dean minett
Are Hotel Front Desks a Thing of the Past?
Dean Minett | September 10, 2018
By Dean Minett De-cluttering is a big business. Successful books like The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo demonstrate the world's appetite for simplified living, while consultants have popped up all over Australia to help the people get rid of what they don't need. Similar thinking has found its way into business and technology. The Economist ran a piece in 2014 called "De-Cluttering the Company" in which the costly entrapments of bureaucracy are discussed. Eliminating clutter is also a hallmark of commercial technology. Disk drives and cable ports on laptop computers are becoming extinct as data is transferred increasi...
The Case for Reading MORE About the Hotel Industry (yes more!)
Dean Minett | August 31, 2018
By Dean Minett How did hoteliers know about industry trends before the Internet came about? Cyberspace may not have existed in 1970, but there were plenty of trade journals and books to go around. Travel Trade, Travel Week, Travel Digest, Hotel Weekly…. The list goes on. Promotional materials from other hotels were another way to collect valuable information and if all else failed, we could book a room at that hotel and see for ourself what the competition was doing. Of course travel and hotels were also featured in newspapers and reading magazines from Conde Nast made hotels seem magical. Here in 2018, it's impossible to keep tr...
What Hotel Chains Are Learning From Industry Disruptors… and You Can Too
Dean Minett | July 31, 2018
By Dean Minett Part of the problem with disrupting the hospitality industry (or any industry, for that matter) is that if you are successful, others will emulate. The changes sparked by AirBnb and OTAs like Expedia cannot entirely be patented or trademarked – if they could, an army of lawyers would slap down any encroachment on its business model. As it stands, all they've done (aside from creating billion dollar brands) is open the door. They've shown the world that hotels and hospitality can be reimagined. It should come as no surprise that some of the biggest and most innovative hotel groups are doing a whole lot of emulating o...
How to Make Hotels More Human
Dean Minett | July 30, 2018
By Dean Minett Isn't it strange that technology designed to bring people together could have the opposite effect? As smartphones and tablets have become more engrained in daily life, prospects for real human interaction feel strangely diminished. Why strike up a conversation – or look out the window, for that matter – when there's always a task, a search, or a social media post to absorb your attention? Academics and researchers have been saying plenty about this in recent years. The Media Consumer Survey 2017 by Deloitte found clear patterns of fatigue amongst social media users in Australia, with nearly half of the study's...
How Experimenting With Social Events Can Only Be Good for Your Hotel’s Bottom Line
Dean Minett | July 25, 2018
By Dean Minett The reimagining of common areas in hotels is really part of a larger question: How and why is the social function of hotels changing? We know that work habits have become more fluid in recent years. We know that "being alone together" has become a favoured way of working for many young professionals. Work may require us to concentrate on a laptop for hours at a time, but doing so in vibrant communal spaces feels healthier than sitting alone in our room. Whether or not it's actually healthier is unclear. An oft-cited book by an MIT professor bears the title Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from E...
3 Misguided Trends in the Hotel Industry Today
Dean Minett | May 17, 2018
By Dean Minett The world of hotels is a lot like the world of fashion. Every year, new trends and styles come sashaying down the catwalk. Some are eye-catching, some are puzzling, and some are downright ridiculous – depending on who you ask. This constant drive to innovate is one of the things that makes our profession so dynamic. Hoteliers and their stakeholders are always looking for the next original combination of styles and concepts. Sometimes it even pays off. Multi-functional common spaces are a good example. A decade ago, this concept was akin to one of those outlandish puffy gowns with a matching headpiece. In 2018, breez...
It’s All About Soul: Why the Way Your Hotel FEELS Is Impacting Your Bottom Line
Dean Minett | April 19, 2018
By Dean Minett It seems like there's a TED Talk for just about everything these days, so I was excited (though not exactly surprised) to come across Mark Harmon's speech about "the soul of a hotel." Harmon is the founder of Auberge Resorts, a chain of luxury boutique properties with locations throughout North and Central America. In 2017, it was rated the world's third best hotel brand by Travel + Leisure Magazine. If you watch Harmon's speech while looking at the properties in the Auberge collection, it's fairly easy to see his ideas and philosophies in action. He says that a successful hotel needs to have...
The BYOD Revolution and What it Means for Your Hotel’s Bottom Line
Dean Minett | March 16, 2018
By Dean Minett The supercomputers we carry in our pockets are easily taken for granted. They've become deeply engrained in everyday life, replacing a multitude of other objects and devices. Many of us already use our phones as house keys, wallets, light switches, garage door openers and thermostats, among other things. Oh yes, and we sometimes use them to call people or send messages. It makes sense that hotel rooms would come next. Recent surveys conducted by Expedia and Hotels.com suggest that taking a mobile device, for the average traveler, is now more important than taking a toothbrush. If this is true, why should guests use a spec...
