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Smart Strategies
Nobody Asked Me, But… No. 185: Hotel History: The Peabody (1869)
Stanley Turkel | October 6, 2017
by Stanley Turkel, CMHS 1. The Peabody Hotel (1869), Memphis, Tennessee (464 rooms) Following the Civil War, Memphis began the process of rebuilding. In 1869, Colonel Robert C. Brinkley opened a 75-room hotel which contained private baths, ballroom, saloon and lobby. Brinkley planned to name the hotel after himself but when he learned that his dear friend, philanthropist George Peabody, had died, he christened it The Peabody. Its lobby was soon filled with Memphis business and society leaders as well as plantation owners and riverboat gamblers. Presidents Andrew Johnson and William McKinley, Confederate Generals Robert E. Lee, Nathan Be...
Modern Hospitality: Striking the Right Balance Between High-Tech and Human
JLL Real Views | October 5, 2017
By Natasha Stokes From iPad ordering to robot concierges, technology is automating many aspects of dining and hotel experiences – and freeing up staff to provide more personalized service. At some Aloft hotels, a robot butler known as Botlr delivers room service and towels to guests, leaving staff to deal with more complex queries. In CitizenM hotels, guests bypass front desk queues at self check-in kiosks with hotel ambassadors to answer any questions, while at the Andaz West Hollywood, personal greeters take guests through an iPad check-in over a coffee or glass of wine. "Technology has substantially improved both the behind-the...
Competitive Advantage 2018 – The World Has Changed
Robert A, Rauch | October 4, 2017
By Robert A. Rauch The classic model of competitive advantage is Michael Porter's five forces shown below. This is still a useful model for the hotel industry. The most interesting part of this in 2017 is the "substitute" portion of the grid–this is what Airbnb is all about and they will have had a huge impact on our industry by the time most people wake up to it. According to Porter, "the existence of products outside of the realm of the common product boundaries increases the propensity of customers to switch to alternatives." Michael Porter's Five Forces Airbnb has become a powerful force in the hotel industry and as a reactio...
What Makes a Great Hospitality Leader?
Jos Jumelet | October 3, 2017
By Jos Jumelet There are a plethora of lists of traits of Business Leaders but what makes a great Hospitality leader? According to Forbes, the 10 traits of Business Leaders are: Persistence: It's all about determination. Failure (sometimes) happens on the road leading to success. A thick skin: Never give up if you believe in what you are trying to achieve or accomplish. An eye for talent: Hunting for talent and surrounding yourself with other specialists and great minds. Can't get no satisfaction: Leaders are never satisfied and will always strive to take their company or business to the next level. Fearlessness: Show ...
Tourism Tidbits: Natural Disasters and Tourism
Dr. Peter Tarlow | October 3, 2017
by Dr. Peter Tarlow The recent hurricanes in the United States and the Caribbean, the earthquake in Mexico, and floods occurring in parts of Europe ought to serve once again to remind us that much of the tourism industry is dependent on Mother Nature. Although we tend to focus tourism security more on human actions such as terrorism or crime, these acts of nature are as or often more deadly than acts perpetrated by humans. We tend to use terms such as "Acts of God" or "Natural Disasters", but in reality many of these disasters are as much a result of poor planning and poor risk management as they are results of acts of nature. All too o...
Hospitality Financial Leadership – How Can You Turn $250 Savings into $1,000,000 In Asset Value
David Lund | October 3, 2017
By David Lund That's right, your eyes and the headline are not fooling you. I learned this from a client in a backward kind of way and now I want to share it with you. It is a powerful way to justify and prove a return on investment (ROI) for financial leadership training. I use this story as well to show my clients what they are leaving on table in the way of profits and asset value if they are not using financial leadership in their hotel. I had just finished a half-day hospitality financial leadership workshop for a client, one of a series of six that they had contracted me to do. The General Manager got up and thanked me and ask...
The Dynamic Dozen: The Growing Hotel Markets with Big Potential
JLL Real Views | September 28, 2017
Emerging cities across Asia and the Middle East are fast becoming the new lands of opportunity for investors and developers within the hotel industry. Their hotel markets are experiencing rapid expansion amid surging numbers of tourists and corporate travelers from around the world and strong economic growth. For now, large-scale investment is still lagging but that could soon all change. "These Emerging Hotspots have some of the largest supply pipelines in the world, and are set to see their total number of rooms increase by 30 percent in the next few years," says Jeremy Kelly, Director of Global Research at JLL. So where are these dyn...
Sun Peaks Grand Hotel and Conference Centre Selects Eleven and TELUS to Improve Guest Wi-Fi Experience
Eleven | September 27, 2017
The ElevenOS guest Wi-Fi platform and TELUS Pure Fibre™ have greatly improved connectivity and simplified management for Sun Peaks front desk and IT staff 9/27/17, Portland, Ore. and Vancouver, B.C. — Eleven, the cloud-based guest Wi-Fi management leader and TELUS, Canada's fastest growing national telecommunications company announce today that Sun Peaks Grand Hotel & Conference Centre has deployed a solution that leverages the power of the TELUS Pure Fibre network and the simplicity of ElevenOS to optimize the guest Wi-Fi experience everywhere on the property. The IT team at Sun Peaks Grand needed to address multiple co...
Resorts & Country Hotels: How Workation Retreats are Blending Work and Relaxation
JLL Real Views | September 26, 2017
by Natalie Holmes Settling in with a laptop beneath a shady tree, connecting with colleagues around a fire pit, or sampling a local craft beer at the bar…this is work, but not in the traditional sense. As the boundaries between business and leisure continue to dissolve, secluded retreats are turning their attention to a new set of customers. Digital nomads, entrepreneurs and forward-thinking corporate teams are leaving the bustle of the city behind to immerse themselves in nature in the name of creativity and productivity. While some resorts and country hotels are updating their offerings to cater to this emerging clientele, new ...
Hospitality Financial Leadership – The Third Pillar
David Lund | September 25, 2017
By David Lund In the hotel business, there are three pillars: the guests, the colleagues and the money. They are not equal. They are not equal because we ignore the third pillar and we do so at our own peril and out of a bad habit. We are lazy about what we can do to manage this cagey and slippery bugger. There is a fundamental disconnect in our industry, and it is high time that changed. It is no longer acceptable to throw our hands up in the air and say the numbers are the accounting department's responsibility as if the rest of us are 5-year-olds without a clue what to do. If you are one of those, it is time to move and get some fina...
Creativity Is a Drug the Hotel Industry Cannot Live Without
Georges Panayotis | September 20, 2017
By Georges Panayotis Enthusiasm lies at the foundation of all progress. Henry Ford, a spearhead of the Industrial Revolution, showed the way to progress more than a century ago with this maxim. Society evolves more and more rapidly; we cannot predict the evolutions that will upset the hotel industry of tomorrow, we can, however, be certain they will happen. We know that new products will be developed, and new procedures and new organizations will come to the fore. Artificial intelligence and automatization will change the role humans play and how they work. They will lighten the cost of operations. Accommodations will be more ecological...
Modern Food Service Challenges are Driven by the Modern Guest
Larry Steinberg | September 18, 2017
By Larry Steinberg, Sr. Vice President & Chief Technology Officer, Agilysys Consumers want more options. For every practiced chef, there is a collective of guests eager to spend their hard-earned dollars on something exotic and different. They want to experience a bit of culture by way of their next meal, and they want to find it using the latest technology. How do businesses prioritize which technologies to embrace? How do they stay in business in such a saturated, competitive marketplace? How do they keep up with the constantly-expanding demands of consumers? This highly competitive landscape, combined with changing guest expectat...
Nobody Asked Me, But… No. 184: Hotel History: The Beverly Hills Hotel
Stanley Turkel | September 13, 2017
By Stanley Turkel, CMHS The Beverly Hills Hotel (1912), Beverly Hills, California (208 rooms) The Beverly Hills Hotel is one of the most famous hotels in the world. It was developed in 1912 by Burton Green, President of the Rodeo Land and Water Company. He hired Margaret J. Anderson and her son, Stanley S. Anderson to manage the new Mission Revival-style hotel on 12 acres which he named Beverly Farms after his home in Massachusetts. Green persuaded Margaret Anderson to leave the well-established Hollywood Hotel by offering her not only the management and a lease but also an option to buy at a price that was considered a giveaway. The Be...
What Do Guests Want From a Modern City Hotel?
JLL Real Views | September 11, 2017
By Maggie Nichols If you flip through your grandparents' old photo albums, you'll notice that their vacation pictures look very different to yours. While they may have captured the moment they sat down for a themed dinner in a hotel restaurant, your snapshots are more likely to show off your best food truck finds. It's just one of the many ways that travel and tourism have changed in recent decades. To keep up with those modern trends and preferences, hotels must identify new ways to keep guests checking in year after year. "What guests want during their hotel stay is constantly evolving," notes Geraldine Guichardo, Head of Americas Res...
Hospitality Financial Leadership – Global Hotel Revenue Management
David Lund | September 11, 2017
By David Lund Global is a big word and now that we have your attention I want to define global in a hotel setting. Global refers to all sources of revenue and their corresponding profit picture. A global perspective on revenue management yields the highest possible profit because we understand and apply a BIGGER view to our business. I think the title and buzz word that has our industry locked on "revenue management" is entirely the wrong way to look at it. It is not revenue we are after, it is profit. Revenue is where we start but it is always profit that we end up with. Understanding what happens to the room revenue and resulting prof...
Hotel Business Plan Development 2018: Getting Ready for 2018 Budgeting
Robert A. Rauch | September 7, 2017
By Robert A. Rauch Before we complete our business plans for 2018, a review of macroeconomic data is in order. China's growth might be slowing but we anticipate a fairly steady U.S. economy in 2018. We will likely slow to about a 2 percent GDP growth rate over the next year as this economic recovery reaches the 100 month mark next year. Unemployment is low, consumer confidence is solid and household spending is strong. Interest rates remain low, business confidence is strong and nothing to derail the economy is imminent. Oil prices have been unusually flat notwithstanding the speed bump caused by Hurricane Harvey. All of this informatio...
Is Room Service Dead?
Chamberlin Public Relations | September 7, 2017
Not yet, but it seems to be on the way out. While plenty of hotels still offer traditional room service, guests' tastes are evolving, and food and beverage programs must change to suit new demands. Many hotels are limiting costly room service, or completely scrapping it in favor of new F&B concepts that give guests more convenience at lower prices, plus opportunities to experience local fare. Hoteliers, here are the newest F&B trends you need to consider now. Special Delivery Room service can take many forms, and while many midscale and upscale hotels already have restaurant space on-site, not every kitchen has time (or staff) t...
ALICE Announces Acquisition of GoConcierge
ALICE | September 6, 2017
Acquisition brings together two of the most innovative concierge and front desk solutions on the market New York, NY, September 7, 2017 – ALICE, an operations platform that empowers hotels to deliver a better guest experience through consistently excellent service, announced today the acquisition of GoConcierge, a leading concierge software platform. As part of the acquisition, ALICE welcomes approximately 1,000 GoConcierge hotel customers to their community, with a promise to continue both companies' tradition of delivering industry-leading service technology. Frank Sena and Justin Hirs from Bentley Associates advised GoConcierge...
Tourism Tidbits: Still More on Old-New Forms of Tourism Research and Product Development
Dr. Peter Tarlow | September 6, 2017
by Dr. Peter Tarlow The world is changing faster than most of us can comprehend. New threats seem to arise daily, from threats of nuclear war to threats of economic crises, from acts of low-tech terrorism, such as car ramming, to new computer scams. These accelerated changes means that tourism professionals must adapt to a world that is not only often incomprehensible to the professional but even more so to his/her client. This consistency of change requires tourism professionals to constantly update their attitudes and assumptions and become not only up-to-date with the world in which they work, but also be open to constantly new "...
Hospitality Financial Leadership – How to Set Up and Report Food & Beverage in Your Hotel Financials
David Lund | September 5, 2017
By David Lund That is a long title and it is fitting because F&B reporting in your financials is the longest part of your hotel financial reporting process. Every other department except for benefits is a single shot. In F&B you need allocations and a roll up of all outlets into a total F&B profit statement. This is the single biggest area where I see hotels get their statements wrong. In this article, I am going to lay out how to set up your statements and general ledger to provide you strong financial reporting for your food and beverage department. Food and beverage is different This is the first thing to grasp. In comple...
Kais Mbarek of Meliá Dunas Beach Resort and Spa Awarded Inaugural THINC Africa General Manager of the Year
| September 5, 2017
The inaugural THINC Africa Awards were designed to honour and celebrate the best hotels, professionals and students in the industry. The winners were announced at the second annual THINC Africa conference, on Wednesday night. "Congratulations to the winners! The THINC Awards are our way of promoting the very best in Africa to ensure the rest of the world is aware of the extraordinary experiences they can enjoy when the visit this great continent," said Tim Smith, managing partner of HVS in South Africa. "It is up to the industry to nominate the hotels and people they believe are deserving." The award categories are: Hotel of the Year Aw...
Can Saudi Arabia Build a Popular Tourist Destination?
JLL Real Views | August 31, 2017
By Neasa MacErlean Tourism in the Middle East has long been dominated by the high-end resorts in Dubai, Egypt and Jordan yet they could soon have a new challenger in their midst. Saudi Arabia is turning its attention to tourism and entertainment as it seeks to not only reposition its economy but also meet a pent-up demand for greater leisure options within its own population. The Saudi government is thinking big. Plans are afoot for a luxury tourist area bigger than Belgium and stretching across 50 islands on the Red Sea coastline, which is mooted to open in 2022. Another large-scale scheme to develop an area the size of Moscow was unve...
Innovation in Luxury Hospitality
Suzanne Godfrey | August 30, 2017
By Suzanne Godfrey In the final article of our series of pieces on luxury hospitality based on interviews with leading hoteliers in Paris, Suzanne Godfrey argues that luxury has always been about innovation. True luxury has always been at the forefront of innovation. It doesn't depend on the wants or needs of "consumers", nor is it limited by the traditional concept of utilitarian value and competitiveness that can stifle creativity. Luxury brands are leaders, not followers. They deliver the ultimate in craftsmanship and innovative design, at the leading edge of creativity and technological innovation. Luxury seeks to give pleasure and ...
Which Cities are the Rising Giants of the Hotel Industry?
JLL Real Views | August 29, 2017
When it comes to competition among the world's top hotel markets, it's going to take a lot to rival London and Paris. These two long-term favorites attract 30 percent of all hotel investment. Yet that's not to say that fast growing cities in Asia and the Middle East aren't rapidly gaining ground. The likes of Dubai, Beijing, Bangkok, Shanghai and Guangzhou are the world's most dynamic emerging markets with huge potential for future growth. "Shanghai and Beijing already rank among the top largest hotel markets and investment destinations," says Jeremy Kelly, Director, Global Research at JLL. "Bangkok and Dubai are a little behind but att...
