LATEST NEWS
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DESIGN & DEVELOPMENT
July 24, 2019222 | Flying Solo: What it takes to go from franchised to independent
Independent hotel supply in the U.S. has decreased in the past 10 years, reports STR. The lodging-data company reports independently owned and operated hotels account for less than 40 percent of all hotels. About 1 percent of those close each year. But that trend may take a turn. It appears more and more hoteliers who read more
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HOME SHARING
July 17, 2019221 | Home Sharing’s Heavy Hitters: Airbnb’s genius is branding (Part 2)
Last week, part one of our report on Airbnb looked at the home-sharing giant’s impact on hotel business performance. We reported on a study that shows for every 100 percent increase in Airbnb accommodations in a market, hotel RevPAR declines by an average 3 percent. We also reported a growth in the number of whole read more
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HOME SHARING
July 10, 2019220 | Disruptive Innovator: Measuring Airbnb’s impact (Part 1)
More than 10 years ago, the short-term home rental industry began to shapeshift with the birth of Airbnb. The technology company has quickly grown from a small peer-to-peer home-sharing platform into a virtual behemoth with more rooms than any hotel company on the planet. Today, Airbnb has more than 4 million listings in nearly 100,000 read more
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EMPLOYEE RECRUITMENT & RETENTION
July 3, 2019219 | Train and Retain: Hospitality apprenticeship fills high-level jobs
It’s no secret the hospitality industry in America is in dire need of skilled employees. Many hotel owners and operators continually seek ways to attract and keep talent. The Bureau of Labor Statistics says the hospitality industry has a turnover rate of nearly 75 percent per year, compared to a healthy rate of 10 to read more
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DIVERSITY
June 26, 2019218 | Yes, Girls Allowed: More women venturing into hotel investment
Who invests money better, men or women? Fidelity Investments found surprising answers to that question when it surveyed nearly 3,000 people. The group was almost evenly divided between the sexes. Yet only a tenth of women said their investments would outperform men’s. Meantime, a separate analysis by Fidelity shows women consistently generated larger returns on read more
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LODGING LEADERS
June 19, 2019217 | Rainy Days Ahead: Hotels advised to prepare for a downturn
Many hotel-business experts believe an industry downturn is at hand. Some say it will happen as soon as next year. Others expect business to slow in 2021. So, is the forecasted slowdown based on fact, an economic algorithm, or is it more of a gut feeling? In this episode of Lodging Leaders we try to read more
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Feature
June 12, 2019Wellness Travel: Get your business in shape for an emerging trend
Business and leisure travelers are growing more wellness-minded.
The Global Wellness Institute reports wellness tourism is a $640 billion industry. A quarter of that is spent by travelers in North America.
Wellness is an emerging sector in hospitality, growing at 6.5 percent a year. The growth is spread across hotels of all price segments and guest demographics.
Wellness-minded travelers seek a path that not only introduces them to healthy concepts and choices, but allows them to return home feeling better than when they left.
If your hotel can live up to that promise, you can build a healthy bottom line. -
HUMANS OF LODGING
June 12, 2019Secret of a Healthy Chef
Ryan Ellis is familiar with the adage, “Never trust a skinny chef,” but for the executive chef at Fit Farm, it works the opposite. Ellis, 32, joined the fitness and wellness retreat in Castalian Springs, Tennessee, about a year ago. He said he’s learned about the significance of portion control in meals – for Fit read more
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Feature
May 29, 2019Hotel Crime: How to manage a high-profile case
When a hotel becomes a crime scene, there is little an owner or manager can do to ward off publicity. But a hotel can recover from a crisis and save its image if it has a plan in place to deal with the aftermath of a high-profile incident. Hoteliers and a PR expert offer advice on how to respond to a crime at your hotel.
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Feature
May 22, 2019The Weed Frontier: How hotels are capitalizing on cannabis
As more and more states legalize the use of marijuana for medicinal and recreational purposes, hoteliers are experimenting with integrating the cannabis lifestyle into their amenities and programming. The hospitality industry is eager to jump on the bandwagon as the cannabis is predicted to grow to a $23 billion market in the U.S. over the next few years.
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LODGING LEADERS
May 15, 2019213 | Event Entrepreneur: What’s behind The Lodging Conference success
Harry Javer is founder of The Lodging Conference, one of the hospitality industry’s must-do events. This year, The Lodging Conference will mark its 25th anniversary. Lodging Leaders talks with Harry about the genesis of The Lodging Conference, what it offers industry leaders, as well as newcomers to the hotel business, and how attendees can make read more
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LODGING LEADERS
May 8, 2019212 | Can We Talk? Why women don’t negotiate
This episode of Lodging Leaders explores why women in business often don’t negotiate and why they don’t win at the negotiating table as often as their male counterparts. We identify some fundamental stumbling blocks and barriers to women’s ability to get what they want. And we offer experts’ advice on how to craft a negotiation read more
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HUMANS OF LODGING
May 1, 2019From Bellman to GM
Juan Mera is general manager of North Point Hospitality Group’s tri-brand Marriott hotel in downtown Nashville. Taking the job was a challenge that Mera knew was a rare career opportunity. And it made him break a promise to his wife. Mera is a native of Lima, Peru. He came to the U.S. nearly 30 years read more
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Feature
May 1, 2019Triple Whammy: Tri-brand hotels change playing field
North Point Hospitality Group’s tri-brand Marriott in Nashville and First Hospitality Group’s tri-brand Hilton in Chicago have broken new ground in the U.S. hotel industry. The hotels in Chicago opened in the fall and the Nashville triplex opened last winter. To thrive, such projects need the right markets and a mix of brands that complement one another. Managers of the properties say operating three hotels under one roof presents unique challenges, and they are continuing to figure out how best to manage their business models to optimize rate, generate the most revenue and, thus, yield the highest return.
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DIVERSITY
April 24, 2019210 | Black-Owned Hotels: NABHOOD opens doors to opportunity
African American travel is a $63 billion industry. That’s how much black leisure travelers generated for the U.S. travel and tourism economy in 2018, reports Mandala Research. The December report is a follow-up to Mandala Research’s 2010 study on the same topic. The new information shows a $25 billion increase in travel spend by African read more
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BHARAT SHAH LEADERSHIP SPEAKER SERIES
April 17, 2019209 | American Tales: Hotel industry execs tell all
“These stories can only be told by us.” Those words are written by Bharat Shah, an American hotelier and an immigrant from India, in his autobiography “America My Destiny.” Bharat’s son, Mit, is founder and CEO of Noble Investment Group, which has $3 billion of private equity invested in hotels throughout the country. Together, father read more