Risk & Business Magazine Capri Insurance Fall 2016 | Page 30

HOSPITALITY AND CYBER RISK

The Ever Increasing Cyber Risk
In The Hospitality Industry
An Overview

A

dvances in technology
over the past fifteen years
have changed the nature of
operations for virtually all
businesses and industries.
While technology has lead to increased
efficiency, productivity, and precision,
it has also added another element of
complexity for owners and executives
to manage. Perhaps no industry has
undergone as full and as comprehensive
an overall to its operations as the
hospitality industry.

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FALL 2016

It doesn’t seem that long ago that a
website, serving only as an electronic
brochure, was considered innovative.
Today, every hotel, restaurant, brewery,
winery, and other tourism-based business
dedicates both human and financial
resources within their daily operations
to the online world. Participation in
Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, online
travel agencies (Expedia, Booking.
com, etc.), and reputation management
sites like TripAdvisor and Yelp are no
longer optional marketing activities.

Being active in some, if not all, of
these platforms is the new minimum.
Businesses can appear unique for a
moment, but are likely to be extinct
beyond that point. Perhaps this is the
same condition of the last dinosaurs
before they met their fate. With
new technologies coming out on an
almost daily basis, it can be difficult to
understand how customers find your
business, interact with your business,
and the consequences of what they might
say or do after they leave your business.