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Humour for the day
Two Blind Pilots
Two blind pilots are both wearing dark glasses, one is using a guide dog, and the other is tapping his way along the aisle with a cane.
Nervous laughter spreads through the cabin, but the men enter the cockpit, the door closes, and the engines start up. The passengers begin glancing nervously around, searching for some sign that this is just a little practical joke. None is forthcoming.
The plane moves faster and faster down the runway and the people sitting in the window seats realize they're headed straight for the water at the edge of the airport. As it begins to look as though the plane will plough in to the water, panicked screams fill the cabin.
At that moment, the plane lifts smoothly into the air. The passengers relax and laugh a little sheepishly, and soon all retreat into their magazines, secure in the knowledge that the plane is in good hands.
In the cockpit, one of the blind pilots turns to the other and says,
"Ya know, Bob, one of these days, they're gonna scream too late and we're all gonna die."
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HTI in Malaysia!
Mark van der Heever (HTI), was fortunate enough to capture some spectacular sea-life while diving off the shores of Malaysia. Mark went diving in Sipadan, Kapalai and Mabul on holiday in early January and he had these exquisite shots to prove it...
Sipadan, Chalets on the water
Moorish Idols of Malaysia
Purple Nudibrank
Green Turtle - Not a mutant ninja!
Another purple Nudibrank
Malaysia at sunset, not too shabby...
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HTI in bed with...
HTI has also developed seamless integration to the largest travel portal in the world...and partners
and
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Hot News - SeaCom 3 to 4 months away!
Hello East Africa and Southern Africa! Cheaper internet 3 to 4 months away! Seacom has reported very satisfactory progress in its laying of the undersea cable that will offer overdue relief to internet consumers in the country.
The price of bandwidth in South Africa is comparatively high but the good news is that the deployment of seacom infrastructure will slash broadband prices by huge margins.
"We're delighted to have actual cable in the water and the countdown to June has begun. We've made tremendous progress since our groundbreaking in Mozambique last November and we can now sense a real level of excitement for Seacom's arrival."
The content of this article is courtesy of CyberConnect
It is on this note that we would like to re-iterate the power of a hosted service, such as eRes®. Seacom will have a capacity of 1.28 terabits per second, roughly 10 times the current capacity of the existing SAT-3 cable which runs along Africa's west coast and connects South Africa to Europe and The Rest of the World.
This will open the door for increased distribution opportunities and a very efficient platform for your hosted eRes® service. Contact us if you would like to know more about the possibilities that this infrastructure can offer your business and your property in the future. We will be happy to discuss the low infrastructural costs from our side and the improved business solutions that we will be able to provide at lightning speeds.
For other interesting articles about the implementation of Seacom and the undersea cables, please visit South Africa - Alive With Possibility!
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Next Upgrade
1.) Reminders:
Staff Reminder – The reminder will pop-up on the screen.
Guest Reminder - The reminder will pop-up on the screen.
Auto Reminders – Automatically change fields at day end.
2.) Proforma Invoice
Now has the ability to print a proforma from the group master after the pickup has been done.
Reports:
3.) Pit check reports
4.) 31 day Marketing Analysis
...
Future enhancements
- OTA interface between eRes® and Apex.
(This will be an automatic connection)
- No more FTP connection!!
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What would you do if robbers stole all your computers?
*The Importance of Backup*
Apex and PlusPoint have a built in Disk to Disk nightly backup, that runs automatically during the end of day, however you still need to create secure off site backups.
The classic data backup schedule involved a backup to run at the end of each business day, so 7 backups per week. The 7th backup each week was saved as a weekly backup and was archived, off site, rather than being re-used in the next week. This pattern was continued until the end of the month. The last data backup of the month was likewise stored as a monthly backup and the last backup of the year was stored as the yearly backup.
The total usage breaks down as follows:
Daily x 6 disks/tapes - Day 7 Taken off site
Weekly x 3 disks/tapes - Week 4 (Month End) Taken off site
Monthly x 11 disks/tapes - Week 52 (End of Year) Taken off site
Of course you would need to modify this schedule if you were backing up less often or were not using re-writable media. Please contact your network administrator and ensure that your data is safe.
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Dynamic Yielding
It is amazing how, in today’s automated world, many hotel companies still rely on a manual process to manage their yield. These manual processes are the most common methods, i.e. forecasting business based on historical occupancy trends, or simply guessing to determine the best available rate for inventory.
When an important task such as yielding is done in this old fashioned manner, chances are that they are only performed once a week, if at all. With hotel occupancy changing continuously, one may very well be losing out on opportunities to accomplish optimal Revenue Per Available Room (RevPAR) and occupancy.
A fundamental part of ensuring best possible RevPAR and occupancy is frequent optimization of hotel rates, based on supply and demand patterns. Dynamic Yielding, a concept introduced in version 4.2 of eRes®, alleviates the tediousness associated with the old fashioned method of managing yield, by introducing a mechanism whereby lower yielding rates are automatically closed out per property when the occupancy percentage for that property reaches a certain user defined threshold. These rate closeouts are applied for the duration that the property’s occupancy percentage is below the threshold.
Now that the yielding aspect of running an organization is taken care of, managers are free to spend this valuable time on other parts of the business... or on the golf course.
This is one of many cutting edge developments encompassed in version 4.2. For a comprehensive list of new features, please contact us at technical@hti-systems.co.za.
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Off to a running start…
It’s hard to even remember the festive season of 2008, so much has happened since then at HTI. No sooner had we returned from the break and caught up on who went where, and then we were off and running again.
Although January was a short month, we covered a lot of ground, literally! Johan and Marc headed up to Botswana to install Apex and PlusPoint at Toro Lodge, while Maritza was off to Monwana in the Thornybush Reserve for another Apex. Jeanine headed down to Sanbona Lodge, to continue the rollout of PlusPoint for the Mantis Collection. Locally, we installed PlusPoint at The Manor in Pretoria and converted a couple of Jade users to Apex. So much for easing into things!
February has been more of the same, with conversions at existing customers and new business coming on board. However, a highlight of February has been the return of Jeanine from Polokwane! Jeanine is back at the Rivonia office and we’re thrilled to have her here. At present, Jeanine is focusing her attention on standardizing our internal training systems and documentation, which is key to improving the service we provide, especially as the team continues to grow.
HTI (Pty) Ltd would also like to take this opportunity to apologise to any of our loyal colleagues in the industry who have complained that they have not been receiving the newseltter of late. We have now changed to an alternative mail service, so it should iron out any problems we may have had in the past. Please contact us if you do not receive the newsletter for a few months and we will attend to the problem accordingly. Thank you for your patience in this regard and we are happy that you enjoy the newsletter and that you find most of our articles helpful and interesting to read.
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Message to: eRes® customers
From: James Montgomery
Date: 13th February 2009
Please let us Increase your connectivity and help you to grow your
direct sales capacity
Every eRes® customer can make use of the many channels that have been developed and are available, off the shelf at very economical costs.
1. IBE (Internet Booking Engine)
Live Web Bookings are your most basic requirement. You have to get your inventory live on your web site. Accept live bookings and collect any deposits and pre-payments on-line.
2. GDS (Global Distribution Systems)
HTI can arrange efficient and speedy connection to the major GDS suppliers through our Next Generation ResHub connection.
3. ITO (Inbound Tour Operators) - Current Users Interfaced
The largest tour operators in Africa have developed a direct and seamless connection capability for all eRes® customers.
This means that you can bypass more expensive global connections and provide inventory and rates (contracted) directly to tour operators and their associated agents.
4. ADS (Alternative Distribution Suppliers)
Expedia, Hotels.com, Travelocity, In1 Solutions, RES247, Kulula Travel and many more alternative distribution outlets are connected to eRes®.
If you are not using the full range of eRes® connectivity services, all that is required is for you to instruct your HTI eRes® account manager, or HTI’s technical department, to arrange such a facility.
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National Call Centre:
0861 HTI SYS (During office hours)
Tel: +27 11 803 2208
Fax: +27 11 807 1901
Web: www.hti-systems.co.za
E-mail: info@hti-systems.co.za
Contact Us!!
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