Friday, November 17, 2006

GENERAL NOTES AFTER THE 1st CLASS DISCUSSION

This is a note after our class discussion, please rewrite your first draft, and send it to me via email and post it on this blog for comments.

© TITLE

© Introduces the topic of discussion to the audience

© Generates reader interest in the argument

© Try to grab attention by

° offering a provocative image

° picking up on words or examples offered in the body or conclusion of the paper

° asking a question

© Avoid titles that are too general or lack character

EXPLORE the problem -- not the topic

1. Who is your reader?

2. What is your purpose?

3. Who are you, the writer? (What image or persona do you want to project?)

Reader

Does the author provide necessary background knowledge as a basis for the article?

Is the problem/ topic clearly defined?

Did the writer bring a new perspective to the topic?

Did the article sustain the reader’s interest?

What additional suggestions would you purpose?

Defining the audience

Who are my readers?

What do they already know and what do I need to tell them about the topic?

Why would the reader want to read this article?

How would the reader be able to use the article?

What possible objections might cause the reader to dismiss my ideas?

Defining the author

Why do I want to write this article?

What special knowledge, experience, and perspectives do I bring to the topic?

How does my article relate to other publications on the topic?

After you wrote your first draft

Evaluating the structure

Does overall organization of the article reflect my goals?

Have I stated the purpose clearly in the introduction?

Does the body of the article fulfill the promises made in the introduction?

Do important ideas receive more support than unimportant ones?

How is the relationship between ideas signaled within paragraphs?

Monday, November 13, 2006

Information Technology Implementation in the Field of Hotel Services

Tourism has become one of the greatest sources of international income. Many products and services related to tourism give huge contribution to the country’s revenue. As an important part of tourism business, hotel must raise its standard of service and comfort in order to attract many travelers. Many colleges and universities nowadays offer a degree in hotel administration, hotel and restaurant work to improve the quality of hotel services. Recently, information technology has also been implemented in hotel management. The most common information technology used is web programming. Website developed using the latest strategies for effective performance, ease of navigation, and traffic generation is a good tool for promotion and online booking engine. The booking engine includes full room descriptions, explanations of offerings, adjustable minimum and maximum night stays, alternate availability, and inventory management capabilities. Using the website, customer can easily make online reservation and do the payment by e-banking. Lately, other information technology disciplines are also implemented in hotel management, such as information system and database processing system. Information system is used to manage information interchange from and to hotel divisions. Database management system is used to process and manage food and beverage inventory data, transaction data, employee data, bookkeeping and accounting data, etc. Database management system is very useful for making data management easier to do, especially in big hotels where large number of data is continuously updated to keep the database of high quality.

Methods
This review focuses on information technology implementation in the field of hotel services. Some methods will be implemented to get enough reliable sources about this topic. Search engine will be used to retrieve information and news about hotel services from the internet. Interview with some practitioners in hotel business will be used to draw representative samples of information technology implementation in hotels nowadays and to know how it is supposed to increase the value of hotel services, while surveying some hotel service customers will be used to collect data about the connection between information technology implementation in hotel management and customer satisfaction. To see thoroughly the implementation of information technology in hotels, open observation in some hotels and some schools of hotel management will be used. Each research method has strengths and weaknesses; thereby the combination of feasible methods listed above is expected to provide better insight into development.

Recent Advances
1. Information technology and industrial management are inseparable nowadays.
2. The increment of application software designed to ease the customer in accessing hotel service and to simplify the task of hotel service provider.
3. The increment of data base management and information retrieving software designed to make the management of daily, monthly, even yearly transaction and customer account data in a hotel better.
4. The usage of robotics and artificial intelligence where requirements of speed, precision, consistency, or cleanliness in hotel services exceed what human can accomplish and at the same time adaptability of humans is still considered.

Points that will be Elaborated in this Paper
1. Implementation of information technology in hotel management nowadays.
2. Implementation of information technology in hotel services for customer satisfaction.
3. The real connection between improvement in hotel services and the implementation of information technology in hotel management.
4. Advantages and disadvantages of information technology implementation in hotel management.

Author
1. Shanny Avelina Halim (13504027)
2. Tania Krisanty (13504101)