Hotels have a rich history of shaping American society - and a hotel's public space is a crucial part of its service to travelers and to the local community. So now's a good time to re-think, re-shape, and re-new your lobby. Whether your hotel is economy or extravagant, your interior design professional can help make more effective use of your available public space - through architecture, through selection and placement of furniture, and through use of artwork and accessories. In the process, you'll make some living history of your own! READ MORE

Hoteliers face two trends which are seemingly at odds with each other, but now a definite winner seems to be emerging. On the one hand, the economics of franchise brands and real estate development call for a uniform product that's easy to build and monitor regardless of where in the country the property is located. It's the "cookie-cutter" or "one size fits all" syndrome. On the other hand, recent surveys show that having a memorable experience - whether at dinner, in a store, or on a trip - is quickly becoming more important to Americans than accumulating material wealth. This is the customer's request to "wow me" or "show me something special." In short, "wow me" is beating out the "cookie-cutter." Here's why and how. READ MORE

In a recent report, TravelCLICK, the E-commerce services company catering to the hotel industry, showed that Internet reservations received at the central reservation offices of the major hotel brands grew a staggering 34% in 2003 over the previous year. The report also shows that last year, brand Web sites were the source of 66% of the brands' centrally booked Internet reservations. The resounding message, of course, is that Internet-based business is rapidly becoming the preferred method for booking reservations. Importantly, this trend is only the latest in a series of transitions of hotel business operations to electronic protocols. Food and beverage transactions...automated check out and electronic room keys have been standard operating procedure for years. Why is this important? Along with the wonderful employee productivity and financial payoffs of electronic operations has come an enormous new challenge for management: Cyber-crime. READ MORE

According to the surveillance director of a major Las Vegas hotel/casino, "No matter how aggressive you are in fighting hotel fraud, you can be almost guaranteed that you're not catching all of the theft. There are too many ways that employees, vendors and guests can steal from you." That may be true, but it also is true that there's an awful lot that hotel management can do to prevent and detect illegal activity that they're not doing now. And-now is a good time to start getting serious about fighting fraud, because, according to the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE), internal fraud alone (not counting such crimes as credit card fraud by guests and vendor scams that don't involve a hotel employee) robs up to 6% of gross revenue every year. A special challenge for hotel industry security managers is the fact that hospitality properties generate enormous amounts of cash. Whether it's guests paying cash for rooms or restaurant and bar patrons paying for meals with cash, without strict controls on how that cash is handled...and by whom...there's no question that a significant chunk of it is going to end up in employees' pockets. READ MORE

Fraud in the hotel, resort and restaurant industries is a constant and costly problem. While some hospitality companies choose to think of fraud as an unavoidable cost of doing business, more and more are realizing that because fraud losses often are extremely high, even a fractional reduction in those losses can mean millions of dollars in "found" profits. For companies that don't believe they have a serious fraud problem...or simply choose to ignore the subject altogether, consider this: According to the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners in Austin, TX, the average American company loses 6% of its annual revenue to internal fraud. In other words, a hotel or resort company with, for instance, $1 billion in annual revenues, loses $60 million to employee embezzlement...expense account fraud...theft of inventory, etc. READ MORE