Technology companies. Manufacturers and service providers supply IT-enabled devices and services to hotels, from guest-room consumer electronics to POS devices. By clearly specifying hotel needs, the IA will help providers target products and services.

Developers. Architects and construction firms make many hardware decisions that affect hotel operations. The IA will describe capabilities required for hotel technology, such as for room locks, LAN wiring and HVAC controls.

HTNG's IA will accommodate hotel properties of all sizes, from small hotels with as few as 30 rooms to large resorts with thousands of rooms and elaborate dining, conference and leisure facilities.

Since HTNG is a global consortium, the IA will also accommodate full internationalization, including local languages, character sets, date/time formats, measurements and postal codes. It will allow for differences in laws governing subjects as diverse as taxes, food safety, financial reporting and passport control.

HTNG's architecture working group has released the first version of the IA's business process architecture, which uses The Architecture Framework. The first version is limited to small hotels with only sleeping accommodations. Future releases will expand the architecture to include additional functions required to operate large hotels and resorts.