Sony is introducing the highly anticipated world’s first 200Hz LCD Television to Australia. 

The BRAVIA Z4500 LCD Television series will be available in 40”, 46” and 52” screen sizes.It incorporates the groundbreaking technology – Motionflow 200Hz – for the fastest frame rate available on an LCD Television .

Moving pictures on TVs are created by showing a sequence of still images (or frames) in quick succession. Motionflow 200Hz technology creates three additional unique frames for every original frame, increasing the typical frame rate from 50 to 200 per second. Read the rest of this entry »

Have you seen or heard of these scams currently doing the rounds in your Hotel? 

Fake petty cash dockets are easy money for those with access to the petty cash tin. Dockets that smooth things out for a guest problem tend to be the easiest to get through. If you have suspicions then ask the guest if something was bought for them.

It won’t surprise you that it will be hard to track that “overseas guest who had a ruined shirt bought for them”, but then your thief knows exactly that and it can cover their tracks nicely. Most of that sort of stuff is only junior league. Scammers have become very clever as is evident by the following that has occurred in recent times. 

This scam begins when Sales and Marketing are contacted by an individual as an agent for a large company, foreign government department ect. The arrangement is made to reserve a meeting room and accommodation for a dozen or so guests to say at the hotel. The reservation is always made for a future date. After a couple of weeks goes by the individual will make contact with the hotel and request that his company executives or dignitaries would like to take a tour or play golf.

The hotel is asked to make the required arrangements and add the cost to the existing contract. Once the arrangements are completed and the contract is done our scammer asks the hotel to send a letter documenting the arrangements with an attached invoice with banking details. 

When our scammer receives letter and invoice they will call and ask for the banking information so they can wire transfer to the hotels account to pay the invoice. On receiving that information the scammer now has the hotels letterhead, Managers signature, banking details he can create a document on his home computer that requests the bank to wire money from the hotels account to some other account – likely offshore but not always.

This scam works a treat. Maybe your hotel has tighter security than that but it has been said and proven many don’t. 

Double check your systems. Make sure you are not vulnerable to a simple rip-off technique that could be sucking dollars from your bottom line. 

Greg

In this case probably it does! 

This month we’re looking at chemicals used around the hotel and in particular the housekeeping departments. 

Did you know there were 81,000 chemicals registered with the EPA in the last 30 years? Reports tell us that fewer than 20% have been tested for toxicity. That’s a bit scary considering the everyday use of these products.

Going “Green” in the cleaning of hotel guest rooms probably conjures up using well know products like baking soda, white vinegar and salt!

Hardly practical when it comes to cleaning hundreds of rooms everyday. 

Health and safety issues in chemicals used for cleaning by hotel staff are pretty well known. Cost of a sick leave provision for staff is a real issue for management. Improper use of chemicals and anything that goes down the drain costs money to the hotel and the environment. 

So what product has technology bought to us in the last 15 years that is used extensively in hospitals and can resolve all of the issues mentioned earlier? I won’t give you the answer just yet but I do have some hard facts for you to consider from a 5 star hotel in Sydney that has completed a comprehensive trial to prove the true worth of not using chemicals. 

• They had a 3% higher rating from guest comment cards that room cleanliness was better.
• This was backed up by a bacterial swab count which came out lower than chemical cleaned surfaces. 
•  Infra red light tests for dirt buildup showed negative.
• And reports, that to the naked eye, glazed and metal surfaces such as sinks and kettles as an example looked to have an enhanced appearance.
• “They looked cleaner”. Great that’s what keeps the guests happy!!

 The trial by the hotel did include costings in terms of products and labour, training and was completed in March 07. 

Feedback from the housekeeping staff was very good with comments like -

• “The method used was less physically strenuous”
• “Feel good about less chemical usage and its helping the environment”
• “Far less water used”

In addition to the positive comments – 2 big factors were…

1. Chemical costs were reduced by 80%.
2. Water usage was down by a million litres.

   OK, so what are we talking about?  

Microfiber of course. 

Used in hospitals since the 1990s – it’s a water based cleaning solution invented and developed in Sweden in the 1990s. 

Just how high tech is Microfiber cloth?

Well when these guys say the fibre is thinner than human hair, that’s only part of the story. 

Actually one square centimeter of Microfiber contains over 30 kilometers of fibre.  

But that’s not all round surface threads on a traditional cloth are not really designed to pickup dirt particles.  Microfiber secret is the fibres are wedge shaped and that makes the millions of fibres much more effective in trapping the dirt particles. Hence the reason no chemicals are required.

The cloth is simply washed out with water at the end of the day for re-use the next day. 

All in all, a genuine Green proven product. 

Until next time… 

Greg

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