CHICAGO (October 1, 2007) – Hotel Technology Next Generation (HTNG) announced today that its second annual European Member’s Meeting and Conference will feature presentations from leading experts on software security, data privacy, social media, RFID and near field communications.  It will also include a session in which several hotel CIOs report on their experiences and challenges in implementing next-generation converged networks in hotels, and a session led by a luxury hotel company executive on achieving vendor cooperation to implement next generation technologies.

The conference, to be held from October 8 through 10 in Lausanne, Switzerland, is the largest standalone hotel technology conference in Europe.  Last year, the first conference drew more than 150 industry leaders from 28 countries, and preregistration levels suggest that this year’s attendance will be even larger.

Like all HTNG conferences, the European conferences will also include extensive briefings on the progress of HTNG’s working groups in designing and implementing next-generation technologies, interface standards, and best-practices guides.  These sessions will be led by active participants from the workgroups from around the world.   

The full conference agenda and other details are available on the web at www.htng.org/euroconf.   

Thought Leadership Program Speakers

HTNG’s innovative Thought Leadership Program was designed to help keep industry technologists better informed of important trends in the broader technology industry, and of emerging best practice techniques for technology implementations in hotels.  Six Thought Leadership sessions with world-class speakers are included in this year’s Conference agenda:

• Software Security:  One of the world's leading experts on software security, Gary McGraw, will provide practical steps for putting software security into practice, and discuss how proper security design can facilitate regulatory compliance.  Dr. McGraw, Chief Technology Officer of Cigital, Inc., is the author of six best-selling books on this topic, including Exploiting Online Games and Software Security.  He has written more than 90 scientific papers, hosts the Silver Bullet Security Podcast, and authors a monthly security column for darkreading.com.

• Data Privacy and Regulation:   Few areas cause as much confusion as the regulatory environment around data protection.  Different and sometimes inconsistent national laws have evolved, along with restrictions on the transfer of data outside EU jurisdictions and the interface with records retention obligations and financial system rules.  This session’s featured speaker, Rosemary Jay, will explore the issues that hoteliers and their software vendors need to understand to operate successfully in this developing regulatory world.  Mrs. Jay is a Partner and National Head of Information Law at Pinsent Masons.  She was previously head of Legal at the U.K. Office of the Data Protection Registrar for 12 years, and has done extensive legal work on data protection laws across the European continent

• RFID and Near Field Communications:  Mobile technology and Near Field Communications offer the promise of new services for customers and benefits for the hospitality provider.  This session will review the technologies, the opportunities and explore the issues that need to be addressed to deploy successful guest mobile services.  The speaker, Martin Powell is a senior consultant with The Human Chain, and is at the forefront of RFID and near-field technologies, both from his years of experience at Vodafone, and in projects within the hotel industry. 

• Vendor Cooperation:  Can small hotel groups get their vendors to work together to produce innovative solutions?  Luxury hotelier James Simkins, Partner at MTM Luxury Lodging, will lead a session describing how his company leveraged vendor management practices and HTNG collaboration to develop and deploy innovative technology at the groundbreaking Hotel 1000 in Seattle, USA.   Key representatives from several of the vendor companies involved will also participate, including Brigitte Diem-Guy from Par Springer-Miller Systems; Chris Farrar from Percipia; and Thomas Pullen from Guest-Tek.

• Convergence:  One of the hottest topics, particularly in guestroom technology deployment, is convergence of telephony, entertainment, high-speed Internet, and in-room guest controls onto a single, converged IP-based network.  Convergence is in its infancy today but holds great promise for cost reduction, integrated guest service, and better operational coordination in the future.  A panel of leading edge hoteliers who are committed to convergence will talk about their challenges and successes on the path to building all-IP, converged-network hotels.  Moderated by Bryan Steele, former IT Director of Thistle Hotels, the panelists will include Nick Price, CIO/CTO of Mandarin Oriental Hotels; Fraser Hickox, General Manager of Research and Technology for The Peninsula Group; and Jeremy Ward, Group CIO of JJW Hotels & Resorts. 

• Generation Y and Tomorrow’s Hotel Experience:   The useful lifetime of hotels being built today roughly coincides with the prime traveling years of Generation Y, the most wired, networked generation in history.  The behavior of today’s teenagers and 20-somethings can give important clues to what they might want or need when they travel.   The featured speaker, Shiv Singh, is the Global Social Media Director for Avenue A | Razorfish, one of the largest interactive marketing and technology services agencies in the world, and has been consulting in this field since the earliest days of the Internet.   Mr. Singh will explore the expectations these guests will likely bring with them when they start checking into hotels in coming years – and how hotels may need to adapt guest technologies in order to meet them.

About Hotel Technology Next Generation

The premier technology solutions association in the hospitality industry, HTNG is a self-funded, non-profit organization with members from hotel and hospitality companies, technology vendors to hospitality, and other industry members including consultants, media, and academic experts.  HTNG’s members participate in focused workgroups to bring to market open solution sets addressing specific business problems.   HTNG fosters the selection and adoption of existing open standards.  Where necessary, it also develops new open standards to meet the needs of the global hospitality industry.

Membership in HTNG is open to hotel and hospitality companies, technology vendors to hospitality, consultants, academics, press and others.   Currently nearly 400 corporate and individual members from across this spectrum, including most of the world’s leading hotel companies and technology vendors, are active HTNG participants.  Workgroup proceedings, drafts, and specifications are published for all HTNG members as soon as they are created, encouraging rapid and broad adoption.  Specifications are released to the public domain when the workgroup has completed its work, typically after no more than 18 months.  For more information, visit www.htng.org.