CASE STUDY

Case Study

New Computerised Room Booking And Billing System For New Mackworth Hotel

Questionnaire For A System

Mention the three primary reasons companies consider the implementation of an electronic presentment and payment system.

Can current payment options to paper checks, such as purchasing cards, direct debit and credits and debit cards be expensive?

What are the unforeseen benefits one may know through online billing?

What are the three major inhibitors to the implementation of an billing system

The Existing System

Hotels generate revenue from hotel guests beyond renting hotel rooms, such as through providing ancillary hotel room services. Such hotel room services include, but are not limited to, enabling hotel guests to play visual content in hotel rooms directly on their room televisions. Visual content may include movies, sporting events, special events, video games, network access, documentaries, and so forth.

In the early years of providing visual content, hotels provided video cassette recorders in each room and rented video tapes to the guests. Playing visual content in hotel rooms has advanced in recent years due to “on-demand” or pay per view systems, such that a hotel guest, using a remote control, may now select visual content to play via a menu system on a television. Charges for viewing or using the visual content are applied to the room bill of the hotel guest.

The Proposed System

To make hotel guests feel more comfortable in buying or renting personal expense products or services, the principles of the present invention provide for a hotel guest to select a billing option that allows them to be billed for personal expenses separately from room rental charges in a convenient manner. In a first embodiment, room rental charges are applied to a first bill and charges associated with playing visual content, for example, are applied to a second bill. The first and second bills may be applied to a single credit card, but separated into two bills so that a receipt for payment of the first bill may be submitted to an employer without listing the charges for viewing the visual content. In another embodiment, room rental charges are applied to a primary payment option (e.g., corporate credit card), and charges associated with playing visual content, for example, may be applied to a secondary payment option (e.g., the employee's personal credit card).

FIG. 1 is an illustration of a hotel room 100 with a hotel guest 102 watching visual content (e.g., a movie) on a display system 104 . In one embodiment, the display system 104 is a television. The hotel guest 102 may use a remote control 106 to control the television and visual content being displayed thereon. In addition, the hotel guest 102 may use the remote control 106 to communicate with a local controller, described below in reference to FIG. 2, to control billing or payment options for paying for goods or services at the hotel. The goods or services may include viewing the visual content (e.g., movies), using various hotel amenities ...