The Best of HITEC 2013 - A Snapshot for Hoteliers

Last year, the Hospitality Industry Technology Exposition and Conference (HITEC) was held in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Before this year’s conference in sunny Southern California, let’s take a look back at the previous year. If you are still ambivalent about whether you should attend the conference, you certainly won’t have any doubt after looking at what is offered and how it will be even bigger and better than the 2013 conference.

The Minneapolis conference featured classes on online marketing, cloud computing and business intelligence. In addition to generalized classes, there were also intensive courses on system selection, PCI compliance and building Wi-Fi. The keynote speaker, former White House CIO Theresa Payton, outlined all the reasons she never uses hotel Wi-Fi, giving attendees some food for thought. When such a prominent figure swears off the technology for security reasons, there are bound to be others who follow. Author David Wolman also presented as a keynote speaker about his book, The End of Money, and why hotels need to consider the possibility of digital currency. The “Meet the Techs: CIOs Discuss Today’s IT Challenges” session grilled the panel with questions on the state of the hospitality technology industry. Panelists included Scot Campbell, vice president and CIO for Pinnacle Entertainment, Theresa Payton, John Bollen, the senior vice president and digital marketing officer for MGM Resorts Intl., and Sanjay Rama, a principal with JHM Hotels.

With well over 200 exhibitors in the convention center, there were plenty of networking and discovery opportunities. Between the new products and signature technologies, there were multiple opportunities for attendees to learn about upcoming industry trends.