Author: Mark Fancourt
April was a month of travel for Testbed Vegas. We ventured to Europe for the principal reason of attending HITEC Europe, which is the European version of Hospitality Information Technology Exposition and Conference (HITEC), located in Palma de Mallorca on the Balearic Islands. While on the continent we took the opportunity to visit a number of European destinations that are key centers for travel and hospitality tech.
Here’s some of the topics that caught our eye in the month of April.
HITEC Europe in Palma de Mallorca
This year HITEC Europe migrated from Amsterdam to Palma de Mallorca, in the process growing the attendance and embracing the top European travel destination of Spain. The event, now in it’s third year, is presented by Hospitality Financial & Technology Professionals (HFTP). Testbed.Vegas performed a mentoring role for the E20X Startup competition as well as encouraged the entrance of our friends at Oaky who received the People Choice award for the show.
This video from Hospitality Upgrade will give you a sense of the show. Your’s truly appears in the video too.
Interview with Testbed Vegas community member, Bill Healey
One of the great things about the hospitality industry is that it’s global. A couple of months ago my old friend and industry colleague Bill Healey, whom I first came to know in Asia sat down to discuss the state of technology for his article, International Road Trip in Jeannie Caruso’s Gaming & Leisure.
It was an enjoyable experience due to our personal relationship, and even more as Bill now resides here in Las Vegas as well and regularly joins the Testbed Vegas Vegas Travel & Hospitality Tech event.
Here’s is a link to the article in Gaming & Leisure. Gaming Leisure is a major publication focused on technology for the Casino Hospitality & Gaming industry.
Hospitality Net’s World Panel
April saw the launch of a new digital discussion panel by my friend Henri Roelings‘ Hospitality Net. The World Panel is a consortium of travel and hospitality technology industry leaders and commentators who form a discussion forum on the topics of the day effecting the travel and hospitality industry.
Testbed Vegas was delighted to have been asked to join the group and the first two topics have been published on Hospitality Net. The topic tend to be quite significant and you will gain some insight across a broad spectrum of industry perspectives.
You can read the first two topics on the relevancy of Brands in hospitality and the impact of AirBNB in the Hospitality sector.
2020 Hotel Yearbook Publication
Aligned with HITEC Europe is the release of the annual Hotel Yearbook series. This is a much anticipated publication that many of the leading minds in hospitality marketing, operations and technology are invited to contribute a thought leading article to the publication.
2020’s editions are full of rich information and forward leaning ideas about the future of the hospitality industry.
You can review the 2020 editions for Technology, Sustainability and Digital Marketing at the following location. Testbed Vegas made a contribution to the Technology edition.
Robots and AI – The impact on the Future.
The April Vegas Travel & Tech Event on Robots was an extraordinary session packed with a depth of research as well as practical examples of the possibilities for Robots with live demonstrations of Las Vegas robots. If you missed the evening, you really did miss out on something special.
Kent Gilson from Haddington Dynamics and Beth Wi from UNLV captured the audience as they dove into their views and experience with the subject. Cheyne and I were grateful for their personal contribution to the evening.
If you’ve never perused the World Economic Forum website it is a tome of valuable information on a host of subjects affecting the future of the species and the planet. I’ve included their digital forum on Robotics which will allow you to delve into a broad range of topics specific to Robotics.
Be careful. You may get lost in the maze of information!
Technology and the Future of Work
It’s a pivotal time in the life of the planet and we human beings. As we enter the Fourth Industrial Revolution (the digitization of everything) we find that progress is moving faster that ever before. A speed that humans have difficulty keeping pace with.
One of the major topics in relation to the change being experienced is the impact of technology of the global workforce. Another article from the World Economic Forum and the head of the International Labor Organisation presents thoughts on the necessity for humans to ensure that we control the rise of technology.
Next month at Testbed Vegas we take on the topic of Future Work. This is great reading to prepare for that discussion.
Getting carried away with Tech Titles
I must admit that I am not a huge fan of the ongoing generation of buzz words that are invented to rename things we’ve been doing in technology for a long time. My view is that it’s done to confuse people.
On a lighter note have a chuckle at some of these inventive and ridiculous job titles that people in technology have conjured for themselves.
Until next month. Enjoy the read.