Cornell University Hospitality Research Center Announces Strategic Alliance with PKF Consulting - Joint Effort Will Focus on Use of Hotel Industry's Most Comprehensive Financial Database
Research Findings Will Be Disseminated by the Center for Hospitality Research
Ithaca, NY, and Atlanta, GA., The Center for Hospitality Research (CHR) at Cornell University and PKF Consulting's research affiliate, The Hospitality Research Group, have entered into a strategic alliance to develop research studies that promote further understanding of the various issues affecting hotel profitability. The research projects will employ PKF Consulting's extensive database of hotel financial statistics and will be conducted by...
"The sharing of this database underscores our firm's commitment to furthering understanding of the industry's most important measure - profitability," explains R. Mark Woodworth, Executive Vice President of PKF Consulting.
The initial study will examine the impact of labor-related investments on firm performance. The research will involve the development of techniques for measuring a hotel property's investment in its labor force, the rate at which those investments are being consumed, and an answer to which investments are more productive than others. The goal of this first project is to determine if investments in human capital offer increased value to hotel properties over time.
"Partnering with PKF Consulting enables researchers to explore key hospitality topics, since the database reaches back many years, and their detailed information, particularly that relating to same-store-sales data, is unparalleled," notes Cathy A. Enz, executive director of the Center for Hospitality Research and the Lewis G. Schaeneman, Jr., Professor of Innovation and Dynamic Management..
The alliance works as follows: PKF Consulting (PKF/C) has agreed to provide carefully controlled access to the information in its proprietary database. Cornell's research faculty will aggregate and analyze the data to examine important issues, such as those in the initial study. Through the Center for Hospitality Research web site and other means, Cornell will disseminate the findings for the benefit of the industry as a whole. PKF/C will also present findings from the studies during their numerous industry presentations. Under the agreement, the information in PKF Consulting's proprietary database remains confidential.
The alliance with PKF Consulting's Hospitality Group is made even more valuable by the fact that the CHR already has similar alliances with Smith Travel Research (for lodging data) and Gazelle Systems (for restaurant data). Thus, CHR-based researchers have a diverse and broad selection of data available for exploration. Already, the CHR has issued research studies based on the STR data relating to safety and security of U.S. hotels and to the effects of gasoline-price changes on lodging demand.
Based at the School of Hotel Administration at Cornell University, The Center for Hospitality Research conducts and sponsors research studies aimed at improving the hospitality industry's fundamental operating knowledge. Full details of the studies on hotel safety and security and on the effects of rising gasoline prices can be found on The Center for Hospitality Research web site:
PKF Consulting, and its affiliate companies The Hospitality Research Group and the PKF Capital Markets Group, provide advisory, strategic research and transaction-related services to hotel companies, institutional investors, hotel lenders, owners, operators, and to product and service providers to the lodging industry.