HTNG’s Architecture Workgroup is an ongoing effort that has developed, and continues to refine, an industry reference architecture for the hospitality industry.

• Unlike other workgroups, its objective is a reference document to provide guidance to hotels and vendors, rather than a solution to a particular problem.
• Based on the well established principles of Enterprise Architecture, the workgroup is following a structured approach to developing an Industry Architecture, including business, application, and data architectures.
• This workgroup’s Industry Architecture has been recognized in multiple articles in ComputerWorld magazine as the first such effort of its kind.

-  The first article discusses the overall efforts and defines the stakeholders:  February 16, 2009.
-  The second article delineates the many challenges of developing a standard architecture:  April 13, 2009
-  The third and final article highlights the many benefits of the architecture effort:  June 22, 2009

• This architecture is making it easier for hotels to buy and design systems that are compatible with key design principals such as Service Oriented Architecture, which in turn aids migration of systems out of hotels and into the cloud.
• It also simplifies the challenge for vendors to provide software products that conform to established business practices.

Business Benefits include:

• Eases the use of existing systems, and the acquisition and integration of new systems
• Eases the assimilation of systems across a multi-property enterprise and the roll-up of data across the various definitions of enterprise
• Enables a vendor to provide a software product based on a functional model, which conforms to established business practices
• Enables IT consumers to make informed decisions when selecting components
• Facilitates interoperability across components for the purposes of accelerating deployment and lowering the total cost of ownership
• Provides increased choice and flexibility in IT acquisitions, and supports IT decision makers in selecting best of breed solutions

Visit the Reference Architecture workgroup page for more information about the efforts of this collaboration.