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The latest hospitality news from around the world!
Thursday, July 24, 2008
Team up with San Diego Holiday Inn for Dennis Conner's America's Cup Experience
Embassy Suites, Columbus, OH Welcomes New GM
LA's Hotel Kyoto Grand Welcomes New GM
Horizon’s Pat Greenwald Named VP Member Development for NEWH
Lavo to Premiere at The Palazzo, Las Vegas
IAHI, The IHG Owners’ Association, Accepting Committee Membership Applications
Country Inn & Suites by Carlson Opens in Rochester, NY
Westminster Hotel Names New DOSM
Sheraton Atlanta to Feature Connection Destination
Nikki Beach Resort to Open on Lipa Noi Beach in Koh Samui, Thailand
High Peaks Resort Reopens After Renovation
Softscribe Inc. Renews Five Existing Clients
Scout Capital Begins Demolition of Wyndham Beach Resort in Bermuda
Ritz-Carlton to Assume Management of St. Regis Fort Lauderdale
CA Based Business Releases Self Service Shipping Centers for Hotels
New Doubletree Huaqiao/Kunshan Ensures Guest Satisfaction
IHG Expands Career Development Program at Panama International Hotel School
Split Rock Resort in PA Poconos Opening Waterpark
Silcon Group to Open an Indigo in Rahway, NJ
Belfast’s Malone Lodge Selects Visual One by Agilysys
Vail Resorts Names Derek Koenig New SVP&CMO
Jeff Leatham to Showcase Floral Designs at The Shilla Seoul
Anantara Launches "The South Sea Pearl Mystic Treatment"
ASTA to Support ‘Stop Excessive Speculation' Act
Arkansas State Parks, Recreation and Travel Commission Meeting Summary
Automotive Traveler Seeks Travel Vendors Offering Gas Promotions
VEGAS.com Adds Mobile Options
New Hesperia Hotel to Open in Barcelona
Marmara Plots Massive Expansion
The Address Unveils New Cairo Resort Hotel
China Tightens Visa Controls Ahead of Olympics
Marler Clark Files First Georgia Lawsuit in National E. coli Outbreak
The Allison Inn Set to Open in 2009
Hilton Rolls Out Flexible Work-at-home Program for Reservations Agents
Cornell Study Highlights 'Pitfalls' of Reliance on Frequent Traveler Programs
The Ambrose Earns LEED-EB Green Building Certification
Wyndham Completes Purchase of U.S. Franchise Systems
AAHOA Meets With ADA Officials
AAA Travel Says Travelers Adjust Plans in Response to Rising Gas Prices
Sheraton Columbia Downtown Hotel Opens in Historic Building
Ritz-Carlton, Amelia Island Begins Ballroom Addition
Hawthorn Suites’ Revamped Website Features Guest Reviews and Star Ratings
BITAC Suppliers Gleeful at Hearty Hotel Construction Pipeline
The Gant Opened as Aspen’s First Condominium Property in 1973
Aztec Arranges Construction Loans for Courtyard Inn in San Antonio, TX
Starwood to Develop a Baccarat Hotel and Residences at Dubai Pearl
TheKnot and Newmarket Join Forces
St. Regis Beijing Completes $27 Million Restoration
The Betsy Set to Reopen in Miami's South Beach
Sage Selects Shakir Hussain as GM at Chicago’s Blackstone
Mountain View Offers a Great Staycation Getaway
ASTA Releases Annual Supplier-Travel Agent Marketing Report
Movenpick to Open Resort in Libya
Marriott to Open Renaissance in Panama in 2011
Starwood to Open Sheraton in Okinawa
Westin Beijing Recognized with World Travel Award
Marriott to Triple Mexican Interests
Air China orders 45 Boeings
Qantas to Cut 1,500 Jobs and Freeze All Expansion Plans
Embassy Suites Cleveland Encourages Guests to Rock
HSMAI Announces 2008 Adrian Awards Call for Entries
Trump Entertainment Resorts to Release 2Q '08 Earnings
White Lodging Breaks Ground in TX and AZ
Rosenthal Joins Pheasant Run Resort as GM
Choice Enters Agreement with Kasterlee to Develop 16 Clarion Hotels
China’s New World Hotel Group Selects Luxe
Valencia Group Sponsors Retail Destination of the Year Award
Pierre Zreik Appointed GM of Allison Inn
TCK Group Has a New CEO
Stephanie Hinckley Named DS&M Arizona Biltmore Resort
Randy Bayard Named GM of Vero Beach Hotel, Florida
Dolce Promotes Paul C. van Wijk to SVPO North America and Xavier Louyot as MPRD, Europe
Vista Inns Supported by InnLink and Innformation Systems
Tech Company Takes on Interior Decorating
Ocean Properties Names Kara Greer DS&M for Northern New England
Personality Hotels Appoints Dayna Zeitlin as CDS&M
Alley Named to ATTA Business Development Team
Delta Offers Nonstop Service Between New York-JFK and Lyon, France
How are Travel Companies Lowering Distribution Costs, Selling Ancillary Products and Maximizing Revenues in an Uncertain Market?
Ryanair Cuts Stansted Fleet by 25%
Malaysia Airlines Places Big Boeing Order
Delta Unveils New Management Team
Jay Rasulo to be Inducted Into Hall of Leaders
Travel Channel's Samantha Brown to Headline at THETRADESHOW
Multi-billion-dollar Loss From Deteriorating Air Travel Hits Small Businesses
U.S. Hotel Industry Posts Record Revenue, Pre-tax Profits in 2007
First Mövenpick Hotel Project in Lybia
China's New World Hotel Group Selects Luxe Worldwide
Maximizing Revenue and Resources in a Changing Economy
A Luxury for the Budget Traveller
Americans Hitting Brakes on Travel
Choice to Accelerate Clarion Brand Growth in United Kingdom, Germany and Russia
Air Transport Association Applauds Senator Reid and Other Sponsors of S. 3268
Marriott to Nearly Triple Presence in Mexico
Connaught Hotel Unveils Hélčne Darroze
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Meetings: Five Simple Ways Operations are Going Green and How it Affects the Bottom Line
By Tom Nolan, Regional Vice President, Eastern Region, ARAMARK Harrison Lodging
Going green is especially imperative to the meetings and hotel industries. While hotel and conference customers may not think twice about using a new towel with every shower, leaving the lights on when no one is in the room, or printing out more copies than are needed, companies like ARAMARK Harrison Lodging are taking their environmental responsibility seriously. It is important to keep in mind that the average hotel purchases more products in one week than one hundred families typically do in a year. Add to this the products and services used for learning and training events and it is easy to see why conference centers can have a huge impact on the environment...
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Making the Leap from Hotel to Fractional Resort Management
By Tom LaTour, Founding Principal of LaTour Signature Group
In today’s rapidly changing and highly competitive hospitality industry, there are many different roads that can lead top managers to new career heights and greater achievements. One increasingly popular route paving the way to expanded personal growth and professional success is via fractional resort management. One of the fastest growing and most fascinating segments of the lodging industry is shared-ownership vacation resorts, including fractional interest, private residence clubs and destination clubs. According to the latest figures released by Ragatz Associates, this segment grew 8.3 percent in 2007 with sales volume estimated at $2.3 billion -- this despite the dramatic decrease in the country’s overall residential resort industry...
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Food & Beverage: Five Hot Trends in the Meetings Industry
By Andy Dolce, Chairman and Managing Director, Dolce International
While food trends may come and go, meeting planners always need to feed their attendees. With travelers’ tastes expanding to more global flavors, today’s successful meeting hotels must go above and beyond the typical banquet fare to wow today’s finicky groups. As hospitality leaders, we have a responsibility to address health and nutrition concerns of our guests. In addition, we need to ensure that we are purchasing items from local vendors when possible and selecting items such as organic meats and sustainable fish. Aside from providing sustenance, culinary experiences for groups can be great team-building activities in both “Top Chef” and “Survivor” scenarios. The value of bonding over a home cooked meal cannot be underestimated. Read on to learn about five hot food and beverage trends in the meetings industry
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Lighting & Flooring Can Dramatically Affect The Mood of Your Guests & The Value of Your Hotel
By Brenda Lookadoo, Senior Designer, Hatchett Hospitality
What puts you in a good mood? Hotel owners and designers are constantly looking for new answers to that question because they know today’s travelers want their hotel to be as pleasing as their trip. Colors, music, and artwork are among the popular ways hoteliers try to create a special environment. However, two especially effective techniques are within reach and under foot, literally – in the form of lighting and flooring
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Nervous Service
By Roberta Nedry, President, Hospitality Excellence, Inc.
Nervous Service! Call it shaky, call it uneasy, call it anxious, high-strung, sensitive or walking on pins and needles. These kinds of service experiences make the guest want to TWIST and SHOUT!!! What happens when employees are so focused on their duties, so concerned about management’s expectations, so worried about letting co-workers down? Nervous service can bumble the job! Walking the line between expectations and service delivery can be challenging. How can employees better understand the seamless delivery of service and how they can have fun doing it without the jitters? Can hotels and hospitality organizations “work it on out"
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The Role of Social Responsibility in Hotels
By Didi Lutz, President, Didi Lutz PR
The impact of social responsibility on any business is enormous. While you are creating programs to benefit your community, for instance, supporting a charitable organization, taking measures to go green, funding children’s initiatives or anything else, your credibility increases greatly as a business. You may think, “We’re in the hospitality business, why should we care about building a playground in another part of town?” The answer is, your hotel is part of the community and the world. We are all responsible. Practicing social responsibility in your business can also help you from a public relations standpoint. Here are some suggestions as to how to start becoming involved...
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Liquidity and Risk – 'The Party’s Over'
By Scott Smith, MAI, Vice President, PKF Consulting – Atlanta
The second quater 2008 Hotel Horizons forecast of PKF-HR called for U.S. hotel RevPAR to increase just 1.5 percent in 2008. This pace of RevPAR growth is below the long-term average of this performance indicator. Declining economic fundamentals, fueled by the turmoil in the capital markets, portend a much weaker domestic economy for the months ahead...
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Select Financial Performance
By Robert Mandelbaum, Director of Research Information Services, PKF Consulting Hospitality Research and Steven Nicholas CHA
The great investment return that the limited-service segment can provide is probably the worst kept secret in the hospitality business. Gone are the days that any hospitality professional will say, “No one will stay at a hotel without all the bells and whistles of a full-service hotel.” Industry segmentation nomenclature has always been somewhat vague, but over the last few years it has become downright muddy. We have gone from limited-, to select-, to focused-, to the next TBD variation. However, today, most industry participants use the term select-service to define properties that offer either no, or a limited degree, of food and beverage (F&B) service. Typically, these properties are priced in the middle to upper-middle tiers within their respective markets
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Smart Start Hotel Executive Report: The Last Mile and Beyond
By Roger Lopez, Benchmark Analyst, Gomez
If you have read my previous articles, or seen the Gomez: Hotel Room Search Benchmark, you will be familiar with the three metrics we use to measure website performance: Availability (Success Rate), Response Time and Consistency. Together these three metrics give us an idea of how a website is performing. These measurements are taken from Gomez’s global network of Internet Backbone nodes, featuring Tier 1 data centers with big servers and thick pipes out to the Internet...
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Insider: Hotel Concierge: Tips on Combining Technology and Hospitality to Increase the Bottom Line
By Holly Stiel, President, Thank You Very Much Inc.
As you will read in my article "Hotel Concierge: Tips on Combining Technology and Hospitality to Increase the Bottom Line" in the Hotel Business Review, the frantic concierge can be a thing of the past if properly staffed in the front and in the back no matter what size the hotel is. The time has come to reconfigure and re-think what has become established practice. It no longer applies! “Toto, we are not in Kansas anymore...
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Insider: Beyond Reconstruction – Tips for Keeping Guests Happy During Renovation
By Michael Goldstein, President & CEO, Packard Hospitality Group
My article in the Hotel Business Review is titled “Beyond Reconstruction – Tips for Keeping Guests Happy During Renovation.” It focuses on the many aspects of hotel remodels and how to achieve success without causing too much of a disturbance to hotel guests...
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Insider: Condo Hotels As Securities: Has The Litigation Boom Begun
By Daniel L. Brown, Esq. and Sean J. Kirby, Esq., Sheppard, Mullin, Richter & Hampton LLP
My article in the Hotel Business Review is entitled “Condo Hotels As Securities: Has The Litigation Boom Begun”. It explores whether dissatisfied condo-hotel unit owners would seek to assert claims against developers alleging that the sale of a condo hotel unit constitutes the sale of a security, thus giving rise to liabilities under the federal securities laws...
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Insider: It’s RFP Season: Are you ready? Twelve ways to be sure
By John Manderfeld, President, Marin Management, Inc.
My article in the Hotel Business Review, “It’s RFP season: Are you ready? Twelve ways to be sure”, defines just what you need to do to be successful in the market segments most affected by your hotel’s RFP process. Implementing these 12 actions now will gain greater revenues for 2009...
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Insider: Demographic Dirty Tricks – Recruiting in a Media Desert
By Jeffrey Catrett, Dean, Les Roches School of Hospitality Management, Kendall College, Chicago
How is the traditional hospitality industry to recruit new management talent without media attention when many of today’s high school students don’t even know the meaning of the word “hospitality”? My article "Demographic Dirty Tricks – Recruiting in a Media Desert" in the Hotel Business Review, I propose a number of innovative solutions to this dilemma that is threatening the future well-being of hotel management education and of the industry itself...
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Insider: Are You Ready for the Downturn?
By Brenda Fields, President, Fields and Company
My article “Are You Ready for the Downturn?“ in the Hotel Business Review will address the benefit of early prevention and will identify areas to evaluate in order to ensure that your property is well positioned for any downturn so that it will remain profitable and vibrant...
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