Innovation

🐊 The Réserve Tropicale welcomed nearly 283,000 visitors in 2024 as it celebrated its 30th anniversary. La Ferme aux Crocodiles, a leading tourist site in Drôme, France, enhanced visitor experience with a new aerial course for children, an overlook bridge, a photo spot at the waterfall, and regular introduction of new activities and social media filters for teens. The team continues to work towards a more immersive visit among Nile crocodiles and giant turtles.

🔌 Une borne WiFi, ou "point d'accès sans fil", connecte les appareils au réseau local sans fil. Les bornes domestiques, souvent intégrées aux box FAI, diffèrent des bornes professionnelles qui gèrent plus d'utilisateurs et couvrent de grands espaces comme les entreprises et hôtels. L'installation optimale exige un emplacement stratégique, une hauteur adéquate et l'évitement des obstacles. La sécurité doit inclure un mot de passe fort et la norme WPA3. Les bornes WiFi, distinctes des routeurs, nécessitent un routeur pour fonctionner et peuvent former un réseau "mesh". Erreurs d'installation courantes incluent un mauvais positionnement et la négligence de la sécurité. Etendre la portée peut se faire par l'ajout de bornes, l'utilisation de répéteurs ou un meilleur positionnement. La connexion nécessite généralement la sélection du réseau et l'entrée d'un mot de passe.

💻 Thaïs team announces the release of the new Thaïs PMS after 8 months of development. Leveraging 10+ years of experience, the cloud-based, user-friendly software is designed to reduce low-value tasks, improve responsiveness, and offer highly customizable statistical dashboards. The 2024 technology-based PMS aims for easier and faster updates to meet evolving hotelier and customer needs. Features include a daily dashboard for receptionists, enhancing practicality and ergonomics.

🏨 "Interihotel MAD24, the exclusive event for Hotel Design, will take place from November 19-21, 2024, in Madrid, Spain. Themed "Supernova, catalyzing the design of hospitality," it will gather Prescribers, Clients, and Brands for Conferences, Debates, Exhibition Spaces, and Experimental Areas like the Concept Rooms Lab, the Xperience Lab & the Materials Lab. Organized by the Cluster AMBIT Living Spaces, it's a key meeting for European architecture and interior design experts.

🌏 Madrid launched VisitMadridGPT in April, a virtual assistant speaking 95 languages, operating 24/7, based on generative AI, sourcing data from esMADRID.com, to improve visitor experience and tourism offerings. Director of Marketing, Abigail Sigüenza, stated data from visitor interactions, such as keywords, shape marketing strategies. Analysis shows 45% of conversations revolve around food, with "restaurant," "tapas," and "vegetarian" common, leading to an increased focus on vegetarian options in the city's marketing campaigns.

📱 43% of the global population, amounting to 3.45 billion people, still do not use mobile internet, as per GSMA's "State of Mobile Internet Connectivity 2024" report. Although mobile internet usage is increasing yearly, growth has slowed down, with 160 million new users last year compared to over 200 million annually from 2015 to 2021. The report, funded by the UK's FCDO and Sweden's Sida through GSMA Mobile for Development Foundation, also states that 57% (4.6 billion) now use mobile internet, while 4% (350 million) live outside mobile network coverage areas.

🎭 Paris welcomed 38 million tourists in 2023, with cultural sites in the Grand Paris area seeing an increase in visitors compared to 2022. In 2023, 68 cultural sites amassed 50.9 million visitors, a 12.3% hike from 2022. The Louvre led with 8.8 million (+12.9% from 2022), followed by the Eiffel Tower with 6.3 million (+3.1%), and the Musée d’Orsay.

🏨 Premier Inn, the UK's largest hotel brand, now offers over 900 hotels and 85,000 rooms in the UK and Ireland, plus 10,500 rooms in Germany, through the Sabre Global Distribution System (GDS). This new distribution agreement with Sabre Corporation (NASDAQ: SABR), a leading software and technology provider for the global travel industry, enables worldwide travel buyers to book Premier Inn properties seamlessly alongside other travel components, streamlining the booking process and enhancing the overall travel experience.

💻 Thaïs PMS, a hotel property management system (PMS), underwent a complete redesign to avoid technological debt, boost its evolvability, improve user experience for hoteliers, and make the PMS more intuitive and less central to daily tasks. The development took 8 months and embraced technologies of 2024, offering regular updates every 2 weeks, with a focus on easing daily routines for various hotel roles. The team has a 10-year track record of accumulating features and now aims to make the software more fluid and supportive for hotel staff.