Is your hotel mobile-ready? Mobile-first? Mobile-native? Well, brace yourself, more changes are coming. Just when you thought that you were getting the hang of using mobile to drive interest and action among guests, your customers have started using mobile in wholly new ways. And these behavioral changes represent "the new, new thing" for mobile marketing and distribution. What is the change? An increasing use of voice among guests when they search and interact with information in mobile situations. Voice already plays a key role in travel sales and marketing. Here's how to make sure voice plays that role for you. READ MORE

Chatbots and voice assistants. Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning. And, Natural Language Processing? What possibly could these have to do with serving guests in a hotel? It's the ultimate Sci-Fi question: can humans and machines not only coexist but blend into a single entity. It's time we take our humanity and cobble on some AI and ML, mix it with a dash of NLP and top it off with some Deep Learning and punch out a robust, not robot, service initiative to enhance guest satisfaction and the bottom line. READ MORE

With mobile technology gaining ground almost daily, the hotel industry is under pressure to keep up with guests' expectations. Recent research shows 65 percent of guests would pay more for hotels that offer the mobile technology they consider essential. Fulfilling these wishes requires hotel companies and chains to make significant investments in hardware, software, staff recruitment, and training. Hotel management also faces the challenge of ensuring that their back-end systems and procedures are capable of meeting the risks and vulnerabilities that accompany the shift to mobile technology. Biometric authentication offers the opportunity for hotels to address these risks using the latest in technological advancements. READ MORE

Having been a hospitality recruiter for most of my career, I am often asked about the difference between Retained and Contingency executive search. On several occasions, it has come to my attention that the hiring manager at the hotel or at corporate level understands intuitively what the differences are but are often not aware of the implications and/ or are too narrowly focused on the cost aspect. Although there are hybrid formulas combining Retained and Contingency search, the goal of this particular article is to provide an overview of both types of search and explain the respective pros and cons of each. READ MORE

Instagram is simply a social networking site that is now part of our marketing lexicon. Developed in 2010 by Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger, the app was sold to Facebook about two years later and is now part of the Facebook empire. At its core, Instagram is simply an app that enables its users to upload (i.e. "post") photos and videos clips. These posts can then be viewed by other users who can "like" them as well as "follow" a user or a brand. Instagram is all about sharing visually. In this article, you discover how being on Instagram can add incredible value to your hotel. READ MORE