HFTP Connect – Hospitality Blog

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You’ll need it. With a visit to Los Angeles for HITEC 2014, you’ll need to know these five things about us.

1. Bring Your Appetite and Your Sense of Adventure – Los Angeles is One of America’s Top Culinary Destinations.

Find out why Food and Wine Magazine called Los Angeles “America’s best new food city” in its March 2014 issue. Los Angeles is home to thousands of restaurants, offering everything from Michelin-starred fine dining (Water Grill, Mori Sushi, Asanebo Corp, Patina Restaurant, Providence, Cut, Urusawa, Hatfield’s, Gordon Ramsay at the London-West Hollywood, Osteria Mozza, Melisse) to authentic international street food. Los Angeles invented the food truck and the celebrity chef, and you can dine in their restaurants, sample their cooking and often catch a glimpse of them in the kitchen or greeting diners. Read More »

Running an association is a lot like a team challenge on a chef competition, where the team is given a box of ingredients that need to be used to make a meal. It takes a lot of creativity, risk, diligence and commitment to the group; as well as the ability to follow directions, function in high pressure situations, and probably most important of all, push your team to do things that they don’t realize they can do.

For those of us whose careers are in association management, the ingredients in our box are each staff member, chapter, new officer, board member and often a few other surprise elements. Of course in the background, we are still expected to maintain the same level of gourmet meal no matter what’s inside.

I paint this picture to give you an idea of the many skills HFTP staff members need to have to remain successful, to express the impact of volunteer changeovers and how the staff must manage such frequent changes. For example, when a very active volunteer who has been with HFTP a long time and has been a core ingredient to the Leadership Summit suddenly leaves the industry, it is up to the staff and the other volunteers to replace that person with just the right skill set so that program “tastes” as good, or better, than it ever has before.

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Editors Note: Since the publication of this article, movement to regulate e-cigarettes by the FDA has progressed. On the local government level and in other countries e-cigarettes have been banned in public places or banned all together. Recently, the European Parliament rejected a proposal to regulate e-cigarettes as medical devices.

The 2014 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) boasted the largest show floor in its history featuring more than 3,200 exhibitors. It was a sight to see, with a lot of improvements on things we have been hearing about in the industry for quite a while.

One trend that really stood out to me was the proliferation of e-cigarette vendors and users. The growth in sales of the e-cigarette will likely make it a habit that’s here to stay. Many large tobacco companies seem to think so, including R.J. Reynolds, Lorillard and Altria (think Marlboro).

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One of the most popular happenings during HITEC is the Opening Party! Back in 2011, the idea was proposed to move the Opening Party out of the host hotel since so many of our attendees work in hotels and have seen their fair share of ballrooms. So, the Opening Party took to the streets of our host cities allowing attendees the chance to enjoy the beautiful locations that house HITEC.

2014 is no different with the Opening Party being held at another landmark destination in Los Angeles, The Belasco Theater. A relic of the 1920s, The Belasco Theater made its grand reopening debut in March  2011 after laying dormant for more than 20 years. Thanks to an extensive three year restoration, the venue retains most of its original architecture – meshed  with impressive sound and lighting capabilities. Located just blocks away from the L.A. Live complex in the heart of downtown Los Angeles, this venerable landmark is the city’s premiere multi-purpose event and entertainment complex. Read More »

New this year, the Outstanding HFTP Member Recognition program was developed to recognize HFTP’s hardworking members for their dedication and enthusiasm to the hospitality industry and society. Members were encouraged to nominate fellow HFTP members or student members who go the extra mile in the area of volunteerism.

HFTP is pleased to recognize Brian Binge, CHTP of the HFTP Rocky Mountain Chapter, serving members in Colorado, as a 2014 HFTP Outstanding Member Recognition recipient for going above and beyond in the area of volunteerism.

Brian Binge was nominated for his volunteer commitments as the current mission coordinator, past president and group leader for the all-volunteer, non-profit Summit County Rescue Group, one of the busiest search and rescue groups in North America.
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HFTP Connect is looking for hospitality professionals who would like to write original and educational posts about their HITEC 2014 experience for the blog.

HITEC 2014 is June 23 – 26 in Los Angeles, Calif.

See the information below for details on the opportunity and review posts from past HITEC Guest Bloggers:

HITEC Official Blogger Benefits:

HITEC Official Blogger Requirements:

Four blog posts related to HITEC, see Guidelines for acceptable posts:

If you’re interested, please send a brief description on why you would be a good guest blogger and a sample of writing to Sara Shafer.

Deadline for submissions is Monday, April 21.

Disclaimer: As an association, HFTP may not endorse or promote a product or vendor. HFTP Connect is educational in nature and blog posts must not be sales-oriented. Products or vendors may only be mentioned in an educational format.

Over the past few years, the Certification Advisory Council (CAC) and the HFTP Board of Directors have been discussing the Certified Hospitality Technology Professional (CHTP) Program. The question of how do we keep a technology certification relevant, is obviously one of the biggest questions we are faced with every time we meet.

As we all know, technology is evolving rapidly these days. The evolution and innovation of technology has also impacted the hospitality industry as well as the CHTP certification program. HFTP was aware that the CHTP exam was dated in some of the sub-section content areas that were tested on the exam. The study materials reflected this information as well. The perception of the CHTP program, from the industry’s point of view, is simply that the exam has some issues that needed to be addressed. HFTP is on a mission to fix these issues and the industry’s perception of the certification program as a whole. At our best efforts, HFTP has removed dated and subjective questions that were on the current CHTP exam.

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Are you still using the default password that came with your point of sale (POS) or payment system? Or, using 12345 or password1? If so, you need to change it right away to help protect card holder data. Passwords are one of the easiest ways for criminals to sneak in to access information if not updated from the default or, if passwords are too simple, it can also make it easy for data thieves to break in. And we all know the low hanging fruit always gets tapped first. Read More »

The recent data breaches at major retail outlets such as Target, Michaels Stores Inc. and Neiman Marcus brought this type of modern crime to the forefront in the minds of the consumer; and for us in the hospitality community, it really hit home when news surfaced of a breach at White Lodging properties throughout the United States. For those who were not able to keep up with the “screaming headlines’ about this incident, one thing that both consumers and credit card retailers were warned about is that there would be more to come … and obviously they have. I am going to also predict that there will be even more of these that we will hear about over the next few months from other types of businesses and organizations.  Regardless of the tens of millions of dollars industries spend to protect credit card data, criminals who try to steal this data are constantly attacking our information systems and eventually they get lucky — for a short time. As in these recent cases, they were shut down. Read More »

The faculty experts at the Kendall College School of Hospitality Management recently released its trends outlook for the hospitality industry for 2014. The hospitalitymanagement program is highly regarded in the Chicago for preparing students for careers in the hospitality industry. With the combined collaboration of the entire faculty from the hospitality program, they were able to come with this infographic that provides a lot of insight into the top trends within the hospitality industry for the upcoming year. I’ve highlighted some of the more interesting findings below: Read More »