You don’t need to be Norman Vincent Peale to appreciate the power of positive thinking. You only need to see how negativism can lead to ugly self-fulfilling prophecies. This is a good lesson everyone in the hotel business—especially owners and...
The good news is the election is over. The bad news is for most in the industry, the wrong guy won. At least the political phone calls and TV commercials will finally stop. So will the waiting and worrying about who will be elected. We now know we...
The TV and web images coming from the Northeast last week were chilling in their likeness to other recent natural disasters such as Katrina and in previous crisis situations in New York City, 9/11 being obvious one. And while millions of people...
Last week’s announcement by the Aparium Hotel Group for a boutique hotel in Covington, KY was something I heard whispers about at the Lifestyle/Boutique Hotel Development Conference in Miami Beach a few weeks ago. The 107-room, $25-million project...
Hurricane Sandy has pummeled the eastern U.S., and like other businesses in the region, hotels are in the midst of dealing with the storm. And like all natural disasters, Sandy represents contrasting, and sometimes conflicting, emotions for...
After introducing the term “brandhearted” at last year’s annual conference in Las Vegas, InterContinental Hotels Group CEO Richard Solomons took it a step further in April when he hired Larry Light as IHG’s chief branding officer. ...
For years, the hotel industry has heard it would soon become obsolete (at least the meetings side of the industry), as business would increasingly be conducted through some form of videoconferencing. That’s never happened and never will. While...
What Ian Schrager and Bill Kimpton started 25 years ago on opposite ends of the country in gateway cities like San Francisco and New York has now met in the middle. Independent boutique hotels can work — and thrive — in cities like Milwaukee, and...
The hotel industry is heading for big trouble if it doesn’t get the issue of guestroom security under control. As you’ve probably heard and read, a group of supposedly peace-loving hackers have found several ways to circumvent the electronic locks...
The best part of my job isn’t visiting a lot of fabulous hotels and meeting top-notch lodging executives (although it’s a great perk). It’s working and interacting with college students at some of the best hotel schools in the country. Over the...
