robert mandelbaum
Hotel Loyalty Programs: Betting on the Law of Large Numbers
CBRE | July 15, 2024
Executive Summary Despite 5% growth in global room count last year for the five public hotel companies we analyzed for this report, an 11% increase in hotel loyalty program members resulted in a 2.5-percentage-point (pp) increase in total hotel occupancy attributable to loyalty member bookings. Loyalty programs are becoming less dominated by frequent travelers. Heavy users (30+ nights a year) comprise a declining percentage of total membership as the earning of loyalty points has become more tied with credit cards and affiliate programs and less directly with just frequent travelers. Loyalty program redemption revenues increased by...
Assessing the Digital Infrastructure of Your Hotels
CBRE Hotels | July 3, 2024
By Robert Mandelbaum, John Pomposello, and Adam Barry In 2023, U.S. hotels faced rising operating expenses outpacing revenue growth, resulting in declining profit margins. To combat this, hotels are leveraging technology to enhance efficiency and guest satisfaction. Key areas of technological investment include employee productivity tools, automated guest services, and improved cybersecurity. Analyzing IT expenditures from 4,121 properties, CBRE found that IT costs represented a relatively controlled 1.4% of total operating revenue, despite a 7.4% increase in 2023. Higher IT spending was noted in Resort and Convention hotels due to their e...
New Labor Challenges Arise in 2023
Robert Mandelbaum | June 6, 2024
By Robert Mandelbaum, Andrea Grigg The scarcity of employees has long been the primary labor concern for U.S. hoteliers, even before the onset of the COVD-19 pandemic. Historically, jobs in the lodging industry have had a negative perception as being too physically demanding, requiring too long of hours, and requiring work on weekends and holidays. The shortage of personnel was exaggerated during 2021 and 2022 as many of the employees that were laid off during the pandemic in 2020 opted not to return to the industry. The difficulty of attracting workers to fill line-level positions within hotels lessened somewhat in 2023. Reductions in ...
Management Company Compensation Slows in 2023
Robert Mandelbaum and Tim Dick | May 8, 2024
By Robert Mandelbaum, Tim Dick Prior research conducted by CBRE Hotels Research revealed that hotel management companies were rewarded handsomely as the U.S. lodging industry recovered from the COVID-19 pandemic. An analysis performed by CBRE in April 2023 found that total hotel revenue increased by 153% from 2020 to 2022, while Gross Operating Profits (GOP) grew by 437%. This resulted in a 68% increase in the fees paid to management companies and brought management fees back to pre-pandemic levels. The increases in fees were largely due to the improved performance of U.S. lodging properties, which in turn triggered the payment of incentiv...
Gaining Control of Utility Costs
Robert Mandelbaum | April 2, 2024
By Robert Mandelbaum, Joe Snider Over the past four years, utility costs at U.S. hotels have increased at a pace greater than total operating revenue. As a result, utility department expenses increased from 2.9 percent of total revenue in 2019 to an estimated 3.3 percent in 2023. As hotels have struggled to recover from the pandemic, any rise in cost ratios is an area of concern for owners and operators. The good news is that the pace of growth appears to be slowing down. Year-over-year growth rates for utility expenditures have declined on a dollar per-available-room (PAR) basis from a high of 21.4% in 2022 to an estimated 4.0% in 2023...
Beyond the TV: Hotel In-Room Entertainment Has Evolved
Robert Mandelbaum | February 6, 2024
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Hotel Financial Performance Influenced by Changes in Hotel Food and Beverage Offerings
Robert Mandelbaum, Ed Stacy | October 30, 2023
By Robert Mandelbaum and Ed Stacy The 2020 COVID-influenced lodging industry recession resulted in some noticeable changes to the way hotels provide food and beverage (F&B) service. • Social distancing regulations forced operators to be creative in the way they served food and beverages to guests. • Rising wage rates and sharp increases in the cost of food and beverage products compelled hotel managers to find ways to control costs. • The inability of hotels to attract employees to fill the positions eliminated during the recession required creative solutions to improve productivity and offer more with less. These facto...
Swinging Success? Unraveling the Impact of Golf on Resort Performance Post Pandemic
Krish Vipani | October 26, 2023
By Krish Vipani Without a doubt, leisure sports picked up in popularity during the COVID-19 pandemic- especially golf. According to the National Golf Foundation, 67% of golfers credited their increased play in the late summer of 2020 to having “fewer alternative ways to spend leisure time”. Not only did existing golfers increase their time on the course, but the National Golf Foundation also reports 25.6 million golfers on the course in 2022, a 1.3 million increase from 2019. Moreover, the National Golf Foundation reports an average of 21.1 rounds of golf played per golfer in 2021. This is the greatest average number of rounds per play...