CORONAVIRUS
263 | Risk Adjustment: Hotel tech platforms face their own COVID-19 crisis
CORONAVIRUS
Last week, Zoom, a video-conferencing program, was prime bait for hackers who infiltrated conversations taking place among people working from home during the coronavirus pandemic.
As if Zoom bombers weren’t bad enough, a day or two later, the internet-based program crashed because it could not handle the surge of users from businesses, schools and friends and families eager for face time.
Today, Zoom founder and CEO Eric Yuan is promising stronger security measures, but the fiasco is a stark reminder of how easy it is for bad actors to access public internet programs, especially those being operated by people unfamiliar with cyber security protocols.
In this episode, a continuation of Lodging Leaders special report on how the coronavirus crisis is impacting the hotel industry, we explore how the outbreak is revealing weaknesses in business technology platforms and what hotel owners and operators can do to head problems off at the pass.
We also look at how some technology providers are expanding their solutions to meet the fast-changing needs of hotel operations as well as those of essential guests traveling during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Related Episodes
- 139 | Engage Your Guests in Real Time Using Artificial Intelligence with Raj Singh
- 229 | Panic Buttons: Hospitality Workers Sound the Alarm (Hotel Safety Part 2)
- 236 | Breach of Trust: Cybercrime a pervasive threat to the hospitality industry
Resources and Links
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346 | Repositioning For Recovery: Hotel conversions to outpace new builds
Lodging Econometrics has tracked the hotel industry since 1998. Its global database includes new-hotel pipelines as well as renovations and brand conversions. Hotel franchisers once eager to launch new brands are focused on converting existing hotels because it’s a faster way to recover revenue lost to the COVID-19 pandemic than through new construction. In Episode 346, Lodging Leaders explores the increasing number of conversions in the U.S. hotel industry and what owners and operators need to consider before repositioning an asset.
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345 | ‘Rosy View of Future’: Hotel industry sees unleashing of pent-up investor demand
In the first few months of the COVID-19 pandemic in the U.S., financiers anticipated a swell of distressed hotel businesses. Some raised rescue funds to respond to what they thought was a pending crisis. Though there are financial rescues taking place, the level of such activity is far below what industry advisers and fund managers expected. Commercial real estate investors positioned to act in the early days of the pandemic held off and are now just beginning to unleash their cash hoards totaling billions of dollars. Episode 345 of Lodging Leaders podcast explores the state of capital investment in the hotel industry.