There are varying degrees of maturity in Strategic Meetings Management (SMM) hotel contracting and inevitably, most hoteliers want to learn how to avoid the onerous contract negotiations in these environments. Even in a seller’s market, the Buyer wants to be in the driver’s seat of racing down the road of terms and conditions. When meeting/event contracting is integrated with transient travel contracting, the process penitentiary causes confinement for months with legal beagles shredding their opponent’s side of the contract. When hoteliers understand the SMM Hotel Contracting Maturity Model© and how it affects their negotiation strategies, then the hotel can author terms that satisfy their clients and increase the chain’s revenue.

Some lists we love – like those fun rankings of favorite desserts, most popular vacation spots, and highest-earning celebrities. Some lists we hate – like our personal daily “to do” list. As hoteliers, we use lists all the time for everything from tracking room inventory to scheduling maintenance projects to tracking ROI and RevPAR. Now I’ve created another list for you – the “what’s hot and what’s not” list. I’m not sure if you’ll love it or hate it, but I am sure it can help you as you make FF&E decisions this year.

Thousands of hoteliers will face foreclosure or even bankruptcy this year as the sluggish economy has owners falling behind on loan payments. There are no easy solutions, but there are some things you can do to avoid foreclosure or receivership -- or both. My column offers six tips to help anticipate the problem, plan a course of action, and proactively maintain control of your property. We certainly hope you will never have to use these tips, but they are a valuable start to forestalling foreclosure on your property so you can “Keep It.”

Do you have a “...just because” culture? If you do, I suspect you work for a hotel that lacks innovation, empowerment, and engagement. I also suspect your hotel’s occupancy rate is lower than the market average, your guest satisfaction levels are lower than the industry average, and employee voluntary turnover is higher than your competition. You’re also most likely retaining only your marginally engaged employees, which will ultimately lead to marginally engaged guests. I also predict that in due time, your hotel will become a parking lot, or shopping mall. But there is still time for you to transition your hotel from a “...just because” to a “why not” culture. Read on…

Long gone are the days when wireless Internet was simply a perk for guests using Wi-Fi for email. Today streaming HD video, voice-over-IP (VoIP), wireless gaming consoles and more are competing for that same bandwidth pipe. This presents a tremendous opportunity for hotels to leverage themselves as the tech-savvy choice for the connected guest. Hotel management can leverage wireless, too, with mobile billing and other services to streamline processes. In this article Jason Guest, Account Manager, Aptilo Networks provides an overview of these next-gen services and discusses how to implement and manage a future-proofed network to support advanced services now and in the future.

Smart hoteliers go above and beyond what's required to provide their guests with an exceptional, personalized experience that leaves travelers feeling welcome and important. Yet, hotel executives often miss the mark by not extending this best-in-class experience throughout all of their communications channels, including the booking process. By providing a cohesive, easy and pleasant encounter from start to finish, you can arm your guests with unforgettable memories that will build customer loyalty and word-of-mouth exposure that likely cannot be replicated by a marketing campaign.

It's no secret that today's consumers are more demanding and selective than ever. Not only does yesterday's approach of one-off direct mail pieces and random emails no longer work, it can be enough to turn off your customer or prospect for good. With today's economic climate showing limited signs of improvement, it is critical that travel organizations and destinations leverage "intelligent," triggered communications approaches. So how do you utilize choreography to break through that clutter? Marketers are turning to four key elements that enable them to deliver automated, highly-customized marketing campaigns that respond to customers in a way that increases the bottom line.

How much does it cost you to take a reservation by phone? How does that compare to the costs if your guest does the booking entirely online? If you consider the staff time involved in the first case, I'll bet that you save a lot of money by having your guests book themselves completely online. So it is in your interest to make that process as easy as possible. Next question: How many people visit your site, explore it a bit, but don't end up booking a stay with you? Any idea why they don't? Obviously some of them will conclude that your hotel isn't right for them. But there's a good chance that a significant number of them are giving up because they found the process of booking online frustrating. Often those frustrations don't hit until they are in the middle of filling out the needed forms to book their stay. What sorts of things upset them, and how can you prevent those irritants?

What is trust? According to Dictionary.com it is "reliance on the integrity, strength, ability, surety, etc., of a person or thing; confidence". For me, it was always about the three R's of modern day; respect, relevance and reward. So what does this tell us when we attempt to tackle the subject of building customer relationships through trust? Quite simply, that the definition of trust is dependent upon one's frame of reference and personal needs at the time that 'trust' is required. If only it was that simple; new technology has dramatically complicated the equation.

In the old days of the Internet (10 years ago), the first generation of hotel Web sites were a passive medium for presenting a colorful hotel brochure, hence were dubbed brochureware. Those Web sites were one-dimensional and provided your brand a destination on the World Wide Web. The second generation of hotel Web sites, now commonplace on the Web, was all about being able to conduct commerce online: searching a directory of hotels and making reservations, as well as extending, canceling and confirming reservations. Now arrives the newest generation of hotel Web sites: interactive spaces that stand to replace paid advertising and public relations as the strongest means for hotels to drive brand loyalty and competitive differentiation.

Twenty years after hanging out our shingle, my partner and I have built a business that has grown from its roots providing quality assurance audit programs to the hotel industry, to a consultancy supporting a variety of industries in a niche that we have helped define - Customer Experience Management, or CEM. One of the foremost elements of our point of view on the customer experience is that in any organization, people, process and technology must be aligned around a shared vision and delivery of the optimal customer experience. With this message as a linchpin, we've secured clients in financial services, healthcare, manufacturing and a number of other different industries where the proper way of making the "Heavenly Bed" is hardly relevant.

The year is 2020; driven by technology undreamed of today, the world of hotel marketing is unlike anything we can imagine. As marketers what will our role be? Will we have any role at all? If the changes in the last five years are any indication, these are wonderful questions to ponder. Here in the present, we can safely say online marketing has come of age; if it was cutting edge yesterday, it's the norm today. But, what about the future? What can we expect, what do we have to do to be relevant to the consumers of today and tomorrow? Perhaps the only thing we can say for certain is that as long as technology continues to change at blinding speed, our biggest challenge will be just to keep up.

In the early days of Internet marketing, the goal of most web site owners was to drive as many potential customers to their site as possible and hope that some of these visitors would conclude a transaction, thus creating a new and relatively inexpensive channel for generating revenue and reducing costs. To date, with only 5% of all reservations being booked online, I believe it is fair to say that most web site owners in the hotel sector have not been able to convince users to complete a transaction/reservation online. And this will not dramatically change until site owners recognize that to get users to make an online reservation, the site must first and foremost establish a bond of trust with them.

If you are under the impression that once your web site is up and running that most of the hard work has been completed, you have made a very serious mistake. Your web site is probably one of the most powerful and cost effective marketing tools you have and as such I suggest you view it as you would any other asset or investment and use it to its maximum potential. This feature examines how, over the long term, you insure that your web site remains fresh and interesting and that visitors continue to have a positive and rewarding experience at your site.

When you get right down to it, your web site is just another extension or variation on your actual hospitality property. Visitors must be able to easily navigate their way through your site and find what they are looking for. As with any hotel, make it difficult to find the front desk and you'll probably never get too many guests making a reservation. Visitors must be able to easily access information about rooms, rates and amenities and they don't want to be kept waiting - again, no different than if they were in your lobby and could not find the front desk. Hit the mark in these key areas and most likely you will provide your web site visitors with a satisfying and positive web site experience - one that will encourage repeat visits and build loyalty.