Dragon Hotel

In the last blog post, I talked about the restaurant in Dragon Hotel in Hang Zhou. Actually, not only the restaurant but also the hotel has a very sophisticated system for their guests.

After checking in the room, the guests will get a key card. Then they can take the lift and go to the floor which their rooms are located. When they step out of the lift, the system can sense the key card automatically. After that, some direction lights on the wall turn on and the lights will show the guests which way to go and lead them to their rooms.

When the guests get into their room, the television will turn on automatically. “Welcome XXX (the guests’ name)” will be shown on the screen. The welcoming phrases will even be adjusted or translated to the guests’ home languages. If the guests are repeated guests, the guests’ favorite TV shows or channels will be shown automatically. Also, the air conditioning will be adjusted to the optimum temperature for the guests. If the guests com from foreign countries, they do not need to buy a new phone or sim card. They can use the phone, with sim card, provided by the hotel and travel around. If they want to visit any places in Hang Zhou, they can just give a call and a map for that sightseeing place will be printed automatically.

If someone rings the guests’ bell, the camera outside the door will transfer to images to the television. So the guests can know who rings the bell and get well prepared.

I really appreciate the hotel as they can maximize the usage of new technology and help to provide a better experience for their customers. Sometimes new technology makes people move further away from each other but I think this time it makes the relationship between hotels and customers closer as they can provide a more customized and personalized service to them.

reference:

http://zjnews.zjol.com.cn/05zjnews/system/2010/12/07/017144318.shtml

http://www.dragon-hotel.com/

iPad Ordering System in Restaurant

Dragon Hotel is located in HangZhou, China. It is a five star hotel. Recently, the restaurant introduced iPad and iPod Touch for ordering. It was a great success and it attracted many people attention.

When you get into the restaurant, the waiter will give an iPad as a menu. The chef will be shown on the screen and welcome your visit. Then you can take a look at the menu with beautiful pictures and detailed descriptions. After you selected the dishes you want, the iPod Touch from the waiter will receive a message. The waiter will reconfirm what you have selected. If there is no problem, the order will be immediately sent to the kitchen. When you are waiting for the dishes, you can even use the iPad to go on the internet, check the email and watching online videos etc.

Some people may think that this iPad ordering system can only be a gimmick and draw people’s attention. But actually it brings a lot of advantages to the restaurants. First, it can lower the cost of making a menu. You may think that buying iPad and iPod Touch would be much more expensive then a menu made of papers but it is not the truth. For a five star restaurant, they need to have a very sophisticated menu. They need high quality printing and papers, they need to hire professional photographers for taking photos and they need designers for designing the menu. It costs around 200 euros for one menu and they need to change it once a month so in long term it will be much more expensive than using iPad ordering system. Second, it is much easier for them to change the menu. They just need to change them in the system. In the past, they needed to wait for a week to make a new menu. Thirdly, it can assure the dishes on the menu can be provided definitely. Sometimes the ingredients are not available or because of special reasons the restaurant cannot make that dish. If you are using iPad system, you can just delete that dish and people will not choose the dishes the restaurant cannot provide. Fourthly, It can greatly reduce the human errors. Since the whole ordering process is computerized, it will not have mistakes on the prices or ordering form. Lastly, it is more environmentally friendly. If you are using iPad system, you do not need any menu and ordering form. It can save many papers.

In the future, the restaurant is planning to install cameras in the production place, the logistic place and the kitchen. Then customers can see the whole process of making a dish, from getting ingredients, transporting to the restaurant, and to cooking them.

I think it is a very creative and clever method to make well use of information technology in tourism industry. It will definitely be a great success and more hotels will try to use the same method.

Macau Government Tourist Office

There is an article, posted on 17th December, 2010, talking about Youku.com is going to cooperate with Macau.com in order to improve the quality of online video. Youku.com is one of the most famous online video websites and Macau.com is an online travel agency. Both of them cooperate with each other, also with Macau Government Tourist Office and expertise in advertisement, so as to increase the usage of online videos and improve the quality of them. As internet has become a necessity of daily life and online videos have become more and more popular, they are now very important for tourists to plan their trips or use them as references. Therefore, they all believe that this cooperation can definitely help Macau to boost Tourism and income.
The full text of the article (Chinese)


Macau Government Tourist Office always tries hard to use new technology to help tourist and attract tourists to visit Macau. On the official website of Macau Government Tourist Office, there is an area called “eZone”. In “eZone”, there are four buttons, which are MacauMap, Photo Gallery, eCard and Video Clips.

Macau Map provides an electronic map for tourists. The map not only provides the street names and sightseeing place, but also bus routes and restaurant names. There are altogether six versions of Macau Map for different users. For example, MacauMap v4.3 for iPhone and iPod Touch, MacauMap v2.01 for PalmOS and MacauMap v3.0 for WEB. Also, the data of the map are always kept updating as they want to give tourists the latest and most accurate information.

Photo Gallery has divided into four groups: Macau Scenery, Christmas, Macau World Heritage and Events & Festivals. The gallery not only shows the pictures of Macau but also introduce the festivals in Macau and how Macau looks like in different events.

eCard let tourists to send cards, with beautiful pictures of Macau, to their friends and relatives. It is a very good idea as through sending eCards, more people can see the gorgeous scenery in Macau and it can attract people to visit.

The video clips promote the slogan “Experience Macau!” and there are five videos with different sensations – See, Taste, Feel, Hear and Touch. Those five videos can let people understand what the slogan is and know what they can do in Macau.


According to the news above and the introduction of eZone, it can be foreseen that Macau will use more and more information technology to help their tourism business. I think that they can use more social media such as facebook and twitter to help as they are now very popular channels to do promotions.

Japan National Tourism Organization

Japan National Tourism Organization (JNTO) launched a new program in October called “Okinawa2Go!”. This is a program for giving help and guides to tourists. In this program, it includes 24-hour hotline with different languages. Tourists can ask for help when they have problems during the travel in Okinawa. There is also an iPhone apps – “Okinawa2Go!” provided. Tourists can download this application and use it as a virtual guide. They can search for all tourism information like sightseeing and transportation. They also can share their travel experience in Okinawa immediately. However, this brilliant iPhone application can only be used by tourists with iPhone . Therefore, starting from November, JNTO provides iPhone with the apps – “Okinawa2Go!” for tourists. Tourists can borrow the iPhone for free at the airport or the Tisco Japan counter. Using this iPhone, tourists also have free internet access and can call the 24-hour hotlines.

This new program is a combination with latest technologies. This is also what other DMOs do now. From the JNTO website, there are not much tools related to information technology provided for tourists. They have videos and pictures but no podcast and RSS. So information technology tools actually are new to JNTO. This iPhone apps is a new trial for them I think this is a good start as people from all over the world are now paying more attention to latest technologies and no one do not know what iPhone is. Therefore, using iPhone apps is a very good start and it can definitely draw tourists’ attention. From my point of view, JNTO should develop more IT tools in order to attract more tourists to come and visit. Nowadays, people want everything to be convenient and fast and IT can solve all the problems and provides what they want. Also, all DMOs are trying to create or develop the latest information technology tools for tourists. If JNTO is still providing the traditional tools for tourists, many tourists will not visit Japan anymore. It is because other destinations can provide more help and convenience to them. Therefore, information technology is really important in tourism industry and it cannot be neglected. JNTO needs to try hard in order to always be the top destinations in tourists' mind.