Going Green - Five Hot Trends in the Meetings Industry

By Andy Dolce, Chairman and Managing Director, Dolce International

Business travel is big business with millions of individual and group trips being tracked in each year. Among overnight trips, 85% of business travelers stayed in a hotel or motel. While this is good news for airlines, rental car companies and hoteliers, business travel exacts a heavy toll on the environment. Responsible environmental stewardship is not only an integral part of doing business at Dolce International; it is the core of who we are as a company. Read on to learn about five hot trends in the meetings industry I recommend for going green...

Accommodating Seniors - Rethinking the Meaning of Hospitality for Older Consumers

By Jeffrey Catrett, Dean, Les Roches School of Hospitality Management, Kendall College, Chicago

The War Generation, raised on Depression and World War, may have accepted somewhat stoically the difficulties of navigating through an America accustomed to focusing on youth culture, but Baby Boomers have never yet accepted anything anyone has tried to impose upon them and have had the economic might to get their way. As 78 million consumers enter their later years, expect to see sweeping changes in the treatment of greying populations. Intelligent businesses will begin today developing new products and services targeted at this mass of older spending power...

The Wired Hotel: Hassle-Free Hotel Locators

By Jerry Tarasofsky, CEO, iPerceptions Inc.

Encouragingly, findings from our surveys suggest that, on a macro level, hotel locator tools have come a long way. Results from our surveys show that the work done to optimize and standardize hotel locator tools has yielded some impressive results. To illustrate, let’s look at some data. Specifically, we’ll look at the results for the fourth quarter of 2007 from studies running on the websites of 9 leading midscale brands. During this time period, we asked over 2,600 visitors who did not complete a reservation during their session to identify the leading reason why they abandoned. On average, the share of abandoning visitors who indicated that they were unable to locate a hotel in their preferred area was only 5%, with a max of 6% and a min of 4%...

Embracing the Culture of Change in the Lodging Industry

By Steven Belmonte, CEO, President, Partner The Lexington Collection, and President, CEO, Hospitality Solutions LLC

When I started in the lodging industry more than 30 years ago at the age of 18 as the youngest general manager of a Holiday Inn, it was generally believed that the road to the franchising ivory tower was the straight and narrow. And at the time, that was probably true - as there were fewer big name hotels around, the travel industry was not as robust as it today, and the concept of capitalism had not reached global proportions of the 21st century. Franchising, in those days, was a new concept and was cautiously and steadily making the American dream a reality for young entrepreneurs...

Are You Getting Fresh? Hotel Restaurants Aren’t Just For Breakfast Anymore

By Andrew Freeman, President, Andrew Freeman & Company

Reality Bites. Let’s face it, most hotel restaurants aren’t typically destination hot spots and in fact, many are still decorated as “garden terraces” and have the sort of vibe that is most attractive to the drowsy breakfast crowd. Yet, hotel operators know they have a real opportunity to create restaurants with destination caliber cuisine that are both social centers and culinary experiences. These operators are bringing in experienced restaurateurs, consulting/rising star chefs, mixologists, as well as public relations and branding experts to help them develop clearly defined (and appealing) concepts, create enticing menus and identify innovative ways to build the buzz, covers and revenue. By making their hotel restaurants sexy, fun and delicious, these smart operators are creating hot spots that entice both locals and hotel guests alike...

Why Negative Feedback Can Be Positive

By Richard D. Hanks, Chairman & President, Mindshare Technologies

As much as we all like positive feedback, negative comments have the opposite reaction. It cuts us personally when a departing guest tells us that they had a bad visit. How you react to their feedback is the key. Do you shrug it off and chalk it up to one customer who won’t come back? Or do you see an opportunity? I hope it’s the latter. Let me explain the benefits of having flaws exposed by disgruntled customers, how to make them right, and then turn a disappointed guest into a lifetime advocate for your hotel ...

Boutique Hotels: Good For The Good Times

By Robert Mandelbaum, Director of Research Information Services, PKF Consulting Hospitality Research

Boutique hotels have been all the rage in the lodging industry. Developers want to build them. Guests want to stay in them. Travel writers want to wax on about their virtues. But, are boutique hotels popular with their owners? How has boutique hotel financial performance stacked up to industry-wide benchmarks as the lodging industry has progressed through the ups and downs of the recent business cycle? To answer these questions, PKF Hospitality Research (PKF-HR) has analyzed the revenues, expenses, and profits from a group of boutique hotels that provided their year-end financial statements to PKF-HR for the firm’s annual Trends in the Hotel Industry survey ...

Trends in the Ukraine Hotel Business

By Nikolay Mayger, CEO, Mayger Consulting Company

Ukrainian hotel business remains one of the most underdeveloped segments of the real estate market. Hotel infrastructure does not satisfy the demand for hotel services neither in quantity nor in quality. Most hotels were built 30-40 years ago and since then have not been renovated and mismatch international standards. In spite of this fact, hotels' profitability improves. According to the data of Statistic State Committee, from January to December 2007, the volume of realized services have increased significantly by 24% and has come to 2016, 4 million UAH. (For 2006, the volume of services was 1521.1 mln. UAH). The market of qualitative commercial real estate projects has been taking shape since early 2000s ...

Going Green for Guests, Environment, and Brand

By Lawrence Hefler, Principal, BrandShares International

This is the year of the green consumer. Green has become a mainstream issue driving millions of consumers to find out how they can live a more eco-friendly existence or a “lifestyle of health and sustainability” now popularly known as LOHAS. “Eco” has led to a new wave of consumer marketing in a grasp for green market share. In the hospitality world the implications of green for consumers include: eco-travel, eco- hotels, green buildings, eco- friendly interior design, and hybrid vehicles. This trend has gained significant momentum in the lodging and hospitality industry where more hotels are going green (or at least saying they are) and offering eco-friendly options. In an industry with a proliferation of brands and choices, green appears to be competitive hot button for 2008...