Collaboration Key to Better Tech

The core concept of HTNG is to gather the industry’s best minds to devise the strongest possible solution to a shared technology challenge. Current trends such as industry consolidation, digital transformation and heightened security risks make that mission critical, driving HTNG leadership to align with other industry groups. In 2017, HTNG will embark on several initiatives to develop a more collaborative and informed group of CMOs, CDOs, CIOs and hoteliers.

“The overall theme of collaboration was front and center in 2016, and in 2017 we are taking it a step further and acting on it,” says Mike Blake, HTNG CEO.  Following are four areas where HTNG plans to continue efforts to align its focus and foster cooperation.
 
Events

• The launch of the inaugural HT-NEXT, April 10-13 in Orlando, is the result of combining HTNG’s North American Conference and Hospitality Technology’s Hotel Technology Forum (HTF) into one even stronger event.

• Co-locating HTNG’s Insight Summit Europe in Amsterdam on March 27-28 with HFTP’s HITEC Amsterdam, held March 28-30.

 
Workgroups

• The Next Generation Distribution Messaging Workgroup will evaluate existing industry standards from several organizations and determine which to align with in order to benefit travelers, the hotel industry and the travel ecosystem. It will also review existing and emerging methods of communication between systems, which will be incorporated into any recommendations. The ultimate goal is to streamline messaging between applications and eliminate redundancies and conflicts between travel industry standards. This will allow better integration between different components of the travel experience, such as air, hotel, rail and car. It will also enable hotels to fully market, sell and deliver the entire guest experience through channels other than the hotel’s own website. The Workgroup will consider the Open Travel Alliance’s 2.0 release, the International Air Transport Association’s New Distribution Capability (NDC) as well as other standards.

• The Open Application Program Interface (Open API) Workgroup will concentrate on modernizing the industry’s approach to open APIs, decreasing complexity, shortening development lead times and enabling hoteliers to tap a larger pool of vendors not currently accessible due to integration barriers. They will define an infrastructure standard for sharing an open source set of libraries that incorporate common and advanced interoperability functions, which developers can use to quickly write and test integration with another vendor’s product, such as between a PMS and POS system.

 
Education

• HTNG Workgroup projects will come to life in an Innovation Center opening this spring at the University of Central Florida, in conjunction with the Rosen College of Hospitality Management and HFTP (Hospitality Financial and Technology Professionals).

• HTNG is also sharing its thought leadership to build up the hospitality academic programs at Kendall College, Penn State and West Virginia University.

 
Industry-wide

• HTNG is sharing standards and guidelines with the China Hospitality Technology Alliance.

• HTNG’s joint membership agreement with HOSPA (Hospitality Finance, Revenue Management and IT Professionals Association) enables HTNG members to take advantage of a wealth of new resources.

HTNG was chartered in 2002 to foster industry collaboration and partnership. In its fifteenth year, that mission still resonates. HTNG leadership will continue seeking new ways  the association can increase collaboration outside the organization to achieve its goals at a higher level. Meanwhile, the grassroots, member-to-member collaboration that occurs every day remains the core foundation.

“Collectively, we can solve problems, work faster, and get better results than anyone can on their own,” says Blake.