Interoperability: From Vision to Reality

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Interoperability From Vision to Reality

• Presented to
• HOSTEC Asia Conference
• Singapore 26 April 2006
• Douglas Rice - HTNG Executive Director
• Fraser Hickox Peninsula Group
• Tom Pullen Guest-Tek
• Ragnar Strerath TRUST International

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Key Topics

• Hotels need technology that works together
• Interoperability has been largely a dream until
  recently
• But HTNG is making it a reality
• HTNG collaboration model is unique in the
  industry
• Major vendors from all areas of hotel technology
  have embraced the process
• Major hotel companies are now seeing HTNG as a
  valid, forward-looking force
• HTNG working groups produce real interoperability
  quickly
• Moves the focus from patching todays problems to
  solving tomorrows
• What makes this process work?
• What can you expect in 2006 and beyond?

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HTNGs Mission

• HTNG seeks to facilitate the creation of
  hospitality solution set(s) that
• Are product-rich customer-centric
• Comprise best-of-breed technologies from existing
  vendors
• Develop and leverage an Internet message-centric
  architecture
• Meet the needs of hospitality companies of all
  sizes and in all geographic regions
• Reduce technology management costs
• Anticipate multiple sourcing models

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HTNGs Mission

• Our mission is NOT
• To be a standards body
• To be a think tank or produce paper
• But HTNG does
• Focus on building technologies to address real
  business needs, that are not available today
• Publish working papers and specs that are
  developed to implement solution sets
• Release specifications to the public domain when
  fully complete
• Certify compliance with design specs and
  end-to-end interoperability
• Take a pragmatic approach to working with
  existing standards and standards bodies, where
  they exist

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How Does HTNG Work?

• Not-for-profit membership organization governed
  by a Board of Hotel CIO/CTOs
• Nick Price, CTO, Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group
  (President)
• Barry Shuler, SVP/CTO, Marriott International
  (Vice President)
• Jane Durment, CIO, Marcus Corporation
  (Sec./Treas.)
• Bob Bansfield, AVP-IT, Hyatt Hotels
• Jack Braman, CIO, Las Vegas Sands Corp.
• Joe Durocher, SVP/CIO, Outrigger Hotels Resorts
• Luke Mellors, CIO, The Dorchester Group
• Gustaaf Schrils, VP/IS, InterContinental Hotels
  Group
• Bryan Steele, former Director of Technology,
  Thistle Hotels
• Wibecke Vinke, SVP CIO, Kempinski Hotels

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How Does HTNG Work?

• Hotels and vendors form small workgroups to
  address specific business problems
• Proven techniques from The Open Group
  (www.opengroup.org)
• Workgroups have broad latitude, but are governed
  by board-approved charters
• Vendors get substantial customer agreement on
  requirements and priorities
• Objectives must be to deliver Solution Sets
  technology that works!
• Short time-frames keep focus, intensity, and
  momentum
• Working papers published to all members, adoption
  embraced
• Workgroup specifications become public when
  workgroup disbands

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Why HTNG?

• Hotels buy dozens of different technologies
• Only a few are designed for hotels
• Most are adopted from other industries
• Many vendors do not focus on hotels as a distinct
  market
• Many buying decisions are made by individual
  hotels, often with limited technical knowledge
• The industry lacks a common voice to define its
  product and integration needs

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Most Vendors Do Not Focus on Hotels
Telephony
Distribution
AirCarCruise
OfficeConsumer
Point of Sale
Entertainment
BuildingControls
Consumer Electronics
FoodserviceRetail
OfficeIndustrialHousing
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Vendors Focus on Different Sets of Standards
Telephony
Distribution
ITU-T (CCITT)
OTA
Hotel Operations
Point of Sale
Entertainment
BuildingControls
CEAIEEE
OPOS
oBIXBACnetLonWorks
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What Has HTNG Accomplished?

• The first workgroup delivered solutions that did
  not previously exist
• Working web services to exchange customer
  information across both complementary and
  competing vendors
• Demonstrations of event-triggered response across
  multiple systems
• New, extensible, customer-centric capabilities
  for hotel operations
• Scalable, manageable infrastructure
• Multiple implementations for multiple real
  customers
• Unprecedented cooperation among competing
  vendors!

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What Has HTNG Accomplished?

• Additional workgroups chartered in late 2004
• In-Room Technology Workgroup
• Primary research on future guest technology needs
• White paper roadmaps for implementing converged
  network designs in hotels wired, wireless
• All-in-one Set-top Box and Mobile Docking Device
  design
• Design for inexpensive next-generation PBX
• Property Distribution Solutions
• Common implementation of OTA specification across
  multiple CRS, PMS, and revenue management system
  vendors
• Initial interoperability demonstrations at HITEC
  2005
• Finalizing v1.0 specs for certification in spring
  2006

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What Has HTNG Accomplished?

• Did it work?
• Customers asking vendors When can we buy what
  you showed us?
• Vendors asking when will specs be ready to be
  certified?
• Nearly 100 industry-leading companies involved in
  5 active workgroups
• Major hotel companies investing heavily in HTNG
  workgroup efforts
• Membership growth has exceeded all expectations

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Whats Going On Today

• New Workgroups Launched in Late 2005/Early 2006
• Architecture
• Distribution Content Management
• Future workgroups under development
• Payment systems
• Group handling
• Remote operation and management
• Gaming systems (Gaming Special Interest Group)

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Membership Benefits

• A meeting place to learn about new technologies
• Many individual hotels say that HTNGs white
  papers alone were well worth the membership fee
• Conferences designed to provide material you will
  NOT find elsewhere
• Thought Leadership Program will be unlike any
  other industry forum
• A forum for hotels
• To get vendors to work together to solve common
  frustrations
• An opportunity for vendors
• To extend the capabilities of their products
  beyond their areas of core competence
• Certification program
• Confidence for technology buyers
• Competitive advantage for compliant vendors

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Hostec Conference 2006

• HTNG
• Property Distribution
• Solution Workgroup
• Ragnar Strerath
• Cendant TDS TRUST.WIZCOM. Division

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Workgroup Objective

• Achieve a high degree of interoperability between
  systems involved in the presentation/control of
  rates and availability into the distribution
  channels
• Develop standards based on OTA 2004B
  specifications
• In developing solutions, create an HTNG Usage
  Profile for the respective message types

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Used OTA Message Types

• Specification of the following message types are
  required
• OTA_HotelAvailNotifRQ/RS
• OTA_ReadRQ
• OTA_ResRetrieveRS
• OTA_HotelResRQ/RS
• OTA_HotelAvailRQ/RS
• OTA_HotelResModifyRQ/RS
• OTA_HotelResModifyNotifRQ/RS
• OTA_HotelResNotifRQ/RS
• OTA_HotelStatsNotifRQ/RS

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Participating Hotels

• CTF Hotels Resorts
• Fairmont Hotels Resorts
• Four Seasons Hotels Resorts
• Global Hyatt Corp.
• Hilton International
• Marriott International
• Outrigger OHANA Hotels Resorts

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Participating Vendors

• CRS
• Cendant Travel Distribution Systems
• Computer Sciences Corp.
• Hotel Booking Solutions, Inc.
• MICROS Systems, Inc.
• Pegasus Solutions
• TravelCLICK
• PMS
• Agilysys
• Amadeus Hospitality
• Hotel Information Systems
• MICROS Systems, Inc.
• MSI Solutions
• PAR Springer-Miller Systems

• RMS
• IDeaS
• Maxim Revenue Management Solutions
• Other
• Cognizant Technology Solutions
• IBM Corporation
• Nirvana Technologies
• OpenTravel(tm) Alliance
• Serenata Intraware
• Wipro Technologies

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Workgroup Approach

• Transport
• HTNG Headers
• Content
• Start OTA Specifications
• Over 6 years of continuous feedback on data
  needed from participating implementers
• Many choices on what can be sent and where
• Define Usage Profile Subset
• Minimum common set required for interoperability
• Certification

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Benefits to Vendors

• The ability of HTNG participating vendors to
  control availability and to accept reservations
  via multiple distribution channels and to be
  confident that the reservation information is
  being passed/interoperated between the PMS, CRS,
  GDS, ADS, and RMS and that rates and availability
  is being controlled in a consistent manner
  between all channels.
• Without the need of maintaining multiple versions
  of generic interfaces
• With having the confidence that a standard is a
  standard -being sure that once an interface is
  HTNG certified that this functionality can be
  used together with all HTNG participants

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Benefits to Hoteliers

• Hotels to select their vendors based on their
  business needs and be confident that HTNG
  participating vendors can interoperate without
  any additional development effort.
• Upgrades from HTNG participating vendors will not
  cause a lengthy recertification process allowing
  Hotels to take advantage of new releases more
  quickly.
• At least to benefit from lower interface
  development costs on the vendor side

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Benefits general

• Create working solution that is reused
• Expect to keep adding enhancements
• Reduce discovery phase of integrations
• Common terminology
• Common set of requirements
• Reduce overall integration time cycle
• Less surprises during testing

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Hostec Conference 2006

• HTNG
• Content Management Workgroup

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Workgroup Objective

• As distribution channels have evolved from simple
  text-based systems into multiple forms of rich
  media, often in multiple languages, the challenge
  of keeping channels updated with current
  information has grown exponentially.
• This workgroup will build on several of the
  commercial content management tools already
  available in the market, and will seek to create
  an open framework that will allow hotels to
  manage even the most complex content seamlessly.

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Participating Hotels

• Hilton
• Hyatt
• Marriott
• Mövenpick
• Starwood

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Participating Vendors Association Partners

• Amadeus
• Cendant TDS
• KoolConnect Technologies
• Lanyon
• Leonardo
• MICROS Systems
• Northstar Travel Media
• Pegasus Solutions
• Quadriga Worldwide
• Sabre Holdings
• VFM Interactive
• Vignette
• Hotel Electronic Distribution Network Association
• OpenTravel Alliance

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End

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