Analytics continue to be one of the most-discussed topics in the Revenue Management industry and as the backbone of any solid revenue management discipline, this makes sense. With that said, how do we really use analytics, and why is this measurement so important to building a solid revenue management foundation? Perhaps the most obvious answer is that humans - the drivers of revenue management - measure experiences through perception. This may not be intentional, but we are emotional and irrational creatures by nature. Analytics help us take an unbiased approach to our business in more rational and data-driven ways. Simply put, analytics give us the foundation needed to arm hoteliers with the ability to price efficiently and effectively without experiential bias. READ MORE

The hospitality industry is swimming with data. Torrents of data are churned out daily from traditional marketing research, social media, email and rating apps such as Yelp. We all prefer to make fact-based decisions, but unfortunately, there are times when the facts simply don't matter. Perceptions, no matter irrationally formed, are always more important when it comes to brand choice, particularly in the hospitality business. That's why qualitative research must have a place in hospitality brand's marketing mix. READ MORE

Employee engagement in the U.S. is a mess. Gallup tells us only 32% of our employees are engaged, and that figure has hardly budged over 15 years. Worse, Deloitte says we are about to spend $1.53 billion a year to “fix” it. Unless we get smarter, we'll be flushing that fortune instead of fixing. It gets worse. Again according to Gallup, those remaining 68% are either sleepwalking or sabotaging. So unless your company is different, two-thirds of your employees aren't giving their all. One has to wonder: How much better would our economy be if we solved employee engagement? READ MORE

Robots have reshaped manufacturing, technology, aerospace and online retail/warehouse supply chain structure and process. That same quantum leap is on its way to hospitality just as surely as the computer changed the front desk process late in the twentieth century. Robots entering the hospitality industry will be very different from their fictional counterparts and certainly won't possess the artificial intelligence of the sinister HAL Computer, at least not yet. READ MORE

You found your perfect candidate. Their resume is a dream come true-it matches your requirements exactly and you hire him or her. The anticipation of having this amazing person on your team builds as you eagerly look forward to their first day on the job. Once they are on board, however, your excitement quickly turns to dread as you realize your perfect candidate fails to live up to their perfect resume. Have you found the perfect candidate and on their first day of work, that candidate was not what you expected? This happens far more often than one might expect, and it can be avoided with some strategic thinking about your recruiting process. READ MORE