Hospitality technology professionals from around the globe came together this month to explore the industry’s best practices and latest innovations at the world’s largest Hospitality Industry Technology Exposition and Conference (HITEC), hosted each year by Hospitality Financial and Technology Professionals (HFTP). HITEC 2016 was held from June 20-23 in New Orleans, La. USA at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center.
HITEC 2016 was one of the highest attended conferences with 6,395 hospitality professionals representing 65 countries. The conference, which had over 106 speakers for its daily educational sessions, addressed important issues including robotics, disaster recovery, new operating/IT talent models, digital customer journey and more. The exhibit floor was home to 342 exhibitors and 867 exhibit booths showcasing the latest in hospitality technology products and services.
“The prominence of technology will only continue to grow in our everyday lives,” said HFTP CEO Frank Wolfe, CAE. “HITEC offers the world’s largest event for hospitality technology professionals around the globe to intermix, share ideas and their latest technology innovations. Attendees can now stay up-to-date with the latest technology news year-round with HITEC Bytes.”
The HITEC exhibit hall featured hundreds of companies announcing new products and showcasing their signature technologies. Details on participating exhibitors and their products and services are available via the online HITEC Buyers Guide. Attendees also have access to a number of presentations from the education sessions available on the HITEC website.
HITEC’s education program officially began with the Opening Keynote from Jer Thorp, Co-Founder of The Office of Creative Research, who spoke on adding narrative meaning to huge amounts of data. Tuesday’s Keynote Session featured Josh Linker, CEO of Hyper-Growth, who spoke on entrepreneurial mindset and why it is better to innovate and disrupt your organization before your competition does. To close HITEC on Thursday afternoon, Johnny Earle, CEO of Johnny Cupcakes, spoke on viral business and how to inspire customer loyalty through branding.
To recognize innovation leaders in the hospitality technology industry, HFTP inducted Michael Levie, CHTP, an executive at citizenM and a director on the HFTP Global board, and Prakash Shukla, managing partner at Solarex, into its International Hospitality Technology Hall of Fame.
