LODGING LEADERS
015 | Online Hospitality Training, eBooks and Best Practices with HMBookstore.com COO Rick Tomljenovic
LODGING LEADERS
Rick Tomljenovic has been in the hospitality industry for more than 35 years. He’s an owner and Chief Operating Officer of Tristar Hotel Management, a midsize company managing between 15-25 properties on average per year, including 5 properties that they own.
Rick is also Chief Operating Officer for HMBookstore.com – a cutting edge online hospitality and tourism training company with more than 70 eBooks published. HMBookstore’s eBooks have been adopted by professors at top U.S. hospitality universities, and over 13,000 eBooks have been sold to university students since 2012.
After high school, Rick attended Forrest Park College and earned a hospitality degree. He worked for several midscale and largescale management companies, and spent a lot of time working for Holiday Inn managing several of their properties in the Chicago/Midwest region.
Early on, Rick had the pleasure of working with the Holiday Inn training program and he was enamored by the experience. Those early examples of great training programs and materials planted the seed of what would later evolve into HMBookstore.com.
Resources & Links
Rick Tomljenovic
- Direct Phone: (480) 391-6305
- On LinkedIn
Company Websites & Pages
LODGING LEADERS
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346 | Repositioning For Recovery: Hotel conversions to outpace new builds
Lodging Econometrics has tracked the hotel industry since 1998. Its global database includes new-hotel pipelines as well as renovations and brand conversions. Hotel franchisers once eager to launch new brands are focused on converting existing hotels because it’s a faster way to recover revenue lost to the COVID-19 pandemic than through new construction. In Episode 346, Lodging Leaders explores the increasing number of conversions in the U.S. hotel industry and what owners and operators need to consider before repositioning an asset.
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345 | ‘Rosy View of Future’: Hotel industry sees unleashing of pent-up investor demand
In the first few months of the COVID-19 pandemic in the U.S., financiers anticipated a swell of distressed hotel businesses. Some raised rescue funds to respond to what they thought was a pending crisis. Though there are financial rescues taking place, the level of such activity is far below what industry advisers and fund managers expected. Commercial real estate investors positioned to act in the early days of the pandemic held off and are now just beginning to unleash their cash hoards totaling billions of dollars. Episode 345 of Lodging Leaders podcast explores the state of capital investment in the hotel industry.