236 | Breach of Trust: Cybercrime a pervasive threat to the hospitality industry

11/06/19 • 28 min

It’s a given in today’s technological age that you operate a hotel business that depends on technology to process customer credit card purchases and to store personal information about your guests that helps you serve them better.

In addition, you probably are aware of cybercrime and that nefarious hackers frequently target payment systems. You’ve done all you can to make sure your customers’ data is secure, even adhering to payment card industry data security standards or PCI DSS and other processing protocols such as the European Union’s general data protection regulation or GDPR.

While it’s a smart move to be PCI and GDPR compliant, that does not fully guarantee your hotel data is safe from hackers.

There is more you can do.

If you think the threat is just too big to handle, know this: A data breach at your business is probable and it will cost you a lot of money.

A new IBM report notes the average cost of a data breach in a U.S. business is more than $8 million. Most of the cost is the result of lost business, meaning travelers stop coming to your hotel because they don’t trust the security of the technology.

The bigger the loss of data and the longer the breach goes undetected, the more it will cost you.

In this episode, Lodging Leaders explores the topic of cyber security and what steps you can take to protect your business information.

Co-host Judy Maxwell attended the HFTP’s 2019 Annual Convention in Orlando, Florida, last month. She covered presentations on cyber security and interviewed the presenters.

Included in this report are Ron Hardin, director of information technology at Sandestin Golf and Beach Resort; Paul West, a risk management and technical adviser at GapSpot!; Jen Stone, senior security analyst with SecurityMetrics; and Scott Boren of Boren & Associates, a compliance auditor.

While it’s a smart move to be PCI and GDPR compliant, that does not fully guarantee your hotel data is safe from hackers.

There is more you can do.

If you think the threat is just too big to handle, know this: A data breach at your business is probable and it will cost you a lot of money.

The bigger the loss of data and the longer the breach goes undetected, the more it will cost you.

In this episode, Lodging Leaders explores the topic of cyber security and what steps you can take to protect your business information.

Co-host Judy Maxwell attended the HFTP’s 2019 Annual Convention in Orlando, Florida, last month. She covered presentations on cyber security and interviewed the presenters.

Previous Episode

235 | Lodging Leaders Spotlight: Yotel a tech-forward brand worth watching

Taco Bell made headlines when it opened a 70-room pop-up hotel in August in Palm Springs, California.

It was a marketing scheme that lasted four days.

The day The Bell Hotel began to accept reservations, it sold out in two minutes.

The guaranteed novelty of staying in a Taco Bell hotel obviously paid off for the company, but it’s not the only fast food business that has ventured into the hotel space.

Ten years ago, Simon Woodroffe, founded YO! Sushi, which delivers food on a conveyor belt and has robots that deliver drinks. Woodroffe went on to use his technology and design prowess to co-create Yotel hotels with Gerard Greene.

Yotel began with technology-enabled sleeping cabins at airports.

Today, Yotel Hotels & Resorts is a sustainable hospitality company that recently launched an ambitious plan to expand its presence around the world.

In this episode we talk with Hubert Viriot, CEO of Yotel Hotels & Resorts for the past five years, about the company’s growth strategy.

Also featured is Christopher Grey, chief technology officer at Intelity, which recently teamed up with Yotel to scale its innovative, tech-forward guest-services platform.

And we include some audio clips of Woodroffe talking about the early vision for Yotel.

Next Episode

237 | Shop ’Til You Drop: Hospitality procurement specialists manage a mixed bag of challenges

U.S.-China trade war. Design-savvy online furniture retailers. Hurricanes. Marijuana.

These things and more are having an impact on hospitality purchasing. And they’re influencing the prices of hotel FF&E and OS&E as well as the cost of construction.

In this episode of Lodging Leaders, we talk to specialists in procurement and logistics to find out the trends and challenges facing the hospitality industry as it continues to build new hotels and renovate existing ones.

We find out what’s costing your project more money than it should. And we identify opportunities and pitfalls to be aware of while in the planning stages.

We talk to Marla Davis, senior vice president of procurement at Premier Project Management; William Langmade, CEO of Purchasing Management International; and Darlene Henke, president and CEO of Audit Logistics.