Hospitality

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The need for mobile high-speed data access is here to stay. According to IDC, 45 million mobile business professionals need to access the Internet or their corporate networks daily and that number is growing.

Providing high-speed wireless Internet access as a service to customers (i.e. HotSpots) drove the hospitality industry's adoption of wireless networking technology, but operational uses have also emerged. Restaurants are the early adopters of wireless technology, although chains are quickly following in their footsteps.

Vendors offer a variety of wireless applications to help the hospitality industry manage overhead, to deliver faster and better customer service, and to run more efficient and safer kitchens. All of the applications can help a restaurant or cafe gain a vital competitive advantage.

But new technology can be a hard sell in the restaurant business. Whether they specialize in fine dining or fast food, restaurateurs know their success depends more on keeping their customers well fed than on keeping up with the latest high-tech trends. Still, there is a growing cadre of restaurant/cafe managers and owners who are using wireless technology for table management, point of sale (POS), kitchen management, and more.

"Wireless technology is still in the early adopter stage for many restaurants," says Lance Gallardo, a commercial solutions development manager for Cisco Systems. "But it's rapidly moving into the mainstream." New wireless applications can play a role in almost every aspect of a restaurant's daily operations. For instance, a WLAN enables "wait staff" equipped with PDAs to place customer orders directly from the table, allowing them to spend more time on the floor tending to customers' needs, rather than moving back and forth between the kitchen, the bar, and a fixed POS terminal.

"One thing wireless brings to any industry is the ability to minimize delays and increase employee productivity," Gallardo says. "If a server takes a customer's order over a wireless PDA, they eliminate one of the greatest sources of delay and frustration for the customer, while allowing the restaurant to turn over tables more quickly."

In addition, wireless PDAs simplify employee training by placing menu information and daily specials at their fingertips, instead of requiring them to memorize the menu and its daily changes. Restaurants can also use wireless systems to remind employees to suggest drinks and desserts, and to promote more expensive items, which can improve per-customer revenue.

Most restaurants already have a solid foundation upon which to build a wireless networking solution. According to technology integrator Ameranth Wireless, more than 80% of all restaurants in the U. S. use computerized POS systems and the vast majority of vendors specializing in hospitality-related technology report that their systems support wireless networking.

As in other industries, the main reason given for implementing a wireless network is that the cost for the wireless components (access points, network cards, routers, PDAs, etc.) is relatively low. And as a growing number of proven applications enter the market, even the most conservative restaurant/cafe owners will be prepared to embrace wireless technology. Gallardo says, "We're really still at the beginning of a long process. The more restaurants discover just how much this technology can do for them, the more excited they get about it."

Even fast food outlets are discovering that wireless networking can be a way to cost-effectively perform line busting, both inside the establishment and at their drive-through window. While the restaurant sector primarily uses wireless in pre-sales applications, some are introducing payment via wireless LANs.

Hotels, too, have joined the Wi-Fi parade. They are not only offering their guests wireless high-speed Internet access, they are also experimenting with wireless networking, in particular for check-in, restaurant/poolside ordering, and keeping track of guests' needs such as room service orders and laundry requests.

But it's the HotSpot model that has garnered most of this market's attention. After a day of travel, meetings, sales calls, or meetings, corporate nomads often return to their hotel rooms and log onto their home office network in order to respond to workplace or customer demands via e-mail, submit orders, file reports, review critical documents, or prepare for the next day's work. Traditional dial-up networking is too slow and unreliable to meet the needs of these road warriors. Hotels that can deliver secure, hassle-free high-speed connectivity have a powerful advantage in winning the loyalty and repeat business of these most valued customers.

Case Studies

Colours By The Bay, Singapore

Colours F&B introduces a novel concept in dining experience. It brings together a number of different restaurants under one roof to offer diners a choice of specialized cuisines ranging from Chinese to Italian, Japanese, Thai, Western, and fusion. There is also an international bar called Embassy, which offers live music and entertainment from around the world. The man behind these creative ideas is Andrew Tan. He is also the founder of the combined eatery concept, which he calls, "Colours By The Bay."

The restaurants making up Colours By The Bay are established names in Singapore: Shima Aji, ThaiExpress, The Garlic Restaurant (which serves Western and fusion food), Al Dente, Tien Yuan Kitchen (which serves Cantonese cuisine), and Local Bite. Each restaurant occupies about 2000 sq. ft. of space, although the Al Dente is spread over two floors, as is The Embassy (it is also the largest at 12,000 sq ft). Together all the restaurants take up over 26,000 sq ft, including a 4000 sq. ft. outdoor area.

The eateries offer their diners the choice of ordering items from any or all of the restaurants, regardless of where they are seated. Diners are presented with two types of menu: a specialized menu which is extensive and specific to each restaurant, and a "Colours" menu which is a compilation of several items from all the restaurants allowing the diners to savor his or her choice of cuisine.

Food orders are placed through a wireless cross-ordering system (the biggest system of its kind in the world) that was specially developed for Colours. Orders are entered via the latest model of the HP iPaq, which acts as a point of sale (POS) device.

The system also can, if a customer wishes, split a table's bill to reflect the different restaurants from which the table ordered. Or a group of customers can have their bill split as to what each person ordered, right down to an item such as half a bottle of wine, if two people wish to share its cost.

Now to be able to cross-order, cross-bill, and bill in a number of others ways is a tall order for a systems integrator. But that is what Panacea, a small firm that specializes in hospitality systems was asked to do by Tan.

Tan also found an unexpected added benefit from his WLAN-employing staff. "The biggest problem a restaurant faces today is that you cannot get staff," say Tan, who places his business in the small- and medium-sized enterprise (SME) category, as each restaurant only has around four wait staff. But he says that a restaurant of the same size with a wireless network on-site only needs two to three servers, which amounts to a saving of about 40 percent on staff.

Tan explains that without a wireless network, waiters are always running into the kitchen to place orders, spending a lot of time there, especially when they follow up on a late order. With a wireless network in place, however, all the waiter has to do is to key in the food items on his or her PDA, confirm the order with the customer, and then click the "send" button. The order reaches the kitchen over the wireless network.

Chris Tay, chief executive officer of Panacea, says that to provide seamless wireless coverage for Colours' combined 26,000 sq. ft. area, eight Intel 802.11b APs were used with each AP configured to act as a routing device. A minimum of 30 HP iPAQs and 40 Epson printers are used for all the restaurants, primarily for the kitchen staff to print out order slips once they receive orders over the wireless network.

Each restaurant is equipped with a Pentium IV 866 MHz PC with 256 RAM and 20 GB disk drive, running Windows 98 SE and printers to print bills for customers. The point-of-sale software is Compuware Elite 32. Also, a simple customer relationship management system is in place, so that individual restaurant managers can determine the demographics of their customers or calculate which are the best-selling dishes. Tan is also linking the ordering system with an inventory system to connect to suppliers to procure materials online. Moreover, he is connecting the restaurant system with local hotels so that guests can make a restaurant reservation through the hotel and charge food bills to their hotel account.

Each menu is compressed to about 250 KB of data, according to Tay. The iPaq H3850, equipped with 64 MB RAM and 32 MB ROM, has sufficient storage and memory to host the menu, including double byte characters for a Chinese menu. Each PDA stores a restaurant's entire menu, plus 10 items from each of the other six restaurants. The restaurant operator can synchronize all the PDAs being used by that eatery to update the menu, including any daily specials.

At the back-end is a Compaq Proliant dual CPU server running a Microsoft SQL database. There is also an uninterruptible power supply (UPS) and hot-swappable Raid 5 (redundant array of independent disks) to ensure that the data server is backed up and is available to the individual restaurant operators. Each order logged and confirmed on the iPaq is sent to the Compaq server located next to the kitchen. This is to enable each restaurant operator to check on sales on an hourly, weekly, or monthly basis, says Tan.

Tropicana Hotel & Casino, Atlantic City, New Jersey

The Tropicana in Atlantic City spans about four city blocks. Greg Dyer is the property's PC network manager. He oversees the IT staff and a network system serving approximately 1200 end-users.

When asked about the hotel's networking infrastructure prior to deploying a WLAN, Dyer said, "We have currently a combo of about 13 fiber optic closets throughout the property and 12 Windows NT servers, numerous POS systems, and slot rating systems. The slot rating systems show how long a customer has been playing the slot machines and also profiles the customers. IBM AS400 servers run the hotel purchasing, marketing, financials and sales systems. On the client side, we have over 800 networked PCs and appliances."

Then Dyer discussed the hotel's move to wireless networking. He explained that Tropicana decided to go wireless in the casino because it offers an alternative to traditional wiring. "My job is to evaluate new technologies that will help the hotel and casino streamline efficiency. I chose the Intel Wireless networking solution because it is a solid performing product," he said.

The WLAN was originally deployed using six Intel PRO/Wireless LAN access points (APs), which were placed in "special event" locations throughout the building, e.g. the atrium, casino, reception, and theatre areas. Those APs allow the property's marketing staff when they are within an AP's range to use mobile computing devices, which are equipped with Intel PRO/Wireless LAN PC cards, to access the wireless LAN for marketing activities, special events, and promos.

Just prior to implementing the wireless LAN, the marketing department had an event in a room in which they had a wired computer network. The Fire Department came in and shut down the event because the wires violated building code. Now, with a wireless network, the hotel and casino promoters can set up an event, and move it from one area of the hotel/casino to another, and have no worry about a visit from the Fire Marshal.

Dyer clarfies: "We move around so much with special events and promotional giveaways. Although Tropicana is the biggest hotel in New Jersey, it's difficult to find areas to hold special events. If you are a customer who meets a certain profile, you'll receive certain prizes. We give away anything from t-shirts to fine china.

"Every time we've had an event within the hotel, we've had to cable or network that area of the hotel-whether it's on the casino floor, in the lounge, in the pool deck area. We don't want to pull people into a back hallway to give them their prize. Some of the large convention areas are sometimes the only areas available, but it's not necessarily the best area to hold these events. We want our customers to feel at ease, so now that we have the Intel PRO/Wireless LAN network, we are not limited to a particular room. The staff uses their wireless networking laptops and they can easily monitor the prize giveaways and marketing event from their networked laptop.

"Sometimes we use the wireless network like a registration desk. At bingo, for example, the hotel staff uses their wireless networked laptops to register the clients."

Thus its wireless networking solution allows Tropicana to creatively manage special events, stay in line with the fire code, and offer new ways to monitor the casino floor.

Dyer said that the reason Tropicana chose Intel Wireless networking products to deploy throughout its hotel and casino was because "there is a reliable name (Intel) behind the architecture. We had looked at a couple other brands that we felt weren't as strong, but we felt comfortable with the Intel brand name. So far, the experience working on the Intel wireless network has given us excellent results: flexibility, no more cabling issues, and it's opened up a whole new creative solution for our special events group. And, we can move wherever the fire department wants us to hold the event!"

"We are considering opening up our conventions department to host computer/tech events where we can lease out wireless Internet access for our clients if they want to hold seminars or tradeshows," explains Mr. Dyer. "We are also exploring point-to-point bridging opportunities to link multiple hotel towers, thus keeping T-1 leased line costs down."

Dryer adds, "We are also considering running Intel PRO/Wireless LAN products on handhelds or PDAs on the casino floor. We'd like to be able to rate players right at the tables instead of running back and forth to the casino pits."

He went on to say that Tropicana chose to implement a wireless solution because it offers them more flexibility. "We wanted to get our feet wet, and test wireless LANs. The next step is wireless point of sale systems and remote cashier stations in the parking lots or beach areas."

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