As hotel brands look to improve the guest experience and combat the "fall off" of loyal guests, hoteliers have the opportunity to hone their programs' ability to drive, track, measure, and reward incremental behavior throughout the entire customer lifecycle. Or, simply put, embrace an omnichannel loyalty approach. Omnichannel loyalty is a fundamental shift from traditional loyalty marketing practices that embraces the proliferation of new, as well as more established communication channels. Combining this new loyalty initiative and the convergence of CRM/CEM, hotel brands can improve the guest experience, drive repeat stays and inspire positive brand interactions to drive long-term ROI. READ MORE

Employee handbooks are an important tool for employers and provide an effective means for them to communicate their policies and practices. Employee handbooks help employers manage the workplace, promote fairness, and enhance morale. They enable employees to achieve their best performance and to comply with safety & health rules and standards of workplace conduct. However, employee handbooks can expose employers to unintended liability. Establishments should regularly review their employee handbook. This article will provide a guide for addressing some common pitfalls posed by employee handbooks. READ MORE

As Hyatt Corporation experienced last month in the Caribbean island of Curaçao, and hotel managers in general have been experiencing with increasing frequency, hotel owners have the unfettered power to terminate their managers for any reason or no reason at all - even if the management agreement between the parties states otherwise. This means that owners may “take over” their hotels by installing new management at any time before the stated term of the management agreement has expired. Understanding agency law is critical to the relationship between hotel owners and managers, because it impacts the rights and responsibilities of owners and managers during a hotel takeover. READ MORE

Brands are still spending money sending inspectors into their hotels to measure brand standards. With the rise of social media is that money well spent? Could you use social media to inform quality assurance audits to actually get at experience elements and not simply brand standard? Quality Assurance has evolved to more subjective 'how did the experience make you feel' measures than the days of old, but where do they go next? READ MORE

Many hoteliers are just beginning to understand the power of positive guest reviews in driving traffic to their website, but they are unsure of where to begin in terms of proactively managing the process. Is it best to ask our PR company to take charge of this issue? Should we get a young intern to handle Social Media? I get these questions from hoteliers from around the world. At the Library Hotel Collection, our four NYC properties once ranked in the four top spots on TripAdvisor for New York City. Two years later, at the time of this writing, all four of our Manhattan properties rank in the top five in New York. So just what is it that makes these hotel groups so consistently successful with regard to their TripAdvisor rankings? READ MORE