First ever Hospitality Technology Expo open its doors next month – Opening and closing panel sessions unveiled

(London, UK – 21 January 2013) With less than a month to go until the doors open on Hospitality Technology Expo, the new dedicated event for the European hospitality technology community, organisers have given prospective visitors an extra incentive by revealing the details of the keynote opening and closing panel sessions.

Kicking off the event at 9:45am on Tuesday 5 February 2013 at Earls Court in London, the panel session ‘Securing guest information in a world with no boundaries’ sees an impressive line-up of some of the leading minds in the hospitality technology industry, including a renowned hotelier, Visa’s vice president of payment risk systems, and the European director of the PCI Security Standards Council, among others. Drawing on more than half a century of hospitality technology experience between them, the panellists will discuss payments and transactions in our increasingly high risk world and how hotels continue to struggle to stay secure.

Visitors attending the opening discussion will learn how demands on IT to provide a secure environment for guest data transmission are increasing, as are the number of threats to data security. According to the 2012 Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report, “The most-afflicted industry is accommodation and food services, consisting of restaurants (around 95%) and hotels (about 5%).” The panellists taking part will look at the key principles that IT managers can put in place to secure data transmissions covering data privacy, credit card communications and guest use of hotel bandwidth; a session that is not to be missed for anyone concerned with staying safe in a ‘world with no boundaries’.

HTE is set to feature more than 35 thought-provoking keynote speeches, industry panel debates, practical case studies, buyer-only masterclasses and interactive events, and the sessions and panellists at the first ever edition have been carefully selected to provide high quality, practical and inspirational content for Europe’s top hospitality technology professionals; over 1,500 of whom are expected to attend the two day event in February 2013.

To close the event, a collection of senior hotel executives including a CIO, two marketing directors and a vice president will be joined alongside the editor of one of the leading online voices for travel technology for a panel discussion entitled, ‘Marketing or IT Department – Who’s driving who in the social media and mobile demands?’. Taking place at 3:35pm on Wednesday 6 February 2013, the panellists will discuss how hotels are increasingly blurring the line between who looks at social media and mobile demands, how this function helps the hotel and finally, whose responsibility it is to drive forward revenue. Hoteliers grappling with how to get their marketing and IT departments to talk to one another to get the best results in this growing field will not want to miss this timely topic.

Hospitality Technology Expo is the new dedicated event for the European Hospitality Technology community where Europe’s leading hospitality technology professionals come to update their knowledge, network with peers and source new technology.

Shaped by the industry for the industry, this interactive, informative and focused event is designed to provide hospitality technology buyers with the knowledge, contacts and technology to enhance guest experience, grow multichannel revenues, increase margins and improve business efficiency and performance.

The event, created by Centaur and co-located with the Business Travel Show and Travel Technology Europe at Earls Court, will feature over 50 thought provoking conference sessions, bring together 1,500 hospitality technology executives for peer-to-peer networking and showcase Europe’s largest line up of leading and innovative suppliers covering all hospitality technology sectors – making it the largest event of its kind in Europe.