FEATURED: The Gestures of Service | By Roberta Nedry

PLEASE light my candle! All the other table candles in the restaurant were lit, except ours. The time was twilight and we had a water view from our table. PERFECT timing for a lit candle. Our nice setting quickly became an incomplete experience. None of the waiters or waitresses noticed nor could we get their attention until several minutes later. Why use the space for a candle that only sits in ...

Hospitality Excellence, Inc. | Monday 13 February 2012

Strong Group Demand Setting the Stage for Positive 2012 Hotel Occupancy Outlook

Hotels are seeing strong growth in group commitments for 2012, according to TravelClick's January 2012 North American Hospitality Review (NAHR). The January NAHR is based on group sales and reservations for hotel stays in 2012. Group committed occupancy on the books for 2012 is up 5.4 percent compared to this time last year. Moreover, group pace, or new group sales booked over the prior 30 days...

TravelClick, Inc. | Monday 20 February 2012

Travelodge Secures £60 Million Funding | Reuters

Budget hotelier Travelodge has secured a 60 million pounds ($94.89 million) line of funding and is trading well, a spokesman for the Dubai International Capital (DIC) DUBAHP.UL owned business said on Sunday. He said the 60 million pounds medium term loan facility, which replaces an existing line, has been underwritten by junior lenders including U.S. firms Golden Tree Asset Management and Avenue ...

reuters.com | Monday 20 February 2012

Hotels Offer Unusual Amenities To Lure Guests | USATODAY

Hotels are going to extraordinary lengths to cater to a guest's every imaginable need. Think a fragrance or tanning butler, a dog surfing instructor and a sleep concierge. Sound gimmicky? Maybe. But hotels are vying for the attention of ever-picky travelers. Providing an unusual service creates buzz and can build loyalty.

USA TODAY | Monday 20 February 2012

Hyatt and Central Embassy Announce Plans for Iconic Park Hyatt Bangkok - Twisted Coil Design to Be Skyline Standout

Hyatt Hotels Corporation (NYSE: H) today announced that a Hyatt affiliate signed a management agreement for Park Hyatt Bangkok for Central Embassy, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Central Group of Companies. The iconic hotel will be located in a prime location in the city’s central business district. Slated to open in 2014, Park Hyatt Bangkok will be housed within a new, modern mixed-use buildin...

Hyatt Hotels Corporation | Monday 20 February 2012

Credibility In The Age Of The Incredulous | By Larry Mogelonsky

My first thought was one of doubt. From there, I started asking similar questions like, "How does one actually become a bona fide whiz in social media?" and, "What does it even really mean to be an SEO expert?" To answer the latter, is it simply a matter of researching the nuances of Google Analytics, reading industry blogs, knowing how meta tags work and being under 35 years old? Or, is there an...

LMA Communications Inc. | Thursday 16 February 2012

TripAdvisor for Destination Marketing Organizations | By Daniel Edward Craig

Over the past few years, TripAdvisor has been expanding its content offerings, evolving from a hotel review site to a comprehensive resource for planning trips. And while the majority of content is traveler-generated, if you're a tourism bureau you have a variety of options to contribute content of your own, to enhance existing content and to promote travel to your destination.

Daniel Edward Craig | Tuesday 14 February 2012

Creating social media champions and success stories with a meticulous approach | By Ritesh Gupta

IN-DEPTH: The process of nurturing internal experts that take care of social media marketing initiatives depends on several factors including the company culture, making social media intrinsic to marketing and a brand's business operations, and the model for social media communications that's been chosen for your brand.

EyeforTravel | Monday 13 February 2012

Time Hotels To Further Increase Ebusiness With Better Channel Management

Time Hotels, a group of small, independent hotels in France, has increased its productivity from third party resellers through the effective use of RateTiger's channel management tools. During 2010 the hotel chain installed RateTiger's channel manager into 25 Time Hotel properties with a strategy to connect to more online sales channels directly in order to better control of sales, pricing and pr...

RateTiger | Monday 20 February 2012

VFM Leonardo Helps Hotels Target Business Travelers

Corporate travel will likely fuel the hospitality, travel and leisure industry in 2012, according to a Deloitte survey. Specifically, 85 percent of business travellers surveyed expect to take more or the same number of trips this year. This presents a significant opportunity for hotels to win more corporate travel business in 2012.

VFM Leonardo Inc. | Friday 17 February 2012

TripAlertz Deal Distribution System™ Aggregates the Aggregators

The power of social media and the Internet, combined with travelers' endless appetite for great deals, is driving exponential demand for flash-sales and private-sales of hotels and other travel products. This has left the travel industry navigating the challenges that come along with this rapidly changing, booming new marketplace – a market that's ripe with opportunity, and which is the fastest-g...

TripAlertz Inc. | Friday 17 February 2012

RateGain's Hotel Rate Parity Trends - Middle East (Feb - Apr 2012)

Hotel rate parity trends for February to April 2012 of three, four and five star hotels across some of the major cities in Middle East. The report shows the percentage of hotels with cheaper rates on their own brand site compared to their rates on other OTAs.

RateGain | Friday 17 February 2012

RateGain's Hotel Pricing Trends - Middle East (Feb-Apr 12)

Data trends on cheapest hotel rates as well as median rate for three months of three, four and five star hotels across some of the major cities in Middle East. This set covers February to April 2012, taken on the 2nd week of February 2012 (all rates are in US dollars for two adults for a one-night stay).

RateGain | Friday 17 February 2012

Baird/STR Hotel Stock Index up in January

The Baird/STR Hotel Stock Index ended January with a 13.0-percent increase to 2,288. The index ended 2011 at 2,025. Robert W. Baird & Company and STR partnered to create the Baird/STR Hotel Stock Index-the first widely available U.S. hotel stock index in the hotel industry. The index combines Baird's financial markets expertise, the data processing of STR and the up-to-the-minute distribution cap...

STR | Tuesday 14 February 2012

David Scott has been named Lecturer at The Hotel School Sydney in Sydney, Australia.

The Hotel School Sydney begins the new academic year with an addition to the academic staff - Lecturer David Scott - whose teaching subjects will be Contemporary Tourism Issues and Conventions, Meetings and Exhibitions Management. Holding a Masters in Tourism and in the process of completing his PhD, which investigates everyday practices and how they construct and mediate tourism spaces and per...

Matthias Heck has been named Interim CEO at Steigenberger Hotel Group in Frankfurt am Main, Germany.

Arco Buijs, CEO of Steigenberger Hotels AG, is to leave the company by mutual consent. The differing strategic views with regard to future development held by Arco Buijs and the Supervisory Board mean that his contract will not be extended when it falls due for renewal in the middle of the year. Buijs will leave the company at the end of February 2012. Arco Buijs has driven forwards the inte...

Simone Wu has been appointed Senior Vice President, General Counsel & Corporate Secretary at Choice Hotels International, Inc. in Silver Spring - MD, United States.

In this position, she will provide leadership to the business as the primary legal advisor to the company's senior management team and board of directors, as well as serve as an integral part of the leadership team. As general counsel, she will advise on all legal matters including major domestic and international contracts and transactions, and matters relating to securities compliance, SEC fili...

Built To Last: 100+ Year-Old Hotels in New York

By Stanley Turkel
The thirty-two century-old hotels featured in this book have defied the passage of time for a variety of reasons, many explicable, some beyond explanation, all miraculous. For eighteen of them, it was the fortuitous creation of the New York City Landmark Preservation Commission in 1965. The landmarks law was enacted in response to the demolition of the iconic Pennsylvania Station in 1963. After 139 years, the following evaluation is still true: "New York is the paradise of hotels. In no other city do they flourish in such numbers, and nowhere else do they attain such a degree of excellence. The hotels of New York naturally take the lead of all others in America, and are regarded by all who have visited them as models of their kind." James D. McCabe, Jr. Lights and Shadows of New York, 1872