If your hotel has a reasonable amount of meeting space (+10,000 ft) and your banquet business is a significant contributor in your Food and Beverage Department (+20% of F&B revenue), you are going to want to separate local banquet business from group banquet business on all of your financial statements, forecasts, budgets and daily reporting. At this moment you may be asking, “Why would I want to do that? That sounds like a lot of work.” There are some very good reasons to make this practice a standard in your hotel. I see many hotel financial statements and most are missing the boat because they do not separate group and local banquet revenues. Separating this reporting and setting it up properly provides powerful information you can use in your hotel to make better decisions and ultimately be more profitable. READ MORE

Is "Challenging Assumptions" the key to cracking customer experience? Booking.com thinks so and others do too. Love them or hate them - and yes hotels over the years have had a pretty tetchy relationship with booking.com – but few could dispute how successful a company the Amsterdam upstart has been. For successful tech companies building a solid and loyal customer base is far less about trusting your gut than having the right data and testing and learning from it. Flattened company hierarchies are also seen as important in getting the best from teams and, as a result, building more successful customer relationships based on personal preferences. READ MORE

The global spa movement, which includes wellness tourism, amounts to upwards of $3 trillion dollars per year. What physical and strategic elements are key to driving bottom-line performance at traditional and wellness-focused spas? Relaxation and a sense of wellbeing are at the heart of the spa and wellness market. Hence, it's no wonder that hotels, resorts, and spas have begun to reorganize their operations around wellness. The benefits, in the form of a stronger bottom line and appeal to demand segments, extend not only to guests but to hoteliers and hospitality companies, as well. READ MORE

How many of us would admit that we are addicted to our screens? The need to be in the know is a habit that is hard to break. Parents, recognizing this addiction in themselves, and the effects on their well-being are increasingly concerned about the effect screen addiction will have on their children. To counteract this, parents are investing time and money in helping their kids develop better habits; this is where spas can play a key role. Encouraging children to connect with wellness for prevention ensures they grow-up with the knowledge and passion to remain in the best health. READ MORE

In the last decade, we have seen an increased willingness of hospitality and spa companies to cross geographical and cultural divides and move into markets outside of their traditional regions. It is really a function of and a result of globalization, which is impacting all business sectors. One geographical jump that seems to be getting a lot of attention these days is the Asian hospitality market. Big investors in the East are diving head-first into the Western wellness boom by buying landmark spa properties in the United States, recruiting top executive talent to lead their spa divisions in Asia, and integrating their traditional spa modalities with modern wellness culture. READ MORE