Hospitality reviews on TripAdvisor, Hotels.com, Booking.com, Travelocity, Expedia, and more sites impact revenues. Hotel managers must learn to respond to and act on this crucial form of customer feedback to succeed in their local markets. Jonathan Sockell, Product Marketing Manager at Medallia, and seasoned hospitality and customer experience executive Linda Wiley delve into how to empower the frontline with actionable customer feedback and build a sense of urgency to excel at customer service. READ MORE

It's all about the team. Whether you are looking to fill open positions in an existing hotel, hire a new staff for a property soon to open or add talent at corporate headquarters, attracting and training, evaluating and retaining a top-notch team of individuals is necessary in order to be successful. In doing so, we must select the right people for our needs; be clear and consistent in communicating goals and expectations; insure that all hires have the skills and authority to achieve assigned goals; and provide timely, constructive and fair feedback on performance as a basis for future compensation and promotion. READ MORE

Just as technology has and is continuing to transform our lives, it's changing the way hotel brands view and analyze their customer experience. Ensuring the vendor of your customer experience measurement program is keeping up with technology is a near impossible task. Yet, the onus is on the hotel brands to be watchful of new technology players who can serve emerging needs. Good customer experience management is fundamental to our industry. And we must be able to analyze, monitor and measure it. Which is why we must continually pursue technology not to eradicate problems, but to take a collective, proactive approach to building brands and experiences customer truly love. READ MORE

Sales lessons are all around us. From professional athletes to actors and celebrities to families shopping for their wish list, inspiration for enhancing the sales approach can be discovered anywhere. The key to refining the sales process lies in your ability to understand the philosophies of the overall process and then practicing your selling skills. A good seller will ask the right questions, look for buying signals and attempt to gauge where the customer is in the process, and then present options for the buyer. Practicing the lessons learned will lead to a polished and sophisticated sales approach. READ MORE

Accor, the largest hotel operator in Asia Pacific, with more than 560 hotels in the region, says that while digital distribution is one of the company's key strengths, the group retains a strong focus on traditional sales and marketing methods. Graham Wilson, Accor's Senior Vice President Sales & Marketing Asia Pacific says traditional marketing and sales tools such as the group's World of Accor hotel roadshow, client events, trade shows, direct mailing, sales calls and off-line advertising still play a key role in the group's success. READ MORE