three hours per workgroup, with each attendee able to attend sessions for two workgroups of their choice.

HTNG and Hospitality Technology will jointly sponsor a cocktail reception on 20 April, for attendees of both the HTNG and HTF conference.

On Thursday 21 April, the HTNG general meeting will be held from 7:30 to 10:00am (yes, this is very early – we would prefer to have held this meeting on Wednesday morning, but a major trade show is in town over the weekend and through the first part of the week). After our general meeting, the Hospitality Technology Forum (HTF) will begin, continuing through Friday 22 April. The HTF is open to all HTNG hotel members, and to Industry Partner members who sign on as HTF sponsors. Details will be communicated separately in coming weeks.

Most of the workgroup members we surveyed indicated that they would attend the annual meeting, so we will be suggesting to each workgroup that they hold their own face-to-face meetings immediately before or after the HTNG meetings as well.

Sponsorship opportunities: HTNG is also seeking one or two sponsors for dinner for HTNG members on April 20. The cost will be $7,500 for a half-sponsorship or $15,000 for a full sponsorship. If you are interested, please contact Douglas Rice at exec.director@htng.org.

A meeting will be held for European members, prospects and other interested parties in connection with this year's Horecava conference, which runs from 10-13 January 2005 at the RAI Congress Centre in Amsterdam. We will hold the meeting on Tuesday afternoon, 12 January, from 15:00-18:00. The location will be a hotel nearby to RAI (we are not yet certain which one). The meeting will be led by Douglas Rice, Executive Director, and will include participation by active HTNG members.

With close to 25 members based in Europe, we want to take the opportunity to discuss how best to involve European hoteliers and technology vendors and to bring HTNG solution sets into the mainstream of European hotel technology. We also want to take some time to identify technology needs of European hotels that could benefit from HTNG focus.

If you would like to attend this meeting, or if you want to be on the mailing list for more information as the details come together, please send an e-mail to rsvp@htng.org, with the subject line "Amsterdam Meeting."

All nine of HTNG's current directors (for a list, see ) were elected to terms that expire on 31 March 2005. Ten new directors will be elected to replace them. The board members elect their own successors and are eligible to run for re-election, although not all intend to do so. One-half the newly elected board members will be elected to one-year terms, and one-half to two-year terms.

We will be communicating the nomination and election process in detail to all eligible members within the next week. Nominations will close on 12 January 2005, and the new directors will be elected at a board meeting to be held on 29 January 2005.

For full information on any HTNG workgroup, HTNG members can visit the collaboration website.

Property/Distribution Solution: The Use Case subcommittee is currently focusing on a common implementation approach to several message sets from the OpenTravel Alliance specifications, including booking transactions (new, modify, cancel) and bulk availability update messages from revenue management systems. The full workgroup will review the proposed approach in a teleconference on 17 December. The subcommittee's recommendations will be posted on the collaboration site on or around 13 December.

The key short-term objective of this workgroup is to achieve a common approach to implementing several key OTA messages, with demonstrated interoperability across multiple vendors in each category. It was noted that while OTA provides a common data language for distribution-related interfaces, it does not require that trading partners agree on what functionality should be supported, or (in many cases) what business logic needs to be performed to produce a useful transaction. This workgroup will seek to achieve a "baseline" level of functionality that all participating vendors can support on an OTA-compliant, plug-and-play basis, for demonstration at HITEC 2005.

In-Room Technology: This new workgroup met for the first time on 30 November and 1 December, hosted by Marriott International at their new Information Resources building in Gaithersburg, Maryland. Detailed meeting notes are posted on the private collaboration web site, and a press release with more details was issued on 12 December.

Property Web Services Solution: This workgroup held its second face-to-face meeting of the fall on 17 November in New York City and voted to admit all seven hotel companies that applied to join the workgroup. These were:

Yvette Vincent of Delaware North Companies was elected to chair the workgroup, and Peer Groothoff from The Ginn Company was elected as vice chair.

The workgroup formed two teams to address basic "plumbing" issues in the short term, while the hotel members were charged with identifying additional web services that they needed.

The first infrastructure team is focusing on Protocol & Message Architecture topics, such as message routing, XSD validation, acknowledgement and verification of execution and errors, handshaking, credentials and authentication, security, error handling, and versioning and message capabilities query handling. The Best Western representative will liaise with the OpenTravel Alliance to identify and help resolve any areas of overlap in these specifications.

The second infrastructure team has a short-term task to determine how messages should be defined and documented. This will include developing a template; defining use cases, variations, and clarifications; rules for message construction; schemas for business rules and extensions; and statements by vendors regarding message compliance (which might be linked to a compliance or certification process).

The HTNG board has established the dues schedule for 2005, applicable to both new memberships and to renewals. The 2004 rates will be honored for membership applications submitted through 31 December 2004 and paid within 30 days of application. All new memberships are valid for 12 months from date of payment.

HTNG members who applied for membership on or before 30 June 2004 and who funded their memberships within 30 days were designated as Charter Members. The principal benefit of Charter Membership, established on a temporary basis, was higher priority in each participation category for workgroup selection. Some Charter Members were able to gain positions on key workgroups, such as the In-Room Technology Workgroup, as a result of this priority.

The HTNG board has decided to extend this benefit indefinitely, but also to make Charter Memberships available for purchase by non-Charter Members. Effective in 2005, non-Charter Members may upgrade their memberships to Charter Member for a one-time fee of $7,500. If you upgrade your membership, you will enjoy Charter Membership priority for future workgroups for as long as it is offered (which will be at least five years), and you will enjoy any other benefits that may be offered to Charter Members from time to time. Workgroup priority will take effect for workgroups that are announced to HTNG members after you have purchased the upgrade.

All HTNG members whose dues are current should now have access to the collaboration website, hosted by The Open Group, at www.opengroup.org/htng. If you have any access problems, please let me know. Full corporate members can request additional logins for individuals in their employ by sending an e-mail to membership@htng.org.

Please note that you cannot navigate to the HTNG site from the main page of The Open Group's site, nor can you log in from that page. You must use the full URL indicated above and use the login link on that page.

About HTNG Workgroups - HTNG workgroups provide a forum for a small but representative group of customers to work with a cross-disciplinary set of vendors to solve problems. Highly focused and structured, the workgroups are charged with identifying and building specific solutions that will deliver value to hotels, that no one vendor can deliver on their own, and that can be accomplished in about six months. Because customers drive the requirements, vendors have a ready market for the things they build, and customers no longer have to buy multiple systems piecemeal and integrate them themselves.

The workgroup size is limited to keep it manageable, focused, and productive. However, HTNG provides the opportunity for all dues-paying members to view the work product of each workgroup as it is developed, to provide structured feedback, and to implement solutions in parallel with workgroup participants. HTNG also supports solution-set demonstrations, such as at HITEC 2004, that can include products from any HTNG member that adopts its specifications – whether a workgroup participant or not.

HTNG specifications are released to the public domain when the workgroup that produces them disbands, usually after no more than eighteen months. HTNG members, both hotels and technology vendors, can propose and sponsor new workgroups, and can apply to participate in workgroups sponsored by other members.

About Hotel Technology Next Generation - The premier technology solutions association in the hospitality industry, HTNG is a self-funded, non-profit organization with members from hotel and hospitality companies, technology vendors to hospitality, and other industry members including consultants, media, and academic experts. HTNG’s members participate in focused workgroups to bring open solution-sets addressing specific business problems to the hospitality market.

Membership in HTNG is open to hotel and hospitality companies, technology vendors to hospitality, consultants, academics, press and others. Currently nearly 140 companies and individuals from across this spectrum are active HTNG members. Workgroup proceedings, drafts, and specifications are published for all HTNG members as soon as they are created, encouraging rapid and broad adoption. Specifications are released to the public domain when the workgroup has completed its work, typically after no more than 18 months. For more information, visit .

Contact
Katie Mazzuca
Senior Director of Marketing and Events
United States - Schaumburg, Phone: +1 312 690-5034
Fax: +1 703 814 8555
Email: katie.mazzuca@htng.org

Organization
Hospitality Technology Next Generation (HTNG) - AHLA
www.ahla.com/htng
1250 Eye Street N.W., Suite 1100
USA - Washington, DC 20005
Phone: 1 202 289 3100
Email: ewilson@ahla.com