Reducing Friction Makes You Money
Shep Hyken | February 25, 2021
By Shep Hyken Reducing friction is all about creating an easier experience for the customer. In my book, The Convenience Revolution, I identify six ways to create convenience. The first, reducing friction, is tied to all five other principles. And, all of them focus on creating convenience and reducing friction for customers. But how about we look inside our organizations and the way we conduct business internally? Do we think about the friction we cause our employees? What extra work do they do because of antiquated systems and processes? For our outside customers, when we reduce friction, they find it easier to do business with ...
HSMAI Perspective: Problems With the Pipeline
Robert A. Gilbert | February 23, 2021
By Robert Gilbert I’ve written before about the severe underrepresentation of Black professionals across the executive level in the hospitality industry — including in senior sales, marketing, and revenue optimization positions. There are many different reasons for this, but new research by the HSMAI Foundation highlights a big one: We’re not investing sufficiently in the talent pipeline. In a review of undergraduate hospitality programs at the 19 historically Black colleges and universities (HBCU) offering them, we found that enrollment and graduation rates have been trending downward for at least the last five years: ...
How to Upsell 101: Too Much Choice Can Lead to No Choice
ROOMDEX | February 23, 2021
By Jos Schaap Shouldn’t lots of choices be good for customers? If you ask most people whether they like having a choice, the answer will be yes. How can options possibly be a bad thing? Anyone who has worked in hotel marketing has, at one time or another, been asked to fit numerous offers into one email. Pre-arrival emails, in particular, are crammed to the hilt with hotel information and upsell choices. We call it the shotgun approach. Having a lot of choices is great — until it’s not. Many people argue that more choices equal more conversions. Rationally speaking, the more choices you offer your customers, the more sales you ...
Enliven Offerings With Social Media, Luxury Hotels Urged
PolyU’s School of Hotel and Tourism Management | February 23, 2021
23 February 2021 - Social media may be the best way for luxury hotels to tap in to China’s enormous consumer market, according to a groundbreaking study co-authored by Mr Xinhai Mou, Dr Lisa Gao of the School of Hotel and Tourism Management (SHTM) at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University and a co-author. The global luxury sector is growing, and in an era of information overload, platforms such as WeChat and YouTube enable hotel managers to bring luxury experiences vividly to life. Drawing on a sample of affluent Chinese consumers, the researchers show how luxury hotel managers can develop curated social media content to meet the needs of the...
Hospitality Financial Leadership: Moving Part 2
David Lund | February 22, 2021
By David Lund In the hotel business if you want to get ahead you better be ready to move. It’s the way in which you can multiply your opportunities and increase your chance for greater personal prosperity. That’s the way it was explained to me many years ago and it has certainly been my experience. On the flip side, moving is not easy and it can take its toll on you and the people in your relationships. One aspect of moving is the accumulated experience it allows you to gain. The work exposure as well as life itself. Learning how to survive and excel in different work environments and locations is seducing and intoxicating. Once you...
Hospitality’s ‘Hot Seat’ Leadership Series: COOs – A Tale of Two Fortunes
Andrew Hazelton | February 18, 2021
By Andrew Hazelton, Thomas Mielke Part II In our roles as organizational advisers to the hospitality industry on all HR-, talent- and recruitment-related aspects, we are frequently being asked: “What can we [or I] do differently to stay ahead of the curve?”, often followed by, “What profiles, backgrounds and leadership skills are currently most sought after by the market?”. This natural curiosity about the ‘hot functions’ is keeping both organizational leadership teams as well as individual executives preoccupied. How can one best reshuffle or complement one’s existing leadership team? Are there specific experiences or ...
The ER Strategy 2.0: Small Improvements Add Up
Shep Hyken | February 17, 2021
Not long ago I wrote about how small improvements can make a big difference. Even just a 1% improvement can make an impact. And, if you focus on 1% (or more) again and again, over time you will make big improvements that will have a positive impact on your customers, employees, internal processes, and your bottom line. You’ll find ways to save money, make money, develop better ways of doing business and much more. One of our team members at Shepard Presentations reminded me of an article I wrote a long time ago, and that maybe it was time to revisit the concept. The article she was referring to was written almost 10 years ago and w...
Heart of a Lion: The Harsh Reality of Entrepreneurship
Magnuson Hotels | February 17, 2021
By Thomas Magnuson There are a billion different reasons which drive people to become entrepreneurs. Some people are driven by a desire to help people and some people just want to go for money. I don’t think Jeff Bezos thinks about money at all and I don’t think Bill Gates did either. I truly think Jeff Bezos was consumed with efficiency and providing more things at a lower cost. I think Bill Gates’ dream was putting a computer on every desktop in the world and imagining the increased standard of living if everyone could have open access to education. Whatever the reason, the reality is the same for everyone, whether it’s rom...
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