What are the reasons why hotels use information technology?

According to statistics, there are currently more than 11,000 standardized hotels in China, of which 80% are three-star or above. With the rapid growth of domestic and foreign tourism and business activities, especially the arrival of the 2008 Olympic Games in China, Chinese hotels have ushered in a great opportunity for vigorous development. However, this opportunity can be said to be enjoyed by hotels above three stars, while ordinary hotels are on the verge of elimination.

So, what’s the reason? How can small and medium-sized hotels get out of the quagmire and usher in rapid development?

Xu Zhenxi, head of Tongfang Digital City Software Technology, believes that what small and medium-sized hotels need to do now is to implement information-based hotel management as soon as possible.

In fact, "intelligent hotel management" has become an effective way for hotels to improve their management level, provide personalized accommodation services, and ultimately achieve "increase revenue and reduce expenditure". However, small and medium-sized hotels below three stars have basically not been involved yet.

On the one hand, the construction cost of traditional hotel information systems is high, making it unacceptable for low-star hotels. Generally speaking, a hotel must have a dedicated computer room to install an information system. The computer room must be staffed by at least two people. Based on the salary of a three-star hotel, the annual cost is less than 50,000 yuan. Buy expensive servers. The computer equipment purchased with huge sums of money has to be eliminated and repurchased in less than four years. The hotel is stuck in the quagmire of software and hardware updates year after year. Most small hotels do not have dedicated computer rooms and information managers, and their investment in this area is very limited. The price they can afford to purchase software is generally within 10,000 yuan.

On the other hand, the reason is that information technology manufacturers are not yet optimistic about the small and medium-sized hotel market, so they have not invested manpower and material resources to develop information management software that meets the needs of this market. At present, the vast majority of domestic hotel management systems adopt a C/S structure and are used by independent hotels with three stars or above. They are not developed to meet the needs of economic chain hotels and small and medium-sized hotels. The main reasons why the C/S structure is currently used are:

1. Due to the underdevelopment of the Internet in the past, the C/S structure is the system architecture that has always been used in hotel systems, and it is relatively easy to re-develop on this basis;

2. The C/S structure can control no network connection to the external network to avoid data leakage and facilitate management and control by the hotel’s internal managers.

3. Development of the B/S structure There is insufficient technical preparation. The core technologies of many hotel management software development companies are mostly in the hands of a few old employees. They are rarely familiar with B/S architecture software development and it is difficult to develop a B/S version in a short time;

4. The product is positioned at hotels with three stars or above. In hotel systems with three stars or above, C/S systems are still the mainstream demand, and the market demand for systems with B/S architecture is not very urgent.

Reporter: So, do you think that B/S architecture hotel software has low cost and is suitable for the informatization needs of small and medium-sized hotels; while C/S architecture has high cost and is suitable for star-rated hotels, right? Can you tell us the specific reasons?

Tongfang: You understand it right. B/S architecture hotel software is low-cost and suitable for the informatization needs of small and medium-sized hotels. As for the reason, first of all, we need to give a general introduction to the difference between B/S architecture and C/S architecture.

C/S structure, that is, Client/Server (client/server) structure, is a well-known software system architecture. Although it adopts an open mode, it is only the openness at the system development level. , in specific applications, both the client and the server require specific software, which fails to provide the open environment that users really expect; the B/S structure, that is, the Browser/Server (browser/server) structure, is The rise of Internet technology is a change or improved structure to the C/S structure. Its front-end is based on the TCP/IP protocol. The WWW server in the enterprise can accept access from Internet terminals installed with Web browser programs. As end users, as long as they use the Web browser, various processing tasks can call system resources. To complete, this greatly simplifies the client, reduces the cost and workload of system maintenance and upgrades, and reduces the user's total cost of ownership (TCO).

Reporter: Does Tongfang have any preparations in the field of informatization for small and medium-sized hotels?

Tongfang: With years of industry accumulation, Tongfang has mastered the needs of small and medium-sized hotel users and the development direction of the industry. After more than a year of closed development, Tongfang launched an industry-leading new generation hotel management system: based on B /S architecture hotel software.

Based on the development of today's SaaS, Tongfang breaks through the traditional development and sales of hotels and turns software sales into providing information services for hotels instead of selling products to hotels. Tongfang will build a data center, with each hotel using an independent space. Users will no longer have to spend on endless software upgrades, nor will they need to pay large salaries for expensive computer maintenance personnel. Tongfang's professional technical team ensures that the hotel software is continuously upgraded and professionally controls the confidentiality of hotel business data. At the same time, users can learn new management experiences from each other, exchange management ideas with each other, continuously improve their management and service levels, and join the ranks of fast-growing hotels.