Taking measures to protect your hospitality organization's trade secrets before filing or defending against a lawsuit may significantly increase your organization's chances of obtaining a favorable result in any lawsuit related to the misappropriation of trade secrets. While there are many ways to protect information, hospitality organizations need to be educated on what the law applicable to them considers to be “reasonable” steps that provide the secrecy that is required under the circumstances. This article explores how some courts have interpreted what is reasonable or adequate protection of information such that the information may qualify as a trade secret. READ MORE

Together, big data and machine learning provide the most accurate information from which to base pricing on in the entire history of the hotel business. Setting rates is no longer a guessing game. Leveraging the newest tools on the market gives hoteliers the most accurate forecasting data ever seen. The invisible becomes visible and that porridge is suddenly cooked to perfection ever time. Today, pricing with confidence means making decisions based on reams of previously undetectable information. Valuable data we never realized existed because it was invisible to us. We've had the illusion we've attained perfect pricing, but that wasn't the case at all. The good news is, though seemingly more complex, finding confidence in pricing is not as difficult as it seems. READ MORE

The tourism industry leaves a significant impact when you consider the need to move people around, host them and feed them, with the intrinsic needs for water, energy and food. As the travel industry continues to grow apace in Asia Pacific it is becoming increasingly important for hospitality providers to reduce their environmental footprint as well as to give back to the local communities in which they operate. AccorHotels first committed to a comprehensive environmental policy back in 1974 and is firmly committed to creating positive hospitality wherever it operates. While many of its actions are on a global scale, it has found that what is just as important is for each hotel in the network to work regionally to impact positively on its local community. READ MORE

Resource conservation is becoming more of an economic necessity than a choice in hotel business practices as the cost of water, energy and other supplies rises. Laundry operations represent a fertile frontier for such improvement. Using mass-production technologies easily accessible via outsourcing decreases a property's carbon footprint thanks to water and energy conservation in linen processing. Ensuing labor savings from this greater mechanization add to this economic benefit. TRSA aids hotels in locating high-efficiency outsourced linen, uniform and facility services through its Clean Green certification program and provides a published guide to finding certified green suppliers of all kinds of products and services needed for hotel operations. READ MORE

This issue of Hotel Business Review is devoted to the concept of Sustainability, so how does energy efficiency fit into this topic? And why is it so important now? Well, because, as that famous philosopher Yogi Berra once said, “the future ain't what it used to be.” We're experiencing changing consumer attitudes with regard to the environment resulting in shifting market trends. We're seeing a vastly different and uncertain political landscape. Competition in many industries has begun to beat the sustainability drum. And all of these trends are linked back in one way or another to energy and how we use it - energy efficiency. READ MORE