In an increasingly competitive hospitality environment, guest satisfaction is the basis of a customer’s loyalty to a brand and a hotel’s long-term revenue growth.
Indian Hotels Company (IHCL), India’s largest hospitality company, has partnered with ESSEC Academy, Singapore to launch a tailored leadership development initiative.
The digital shelf has fundamentally reshaped how hospitality products are presented and sold, and this transformation extends far beyond just revenue channels; it presents an unparalleled opportunity to radically redesign our workforce and job roles. In an environment where every product is digitally accessible and discoverable, the focus shifts from siloed departmental functions to a holistic, across-property experience management strategy. This isn’t just a strategic luxury; it’s a genuine requirement for delivering a comprehensive customer experience, unlocking significant revenue growth, and achieving true operational cohesion in hospitality.
When Dana Kelly, Owner of Penrose Hospitality Solutions, found herself wanting to pivot her career from working in behavioral health to a role in the hospitality industry, she didn’t know where to start. Setting out in an industry in which she had few connections or business acumen, Dana sought out tools to help ease the transition, leading her to NEWH, Inc.’s Martha’s Mentors program. It’s here that she was paired with Jeanne Varney, Senior Lecturer at the Peter and Stephanie Nolan School of Hotel Administration at Cornell University and Past International President of NEWH, Inc.
Twenty years ago, I walked into Visual Matrix with an IT background, no hospitality experience, and no real idea what I was getting into.
Artificial intelligence (AI) has revolutionized how we recruit and select talent. HR and hiring managers are no longer just recruiters. They are strategic supervisors of the whole AI ecosystem. The new challenge is to lead responsibly, ensuring that technology enhances rather than replaces human judgment.
The global hospitality industry is forecast to see its labour demand climb in the coming years, but persisting labour shortages and other challenges in hiring and retaining employees could make it very difficult to meet these needs. Hotels should implement innovative strategies to overcome the current barriers to successful recruitment.
Hiring in hospitality has always required a blend of instinct and insight. With evolving guest expectations and growing competition for top talent, it’s more important than ever for hiring managers to look beyond resumes to uncover attributes that truly signal potential during the interview process.
Women are the majority of professionals in key business travel industry roles – comprising 74% of travel buyers and over half of travel supplier (62%) and travel management company (TMC) staff (55%) – yet remain underrepresented in senior leadership and report lower satisfaction with career growth, compensation and work-life balance.
The hospitality industry is continually presented with the alluring, yet often ambiguously defined, promise of “all-in-one” technology platforms. This term of reference for ‘all-in-one‘ can mean so many things and are highly topical to the specific business footprint itself. While discussions often orient towards the front of the house, back-of-house ‘all-in-one’ has been a multi-decade aged capability that is frankly underutilized. The crucial point is that there is no inherent limitation to the breadth of what ‘all-in-one’ can encompass; the only true constraint is the depth of product capability within it. This is the essence of an all-in-one hospitality platform.
UN Tourism has launched its first-ever set of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) dedicated entirely to rural tourism.
When the lights dim and hotel guests settle down for the night, a different reality often emerges for female workers. For many women – especially shift workers – fewer daylight hours brought about by winter can increase risk of harassment, intimidation, or violence.
For much of the late twentieth century, hospitality education was a model of how academia could work hand in hand with industry. The UK led the world in creating postgraduate programmes that balanced academic rigour with real-world relevance, producing graduates equally at ease in boardrooms and hotel kitchens. These programmes nurtured qualities such as leadership, resilience, creativity, and good people management, essential to an industry built on human connection.
It’s not even 9 o’clock and your front desk manager is already behind. They’ve spent the day answering back-to-back questions from employees. A new team member asks where to find more printer paper. Another says, “A guest requested extra towels but I can’t remember what room they’re in.” A third employee wants to know if they can go home because they are overwhelmed and can’t handle the stress today.
Artificial intelligence (AI) is reshaping how organizations hire talent. Today, AI is not just a tool but a partner that supports and enhances human decision-making across all six distinct phases of the hiring process, from receiving applications to extending job offers (see Figure 1).
In a world where hotels, restaurants, and tourism organisations face unprecedented complexity - from digital disruption to climate challenges - Professor Ioannis S. Pantelidis of Ulster University invites us to look beneath the surface. His latest work, REEF: Transformational Leadership, draws on lessons from the ocean’s most adaptive ecosystems to inspire a new form of leadership - one that is rhythmic, empathetic, and resilient.
Negotiation skills are among the most underappreciated abilities in the hospitality industry, yet it shapes everything from supplier agreements to guest experiences. Understanding the nuanced art of negotiation can turn the average deal into an opportunity for value creation and a successful partnership. Here, we explore five basic rules to transform your confidence and results at the negotiating table.
Do happy employees make happy customers, or is it the other way around? Do happy customers make employees happy?
Meliá Hotels International, Spain's leading hotel group, with more than 400 hotels open or in development across over 40 countries, and recognized as Europe's most sustainable hotel company, also leading globally in several international sustainability rankings, reinforces its commitment to education and professionalization through a strategic partnership with Les Roches.
The man who helped create the iconic Las Vegas brand-ad campaign, “What Happens Here, Stays Here” has passed away after a 16-year battle with cancer.