It may seem counter-intuitive, but just because hotel occupancy rates are up, does not necessarily mean that profits are. Increasing the bottom line may require a new way of thinking. Many hospitality industry executives instinctively feel that technology is both a blessing and a curse. Yes, technology increases productivity and enables new ways of communicating with customers, but it also creates new challenges as distribution channels emerge, and new headaches when the technology doesn't work the way it's supposed to - which seems to happen all too frequently. READ MORE

To truly affect the bottom line, leading hotels are examining every link in their supply chains to find the best ways to implement cost controls that offer long-term financial benefits without sacrificing the quality of the guest experience. Many hotel operators are surprised to learn that during the purchasing, receiving, and inventory management process, profits can erode despite their best efforts to negotiate the best price and control costs. READ MORE

You have put together an excellent Web site that's sleek, functional, answers customer queries and allows online customers to easily complete transactions. You've solved the e-commerce problem, right? Well...maybe not. You may have overlooked a key area of the sales process...cross-selling and up-selling. With nearly four out of 10 travel bookers researching online but booking offline, you're probably happy to get the sales you do get online without worrying about how you can up-sell and cross-sell wary customers. READ MORE

One of the easiest ways to promote your hotel to non-locals is with search engine advertising. But what happens when they click on the ad and go to your site? All too often, what they see is not what they expected, so they just click back to the search engine, wasting you money and losing potential business. How can you minimize wasted click-throughs and maximize search-inspired bookings? One key is to think carefully about your "landing pages". Jargon Alert: A landing page is the page people land on when clicking your ad. READ MORE

Today, there are hundreds of once highly protected famous name brands, which were backed by multi-million dollar promotional budgets, now commonly used in daily lingo as generic names, as it was their huge popularity that made them lose their trademark protection. So why is the use of famous trademarked names as 'verbs' in our daily language feared by the attorneys representing that mark? Now this calls for a closer look. READ MORE