So, What Are You Seeing?
At this year’s Americas Lodging Investment Summit, the opening question in almost every conversation I participated in was “what are you seeing?”
By Jan Freitag, National Director, Hospitality Market Analytics, HotelNewsNow
Opinion Articles
Combating Phishing Scams with E-Pay Protection
In 2022, more than 255 million phishing attacks were reported by businesses—a 61% increase from 2021. However, as hacker skills become more sophisticated, cyber security and e-pay protection have become one of the fastest-growing fields of industry.
Use a Business Mindset: David Lund on Hotel Finance
David Lund, a financial consultant for hotels, shares his thoughts on how hotels should approach hotel finance software and tools, and the role technology plays in daily operations, highlighting the skills needed to succeed. With vast experience in hospitality operations, finance, and accounting, David offers his unique view on the hospitality business and advocates financial literacy for hoteliers as one of the most crucial skills to have.
By David Lund, The Hotel Financial Coach, David Lund
Exploring the Benefits of Switching to E-Payments
It's no secret that e-commerce has experienced a rapid surge over recent years, reaching a nearly 50% user penetration rate for digital commerce in 2020, and more skyrocketing growth throughout and following the COVID-19 pandemic.
Three Questions and a Funeral
The U.S. hotel transaction market looked to be downshifting as we closed out 2022. The first part of 2022 had 3 times the transaction volume (deals $10M+) of 2021 but the rise in interest rates has dramatically slowed the transaction lead volume in Q4.
By Jon Peck, President of Peck Hotel Consulting and active Consultant with Cayuga Hospitality Consultants, Cayuga Hospitality Consultants
You can’t direct the wind, but you can adjust your sails: financial planning for 2023
The last few years have been unprecedented, both globally and in the hospitality industry specifically. This means that extraordinary measures have been necessary for the industry to adapt, and a level of creativity and adaptation is still essential in all aspects of the industry, including financial planning.
By David Kasten, Hotel Finance and Asset Management Expert, Strategic Solution Partners
Maximizing Your Cash Back Benefits with E-Pay Software
From remote workplaces to the metaverse, the world of business is becoming more and more virtualized. Digital business models are taking over, and companies are being led to unique optimizations, such as automatization, data-driven decision-making, and streamlined collaborations.
Hospitality Financial Leadership – Why GMs Have Such a Hard Time Managing Their Financial Leader
This is not the case for all GMs, but it is definitely the case for many. The reason is simple: the GM has not been given any formal accounting training and they are intimidated by the numbers and their lack of knowledge.
By David Lund, The Hotel Financial Coach, David Lund
The Trifecta of Lodging Acquisition Studies
Congratulations! You have acquired a new Lodging Property. After months, or years, of due diligence, you have finally closed on your newly acquired Lodging Property.
By Walter O'Connell, Managing Director of Hotel Valuation & Cost Segregation Services, LLC (HVCSS) and a consultant, Cayuga Hospitality Consultants
ALIS Kicks off 2023, with Most Expecting the Year’s Best Days to Come in the Second Half of the Year
Another ALIS is in the books, and a busy one at that, with nearly 3,000 in attendance. If you weren’t one of those lucky thousands, here are our takeaways.
By Rodney Clough, President - HVS Americas, Denver, HVS
A Look Back at 2022: How M&A Is Shaping the Hospitality Industry
As the year comes to a close, 2022 could be argued as one of the most difficult years for business sectors. But for the hospitality industry, hotel owners, restauranteurs, operators, and global brands pursued new opportunities and grew their portfolios through mergers and acquisitions of other companies.
Understanding Hospitality REIT
The US government first established Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) in the 1960s, allowing retail investors access to the nation's vast portfolio of income-producing real estate assets. Since then, the REITs market has expanded significantly across many real estate asset classes, including hospitality. The first hospitality REIT (or lodging REIT) was introduced in the US in 1970, but this asset class didn't start to gain popularity until the mid-1990s when investors realized they could own and profit from lucrative hotel assets without having to spend a significant sum of money to acquire the asset.
By Dipti Mohan and Anand Rai
Hospitality Financial Leadership – Top 10 List for Controlling Hotel Expenses
The word “expenses” needs to be defined and refined for this article. Expense broadly refers to any cost a business has including payroll, goods and services and cost of goods, “the cost required for something; the money spent on something.” That is its definition according to Oxford Dictionaries.
By David Lund, The Hotel Financial Coach, David Lund
Budgeting For Luxury
The market is still experiencing short lead times and corporate travel has yet to fully return, all of which makes putting a budget together challenging.
By Alex Sogno, CEO, Global Asset Solutions
Hotel Budget Season: Are you Ready for 2023?
No time to lose, the next year is almost here. And a good hotel budget plan isn’t made overnight.
By Patrick Landman, CEO & Founder, Xotels
How Financing Costs Are Impacting Transactions
Commercial real estate financing, particularly related to the hospitality industry, has been in a state of flux as the pendulum of the economy swings towards a correction. At the start of the year, many lenders were coming back to hospitality, and the general sentiment for both investors and lenders was bullish. In late February 2022, the war in Ukraine drove increases in the prices of oil and goods that started to shift the global economic outlook, which many lenders and hotel investors cautiously watched, uncertain of the impact this would have on the U.S. economy.
By Brad Hoban and Emil Iskandar
In High Demand: Florida Hotels and Resorts (Again)
In an article we published in February 2021, before the COVID-19 vaccines were broadly rolled out, we suggested to owners of hotels in Florida, and waterfront hotels in the Sunshine State in particular, that their assets would soon be in high demand.
By Nick Plasencia, Managing Director with The Plasencia Group, The Plasencia Group
A Return to 'Normal' Hotel Trading in Europe Requires a Global Approach
Summer 2022 has seen a return to travel around the world, with leisure travelers eager to feast on foreign sights and a sudden explosion in accents in sought-after destinations such as London, Paris and anywhere sporting blue seas and relaxing views.
By Alex Sogno, CEO, Global Asset Solutions
Hospitality Financial Leadership – How to Write a Great Monthly Executive Commentary
They go by many names: owner’s commentary, monthly commentary, executive commentary and more. The names can be different but in essence, they are all the same thing – a review of the prior month’s results plus a forward look into the coming months from a financial and market perspective.
By David Lund, The Hotel Financial Coach, David Lund
Do your financial end-of-year prep now or forever try to catch up
In a perfect world, the year-end financial process should be no more difficult than any other month-end closing. But we do not live in a perfect world and although all these boxes should be ticked at the end of each month, there are times when it is just not possible…and before you know it, another month has gone by!
By Candace Marshall, Hospitality Finance Expert, Strategic Solution Partners