Direct Booking Growth Tips for the Back Half of 2024
Adam and Larry Mogelonsky | March 27, 2024
Galgorm Is First in UK to Benefit From Maestro All-In-One PMS, Right Revenue Integration
Maestro PMS | March 26, 2024
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Paramount Lodging Advisors Successfully Sells the Wyndham Garden Inn Oklahoma City Airport
Paramount Lodging Advisors | April 5, 2022
Oklahoma City, OK – Paramount Lodging Advisors (PLA) successfully transacted on the Wyndham Garden Oklahoma City Airport. Austin, TX-based Sr. Managing Director Kami Burnette and Sr. Associate Mason McDavid as well as Managing Director Rob Willard represented the seller. The 244-room hotel is optimally located approximately four miles north of Will Rogers World Airport in Oklahoma City. The new buyer is looking forward to ramping property performance after renovating the 1984-built hotel and as airline and corporate business return to pre-pandemic levels in the MSA. “The Oklahoma City hotels were negatively impacted by COVID-19 and ...
Cendyn Announces the Launch of the Cendyn Hospitality Cloud for Hoteliers Looking to Drive Direct Bookings
Cendyn | April 5, 2022
The first applications available on the Cendyn Hospitality Cloud are Starling customer data platform (CDP) and Cendyn’s website content management system (CMS) Tuesday, April 5, 2022 – Boca Raton, FL – Cendyn, a catalyst for digital transformation in the hospitality industry, is excited to announce the launch of the new Cendyn Hospitality Cloud, including the release of the platform’s first applications, an industry-leading website content management system (CMS) powered by Cendyn’s customer data platform (CDP), Starling. At a time when hoteliers must do more with less, hotels are embracing rapid digitization and automation of...
Knowland Helps Kimpton Hotels to Maximize Group Revenue
KNOWLAND | March 30, 2022
Leading data provider delivers actionable insights and market analytics to bolster meetings and events revenue growth for top boutique hotel company ARLINGTON, VA — March 30, 2022 — Today Knowland, the world’s leading provider of data-as-a-service insights on meetings and events for hospitality, announced Kimpton Hotels & Restaurants has renewed its long-standing relationship with Knowland. The boutique hospitality company’s executive team relies upon Knowland’s market analytics to gain insights into group business trends and help it better manage and grow its portfolio. The Knowland platform helps individual properties bet...
Nobody Asked Me, But… No. 263: Hotel History: Frederick Law Olmsted
Stanley Turkel | March 29, 2022
By Stanley Turkel Landscape Architect: Frederick Law Olmsted was an American landscape architect, journalist, social critic, and public administrator. He is considered to be the father of landscape architecture. Olmsted was famous for co-designing many well-known urban parks with his partner Calvert Vaux. Olmsted and Vaux’s most famous achievement was Central Park in New York City which resulted in many other urban park designs, including Prospect Park in what is now the Borough of Brooklyn in New York City and Cadwalader Park in Trenton. Olmsted was called by Charles Eliot Norton “the greatest artist that America has yet produced”. ...
The Automation Generation
Annette™, The Virtual Hotel Agent | March 29, 2022
Why today’s travelers place efficiency ahead of personal connection The hospitality industry has always been a people-centric line of work. Face-to-face conversations with real humans have been the cornerstone of service industries since its inception. A smiling face behind the front desk of a hotel cannot be replaced. Technology, on the other hand, has continually shifted the way guest service representatives interact with travelers and hotel guests. Each generation brings a new disruptive technology that shakes up the way the world does business. With each change, there is resistance, but progress always wins out. In a recent story...
Annette The Virtual Hotel Agent Offers a 100% Accurate Understanding of Guest Needs Through Its New Feature, Precise Guest Insight
Travel Outlook Premium Hotel Call Center | March 24, 2022
Hotel managers constantly strive to anticipate their guest’s needs and concerns as they work to make their hotels more accommodating and inviting. This task was just made easier by the introduction of a new tool provided by Annette™, The Virtual Hotel Agent™. Annette is an advanced AI-powered voice bot that can answer up to 60% of the calls now being handled by front desk staff, simultaneously improving hotel profitability while providing enhanced guest service. Annette represents a creative and effective way for hotels to address post-pandemic staffing challenges, and to reduce fixed payroll expense. Annette’s new tool is c...
Stayntouch Expands Partnership With Real Hospitality Group to Deliver a Streamlined and Enhanced Guest Experience
Stayntouch | March 23, 2022
Artel Hotel and Park Place Benefit from PMS’ Ease-of-Use, Superior Functionality and Mobile Check-in Stayntouch, a global leader in cloud hotel property management systems (PMS) and guest-centric technology, today announced an expansion of its partnership with Real Hospitality Group (RHG), one of the leading and fastest-growing hotel management companies in the United States. RHG will now deploy Stayntouch PMS to two additional properties, Artel Hotel in Brooklyn and Park Place Hotel in Ocean City, Maryland. RHG is one of the top 15 hotel management companies in the United States, managing a portfolio of 109 properties in gateway and re...
Plant-Based Is Here to Stay
Larry and Adam Mogelonsky | March 16, 2022
By Larry and Adam Mogelonsky Climate change is something opaque and far-off. In our minds, thinking only about the environmental impact of eating meat is not what’s causing people to slowly shift to more plant-based diets or the most apt term of ‘flexitarians’ where people gradually shift to roughly an 80/20 split between plants and animal products respectively. Rather, people are shifting because the overwhelming scientific research is showing that it’s healthier to eat more unprocessed fruits and vegetables. Yes, in the near term we see headlines that say that Beyond Meat or other equivalents have flat quarter-over-quarter sal...
Keeping the Promise: Why 2022 Is the Year of Hotel Worker Safety
John Stachowiak | March 16, 2022
The pandemic has shifted the timetable for the adoption of worker safety technology, but now the clock is ticking; There are quick, easy, and effective ways to comply with AHLA’s 5-Star Promise and state legislation to protect hotel workers with confidence By John Stachowiak Hotel workers deserve to have the confidence that they are operating in a safe environment. Providing safety and security to hotel staff is getting even more difficult with fewer workers on property, making it even more important to have a plan in place in case of an emergency. Fortunately, technology is available to help protect hotel workers regardless of who is o...
HSMAI to Honor GCommerce Solutions With Bronze Adrian Award for Outstanding Travel Marketing
GCommerce | March 10, 2022
Adrian Award winners will be celebrated at an in-person event on Wednesday, March 30, 2022 Park City, UT, (March 10, 2022) – The Hospitality Sales & Marketing Association International (HSMAI) will honor GCommerce Solutions with a Bronze Adrian Award for travel marketing excellence for its winning entry in the 65th annual Adrian Awards, the largest and most prestigious global travel marketing competition. For 2021, HSMAI designed the Adrian Awards to reflect the current travel landscape, with Focus Categories of Recovery Marketing, Recovery Campaign Evolution, Technology Innovation, and Corporate Social Responsibility, in addition ...
Rethinking the Gift Shop as a Part of a TRevPAR Strategy
Larry and Adam Mogelonsky | March 9, 2022
By Larry and Adam Mogelonsky The gift shop is for many hoteliers an afterthought. But a win is a win, and as travel recovery gets underway for a gangbusters summer of 2022 (our hope at least), it’s time for all hotels to consider operating under the model of optimizing revenue on a per guest basis (otherwise called TRevPAR) rather than simply trying to maximize occupancy. By doing so, you can drive a better topline and healthier margin without having to rely on those 100% occ summer weekends (which may not be possible due to labor shortages) or the full-fledged return of corporate guests to buoy midweek occ. Hence, there’s a strong ...
Language Barriers in the Hospitality Industry
Travel Outlook | March 8, 2022
How to translate the labor shortage The hospitality industry is obviously a global industry. Hotels connect people from all over the world and bring them together under one roof. Industry insiders understand the importance of having a multilingual staff at all hours. Given recent labor shortages, it is becoming increasingly difficult for hotels to find adequate staffing. Finding a bi or multi-lingual staff member can seem next to impossible. Even before the complications of the last two years, language barriers have plagued hotels for the duration of their existence. For customers, nothing is more frustrating than trying to reserve a r...
Hotel Industry Says Automation & Integration Vital to Recovery
Duetto | March 8, 2022
The latest survey from Duetto reveals nearly 78% of hoteliers will increase their investment in hotel tech in the next three years San Francisco, March 8, 2022 - The digitization of the hospitality industry has been underway for decades, but the past two years have accelerated tech adoption in hotels across the globe. Duetto surveyed hoteliers worldwide to gauge the hotel industry's sentiment and priorities regarding revenue management, revenue tools, and technology innovations. The overwhelming response was that automation and integration are seen as key to future success by the majority of those working in a hotel revenue function...
Four Trends for Beyond Revenge Travel 2.0
Larry and Adam Mogelonsky | March 2, 2022
By Larry and Adam Mogelonsky Last week we looked at some immediate trends that hoteliers should consider for the rest of 2022 as each property contends with the reopening and the huge swell of incoming travel encapsulated by the buzzy term ‘Revenge Travel 2.0’. All operators have to be ready to pivot on a dime, especially with the headache of labor shortages, but that doesn’t mean you can ignore what the years ahead will bring. In fact, if you don’t then you may find your business left behind by all the forces at play. What we stress from firsthand experience through our hotel asset management consultancy is that all the long-te...
Above and Beyond Standard Hotel FAQ Chatbots
Travel Outlook Premium Hotel Call Center | March 2, 2022
How Annette™, The Virtual Hotel Agent™, Solves the Hospitality Industry’s FAQ Chatbot Problems No one enjoys speaking to IVR (Interactive Voice Response) systems, but we do so when it’s necessary. In today's digital world, interacting with IVR systems seems to be an increasingly necessary evil. But what if there was a next-generation voice bot that did away with the common frustrations associated with IVR systems? What if a voice bot could be as functional as an FAQ chatbot? That’s where Annette comes in. Annette is a virtual call center agent powered by artificial intelligence that is designed specifically for the hospitality i...
Cloud5 Launches “Flip to SIP” Program to Provide Simple, Cost-Effective Path to FCC Telecommunications Compliance
Cloud5 Communications | March 1, 2022
New program offers hoteliers a solution to avoiding rate increases as FCC works to sunset copper-based telephone service lines. Chicago, IL. — March 1, 2022, Cloud5 Communications, a leading provider of communications solutions and Managed IT Services for more than 5,000 hotels, MDUs, and commercial facilities across the Americas, has today announced the unveiling of its “Flip to SIP” program in response to the FCC mandate requiring the termination of POTs-based telecommunication lines. The program is specifically designed to provide businesses with a streamlined, cost-effective solution to transition to more modern telepho...
A Warm Reception From the Hospitality Industry for Annette, the Virtual Hotel Agent
Travel Outlook | February 24, 2022
SANTA FE, NEW MEXICO (February 24, 2022): Travel Outlook Premium Hotel Call Center® continues its introduction of Annette TM, the hotel industry’s first AI-powered voice assistant. The difference between Annette and other voice bots such as Siri or Alexa lies in her power to more accurately understand the question being asked by a hotel guest. Annette has been programmed with a new model of Natural Language Understanding software based on human conversations, resulting in a powerful new way for her to understand what guests are requesting, and for her to provide the correct answer. “We are encouraged by the reception Annette ha...
Four Trends for Revenge Travel 2.0 Right Now
Larry and Adam Mogelonsky | February 23, 2022
By Larry and Adam Mogelonsky The zeitgeist of February/March 2022 has deemed the upcoming spring and summer to be named ‘Revenge Travel 2.0’ because it will resemble the past two summer surges in erratic volume increases but also likely be substantially larger. Without getting too far into the news cycle and current public sentiment, there are some very strong signals pointing to an official end of the pandemic coming soon, and that will undoubtedly translate into a tsunami of fresh booking inquiries. Lots of new guests is, of course, great, but it can also become a ‘good problem to have’, especially in the face of the ongoing l...
Knowland Announces Expanded Partnership With Aimbridge Hospitality
Knowland | February 23, 2022
Best-in-class management company turns to data analytics to ramp up group sales and gain a competitive advantage ARLINGTON, Va./PLANO, Texas — Feb. 23, 2022 — Knowland, the world’s leading provider of data-as-a-service insights on meetings and events for hospitality, announced today that Aimbridge Hospitality, a leading global hospitality company, has expanded its partnership with Knowland to provide access to meetings and events data for sales teams at the property level. Management companies such as Aimbridge Hospitality are turning to Knowland to increase group revenue, improve sales team productivity, and better understand ma...
Nobody Asked Me, But… No. 261: Hotel History: The Homestead, Hot Springs, Virginia
Stanley Turkel | February 15, 2022
By Stanley Turkel, CMHS Hotel History: The Homestead, Hot Springs, Virginia The Homestead is a famous luxury resort that opened a decade before the American revolutionary war. Located in the middle of the Allegheny Mountains, the area has the largest hot springs in Virginia. Native Americans used the waters to rejuvenate themselves during their many excursions through the area. Captain Thomas Bullett and Charles and Andrew Lewis were part of the militia and surveyors during the French and Indian War. They were told of the many healing qualities of the waters in the area. In 1764, at the end of the war, Capt. Bullett received Gold and...
Get Ready for The Next Intelligent AI-Powered Voice Bot
Travel Outlook | February 15, 2022
An Advanced Technology System Providing Instant Guest Service While Reducing Fixed Labor Expense In 2022, industries across the country are facing critical staff shortages that threaten to cripple their day-to-day operations. Despite the hospitality industry recovering from the disastrous events of the past two years, staff shortages still plague many hotels. Staffing shortages can negatively impact guests’ experiences, deter future reservations, and lead to a significant loss in business. If you’re looking for a way to reduce your fixed labor expenses without falling victim to typical problems associated with staff shortages, conside...
Wyndham Teams Up With Amadeus for Business Intelligence Insights
Amadeus | February 9, 2022
The world’s largest hotel franchising company leverages Amadeus’ Demand360® to enhance demand generation strategies. Increasingly, hoteliers are turning to data to build more informed business strategies that take into account shifting traveler demographics, booking behaviors, and preferred channels for their properties. To gain a broader view of market performance across its organization and in turn, enhance its demand generation strategies, Wyndham Hotels & Resorts has selected Amadeus Demand360®. Demand360 provides the industry’s most comprehensive, forward-looking on-the-books data, enabling hoteliers to measure their mark...
Knowland Meetings Recovery Forecast Identifies Top U.S. Markets to Recover in 2022
Knowland | February 9, 2022
New market forecast capability provides insights to help hospitality industry improve sales and investment decision making ARLINGTON, Va. — Feb. 9, 2022 — Knowland, the world’s leading provider of data-as-a-service insights on meetings and events for hospitality, announced it has added the ability to filter its U.S. Meetings Recovery Forecast by market, now known as the Top 25 U.S. Meetings Recovery Forecast (MRF25). Access to the data is complimentary and provides the industry with predictive insights into event recovery over the next three years. Click here to view the MRF25. Jeff Bzdawka, CEO, Knowland, said: “The additional da...
Beekeeper Partners With EduMe to Bring Digital Training Tools to Frontline Workers in One Seamless Platform
Beekeeper | February 1, 2022
The Integration Enables Frontline Employers to Deliver Mobile-Friendly, Full-Scale Training Courses to Improve Productivity, Retention, and Upskilling Zurich - February 1, 2022 -Beekeeper, the leading mobile workforce collaboration platform designed specifically for frontline workers, today announced a full-scale integration with EduMe, the market-leading mobile-based training platform for the deskless workforce, to improve organizational productivity and boost employee retention. With the EduMe integration, Beekeeper introduces a suite of, in-app training functionalities designed for non-desk workers, signaling a paradigm shift in the w...
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