Hotel Business Review: Week of Jun 19, 2017

John Mavros
  • Hospitality Law
  • The Ever Present Threat of a Disability Discrimination Lawsuit
  • By John Mavros, Attorney at Law, Partner, Fisher & Phillips, LLP

  • The Family Medical Leave Act, the American with Disabilities Act, and worker’s compensation provide employees that are injured or disabled with various rights to leave or reasonable accommodation. An employer’s understanding of these laws is imperative to avoid disability discrimination lawsuits. This article will explore each law’s parameters and the interplay among them. Read on...

Teri Howe
  • Mobile Technology
  • How Mobile POS Changes Everything
  • By Teri Howe, Principal Product Manager, Agilysys

  • An incredible meal will be forgotten if there are mistakes or delays during service. The most beautiful property will be forgotten if busy staff are ‘missing in action’ and inadvertently test guests’ patience too far.One need not remind hotel executives of the criticality of continually evaluating our vision – and execution – of guest service. This is part in the DNA of industry leaders. A less common trait of this same group is an appetite for exploring technologies that might accelerate or enhance the ability to deliver a quality, personal, exceptional guest experience. Hospitality traditionally trails other industries in adoption of – and the creativity around – new technologies. Read on...

David Ashen
  • Architecture & Design
  • The Craving for Local Color and Culture
  • By David Ashen, Principal and Founder, dash design

  • There was a time in America, before the proliferation of national chains, when every town had an independent, family-run hotel. With the rise of soft-branded properties and increasing demand for guest stays in properties reflective of local culture, David Ashen, partner and founder of interior design and brand consulting firm dash design, takes a look at the rising popularity of independently, locally branded properties and their how they—and the hospitality industry—are meeting the desire for venues with local color. Read on...

Bonnie Knutson
  • Eco-Friendly Practices
  • Do You Vote for Cows or Cars?
  • By Bonnie Knutson, Professor, The School of Hospitality Business/MSU

  • This article is not call for vegetarianism although there is a lot that can be said for eating more fruits, vegetables, and grains. This article is certainly not an environmentalist decree either, although a lot can be said about saving our planet’s natural resources. Nor is it another call for recycling, low energy light bulbs, and conserving water, although those are likewise noble goals. What it is, however, is a piece of the puzzle that can explain the consumers’ changing eating behaviors. And it presents both challenges and opportunities for every food operation from the Golden Arches to a luxury hotel. Yours included. You might think of it as feeding the future. Read on...

JUNE: Sales & Marketing: Who Owns the Guest?

Wendy Stevens

From digital room keys to wireless internet, the hospitality industry continues to embrace new tools and technologies that promise to enrich the guest experience. Advances in technology also open up possibilities behind the scenes for hospitality sales and marketing professionals—online booking services, social media channels, and hotel review sites are reshaping the sales and marketing landscape in important ways. But are all of those changes necessarily a good thing? Are there limitations to the power of technology, and inherent trade-offs and compromises that need to be taken into account? Read on...

Joe Currie

Being a business traveler is not about choosing between Tahiti and Maui for a dream vacation; it is about the luck of dodging an air delay and narrowly catching a few winks of sleep at a hotel before a morning meeting with a client. Business travelers do not have the luxury of choosing time or location, but they do have a choice when it comes to their hotel booking, and the entity that has the most influence over that choice in accommodation ultimately becomes the owner of it. Read on...

Bill Linehan

Channel management is a practice that allows hotel companies to cast a wider net to capture more market share. How you manage various marketplaces defines your customer acquisition strategy. RLH Corporation recognizes cost of distribution differences between direct and third-party channels, and we always promote direct bookings. However, an important component of increasing direct channel traffic and conversion is to leverage OTA site traffic to promote brand awareness. RLH Corporation takes a contrarian approach to OTAs – a customer acquisition strategy where we fish where the fish are to capture, convert and retain ongoing relationships with consumers. Read on...

Tara K. Gorman

When guests checks into a hotel, there are plenty to mechanisms to protect their physical “stuff”, but how can they be sure that their personal information is protected? This is the question hotel owners and operators are keenly focused on in the aftermath of cybersecurity breaches in the hospitality industry. Guest Data - an Asset or a Liability in the Age of Cybersecurity? will explore whether guest data is an asset or a liability by exploring the rules and regulations that govern privacy and security, steps that hotel operations can take to ensure that they are in compliance with privacy and security requirements for guest data, and privacy considerations. Read on...

Coming Up In The July Online Hotel Business Review




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Feature Focus
Hotel Spa: Measuring the Results
As the Hotel Spa and Wellness Movement continues to flourish, spa operations are seeking new and innovative ways to expand their menu of services to attract even more people to their facilities, and to and measure the results of spa treatments. Whether it’s spa, fitness, wellness meet guest expectations. Among new developments, there seems to be a growing emphasis on science to define or beauty services, guests are becoming increasingly careful about what they ingest, inhale or put on their skin, and they are requesting scientific data on the treatments they receive. They are open to exploring the benefits of alternative therapies – like brain fitness exercises, electro-magnetic treatments, and chromotherapy – but only if they have been validated scientifically. Similarly, some spas are integrating select medical services and procedures into their operations, continuing the convergence of hotel spas with the medical world. Parents are also increasingly concerned about the health and well-being of their children and are willing to devote time and money to overcome their poor diets, constant stress, and hours spent hunched over computer, tablet and smartphone screens. Parents are investing in wellness-centric family vacations; yoga and massage for kids; mindfulness and meditation classes; and healthy, locally sourced, organic food. For hotel spas, this trend represents a significant area for future growth. Other trends include the proliferation of Wellness Festivals which celebrate health and well-being, and position hotel spas front and center. The July issue of the Hotel Business Review will report on these trends and developments and examine how hotel spas are integrating them into their operations.