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
Nobody Asked Me, But…No. 165: Hotel History: Hotel duPont, Wilmington, Delaware*
Stanley Turkel, CMHS | August 15, 2016
By Stanley Turkel, CMHS At its opening in 1913, the Hotel duPont was designed to rival the finest hotels in Europe. The new hotel contained 150 guest rooms, a main dining room, rathskeller, men's café/bar, ballroom, club room, ladies' sitting room and more. During the first week alone, after its gala opening, 25,000 visitors toured the new hotel, where no expense was spared. In the ornate public spaces, nearly two dozen French and Italian craftsmen carved, gilded and painted for over two and a half years. Suites with large sitting rooms all featured cozy fireplaces. Polished brass beds were made up with imported linen, wh...
Quality Is The Only Thing That Makes A Brand Credible
Larry Mogelonsky | August 10, 2016
By Larry Mogelonsky, MBA, P. Eng. (www.lma.ca) Soft branding is a popular trend these days, showing no signs of slowing down at all in the face of billion-dollar mergers and acquisitions. Unquestionably, soft brands fill a specific demand within the traveler mindset – those who desire an independent property to add an extra layer of exclusivity to their trips while also expecting certain standards to be upheld. It's a fascinating space and one that has yet to reach full maturity or capacity. Tapping in for a phone interview to elucidate how properties can succeed within a soft branded space is Filip Boyen, the newly crowned CEO of...
R.I.P. Startups: Why 90% of Travel Technology Startups Fail
Alan E. Young | August 5, 2016
By Alan E. Young One of the hardest truths for entrepreneurs to accept is that as many as nine out of ten startups will fail. In an ecosystem full of enthusiasm and optimism, this harsh reality can be difficult to swallow. However, the fact remains that only a small percentage of travel technology startups actually manage to become viable businesses in the long-term. My biggest frustration is companies that are 'walking zombies'. They do not know they are dead and cling on long after they should have called it quits. At the same time, companies can greatly increase their chances for success by focusing their attention on the things that...
Humility Is A Virtue With These Three Words
Larry Mogelonsky | August 3, 2016
By Larry Mogelonsky, MBA, P. Eng. (www.lma.ca) Our industry is currently facing some highly complex issues with no obvious answers – the OTAs, third-party review sites, alternate lodging websites, dilutive brand expansions, thrifty millennial purchasing habits and many more. Managers and consultants are all under the gun, expected to weather these storms like a titanium-hull icebreaker with a clear trajectory that cracks through any obstacle. While it would be great if to have a crystal ball and speak with absolute confidence as to how events will unfold, alas that is never the case. We mortals can never say for certain that a giv...
Hospitality Training Techniques in the Era of Social Networking (A Podcast)
Doug Kennedy | July 29, 2016
By Doug Kennedy With the proliferation of online guest reviews and social media postings, the service provided by your front of the house team has a direct impact on the buying decisions of future guests. In this complimentary podcast, which is provided by The Hospitality Academy, Doug Kennedy addresses questions such as: How has the need for hospitality training changed in the era of social networking? How effective is the existing hospitality training out there and what can be done to further improve it? Are the training needs of the Millennial generation that much different from those before them such as Gen X-ers and Baby boomers? H...
What The Rio Olympics Means For Your Hotel
Larry Mogelonsky | July 27, 2016
By Larry Mogelonsky, MBA, P. Eng. (www.lma.ca) Rio 2016 is upon us, and that means two solid weeks of having a reason to actually watch broadcast again instead of tuning in to Netflix or trying your luck at Pokemon Go. With the television landscape becoming increasingly fragmented by cable, satellite, social media and internet streaming options, reaching many people at once via traditional, 20th century media placement methods comes with its fair dose of anxiety. One interesting effect of this channel nichification is that large-scale events and compressions are now all the more precious. Think nationwide and world-sweeping live broadca...
Nobody Asked Me, But…No. 164: Hotel History: Mountain View Grand Resort & Spa, Whitefield, New Hampshire*
Stanley Turkel, CMHS | July 25, 2016
By Stanley Turkel, CMHS Hotel History: Mountain View Grand Resort & Spa (1865), Whitefield, New Hampshire (144 rooms) One of America's great resort hotels, the Mountain View Grand Resort & Spa had its origin in the post-Civil War period. On a rainy night in 1865, a group of travelers en-route to Montreal, was stranded when their stagecoach overturned in Whitefield, N.H.. The driver found shelter for his wet passengers a half-mile away at the home of William and Maryjane Dodge who welcomed them with overnight lodging and a home-cooked breakfast. On that morning, the spectacular views of the Presidential Range, a series of 5,0...
Roaring Through HITEC 2016
Larry Mogelonsky | July 20, 2016
By Larry Mogelonsky, MBA, P. Eng. (www.lma.ca) This is something I find myself saying almost every day now. Senior hotel managers must understand technology or they're dead! And for good reason, technology will save your property if you are smart about it. And so, this brings us to late June in New Orleans, Louisiana for HITEC 2016 to learn about the latest and greatest in hospitality technology. While the evenings would find my stomach hungering for crayfish remoulade and Cajun-spiced gumbo, my two days at the eponymous tradeshow were a flurry of amazing new devices and software that can help hotels solve their business needs. Unlike p...
New York EB-5 Investment Immigration Convention
Jim Butler | July 18, 2016
By Jim Butler and the Global Hospitality Group® Hotel Lawyers | Author of www.HotelLawBlog.com More than 700 people are gathering the next two days in New York City for one of the largest EB-5 financing conferences in the country. We are proud to be a platinum sponsor of this program, and I am looking forward to my panel on how to finance hotel construction and development with EB-5. Hosted by EB-5 Investors Magazine, this event will be held July 17-18, 2016 at the Sheraton Hotel in Times Square. The first day is comprised of three tracks of workshops and Monday is a full day of panels on EB-5 topics of current interest. Dr. Arthur ...
Showcase Your Chefs To Entertain Guests
Larry Mogelonsky | July 13, 2016
By Larry Mogelonsky, MBA, P. Eng. (www.lma.ca) Earlier this year, I was invited up to the BMO Institute for Learning (IFL) in the suburbs of my hometown of Toronto. The purpose of my visit was to guest judge the regional IACC Copper Skillet Competition for Ontario whereby chefs operating in conference centers were given all the same ingredients and only two skillets in order to complete dishes in less than 45 minutes. As one of two evaluators alongside Rose Reisman, we marked each chef's creation based upon taste, presentation and applicability to a banqueting or catering scenario. This year's contest included: Luc McCabe from the NAV...
Resort Reservations Agents: It’s NOT Our Job to Help Them Find What’s Available, But Rather to Help Them Decide to Book Right Now
Doug Kennedy | July 11, 2016
By Doug Kennedy Besides providing reservations sales training and telephone mystery shopping for the lodging industry, many companies have hired me to do consulting regarding their overall sales and service levels. In this case I often place calls myself directly to the reservations sales agents, which I find to be even more insightful than just listening to our KTN mystery shoppers here in the office doing so. Almost universally these days, it seems that reservations agents view it as their job to take bookings or to provide callers with a list of available room types and rates for their requested dates. Most are polite in doing so, bu...
Nobody Asked Me, But… No. 163: Hotel History: The Otesaga Hotel, Cooperstown, New York*
Stanley Turkel, CMHS | July 5, 2016
By Stanley Turkel, CMHS 1.Hotel History: The Otesaga Hotel (1909), Cooperstown, New York (132 rooms) This magnificent Federal-style structure with an imposing front portico supported by massive 30-foot columns occupies 700 feet of lakefront on the southern shore of Lake Otsego. The Otesaga Resort Hotel was named for the Iroquois word for "A Place of Meetings" when it was built in 1909. It is one of Americas great lakeside hotels. The Otesaga Hotel was developed by Edward Severin Clark and Stephan Carlton Clark, two grandsons of Cooperstown's prominent benefactor, Edward Clark. The family's other building projects inclu...
Five Ways to Make OTA Customers Yours Again
Larry Mogelonsky | June 29, 2016
By Larry Mogelonsky, MBA, P. Eng. (www.lma.ca) If you've been following my writing over the years, you're well aware that I'm not a fan of the OTAs. They are strong marketers, and exceptionally well run. Now that the 'book direct' war cry has caught on with some of the major chains such as Hilton and Marriott, it's time to reinvestigate what actions you can take. In a way, I'm awed by the OTAs' clout. But, nothing personal, I see their business model as contrary to many hospitality organization's long-term goals. Three key arguments I've inculcated are margin erosion, commoditization and brand dilution. To sum them all up in a neat bow:...
Sometimes Guest Satisfaction is as Easy as Saying Hello
Larry Mogelonsky | June 22, 2016
By Larry Mogelonsky, MBA, P. Eng. (www.lma.ca) Hello. Bonjour. Hola. Buongiorno. Ni hao. As salam Alaykom. A basic greeting from hotel staffer to hotel guest can never go wrong. It's easy; it's fast; it's a sign that you are always welcome. Even better would be to follow-up the salutation with a simple, "How are you?" or "Can I help you with anything?" And yet, at many establishments outside of the five-star or ultra-luxury snack bracket, the only hello I get is the perfunctory one at check-in – an instance where I approach the front desk and not the other way around where an employee goes out of his or her way to offer assistance...
Never Look to Fast Food for Culinary Inspiration
Larry Mogelonsky | June 15, 2016
By Larry Mogelonsky, MBA, P. Eng. (www.lma.ca) During a recent Saturday afternoon trip to the mall in my hometown of Toronto, I found myself cruising through the food court looking for some grub when I came across a burger joint flaunting its new burger with 'Fiery Srirachup Sauce', using that clever portmanteau of sriracha and ketchup to make it seem as though adding hot sauce is anything new. For those of you still strictly in the meat and potatoes camp, sriracha is a tangy Southeast Asian chili sauce that has only recently become a table name, largely due to the highly adept marketing and distribution tactics of a Huy Fong Foods, Los...
Training Your Team for Upselling by Room Type and by Rate Option
Doug Kennedy | June 15, 2016
By Doug Kennedy After several years of solid RevPAR growth, most hotels are now seeing the increases slow. Of course each market is different, but this leveling off seems to mostly be due to an inability to push rate due to a flood of new hotel inventory as well as alternative lodging such as private rentals like HomeAway and AirBnB. Therefore, it is a wonderful time to revisit the topic of upselling with your front desk and reservations colleagues. First, it is important to define upselling by accommodation type vs. upselling by rate. To avoid confusion, I prefer to refer to the later as rate optimization, which I will address first. T...
Why You May Need to Change Your “Competitive Set” Now; STR Adopts New Guidelines
Jim Butler | June 14, 2016
By Jim Butler and the Global Hospitality Group® Hotel Lawyers | Author of www.HotelLawBlog.com To maintain the confidentiality of hotel data, STR imposes certain restrictions on the hotels for which it will provide competitive set data. The Marriott-Starwood merger is shaking up the world of competitive sets with the result that many owners will need to revise the competitive sets specified in their hotel management agreements. As Bob Braun explains in the article below, considering the need to identify appropriate hotels for new competitive sets, and negotiation of amendments to hotel management agreements, it would probably be wis...
Nobody Asked Me, But… No. 162: Hotel History: Hotel Monteleone*
Stanley Turkel, CMHS | June 13, 2016
By Stanley Turkel, CMHS 1. Hotel Monteleone (1886), New Orleans, Louisiana (570 rooms) The oldest hotel in the French Quarter is the Hotel Monteleone, with its ornate baroque facade, which was built in 1886 in the Beaux-Arts architectural style. It remains one of the few longstanding family-owned hotels in the U.S. Antonio Monteleone arrived in New Orleans from Sicily in 1880 and set up his cobbler's shop on Royal Street. In 1886, he bought a small hotel on the corner of Royal and Iberville Streets and merged it with the Commercial Hotel. Since then, the Hotel Monteleone has expanded five times. In 1908, when 300 new rooms were adde...
Customer Turned Dictator?
Georges Panayotis | June 9, 2016
by Georges Panayotis In just a few years customers have changed visibly. Surely you have noticed, but to what extent? Steeped in the marketing principles of the previous decades, we are still trying to find our bearings, to try to break down a population that is increasingly resistant to any classification. The X, Y Z generational approaches are a reassuring way to feel as if we have identified, analyzed and understood them… Can we be so certain? Not so long ago, customers were paradoxical customers, whose behavior changes with their desires and means. They have progressively become consum-actors, concerned about the significance...
Don’t Be The Weakest Link In Your Flag
Larry Mogelonsky | June 8, 2016
By Larry Mogelonsky, MBA, P. Eng. (www.lma.ca) Recently, I had an unfortunate experience while staying at a branded property that was clearly well past its best before date. Despite its prime location in its market and good promotional efforts, it was obvious that this chain outlet was not meeting any of the defined standards outlined by the corporate website. I won't go into details, but let's just say that this economy-plus level hotel wasn't meeting some of the most basic criteria that characterize 'a good night's stay'. Being part of a group booking, it was apparent that I was not the only one who took notice of the property's blata...
One Lost, Ten Gone!
Georges Panayotis | June 2, 2016
by Georges Panayotis Without getting overly nostalgic, one might wonder if hotel accommodations have succeeded in accommodating clientele for all of life's circumstances. Hotels have always been the natural alternative for travelers unable to stay with friends or family. Whether travel is for vacation or a cousin's wedding, seminar or business, for a few days or a few weeks, the hotel industry has offered, and should continue to offer a solution at a reasonable price. Between lack of foresight regarding changing needs and lack of means to change the legislation, hoteliers have wound up focusing on short-stay business travelers,...
Hotels Must Be Better Than Home
Larry Mogelonsky | June 1, 2016
By Larry Mogelonsky, MBA, P. Eng. (www.lma.ca) 'Feels just like home' or 'Make yourself at home' or any other iteration on this phrase is a common copywriting tool for hotels to create an inviting feeling for prospective travelers. While the intentions are all well and good, there is an underlying problem with this language. Namely, what does the average home actually look and feel like? Cramped spaces. Old furniture. Hodgepodges of mismatched art. No cohesive design or vision. Kids toys scattered everywhere. Messy kitchen. Bedsheets changed at a minimum of once a week. Grime in the washrooms. Mediocre garden. Nosy neighbors. Repairs up...
What is Essential is Invisible to the Eye
Georges Panayotis | May 26, 2016
by Georges Panayotis Urgent responses from governments happen in parallel to a manifest will to demonstrate strength. Divided between the need to reassure the local population, the desire to prove that life goes on, and the need to not scare off those that feed the tourist economy, managers have been ensnared by critics from all sides. If only there were a universal answer. It is all a matter of choosing the means and adjusting visibility. One thing is certain: it has become necessary to include the terrorist threat as a permanent part of daily life. It is not necessarily easy to accept, but it is better to accept this reality than to t...
The Go Go Boomer Generation
Larry Mogelonsky | May 25, 2016
By Larry Mogelonsky, MBA, P. Eng. (www.lma.ca) A recent newspaper articled dedicated to the financial requirements of retirees proposed a treatise on the matter with three key phases: The first was defined as 'Go Go' where the individual, as if making up for lost time, was perpetually traveling to compensate for all those years raising a family and building a career. The middle phase was called 'Go Slow' with said individual still traveling, but typically at a more reserved pace and on a localized basis. With a profound sense of melancholy, the last stage, the 'No Go' travel era, characterized those who were restricted or unable to ...
