On-Site Training: Always a Smart Option
Maestro promotes onsite training as superior to remote learning for hotel staff development, citing better engagement and real-world practice.
By Wendy Paul-Leonard, Senior Training Services Manager, Maestro
Opinion Articles
The smarter way to hire staff: rethinking hotel recruitment
Mews executives share how hotels can adopt tech industry recruitment practices, including employer branding, pay transparency, and social media channels to combat 70-80% turnover rates.
Why your team still holds the key to guest satisfaction
Shiji Q3 2025 data shows positive staff mentions boost hotel review scores by 0.5-0.6 points globally, proving human connection drives guest satisfaction even as AI handles routine tasks.
By Jessica Kurtz, Global Product Ambassador, Shiji
Team Building: Assembling Effective Teams
The article benchmarks successful hospitality companies like Ritz-Carlton and Marriott to identify team-building practices that drive retention and productivity.
By Robert O’Halloran, Professor Director, School of Hospitality Leadership, East Carolina University
How Hotels Can Be Advocates and Help Prevent Trafficking
The article provides hotels with practical steps to train staff on recognizing trafficking signs and establishing reporting protocols to protect guests and avoid legal liability.
By Lori Cohen, Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Protect All Children from Trafficking (PACT)
From Reactive to Resilient: Why Best Sales People Quit and What Sales Leaders Must Learn
My best sales person quits. Not for more money. Not for a promotion. Not even for a competitor.
By Muhammad Tanveer, Author - The Sales Leadership Brief (Linkedin Newsletter), The Sales Leadership Brief
Developing a Guest-Centric Culture: Training and Best Practices for Superior Service
Hospitality, at its core, is about making people feel seen. It’s about creating the kind of moments that cut through the noise of everyday life and lodge themselves in memory forever.
By Mychal Milian, General Manager, Waterstone Resort & Marina, Boca Raton - Curio Collection by Hilton, Hilton
The Five Rules of Optimizing AI in Hotel Human Resources
Think about all the things we say we want to do but do not have time for: follow-up calls to candidates, monthly wellness check-ins/stay interviews, individualized onboarding paths, coaching based on performance data.
By Merrick P. Dresnin, Chief People Services Officer, Cote Hospitality
How job seekers can succeed in AI-assisted hiring
As artificial intelligence (AI) has revolutionized how businesses recruit and select talent, job seekers must also adapt to this new reality. This week, we shift the focus from how companies and HR managers can lead the process to how job seekers can use AI strategically to enhance their success in the job application process while maintaining authenticity, integrity, and self-awareness.
By Linchi Kwok, Professor and Department Chair, CAL Poly Pomona
How Task Force Marketing Helps Hotels Bridge Staffing Gaps
The hospitality industry has long relied on task force professionals to fill leadership gaps in operations, finance, and revenue management. As we approach 2026, that same concept is gaining momentum within marketing and communications. It’s especially true in this discipline where continuity, strategy, and agility are essential to maintaining brand strength and driving revenue.
By Debbie Miller, Digital Marketing and Communications Professional and member of Cayuga Hospitality Consultants, Cayuga Hospitality Consultants
What Gen Z Wants from Hotels: Operational Insights for Hospitality Leaders
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.
By Bendegul Okumus and Omer Aras
Strategic Hospitality Workforce Redesign: Unlocking New Opportunities
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.
By Mark Fancourt, Co-Founder & Principal Consultant, TRAVHOTECH
Leveraging Mentorship for Hospitality Career and Industry Advancement
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.
By Jeanne Varney and Dana Kelly
What I’d Tell My Younger Self: 5 Lessons from 20 Years in Hospitality Tech
Twenty years ago, I walked into Visual Matrix with an IT background, no hospitality experience, and no real idea what I was getting into.
By Charlie Rhodes, Chief Operating Officer, Visual Matrix Property Management System (Image Technology Systems)
How companies and HR managers can lead in the age of AI-assisted hiring
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.
By Linchi Kwok, Professor and Department Chair, CAL Poly Pomona
How Can Hotels Step Up Their Recruitment Game?
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.
By Roger Allen, Group Chief Executive Officer, RLA Global
Key Attributes Hiring Managers Should Recognize During The Interview Process
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.
By Heather Berti, Senior Vice President of People Services, Arlo Hotels
What Type of Business Do You Want to Run? The Choice Between Cohesive and Disconnected Hospitality
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.
By Mark Fancourt, Co-Founder & Principal Consultant, TRAVHOTECH
As Nights Grow Darker: Using Gender Impact Assessments to Protect Female Employees in the Hotel Industry
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.
By Gillie O’Rourke, President Elect, Soroptimist International Great Britain and Ireland
Why Hospitality Education Needs a Reality Check
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.