Siegel Sez: Not Your Father’s Power Socket
September 3rd, 2021
The Most Important Hotel “Salesperson” Right Now Is Working Behind Your Front Desk
Doug Kennedy | July 22nd, 2020
EB-5 Financing Lawyer: The 5 Questions Every Developer is Asking About EB-5 Financing
Jim Butler | August 18, 2017
By Jim Butler and the Global Hospitality Group® Hotel Lawyers | Authors of www.HotelLawBlog.com 18 August 2017 EB-5 financing has gone mainstream for hotel development The use of EB-5 financing has exploded over the past 8 years as an important funding source for new development – particularly for hotel developments. It is clearly now part of the "mainstream." It is used by many institutional players, including government entities such as port authorities, major hotel brands like Marriott and Hilton, and some of America's most successful and respected companies, such as Great Wolf Resorts, the Related Companies, and Silverste...
JMBM’s Global Hospitality Group Announces the Publication of an EB-5 Handbook for Developers
JMBM's Global Hospitality Group | August 17, 2017
LOS ANGELES--August 17, 2017--JMBM's Global Hospitality Group® and EB-5 Finance Group™ are pleased to announce the publication of The Developer's EB-5 Handbook for EB-5 Construction Financing, a "must-read" resource for developers who are considering using EB-5 financing to complete or enhance their capital stack for construction projects. This is the much talked-about and often (inappropriately) maligned EB-5 program, also known as the immigrant investment visa program. While there are many pending developments that could affect the EB-5 program, this is still a good time to learn how the program works and w...
The Communications Hierarchy in Three Principles and Five Tips
Larry Mogelonsky | August 16, 2017
By Larry Mogelonsky, MBA, P. Eng. (www.hotelmogel.com) For going on a decade now, I've encouraged readers to reexamine their B2B and B2C communications in terms of how the medium impacts the message itself. To help organize my thoughts on the matter, I proposed a heirarchial flowchart outlining 13 different forms of modern communications based on the level of importance conveyed by each. My motivation for tackling this subject was the rise of email and mobile communications, both of which have had sweeping influences on how we behave and socialize. With each passing month, mobile becomes more significant as a channel, thus necessitating...
EB-5 Financing Lawyer: EB-5 Construction Financing Term Sheet for Top Developers
Jim Butler | August 15, 2017
By Jim Butler and the Global Hospitality Group® Hotel Lawyers | Authors of www.HotelLawBlog.com 15 August 2017 EB-5 financing comes in many colors and shapes JMBM believes that for most developers, EB-5 financing is best structured as mezzanine debt or preferred equity, to optimize the total amount of financing and reduce the cost of the capital stack. Normally, senior construction debt (secured by a first priority lien) will be significantly cheaper than EB-5 money, but senior lenders (particularly if the subject project is a hotel) rarely lend more than 50% to 55% of the total cost of construction. Most of our clients like to use ...
EB-5 Financing Lawyer: FAQs: Essentials of EB-5 Construction Financing for Developers
Jim Butler | August 14, 2017
By Jim Butler and the Global Hospitality Group® Hotel Lawyers | Authors of www.HotelLawBlog.com 14 August 2017 Below are some of the most Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) and answers regarding EB-5 funding for developers (click the link for answer, or scroll down) 1 What is EB-5? 2 Why is there so much interest in EB-5 financing? 3 Is EB-5 funding available for new construction? 4 Can I use EB-5 funding to buy an existing project? 5 Is there any limitation on the kind of project funded with EB-5? 6 How much does EB-5 money cost? 7 How do I know if EB-5 will work for me and my project? 8 What is a regional center and do I need one? ...
7 Trainer’s Tips for Hotel Reservations Sales Success
Doug Kennedy | August 14, 2017
By Doug Kennedy If you're like most hotel managers, chances are you are highly focused on securing more direct bookings and thus reducing the costs of customer acquisition. If so, here are some train-the-trainer style tips for providing your reservations and/or front desk colleagues with the skills they need to covert today's over-informed, channel surfing callers. You can use these at your next departmental meeting or during one-on-one coaching sessions. "Understanding What Caller's Do Before Calling." Walk them through the process of researching hotel options prior to calling. Pick a city or travel destination that is similar to you...
EB-5 Financing Lawyer: More than $1.5 Billion of EB-5 Construction Financing Closed for JMBM Clients
Jim Butler | August 8, 2017
By Jim Butler and the Global Hospitality Group® Hotel Lawyers | Authors of www.HotelLawBlog.com 29 July 2017 EB-5 is a proven means of financing for development projects. EB-5 financing is an important and viable source of construction financing for hotels, hotel enhanced mixed-use, and other development projects. Eight years ago, when JMBM started helping hotel developers with EB-5 financing, many worried about whether this is a legitimate and reliable financing source. Now, after billions of dollars of development have been funded with EB-5, this type of financing is regarded as mainstream. It is used by many institutional players...
Nobody Asked Me, But… No. 182: Hotel History: Eldridge Hotel (1855)
Stanley Turkel | August 7, 2017
1. The Eldridge Hotel, (1855), Lawrence, Kansas (48 rooms) The following historical marker was erected on April 4, 1940 by the Lawrence Rotary Club: "This marks the site of the Free State Hotel erected in 1855 by the New England Emigrant Aid Society. Destroyed by Sheriff Jones and his posse May 21, 1856, and rebuilt by Col. Schaler W. Eldridge. Quantrill and his raiders destroyed Lawrence August 21, 1863, burned the hotel and massacred the citizens. Col. Eldridge restored the hotel which stood until 1926 when it was rebuilt by W.G. Hutson." W.G. "Billy" Hutson was the grandfather of the well-known hotelier Michael Getto (The Hills Hotel...
EB-5 Finance Lawyer: Are Hotels Still the Darling of EB-5 Financing?
Jim Butler | August 3, 2017
By Jim Butler and the Global Hospitality Group® Hotel Lawyers | Authors of www.HotelLawBlog.com 25 July 2017 The EB-5 immigrant investor visa program has provided billions of dollars of affordable construction financing for a wide variety of projects ranging from high tech and alternate energy to traditional types of commercial real estate. Over the last decade, EB-5 investors have overwhelmingly chosen real estate projects, particularly those with hotel, multifamily, senior living, and mixed-use components. While the enabling legislation for the program does not limit the type of project financed, it does require that at least 10 n...
Eliminating the Offseason
Larry Mogelonsky | August 2, 2017
By Larry Mogelonsky, MBA, P. Eng. (www.hotelmogel.com) Consider this your quarterly performance audit, but thinking a bit more ambitiously, it is already time to look ahead to 2018! Now that we have gone through three whole months of 2017, it's the perfect time to reevaluate the goal we proclaimed at the beginning of January, but there's also enough time to plan something bold for next year. A major issue that many hotels confront is the cyclical nature of their revenues and occupancies. Although seasonality affects resorts and rural properties more so than urban hotels, the latter can also suffer from week-to-week or intra-week fluctua...
EB-5 Finance Lawyer: Tips to Avoid the 6 Most Common Mistakes Developers Make With EB-5
Jim Butler | August 1, 2017
By Jim Butler and the Global Hospitality Group® Hotel Lawyers | Authors of www.HotelLawBlog.com 01 August 2017 EB-5 generates billions of dollars of affordable construction financing for developments located in the United States that create new jobs for US citizens. JMBM's EB-5 financing group has closed more than $1.5 billion of EB-5 financing for our clients' development projects, and we sourced more than half of that amount. Although there are many exciting success stories, we see developers frequently blundering into a small number of easily avoided mistakes, which can be very costly. So here is our short list of the mistakes an...
Rethinking the Bread Basket
Larry Mogelonsky | July 27, 2017
By Larry Mogelonsky, MBA, P. Eng. (www.hotelmogel.com) When we go into a restaurant, a bread basket is all but an expectation. If we must ask for it, then there is a service problem! And for those restaurants who feel as though they can charge extra for this item, be warned that you certainly aren't winning customers over with your penny-pinching approach to F&B. Knowing how profound a role bread has played throughout the course of civilization, still to this day nothing sets the stage for a great meal better than a freshly prepared loaf. The smell of baked bread and the satisfaction of physically handling its chewy texture are both...
Hotel Cybersecurity: Protecting Your Guests and Your Property from Vendor Data Breaches
Bob Braun | July 24, 2017
By Jim Butler and the Global Hospitality Group® Hotel Lawyers | Authors of www.HotelLawBlog.com 24 July 2017 Hotels rely on third-party vendors to help run their properties efficiently, and often must give them access to sensitive guest data. This leaves hotels vulnerable to cyber attacks; they're only as secure as their vendors are, and may find themselves directly liable for a data breach. My partner Bob Braun, senior member of JMBM's Global Hospitality Group® and co-chair of JMBM's Cybersecurity and Privacy Group, discusses recent hotel cybersecurity breaches and how hotel owners can protect themselves. Hotel data breaches I...
July is the Month for Bourbon
Larry Mogelonsky | July 19, 2017
By Larry Mogelonsky, MBA, P. Eng. (www.hotelmogel.com) With the 4th of July come and gone, it seems only apt for this libation-centric article to discuss the spirit that is perhaps the quintessential American contribution to the world. Even though California and Oregon produce some spectacular wines and local craft beers that have taken the nation by storm, no other country on the planet makes bourbon. Yes, it is comparable to scotch, Irish whisky or Canadian ryes in all but the primary ingredient – maize instead of malted barley or wheat – but no other country has even a remotely sophisticated corn whiskey culture or variet...
Time to Take a Stand!
Georges Panayotis | July 18, 2017
By Georges Panayotis A paradox has haunted our industry for generations: there is a dearth of young people interested in this sector that is one of the most promising in terms of the future. Operators must manage an abnormal rotation of personnel on a daily basis as well as a lack of enthusiasm for their jobs. While new concepts have entered a movement with the arrival of new players, behavioral changes, and pressure from the competition… "traditional" management has not truly joined the revolution. And it is high time it did... All too often, the hotel industry conveys the image of a sector that is ungrateful, has diff...
Nobody Asked Me, But… No. 181: Hotel History: Mount Washington Hotel (1902)
Stanley Turkel | July 18, 2017
by Stanley Turkel, CMHS Mount Washington Hotel, (1902), Bretton Woods, New Hampshire Ground-breaking for the new hotel was in 1900 and construction began in 1901. It was conceived and built by Joseph Stickney, a New York financier who owned the nearby Mt. Pleasant House. By the late 1890s, Stickney decided to build a more luxurious hotel opposite the Mt. Pleasant House. Two hundred fifty Italian craftsmen were brought in for the actual construction work. They lived in dormitories on the property, built for that purpose. Of the thirty grand resort hotels erected in the White Mountains between 1850 and 1930, only the Mount Washington Hote...
Leadership Lessons Learned From Being a Guest When the Hotel Was Overbooked
Doug Kennedy | July 14, 2017
By Doug Kennedy Earlier this month I observed a difficult situation playing out at hotel where I was a guest, and it provided an invaluable reminder of just how important effective leadership is when things go wrong in the hotel business. The story is that I was traveling back from a trip to the Middle East where I had taken my college age daughter to practice the Arabic she is learning at University. To split up 16 hours of flying time, I planned for us to stay overnight in Rome, Italy at a hotel I had used previously and knew was directly connected by a walkway to the airport. Since we landed about 8pm, we would be able to grab our ba...
Using Tech to Enhance Housekeeper Training
Larry Mogelonsky | July 12, 2017
By Larry Mogelonsky, MBA, P. Eng. (www.hotelmogel.com) Having just attended the annual HITEC tradeshow, I can accurately say that while hoteliers are aware of the benefits in broad strokes of the benefits of online, electronic staff instruction, few have gone through the necessary steps to make it a reality. Hopefully this will convince you of its merits in one of the most affected parts of your operations – your housekeeping team. First among the benefits of modern online training advances is what's paid forward to your guests – improved compliance with SOPs, faster service, better staff demeanor and, ultimately, better cus...
Business Will Live on Through Experiences It Will Bring
Georges Panayotis | July 11, 2017
By Georges Panayotis Behavioral evolution raises the question of French specificity: the nature of business capital. With the globalization of accounting practices, which are strongly influenced by the Anglo Saxon world, French businesses resemble a small Gaulish village surrounded by the rest of the world. For now hoteliers are looking for the magic potion. Many local businesses believed in the "click and mortar" model that combines the best of the Net with the corner shop. The model relies on the desire of customers to see, touch, try products and interact with personnel, who are perceived more as consultants than sales peop...
Nobody Asked Me, But… No. 180: Hotel History: Roosevelt Hotel (1893) New Orleans, Louisiana (504 rooms)
Stanley Turkel | June 28, 2017
by Stanley Turkel, CMHS 1. Roosevelt Hotel, (1893), New Orleans, Louisiana The original Roosevelt New Orleans Hotel was built by Louis Grunewald, a German immigrant, as the Grunewald Hotel. In 1908, it was expanded with a fourteen-story 400-room annex. The expansion was designed by the Milwaukee architectural firm, H.C. Koch & Sons who also designed the Pfister Hotel and the City Hall in Milwaukee. The Grunewald was the site of The Cave, one of America's first nightclubs. The subterranean supper club came with waterfalls, stalagmites, stalactites and a line of chorus girls dancing to a Dixieland jazz band. The Cave remained in o...
Is a Global Breach of Ethics Underway?
Georges Panayotis | June 28, 2017
By Georges Panayotis In this era of scandals popping up one after the other in specialized media, it comes as a surprise that students passing the French baccalaureate this year did not have a moralistic subject for their philosophy exam. I have a suggestion for the Economics and Social Sciences Baccalaureate: "Are ethics and business compatible terms?" You have four hours! All the economic actors are asking for rules to guarantee that competition develops on healthy foundations. It is an essential principle that should not be subject to exceptions because any bending of the rules necessarily results in eliminating deserving b...
What Hoteliers Need To Know About Conspicuous Conservation
Larry Mogelonsky | June 21, 2017
By Larry Mogelonsky, MBA, P. Eng. (www.hotelmogel.com) If you've ever taken a course in economics, you've likely heard the term 'conspicuous consumption' tossed around to describe the purchasing of goods or services as a means of publicly showing off one's power and increasing one's social status. Yellow Humvees, gaudy jewelry and bottle service at nightclubs are first to mind as is every other drug dealer cliché you can conjure. Now, however, this term has been retrofitted to account for the 21st century trend of people wanting to publicly signal their alleged altruism through the purchase of green or sustainable products. Altho...
The World of Hospitality: Clever is He Who Can Guess Who Will be Next to Go
Georges Panayotis | June 20, 2017
by Georges Panayotis There's a trend underway in the hospitality world, and any reference to an evolution in the world of politics is not totally fortuitous. Like traditional training programs that are going the way of the dodo, some hotel groups that tend to rest on their laurels are also threatened with extinction. Attentive observers of the hotel world have observed systematic foot dragging among major traditional actors each time their universe evolves. Distribution delay, customer relations, community management delay, digital marketing delay, operational staff management delay, productive investment, CAPEX and R&D delays. ...
Treat Guests Right With Welcome Refreshments
Larry Mogelonsky | June 14, 2017
By Larry Mogelonsky, MBA, P. Eng. (www.hotelmogel.com) Certain tactics never fail. Offering your guests a little amuse bouche or free beverage upon arrival is an excellent way to get them in a good mood after the stress and exhaustion of travel, helping to set the pace for the rest of their stay. Most hoteliers are aware of this in a general sense, but it is the execution where we often stumble. The expected welcome refreshment is a bottle of wine, a small cheese tray, a fruit place, crackers, cookies or any combination of the five. Nowadays, though, you must look beyond the perfunctory and truly own this aspect of the guest experience ...
