Customer Service
Best practices, news and insight into customer service and how important guest satisfaction is to the success of hotels and resorts.
TRYP Coming to North America
Glass doors slide open to the lobby of the Tryp by Wyndham Hotel Quebec PUR. The deep charcoal and white lobby is austere, what Americans refer to as European or minimalist. Neutral shades carry the lobby, halls and rooms. Occasional pops of bright orange — a pillow here, a print there, the guest directory and even the desk pen — play with the eye....
How Social Media Levels the Playing Field
Marketing intelligence can be gleaned from social media, a fact well documented. From recommendations to general opinions shared online, hotels gain great insight into the relevance and effectiveness of their marketing messages. ...
Melchiorri Brings Lodging to TV with “Hotel Impossible”
Anthony Melchiorri isn’t a TV personality doing a hotel show. He’s a hotel guy doing a TV show. His resume and approach on camera make that clear from the first episode of “Hotel Impossible,” a new original weekly one-hour series premiering Monday, April 9 at 10 p.m. on the Travel Channel....
ScanINN Shortens Hotel Lines at Motel 6
Check-in lines will be shorter at Motel 6 properties with the implementation of Intellicheck Mobilisa’s ScanINN technology. Guest services representatives simply swipe a guest’s driver’s license to capture information and populate forms. ...
Locals Help Drive Iron Horse’s Success
Most developers who venture into hospitality view the independent boutique hotel as their baby — the most draining, hand wringing and rewarding property in their portfolio. For the Iron Horse Hotel, it has been a particular labor of love because our hotel opened simultaneously with the worst credit crunch in U.S. history. That meant opening $7 million short, with no working capital and in a secondary market. ...
Affinia Hotels Launches Tender Loving Comfort Movement
Men and women like to be communicated with differently. Women like face to face, while men prefer side to side. That makes a difference in providing customer service, says Christina Denihan, chief comfort officer for Affinia Hotels...
Behind the Scenes March 15, 2012
Operational insights to help keep your property running at full speed...
Reviewing Social Media Sites Critical
Last April, I wrote a column about how online travel agency websites (like Expedia and Priceline) affect hotel values. I received quite a bit of mail about that article—a lot of people have been wrestling with how to control this new and increasingly important technology. One of the key messages...
Marriott's Lasting Legacy
Don’t ask Bill Marriott about his retirement. He’s not retiring and has no plans to. Ever. “I’ve seen too many people retire, get bored and die,” he says. He then leans forward, for emphasis it seems, and adds, “That’s not what I plan on doing,” before letting out a hearty laugh. ...
Training Academy Key to Wequassett’s Success
The Wequassett Academy, the training program of Wequassett Resort & Golf Club on Cape Cod, is so successful the founders just may spin it off as a separate business. If that happens, the 77 (and counting) hospitality classes would be available to hoteliers outside the property....
Schulze’s Company Gets New Name, Capital Partner
Since debuting in 2002, Horst Schulze’s West Paces Hotel Group and its “super luxury” brand called Capella has been well received, but slow to grow. Wednesday, the former president and chief operating officer of Ritz-Carlton announced a new name, capital partner and aggressive plans to add five properties in the next year and double the size of the company within two years....
Hotel Wayfinding Interacts with Smartphones
Wayfinding screens in hotels are becoming widely accepted as the preferred method of showing floor plans, guiding guests to destinations on the property, revealing session locations for conferences and opening new avenues of engaging guests. But until recently, guests still had to rely on memory as they walked away from the maps on digital displays toward their destination within the property. ...
Hilton Welcomes Chinese Travelers with New Program
Hilton Worldwide officially rolled out its much-talked-about Huanying welcome program for Chinese travelers Aug. 16 at the Hilton San Francisco Union Square. The program — available in four Bay-area hotels — was launched at 51 Hiltons in 13 countries worldwide. ...
What Women Want From Travel
Women are different. And they want different things from their hotel experiences. It’s not about the stuff—the amenities—but the overall experience, says Judi Brownell, professor and dean of students at Cornell University’s School of Hotel Administration. ...
OTAs Driving Hotels’ Costs, Business and Conversation
Mark Lomanno joked, somewhat seriously, that online travel agencies contributed 10% of the hotel industry’s business, but led to 80% of the discussion. Lomanno, STR’s chief strategy officer, was moderating a general session at the Hotel Data Conference in Nashville earlier this month when “pre-final” results were unveiled from a distribution channel analysis by STR and the AH&LA....
Why It Pays for Hotels to Be Pet Friendly
When Philip and Cherie Crouch traveled, the couple wanted to take their chows with them, but it wasn’t easy to find a place to stay. Today, Phil and Cherie are general manager and assistant general manager, respectively, of two hotels in Needles, CA, the Best Western Colorado River Inn and Rio del Sol Inn. They’ve made hos-PET-ality part of their daily business. ...
Pain at Pump Won't Hurt Memorial Day Travel
Despite gasoline prices teetering around $4 a gallon in most regions, two recent reports indicate more Americans plan on traveling this Memorial Day weekend than last year. As the official start to the summer travel season, this weekend should be a bellwether of what’s to come....
Baymont At Home With Wyndham
Quick, name the hotel company that created the Baymont Inn & Suites brand. Yes, the midscale limited-service brand currently resides with Wyndham Hotel Group, but no, that’s not where it began. Baymont was briefly La Quinta’s other brand, but it actually started in 1974 as the Budgetel Inn brand from Milwaukee-based Marcus Corp....
Education Key to Preventing Credit Card Fraud
Last year, the hospitality industry became the most targeted industry for data breaches according to Trustwave's Global Security Report 2010. The situation has grown in such a way that recently, one of the largest hospitality industry associations put forward guidance on how to take simple steps to secure payment card data within the industry....
