Cell Phones Will Run Hospitality

Every hospitality customer coming in the door has one and that will drive development of customer-centric cellphone - hospitlaity applications. Examples: the iphone credit card reader in a sleeve-type hardware for at-table bill charging exhibited at CES, the huge Consumer Electronics Show. Another CES product launch: the remote control add-on where every device can be controlled by a cell phone, such as lights and temperature in restaurants or hotel rooms. Also guest room door lock controls. Future applications: cell-phone hotel check-in/out, and GPS-tracking all employees on site, and smartphone hookups to hotel room media systems so that guest can use thier phone-stored music, games, and videos.

The Next Phase in American Food

The next stage in our national food culture is the emerging American Gastronomic Region. There are already some American regions such as California's Napa and Sonoma Counties, and Oregon's Willamette Valley that have all the aspects of a European Gastronomic Region: unique terroir and regional name for their wines, high quality local foodstuffs, and local cuisine featured in restaurants that attract tourists. There are also others that are featuring many of these aspects, including California's Marin and Monterey Counties, Eastern Connecticut, the Carolinas, Oregon's Rogue River Valley, along with several more.

To further this gastronomic regional development existing foodshed groups of growers, processors, markets, and restauranteurs need to emphasize their own "terroir," the local soil and climate qualities that impart a unique flavor to locally grown foodstuffs. The wine industry has raised this terroir focus to a high art and science, seeking legal name protection, through the designation of Amercian Viticultural Areas (AVA) which really is used as regional brand labeling.

Many of these foodshed areas lack a wine industry but still have exceptional food products that are a local terroir icon. They can be used as a feature of local cusine to attract national attention. An example of this are Rogue River Valley's tomatoes that are of world class quality that deserves its own branding. Perhaps food legal name protection similar to AVA should be considered to add value and marketing attention.

In Europe, legal name protection and branding are applied to a range of iconic regional foods, such as Parma hams. European countries have built sustainable rural regions on the base of these food brands twhich prosper from their world renowned food exports and agrotourism. They also actively promote their identity as gastronomic regions.

Local American regional tourism agencies together with the local food industry, and hotel and restaurant businesses should follow this example and help foster American Gastronomic Regions by developing this identity and promote around it. All would benefit.

The New Restaurant Kitchen

Energy costs, green cleaning, and building codes are driving the changes in kitchens. New ventless cooking will truly change the design, construction, and cost of kitchens. The ever increasing power of ventless filtration and the future heavy regulation of exhaust and its carbon output will in the next five years eliminate the expensive grease ducts running to the exterior and replace them with interior systems for grease waste recapture that will be resold for recycling. Also new "smart" total energy monitoring devices will drive expenses down as energy costs go up, and green cleaning technologies will create a healtheir working environment. Building codes will allow greywater recycling, reusing dishwater in restrooms and thereby saving on also rising water costs. See websites greenplumbers.com and fishnick.com.