TalkHotels
The TalkHotels app connects hospitality professionals to a network where they can ask questions, share advice, connect with hoteliers and find vendors. (One of the app's most notable resources is its vendor directory, where vendors pay to list their products and services.) The app also allows users to take part in industry conversations with hoteliers around the world, helping them get a feel for what other hoteliers are doing to maximize revenue.

Available in: App Store
Cost: Free

The Ritz-Carlton Hotels & Resorts
Here is a luxury hotel with a 5-star app. The Ritz app presents a unique feature with its most recent update—the company’s president and COO Herve Humler provides tips for guests via quick-response codes throughout each property, which can be scanned with the app’s built in QR scanner. Users can enhance their experience at the hotel and learn some cool stories along the way. The app’s GPS technology has the ability to recognize when a guest has arrived. The app will then pull in the destination and landmark tips from Ritz-Carlton experts each week on the company’s World Concierge on Facebook. This type of technology might help the check-in process run more fluidly.

Available in: App Store, Android Market
Cost: Free

S&P Ratings CreditMatters
Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services’ CreditMatters app is a useful tool for hotel investors to keep in their back pocket. CreditMatters provides its users with credit ratings, research and analytics to help capitalize on investment opportunities and alleviate risks. This is a one-stop shop for the top credit market news. Two really great features of the app are iCMBS and the Bank Credit Scenario Builder. The iCMBS allows users to map out commercial properties in their vicinity or specified CMBS transactions and access loan, property and deal-level details. The Bank Credit Scenario Builder, which is only available on the iPad version, lets users create scenarios based on their parameters and S&P’s bank ratings methodology. Don’t know much about ratings? CreditMatters also comes equipped with an interactive guide on what ratings are and how they are useful.

Available in: App Store
Cost: Free

Infor10 HMS Hotel Check-In
This app was designed to get front-desk staff at hotels out from behind the counter and up close and personal with guests. Infor10 HMS Hotel Check-In, created by business application software company Infor, smoothes out the check-in process by giving staff the ability to provide room assignments, registration cards with online signature options, credit-card swipes and hotel room key generation directly from the iPad. This app also can help increase operational efficiency with its ability to connect the front desk with housekeeping to assign rooms and update room status in real time.

Available in: App Store (iPad only)
Cost: The HMS app is available for free to all subscribers of Infor's hospitality solution;  there are no additional or recurring license fees or maintenance, according to David Purcell, Infor’s director of product management and hospitality.  

Smart Traveler
Smart Traveler, the official State Department app for U.S. travelers, is great for U.S. hotel executives and travelers who travel overseas often. The app keeps them informed of any travel alerts going on outside the U.S., which can be especially helpful when attending conferences abroad. Smart Traveler also provides access to the State Department’s Smart Traveler Enrollment Program, which enables the department to better assist travelers in emergencies, such as natural disasters, unrest in foreign countries or lost/stolen passports overseas. Users can enroll directly from the app.

Available in: App Store
Cost: Free