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Hilton Hotels Corporation Places #2 in Information Week 500
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Represents Highest Ranking of a Hospitality & Travel Company in 20-Year History of Rankings
Hilton Hotels Corporation, a leading global hospitality company, today announced that the company ranked #2 on the 2008 InformationWeek 500, revealed earlier this month at a gala awards ceremony as part of the exclusive InformationWeek 500 Conference at the St. Regis Resort in Monarch Beach, CA.
With the introduction of its latest in a series of innovations focused on 'consumer choice,' Suite Selection has helped Hilton Hotels Corporation earn the highest ranking ever for a hospitality and travel organization. The list of 250 Top Innovators and 500 listed companies is unique among corporate rankings because it spotlights the power of innovation in information technology, rather than simply identifying the biggest IT spenders.
Tim Harvey, CIO and executive vice president, Hilton Hotels Corporation said, 'Customer service - putting choice and control into the customers' hands - is at the core of our IT strategy, which is why we are extremely delighted to have been recognized by Information Week 500 in this unprecedented placement for a travel and hospitality company.'
'For 20 years, the InformationWeek 500 has honored the most innovative users of business technology,' said InformationWeek Editor-in-Chief Rob Preston. 'Year after year, InformationWeek 500 companies harness technology to improve efficiency, boost productivity, drive revenue, and establish a competitive advantage. We applaud this year's winners, the CIOs and other executives whose ingenuity and risk taking are at the center of business technology innovation.'
The Hilton Hotels Corporation signature IT program is an internally developed enterprise platform for all hotel business functions. OnQ was introduced in North America in 2003 and includes a mix of proprietary and off-the-shelf technology that bridges all of the company's nine brands together. Unique to the hospitality industry, OnQ is one of the strongest selling points for prospective and current owners and franchisees.
Currently, the company is expanding OnQ worldwide at its hotels located within 74 countries and territories. This shared technology enables Hilton to respond to changing market conditions, often breaking new ground for product innovations across the hotel industry. With a continued focus on consumer choice, OnQ was the first to introduce key differential services such as Suite Selection, e-Events and self-service kiosks, all products that exemplify the consumer's ability to make choices about how they would like to receive hotel offerings. Additionally and also mentioned by Information Week 500 are the back of the house offerings like DAvE that help to increase efficiencies while consumers browse the web for that perfect hotel room.
Harvey said, 'OnQ allows us to focus our IT resources towards enhancing value for our constituents, from delivering on guest preferences to providing property management, reservations, and e-commerce tools for our franchisees and owners.'
Year after year, Hilton's commitment to enhanced technologies and its proprietary OnQ package enable the Hilton Family of Hotels to maintain its leadership status as the most innovative hospitality company in the industry, continuing as the only multi-branded hotel corporation with a single technology solution.
More on Suite Selection
The OnQ launch of Suite Selection in 2007 represented the hotel industry's first interactive room selection tool. Designed to give guests full control when checking in online and available on www.homewoodsuites.com Suite Selection allows Hilton HHonors(R) guests to view a floor plan online prior to their arrival and select a suite based on their personal preferences. Whether the guest prefers to stay on a high floor, by an exit, away from the elevator, by the lobby, overlooking the pool, or something else, the guest is able to select their own room. Homewood Suites by Hilton represents the first hotel brand in the industry to offer this online convenience to guests. Suite Selection features floor plans, photographs and descriptions of every room type in more than 200 hotels throughout the U.S., as well as hotels in Canada, and Mexico.
More on e-Events
On the small group bookings front, OnQ has now enabled the Hilton Family of Hotels to offer an industry-first online bookings capability called e-Events. With unprecedented efficiency, e-Events enables planners to book meeting rooms and/or guest rooms for business, social events, family reunions, weddings and amateur sporting events 24/7 and receive prompt online confirmation of their booking. The online booking tools cater to groups requiring 25 rooms or less at more than 2,400 participating Hilton, Conrad Hotels & Resorts, Doubletree, Embassy Suites Hotels, Hampton Inn, Hampton Inn & Suites, Hilton Garden Inn, Hilton Grand Vacations, Homewood Suites by Hilton and The Waldorf=Astoria Collection hotels in North America.
More on Self-Service Kiosks
Another first for the industry included Hilton's introduction of new functionality for lobby kiosk, allowing for customized services including personal messages to their guests, integration with Hilton's on-line e-check-in capabilities and two key printing for special hospitality suites and other upgraded amenities. Services the consumer can choose from include airline boarding pass printing, final hotel receipts, and directions. Kiosk are available to all brands within the Hilton Family of Hotels with airport locations reporting usage up to 20% of all available check-ins while other locations record usage between three and five percent.
More on DAvE
DAvE (Distributed Availability Engine) is a solution developed to allow on-line shoppers to browse and web buyers to buy both with more efficiencies to enhance their overall web experience within the Hilton.com websites. In essence, this engine offloads web shopping traffic to a lower cost, paralleled reservation system thus allowing buyers to reach distribution channels with more speed and accuracy. DAvE effectively lowers costs, opens more opportunities to consumers to purchase, and reduces traffic jams on the web sites. The system itself is a group of Intel servers running a slim version of our reservation application on Red Hat Linus. DAvE communicates across an upgraded gigabit network with replicated Informix databases responding to availability request transactions from Global distribution Systems (e.g. airline systems) allowing Hilton to extend the capacity of its distribution environments in ways that had never been feasible before.
Additional details on the InformationWeek 500 listing can be found online at www.informationweek.com/iw500/.
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Date Listed: 2008-10-01
More news about:
 Industry: Hotel
Category: Technology
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