One of the premiere conferences in hospitality technology - HITEC 2016 - concluded on June 23. As our team gets back into their regular schedule, I wanted to take this opportunity to reflect back on the show and share some key takeaways:
1. Pay-at-the-Table: Changing payments in restaurants, hotels, etc.
Ever since the US EMV liability shift back in October 2015, businesses across the country are looking to upgrade their payment technology to be able to accept chip cards. One particular solution that has been at the forefront of the EMV migration conversation within the hospitality sector is Pay-at-the-Table. A lot of the conversations at the show were around the benefits of Pay-at-the-Table, not just from the perspective of enabling EMV, but factors like being able to accept PIN debit transactions. For hotels, a Pay-at-the-Table solution also allows them to accept payments in many locations – such as by the pool, hotel lobby, etc. Many exhibitors, including FreedomPay, Elavon and Agilysys showcased Ingenico Group terminals for their Pay-at-the-Table demos.
2. Unattended Parking: Paying for parking made easy
Another hot topic at HITEC this year was around unattended parking solutions. Today’s unattended devices used in the parking environment, allow guests at a hotel to park their cars in the garage and securely pay for them at an unattended kiosk. With today’s solutions, they can use all secure forms of electronic payments such as EMV chip cards, contactless, mobile wallets, etc. without having to deal with a parking attendant. Implementing such a solution in a hotel’s parking garage can help increase efficiency and save huge costs for the business owner as the need for garage staff would be reduced. It’ll be interesting to see how the adoption of unattended solutions within the hospitality industry continues to grow over the next few years.
3. Payment security: A multi-layered security approach
Data breaches have become common in the past few years and hospitality business owners are taking payment security very seriously. Among many sessions at HITEC, Ingenico Group’s Dr. Rob Martin participated in a panel focused on payment security and emphasized the importance of a multi-layered security approach to protect against data breaches and card fraud. Martin also highlighted how EMV, P2PE, and tokenization work best when they are implemented together.
Overall, HITEC 2016 was a huge success and a great opportunity to connect with many of our customers, partners, industry leaders, and innovators that are helping to shape the future of payments in hospitality.
Check out our Storify below to see all our favorite moments from the show. Thanks again for joining us at HITEC 2016. See you again next year in Toronto, Canada!
Mathieu Limousi is the Director of Segment Marketing at Ingenico Group
