Oct 11, 2023

This seamlessly integrates multiple printing options into a single user-friendly device. The mC-Label3 has exceptional printing quality and remarkable compatibility with various media types, including die-cut labels, permanent linerless labels, and receipt paper/ With its high-speed printing of up to 180mm/s, the mC-Label3 meets the diverse printing needs of modern businesses, providing exceptional quality across a range of media types. From black mark to linerless sticky labels and traditional receipt paper, this printer does it all. Whether it's food safety labels, retail item details, or promotional logos, the mC-Label3's One Touch printing feature allows users to store and retrieve three static receipt or label images with a simple push of a button. The mC-Label3 comes equipped with maintenance alerts, notifying users when preventative maintenance is required. This proactive approach not only enhances the printer's performance but also extends its lifespan, reducing the need for costly repairs and replacements. With these helpful maintenance features, businesses can ensure their printing operations run smoothly and efficiently for years to come. The mC-Label3 excels in future-proof connectivity, offering versatile compatibility with USB-C, SteadyLAN+, TetherLAN, and Bluetooth. With its ability to connect seamlessly to iOS, Android, and Windows devices, this printer ensures a hassle-free experience, making it the ideal choice for modern businesses. As part of Star Micronics' commitment to innovation, the mC-Label3 is Cloud-Ready, allowing businesses to leverage Star Micronics Cloud Services for real-time device monitoring, custom promotional capabilities with PromoPRNT, and label creation. Companies can then store and print multiple static receipt/label images, whether by scheduling the images to be printed or using the One Touch button. Image   Spectrum Enterprise , a part of Charter Communications, announced today that it has been named an Alliance Partner by  Historic Hotels of America ®, the official program of the National Trust for Historic Preservation for recognizing noteworthy historic hotels, as a preferred technology solutions provider. Through Historic Hotels of America’s Alliance Partners program, Spectrum Enterprise will be providing member properties with an easy way to modernize their digital infrastructure to help improve staff operational efficiencies and enhance the guest experience while maintaining the establishments’ distinguished heritage. “Hotels inducted into Historic Hotels of America have contributed to a significant part of the history in each of their communities – including hosting U.S. Presidents, First Ladies, and their families; world leaders, authors, composers, celebrities, and guests celebrating special occasions,” said Lawrence Horwitz, Executive Vice President, Historic Hotels of America and Historic Hotels Worldwide. “Many have magnificent art collections, spectacular landscapes and gardens, and legendary golf courses. Spectrum Enterprise will make it easier for our members to further grow their legacies and attract generations to come by ensuring that their network operations are built on a digital infrastructure that can flex and adapt to new technology.” Today’s guests expect a digital first experience in connectivity and hotel amenities when traveling, including easy access to entertainment streaming and hotel services using personal devices. Spectrum Enterprise technology solutions and managed services can support staff, delight guests and help hoteliers maximize their resources to handle increasing bandwidth demands on a hotel’s network. A modern digital infrastructure is necessary to enable these solutions and scale as the business at America’s historic properties grows. “Inducted hotels in Historic Hotels of America are dedicated to preserving the legacy of the past, but their properties need to rely on modern technologies to ensure that they continue to operate successfully in a digital world,” said Richard Twilley, Group Vice President, Vertical Markets at Spectrum Enterprise. “We will work with each property to design an overall solution that helps ensure that they will continue to stand the test of time with their guests.” Image Harri , a Frontline Employee Experience platform provider, announced details of its latest funding, which included the close of its Series B. The growth equity round was led by New York-based  Atalaya Capital Management , with additional participation from existing investor  Golub Growth , an affiliate of market-leading direct lender  Golub Capital , and prominent undisclosed strategic investors. Harri will use the $43M in growth equity financing to deliver continued innovation, accelerate growth, and scale in response to market demand. According to researchers at Gartner, there are approximately 2.7 billion frontline workers worldwide, more than double the number of desk-based workers. Frontline workers rely on mobile-first applications, which is why Harri’s Frontline Employee Experience platform, the only end-to-end solution built natively for the needs of frontline employees and managers, has garnered such significant momentum in the hospitality sector. Harri’s frontline worker-first platform addresses the unique human capital management needs across the entire employee lifecycle from talent acquisition through modern workforce management and talent development. The Harri Frontline Employee Experience platform is lauded by users for its ease of use, comprehensiveness, powerful scheduling capabilities, and unmatched depth of compliance capabilities unique to frontline employers and franchise systems. Harri’s customer base spans the spectrum of marquee operators across the hotel and restaurant industries including Jersey Mike’s, Subway, McDonald’s, Hawaiian Bros., José Andrés Group, Wolfgang Puck, Hawksmoor, Firmdale Hotels, and Radisson Hotel Group. Luke Fryer, CEO of Harri, said, “Never before has there been a clearer link between employee and business performance for service industries. The components of a high-performing team are also more complex and dynamic than operators have ever experienced. Harri is playing the long game, we’re building solutions that help our clients navigate seemingly endless challenges and seize timely opportunities related to their most valuable resource. Our investors’ confidence in Harri and valuable guidance will be instrumental as we expand our go-to-market strategies as well as deepen our business intelligence and intentional AI solutions that increase worker productivity, satisfaction, retention, and ultimately, profitability.” “We are thrilled to partner with Harri and its management team as the company continues to build on its success within the hospitality enterprise software vertical,” said Kyle Goss, Principal at Atalaya and a member of the firm’s corporate investing team. “Our investment stands out as a great example of our capability to provide flexible capital to growing businesses.” “We are proud to be a long-term partner to Harri as they revolutionize the frontline employee experience,” said Robert Sverbilov, Managing Director at Golub Growth. “Harri continues to build unique, innovative solutions with its platform, and we look forward to supporting the company’s continued growth and expansion.” Image TourReview , an online reputation management platform for tour operators, announced that its waitlist of more than 300 tour operators across the U.S. is now lifted. The platform offers a complete automated system for users to easily access customer review data and recommendations to improve their online presence. TourReview and Arival are also announcing winners of the Spotlight Awards at Arival 360 in Orlando today, recognizing tour operators across different travel sectors. With the tourism industry totaling approximately $2 trillion in the U.S. this year, the competition among tour operators has increased, and exceeding travelers’ expectations today is crucial. In fact,  93% of global travelers  say their travel booking decisions are impacted by online reviews. TourReview is helping tour businesses understand transparent customer satisfaction by using AI and business intelligence to aggregate data from millions of reviews across online travel agencies including Expedia, GetYourGuide, Google, Klook, Tiqets, Tripadvisor (excluding duplicate reviews also on Viator), and Viator. Now with TourReview’s platform update, users can navigate this data and customer guidance with complete autonomy. “The tourism industry has significantly evolved in the last 20 years and a tour operator’s reputation in-person is just as important online with the internet and review applications being everyone’s go-to source for research and validation,” said Jose Arozarena, CEO of TourReview. “With my team’s deep understanding of this industry, we developed a data-driven, robust business intelligence system so every tour business gains access to their data, control what insights they want to see, and receive strategic direction on an all-in-one platform.” TourReview partnered with Arival on the Spotlight Awards to recognize the best in-destination companies in the industry based on TourReview’s impartial software, collating information from over a dozen online platforms and millions of customer reviews. The  finalists  have been chosen across five distinct categories: Sightseeing Tours, Attractions, Day Tours and Excursions, Activities, and Food, Drink, and Gastronomic Tours. The winners will be announced at Arival 360 in Orlando today, October 10 at 5:30 p.m. “It’s fantastic to see so many companies across the travel industry consistently impressing their customers,” said Douglas Quinby, co-founder and CEO of Arival. “Tours and experience companies have a unique opportunity to get close to their customers, giving them experiences that they’ll remember for years to come; it’s clear that so many brands are investing the time and care in understanding what their customers really want. I’m excited that we've worked with TourReview to help recognize the travel companies for their outstanding contribution to the industry.” TourReview’s CEO Jose Arozarena will conduct a live demo of the platform and discuss the benefits of it at Arival 360’s Demo Lab on Wednesday, October 11 at 11 a.m. The company plans to release more features in the coming months to continue supporting tour operators around the world to better their business model and surpass customer excellence. Image Rudding Park, a privately owned luxury spa and golf resort in Harrogate, North Yorkshire, England, has taken great strides to invest in technology and keep pace with new operational challenges. The resort offers 90 guestrooms and suites, a destination spa, two restaurants, a kitchen garden, a private cinema, two golf courses, and multiple meetings and events venues spread across 300 acres of landscaped gardens and woodlands. To improve the management of these facilities, improve operational efficiency, and optimize revenue generation, Rudding Park turned to  Maestro PMS . Maestro will showcase its popular All-in-One PMS at the Independent Hotel Show, October 16 to 17 in Olympia London at Stand 1530. Through their implementation of Maestro’s  all-in-one Property Management System  (PMS), Rudding Park’s operations team was able to create event order function sheets for banquet operations, more easily informing the hotel’s team of what events have been booked and specific areas of the resort that are in use at any moment in time. By using this information to stay up to date on business on the books, Rudding Park could optimize its staffing to ensure guests have the best possible experience without unnecessarily overstaffing during slower periods. Rudding Park also implemented technology to improve transparency across all departments. Maestro PMS’s communications tools have streamlined the property’s event space management, reduced booking errors, and ensured the hotel maintains the high operating standards its guests anticipate. These capabilities extend to inventory management tools, which have improved Rudding Park’s purchasing decisions while providing operators with more accurate restaurant and guestroom availability. “Maestro PMS has changed how Rudding Park operates, allowing our hotel to maintain its historical roots while keeping pace with the rate of change impacting hospitality,” said Julia Featherstone, Head of Rooms Division at Rudding Park. “Maestro’s ability to manage  integrations  and provide answers to our important questions has ensured our property management system can help us reach our goals and accommodate our goals for future growth. We would encourage other independent hoteliers to research any PMS providers’ ability to integrate with other key hotel systems, such as the point-of-sale system, as well as its user-friendliness and freedom to customize its capabilities to meet their business needs and requirements. Maestro has exceeded our expectations and is our preferred partner going forward.” Today, Rudding Park’s luxurious foundation and rich history are supported by its technological capabilities. The property is now leveraging Maestro PMS’ integrations to access  advanced data analytics tools  and more, giving the hotel expanded insight into guest behavior and preferences. The property’s staff can access expanded communications tools, including text-based messaging between hotel workers and guests. The resort also benefits from a streamlined reservation and booking process that strips away human error opportunities while automatically personalizing guest profiles for future bookings. Maestro is the only hospitality property-management system software company that offers an all-in-one, comprehensive Web browser solution with the option to host its Maestro Cloud Platform on-premises, in a private cloud, or cloud hosted. All environments support the latest mobile, contact-free, and web-responsive technologies to enhance the digital guest and staff experience. The benefit is an extensive collection of open APIs to support more than 800 third-party integrations. “We are delighted to continue serving Rudding Park in North Yorkshire, and we remain impressed with the hotel’s commitment to managing their unified guest journey and streamlining their hotel’s operations through new technology,” said Warren Dehan, president of Maestro PMS. “By partnering with Maestro PMS, Rudding Park has automated its communications for pre-arrival and guest feedback, adopted efficiencies in the check-in and check-out processes, and smoothed key wrinkles in operations. Our team continues looking for new ways to streamline operations for independent hoteliers, improve staff mobility, and make serving guests simple and enjoyable.” Image   Gregg Hopkins  is once again bringing insight, experience and passion to the hospitality advisory services business. Recently the 40-year hospitality industry veteran re-opened his travel and hospitality focused consultancy,  Gregg Hopkins & Associates  (GH&A), to serve as a trusted technology advisor for hotels, resorts, restaurants and clubs, and a hands-on mentor for hospitality technology company executives and front-line marketing and sales personnel. “It’s been a rough few years in hospitality and it’s time that today’s owners and operators fall back in love with the reasons they chose this industry in the first place,” Hopkins said. “There is a lot to do to keep travelers coming back. That’s why I re-opened GH&A — to do everything today’s operators do not have time to do . . . don’t know how to do . . . and simply don’t want to do because they are too busy serving guests with limited resources. For instance, many hotel companies and independents say they would benefit from a full-time chief technology officer, but they don’t have the finances to support it. GH&A will come in, help standardize the company’s technology across their portfolio, then ensure that it stays up and running all on an outsourced consulting basis. We can help evaluate projects, conduct research, and even advise on global expansion and sales strategies. “I’m passionate about the hotel business and have built a tremendous career developing, advising, and marketing some of the industry’s most innovative technologies,” he said. “With the industry stabilizing, I feel it’s time to get back to doing what I love the most — engaging with hoteliers to address their challenges — from digital transformation, tech stack modernization, and operational needs/gap analysis, to cloud migration, enterprise analytics, procurement services, project management and more.” ‘Get Hoppy’ Consulting Services A professional service offering of GH&A is “Get Hoppy Consulting.” Here hoteliers and technology vendors can receive assistance with strategic planning, technology, business development, sales leadership, operations, financial planning, and marketing. Get Hoppy Consulting focuses on two areas: Attaché Technology Consulting for Hotels, Resorts, Restaurants, & Clubs – Get Hoppy will access a hotel’s existing technology framework, infrastructure, security, distribution, sales and operational controls, labor efficiencies, associated agreements, and related costs to uncover technology barriers to operations and use a unique blend of business and technology experience to solve your unique challenges. Via proven methodologies, tools, and best practices, Get Hoppy will fast-track a hotel’s digital business transformation while leveraging technology to reduce costs. It will also work with vendors on its clients’ behalf to procure solutions and services while understanding the capital and/or operating expenses associated with the selection of the technology and communications infrastructure. Finally, Get Hoppy will provide complete project oversight on planning and deployment of the selected technologies and related infrastructure while ensuring timely coordination of the overall project timeline. “Doing assessments of a hotel’s current tech stack is critical today so that operators can mitigate vendor or technology encumbrances,” Hopkins said. “Get Hoppy will not only uncover operational inefficiencies in how solutions are being used – or not used, but we will fix what is broken or find something new to replace the old system. We have the astute ability to negotiate with vendors and select the best fitting partner. Then, we will manage and oversee new technology from a property perspective on time and within budget, including streamlining the API process. Properties that are not optimizing solutions effectively and executing against their technology strategy need to Get Hoppy.” Ascend Business Advisory for Travel & Hospitality Technology Companies – Get Hoppy works with owners, operators and their teams to address growth challenges as opportunities, including creating strategic marketing frameworks and goals, planning operational guidance for expansion strategies, defining product roadmap development requirements, as well as product diversification strategies — all critical components to the overall business growth strategy. Get Hoppy’s marketing and sales capabilities include brand strategy, customer relationship management, sales optimization, channel strategies, pricing, customer segmentation, new product development, product portfolio optimization, and marketing strategy. The company helps hoteliers maximize the business results from major initiatives and aids executives with evaluating the case for investment, set up projects for success—or place current projects on the right track—to ensure they capture value when implementing new systems and programs. Get Hoppy is also available to execute full trade show management, including but not limited to exposition coordination, exhibit design, on-site management, social functions, post event surveys, and wrap up. GH&A will deliver experiences that move people to engage with a brand and act, whether when planning a company’s special event, such as a Consultant’s Summit, Customer Advisory Board, or Company Sales Meeting. “Whether you are a young business just getting off the ground, or an established one this is looking to evaluate current strategies and their effectiveness, we are ready to provide experienced strategic advisory services to help take businesses into the future with success beyond their wildest dreams,” Hopkins said. Prior to the re-launch of GH&A, Hopkins served as CEO of PROVision Partners. His professional career is highlighted with executive roles as VP of Strategic Marketing for Quore; Chief Sales and Marketing Officer for Intelity; VP of Global Marketing for Newmarket International & Amadeus Hospitality; Founder, President, and CEO of Libra OnDemand; Chief Business Officer of MAI Systems & SoftBrands Hospitality; and VP of Technology & Distribution for Palmer Hospitality Group. Hopkins has served, or currently serves, as a committee member of select organizations and industry associations including the HFTP Executive HITEC Vendor Council, HTNG Workgroups, the MPI Foundation Global Board of Trustees, the Rosen College of Hospitality Management, and as a member of various Board of Advisors for hospitality technology organizations. People are ‘Hoppy’ with GH&A “Gregg has been a mentor throughout my career and provided priceless business and marketing advice. He is trustworthy, knowledgeable, and very well respected in the industry. I am more than happy to recommend Gregg Hopkins & Associates to my friends and colleagues.” — Frank Wolfe, CEO, HFTP “As an entrepreneur in the hospitality technology sector, Gregg has consistently demonstrated his expertise and leadership. His dedication to improving the guest experience is unparalleled. His vision and execution have led to groundbreaking solutions for businesses in this space and he would be an asset to any team.” — Mike Blake, Chief Technology Officer, American Hotel & Lodging Association “Gregg understands the workings of the hospitality industry and has a deep knowledge of technology. And I’m pretty sure he knows everyone in the industry, too. His all-in marketing strategy and approach to messaging embraces all elements of the media, which is something I admire. His marketing strategies are fun and sometimes push the limits of a media company, but they create important, relevant, and interesting messaging that reach the audience – which is the ultimate goal.”  — Geneva Rinehart, SVP & Managing Editor, Hospitality Upgrade In addition to serving as an industry leading consultant, Hopkins is a published contributor of content to the hospitality trades, and a participant in industry webinars, roundtables and podcasts.