Written by: Jatin Khemlani

This was my first expertise at HITEC as a scholar volunteer and what an incredible week I had in Orlando. 2022 marked the fiftieth 12 months anniversary of HITEC, an occasion the place companions within the finance and expertise sectors of the hospitality trade come collectively to showcase how they assist the trade and produce the visitor expertise to the following stage when touring, staying at a resort and even simply putting an order at a restaurant.

As a scholar volunteer and hospitality main, I acquired to expertise much more than what I had anticipated. Throughout this week, we had been assigned to completely different duties and tasks across the conference middle, from registration to training classes to exhibitor tutorials carried out by completely different distributors. This chance helped many people acquire expertise on the service facet of the trade by permitting us to work together with, serve and help in getting their credentials and answering a few of their queries.

Concerning the Schooling

On the primary day of the conference, I attended a few training classes. The primary was“The Crypto NFT Resort: A 101 Strategy to What It Is and How It Applies to Hospitality,” as I used to be intrigued on how crypto would have an effect on the hospitality trade. Through the session, an attendee posed a query to the panel on whether or not there can be expertise or a service sooner or later to assist hospitality corporations settle for crypto/NFT funds and convert these currencies right into a greenback quantity in actual time, contemplating the volatility of the worth of crypto/NFT foreign money. It’s only a matter of time when such a service will probably be out there for the hospitality trade, however the actual query is how resorts and the trade will adapt to just accept such a service.

One other session I attended was“Information Science for Smarties: Information is Key, and You Are Behind…Time to Catch Up”led by Rik van Leeuwen from The Netherlands. The surroundings we stay in now could be principally powered by expertise, and knowledge is all the things. Firms use all types of knowledge for making choices to not solely transfer the corporate ahead but in addition transfer the trade ahead as an entire. Resort operators, restaurant managers and airways are extra centered on operations and repair than knowledge assortment and evaluation. Leeuwen shared on how vital it’s to gather this knowledge and dissect it for corporations to know what is going on inside their enterprise. He even talked about hiring employees to do such work or a third-party vendor to carry out such providers, as value is usually a consider producing such data-focused experiences . Moreover value, the validity and accuracy of knowledge is vital: would corporations need to take the chance of hiring employees internally or outsource this service to consultants who’ve the expertise and the right instruments and expertise to transform the info safely, precisely and effectively?

Attending each classes actually opened my eyes to how expertise has impacted the trade from a monetary perspective and has helped administration change the way in which they handle their operations of resorts, eating places and airways.

Concerning the Exhibition

Moreover attending the training classes, the HITEC Exhibit Corridor was stuffed with many nice corporations showingcasing their services and products. I’ve by no means seen this many corporations offering a variety of services and products to the hospitality trade. There have been some acquainted corporations which I knew and plenty of new corporations which I acquired to study their providers. By no means did I think about seeing this many corporations offering knowledge safety, knowledge administration, property administration system (PMS), world distribution system (GDS) and visitor expertise options. Strolling across the displays and seeing the software program, expertise and merchandise provided to the trade was unimaginable. It was additionally nice to learn the way massive corporations corresponding to LG and Samsung are dedicated to working with trade companions to create new expertise and person interfaces (UI) that might improve the visitor expertise and assist corporations present a greater model expertise for his or her visitors and prospects . Firms like Venza and SkyPoint Cloud work tirelessly within the background to supply knowledge safety administration providers and buyer knowledge options to hospitality operators and don’t get the popularity and publicity they deserve from visitors and prospects.

HITEC isn’t solely a conference however a spot for the trade to community — and as a scholar, it is a excellent alternative for us to study extra in regards to the trade from veterans and take the chance to listen to about their experiences. There have been many after-event features all through the week that the scholars had been invited to attend, community and study extra. A particular due to the numerous corporations who invited us to their after-convention occasions. These features allowed college students to community and converse to many professionals in a extra relaxed ambiance with out the concern and pressure of being overly skilled.

Total, I had an incredible week attending HITEC 2022. I used to be in a position to expertise engaged on the entrance line, interacting with and serving to in any manner I may from registration to directing them to completely different academic seminars. I realized in regards to the completely different corporations concerned in hospitality and the services and products they’ve to supply, particularly the brand new expertise and software program being developed with AI and crypto.

I wish to take this chance to thank my professors at San Jose State College and HFTP for giving me and the opposite scholar volunteers the chance to attend and volunteer at this conference. A particular due to HFTP Director of Membership Brittany Brewster for being an incredible level of contact throughout the conference. I look ahead to working with HFTP sooner or later, attending HITEC 2023 in Toronto and its future occasions past 2023!

Jatin Khemlani is a hospitality scholar at San Jose State College and scholar volunteer at HITEC Orlando 2022. He’ll graduate Fall 2023 with a level in hospitality tourism and occasions administration.