The Tricycle of Guest Service Excellence: A Perfect Model For Remarkable Experiences
Doug Kennedy | October 4, 2024
The Art of a Great Arrival for Luxury Hotels
Adam and Larry Mogelonsky | May 22, 2024
Guest Experience
Quore Is Driving Hotel Employee Engagement
Quore | April 9, 2019
Study shows engaging workers via mobile technology makes them more productive; Hilton Garden Inn Downtown Nashville employees share how they are engaging with Quore Franklin, Tenn. – April 9, 2019 – Hospitality technology is playing an important role in guest engagement today, but it's critical that hotel companies don't overlook the importance of providing robust tools to engage employees as well. Findings from "The New Digital Workplace Divide" show that technology has a vast impact on workplace positivity and retention. The study revealed that: "Workers are looking for agile, modern solutions that support their need to wo...
YOTEL Makes INTELITY a Brand Standard
INTELITY | April 9, 2019
INTELITY to power the innovative, UK-based hotel company's enterprise brand mobile app Los Angeles, California (April 09, 2019) – INTELITY™, the provider of the broadest enterprise guest engagement and staff management platform for hospitality, announced today that YOTEL has selected its platform as a brand standard. The trend-setting, tech-forward hotel brand plans to implement the INTELITY platform across all of its properties in order to provide travelers with a superior guest experience and streamline daily operations. YOTEL's new mobile brand app and mobile key capability, powered by INTELITY, will give guests the conv...
Angie Hospitality Introduces New PassPoint™ Hotspot 2.0 Technology Powered by Global Reach Technology to Streamline and Simplify Guest Wi-Fi Con
Angie Hospitality | April 8, 2019
Hotspot 2.0 compatibility adds simplified authentication of Wi-Fi-enabled guest devices and seamless, secure connectivity for users of hospitality's only purpose-built virtual assistant San Jose, Calif. – April 8, 2019 – Angie Hospitality, developer of the industry's first 24-hour interactive guest room assistant purpose-built for the hotel environment, has announced the addition of PassPoint™ Hotspot 2.0 technology that leverages Global Reach Technology's Hotspot 2.0 guest Wi-Fi solution to its award-winning virtual assistant solution. This next generation Wi-Fi platform mirrors today's cellular connectivity experien...
Interact With the Industry’s Only Purpose-Built Virtual Assistant and Voice-activated Technology Solution at The Mercantile Hotel New Or
Angie Hospitality | April 4, 2019
While visiting New Orleans for HT-NEXT, stop by the historic "Big Easy" boutique hotel and meet Angie. New Orleans – April 4, 2019 – Angie Hospitality, developer of the industry's first 24-hour interactive guest room assistant purpose-built for the hotel environment, invites you to come and interact with their virtual assistant at The Mercantile Hotel New Orleans. The historic property, located within walking distance of both the city's famed French Quarter and the HT-NEXT event, partners with Angie Hospitality to equip its lobby and all 90 luxury guest suites with Angie's patented voice control and touch screen device. Sto...
Meet the Bleisure Demand With Meeting Experiences
Larry Mogelonsky | April 3, 2019
By Larry Mogelonsky, MBA, P. Eng. (www.hotelmogel.com) A clever portmanteau between business and leisure, hybrid travel is now mainstream, so much so that it is starting to influence how meeting planners select their destinations and host hotels. After all, in a world where video conferencing can connect anyone, anywhere and at any time, the purpose of travel is to offer guests a unique and stimulating setting. The bleisure incentive has thus far been the prospect of extending a few days on either end of the main event to fully appreciate said location. However, the demand for heightened experiences on the leisure side are starting to c...
ALICE Accelerates Expansion Throughout Europe
ALICE | April 2, 2019
ALICE, the hospitality industry's leading operations technology, expands its reach in Europe with the placement and hiring of several hotel technology sales experts in key markets across the continent. ALICE has grown rapidly worldwide, including 250 hotels signed in Europe in the last 12 months alone. This team will accelerate ALICE's already swift expansion throughout Europe and provide market guidance and support for key European regions. Jessica Kramer, ALICE's VP of Enterprise, has been relocated to Stockholm to help roll out the company's European operations. Her responsibilities will include hiring in-market Sales Directors and C...
Angie Hospitality Introduces New PassPoint™ Hotspot 2.0 Technology to Streamline and Simplify Guest Wi-Fi Connectivity
Angie Hospitality | April 2, 2019
Hotspot 2.0 compatibility adds simplified authentication of Wi-Fi-enabled guest devices and seamless, secure connectivity for users of hospitality's only purpose-built virtual assistant San Jose, Calif. – April 2, 2019 – Angie Hospitality, developer of the industry's first 24-hour interactive guest room assistant purpose-built for the hotel environment, has announced the addition of PassPoint™ Hotspot 2.0 technology to its award-winning virtual assistant solution. This next generation Wi-Fi platform mirrors today's cellular connectivity experience, streamlining the authentication process and allowing guests to securel...
INTELITY and SkyTouch Team Up to Mobilize Staff and Property Management
INTELITY | March 28, 2019
The integration between two industry leaders gives hoteliers the ability to monitor guest and staff activity from anywhere on property Los Angeles, CA (March 28, 2019) - INTELITY™, the provider of the travel industry's broadest enterprise guest engagement and staff management platform, announced today that they have teamed up with SkyTouch, the most widely used cloud-based hotel property management system (PMS). The integration will allow properties to use the INTELITY and SkyTouch technologies in tandem through the SkyTouch /CONNECT integration platform. SkyTouch is known for its innovative cloud-based property management sy...
Hotel Operations Always Come Down to Your People
Larry Mogelonsky | March 27, 2019
By Larry Mogelonsky, MBA, P. Eng. (www.hotelmogel.com) Springtime sees the prerequisite visit to my favorite outdoor furniture shop. Over the past few visits I had been dealing with the same fellow who was both friendly and extremely knowledgeable. While our largest purchase was made prior, we continued to acquire additional items that he recommended based upon his prior knowledge of our purchasing history and what he thought would best help us 'fill in the gaps' for our terrace. To my surprise on our latest visit, though, this salesman confided that sadly this was his last week in the store. He was moving to another furniture company &...
San Diego’s Sycuan Casino Resort Includes INTELITY Platform in $260 Million Expansion
INTELITY | March 27, 2019
The well-established property opens its new 12-story luxury tower and expanded gaming space today Los Angeles, California (March 27, 2019) – INTELITY™, the provider of the travel industry's broadest enterprise guest engagement and staff management platform, announced today its complete hospitality platform is now incorporated into the $260 million expansion of San Diego's Sycuan Casino Resort, which opens March 27, 2019. "We are thrilled to be partnering with INTELITY to enhance the guest experience at Sycuan," said John Dinius, General Manager at Sycuan Casino Resort. "INTELITY's technology easily integrates with our ot...
Guest Experience vs. Guest Engagement: Which Matters Most?
David Millili | March 21, 2019
By David Millili Imagine this: You begin planning a trip to New Mexico. You ask a friend who lives there where to stay in Santa Fe. The same day you notice on Facebook that another friend happens to be in Santa Fe right now and has tagged the beautiful hotel where she's staying. You have two recommendations now but do some research anyway to be sure you're getting the right place for the trip. You decide on the hotel your first friend suggested, but the photos don't tell you everything you need to know, and the booking engine is cumbersome. Just about that time the Facebook friend texts, saying she's wild about the hotel she tagged. In ...
“Heart Failure”: The Leading Cause of Bad Reviews
Doug Kennedy | March 20, 2019
By Doug Kennedy When you read a cross-section of negative comments from online reviews and guest surveys, it's easy to recognize a common theme across all lodging operations: "Heart failure." More specifically, I am referring to the failure to understand the true heart of hospitality, which is "caring about as well as caring for others." When we care "for" others, we provide the minimal requirements of a positive guest stay, the foundation of which is a clean, well maintained "physical product," (the accommodation and public facilities), delivered promptly and efficiently. Yet when we care "about" others, we understand the hospitality b...
Profiting From Prearrival
Larry Mogelonsky | March 20, 2019
By Larry Mogelonsky, MBA, P. Eng. (www.hotelmogel.com) Every hotelier knows that tech-enabled personalization is crucial to the future success of one's brand. In reality, though, these customized experiences are very difficult to put in place, often requiring complex software integrations, significant CapEx and a fully trained team – both at the supervisor and frontline levels – to properly act upon any insights or recommendations gleaned from a unified CRM. The nauseating pain point here is that travelers are now expecting hotels to dedicate more effort towards making their time on property personal and meaningful, irrespec...
5 Unique Experiences Hotels Can Use to Attract Guests
HEBS Digital | March 20, 2019
By: Kerryn Gower We've all been there. You finally wake up from the dreaming phase of the travel planning journey and pick on a destination to visit. Now the planning begins. We all have our go-to travel booking websites and apps, and they each present a lot of information, packages, and special offers convincing you to make a booking. Beyond just rate, hotel shoppers consider plenty of other factors, such as amenities, activities, and nearby restaurants. But these factors aren't always enough to capture the attention of a traveler long enough to secure a booking. Today's travelers expect more. They expect unique experiences every time ...
“We Love ALICE Because It’s a One-Stop Shop”
ALICE | March 19, 2019
ALICE has helped eliminate teething pains for the recently-opened EXchange Hotel Vancouver by introducing seamless internal communication for staff and a convenient application for guests. The newly-opened EXchange Hotel Vancouver has chosen ALICE to optimize hotel operations and enhance the guest experience in Vancouver's first LEED Platinum Heritage Conversion. ALICE is the hospitality industry's leading operations technology, connecting every department of the hotel with one platform for all staff communication and guest requests. Housed in the original Vancouver Stock Exchange, EXchange Hotel prides itself on being both green and te...
INTELITY Partners With The Howard Hughes Corporation® on New Voice Technology Program
INTELITY | March 19, 2019
The company celebrates successful use of innovative voice request skill in property's pilot program Los Angeles, CA (March 19, 2019) – INTELITY™, the provider of the travel industry's broadest enterprise guest engagement and staff management platform, announced today that its voice solution has been successfully utilized during a voice technology pilot program conducted by The Howard Hughes Corporation®. Using INTELITY's in-room tablets and unique, customizable voice request skill, the pilot program tested the ability to request services, place orders, and request information about the local area, weather, events, an...
Can Hotels Sue Their Governments Over Home Sharing?
Larry Mogelonsky | March 13, 2019
By Larry Mogelonsky, MBA, P. Eng. (www.hotelmogel.com) This is a special case that I've been waiting to write about since it hit the airwaves here in Canada in late October. Most interesting here is that it has a few powerful implications for the fight traditional hotels are facing against industry disruptors coming in the form of home sharing. Taxi drivers working in the City of Toronto launched a $1.7 billion CDN (about $1.4 USD) class action lawsuit against the city itself, claiming damages that reflect how much licensed taxis have lost – what is sometimes coined as 'plate value' – since these ride-sharing services came i...
Learn How To Approach & Engage in Difficult Conversations at the STRONG Leader Institute
Bryan K. Williams | March 11, 2019
30-Second Video By Dr. Bryan K. Williams One of the most frequently asked questions I get is "How do I handle difficult conversations with my staff?" I've found that leaders want to address subpar (and even mediocre) performance with their teams, but lack the skillset for how to do so effectively. One of our multiple sessions at the upcoming STRONG Leader Institute will be led by Alicia Santamaria, who is a subject matter expert on all areas of Workplace Conflict Management. Her session is called: Leadership Best Practices for Approaching and Engaging in Difficult Conversations In this session, she will explore four practi...
Want More Direct Bookings? Give the Best Answers
Tambourine | March 6, 2019
Driving direct bookings on your hotel's website isn't just about using tactics like social advertising, PPC campaigns and SEO to ensure a steady flow of visitors to your homepage. It's equally important to ensure that once those viewers arrive, your site is anticipating and answering the questions potential customers have, which in turn moves them along through the booking funnel. According to research by the Nielsen Norman Group, you have about 10 seconds to convince a visitor to stay on your site and potentially make a purchase, before they bail and look elsewhere. That's true for customers looking to buy a hotel stay or a new pair of...
The Employee Benefit Hotel Businesses Can’t Afford Not to Offer
Andrew Hazelton | March 5, 2019
by Andrew Hazelton and Matt Peterson Hotel organizations in today's global marketplace compete heavily, not just among one another but also with other service-focused verticals and customer-facing businesses, in attracting and retaining top talent. Robust compensation and benefits packages certainly help meet candidates' conditions of satisfaction, but these are not enough anymore for retention in the absence of one specific benefit – namely, a company culture devoted to "employee engagement." Defining Employee Engagement Employee engagement is a very old premise, but it has become an increasingly hot topic for our industry over t...
The Need for Hotels to Embrace a Cause
Larry Mogelonsky | March 4, 2019
By Larry Mogelonsky, MBA, P. Eng. (www.hotelmogel.com) As World Wildlife Day has just come and gone (it was this past Sunday, March, 3, 2019), it's a good time to reflect upon what environmental efforts your hotel is planning to undertake as well as those already in full swing. With climate change intensifying with each passing season, large corporations are becoming all the more vital through their collective resources in the movement to champion wildlife preservation. I don't mean to get preachy but between rampant deforestation, pollution, invasive species and a slew of other manmade problems, nearly every ecosystem has been thrown o...
Building Better Customer Satisfaction in a World of Technology
Chris K. Anderson | February 28, 2019
by Elizabeth Martyn and Christopher Anderson As the hospitality and service industry makes greater use of computer applications and virtual technology, personal contact with employees becomes increasingly important for customer satisfaction. In a recent report from the Cornell Center for Hospitality Research (CHR), we explore how those customer contact employees can be trained in the "how" of service, especially when employees are involved in service recovery. We are specifically looking at training in the key skills of employee engagement, communication, and attitude, because they have a strong effect on customers' evaluation of servic...
What Hotels Can Learn About the Guest Experience From Starbucks
Larry Mogelonsky | February 27, 2019
By Larry Mogelonsky, MBA, P. Eng. (www.hotelmogel.com) Starbucks has thousands of outlets. Nowadays if you find yourself in nearly a major city center anywhere in the world, you're never more than a few blocks away from your next americano. The long-term and strategic vision for Starbucks may surprise you, though. It's not just about coffee and compelling you to consume every ounce of caffeine exclusively from them; it's about the culture. There have been several books written about the brand and their business approach. True, there are issues and growing pains, as there are for any corporation of this size and stature. Let's set those ...
It Is Impossible to Walk on Our Heads… And yet…
Georges Panayotis | February 27, 2019
Georges Panayotis A little logic, a little common sense, and we quickly understand that it is impossible to walk on your head. So why do we keep trying? Our businesses and our industry have slowly shifted towards a development model that is increasingly disconnected from reality. An overgrown head with atrophied hands and feet. Operational staff who most of the time have to muddle through regardless, whether they are ambidextrous or handless, long-distance runners or disabled. Careful not to upset the pyramid In our sector, operational people - the feet and hands of the trade - are essential. It is on the ground that the product and se...
