At The Peabody Orlando, we believe hotel awards are extremely important. They are all about credibility, marketing and public perception of quality and excellence. Ignore or naysay these awards at your peril. Each association, industry, profession, or trade has its series of awards. Each award or accolade is a coveted prize that is diligently sought after and proudly displayed. Similarly for us hoteliers there is a slate of awards to be won for which most of us are in serious, hot pursuit. Some visionary hoteliers have departments specially assigned to the pursuit of award happiness. READ MORE

Although catering has always been an important factor in the success of hotel food and beverage departments, today it has evolved to share focal point status with the other outlets. Food quality and service is expected to equal, if not exceed, what you would find in the restaurant. Clients want creativity and variety. They are savvy, they hold numerous events in many different venues, and they are constantly challenging operators to come up with new ideas. READ MORE

Hotel managers, operators, investors, and analysts typically now use RevPAR as a basis for their hotel performance measure and analysis. This widely used measure reflects the guest rooms revenue on a per room basis, thereby monitoring the success or otherwise of the hotel's rooms inventory management. Hoteliers aim to maximise RevPAR by means of an occupancy and average rate trade off. Rooms revenue makes up a large portion of total revenue. Typically, full-service three- to five-star hotels derive about 50-65% of their revenues from rooms. Budget and extended stay hotels with limited additional facilities make up to 90% of their revenues from rooms. While RevPAR is one of the most recognised and used performance measures in the hospitality industry, providing general market trends and some revenue indications, there are some pitfalls to be aware of when analysing a hotel's performance based solely on RevPAR. This article shows the major pitfalls of RevPAR, and elaborates on the advantages of using a complementary performance measure, GOPPAR (Goh-Par). READ MORE

Usage rates for hotel/resort fitness centers have increased steadily; in turn increasing the priority that hotel operators are placing on these facilities as a source of both customer satisfaction and retention. Let's review some of the benefits and considerations that can make or break the success of a hospitality-based fitness facility & some of their corresponding challenges... READ MORE

Improving the features and amenities of a property are an important part of any renovation, but making over your staff is the real differentiator. By training employees to elevate customer service levels and positively impact the guest experience, you'll see real improvement - especially in the bottom line. In this article I share how one Las Vegas property has combined organization-wide customer service training with an extensive renovation, elevating the property to four-star status and boosting room rates by $100 per night. In this case, the overall improvement to the guest experience was not only a competitive strategy, but a profitability strategy as well. READ MORE