December 2011

2011 Innovators DEVELOPMENT This past June, plenty of industry luminaries hopped in taxis in New York City and headed downtown. They were anxious to see the soon-to-open Dream Downtown hotel, the brainchild of prominent hoteliers Sant and Vikram Chatwal of Chatwal Hotels & Resorts. They weren’t disappointed. During a preview party and a subsequent star-studded grand opening celebration, invited guests got a look at an innovative design, complete with a rooftop swi

Ayelet Weinstein admits that when she started B Hotels & Resorts, the new boutique hotel brand that launched with its first hotel in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., earlier this year, she was looking at a different concept. When the organizers of the brand came upon the letter “B” they not only found their name, but also their concept. “It’s more than just a letter,” Weinstein says. “It’s a word that is very prominent in everybody’s language.” Since its launch B Hotels & Resorts has turned the l...

Healthy eating has been a global hot button in recent years. Anyone who has attended hotel-hosted conferences and corporate meetings has experienced food choices that are often high in calories and low in nutritional value. Frank Widmer, the executive chef at the Park Hyatt in Zurich, Switzerland, decided to make a positive change with a new, innovative healthy menu, called “Brain Food,” developed especially for business meetings and events. Working closely with a nutritionist, W...

Eco Serendib Villa and Spa, an eight-suite eco-friendly, luxury villa, debuted on St. John in the U.S. Virgin Islands in June. Harith Wickrema, president of the Philadelphia-based communication and event production company Harith Productions and a faculty member of the School of Tourism and Hospitality at Temple University, is the owner and visionary behind the property. Wickrema wanted to create an environment that would minimize the property’s carbon footprint by incorporating sustainable pra...

With the fragmented nature of purchasing in the hospitality industry, JoAnna Abrams and her team at MindClick SGM, a firm specializing in sustainable growth management, recognized the difficulties suppliers face when trying to convey the sustainability of their products to hotels. Similarly, hoteliers face the same challenges when attempting to portray their hotels as sustainable to guests and meeting planners. With that in mind, MindClick set out to gather suppliers in the industry to create the Hospitalit...

For hotels, sustainability begins at home. That means in order for a hotel to successfully reduce its energy usage, its employees must have the mindset to lead the way. Recognizing this, Motel 6 introduced its “Phoenix My Break Room” energy-saving program. The program is a contest held among Motel 6 and Studio 6 properties to help instill that energy-efficient mindset among its staff members. One location in each of the brand’s 10 operational regions earned the prize of a renovated break room m...

When Vantage Hospitality Group Inc. began in 1999, its principals were on to something innovative. Using a membership model as the basis for a new hotel franchise called Americas Best Value Inn, the new company—today, it’s the 10th largest hotel company in the world—began a journey to market a truly original way of running a brand. One of the founding partners and the man who would spearhead a marketing campaign for the new model was Peter Frantz. Today, Frantz still runs marketing for the com...

In September, when Hyatt Hotels Corporation introduced Hyatt House, the rebranding of 38 Hyatt Summerfield Suites and 16 Hotel Sierra properties it acquired from LodgeWorks, it promised something different for the extended-stay market. Designing that fresh look fell to architecture and interior design firm Stonehill & Taylor, and the firm delivered with a contemporary concept. “We were looking to create a sort of contemporary vacation house,” says Mike Suomi, principal and vice president of...

To get a step ahead of its competition, La Quinta Inns & Suites looked into the future and saw the solution in crisp, clear high-definition. In March, the company announced that it would make a $40 million-plus investment to install more than 50,000 Samsung flat-screen HD TVs in 383 of its corporate-owned properties. Now that the first phase of the project is finished, all remaining hotels across the chain are targeted for completion by December 2012. While many hotels are deploying newer ...

When Yotel New York opened in June, it came armed with an innovative solution to storing luggage. CEO Gerard Greene wanted to replace a boring administrative task with technology. Enter Yobot, a robotic concierge that uses its articulated arm to pick up and store guests’ luggage in one of 117 lockers. The new system builds on the Yotel brand’s existing high-tech features, like its fully automated guest check-in/check-out at airport-style, self-service kiosks.  Housed behind ...

It’s that time of the year again when the hospitality industry is set abuzz because of one word: Numbers. Budget season is in full swing for 2012, and in meetings across the country skilled professionals are seeking ways to increase profitability and reduce costs in the year ahead. Choices are everywhere. Can we reduce our labor costs? Can we decrease our operating expenses? The answer is a simple and resounding “yes”: focus on...

Over the past decade, hospitality providers have been engaged in an amenities competition and have taken drastic steps to remodel and revamp their suites and guestrooms to appeal to patrons desiring luxurious accommodations. Housekeepers, who clean 15 to 20 rooms a day under intense time pressures that characterize hotel work, are being adversely affected by the heavier, more cumbersome mattresses that have more than doubled in weight and thickness over the last 10 years. As a...

Exit interviews have been practiced for years throughout different types of organizations in the world, but occasionally some organizations need them more than others. Conducting exit interviews includes more than simply collecting company property from associates and figuring out where their last paycheck needs to be mailed. It is the company’s opportunity to explore why turnover is occurring in the department or in the company in general, especially in the lodging and hospitality industry. Accor...

Are front desk GSRs more skilled at booking rooms over the phone than hotel call centers? Should hotels utilize front desk GSRs more frequently instead of sending reservation calls to call centers? How many reservations are lost because of poor sales skills in the hotel industry? These are just a few of the questions a report from ContactPoint LLC and Dr. Robert Woods, Ph.D., of the Universit...

As the holiday travel season approaches, now is a perfect time to take a few simple steps to make sure the holiday cheer reaches guests on Facebook and other digital channels. Here are a few quick tips. Give your wall a holiday facelift. Show followers that you’re in the holiday spirit by sharing photos of your holiday decorations and special offers. Upload new pictures of your rooms decked out for the season, create a ho...

At The Lodging Conference in September, Tom Magnuson, CEO of Magnuson Hotels, announced a new venture and quickly had attendees at a briefing excited. That’s because Magnuson is now also heading up Global Hotel Exchange, a new independent, online travel agency, which promises to offer hoteliers cost-free distribution and the ability to avoid ever-rising fees and commissions. “Global Hotel Exchange is the emergence of a no-cost, OTA-level representation for hotel ...

“This has never been done before,” says Diane Morefield, executive vice president and CFO of Strategic Hotels & Resorts Inc., an owner and asset manager of high-end hotels and resorts. “It’s very unique.” She’s discussing the company’s recent balance sheet restructuring, which was recently finalized by the successful completion of its unique plan to purchase shares of the company’s outsta...

JANUARY Seeking Clarity Best Western International rolled out its first Premier properties as the calendar changed. The long await debuts were part of its descriptor program designed to clarify property expectations for guests. A Posit...

The upcoming year is projected to be a better and brighter one for the hospitality industry, but what are the new factors driving the market in 2012? The landscape is evolving quickly as new technology demands that hotels become more social and engaging in their marketing efforts, travelers are looking for the best value propositions, and consumer demand is pushing for hotels to make concerted efforts on property upgrades and improvements. To understand the market and to help hoteliers capitali...

In June, Vantage Hospitality Group, the company behind Americas Best Value Inn, Canadas Best Value Inn, Chinas Best Value Inn, and Lexington Collection, surpassed the milestone 1,000th hotel mark. And, by the growth plans laid out by President and CEO Roger Bloss and COO/CFO Bernie Moyle during the company’s annual conference at the Golden Nugget Las Vegas this week, that was just the beginning. As widely reported, Vantage Hospitality...