Four HITEC 2018 Talks You Don’t Want to Miss

If you haven't been to HITEC yet, you are missing out on the biggest hospitality industry technology exposition and conference of the year. 2018's HITEC kicks off on June 18th in Houston, where C-level hospitality executives and the top technology industry experts will gather for four days of in-depth demonstrations and networking.

ALICE, the hospitality industry's leading operations platform, will showcase its complete suite of hotel management and guest engagement products, June 18-22, at Booth 2319. Schedule an appointment with the ALICE team here.

The 2018 conference speaker line-up is full of great options for hoteliers and technology professionals, but with so many talks, on such a wide variety of important hotel topics, it can be hard to know where to go at any given moment during the conference. For anyone that needs help with choosing the right talks, panels, and workshops, we picked some of our favorites:

Opening Keynote: Reinventing Leadership for the Age of Machine Intelligence

Monday, June 18th
4:30 - 5:45 PM
Level 3, General Assembly B
Keynote Speaker: Mike Walsh

In HITEC's opening keynote, Mike Walsh will walk through the impact of automation, algorithms, and AI on the industry and how leaders can leverage these technologies to improve their hotel performance.

These accelerating technologies raise interesting challenges and questions for hoteliers such as to what extent will automation change the way they run their hotels and manage guest expectations. Fresh off Google's Duplex innovation, which shows a store-owner unwittingly having a conversation with a robot trying to book a hair appointment, we're on edge when it comes to the role of AI in our lives. Mike Walsh will deliver a fascinating presentation about the degree to which machine intelligence will change our lives as well as the business of hospitality.

Concurrent Session: Guest Facing Technology

Tuesday, June 19th
4:00 - 5:00PM
Level 3, Meeting Room 351-D
Moderator: Ted Horner - Owner of E. Horner & Associates Pty Ltd., member of the HITEC Houston Advisory Council and an inductee to the HFTP International Hospitality Technology Hall of Fame.
Panelist: Andrew Arthurs, SVP and CIO for Two Roads Hospitality and Thomas Fangar, VP of Multimedia for MGM Resorts International

Learn how innovation is being embraced by consumers is putting new pressures on hoteliers to deliver cutting-edge guest room experiences.

We're personally interested to see how much the idea of "future-proofing" guest rooms is discussed in this talk. The pace of technology innovation is rapid and sometimes the shiny new thing can become outdated in a flash (think charging ports for the only-five-year-old iPhone 5). At ALICE, we believe strongly that the burden to "choose the right technology" is lifted when you first focus on establishing a technology for your hotel that is open and integrated and future-proofed through APIs. ALICE's Open API, for example, allows for integrations with innovative guest-facing technology like Percipia, Zaplox, Volara, and Alta, to provide our hotel partners comprehensive solutions to transfer guest information seamlessly to staff and vice versa, regardless of the hardware of the moment. We look forward to hearing what these industry leaders have to say.

Concurrent Session: Independent Hotel in a Big Box World

Tuesday, June 19th
4:00 - 5:00 PM
Level 3, Meeting Room 360-A

Discover strategies for independent or boutique hotels to compete against bigger hotel brands that have larger staff and budgets.

Boutique and independent hotels offer guests a unique way to immerse themselves into a local community while providing unique amenities for a memorable stay. This hotel segment is quickly growing in popularity, giving hoteliers the opportunity to set themselves apart in myriad ways, including through the experiences they offer (via a stellar concierge program) and exceptional service (aided, we like to think, through technology).

Concurrent Session: Monolithic vs. Best In Class

Thursday, June 21
9:00- 10:00 AM
Level 3, Meeting Room 351-D
Speakers: Dmitry Koltunov, CTO and Co-Founder of ALICE and Jim Fedigan, Group CEO for Jonas Club and Hospitality Divisions at Jonas Software, A Constellation Software Operating Group

This discussion will dive deep into the ongoing debate between hotels using best-in-class solutions versus monolithic suites.

The talk will present a vivid portrait of the ideas put forward in the recently-published "Hospitality Communication Platform" white paper from HTNG (co-authored by ALICE's CTO Dmitry Koltunov) and how hotels can leverage the new cloud communication framework to optimize cost, time, and exceed guest expectations.

If you're looking for technology to improve your hotel's performance during HITEC, stop by Booth 2319 to meet the ALICE team and see a live presentation of our technology. Hoteliers interested can book a meeting in advance, for a personalized demo of ALICE. Not planning on heading to HITEC this year but want to learn more about ALICE's suite of products? Visit https://info.aliceapp.com/ to request a demo.

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