Recently, news broke of a data breach at
White Lodging, a company that
maintains multiple popular hotel franchises including Hilton, Sheraton and
Marriott. The breach, which actually took place in 2013, resulted in
hundreds of cases of credit card fraud for customers who had previously
stayed at White Lodging-managed hotels. As writers hurried to draft stories
with the latest updates and worried customers checked their bills for
unusual activity, White Lodging, along with the major hotels it manages,
were tasked with locating the hack, securing their remaining data and
cleaning up this PR mess. It was a costly undertaking in terms of time,
resources and reputation.
Hospitality is plagued by many of the same IT challenges that face most
other industries. Hotels must store, secure and manage vast amounts of data,
and the amount of data that needs protection is growing exponentially
year-over-year. But unlike many other industries, a majority of the data
hotels hold is not strictly their own. The multi-billion dollar industry
handles millions of customers annually, all of whom share their personal and
financial information and trust that information isn't liable to loss. While
we don't often put the words "hospitality" and "IT management" in the same
sentence, data is data no matter where it is, what it looks like and who's
tasked with managing it, and like any industry, businesses in the
hospitality industry are not immune to catastrophic data loss. White Lodging
is not the first, nor will it be the last company to fall victim to a major
data debacle.
And while there are many methods companies undertake to prevent data loss,
it's inevitable for every business at some point. Businesses in hospitality,
with their millions of customers and infinite amounts of private data, are
not immune to data loss, but they can prepare themselves for the "big one"
by investing in a complete and cohesive disaster recovery solution that
ensures that lost data won't result in lost reputations.
IT managers in hospitality must oversee three main data challenges: growth,
storage and backup. The volume of data that each company must manage grows
every second. For hospitality, this means corporate, staff and guest
information needs to be stored in a location that can be easily accessed by
multiple touch points across an organization. This massive data growth also
heightens the need for secure storage options, ideally in on- and off-site
locations for maximum protection. Lastly, all that data must be routinely
backed up. For the most secure backup, I recommend following a simple "3-2-1
rule." What this means is that every business should make three
copies of every piece of important data, store that data in two
different formats and keep one copy offsite. This ensures complete
data protection in the event of a disaster or breach loss.
To tackle these challenges, IT managers in hospitality sector should look
for a solution that provides:
This multi-tiered approach ensures that all aspects of data security and
recovery are addressed while minimizing cost.
Technology has rapidly changed the hospitality industry, making booking,
payments and a host of other vital tasks easier, but without the proper
protection, it can do more harm than good. A hotel's reputation and success
is built on customer service and most properties already have their hands
full dealing with run-of-the-mill complaints like lost reservations and
noisy rooms without dealing with catastrophes like data breaches. While
these issues certainly have a strong impact on those in the hospitality
industry, they pale in comparison to the very-real threat of major data
loss. A proper data protection and recovery solution has become not a
suggestion, but a requirement for IT managers to successfully protect
customers -- and their bottom line.
Les Spielman is president of Hospitality Automation Consultants Ltd., an independent consulting firm. With more than 34 years of experience in the lodging business, he provides assistance with automation tasks on a personalized basis. Hospitality Automation Consultants Ltd. has successfully completed over 3,400 consulting projects throughout the world. He was just reelected to his third consecutive term to the Board of Directors of the Society of Telecommunications Consultants. His practice is global. Spielman welcomes inquiries at: Hospitality Automation Consultants Ltd
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