More and more, smaller independent hotels striving for success in the group meeting business find out they're not truly on their own. Vying for this business remains highly competitive. Some strategies, however, can increase their chances to attract, impress and retain a significant amount of group meeting business. When you're responsible for a lifestyle or boutique hotel's success, go with your strengths. Be unique and distinctive, target a niche in your community, and emphasize how you offer guests a truly different and memorable experience.That's not to say it's easy. Successfully booking group sales at an independent hotel relies less on sheer volume and more on savviness READ MORE

Since its infancy in the late 90s and early 2000s, paid search has been a highly effective tactic for capturing would-be travelers that are actively exploring travel options. There's seemingly no better way to attain a new hotel guest than by delivering an ad promoting your hotel when someone is searching for “hotels” in your market area. For instance, if you are promoting hotel rooms in Las Vegas, you would likely deliver relevant ads to people searching for keywords such as “Las Vegas hotel,” “Las Vegas hotels,” and “Vegas hotel reviews. ”According to Prognosis Digital, 79% of people that book hotels online search for that particular hotel on a search engine before buying. Thus, having a presence on search engines is essential for any hotel. READ MORE

As simple as it sounds, knowing which customers are profitable is a challenging task for many businesses. Predicting which customers have the most profit potential is even more challenging since it requires estimation of future business. Applying these same modeling techniques and profit calculations to potential customers adds yet another degree of difficulty. Customer lifetime value (CLV) is a (relatively) old concept. Businesses have been calculating the expected operating margins received from a customer from long before the birth of the internet and modern data tools. READ MORE

Rate optimization is arguably the most critical component of a successful Revenue Management strategy, but most hoteliers still tend to fall into two broad categories when it comes to this discipline: Set-it-and-forget-it, or follow-the-market. Both of these approaches are sub-optimal as they simply ignore the evolving purchasing patterns of increasingly savvy customers. We live in an era of disintermediated distribution, and the reality is that meta search and third party aggregators have made it easier than ever for customers to shop and compare options. READ MORE

In the hospitality and tourism industries, guests' happiness reigns supreme. With ever-changing consumer demands and evolving technologies, new developments and renovations alike often cause disruptions to the normal function of businesses, impairing the public's accessibility to the venue, or adjacent venues. Hence, construction timelines become a crucial issue with projects situated in high-density tourism areas. Improved time-efficiency minimizes the disturbances in local businesses' operation and profitability. Yet, shorter timelines might come at a price of higher expenses on labor, machinery and materials. READ MORE