"We thank all those involved, including Loews Hotels Director of Technical Services Robert Fields, HIS (a division of MAI Systems Corporation) Vice President of Product Development Mark Townsell, and Aloha (by Ibertech), for their assistance in successfully beta-testing the POS to PMS standard," said Robert Elliott, HITIS project manager and AH&MA director of regulatory affairs.

"We are pleased that Loews Hotels was able to participate in this successful test case," said Jonathan Tisch, president and CEO of Loews Hotels. "In addition, we acknowledge AH&MA's initiative with the HITIS project, as it will help to advance the efforts to standardize the disparate computerized systems, and allow us all to better serve our guests."

"A recent technology conference concluded that the lack of standards is a serious hindrance to technology becoming 'the great enabler' for travel, tourism, and the hospitality industries," said AH&MA Vice President of Corporate & Industry Affairs and HITIS promotional manager Thierry Roch. "We feel HITIS should be held up as a beacon of hope in solving these concerns."

The work of several HITIS technical committees is rapidly nearing closure for standardized interfaces involving posting devices, remote devices, and central reservation systems. Interested hosts and vendors are being sought to participate in future beta tests.

In addition, AH&MA was recently recognized as an official Standards Developer Organization (SDO) by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI). ANSI certification and recognition provides prospective end users and vendors with reassurances that the development of HITIS standards have been an open, public, and consensus process.

In other related news, the HITIS Advisory Committee recently formed a JAVA committee to develop uniform implementations of the HITIS standards for particular technology environments, thereby accelerating vendor adoption.

"The HITIS initiative is approaching closure on interface standards for posting devices, remote devices, and central reservation systems," said Elliott. "The second phase will focus on food/beverage and retail management, payment processing/accounting, and gaming/player tracking systems."

The HITIS project also has attracted additional sponsorship support. "Aside from welcoming our new Contributing sponsors HIS, Ibertech, and Loews Hotels, we are pleased to announce that HITIS has obtained Prime sponsorships from Symbol Technologies and the National Golf Course Owners Association, along with Sustaining sponsorship from Hotel Concepts, a European 'middleware' vendor specializing in interfacing solutions," said Roch. "Having a systems industry giant like Symbol on board allows us to harness the technical sophistication of an organization that has been involved in numerous standardization efforts across a variety of industries."