This article reveals the battle-tested tactics of one of the world's leading hotel marketing firms. These hotel marketing practices have been implemented and measured over the last 25 years at properties worldwide. Use these 10 simple methods to avoid costly mistakes and turn marketing into a measurable contributor to revenue. READ MORE

All of us who work in the hospitality industry are aware that the needs and expectations of guests are ever increasing and changing. Guests are our job and as companies we need to adapt to ensure we are offering the best level of service and keep guests coming back. An area that has seen the biggest and speediest change in the last ten years in my opinion is that of the technological needs and expectations of the guests. Ten years ago it was enough to offer in-room movies and a small business centre with internet access. Now that offering sounds possibly dinosaur. In a bid to 'keep up' and be a market leader, hotels especially within the premium sector, have fallen over themselves to shout about their building wide Wi-Fi, i-pod docking stations as standard in all rooms and automated check in services. In reality many are merely paying lip service to having these amenities and don't actually have the systems in place to support guests' requirements. READ MORE

Today's hospitality leaders must communicate information powerfully to inspire, enrich, motivate, and devise optimal solutions. As visual creatures, humans rely predominantly on this sense to learn. Utilizing visual communication which includes text as well as art, signs, photography, typography, drawing, graphic design, and illustrations enriches communication. The quote that “A picture is worth a thousand words” has been widely attributed to many sources; regardless of the source, visual imagery is valuable in persuasive communication. This article advances ideas for using images and other forms of visual information beyond the “written word.” READ MORE

Any perusal of the literature will show how increasingly important Food & Beverage has become to overall hotel operations. Its influence reaches across marketing, finance, staffing priorities, guest satisfaction results, and overall positioning of a property. Yet for all its acknowledged significance the F&B function can easily fly under the radar when it comes to performance scrutiny. This series of articles examines the underlying mindsets and principles that ultimately determine F&B success - factors that won't be picked up in year on year performance measures, or even comparisons against other restaurant operations. It's entirely feasible for an F&B department to tick all the financial boxes, yet grossly underperform when measured against actual revenue opportunities available and ignored. The six articles, concluding with the accompanying one, provide a litmus test for management in evaluating the latent strength of an F&B operation. READ MORE

It is not news to hoteliers that there are advantages to revenue management and marketing working more closely together. The better synchronized these two activities are, the more profitable the enterprise becomes. As an industry, we've been talking about opportunities in this area for a while, and recently with the advent of digital marketing and personalization initiatives, the need has grown for these groups to work more closely together. In this article, I'll talk about emerging opportunities to synchronize demand generation and demand control activities with the goal of profitably increasing guest engagement and guest conversion. READ MORE