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The Peace of Mind Call
Shep Hyken | May 20, 2020
By Shep Hyken My friend Stacy Sherman, head of customer experience at Schindler Elevator Corporation, is personally dedicated to “humanizing business.” She is not only “in the trenches,” working in the customer service and experience world, she has also been recognized as a customer experience thought leader. She recently responded to one of my tweets, which was the creative spark for this post. I tweeted, “Amazing customer service isn’t an over-the-top WOW level of service. Here’s the real secret. Amazing customer service is just a little better than average.” Her response was, “There are many #CX techniques t...
The Growth of Golf and Other Socially Distanced Activities
Larry Mogelonsky | May 20, 2020
By Larry Mogelonsky, MBA, P. Eng. (www.hotelmogel.com) Prior to the coming of Covid, I had predicted a long, slow demise for golf. However, now that social distancing is a leading trend in the new normal, this sport as well as many other activities where human contact is scant may see a strong resurgence once travel resumes. And therein lies a lucrative opportunity for hotels. Let me know with some background on my previous forecast because many of the underlying motivations will carry forward into the post-coronavirus world. Compared to boomers and other older demographics, the younger generations – millennials and centennials, that ...
Interview with Felix Laboy, Executive Chairman of NextGuest, on the Impact of COVID-19 on the Hospitality Industry
NextGuest | May 20, 2020
The hospitality industry is being hit hard by the COVID-19 outbreak. We’re currently looking at a projection from STR and Tourism Economics that shows significant declines across demand, occupancy, ADR, and revenue per available room (RevPar) through the end of 2020 and beyond. Additional research from CBRE predicts that it will take approximately 6-10 months for US hotel demand to recover and 12-16 months for ADR and RevPar to return to normal levels. A major concern is the impact on business from groups, meetings, and events, which makes up about 30-40% of business for many hotels. Post COVID-19, many people will continue to meet virtu...
Dream Hotel Group Signs Three New Locations in Tulum, Mexico
Dream Hotel Group | May 20, 2020
NEW YORK, NY (May 20, 2020) – Celebrated hotel and brand management company Dream Hotel Group announced today a new partnership with leading Tulum-based real estate development group Los Amigos to operate three new properties in Tulum, Mexico. All three projects will fall under the company’s new By Dream Hotel Group lifestyle brand. The three new locations – one beachfront hotel and two condo-hotels – will be branded as Central Park Lagunas by Dream Hotel Group Tulum, Central Park Rios by Dream Hotel Group Tulum and The Beach Club by Dream Hotel Group Tulum for a total of up to 217 rooms. Ownership group Los Amigos Tulum is cons...
OTO Development Opens New Residence Inn in Garden City, New York
Residence Inn Long Island Garden City | May 20, 2020
GARDEN CITY, NY (May 20, 2020) – OTO Development is proud to announce the opening of the newest hotel option in Nassau County, the Residence Inn by Marriott Long Island Garden City. The all-new hotel, located at the doorstep of Roosevelt Field, features 163 spacious studio and one-bedroom suites perfect for stays on Long Island. The hotel is the only Residence Inn in Nassau County and the first hotel to open in Garden City since 1983. “We are excited to open our doors and welcome guests to the newest hotel in Garden City,” said General Manager Allison Mitchell. “We look forward to providing a great new option for essential worke...
American Gaming Group and Saratoga Harness Racing Terminate Wildwood Casino Acquisition Due to COVID-19
Wildwood Casino | May 20, 2020
CRIPPLE CREEK, Colo., May 20, 2020 - With the coronavirus pandemic shutting down casinos across the U.S., Saratoga Harness Racing, Inc. and American Gaming Group, LLC, the owner of Wildwood Casino, decided to terminate the previously announced acquisition of Wildwood Casino. Both parties deemed the termination necessary because of the current economic impacts of the COVID-19 health crisis. "At this time, we believe it's in the best interest of both companies, and our respective casinos, to cancel the deal so we can focus on doing what's best for our casinos and our players," Joe Canfora, the owner of Wildwood Casino, said. "At Wildwood, w...
STR: U.S. Hotel Performance for April 2020
STR | May 20, 2020
HENDERSONVILLE, Tennessee—Due to expanded restrictions around the COVID-19 pandemic, the U.S. hotel industry reported unprecedented lows during April 2020, according to data from STR. In a year-over-year comparison with April 2019, the industry recorded the following: Occupancy: -63.9% to 24.5% Average daily rate (ADR): -44.4% to US$73.23 Revenue per available room (RevPAR): -79.9% to US$17.93 The absolute occupancy and RevPAR levels were the lowest for any month on record in the U.S., while the ADR value was the lowest since December 1997. However, recent weekly data suggests that performance likely reached the bottom in e...
Managing Capacity Constraints in a COVID-19 World
Dan Skodol | May 20, 2020
By Dan Skodol As hotels around the world gradually reopen following closures brought about by the COVID-19 crisis, they face the daunting challenge of balancing the need to bring guests back with the importance of keeping them safe and healthy. Hotels that reopen typically must adhere to strict guidelines around social distancing, cleanliness and sanitation, and reduced capacity across rooms and outlets. At the same time, competition among hotels for the returning business threatens to put downward pressure on rates. All of this translates into increased costs, thinner margins, and a slew of other financial and operational risks. ...
Asia Pacific’s Hotel Construction Pipeline, Excluding China, Continues to Expand in the First Quarter of 2020*
Lodging Econometrics | May 20, 2020
May 20, 2020 – PORTSMOUTH, NH – According to the recent report from analysts at Lodging Econometrics (LE), Asia Pacific’s total construction pipeline, excluding China, expanded to 1,905 projects/404,903 rooms, up 6% and 5% respectively, year-over-year (YOY). The region currently has 977 projects under construction with 222,497 rooms. There are 409 projects with 79,610 rooms scheduled to start construction in the next 12 months, and a record-high 519 projects/102,796 rooms in the early planning stage. In addition, during the first quarter of 2020, the Asia Pacific region excluding China saw 83 new hotels accounting for 15,263 rooms ...
Hotel Industry on Brink of Collapse Releases Roadmap to Recovery
AHLA | May 20, 2020
WASHINGTON D.C. (May 20, 2020) – With new data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) showing staggering job loss to the hospitality and leisure industry, the American Hotel & Lodging Association today released a “Roadmap to Recovery,” calling on Congress to prioritize relief for hotel workers and small businesses in the next stimulus package. The April Jobs Report showed the hospitality and leisure industry was the hardest hit, losing 7.7 million jobs—nearly as many jobs as the next four sectors combined. (Click here to read AHLA’s letter to Congress.) AHLA is urging Congress to provide immediate assistance in these fo...
Hotels Urged to Clean Linens Daily, Handle With Extra Precautions
TRSA | May 20, 2020
ALEXANDRIA, Va., May 20, 2020--State and local officials are TRSA’s initial targets in its latest campaign to control COVID-19’s spread by promoting responsible linen, uniform and facility services practices. Governors, mayors and city managers have been urged by TRSA to guide hoteliers to clean all textiles daily and handle their linen under OSHA universal precautions, among other tactics to ensure guest safety and confidence. These guidelines were sent to the National Association of Governors, U.S. Conference of Mayors and International City/County Management Association. All are expected to play a role in writing safety guidance doc...
New Meliá Koh Samui Welcomes Phatsalawadee Pimpila as Director of Sales and Marketing
Meliá Hotels & Resorts | May 20, 2020
KOH SAMUI, Thailand (May 20, 2020) – A talented hospitality professional with two decades of diverse experience in sales and marketing and a passion for building strong business relationships has been named five-star Meliá Koh Samui’s director of sales and marketing. Thai national Phatsalawadee Pimpila’s appointment to the new 159-room and 41-suite luxury resort on Koh Samui’s north-eastern coastline in the Gulf of Thailand, comes after she previously worked as director of sales for Kanda Residences, another five-star hotel situated on Koh Samui island. Ms Pimpila has also worked as the managing and sales director for O-Pa Tele...
Travel-Related Unemployment Hits 51% Just Ahead of Memorial Day
The U.S. Travel Association | May 20, 2020
WASHINGTON (May 20, 2020)—More than half of the 15.8 million travel-related jobs in the U.S. have disappeared since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic—driving an unemployment number (51%) that is more than twice the 25% rate the country as a whole experienced at the worst of the Great Depression, according to data released Tuesday by the U.S. Travel Association. Prepared for U.S. Travel by the research firm Tourism Economics, the painful jobs figures arrive just days before the Memorial Day holiday weekend—the unofficial start of the summer travel season, for which many travel businesses would have typically prepared with a round ...
React Mobile Vying for HTNG’s 2020 TechOvation Award
React Mobile | May 20, 2020
The leading provider of employee panic buttons for hotels is one of 10 semi-finalists looking to be named the ‘most innovative hotel technology of the year’ Seattle, May 20, 2020 — As an HTNG 2020 TechOvation Award Semi-Finalist, React Mobile will present its best-in-class safety platform tomorrow to a panel of judges looking to name hospitality’s “most innovative technology of the year.” The global leader of panic button solutions for hotels is vying against nine other technology companies in the second round of this annual competition. Judges will select the top three finalists and online audience interaction will choose the...
The Return to Profitability – Old Sales Strategies Will Not Work
SalesAndCatering.com, LLC | May 20, 2020
Post-CV-19 Hospitality Sales is Not About ‘Social Distancing’ MOUNT PLEASANT, SC, May 20, 2020 – Hotel business will be different in the post-CV world. Corporate account players will change. Execs and meeting planners you did business with might be gone; furloughed, or let go. In their place are new hires and managers doing multiple jobs. They will be unfamiliar with their predecessor’s relationships and the events their company cancelled in March. Their group’s meeting decisions will be based on value and their own criteria; not on a past relationship or what their predecessor planned. Now is the time to pick up the phone and me...
Knowland Launches Free Interactive COVID-19 Hotel Recovery Dashboard
Knowland | May 20, 2020
Advanced analytics for local market and property level data allows hotels to assess competitive position and jumpstart recovery ARLINGTON, Va. — May 20, 2020—Knowland, the leader in group hospitality analytics for hotels, convention and visitor bureaus, conference centers and other meeting venues, announced today a free interactive dashboard providing actionable insights on COVID-19 hotel recovery. These insights will enable hoteliers to see their position in the rebound compared to local and/or national markets and make informed decisions to accelerate recovery. Knowland is providing free unlimited access to the Dashboard from the Kno...
Top 5 Things You Need to Know Now in Hotel Digital Marketing: May Edition
Margaret Mastrogiacomo | May 19, 2020
By Margaret Mastrogiacomo As we prepare for the rebound in travel demand, it’s important to keep a pulse on the latest digital innovations you can leverage across channels to make a greater impact on performance. This month, Google rolled out a major core algorithm update, LinkedIn added new company targeting capabilities, and TV streaming ads rose in popularity. From SEO to Social Media and Design, here are the top 5 things you need to know now in hotel digital marketing. 1. SEO: Google rolls out May 2020 core algorithm update. On May 4th, Google began rolling out the May 2020 core update, which is reported to be a larger, broade...
Will Hotels Become Faceless, Hands-off, Sterile Environments?
DANIEL CRAIG | May 19, 2020
By Daniel Craig Hoteliers, are you ready for the Covid-19 recovery traveler? In this time of struggle for the travel industry, we can’t help but acknowledge the irony. Are hotels, after working so hard to build reputations as high-touch, warm and intimate, going to become faceless, hands-off, sterile environments? How will hoteliers uphold guest satisfaction while ensuring the safety and wellbeing of guests and staff? In my next webinar with ReviewPro, From High Touch to No Touch: Transforming the Guest Experience Post Covid-19, we’ll discuss how hotels around the world are implementing new health, safety and social-distancing...
3 Reasons to Turn to Benchmarking in the COVID-19 Era
HotStats | May 19, 2020
By Laura Resco You wouldn’t trust a doctor’s mere intuition with your health, right? Of course not. You’d require testing and data. Operational benchmarking is the hotel industry’s electrocardiogram (EKG), MRI, X-ray and ultrasound — the instruments that provide the cold hard facts. Isn’t your bottom line worth it? Among industries, the impact of COVID-19 on the hospitality industry has been especially injurious: halting travel in its tracks, postponing conferences and gatherings and precipitating the furloughs and layoffs of thousands of employees within the space. The unprecedented nature of the disease has rendered obs...
The Influence of COVID-19 on Travel Plans and Accommodation Types
STR | May 19, 2020
As the COVID-19 pandemic reshapes the world of travel, we investigated the impact on accommodation choices among international travellers. This piece builds on our analysis of propensity to travel in key English-speaking countries, in which we learned that desire for travel has declined but remains strong overall. More or less travel in 2020? The influence of accommodation types Below we can see changes in propensity to travel over the next 12 months broken out by the accommodation type travellers used for past international travel. Unsurprisingly, over the course of the month, the percentage of people anticipating less travel increased ...
Nobody Asked Me But… No. 231: Brown Palace Hotel, Denver, Colorado
Stanley Turkel | May 19, 2020
By Stanley Turkel, CMHS Hotel History: Brown Palace Hotel, (479 rooms) The Brown Palace Hotel opened in 1892 with an eight-story atrium designed by architect Frank E. Edbrooke (1840-1921). More than 400 wrought iron grillwork panels ring the lobby from the third through the seventh floors. Two of them are upside down, one to serve the tradition that man is imperfect; the other sneaked in by a disgruntled workman. The Brown Palace was built on a cow pasture by Henry Cordes Brown, a carpenter who had driven an oxcart across the country and arrived at Cherry Creek in Kansas territory in 1860. By the late 1880s, Brown owned much of the f...
HSMAI Introduces ROC@Home: A Day-Long Global Revenue Optimization Experience
HSMAI | May 19, 2020
In response to the unique challenges of 2020, the Hospitality Sales and Marketing Association International (HSMAI) regions from around the world are proud to present ROC@Home, a day-long experience designed to fuel industry recovery and revitalization efforts on Wednesday, June 17, 2020. Neither a virtual conference nor a replacement for the HSMAI in-person ROC programs, ROC@Home is an opportunity for hotel revenue professionals to reset, refocus, and reenergize, with an exclusive free toolkit to guide learning and engagement, and more than 20 live expert-led sessions hosted by HSMAI’s regions around the globe. “ROC@Home is the fir...
Doing More With Less, How Hospitality Management Teams Take Advantage of Touchless Technologies Now
Maestro PMS | May 19, 2020
Preparing to Increase Productivity and Guest Safety in The New Hotel Landscape May 19, 2020 – Properties are working with minimal staff to keep the doors open during today’s slow down; but what about tomorrow? Travel will quickly ramp up as CV-19 restrictions are lifted. Many operators are preparing for the restart now, implementing technologies, hotel software, and processes that will support social distancing guidelines and enable more efficient operations as staffing levels slowly return to meet higher occupancy demands. “Post-CV-19 hotel operations will be about doing more with less and honoring regional social distancing guid...
President and Director Hans Jenni Set to Retire From GHM
GHM | May 19, 2020
SINGAPORE (May 19, 2020) — After nearly 30 years at the helm of a pioneering hotel management group, Hans R. Jenni is retiring today as president and director of GHM. The group’s current CEO, Tommy Lai, will assume responsibility for GHM’s day-to-day operations and management. Since 1992, when Jenni co-founded GHM with Amanresorts group founder Adrian Zecha, his vision has led the management group down a succession of roads less travelled to little-known destinations. Names now synonymous with understated elegance and luxury accommodation – The Datai in Langkawi, The Legian in Bali, The Nam Hai in Hoi An, and the very successfu...
