RFID Contactless payment in Festival and Events

             In every festival, the attendees are less and less interested by bringing with them amount of cash or using ATM’s cash machine with their credit card.

Indeed, those kinds of payments expose participants to be stolen by other ones or to lose their money in case of carelessness. 

The goal of the RFID contactless payment in Festival or outdoor events is to prevent that kind of trouble and to allow attendees to feel more secure for their money transactions. The principle is to load your RFID wristbands with your credit card from your computer at home or in some load terminals in the festivals and during the entire festival you will use your wristband to pay for everything, from food to drinks.

Mark Hatch, Director Of Operations at Central Catering Services commented: “CCS has consistently been at the front line of the elimination of cash from large scale outdoor events. This year marks a further milestone in this journey and brings the truly cashless festival ever closer”. The company that provides this service in UK is ID&C. This enterprise is an award-winning supplier of security wristbands and accreditation to the global festival and events industry.

According to the CEO: “Adopting a cashless payment environment at your festival or event can open up a world of possibilities and enhancements. Our RFID wristbands and event passes have been used for thousands of cashless transactions, giving organizers complete control over revenues, while festival-goers enjoy a convenient and highly secure method of payment”

Besides, thanks to this technology, events planners will be able to collect all the information about the consumptions of the attendees during the event and allow them to improve the quality of service. Moreover, the wristbands could be used as a tool to locate people during the festival in case of emergency. The RFID technology seems to be a good future to outdoor events and preferred to smartphones.

The Possible benefits include:

-  Real time sales reporting for complete control

- Dramatically reduced queuing and transaction times at vendors

- Cost savings from carriage, security and administration of cash

- A safer, more convenient way to transact at events.

Kateryna and Laetitia 

Sources:

Article:

-       http://www.idcband.co.uk/event-solutions/cashless-payments

-       http://www.fenbrook.com/event-ticketing/

-       http://www.eventmagazine.co.uk/Events/article/1138083/10000-people-use-contactless-payment-wristbands-isle-wight-festival/

-       http://www.rfid-blog.com/?tag=music-festival

-       http://www.eventindustrynews.co.uk/2013/01/28/idc-provide-expert-analysis-of-cashless-payment-technology/

-       http://www.eventindustrynews.co.uk/2013/06/20/isle-of-wight-festival-extends-its-range-of-technology-services-with-intelligent-venue-solutions/

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Pictures:

-       http://www.idcband.co.uk

-     https://www.google.fr/imghphl=fr&tab=wi&ei=IX0wU7HTG4SV0AXxs4GoDA&ved=0CAQQqi4oAg

Just amazing!!!

Thousands and thousands of luggages are lost every year all over the World on different airports. Did it happen to you?

You travel for business, arrive to your destination and realize that the airline has LOST YOUR LUGGAGE. You have to be at an important meeting the next day, but your suit is in your luggage. You have to go and by one, as the luggage is not going to be delivered the same day. What a headache?!?!?!?!

Several companies have developed tracking luggage tags, so that you won´t lose your luggage again. One of the successful innovations was done by CalypsoCrystal. They combined the innovative technology with the luxurious touch. Calypso developed an elegant luggage tag which on the first hand is easily remarkable as the luggage comes out on the carousel. On the second hand the tag is equipped with a smart Bluetooth 4.0 chip. The chip has a range of about 60 meters, moreover it remembers the luggage´s last location, in order to make sure you always know where is or was your luggage.

Which is even more amazing, the tag goes together with an application. So you can download the application on your smartphone and once you are connected, your phone will alert you about the location of your luggage. The application is available on iOS devices and Android devices as well.

Samsonite has developed something similar to the CalypsoChrystal product. The Samsonite Stork Travel Tag concept comes from Alan Ng. The idea is based on placing Wi-Fi and RFID-enabled (Radio Frequency Identification) chip into the luggage tag. The idea is quite similar, you can further download an application and track your bag with your smartphone, thanks to the GPS placed in your tag.

The tag has a durable peripheral case that contains two AMOLED displays with ultra-thin electronic components that are pressed between them. The recharging of the battery is solved by a micro USB port and a micro USB drive. Moreover the micro USB drive enables you to store information. The Samsonite Stork Travel Tag communicates with u via the application, which even alerts you when your luggage is close enough, and ready to be picked-up.

What a great idea! By these simple but practical innovations you can facilitates your travel and prevent yourselves from getting stressed while taking a plane or even changing a flight. No more anger, no more wasted money for buying clothes while waiting for your luggage to be delivered. You can easily get the thing under control.  

Article 1; Article 2; Article 3 

Picture 1; Picture 2 

Laura & Jessica

InnSpire

With an increasing use of technology anytime, anywhere, hotels have to adapt and propose more innovative ways for guests to experience their stay. Hotels are not only active on Internet via various social media (facebook, linkedin, twitter, pinterest), they are now being technology-active within their establishments, developing apps and all sort of gadgets. 

Martin Chevalley, CEO & Co-Founder of InnSpire, said, "Gadgets are becoming an ever-

more integrated part of our everyday life, but that doesn’t mean that everybody loves the gadgets.  What people love is what their gadgets do for them.  I think that Guest Media Streaming won this award because hoteliers realized that it hits the sweet spot for travelers, being able to easily use their gadget to wirelessly stream photos, videos or music of their choice directly to the TV in their room, without downloads or installations.  This innovation meets that need for hotels." 

Hotel Technology Next Generation (HTNG) has announced the 6^th March 2014, the 2013 winner of the most innovative hospitality technology award.

HTNG is a global non-for profit organization that coordinates and articulates the technologies related to hotel industry. It aims in fostering the innovation in order to improve the guest experience, increasing the effectiveness and efficiency of the professionals.

Hotel Technology Next Generation is a link between innovation, technical practices and the businesses.

It manages every year the most innovative hospitality technology award, during which a technology firm is elected as the most innovative of the year. Different hoteliers and consultants evaluate online or on-site, the technology firms who have developed products and services for the hospitality market. This year’s competition hosted 18 new entrants developing various technologies and systems mainly focused on guest service and entertainment.

The award opens each year a handful of possibilities for innovative firms as well as for hoteliers willing to cope with the continuous and perpetual changes of the technology landscape. 

The winner was the firm InnSpire. InnSpire is an hospitality solution which develops fully integrated technologies to improve the customer experience and the efficiency of the hotel. Indeed, it has systems for staff and resources planning with alerts when there is a peak. It also has a communication software to increase the interaction with the guests, in the case of special requirements or just for a simple room-service order. It enables hotel to follow instantly the activity of their establishments and have a overall view of their sales and for example who are their most profitable clients. 
The awarded service is their streaming solution: guests can easily and wirelessly load their own contents (movies, games, music, photos) from their devices directly to the TV in their room. This technology is possible via the Innspire box; guests just need to activate the system via the TV and connect their IPhone, IPad, Android or Windows phones without any app downloading or any setting up.

This technology respond to a willingness to be connected at all time. It allows guests to be over-connected while travelling, it is a way to facilitate the access to their own data. It also develops value for the hotel implementing the technology, creating an intelligent environment. 

Though this technology seems to be fully integrated in the hospitality industry, we can be critical and wonder if this type of technology wouldn't be a brake to the exploring and wandering implied by any kind of travel. Is the ease of digital accessibility in hotels will change the tourist behavior? 

Sources

Hotel News Resource http://www.hotelnewsresource.com/article76818.html
HTNG Organization http://www.htng.org/press-releases/572

Video and Image: http://www.innspire.com

Amandine Peton & Mélanie Lesieur 

Disney : a connected bracelet to better understand customers

The giant Disneyland has recently invested almost one billion dollar in a new innovative system allowing to better understand customers' behaviors and over time, benefit from it.

Disney remains at the latest technology and shows it in its promotional campaign with the last-born of the touristic giant : the connected bracelet opening every door ... 

Through emissions of radio waves, the connected bracelet named Magic Band will enable the firm to follow visitors' behaviors in order to better know their preferences and then, improve its services. 

This new technologic "gadget" worn at the wrist of visitors, will facilitate access and logistic in the whole parc (attractions entrance, restaurants booking, room-key) but will also serve as means of payment inside the park which will certainly increase spendings, henceforth dematerialized. 

An interactive technology which makes visitors smile but which is also considered as an important economic concern. According to Jay Rasulo, DisneyWorld financial director :"When moving is smooth, people spend more time in attractions, restaurants and shops and as a consequence, they spend more". 

This is why the firm did not hesitate when investing almost one billion dollars to test this new system. Indeed, the data collected (as time and money spent in an attraction, in a boutique etc...) represent an essential source of information available for Disney, which stocks and analyzes them in order to sell more and better. 

Such information could help the firm to enhance its customer experience by adapting its offer to the demand, especially through a better park layout. Also, it could keep users up to date about possible changes or waiting time. Furthermore, Tom Staggs -Disney Park&Resorts division manager- consider this product as a way of creating "an experience more unique and more personalized". Over time, it could even assist staff with customers' personal information (name, age, birthday...). 

For the moment, the system is at its experimentation stage in the United States but should probably be generalized over the world. This "tracking" bracelet should allow Disney to develop intensively its revenue, which amounted to 3.2$ billion in 2012.

Other touristic organizations as the Dallas Museum of Arts, could follow the trend with the aim of better understanding customers' behavior, facilitating logistics, enhancing visitors' experience and increasing their spendings.

This article relates an important concern in the tourism industry. Indeed, technology is more and more present nowadays and enables companies to enhance customers' experience but also to make profits.
However, this strong technologic trend also highlights another issue : privacy. One can ask until which degree organizations will be able to interfere in customers' life and mind...

Sources:

• http://www.lefigaro.fr/secteur/high-tech/2014/03/16/01007-20140316ARTFIG00069-des-bracelets-connectes-pour-scruter-les-visiteurs-des-parcs-disney.php
• Picture: http://www.radiovl.fr/mickey-se-met-nouvelle-technologie/ 

Google Glass: The new vision of the event !

Today, event planners are always looking for new technologies to improve their events and the interaction between exhibitors and attendees. They are already using apps, tablets, smartphones, and video projection. However, if we turn to the future, many new IT innovations are likely to emerge.

A new technology innovation is currently tested by Glass Explorers program adherents and could be a real opportunity of improvement for events: The Google Glass.

These special glasses are equipped of a hands-free system and other Google services such as Gmail, Google Plus and Calendar. They will also allow customers to take photos and videos, have a phone call and send voice messages as well as enjoying Internet navigation, video conferencing and so on. These glasses will be connected to social network apps (Facebook, Twitter), note apps (Evernote) and others, which will bring additional services.

These Google Glasses could be really successful, especially during tradeshows and exhibitions. Indeed, the voice commands will allow an easier use of this technology. If you need to make a phone call, you will just have to tell the glasses to do it and say the name of the person you want to talk to. Furthermore, instead of having a lot of business cards after several days on a big event, you will have the opportunity to record your interviews and saved small videos of your meetings and additional notes (interlocutor’s information and contact) dictated by voice messages to the glasses.

Regarding conferences, Google glasses will also be useful: firstly, they will improve translation service by reducing the waiting time before having the translation and consequently improve the interaction between attendees speaking different languages. Secondly, they will facilitate taking notes.

Under the Glass Explorers program, some event planners gave their ideas about features that can be added to the glasses.  One talked about the opportunity to instantaneously share photos and videos through Google Plus or Tweeter with the hashtag of the event. The idea of having information about stands present in the area where you are walking around has also been mentioned. Information like the new service or product launched by the company, or its new advertisement could be announced through the Google Glass.

They also had the idea to improve conferences’ presentation. Firstly, one thinks that having its slides and comments visible on his Google glass when he is presenting could be a very good accessory to improve his performance. This tool might be called “Hands-free slide-show control”. Furthermore, the interaction between the speaker and the participants is another important point, which has to be taken in consideration for the success of the conference. The Google Glass can improve it thanks to a GPS function that will allow the speaker to localize the person in the audience who is asking questions. Consequently, it will give him more importance; it will also create close relationships and a personalized experience of the event.

However, these Google Glasses are not available to consumers yet and some improvements need to be considered. Indeed, the life of the battery, the quality of the sound, the video and the download process of the different apps necessary to enjoy the Google Glass, are still in process.

We decided to choose these articles, because they gave us several pieces of information about the characteristics of this new product. Furthermore, the testimonials of event planners presented were really relevant and it is always interesting to know the point of view and the creative ideas of professionals. That is why we wanted to talk about this topic in order to share new technologic ideas. Furthermore, we think that this innovation could have a great success because it can improve different touchpoints of an event focussing on interactivity, productivity, easy processes and playful service. Moreover, this new technology is answering to the clients’ expectations. Indeed, new technologies are becoming more and more essential in their life (in hospitality, catering, event and tourism, smartphones…)

Jennifer, Amélie & Roxane

Article sources: 

http://www.bizbash.com/17-ways-to-use-google-glass-at-events/new-york/story/28018#.UyhMuFwxWQt

http://associationsnow.com/2013/12/google-glass-at-events-a-first-person-view/

Picture source: 

http://www.freedigitalphotos.net

Introduction of IT in restaurants

  

The implementation of new technologies and the rapid development of IT lead to lot of changes in some industries particularly in the service industries. For example, we can quote the high development of online banks or online travel agencies.

The main issue of service providers is to deliver an equivalent or highest quality of service while implementing technologies.

The use of social media and smartphones push companies to adapt their IT tools in order to stay up-to-date but also to increase visibility and sales.

As a service provider, a restaurant seems to be very complex to change into an online service. Indeed, it involves direct food service as the centre point of the experience. When customers are going to the restaurant they expect human experiences, they want to be looked after.

The human force is irreplaceable in the hospitality industry. Though, restaurants are more and more implementing IT into their production and service process.

The emergence of new technologies and tools in restaurants has been very brief these last years and it exists a large amount of possibilities. The choice to implement new tools depends on the restaurant strategy but mainly depends on the financial possibilities. It is evident that developing technology lead to investment.

We couldn’t develop all the new technologies used in restaurants, so we will focus on some of them.

Some interesting technologies used in restaurants are: 

·     Menu boards, smartphones app: Because menus always change, and customers get accustomed to TV screens and smartphones use. The digital support for menu through TV boards, website and app allow to save paper (in fast-foods). Those tools are useful in the decision making process, because the customers will consult the menu before going to the restaurant.

·     Online coupons, special offers: As in the travel industry, the customers who are used to surf online and looking for good deals, will be able to buy or even win online coupons to go to the restaurant. Those tools will encourage customers to subscribe to mailings, social media pages and force them to actively look for online special offers.

      Ordering systems: 

-        At a kiosk: In order to escape from queuing, the kiosks allow the customers to order and pay quickly. From the restaurant point of view, it permits to decrease the walk-aways and maximize the number of orders.

-        Through mobile devices: Implemented by the fast foods, this ordering system has the same advantages than the kiosk because customers save time and the restaurant maximize the number of orders. As additional advantage, the mobile devices allow to take orders anywhere, at anytime and for any people. For instance the customer can order 5 hours in advance, from home and for a group of people. 

-        Through the Facebook page: The social media trend extends to the ordering system. In more their presence on Facebook, within the restaurant page, it could be possible to order food directly through the restaurant Facebook page. That ordering system needs to be managed by specialized companies in ordering and payment integration as ChowNow or NetWaiter. This ordering system could be a good communication tool, which encourages customers to go to the restaurant’s Facebook page.

·     Payment of bill through tablet: Customers often wait to pay the bill at the restaurant and the waiting time is more felt when the customers are in a hurry. In the US, and especially in the diners, they implemented the payment of the bill through a tablet. The customer will pay by card by himself and that allow the waiter to be discharge of a task and the customer won’t wait too long. This self-payment allows an optimisation of the customers’ turnover.

All those implementations of technologies show that several options exist to optimize the restaurant turnover but also to add entertainment in the service experience.

However, to nuance the effects, it would be interesting to answer the questions:

-        Do the new technologies in a restaurant lead to a lack of human experience?

-        Is the service really improved thanks to new technologies?

-        Do those new tools only concern the new generations?

Sources:

http://thenextweb.com/insider/2012/09/22/how-technology-changing-restaurant-industry/#!tg4PS

http://www.forbes.com/sites/caroltice/2012/12/07/how-restaurants-are-using-technology-to-deliver-better-customer-service/

http://www.netwaiter.com/online-ordering 

http://www.chownow.com

Amandine Peton & Mélanie Lesieur