By Robert Andre Emmanuel
IT managers and other key personnel across the hospitality industry met at Royalton Antigua yesterday, as Digicel Business hosted a workshop, sharing insight into tools that they hope will boost guest experience, worker efficiency, and overall business improvement.
During the first session, ‘Hospitality and 360 Comms’, the speaker, Marco Piazzi, a regional business champion at Digicel Business, highlighted some product solutions set to enhance guest experience.
“At Digicel, we performed a survey in the region. We asked 3,000 businesses what they thought their major challenge was going to be for digital transformation; 14 percent said their biggest challenge was insufficient technical support,” Piazzi explained.
Focussing mainly on the hotel industry, he highlighted how software products like ‘360 Comms’ and ‘360 View’ could create better efficiency among staff.
The latter was described as a technology solution aimed at using traditional surveillance tools to provide greater analysis for businesses in relation to improving services for their guests.
On the other hand, 360 Comms was described as a tool which can remotely connect staff across various locations, which is more useful for electro-sensitive areas.
“Having efficient operations is key … when you’re running a very complex business like the hospitality industry with different departments and they all have their unique problems within their departments … you have to find a way to make them as efficient as possible,” he told attendees.
Meanwhile, the second session, which focussed on cybersecurity, was led by CEO of Symptai Consulting, Marlon Cooper.
Symptai Consulting is described as a leading cybersecurity, digital transformation and anti-money laundering firm in the Caribbean.
Cooper spoke about the importance of cybersecurity and data protection in Antigua and Barbuda, referencing various data breaches throughout the region and how hackers and bad actors take advantage of vulnerabilities in IT systems.
“The goal of digital transformation is to affect the lives of ordinary people. We live in the Latin America and Caribbean region; two out of three persons use the internet, one in every 10 companies are connected online and so because of that, there are massive opportunities for digital services.
“So, because of these opportunities that exist for digital transformation, there are also risks,” Cooper said.
Cooper stressed the importance of regular vulnerability assessments for businesses and said that one of the major changes made in the region was the establishment of data protection laws, which — although Antigua and Barbuda has on the law books — he noted the lack of implementation through a Data Protection Commissioner.
Wenise Davis, CEO of Digicel Antigua, said the workshop was geared towards helping personnel in the tourism sector improve their business operations.
“The overall goal was that we are celebrating our 18th anniversary and we wanted to tell our corporate partners thank you … because cybersecurity is important,” Davis explained.
