The Tricycle of Guest Service Excellence: A Perfect Model For Remarkable Experiences
Doug Kennedy | October 4th, 2024
Crafting a Unique Employer Brand for Today’s Talent Market
Veronika Mercier | August 14th, 2024
Can Restaurateurs Be Creative and Profitable?
April 10, 2017
by Stuart Pallister When leading chef Joël Robuchon came to EHL recently to receive an honorary professorship he touched on profitability and business pressures. "I think it's increasingly difficult to run a gourmet restaurant. Regarding profitability, you need a lot of personnel and a substantial upfront investment," he said. "They will always have their time and place, notably for special occasions, but I don't think it's what customers want right now, or will want in the future. This is why the Ateliers have done well." It was Robuchon's Atelier concept which 'dismantled' the notion that you could only get a three-star rating for yo...
The Draw of Art in Modern Hotels
JLL Real Views | April 10, 2017
by Neasa MacErlean Sipping cocktails next to giant Ming vases, sleeping under Regency portraits or finding your bedroom within an Antony Gormley sculpture — these are among the experiences that hotels are now offering their guests. Hotels have long had links with the arts world but the trend is now accelerating in many countries. "Hotels are becoming more interested in art for two very simple reasons," says Geraldine Guichardo, Americas Head of Hotels & Hospitality Research at JLL. "These are to help enhance the guest experience and also to differentiate the hotel." She points to the Bellagio Las Vegas as a prime example of ho...
The Luggage: Humility in the Hospitality Industry
David Lund | April 10, 2017
By David Lund "Servants don't know a good master till they have served a worse." ― Aesop, Aesop's Fables The Empress Hotel in Victoria, British Columbia, saw massive renovation in 1988. The renovation was so big the hotel was closed for 6 months. One man died in the construction falling down the garbage chute and it is said that the hotel rose 6 inches taller as so much weight was taken out of her. The Indian gum wood piles expanded giving the old girl a lift. I have said many times, you have not really worked in the hotel business until you have worked in a hotel that's closed. We take for granted the little things like th...
Robert Rauch’s Hotel Industry Forecast: 2017
Robert A. Rauch | April 5, 2017
by Robert Rauch The big news in 2016 was Marriott's merger with Starwood and provides the new company with over 1,000,000 hotel rooms in 5,700 hotels, 30 brands and huge bargaining power with online travel agencies. The second was the Republican sweep—President Donald Trump will have an opportunity to change the economic landscape. President Trump has a majority in both the Senate and House of Representatives and if he focuses on tax reform, wages, regulations and the strength of our nation, he could keep this long but slow recovery going and dramatically enhance it. Oil prices are back up around $50, consumer confidence is solid,...
Why Hotels and Home Rentals are Moving Forward Together
JLL Real Views | April 4, 2017
by Serene Lim When the likes of Airbnb and HomeAway first made inroads into the travel industry they created two distinct clubs; established hotels on one side and home rentals on the other. Now, the lines between the two are blurring as the wider travel industry evolves to cater for the move towards local experiences and unique stays. AccorHotels is looking to add Travel Keys, a travel broker for high-end villas into its portfolio after last year snapping up London-based Onefinestay to expand its reach into the luxury serviced homes market. The hotel giant has also bought a 30 percent stake in Oasis Collection– which bills itself...
Flying-by-The-Seat-of-Your-Pants – AKA No Hospitality Financial Leadership
David Lund | April 4, 2017
by David Lund In most hotels, the system for forward looking financial management is nonexistent. We rely on the top line coming in and if it does we expect a certain profit picture to emerge. When revenues are good this works, sometimes. When revenues don't materialize because of an event or something that produces headwinds in our business, we almost always fall flat on our face of the desired profitability. That's flying-by-the-seat-of-your-pants. We seemingly have no way of knowing what's really going to happen financially in our business. We roll the dice every month. When we are in a fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants hotel and we have...
Tourism Tidbits: Tips on Customer Service
Dr. Peter E. Tarlow | April 3, 2017
By Dr. Peter Tarlow No matter in what area of tourism you may be, the simple fact is that tourism is a customer-oriented business. Without customer service, not only your marketing will eventually fail, but also the business' viability will be in question. Good service is to tourism what oxygen is to the body. It is the lifeblood of how the industry works. Providing good customer service is often a challenge. Tourism, especially in its frontline positions, is hard work. Many of the frontline positions tend to receive only entry-level pay. The hours are long and neither the financial nor social-psychological awards are great. Often custo...
TTI Technologies Reports Four ways Hotels Produce Profits with Free Usage Business Centers
TTI Technologies | March 30, 2017
March 30, 2017 – New York, NY – TTI Technologies, best known for their beautiful customized Hospitality Business Center software that is safe and secure for guests, consistently receives high accolades for the service of its TTI Business Center Solution. "Our hotels asked and we listened", says TTI CEO Steve Blidner, to provide a new look at alternatives to the traditional Business Center and other ways to meet the technology needs of their guests. "We have been providing Hospitality Technology since 1991 and embrace the advent of tablets, cell phones and all the devices that have changed our daily work life" said Blidner. "...
The Shrinking Value of Hotel Loyalty Programs
Vikram Singh | March 29, 2017
By Vikram Singh My work revolves around travel. Every night away from home is spent at a hotel or Airbnb property. I was recently asked about my hotel brand preferences and which loyalty program I use. The answer is that I belong to all of them but never achieve a high status due to the fact that my hotel nights are spread across many independent and brand hotels. If I were to pool all of my annual room nights into one brand, I could easily qualify for top tier status. Why have I not done that? The reason is simple: I am a location-based business and leisure traveler. That means that I choose to stay at the most convenient location irre...
Brexit Begins: What are the Areas to Watch for Real Estate?
JLL Real Views | March 29, 2017
by Emily Perryman The long awaited Brexit moment is here. After months of preparation and speculation following June's vote, the UK is finally triggering Article 50 to start the process of withdrawing from the European Union. The forthcoming negotiations over Britain's future relationship with the EU are likely to have profound implications for the residential and commercial real estate markets across the region. While the UK Government has published a White Paper outlining its main Brexit plans, big questions remain over trade policy, environmental regulation, the role of the European Investment Bank (EIB) and the UK's relationship wit...
Why Hotels are Charging Up for Electric Vehicles
JLL Real Views | March 28, 2017
An award-winning bar, exclusive spa, and … electric vehicle charging stations? For some major hotel chains, power points that enable guests to recharge their cars on the premises are a new perk. In the United States, sales of electric vehicles soared in 2016, showing a 70 percent year-over-year increase in monthly sales. For consumers, the choice is bigger than ever; by the end of 2016, automakers were offering about 30 electric models to choose from, such as the Tesla Model S, Chevy Volt, and Nissan Leaf. And even more are on the way, with Ford's plans to create 13 EV models by 2020, Mercedes saying it will produce 10 by 2025, a...
Hospitality Financial Leadership – How Can We Create It Every Day in Our Hotel?
David Lund | March 28, 2017
By David Lund "Leadership is the art of giving people a platform for spreading ideas that work." -Seth Godin I think leadership is about two things that are continuously and endlessly evolving: communication and the development of people including you. Financial leadership is also about the same two processes. If you're the leader of a nation, an army or a company, you need people to understand you and you need to understand them. Your constituents must be able to hear your message clearly and your message needs to resonate with them to allow them to follow you and do great things. Being compassionate, listening to the need...
Hotels Take a Fresh Look at Communal Spaces
JLL Real Views | March 20, 2017
By Laura Agadoni From hip lobbies with a coffee shop ambiance to shared living spaces linking guest rooms, more hotels are turning their focus to providing inviting community areas. For corporate travelers, it may mean sending a few emails from a co-working alcove complete with power and USB outlets, while leisure visitors may linger around tables stacked with board games or post photos to social media from the lounging zones. "Today's travelers often place greater value on convenience, sense of place and community than they do on the traditional luxuries offered by hotels," says David A. Black, Americas Hotels Lead, JLL Project and Dev...
F TAR W – The Secret Recipe for Creating Financial Leadership in Your Hotel
David Lund | March 14, 2017
To get your non-financial managers to play ball with their numbers in your hotel you need a system that they can follow, a sort of road map they can use to stay on track every month. Teach them this and you will have an engaged team that buys into playing their financial part. F TAR W is a step by step process you can teach your leaders to follow. I have clients who use a white board or a scoring sheet and they display the monthly results. How? They list the leaders who have P&L responsibility down the left-hand side of the sheet and across the top they have 5 columns; Forecast, Track, Adjust, Review and Write. One client even calls...
Nobody Asked Me, But… No. 175: Hotel History: William Cornelius Van Horne; My Five Published Hotel Books
Stanley Turkel | March 13, 2017
by Stanley Turkel, CMHS Hotel History: William Cornelius Van Horne (1843-1915) William Cornelius Van Horne was born on February 3, 1843 on a farm in Will County, Illinois. His great grandfather, Jan Cornelissen Van Horne had emigrated from the Dutch Republic in 1635 to the British colonies and settled in New Amsterdam, now known as the Island of Manhattan. The family prospered and became landowners and businessmen who played an important role in the industrial and political development of New York State. William Van Horne's father, Cornelius Covenhoven Van Horne, was trained as a lawyer at Union College. He is said to have "chafed at th...
The #1 Key to Building a World-Class Service Culture Today
Dr. Bryan K. Williams | March 13, 2017
Oh, what a privilege it is to serve others. Whether you work in a hotel, restaurant, spa,club, conference center, etc, the purpose is the same: Consistently deliver exceptional service and create memorable experiences for those you serve. That's it. Treat. People. Well. Everyday. Regardless of who they are, or where they are from, or their gender, or age or race, or culture, or socio-economic status. To serve at such a consistently high level, we need to always remind ourselves of who we are, what we do and where we do it. Who am I, as a service professional? What is my role? Where do I get to serve others? Notice I wrote, "get...
Data Centers Prepare for Tomorrow’s Zettabytes
JLL Real Views | March 9, 2017
Whether we're watching a live video stream of a corporate update from our desks, managing a corporate photo database while flexi-working or settling down at home to watch the latest episode of that must-see series, we're consuming more online data than ever before. By 2020, Cisco estimates that annual global internet traffic will pass the zettabyte threshold, or more than 931 billion gigabytes. By Cisco's math, that is the gigabyte equivalent of every movie ever made crossing the global internet every two minutes, or 58 million DVDs per hour. For consumers, that means an estimated 9.6 billion fixed residential devices and connections, i...
3 Ways Your Independent Hotel Can Go From Good to Great
Hotelogix | March 8, 2017
The rise of millennial travelers has had drastic implications of the landscape of hospitality. No longer do the evolved chains hold all the aces when it comes to attracting guests from around the world – millennials are after experiences, and will choose even an independent property if it can guarantee them a great stay. However, they still do expect a minimum standard of service. The writing is on the wall – make sure your independent hotel can meet these modest requirements and you're on your way to establishing your property's long term future. Fortunately for hoteliers, the onset of cloud computing has opened the floodga...
Hospitality Financial Leadership – A “RelationShift”
David Lund | March 7, 2017
By David Lund That's right, your eyes and my fingers have not failed, I wrote the word on purpose "relationshift" and I got this word from my coach, Steve Chandler. He wrote a book with Michael Bassoff called relationshift and its about fundraising and fundamentally changing the relationship between fundraisers and donners. To sum it up in one sentence, the book is about fundraisers outgiving the donners and showing the donner that they make a difference, both the donner makes a difference and their money made a difference too. Creating financial leadership in your hotel has the same fundamental relation shift at its roots. The traditio...
Why Prefab Building Methods Stack up for Hotels
JLL Real Views | March 3, 2017
By Natasha Stokes Once the hallmark of budget hotel chains, modular construction is emerging as an efficient, low-waste technique for boutique and big-name hoteliers in the U.S. and the UK. At a new Hampton by Hilton hotel in Aberdeen, 155 bedrooms were built in pods of two in China, furnished, then shipped to the UK, where they were stacked container by container atop each other. Nearly every detail of the rooms had been decided and ordered long before breaking ground, from the furniture and fixings, to the kettle and teacups in boxes waiting to be unpacked. Where a similar traditionally built hotel might take 56-60 weeks, this modular...
Chinese Hotel Brands Expand Overseas but Face Challenges on the Way
Dr. Yong Chen | March 3, 2017
by Stuart Pallister As more and more Chinese tourists go abroad on holiday, China's budget hotel chains are expanding overseas to serve the country's growing numbers of international travelers. According to a recent article in the Financial Times, low-cost hotels such as 7Days Inn and GreenTree Inn have already opened hotels in Austria, the U.S., Thailand and Vietnam, and are looking to expand further in Germany and Italy, following Anbang's purchase of the high-end Waldorf Astoria in New York for nearly $2 billion in 2014. The Huazhu Group has formed an alliance with French hotel chain Accor aimed at international expansion and the Sha...
Tourism Tidbits: Facing Both Old and New Security Challenges
Dr. Peter Tarlow | March 2, 2017
by Dr. Peter Tarlow The first quarter of 2017 began in ways that were not that different from the end of 2016. The tourism industry continues to be a target of terrorism and acts of crime. For example, France has recently faced a series of attacks, some successful and some thankfully stopped. Terrorism continues to be a problem in much of the Middle East and crime and violence continue to stalk Latin America. Brazil has had the additional problem of a police strike in one of its northern cities. Often these actions are highly publicized and this negative publicity in turn encourages those who seek violence. Acts of violence do not only ...
Leadership – Information and Skills Needed for Hospitality Success in 2017
Robert A. Rauch | March 2, 2017
By Robert A. Rauch Whether you are an owner, industry executive, general manager or aspiring industry leader, 2017 is going to be a very solid year as we have forecasted. We have also covered the Top 10 Trends of the year to help us stay ahead of the game. But one of the additional keys to success is team member satisfaction. Without a satisfied hotel staff, we have no foundation upon which to build. So here is a primer that has as a premise the following statement from Laurence Geller, Founder of Strategic Hotels and Resorts and Chancellor of the University of West London, "a great leader must surround him or herself with people that a...
Revenue Management: Capturing Untapped Potential
Dr. Cindy (Yoonjoung) Heo | March 1, 2017
By Cindy Heo Industry practitioners and revenue management (RM) educators, meeting recently in Orlando in the U.S., are in agreement: there is a great shortage of well-qualified revenue managers. Competent revenue managers should be not only able to use data analytics to predict customer behavior and proactively formulate RM and pricing strategy, but they should also possess the necessary communication, decision-making and leadership skills required to help companies to maximize revenue. The list of corporates taking part in the Orlando RevMe workshop was impressive: Disney; SeaWorld Parks; IDeaS Revenue Solutions; Delaware North; STR; ...
