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LATEST NEWS
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LODGING LUMINARIES
October 14, 202112 | Peggy Berg: Hospitality companies ‘getting outbid’ in women’s search for meaningful careers
As the hospitality industry recovers from the devastation of the pandemic, advocates for diversity in leadership say now’s the time to shake off obsolete methods of building executive teams and deploy more inclusive strategies. Lodging Luminaries Episode 12 spotlights Peggy Berg, an industry veteran, entrepreneur and founder of Castell Project, a nonprofit organization dedicated to accelerating the career trajectories of women in hospitality industry leadership. Berg talks about how the pandemic crisis has affected Castell’s mission; how it’s changed the way women view their careers; and how employers need to respond.
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LODGING LEADERS
October 13, 2021341 | One Big Happy: Travel survey reveals how hotels can attract families
Rainer Jenss of Nyack, New York, founded the Family Travel Association seven years ago to help parents and caregivers introduce children to the world through travel, whether that’s a yearlong trip around the world that Jenss and his family took or a weekend getaway to a nearby destination. To help the travel industry gauge what parents want when they take their kids on vacation, FTA conducts an annual study. The U.S. Family Travel Survey 2021 reveals the shift in mindset the COVID-19 pandemic has created in families planning a trip over the next 12 months. Hoteliers use can use the information to generate business and boost their strategies to recover and sustain business now and other the coming months.
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TOP FLOOR
October 12, 202107 | Space Flea Exorcism
Chris Daly is happy to work barefoot, but he does not recommend baring your hotel’s soul during a time of crisis. With a family history in hospitality and a secret life as a music critic, Chris has handled more disasters, crises, murders, and fires than a season of Law and Order. Chris gives Susan some pointers about how hospitality businesses can handle sticky situations and what to include in a hotel’s crisis communications plan.
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LODGING LEADERS
October 6, 2021340 | New Glass Ceiling: Industry leaders work to shatter barriers for women hotel owners and investors
Whether they’re new to the concept or they’ve worked in lodging for years, women are an emerging force in hotel development, investment and ownership. Several industry leaders are making significant strides in building programs that encourage and support women interested in becoming hotel owners and investors. This report examines new projects and updates the status of existing efforts by industry leaders to recruit women as owners and help them hurdle barriers such as critical access to capital.
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TOP FLOOR
October 5, 202106 | Dog Show Flight Delay
Kendra Plummer did not grow up with pets, but she did grow up dreaming of owning a boutique hotel in Barbados. When she realized that the path to hotel ownership was not lined with front desk shifts, Kendra left operations for acquisitions, doing math and kicking assets. Susan hears about what it takes to become a hotel investor and how Kendra is tackling the wealth gap for women and people of color.
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LODGING LUMINARIES
September 30, 202111 | Tracy Kundey: Everwood Hospitality operations chief urges industry to solve business challenges ‘in a different way’
Although Tracy Kundey has several decades of experience in the hospitality industry, he’s not one to look back. You can’t change history, he says. And that goes for hotels that lost business during the coronavirus pandemic. The only direction to go is forward. Everwood Hospitality Partners recently enlisted Kundey to help lead it beyond the pandemic recovery. In Episode 11 of Lodging Luminaries, host Jason Freed talks with Kundey about the steps Everwood is taking to not only get to the other side of the economic downturn but to grow Everwood into an industry powerhouse by deploying technology to manage profitability and getting creative with delivering on guest services while seeking out opportunistic deals. Success today is a matter of ‘looking at things differently,’ he said.
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LODGING LEADERS
September 29, 2021339 | Positive Attributes: Hoteliers debate separately pricing amenities and services
A hot topic discussed at hotel industry conferences this year is separating amenities and services from the standard room rate and charging guests fees for such things as daily room cleaning, use of the pool or fitness room and a hot breakfast. While some hoteliers have begun to ‘unbundle’ services others are still mulling it over. They mostly agree, however, that something has to give as the lodging industry figures out how to emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic with a stronger and more flexible revenue model than before the coronavirus crisis.
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TOP FLOOR
September 28, 202105 | Kind of a Surreal Moment
After two broken legs cut his professional racing career short, Cory Falter turned his love of art into a career helping hotels and restaurants tell their stories. Cory’s evolution from ink aficionado to digital designer led him to explore the revenue possibilities of technology. Susan learns about Cory’s idea for increasing a hotel guests’ lifetime value by establishing relationships built on trust and extreme transparency.
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NEXTGEN IN LODGING
September 27, 202108 | Emerging brands, innovative products signal new era of hospitality
As the hotel industry shifts into a new era influenced by the coronavirus pandemic as well as the unleashing of younger travelers eager to get out and experience the world, new hospitality brands are emerging either in full or by creating novel concepts within their traditional frameworks. In Episode 8 of NextGen in Lodging, host Chris Henry leads a discussion among three hospitality innovators who share what’s next for a recovering industry.
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LODGING LEADERS
September 22, 2021338 | Cybercrime Spree: Hotel industry more vulnerable than ever to hackers
From the start of the coronavirus pandemic in early 2020, the lodging industry turned to technology to solve immediate challenges. The very nature of hospitality can make a hotel vulnerable to cyberattacks. As the industry adopts new technology to help it recover from the coronavirus crisis and economic downturn, the threats are greater and the number of attacks are growing. The good news is for as many nefarious ways cybercriminals can strike, there are corresponding solutions. Episode 338 of Lodging Leaders podcast focuses on the pervasive cyber threats the hospitality industry faces as it deploys technology to modernize its business processes and improve guest experiences.
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TOP FLOOR
September 21, 202104 | Don’t Wanna Be Pitch-Slapped
Tammy Gillis doesn’t want to be pitch-slapped, and she doesn’t think your customers want that either. A self-described lost soul in her youth, Tammy found herself and her calling in hotel sales. Susan learns how Tammy suggests hoteliers approach the recovery and how salespeople should pursue business conversations to make a positive impact.
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CORONAVIRUS
September 15, 2021337 | Open-and-Shut Cases: How hoteliers managed decisions to close or stay in business
More than 1,700 hotels in the U.S. closed in spring 2020 at the height of the coronavirus pandemic. At the end of August, 1,200 were closed, reported Kalibri Labs. Meantime, 840 new hotels opened last year and 900 are on track to open this year, according to Lodging Econometrics. Episode 337 of Lodging Leaders explores the challenges owners faced in reopening closed hotels as well as what owners and operators did to ramp up business at hotels that were at such low levels of occupancy, they might as well have been closed. We also feature owners who opened new properties during the pandemic. One owner we interviewed opened two new hotels while doing what it took to keep his existing properties in business. This report is part of our ongoing coverage of the coronavirus crisis and its impact on the hospitality industry.
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TOP FLOOR
September 14, 202103 | Dude, Calm Down
Calvin Tilokee’s first meme was printed out and hung on his office door. Since then, he’s created @revparblems, a hospitality comedy account on Instagram with 20,000 followers. Susan learns how Calvin navigates the highs and lows of being the funniest account on Instagram and helps hotels with social media through his company, RevPar Media.
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TOP FLOOR
September 14, 202102 | We’re NOT Idiots
In the course of her hotel career, Kate Burda learned the business inside and out, from Minneapolis to Miami. Along the way, she figured out that the sound and fury of the hotel business could truly signify something by focusing on a traveler’s point of inspiration vs. a hotel’s product offering. Susan learns how Kate’s company helps hotels and other businesses ignite the connections between financial performance goals and sales and marketing strategies.
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TOP FLOOR
September 14, 202101 | Gas Station Menu Drop
As a teenager, Cat Meek took any restaurant job that would have her, working her way to becoming a certified sommelier and manager of a “very fahhncy” restaurant. Over romantic dates spent writing the business plan for a future fine dining establishment, she met and married her husband, who was conveniently also a chef. Susan learns how Cat built a multi-unit restaurant empire by making the guests part of the story.
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LODGING LUMINARIES
September 9, 202110 | Carlos Flores: Sonesta has ‘very lofty ambitions’ as it pursues value in the lodging industry
Sonesta Hotels International’s CEO Carlos Flores has big dreams for the company he’s led since 2012. Over the past 18 months, he’s made some of them come true, shocking an industry in the throes of the coronavirus crisis. In Episode 10 of Lodging Luminaries podcast, host Jason Freed talks with Flores about how he decided to pull the trigger to propel the company as a major contender in the franchising space. He also shares his views on the franchiser-franchisee relationship as well as whether the adoption of new technology can enhance a hotel’s value.