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 ...

"We are a company of people, and there is nothing more important than our associates' health and well-being," said HEI CEO Gary Mendell during the announcement. "Health and wellness spans so many things in life and touches so much. It affects us at home, and at work. It affects our relationships, the quality of the time we have with our families, and the choices and opportunities we have in the f...

Nestled in the heart of the 8th district, in one of the most popular Parisian avenues, the Clarion Collection Etoile Saint Honore hotel is composed of 85 recently-renovated rooms and suites, a breakfast room, a private car park and one fully-equipped meeting room for up to 80 people.

Officials of Gemstone Hotels & Resorts, a full-service hotel management company that specializes in luxury and upscale urban hotels and resorts, today announced the company has assumed management of the storied Copley Square Hotel in Boston. Originally built in 1912, the boutique urban hotel recently completed a nearly $20 million renovation that completely restored and updated the iconic propert...

With the highly anticipated debut of Aloft Bogota Airport in Colombia this past December 10th, and Aloft San Jose, Costa Rica opening on February 1st 2012, Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, Inc. brings its sizzling “style at a steal” Aloft brand to Latin and Central America for the first time. Aloft’s South American premiere means the brand is now represented on four continents.

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.

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.

In a recent video, one of the most powerful CEOs in the world, Marc Benioff of Salesforce.com, not only mentioned Corinthia Hotels, but showcased the group as an example of a brand that “gets it.” “[Corinthia Hotels] tweeted right back, engaging in a direct conversation with me. This is a unique opportunity for service that other companies should learn from.” It’s hard to put a value on exposure ...

SuiteLinq Inc., the leading single-source provider of in-room, on-site and mobile content, connectivity and commerce to hotels, is introducing a new arsenal of enterprise-wide digital services for 2012 that will engage hotel guests in the brand's experience via IPTV, IPVOD, Mobile, Desktop, Laptop, Tablet and Microsoft Surface™ technologies. All guest touch technologies - free-to-guest IPTV and I...

PAR Springer-Miller Systems, Inc. (PSMS) --- a wholly owned subsidiary of PAR Technology Corporation (NYSE:PAR) and the leading provider of guest-centric hospitality management systems and Personality Hotels, San Francisco's first boutique hotel company, today announces the successful deployment of the ATRIO™ Guest Experience Management platform at the Hotel Diva in San Francisco, California.

Worldwide travelers tired of inflexible and impersonal corporate procedures will see hospitality back in the hotel business, when Global Hotel Exchange premieres a set of industry defining 'customer-first' features this March.

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...

The U.S. hotel industry experienced increases in all three key performance metrics during the week of 29 January-4 February 2012, according to data from STR. In year-over-year comparisons for the week, occupancy was up 5.5 percent to 51.7 percent, average daily rate increased 3.1 percent to US$100.45 and revenue per available room was up 8.7 percent to US$51.98.

In Cairo, Egypt, where protests have been widely broadcasted, occupancy declined by 29.5 percentage points to 36.1 percent in 2011 and average daily rate (ADR) declined by 3.3 percent to EGP706.26. In the usually popular leisure destinations of Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt, and Hurghada, Egypt, occupancy reached 48.1 percent (-38.6 percent) and 57.2 percent (-28.7 percent), respectively. Unlike Cairo, ...

With more than 24 years of hospitality experience, Jay Spurr will lead the hotel's sales and marketing team as the Director of Sales and Marketing for the JW Marriott Austin. Spurr left his position as the Director of Sales and Marketing of the Chicago Marriott Magnificent Mile to join the hotel's team. Spurr, who started the position in November, said he's thrilled to build strong partnerships ...

Michael is an experienced hotel operator and has held several senior management positions at Kempinski Hotel Group. He joined Marco Polo Hotels in 2010 as Hotel Manager of the Gateway Hotel, Hong Kong and in his newlypromoted post as General Manager of the Marco Polo Changzhou; he will oversee the preopening activities of the group’s 7th hotel in China. Prior to joining Marco Polo Hotels, he was ...

Marco Polo Hotels is pleased to announce the appointments of a number of senior executives at the soon-to-open Marco Polo Changzhou, effective immediately. Andy Zheng has been appointed Director of Human Resources. Andy has almost 16 years of working experience with various luxury international hotels, mainly involved in the pre-opening projects and Human Resources management. Prior to joining t...

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