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The two systems are compatible and when a quest is registered at a particular hotel a staff member from that hotel would request a guest preference file from COVIA and, if one existed, download it into the Encore system. If during a guest stay new preferences were noticed by staff and recorded, they would be added to that guests file on Encore, and the updated file would then be sent back to COVIA shortly after the guest checked out. The Ritz-Carlton hotels paid for COVIA services in two ways: a transaction fee for each reservation made on the central system that resulted in a guest stay, and a storage fee each time a customer file was downloaded from COVIA. In layman's terms they have two service fees for every one reservation, which is why it is a focus of each hotel to obtain correct information from each customer in order to avoid additional service fees from errors such as a wrong last name, or wrong address. .
In our groups systems analysis of the Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company we found a system in place that we are calling the "Human System". This Human System shows up more in our report than most of the other reports that were done for class simply because of the nature of the industry that our particular business lies in. The hotel industry is somewhat unique in the fact that it provides a service that is in a since "intangible", and cannot be accomplished by any form of an artificial system. The human element is too great of a factor in the luxury hotel industry to ever be removed from the link; so to speak. At the Ritz-Carlton they are especially sensitive to this issue, and make every effort to train their staff to give the quests at their hotels exactly what they want, every time they stay, and at any particular Ritz-Carlton hotel that they might be staying. They go so far as to record certain allergies that a guest might have to certain linen, or certain ways that a guest likes his room to be set up.