With the globalization of the global economy, the hotel industry has become more diversified and diversified, with a broader and multi-channel market. At the same time, the hotel industry is facing an increasingly fierce competitive environment and rising customer expectations, forcing people in the industry to further seek new ways to expand hotel sales, improve service quality, reduce management costs and improve customer satisfaction, so as to enhance the core competitiveness of hotels. One of the most effective means is to apply advanced information technology on a large scale to change the traditional competition mode and management mode of the hotel industry in order to win new competitive advantages. In this regard, the leading international hotel industry has been sparing no effort to explore, implement and promote. According to the investigation report of American Association of Hotel and Tourism Financial and Technical Professionals (HFTP), advanced information technology has become an important tool for hotels and tourism to gain new competitive advantages in the future. How to directly learn from and apply international advanced information technology to improve their own management and avoid falling into traps and detours has increasingly become the focus of attention of people of insight in the domestic hotel industry.
The emergence and development of advanced information application in international hotel industry has roughly experienced the following five stages.
1. Computerization stage: Hotels and guesthouses, as consumer places integrating services and facilities such as guest rooms, catering, communication, entertainment, business culture, etc., have huge organizations, many services and a large amount of information. In order to improve work efficiency, reduce costs and improve service quality and management level, it is necessary to use computers to computerize the input of people flow, logistics, capital flow and information flow during hotel operation. For this reason, the purpose of early application of information technology in foreign hotel industry is to replace manual operation and introduce computer computing system, so that employees can use the system to handle simple, trivial and repetitive work, such as financial management, cashier, general ledger, cashier management, bank reconciliation and so on. Room management, can be used to query available rooms, statistical room reports, etc. , including hotel computer management system can perform various functions, such as check-in, cashier, inquiry, checkout, report generation, etc. These applications have played a certain role in realizing local scientific management, improving work efficiency and improving service quality. However, at present, the application of information technology has not changed the internal management process of the traditional hotel industry deeply, but only stayed on the surface instead of manual operation or computer simulation of the existing process, which is far from meeting the requirements of completely changing the competition mode and management mode, which is similar to the implementation and application status of many hotels in China at present.
2. Automation stage: With the application of computer in intelligent building control automation and hotel facilities management monitoring, the automation of hotel equipment operation management is gradually moving towards advanced information applications, such as HVAC system monitoring; Water supply and drainage system monitoring; Power supply and lighting system monitoring; Fire alarm and fire control, elevator operation control; Access control and access control system, etc. , has developed into an intelligent automatic control system composed of central management station, various DDC controllers, various sensors and actuators, which can complete various control and management functions. At the same time, another application direction of hotel informatization at this stage is hotel office automation. Through the office automation (OA) system covering the main business departments of hotel management, document information can be transmitted and managed conveniently, quickly and accurately.
3. Networking stage: With the impact of information technology characterized by the Internet and digital economy, networking construction has also become an important part of the whole information construction and application of the hotel industry, so the "network hotel" with broadband high-speed data network as the core has also emerged. The meaning of "digital hotel" is not only that the hotel has broadband access line, which is convenient for guests to surf the Internet at high speed in the hotel, but also includes the following contents: creating a company website online for customers to browse, carrying out interactive data query and customer self-service, with functions such as market sales, publicity and promotion, reservation management, etc. Run the hotel management MIS system that breaks through the function of business computerization; The prototype of mobile office system based on Internet and convenient for employees and social-oriented e-commerce system. At this stage, the application focuses on online marketing and online booking business. As the saying goes, "Opening the Internet will bring unlimited business opportunities". Hotels promote corporate image and services through the Internet, and let guests know about hotel facilities through online booking, and choose the services needed for remote booking. Hotels and customers can provide customers with more personalized services through online interactive communication, which is much smarter than price war. No matter where the guests are, they can choose their favorite hotels online. All these are based on the Internet. No wonder Larry Birenbaum, deputy general manager of Internet Access Group, declared that high-speed Internet access will be the basic facilities of future hotels, and the "tomorrow" hotels will feature broadband networks.
4. Integration stage: With the in-depth application of hotel information management system, in order to fully realize the best practice of information sharing and continuous progress, hotel informatization has entered a new integrated application stage of hotel process reengineering. The world's leading application experience is realized by three parts of software and seven parts. Software functions mainly include: banquet and sales management, financial management, human resources, front desk management, catering and cost control management, engineering equipment management, purchasing and warehousing, room service, business intelligence analysis and remote database exchange. All modules are seamlessly integrated, and at the same time interface with various hotel intelligent automation systems such as door lock management system, including online electronic trading system. The implementation of "Seven Points" mainly emphasizes the application of the best industry business norms to hotel business process reengineering (BPR), and transforms the traditional organizational structure into a customer-oriented organizational structure. The purpose of hotel business process reengineering is not only to use computer system, but also to change and rationalize the hotel organizational structure accordingly, so that the information technology architecture can adapt to and coordinate the new business process and organizational management objectives of the hotel and form a new competitive advantage of the hotel in the information age. For hotel enterprises, online booking is the simplest change brought by information technology, but any modern hotel enterprise has to adapt to this change and recreate the hotel business process.
The typical scenario of hotel informatization application after business process reengineering is that the computer management system has corresponding functional modules to operate all aspects of the whole process of hotel management conveniently, quickly and standardly. Hotels publicize hotel facilities, service items, catering features, tourist attractions, shopping guides and other selling points online. Guests can choose to book hotel rooms and services online. When the customer completes the reservation, the system will generate a reservation record. When the customer arrives at the hotel, the system will automatically prompt to book the project and execute it after the customer confirms it. As long as customers go through simple procedures, they can get an electronic card to stay in the room and consume goods. In the process of staying in the hotel, customers can use electronic cards to sign bills in other departments of the hotel. All kinds of consumption items will be quickly and accurately summarized into the guest account through the system. The floor attendant can detect whether the guest is in the room according to the infrared fire safety monitoring system installed in the room without knocking on the door frequently by using the automatic intelligent technology. The automatic management of the guest room mini-bar can realize automatic bookkeeping and monitoring, and prompt the waiter to replenish it in time. When the guest checks out, the hotel manager can summarize all kinds of information of the guest through the report generated by the system, including the guest source, consumption items, consumption times, demand preference, special requirements of the guest and so on. After comprehensive processing, these data will provide accurate and timely information for managers' decision-making, and make the hotel management mode gradually change from experience management to scientific management. Good hotel integration application can ensure the hotel to standardize, simplify and accelerate its internal business processes, reduce operating costs and improve efficiency, and support accurate management and strategic decision-making through real-time information. On the contrary, if the business process management of the hotel is still operating in isolation, and there is not even an information platform for internal departments to communicate with each other, it will inevitably lead to low work efficiency, rising labor costs, corporate decision-making mistakes and slow market response. World-renowned hotel groups such as Shangri-La, Marriott, Hilton, Windham, Radisson, Bath, Starwood, Forte and Mandarin Oriental are all pioneers in integrated information application.
5. Collaborative stage: In the new era of Internet economy, the new pursuit of hotel informatization is collaborative application based on integration. Hotels build a unified information application platform through the Internet, connecting customers, hotels, employees, suppliers, partners and other parties into a whole, realizing cross-industry, cross-organization, cross-region, real-time online and seamless end-to-end data exchange business collaboration, with the focus on directly providing personalized services to customers. With the advent of the information age, the competition mode of enterprises has also undergone new environmental changes. The competitive market environment of enterprises is like a business ecosystem, which is composed of a group of enterprises that coexist and develop together. They both compete for resources and must maintain ecological balance. A new competitive relationship has emerged among competing enterprises: competition and cooperation. The relationship between competition and cooperation forces the related enterprises in the hotel industry to re-examine their position in the market and adjust their competitive strategies in order to cooperate with each other and achieve a win-win situation.
Internationally, the collaborative application of hotel information mainly combines the viewpoints of enterprise resource management planning (ERP), customer relationship management (CRM), supply chain management (SCM) and e-commerce. From the perspective of enterprise resource management plan (ERP), optimize the hotel value chain, rebuild the business process and organizational structure of the enterprise, and improve the hotel management level; From the perspective of supply chain management (SCM), realize the optimization of social resource allocation, control the procurement cost and ensure the supply quality; From the perspective of customer relationship management (CRM) and e-commerce, the focus of enterprises is gradually shifting to customers, which helps hotels to make maximum use of customer-centered resources, continuously develop existing customers and potential customers, and enhance the competitive advantage of hotels by improving customer value, customer satisfaction and customer loyalty. A typical case is the merger of UTELL, STERLLNG and SUMMIT, which has become one of the largest sales reservation centers in the world. Join hotels and enterprises to access the summit network for collaborative operation. Summit network has several characteristics: first, the level of guests is high; Secondly, it has many customers. Act as a reservation system for all major airlines, travel agencies and multinational commercial companies in the world; Third, its network is widely distributed. There are 92 member hotels and 52 reservation centers around the world; Fourth, the member hotels joining the network have a high level; Fifth, the booking channels are smooth. The summit can be booked through GDS (Global Sales System), Internet and travel websites. Sixth, have a strong sales organization guarantee. SUMMIT has full-time sales staff all over the world to promote its members.
Looking at the development track and trend of hotel informatization in foreign countries, we can easily see that with the intensification of competition in the hotel industry, the competition among hotels for tourists is becoming more and more fierce, and the profit margin of room sales is getting smaller and smaller. Hotels need to use more effective information means to expand business space, reduce operating costs and improve management and decision-making efficiency. High-level hotel informatization is no longer just the pursuit of computer-aided management, but the pursuit of collaborative application based on integration.
The hotel industry in China uses computer management system to strengthen management and improve service level. Although it has a history of more than 20 years, it began to develop late and was only superficial. Most of them are still at the level of patchwork MIS system, even limited to simple computerization and information release, which is very prominent from the advanced information application of international hotel industry. The low degree of informatization leads to the decision-making mistakes of enterprises and the slow market response, which has become an important bottleneck restricting the further development of China's hotel industry. Zhang Xianjun, vice chairman of China Informatization Promotion Alliance, once said that with the development of hotel informatization, hotels will change their previous business philosophy and competition mode, and quality competition and price competition such as in-store decoration, room number and room facilities will take second place, replaced by hotel informatization competition, which is changing the competition mode of the hotel industry. China will issue a new star standard in June+February, 5438 this year, taking the software index and service of hotel management as the main evaluation means. Relevant persons also pointed out that if China is to become a world tourism power within 20 years, the development of hotel informatization in China can't be done step by step, so it is necessary to establish a forward-looking and advanced consciousness and take a leap-forward and unconventional development path. Generally speaking, we should follow the following points in directly learning from and applying advanced and mature foreign informatization cases: First, we should update our concepts and change our attitudes, and we should not shut out foreign advanced informatization application modes because we are afraid of difficulties, nor should we blindly invest huge sums of money without clearly understanding the current situation of enterprises, which will bring the risk of change; Secondly, the application of advanced information technology can't just simulate the existing process or only partially enjoy the relevant data, ignoring that the original intention of introducing advanced information technology application is to introduce new management concepts, change the traditional management model and enhance the international competitiveness of enterprises; Thirdly, implementing three-point software and seven-point application is tantamount to creating a brand-new management model. We should pay attention to optimizing the hotel value chain, rebuilding the hotel business process and organizational structure, and solve the problems of slow information communication, slow decision-making speed and inadaptability to market changes from within the hotel. From the outside of the hotel, solve the problems such as the lack of clear and really close cooperative relationship between enterprises and the difficulty in ensuring the timeliness of interaction; Fourth, we should be good at learning, transplanting and introducing the best practices and experiences, and innovate in combination with the situation of enterprises; Fifth, we should make good use of the expert consulting team. When selecting an expert consulting team, we should not only consider the conventional factors such as the ability and experience of the implementation consultant, but also pay attention to whether it is forward-looking and forward-looking.