The Tricycle of Guest Service Excellence: A Perfect Model For Remarkable Experiences
Doug Kennedy | October 4, 2024
Crafting a Unique Employer Brand for Today’s Talent Market
Veronika Mercier | August 14, 2024
Smart Strategies
A General Marshall Approach to Being a General Manager
Larry and Adam Mogelonsky | December 1, 2021
By Larry and Adam Mogelonsky We mostly know General George C. Marshall from the Marshall Plan which helped to rebuild Europe following WWII. But what accelerated him to the top of command was his incredible organizational skills, and that’s where hoteliers can learn a thing or two in today’s labor-scarce climate. Specifically, many organizations have instilled a culture where every project and every initiative have to be reviewed by a complex chain of executives or several tiers of management before execution. This not only bogs down the time of all the already overworked team members, but it slows down the ‘operational tempo’ i...
Hotels Must Embrace Remote Work
Vikram Singh | December 1, 2021
By Vikram Singh After my last pandemic-focused article, my inbox was flooded with queries about remote work. I had urged hotels to embrace remote work and stop putting geographical restrictions on hiring the best talent. Most of the emails I received questioned the long-term feasibility of remote work, especially for a hotel organization. I want to address some of these concerns and share some further thoughts on how work/office culture is already changing. Obviously, some jobs can never be performed remotely (front desk, housekeeping, etc). However, remote work is already having a direct impact on the hotel and travel industry, and t...
How Great Organizations Use Purpose-Driven Leadership to Motivate Employees
Ian Scarth FIH | November 23, 2021
By Ian Scarth FIH Formerly Professor of Food and Beverage and Service Operations Management at EHL, Ian Scarth has a background in strategic development and leadership within the hotel and hospitality sectors. In this article he gives his views on what it means to be a purpose-driven organisation. ‘Purpose-driven organization’: What does it mean? Many leaders claim to have a purpose that’s clear, well defined and communicated throughout their organisation. However, making that purpose sustainable so it adapts to ever-changing business needs and keeps up with market expectations while all the time keeping team me...
How to Get a Job in the Luxury Industry
Ryan Laver | November 22, 2021
By Ryan Laver After months of uncertainty, the luxury goods industry is flourishing again and seeking motivated young talents to shape the future of luxury management jobs. So how exactly do candidates go about landing a job in one of the most sought after industries? This article reveals all. Insider knowledge from the Luxury industry From Séverine de Bretteville, Wholesale Project Manager – Global markets at Chopard Séverine de Bretteville boasts over 15 years of experience within the luxury goods & jewelry Industry. Having worked at renowned luxury brands such as Cartier, and t...
Prepping for an Outstanding December ’21
Larry and Adam Mogelonsky | November 17, 2021
By Larry and Adam Mogelonsky The terms ‘pent-up demand’ and ‘revenge travel’ entered the collective hospitality narrative in the summer of 2020, and they still very much apply to the next big stretch for the hotel industry. Notably, the forward-looking occupancy data for many markets in North America indicate that this upcoming holiday season will likely deliver huge revenues for a highly positive story entering 2022. For roughly American Thanksgiving through to New Year’s Day, traveler confidence is in the air. Vaccination rates are high and international travel between Europe and North America has resumed in earnest. It’s ...
The Importance of the Service Profit Chain
EHL Insights | November 16, 2021
The Service Profit Chain establishes relationships between profitability, customer loyalty, and employee satisfaction, loyalty, and productivity. The basic principle of the Service Profit Chain theory is based on the fact that customer satisfaction starts with good staffing and treatment of ones own employees. Simply put, committed employees convey their satisfaction to the customer, and hence, the chain of service profit is set in motion. Employee satisfaction is key Understanding the theory behind the Service Profit Chain begins with accepting the premise that bottom line profitability is achieved by developing customer loyalty, a...
Four Travel and Hospitality Trends and Tips for 2021 and Beyond
Matthew Furneaux | November 11, 2021
By Matthew Furneaux After a pandemic year, many people are ready to start traveling again. While this is excellent news, travel and hospitality brands continue to face significant challenges as shifting consumer sentiment and operational realities complicate their resurgence. As a result, several critical questions emerge for brands looking to capture market share as consumers prepare to pack their bags: How can we reassure tentative travelers? What’s the best way to communicate with consumers? How can travel brands reemerge stronger than ever? For leading travel and hospitality brands, answering these questions is critical as they...
Hotel Branding: 4 Strategies To Take Your Hotel Brand to the Next Level
EHL Insights | November 9, 2021
By Jennifer Luo Seldom businesses can thrive nowadays without carefully-planned marketing strategies: not to say in the hospitality industry where there is at least one new property opening somewhere in the world almost every week. Moreover, the ubiquity of technology and the replicability of products means that branding has become one crucial differentiator for hospitality businesses. A hotel may be a superior service provider with its renowned facilities, but the customers need to seek a way to know about the hotel and its service quality out of all its competitors. As the market is saturated with countless hotels, brands and offerings a...
The Lucrative Type of Hotel Booking That Is Due for a Comeback
Ken Shanley | November 5, 2021
By Ken Shanley From “secret menus” to “coupon codes” that unlock special savings, today everyone is looking for a deal; however, before the internet made it possible to scour millions of data points to to mine these hidden gems, you really did have to “know a guy, who knew a guy” to get deals at hotels. That is… unless you qualified for a long-term contract (LTC) or “corporate rate.” Before, I explain why this type of booking is poised for a comeback, let’s go back to basics: what are long-term contracts? The concept of long-term contracts is simple; a hotel, or chain, offers a guaranteed room rate to guests ...
HSMAI Foundation Tackles Hospitality Talent Crisis by Aggregating Best Practices
HSMAI Foundation | November 5, 2021
McLean, VA – November 5, 2021 – The Hospitality Sales & Marketing Association International (HSMAI) Foundation is now accepting submissions for recognition in talent best practices. As the hospitality industry continues to face talent challenges around the globe, the HSMAI Foundation is seeking organizational best practices to see how companies are innovating and changing their approaches to traditional ways to recruit, hire and develop hospitality sales, marketing, and revenue professionals. Categories for submissions for talent best practices for hospitality sales, marketing, and revenue teams in the following areas: Attr...
Robotics Operation in Travel and Tourism Industry Set to Grow
GlobalData | November 4, 2021
The utilization of robotics will continue to grow in importance in the travel and tourism industry. However, companies need to be sensitive in how they deploy this form of smart technology, says GlobalData, a leading data and analytics company. According to a recent GlobalData poll*, 31% of the respondents stated that their company will invest in robotics in the next 12 months, with robotics being the third most popular answer for this question, above the likes of IoT and cloud. A significant contributing reason as to why business executives and employees think that investment in robotics will increase is due to the long-term cost savings ...
Two Pizzas for Hotel Manager Meetings
Larry and Adam Mogelonsky | November 3, 2021
By Larry and Adam Mogelonsky Amidst a labor shortage, hotels the world over are looking to do more with less, be it digitalizing or automating processes, devising new recruitment strategies, increasing the reward structure to prevent employee, churn, or ramping up team productivity by whatever means necessary. All are good ventures, but instead of only focusing on the ‘staff’ we must also take a sharper look at the ‘manager’. In a lean organizational structure, many managers or supervisors have become, to borrow from baseball, pinch hitters for other departments or all-round utility players able to complete a variety of tasks fo...
Hospitality Financial Leadership – The ROI for Financial Leadership Skills
David Lund | November 1, 2021
By David Lund When it comes to investing in oneself many times people overlook the outcome and instead concentrate on the up-front cost. When we look at the opportunity to improve our own personal prosperity, we need to see the full picture. We need to realize in life we have a window that opens and closes on our career and its fortunes. It reminds me of a line from Shakespeare: “There is a tide in the affairs of men, Which taken at the flood, leads on to fortune. Omitted, all the voyage of their life is bound in shallows and in miseries. On such a full sea are we now afloat. And we must take the current when it serves, or lose our ...
Ideas to Overcome the Current US Employment Conundrum
Keith Kefgen | October 21, 2021
By Keith Kefgen Today’s employment environment is like nothing we have experienced before. The last pandemic happened in 1918, with a very different labour and economic atmosphere. There are no easy answers to a vast number of questions and nuanced circumstances. The travel industry has been particularly hard hit, as so many people were furloughed last year without any real answer about when they would return. As an “academy industry,” a large portion of these furloughed people were in line-level and entry-level management positions – the most vulnerable faction of the American economy. Our experience in the hospitality job mark...
Why EV Charging Is a Must-Have Amenity for Hotel Guests and Employees
Robb Monkman | October 19, 2021
By Robb Monkman Electric vehicles are taking over the road. More than 1 million battery powered electric vehicles have been sold in the U.S. since 2010, but they remain underserved with only 99,325 public charging ports available at 41,145 stations across the country. Very few businesses have the capability to fill this need the way hotels can. Today, every major carmaker already offers EVs or plans to introduce them and with electric cars forecasted to surge to 10% of the United States’ new car market by 2025, there is no better opportunity than right now for hotels to have a leg up on their competition. By providing EV charging, hotel...
HR Training in the Time of COVID: Commit to a Meaningful Cultural Change
John Reyna | October 15, 2021
By John Reyna If you happened to read my pre-event blog post (link here), then you already know about my excitement to attend Phillip R. Maltin’s presentation about “Solving the Mystery of Employment Law: Techniques for Controlling the Workforce and Staying out of Court.” Well, it did not disappoint. I walked out of Mr. Maltin’s presentation with a better understanding of employment law, and I’m certain that I was not the only one. During his presentation, Mr. Maltin stated that management should use team meetings to discuss subjects that protect employees and the business. I 100% agree. However, after two decades of working i...
Hotels Have a Labor Problem. Is This the Long-Term Solution?
HotStats | October 13, 2021
It’s been said that perception is reality. Under that maxim, hoteliers are feeling vexed by the labor shortage. But what if the issue of worker availability didn’t exist? Could recruitment and retention problems stem from how management interacts with—and treats—employees, along with some issues in the structure of industry work? Neel Shah, President at Hotel Evolution and Del Ross, Chief Revenue Office at Hotel Effectiveness, think so. Show Them You Care “There’s definitely a connection between a stable staff and an ownership presence,” Shah said. “I invest time and effort to get close to senior leadership, suc...
Best in Class Versus Best in Industry
Shep Hyken | October 4, 2021
By Shep Hyken Here is an interesting idea. Most businesses are competitive. They want to be better than their competition. Sometimes they try to out-service their competition. Sometimes they lower their prices to beat their competition. The point is that they are only looking at the competition. What if they looked beyond the competition? What if they looked at the world? One of my favorite companies to write about is Ace Hardware. I even wrote a book, Amaze Every Customer Every Time, in which I used Ace as the role model example throughout the entire book. It is a perfect example of this concept. First, Ace wanted to be the best of al...
Tourism Tidbits: Dealing With Natural Disasters: The Before and The After
Peter Tarlow | October 1, 2021
By Dr. Peter Tarlow Last year, 2020, was not only the first year of the Covid-19 pandemic, but it also saw a rise in major storms and other natural disasters such as forest fires around the world. The year 2021 has taught us again that things can always get worse. In the United States, New Orleans and many tourism cities along the Gulf Coast were devastated by one of the world’s worse hurricanes. In the west forest fires closed down parts of world-famous Lake Tahoe. Other parts of the world also suffered In Europe Greece saw its worst forest fire season, and many European nations suffered from severe flooding. These climatic eve...
Best in Class Versus Best in Industry
Shep Hyken | September 30, 2021
By Shep Hyken Here is an interesting idea. Most businesses are competitive. They want to be better than their competition. Sometimes they try to out-service their competition. Sometimes they lower their prices to beat their competition. The point is that they are only looking at the competition. What if they looked beyond the competition? What if they looked at the world? One of my favorite companies to write about is Ace Hardware. I even wrote a book, Amaze Every Customer Every Time, in which I used Ace as the role model example throughout the entire book. It is a perfect example of this concept. First, Ace wanted to be the best of ...
What Should Recruiters Check on LinkedIn When Hiring Hospitality Graduates?
EHL | September 29, 2021
LinkedIn, the largest professional social network with over 740 million members (and over 55 million registered companies), has become a phenomenal professional tool for vetting people. We screen the profiles of our bosses, peers and subordinates. We check the profiles of long-lost acquaintances and friends, new potential clients, suppliers, business partners, guest speakers in webinars we attend, co-authors we wish to collaborate with, and those candidates we (or recruiters) are about to interview. An indispensable tool LinkedIn has become part of our everyday life, an indispensable instrument to know more about the other without physi...
Solve the Current Labor Shortage With Automation
LARRY AND ADAM MOGELONSKY | September 29, 2021
By Larry and Adam Mogelonsky Understanding the full depth of why many hotels are suffering from labor shortages at the moment would require a full semester of instruction on macroeconomics. While there is a likely scenario where this current problem is transitory and labor markets stabilize sometime in 2022, we must still prepare for prolonged erraticism by maximizing the productivity of those that remain. Hence, we need technology, automating wherever possible. We all know technology’s myriad advantages in today’s world, including the ability to make more data-driven decisions, increasing social distancing for guest safety, heighte...
Does Your AV Partner Bring Broadcast Thinking, Digital Advances, and Immersive Innovations to Your Hotel’s Meetings and Events?
Mike Yearling | September 29, 2021
Here are five ways an AV production company with broadcast expertise can help hotels and convention facilities elevate virtual, hybrid, and live event experiences in today's new normal. By Mike Yearling As meeting planners continue pivoting from live events to virtual or hybrid, an interesting thing is happening; we're beginning to see hospitality AV in a new light — a bright one, driven by innovation. Today's hoteliers are looking beyond their own walls to help planners engage their audiences wherever they may be, onsite or remote. Rather than standing on the sidelines waiting for ballrooms to fill back up, operators are repositio...
Going to HITEC 2021? What You Should Know About Travel and Event Cyber Security Risks
Jeff Venza, Chairman & CEO, Venza | September 7, 2021
By Jeff Venza As anyone in the hospitality industry is undoubtedly aware, it is finally that time of year again. The Hospitality Industry Technology Exposition and Conference (HITEC) is just around the corner, marking the long-awaited return of in-person events and tradeshows. This year, HITEC will take place in Dallas, Texas, at the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center from September 27-30th. HITEC, better known as the world’s largest hospitality technology conference, brings together the brightest minds and hottest technology from around the world into one venue for a memorable week of education, networking, and future-facing inno...
