ARE PHILIPPINE hotels ready to move their business on the Web, particularly by offering guests the convenience of online reservations? While stressing that the Web is already transforming the hospitality industry in Europe and the United States, a leading hospitality solutions provider said that it might take some time for Philippine hotels to follow suit.

"I think it would take two to three years before we see this really taking off in the Philippines. The biggest hindrance right now is telecommunications. One thing we've been selling with our software is remote reservation capability, but the infrastructure in this country is not there yet. Some households have no phone lines. Some islands don't even have the capacity to receive fax," said Robert Gabitan, country manager of Micros-Fidelio Software Philippines Inc.

Micros-Fidelio is a global leader in providing hotels with automated front office systems. While it already has a large installed based in the country for its Fidelio front office software, the company recently introduced locally a Windows version that it claimed offers a graphical user interface that is "geared toward the future."

By this, Gabitan meant that the system features a touch-screen interface with large icons, though users who might not be comfortable with this mode can switch to the usual menu-driven Windows-based GUI. According to him, Fidelio's new design would make it easier for hotels to handle administrative functions, enabling them to focus on value-added services that would help increase occupancy rate.

"Everything is now intuitive. If you need something, you just click on it," Gabitan said.

Micros-Fidelio also offers a Web-enabled service called hotelBANK. HotelBANK provides hotels an online link either through a private network of Global Distribution Systems (GDS) or via the Internet. In the United States and Europe, guests are used to booking their travel and hotel reservations through a GDS, which may be Galileo/Galileo Southern Cross/Apollo, Sabre/Sabre Pacific/Abacus, Amadeus/System One, and Worldspan.

Apart from helping hotels link to both the GDS and the Internet, Micros-Fidelio is also unveiling its next generation Web-enabled front office solution dubbed as Opera.

"We called it Opera because it has many acts. The first beta will be the Westin in Singapore, which has 2, 100 rooms. As far as releasing the product to the general public is concerned, this might be by the first quarter of next year," Martin Petersen, Micros-Fidelio's managing director for Northern Asia.

Petersen said that Opera would run on an Oracle database engine as the platform for different Web-enabled hotel applications.

"There are a whole host of things we could do on the Web. We can offer different packages like online shopping, duty-free shopping and city tours. We can do that but it's just a matter of waiting for the right time to invest in these things," he said.

While saying that the Philippine hospitality industry should harness the potential of electronic commerce, Gabitan said that for now Micros-Fidelio is concentrating on generating more Internet awareness among usually conservative hotel managers.

"We want to tell people that the technology is already available with legitimate systems. This year, our thrust is to help the local market," he said.

For one, the company has been donating its systems to local hotel management schools, to familiarize students with the technology and train them for the changing hotel environment. Gabitan also said that though its installed base is in major hotel chains like the Marriot and Intercontinental groups, Micros-Fidelio is focusing now on smaller hotels and even resorts whose operators might not have realized before that this technology is readily accessible.

"Now, smaller hotels can benefit from these features. Our advantage is that our solutions have a common source code wherever they may be deployed in the world. Also, they can easily be customized to meet a particular client's needs," Gabitan said.