Computers' Year-2000 problem (Y2K), whereby some computer software won't recognize any digits as representing years in the 21st century, may well strike hoteliers particularly hard due to hotels' reliance on date-sensitive data (room reservations, for example). Moreover, unless hotels' software is updated, Y2K will manifest itself sooner among hotels than in many other industries, as hotels begin to book rooms in the year 2000. Hoteliers can (1) choose to do nothing (i.e., wait and see what actually happens), (2) debug their existing computer applications, or (3) purchase and install all new systems software. Some methods to remove the Y2K problem include these five techniques: size expansion, data encoding, date shift, soft windows, and hard windows. Replacing existing application software with new, Y2K-compliant computer software will resolve the problem. That approach, however, means that all of a hotel's related computer-program requirements be accounted for—which is an enormous undertaking. Moreover, new computer systems are costly, and “off the shelf” business software rarely is of much help to hoteliers. As a result, hotels' computer systems and software most often require extensive customization. Time is short; hoteliers don't have until 2000 to solve their Y2K problems, since a hotel's existing reservation system may not be able to recognize reservations for the year 2000 (“00”). In practical terms, the time required for software development and testing is substantial. Therefore, hotels need to handle the Y2K issue immediately.
