A look at how the Internet is changing the basic business paradigm, with a special focus on the hospitality industry, is the topic of a special panel discussion that is a key event in this year's Hotel Ezra Cornell (HEC) at Cornell University's School of Hotel Administration. The discussion, featuring four of the world's foremost experts on understanding the Internet, will take place Saturday, April 8, from 9 to 11:30 a.m. in Statler Auditorium and is free and open to the public.

"The web is fundamentally altering the way the industry does business, reshaping every aspect, from marketing to managing multiple properties to taking room reservations," said Roy Alvarez, a lecturer in hospitality information management at the Hotel School. Panelists will help the audience understand where the new business paradigm shift is heading and will show, by example, how companies can capitalize on it.

Panelists include Jeff Sampler, an associate professor at London Business School, lecturer at the Wharton School and leading researcher on e-commerce; Jules Sieburgh, director of hotel automation at priceline.com, a web-based travel and leisure firm; Lawrence Hall, president and chief operating officer of hsupply.com, the world's largest online source of hospitality products; and Peter Yesawich, CEO of Yesawich, Pepperdine & Brown, an international marketing and consulting agency. Sieburgh, Hall and Yesawich are Hotel School graduates.

Topics panelists will present on include: The evolution of technology, power shifts and strategies in the producer-intermediary-consumer cycle; a portrait of today's online users and what they want; how to become a bona fide business application online; plus booking agents, demand collection and other ways to reach customers in today's maturing Internet climate. Panelists will answer audience questions following the discussion.

Hotel Ezra Cornell spans a weekend each spring in which the students take over Cornell's 150-room Statler Hotel and invite hospitality industry leaders to a program of educational and social events. For more information contact the HEC office at (607) 255-3824; Mark Adams at (607) 255-6157, mla12@cornell.edu; or visit this web site: http://hotelschool.cornell.edu/HEC.