A Case Study in Optimizing Length of Stay From Wellness Capex
Adam and Larry Mogelonsky | April 17, 2024
IDeaS Releases 2024 Hotel Technology Predictions
IDeaS | November 15, 2023
Smart Strategies
Hotel Tech in 2018: Tools and Technologies to Remove Friction and Deliver Value
Expedia.com | January 18, 2018
By Arthur Chapin Simply keeping up with the digital expectations of today's tech-savvy consumer is no longer an option. Exceeding those expectations is a travel industry imperative and an opportunity for hotels to focus on the only thing that truly matters to consumers: the end-to-end guest experience. One reason for the growing consumer adoption of new technologies is their growing digital impatience and expectation for instant responses, answers and solutions to their queries and purchasing requests. Underscoring this is the growing adoption of digital assistants. Today, 62 percent of consumers are comfortable with an AI application r...
Nobody Asked Me, But… No. 190: Hotel History: Moana Surfrider Hotel
Stanley Turkel | January 17, 2018
Moana Surfrider Hotel (1901), (Waikiki Beach, Hawaii (791 rooms) The Moana Hotel opened on March 11, 1901 as Waikiki's first hotel. It is known as the "First Lady of Waikiki." In the late 1890s, Waikiki was a swampy backwater area surrounded by duck ponds and taro fields. The beautiful beach was the site of homes of Hawaiian royalty and the wealthy kamaainas including the Honolulu landowner Walter Chamberlain Peacock. In 1896, Peacock incorporated the Moana Hotel Company and hired architect Oliver G. Traphagen (1854-1932) to design it. Traphagen designed many buildings in Duluth, Minnesota for both public and private owners which show t...
Live! Casino & Hotel Selects KEYPR as Guest Experience Technology Partner
KEYPR | January 16, 2018
New Live! Hotel to deploy KEYPR's cloud-based platform which brings the latest guest experience technology to the hospitality industry Los Angeles, CA (Tuesday, January 16th) -- KEYPR®, the leading cloud-based technology platform for the hospitality industry providing an integrated end-to-end experience for guests and staff through embedded and mobile devices, announced today that Live! Casino & Hotel, one of the largest commercial casinos in the country, will deploy its expansive hospitality platform at the new Live! Hotel, which is set to open in Spring 2018. "After conducting a thorough and extensive search, we have deter...
Hospitality Financial Leadership – Recording Average Length of Stay
David Lund | January 15, 2018
The one thing I see time and time again with clients is just how poorly their financial statements are set up. The statements almost always lack basic information that is readily available and is critical information for maximizing profitability: poor design and missing features. If they were a car, I would want to call them a Lada. My apologies to any Russian readers. The flip side of this challenge is all the information that is needed to fix this reporting problem is at your fingertips. No new software is required. No real investment. Your team just needs to use what they already have and put it to work. Typical stumbling blocks to c...
Hotels Step Up Their Online Game to Encourage Direct Bookings
JLL Real Views | January 15, 2018
Getting guests to book directly on a hotel's website rather than through an online travel agent (OTA) is a key challenge that hoteliers are gearing up to tackle in 2018. When OTAs first rose to popularity in 2008 during the economic downturn, hotels viewed them as saviors for their ability to fill hotel rooms that otherwise would have remained empty. Today, that view has shifted dramatically. Popular third-party search engines are raking in more bookings than ever and charging significantly higher commissions, too. In fact, momentum toward convenient aggregate websites has grown to such a fever pitch that in 2016 OTA bookings in the U.S...
How a Small Guest Services Team Delivers Five-Star Service
ALICE | January 10, 2018
Luxury Napa Valley hideaway Milliken Creek Inn & Spa, a member of the prestigious Four Sisters Inns collection, is using ALICE's concierge technology, ALICE Concierge, to help their four-person front desk team provide guests with the kind of exceptional concierge service expected of a much larger team. Guests of Milliken Creek Inn, a 12-suite boutique that sits on a lush three acres overlooking the Napa River, count on the property's guest services team to help them take full advantage of everything this idyllic wine country hotel and locale have to offer. For the Inn's four front desk staff (who not only double as the property's co...
Hotel Trends in Technology for 2018
Larry Mogelonsky | January 10, 2018
By Larry Mogelonsky, MBA, P. Eng. (www.hotelmogel.com) We all know that the future holds many fascinating possibilities about what can be adapted to improve the overall guest experience. The question is what should be acquired and implemented. With this as a guide, I've selected the following hospitality technology trends for the coming year not wholly on wow factor but far more so on practicality and ROI. 1. Wielding Your CRM It's been a long road from simply trying to comprehend what a CRM is to full data terminal integration and leveraging the inferences based from these interconnections. In 2018, those ambitious hoteliers who have f...
Fairmont Miramar Hotel & Bungalows Selects KEYPR as Exclusive Guest Experience Technology Partner
KEYPR | January 4, 2018
KEYPR®, the leading cloud-based technology platform for the hospitality industry providing an integrated end-to-end experience for guests and staff through embedded and mobile devices, announced today that Fairmont Miramar Hotel & Bungalows has deployed its expansive hospitality platform. "We pride ourselves on providing a luxury experience that is efficient and unobtrusive, and as our guest demographics diversify, we must find ways to cater to growing technological needs while maintaining the service we are known for," said Matthew Lehman, Fairmont Miramar's General Manager. "KEYPR addresses all of those needs in one neat packa...
KEYPR Announces Major Platform Release
KEYPR | January 4, 2018
Leading hospitality technology company releases major upgrade opening up advanced platform features and functionality KEYPR®, the leading cloud-based technology platform for the hospitality industry providing an integrated end-to-end experience for guests and staff through embedded and mobile devices, announced today the release of a significant upgrade to its platform including a variety of powerful new features and major enhancements to existing features. "The new platform dramatically increases our existing lead in hospitality guest technology by enabling the rapid development and deployment of new features, integrations and inte...
Hospitality Leadership in 2018
Robert A. Rauch, CHA | January 4, 2018
By Robert A. Rauch What will leadership look like this year? It's not always the same each year. Yes, leadership books might provide the same basics of leadership skills and yes, leading by example is a great foundation, but today I am exploring the combination of mentoring, coaching, leading and managing in 2018. I recently posted my top 10 trends in 2018. These include technology, lobby design, local food sourcing and more. Clearly, as leaders, we must be aware of trends in our industry. After all, many of us do not have someone to ask, "what's going on out there?" And it can be lonely at the top! I usually need a trigger to pen somet...
AT&T Hotel and Conference Center Raises Customer Satisfaction Ratings with Focus on Guest Experience
AT&T Hotel and Conference Center | January 4, 2018
Major Hotel and Conference Center Integrates Guest Service Requests, Guest Recognition, Maintenance Scheduling with Guestware January 4, 2018 – The AT&T Hotel and Conference Center in Austin, Texas is the meeting destination for hundreds of local, national and international companies. It offers 83,000 sq. ft. of high-tech meeting facilities and 297 guestrooms on site, with access to additional rooms through a collaborative partnership with surrounding hotels in Austin's high-tech Innovation District. The hotel understands how to use technology to elevate the guest experience and continuously improve and retain high TripAdvisor...
Boosting Employee Performance in Hospitality
January 3, 2018
Few industries make greater use of part-time and seasonal employees than the hospitality industry. But even as they provide extra hands in busy times and the high season, part-timers and seasonal workers are less likely to consider themselves to be 'insiders', who are generally more willing to suggest improvements or accept additional duties. For this reason, many employers go to some lengths to encourage all employees to regard themselves as insiders (for example, with pep talks or other employee events). With that goal in mind, a new study from Ecole hôtelière de Lausanne highlights the key elements that would encourage e...
Sustainable Hospitality: Catalyzing the Uptake
January 2, 2018
Sustainability has become a focal point for companies everywhere and the hospitality industry is no exception. Across the board, hospitality companies – and more specifically hotels -- are seeking ways to be more 'sustainable'. Yet this murky umbrella term is being used liberally these days to mean everything – and nothing. It begs a further definition: what does it really mean for a hotel to be sustainable in this day and age? And what are the ways in which sustainability can be implemented in hotels and other hospitality endeavors? Experts at the Young Hoteliers Summit staged earlier this year at the Ecole hoteliere de Lau...
Hospitality Financial Leadership – Financial Statement Analysis and Your Hotel Career
David Lund | January 2, 2018
If you google the words "financial statement analysis," you will get a long list of definitions like this one by Wikipedia: "Financial statement analysis (or financial analysis) is the process of reviewing and analyzing a company's financial statements to make better economic decisions. These statements include the income statement, balance sheet, statement of cash flows, and a statement of changes in equity. Financial statement analysis is a method or process involving specific techniques for evaluating risks, performance, financial health, and future prospects of an organization." What it will mean to you as a leader in the hospit...
In Hotel Valuation, Being Different Helps …
December 28, 2017
'Cookie-cutter' hotels are easy to build and operate profitably, but properties with unusual features often attract a premium on resale. For example, the Chinese insurance firm Anbang set a record when it purchased New York's Waldorf-Astoria Hotel from Hilton in 2014. Most hotels cannot match the Waldorf in value, but a new study finds that having distinctive attributes helps with hotel values for upscale properties, like the Waldorf. On the other hand, cookie-cutter similarity may actually enhance the value of midscale and discount properties. The study, conducted by Ecole hôtelière de Lausanne professor Prashant Das and h...
Nobody Asked Me, But… No. 189; Hotel History: The Boar’s Head
Stanley Turkel | December 28, 2017
By Stanley Turkel, CMHS The Boar's Head (1834), Charlottesville, Virginia (175 rooms) On August 13, 2017, the New York Times wrote in "A Guide to the Charlottesville Aftermath": "On Saturday afternoon, President Trump met criticism for condemning the "egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence on many sides" without singling out white nationalists or neo-Nazis". My hotel research about the 183-year old Boar's Head Inn in Charlottesville reveals its relationship to the Boar's Head in London which has been synonymous with warm hospitality and good food since Shakespeare's day. In the 1730s, the Inn was the site of Terrell's...
Hospitality Financial Leadership – A White Paper on a 6-Month Client Workshop/Coaching Engagement – Part 3
David Lund | December 27, 2017
By David Lund The following is an overview of a six-month financial leadership project that I recently completed at a full-service hotel. The project consisted of six half-day hospitality financial leadership workshops delivered in house and monthly 1-1 leadership coaching appointments with the 15 managers assigned to the program. Each month of the project we completed a group workshop and each manager had a coaching meeting with me. The project goal had five measurable elements: Complete Forecasts—get the managers and leaders of this hotel to complete their monthly departmental financial forecasts. Track their results througho...
Hospitality Financial Leadership – A White Paper on a 6-Month Client Workshop/Coaching Engagement – Part 2
David Lund | December 19, 2017
The following is an overview of a six-month financial leadership project that I recently completed at a full-service hotel. The project consisted of six half-day hospitality financial leadership workshops delivered in-house and monthly 1-1 leadership coaching appointments with the 15 managers assigned to the program. Each month of the project we completed a group workshop and each manager had a coaching meeting with me. The project goal had five measurable elements: Complete Forecasts—get the managers and leaders of this hotel to complete their monthly departmental financial forecasts. Track their results throughout the month. ...
How Disruption is Driving Change for Hotels
JLL Real Views | December 18, 2017
By Natalie Holmes From the likes of Airbnb to growing competition in the food and beverage space, disruptive forces are striking the hotel industry from all angles. Yet this is far from being a bad thing, Arthur Adler, Chairman of JLL's Hotels & Hospitality Group – Americas, believes. Instead, disruption is driving innovation across the industry as hotel brands and operators implement new concepts to improve their offerings and keep their guests coming back for more. "The guest experience and profitablility is really what's driving all of this innovation," says Adler. "As travelers' preferences for their lodging changes, the h...
Private Equity Secondaries
December 18, 2017
By Stuart Pallister Private equity (PE) transactions hit their highest levels since 2007 in the US and Europe in the first nine months of the year, according to the Financial Times citing data from Thomson Reuters, with the value of deals amounting to some 212 billion dollars, partly on cheap debt. At a conference on private markets, held recently at Ecole hôteliere de Lausanne, senior PE executives and academics discussed buyouts and the 'booming' secondary market for PE fund stakes. Professor Ludovic Phalippou of Saïd Business School at Oxford University, named in 2016 by RealDeals magazine as one of the 20 most influential...
Thor Equities Acquires The James New York – SoHo
Thor Equities | December 18, 2017
New York, December 18, 2017 – Thor Equities, a global leader in urban real estate development, leasing and management, has closed on its acquisition of The James New York – SoHo, company executives announced today. Thor Hospitality Group, a newly formed division of Thor Equities, is planning substantial renovations and upgrades to the property. Located at 27 Grand Street on the corner of Thompson Street, The James New York – SoHo has been named one of "The Best Hotels in New York City" by Travel + Leisure. The 18-story, 75,800-square-foot boutique property features 114 guest rooms, three food and beverage outlets, and ...
Say Hello to Intelity’s New ‘Voice Request’
Intelity | December 14, 2017
Amazon's Alexa enhances the guest experience by giving guests immediate access to room controls, hotel services, restaurant information and more. [Orlando, Fla. – December 14, 2017] — Intelity is unveiling yet another tool designed to enhance guest experiences. Intelity Voice Request is a product that leverages Amazon's Alexa to give guests immediate access to room controls, hotel services, restaurant information and more. The hands-free device, powered by the cloud-based digital assistant, enables guests to speak to their room with voice-activated commands. "Voice Request acts as a personal butler for each guest," s...
Why Customer Experience Is (Rightly) Such a Hot Topic in Travel
MyTravelResearch.com | December 14, 2017
Companies that anticipate and deliver what travellers want, when they want it, are more likely to command loyalty – and profits By Carolyn Childs Why is customer experience such a hot topic and buzz phrase in the travel industry (and others)? Answer: because in the age of the experience economy the quality of customer interactions at each stage of the path to purchase builds customer loyalty and advocacy. Both are closely aligned to profits. The reality is, big data and technology have enabled brands to understand us better – often better than we understand ourselves (I sometimes joke that Google knows me better than my part...
Serviced Apartments: Innovative Approaches
December 13, 2017
By Stuart Pallister, EHL Hospitality Insights When it comes to the serviced apartment sector, as land prices rise, the trend is for smaller size units – and that's posing a challenge for designers: what to keep within the room or apartment, and what to move into possible communal areas. In a panel discussion held at the Serviced Apartment Summit Europe (#SASEU) staged in London, business development executives from SACO, BridgeStreet, Adagio and Frasers discussed the sector's current directions in the context of innovation and concept development. Eric Jafari, Managing Director of SACO Apartments, acknowledged that, from a design ...
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