hospitality financial leadership
Hospitality Financial Leadership: Duty Meals
David Lund | January 20, 2020
By David Lund Recently I attended a hotel association conference where I was a speaker for one of their breakout sessions. The opening morning of the convention started with a breakfast where we listened to the many great developments within the association in the past year and heard a fantastic story from the morning keynote about evacuating an entire city without one casualty or serious injury from an oncoming forest fire. What a morning! But the thing that got me more that anything else that day was a memory. The memory of being in that very room some 35 years earlier having breakfast all by myself. You see it was the hotel and dinin...
Hospitality Financial Leadership: Chapter Four – The Pencil
David Lund | January 13, 2020
By David Lund The week after the summit was a bit of a blur for me. Several requests for interviews, all declined. Our public relations manager handled these with a simple story the flag mishap was a mistake given the procurement of new flags and the innocent mix up of which ones go where. Not our finest hour but the furor died down. But not before the chairman’s call. He was ballistic. “How could you be so stupid,” he asked? I explained the situation to him and he calmed down a little. “That little princess,” he said, “You tell her the next time she calls that we are not part of her domain. “Liquor permits or...
Hospitality Financial Leadership: My 10,000 Hours
David Lund | January 6, 2020
By David Lund This piece is about a book I read that was a gift to me by my daughter one Christmas not that long ago. At the time I had no idea how much it would mean to me and how important it is for people to understand its message. The message is simple, no one just lands on this planet with what they need to be successful. We ALL must work for it. That’s right and I know you have heard this before as did I, but having read the book and now having experienced what I have it comes full circle. I want to share with you what it means to me—what it means to me to have worked for it and in hope that it will help you see your own maste...
Hospitality Financial Leadership: I Never Worked a Day in My Life
David Lund | December 16, 2019
By David Lund That’s the calling card for a famous quote by Thomas Edison and a popular song by Tony Bennett not to mention a plethora of other pop culture about doing something with your life and choosing work that is not really work. That is what I found on the Internet when I went looking, however, for me it was a bit different. During my life— working in hotels for more than 30 years—I often told myself the same thing. I really felt like I had it all. A great job, a cool place to work, a solid group of people to collaborate with and above all the feeling that I was making a difference. That difference-making is what this piece...
Hospitality Financial Leadership: Chapter Three – The Flags
David Lund | December 11, 2019
By David Lund The crap I must deal with never ceases to amaze me. The Stow sees many groups and we were preparing for an international political gathering and my country’s government was hosting the event. This meant lots of politics, decorum and protocol that all gets sorted out, or so to speak. It was nothing short of a cluster bomb and I had to stick-handle my team and the politicians. Our city and country have a colorful history and it is rich in its traditions and symbols. My phone rang late one afternoon as the summit was less than a week away. My secretary, notice I didn’t call her an assistant, she was a secretary and somewh...
Hospitality Financial Leadership: Hotel Franchise/Management Fees & 20 Years Is a Long, Long Time
David Lund | December 2, 2019
By David Lund Being a branded or franchised hotel is an expensive endeavor. Especially when you consider the average agreement is 20 years in duration and you’re on the hook for the fees outlined in your agreement plus anything else the management company throws at you. When I say on the hook, I mean they can literally charge you for whatever they want as long as they determine it is in your best interest. This is the basic concept that forms the meat of the management or franchise agreement. When you consider the cost of the fees there are some terms you will want to get familiar with. Terms that are part of your hotel management ...
Hospitality Financial Leadership: Getting Close to the Engine Room
David Lund | November 25, 2019
By David Lund In my career I have worked with a lot of interesting characters. To say the least, they were all quite colorful, usually fanning the flames of the hotel’s drama and adding their own seasoning. One boss I had was particularly interested in teaching lessons. He made everything into a lesson. What did you learn? How did I screw up? There was always a warm underbelly to be examined. One day we had just wrapped up our weekly executive committee meeting (sounds formal and important, but not really – kinda boring usually) and my boss asked me to stay behind as he had something for me to “listen to.” That got my attention....
Hospitality Financial Leadership: Chapter Two – Incompetence
David Lund | November 18, 2019
The chapter below is an excerpt from my new book. It’s fiction but some of the characters and story lines are based on people I have worked with and events that have taken place in the hotels I have worked in. The book is a fable about a hotel manager who has some very bad habits. He must change in order to survive and the book takes him and you through the lessons needed to be a great hospitality financial leader. I’m writing ahead each month so I’m not sure how the book will end. I hope you enjoy it and if you missed any earlier chapters you can find them on my website blog tab. The weekly executive committee meeting in my hote...
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