Data protection has become an increasingly relevant topic in the hospitality industry and continues to drive important trends throughout the market. Technology has taken its rightful place at the forefront of the hospitality industry and, with it, so too has data. With such heavy reliance on data for long-term and day-to-day operations, security has become a major concern for hotels worldwide. However, many hoteliers remain uninformed about how to protect their data and what to protect their data from.
Weather, data breaches, and negligence are the most prevalent and damaging threats to the financial systems of hotel management companies across the industry. Fortunately, hospitality software with cloud-based data storage and increased encryption protocols is helping hotel companies across the world keep their data safe and secure. While these threats may never be fully eradicated, there are several precautions that can be taken to provide the most secure database protection possible.
Natural Disasters
Whether its flooding, hurricanes, or tornadoes, Mother Nature will always be a force to be reckoned with for the hospitality industry. Natural disasters have a proven track record of impacting hoteliers’ abilities to maintain stability, namely through the loss of unprotected and unsecured data.
Having a room full of dedicated servers won’t cut it anymore for several reasons. Aside from the maintenance and costs, the hotel’s entire infrastructure could be severely damaged or totally wiped away in the event of a natural disaster. This is paralyzing to a hotel management team because hotel personnel can’t work remotely, assess critical information, or even get their hotel back online after an outage.
It is the hotelier’s responsibility to minimize the risk of losing invaluable data by investing in a cloud-based solution that can store data safely in redundant locations and provide instant and easy retrieval within financial statements and other modules, allowing teams to get back to work in no time after a natural disaster.
Ultimately, a cloud-based solution helps manage the influx of accounting and financial data for hoteliers, allowing them to access key business metrics anytime and anywhere and better serve their guests, especially during times of crisis.
Hacking
Just as an earthquake can happen at a moment’s notice, so too can data breaches. Within a matter of seconds, an entire corporate server can be compromised, wiping out years of crucial data.
In today’s world, data encryption is more important than data protection. While most hotel management companies encrypt data on their servers, that data is rarely encrypted during transmission from one server to another. It’s a complicated task to encrypt a file during transmission, so, at a minimum, any files being transmitted should be password protected in case the providers aren’t in sync with each other.
Hoteliers are also open to legal accountability in the event of an attack in which guests’ private information is compromised. In addition to private liability, hotel management companies are subject to increasing government regulations, which have the potential for serious legal ramifications as well as financial penalties, both of which can severely impact a hotel’s reputation and bottom line.
Cloud-based data storage is the most effective method of data security against internal or external threats to information. Hospitality software providers that use multiple hosting facilities in numerous geographic locations where access is closely monitored can improve a hotelier’s ability to thwart physical and digital threats to data security.
Negligence
While many assume hacking to be the largest threat to corporate databases, human error also accounts for a large percentage of data insecurity incidents.
Data protection starts and ends with training. Implementing mandatory security initiatives, like training courses and emailed scam alert campaigns, can be a lifesaver in database protection. By ensuring the appropriate staff, including owners and GMs, are properly trained to work with highly classified databases, hoteliers can be sure that their company’s databases are in capable hands.
Furthermore, it’s important that data be stored in individual databases, which can only be accessed by successfully navigating multiple security gateways via valid credentials, with security permissions both at the network and database level.
