Frequently Asked Questions

Why was HTNG founded?

How is HTNG different from OTA or HITIS?

Does HTNG have meetings?

What can I do to become involved in/join HTNG?

How do HTNG workgroups work?

Why was HTNG founded?

HTNG was founded by a group of nine prominent hotel technology experts out of a shared frustration with the limited nature of solutions offered by current vendors within the industry; of the difficulty of integrating those solutions; of the impossibility for the average hotel to select, operate, and manage them effectively; and of the difficulty among vendors in dealing with the fragmented technology purchasing process within the hotel industry.  After characterizing the issues and debating the potential solutions during a two-day brainstorming session, the group decided to form HTNG as a vehicle for taking the message forward into the hotel community, gaining support, and ultimately changing the behavior of both hotels and vendors.    Return to top

How is HTNG different from OTA, HITIS, and earlier standardization efforts?

The OpenTravel^TM Alliance (OTA) and Hospitality Industry Technology Integration Standards (HITIS) address the format of messages between applications.  HTNG embraces and endorses the work of both organizations, while noting that the HITIS specifications are now technologically outdated.

HTNG's mission is significantly broader.  The end goal of HTNG is to enable the formation of new technology vendors or vendor alliances (or entry of vendors from other industries) who can deliver comprehensive, turnkey technology solutions to hotels and hotel companies, and deliver them as a service - much as electricity or telephone service is delivered to hotels today.

While HTNG will not address the messaging standards that are covered by OTA, it does cover interoperability at the operating system, database, security, transport, and networking levels.  Through improved interoperability, HTNG seeks to facilitate vendor alliances and consolidation.  It also seeks to improve the processes through which hotel companies budget, fund, and purchase technology, to remove the high selling-cost barriers that have frustrated technology vendors.

Another key difference is that HTNG is the first standardization effort that will be controlled entirely by the hospitality industry.  Earlier efforts in the hotel industry (such as HITIS and WHIS) have not been broadly adopted (there are some exceptions).  Some hotels saw these as self-serving efforts on the part of specific vendors, and did not demand compliance from their own vendors.  As a result, compliance (especially among the more critical vendors) remains low.  The OpenTravel Alliance does include hoteliers, but has a broader travel industry distribution focus and does not address many hotel-specific issues.  Return to top

Does HTNG have meetings?

HTNG holds membership meetings three times a year, and each workgroup holds meetings periodically (about once a quarter).  Additional meetings may be held as needed.  A members' meeting is held in North America in the first quarter of each year, for Asia Pacific in early third quarter and another in Europe in early fourth quarter. Workgroups also hold face-to-face meetings, generally 3-4 times per year.  Return to top

What can I do to become involved in/support/join HTNG?

• Join!
• Read about why HTNG was formed.
• Become familiar with the active workgroups.
• Join a workgroup and help build tomorrow's technology
• If you are a technology vendor, implement the solution approaches developed by the workgroups
• If you are a technology buyer, tell your vendors that you want an application that complies with HTNG's solutions.
• Propose a workgroup to address other industry problems you face!

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