In a world where everyone is increasingly engaged with online transactional systems, it is readily apparent that the convenience afforded by live information sharing and online payment services must be balanced and underscored by a solid security framework. In the hotel sector, where card payment technology to book rooms and for actual transactions during guest stays is common, it becomes a much higher priority. Smart hoteliers can combat this risk by adhering to the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS). READ MORE

In today's tough and difficult economy, it easy to feel as though things may be hopeless. However, by being bold, creative and forward thinking, you can make your hotel stand out above the rest. Steven Belmonte has some ideas of how to not only endure this economic downturn, but how to use the modern technologies provided to us as well as our imaginations in order to show up the competition and put your hotel on that pedestal. Some ideas can be expensive where others are completely free. Big or small, putting these plans into place can make a huge difference in the success of your property. READ MORE

Succession and career development concepts have been thoroughly explored at the executive and management levels, with most companies providing cultural and experiential training required to cultivate future leaders. But perhaps an even greater return on investment is available by identifying and developing hourly employees in bench positions - jobs that typically are critical to an operation and can wreak havoc if unexpectedly vacated. READ MORE

To remain competitive in your local market can be highly stressful yet there are some strong ideas that can be implemented to get an edge on the competitor. How well do you really know them? Do you know them by brand, reputation, or by the managers running the show, when meeting up at local events? How about how they truly capture their customer and their experience, for example? Do you meet or exceed their service levels? We will get a view of the big picture as to how our rates and market position initially affects how to conduct a study on the competition. READ MORE

Knowing the competition means playing detective on the World Wide Web. Hotel operators can take a page from the great fictional detective stories. Sherlock Holmes studied the suspects and reviewed the clues to solve the mystery. Hotel managers who study the competition on line and uncover clues to their business can discover information that will lead to additional revenues for their hotels. Smart hoteliers who incorporate the same sleuth techniques as Miss Jane Marple will find the means to gain market share while protecting their own with clever on line marketing. READ MORE

Hotel incentive programs have long been a part of the travel industry. The ever present challenge of keeping properties occupied has now become the focus of new marketing plans. Today's traveler is no longer a strict brand “loyalist”. Current hotel consumers are now loyal to the chain that offers the most relevant incentives during their stay and who can give them the best incentive offering to become a repeat guest. READ MORE

With so much information at consumers' fingertips, the hotel selection process has become an involved journey, often spanning many days and many sites and devices. Online travel shoppers are looking for content that speaks to their needs and wants at every stage of this shopping journey. The stories they encounter for hotels along the way are undeniably powerful and often the last stand between the hotel shopper and the booking. Video is especially in demand. In order for hoteliers to meet consumer demands for online video, the two most critical essentials are relevance and availability. READ MORE

Fukushima. Is it a non-issue for all but those living around the Fukushima Daiichi power plant, as governments and obliging media have been saying; or are the meltdowns spreading invisible tentacles of radioactive death around the world, as some are insisting and others are wondering, a sense of unease at our prospects for the future. How, then, would these tentacles impact hotels and tourist destinations as news radiated into the consumer consciousness and people changed their eating and travel habits? READ MORE

What has happened to direct sales in the hospitality industry? Once a discipline of an enviable combination of great social skills, good business judgment, and powers of persuasion, direct sales was many times the starting point for learning the business of hotels. A knowledgeable sales person understood how each piece of business or account had an impact on revenues in all areas not just limited to rooms and not just for the short but the long term as well. How has the proliferation of technology impacted the way of doing business as well as enhancing the learning curve? Does the new generation of hotel sales people offer impersonal and cut and dry customer interactions and rely solely on technology to give a red light or a green light on a piece of business? Or are powers of persuasion and good judgment still critical in generating business? This article will reflect the insights and wisdoms of key industry leaders who were interviewed for this article on how direct sales has been impacted by technology and where they seen direct sales going in the future. READ MORE

Every day, your best employees have the decision to stay and invest their time with your company or to move on, taking their knowledge and skills with them. Finding and keeping your best people goes far beyond the recruitment process. It is directly impacted by the involvement of senior leaders as well as the culture of the organization and the perceived commitment to employees. Here's how you can identify employees at risk of leaving and what you can do to make a difference in engaging your best talent. READ MORE

Hotel Revenue Management (RM) is maturing, and more and more hotels have implemented RM programs along with advanced RM software to automate pricing. As the discipline matures, the law of diminishing returns begins to apply. More and more effort is required to squeeze our fewer and fewer dollars from hotel rooms. Smart revenue managers are turning to revenue generating assets outside of the hotel room, like function space , restaurants , golf courses and spa, as the next potential for revenue gains. In a world where most hoteliers are already doing more with less, how do you even get started? READ MORE

In the last decade the channels of communication for hotel public relations have opened wide, and what was once a single three-branched media river has multiplied into thousands of individual streams. Through these streams flows a volume of information no one thirty years ago could have even begun to fathom, let alone process. This means there is a wealth of public relations strategies available that leverage the nature of this information delivery delta. Here is our list of ten next generation public relations approaches hotels can and ought to be exploring right away. READ MORE

With the meetings marketplace now more competitive than ever, sales teams are feeling the pressure to enhance their knowledge base about their respective venues to help bring in new business. To help with this, more and more convention centers, hotels and convention and visitors bureaus (CVBs) are beginning to utilize their convention services managers (CSMs) during the sales process. READ MORE

If most hotels are using similar game plans to achieve high levels of service, why aren't service levels the same from hotel to hotel, property to property? Jesse Boles of FreemanGroup uses football as a metaphor as he discusses the reasons why some service teams perform better than others. The Pittsburgh Steelers didn't win more Super Bowl games than any other team by simply telling their players to play better; they gave them specific standards that enabled them to achieve better outcomes than their competitors. With the right standards and solid leadership, your service staff can do the same thing. READ MORE

When surveyed, over 90 percent of U.S. travelers said they would choose a green, environmentally conscious hotel over a non-sustainable, non-green hotel if it was comparable in price. With the current abuzz about sustainability, the environment, and waste management, it is important for hotels to understand the many benefits that come from going green. Hotels must consider the cost, as well as their location, staff, and customers when choosing which green programs to implement. Although there are many costly ways to be environmentally friendly, such as solar panels, there are also many easy, non-costly ways your hotel can work towards becoming greener, such as a towel exchange program, a ride share program, and composting left over food. READ MORE

To paraphrase an old advertising tagline, green has come a long way, baby! Today, green - and all its derivatives - has come to symbolize a movement. A movement of sustainability, of being eco-friendly, and of being environmentally aware. A movement that has grown out of our emergent realization that we have to take better care of Mother Earth if she is going to take care of us. A movement that, at its core, represents the capacity to endure. And a movement that impacts every hotel and every guest they serve. In this article, you'll learn that, in addition to the 3 traditional Rs of Greening efforts - reduce, reuse and recycle - Greening has a forth "R", reputation - of your hotel's property and, indirectly, of your guests. READ MORE

Now more than ever, most hoteliers are searching for demand generators and are relying on direct sales to impact revenues to fill the significant void left by the ailing economy. Depending on the type of property i.e. transient vs. group-based, direct sales could be responsible for as much as 50%-90% of the occupancy. But many times, the sales person or sales leader is at a loss as to find new prospects. This article will address some key tactics for uncovering sales prospects and in maintaining consistent systems and procedures to produce quality information for current and future prospecting. Implementing new tactics, combined with a motivated sales department will ensure that the sales organization is fully productive in accomplishing their roles of generating business. READ MORE

Our travel choices are shaped by today's lifestyles, fashions, and economy. At home, we're used to upscale amenities and technological conveniences - and we don't want to give them up when we're on the road. That's why today, there's more to hotel design than just coordinating wall colors and furniture. The goal of every hotelier and interior designer is to create space which is practical yet appealing... intimate yet dramatic... elegant yet everyday. READ MORE

If there is one thing that has been constant over the last twenty months, it is change. Changes are all over the map in the hospitality industry and, in the spa industry, most changes are categorically the same as hospitality and other businesses driven by world economy. Using the understanding of these changes as springboards for repositioning and renovating current spas or developing new spas; we can pay attention to the changes and be prepared for the return swing of the pendulum and placement in the compelling forefront. The five major changes included in the article may not be big surprises, however, they are notable. These changes are not passing trends or fads that will soon be past tense. These are changes that are indicative of the future. READ MORE

Service excellence, customer involvement, and customer satisfaction are all facets of the same jewel for the hospitality industry, because they all contribute to increased revenue and profitability. These issues were examined in detail in keynote speeches at the recently concluded QUIS 12, the international Quality in Service conference held in June this year at the Cornell University School of Hotel Administration. This meeting of the biennial QUIS conference featured four keynote speeches. READ MORE

Pop culture ultimately affects hotel design and guest experiences, whether we realize it or not. As hospitality designers, we constantly look at the latest trends in technology, fashion, celebrity lifestyles and more. At the same time, we scour, find and determine the upcoming trends to stay ahead of consumer demands. Today, pop culture and technology meet today's fast-paced world while always changing and evolving. An ongoing trend in pop culture is accessibility, attainability and sustainability. In this article, we'll discuss how those pop culture and technology trends affect hospitality designs in the spas, restaurants and hotels we frequent. READ MORE

Can luxury and sustainability co-exist? To answer this question, a brand must define what "sustainability" means for the brand and its guests without losing sight of the core principles of a quintessential luxury experience. At Montage Hotels & Resorts, we have a passion for sustainability and believe that luxury and sustainability can and do co-exist. In this piece, I present our point of view and share examples of our sustainable practices. READ MORE

In addition to providing benefits to the internal management and operations of your property, the adoption of environmental and socially responsible practices at your hotel will also appeal to the changing attitudes of both the leisure and business sectors of the travel market. In this article, I review how recent societal changes have affected both public and corporate thinking regarding sustainability, and also discuss stages of the consumer decision making process where environmental and social considerations are being made by your potential guests. I also provide a few examples of how adopting environmental and socially responsible practices at your hotel can help encourage and retain green minded guests as future clients. READ MORE

More than almost any other industry, travel and hospitality has the ability to create memories and instill joy that can last a lifetime. Just one experience can create a lifelong memory, with stories recounted again and again. Of course, the opposite can happen for the traveler who has a trip spoiled due to unforeseen circumstances or ineffectively managed problems. The opportunity for Travel and Hospitality marketers is to understand and influence these emotions in a way that maximizes the guest experience - from planning through departure. Tailoring customer communications based on these emotional insights can build stronger engagement. READ MORE

In-room entertainment is becoming the focus for many hoteliers and I expect the attention and focus on this aspect of the guestroom to increase in the coming year. Technology continues to be developed at a rapid pace and it is tough to keep up with all the cool gadgets, software and online trends. With the proliferation of media now available online, the in-room entertainment options offered in hotels will need to shift in order to keep this amenity from becoming a cash drain. The convergence of entertainment options (free-to-guest programming, internet, VOD, etc) will be sought after as well. Keeping up with technology can be difficult as a hotelier, but by including a system that utilizes your existing TVs and allows access to the Internet, you can stay ahead of the curve and adapt as technology shifts. READ MORE