Just by the size of their numbers, millennials will have a significant effect on the hospitality industry. In the United States, there are over 90 million in this demographic, making them the largest generational segment with a spending power of over $200 billion. In terms of travel consumption, millennials will account for over half of all travel spending by 2020.
For the US Mountain region, and mountainous areas of the Pacific States, ski resort real estate markets are among the most luxurious in the country. The following is an overview of 10 year trends in sales, pricing and values as of the end of 2015.
As hoteliers, the biggest challenge is how to get customers in the door; making them a return customer is the easy part. So here are some ways to get your hotel's name out in the community, generate a positive buzz about your property and increase business.
Water is a precious resource. We drink it to hydrate our bodies. We irrigate our farms with it to grow food. We run our factories with it. We play in it for recreation. And we develop waterparks to attract tourists and vitalize our economy. In Colorado, where a lot of water originates in high country, there's even a water court and a judge to balance all these demands for water.
These days, the guest journey has grown more complex. On a typical day in 2015, millions of people worldwide will book lodging accommodations. The exponential growth of the internet and the use of mobile devices by travelers who shop, plan, and book online shines a light on the challenges hoteliers face in their fragmented, complex distribution environment.
I am a hotelier. Let's get that bias right out there. Everything I know and everything I do is focused on creating transcendent experiences for the guests who stay at my hotels. But unlike some of my colleagues in the hospitality industry, I am also a strong believer in the sharing economy. And I believe that rooms and cars are only the beginning.
I have long been a proponent for hotels discontinuing drip pricing or hidden fees, rather instead building some or all of those ubiquitous fees into the room rate. Like many, perhaps even most guests faced with the check out bill, I resent being nickeled-and-dimed or being charged for facilities, services and amenities for which I never used nor cared.
If you pay close attention the ebb-and-flow of rankings on TripAdvisor and other guest commentary sites, you may have noticed a phenomenon I like to call "summertime TripAdvisor blues."
Anyone who has faced the prospect of an international flight with an eight-hour layover in New York or San Francisco knows how valuable it is to rest in a hotel room versus a bench in an airport lobby, groggily awaiting a connecting flight. In most cases, however, that short hotel stay comes at the full overnight rate or in less-than-desirable accommodations. Launched in February of 2015, HotelsByDay.com (HBD) aims to change the model, providing convenience and efficient pricing for short-term hotel guests and greater returns for hoteliers
Today's rising popularity of all-inclusive resorts is directly correlated to the value proposition for the guest. The resorts that offer customized products and services with personalized experiences are beneficial to both the owner and the customer.
Direct channel bookings in recent years have become synonymous with online bookings for many hotels, but a closer look at direct booking data shows that for many hotels only 10-15% are web reservations and as much as 75% are voice channel. The outstanding growth in mobile search and planning has, rather than co-opting the voice channel, actually expanded it with click-to-call functionalities driving voice bookings. In 2013, Wyndham Hotel Group reported that for every booking via its mobile website, three are converted after a voice call.
Let's say hypothetically that you had no legacy commitments to OTAs and other commission-hungry third party relationships. (I know this is impossible, but bear with me for a moment.) Now, what would you do? If we make the assumption that you would still have guests, how would your service delivery change? What would you do differently if you did not have the pressures of margin-eroding distribution systems?
Want to know how to exceed your hospitality sales and marketing goals in 2015? Go ahead – pick a number between 2 and 4. If you choose the correct answer, 2015 WILL be the year for your success! Congratulations if you chose the number 3! There are 3 trends I saw in 2014 that are going to be even more important as we head into 2015. You need to know about these trends now and incorporate them into your work before we get too far into the New Year!
With the expansion of major national airports and airport passenger volume expected to increase over the next 10 years, examining the link to forecasting lodging demand is critical to understanding the airport-hotel relationship. LAX provides an illuminating case study. Airport passenger volume is a key performance indicator for an area's lodging market and tourism economy at large. According to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), 31 airports are undergoing renovation or expansion1, including major gateway city airports such as Boston-Logon, O'Hare, and Los Angeles (LAX). Additionally, passenger enplanements are forecast to increase 15% to approximately 857.4 million by 2020, according to the FAA's Terminal Area Forecast database2. With many of the nation's airports expanding and passenger volume forecast to register robust growth, it is important to understand how passenger volume can aid lodging demand forecasting. As a tool to understand this relationship, let's look at a case study of the Los Angeles International Airport (LAX).
We asked our partners at the Cornell Center for Hospitality Research to comment on what they are seeing in terms of trends that will impact the hospitality industry in 2015. Cathy Enz, full professor in strategy and The Lewis G. Schaeneman Jr. Professor of Innovation and Dynamic Management at the School of Hotel Administration at Cornell University has been doing some thinking on this topic, and gave us these 10 trends for our Analytic Hospitality Executives to focus on.
While my career did not intercept directly with the former CEO of ITT which owned Sheraton Hotels for a generation, I did work with many hotel managers and a number of regional directors who both appreciated and feared the management style of Geneen. He was the type of executive manager that, while appreciating entrepreneurship and taking calculated chances, was always bottom line oriented and believed in financial returns and accountability as the utmost in defining success.
Did you read that the old Knickerbocker Hotel (1906-1921) is about to open again as a hotel on February 12, 2015? This historic building opened as the Knickerbocker Hotel in 1906 with 556 rooms. Developers J.E. and A.L. Pennock originally financed the building in 1903 and retained architects Bruce Price and Marvin & Davis. Only one year later, John Jacob Astor IV, who owned the land, took over the troubled project. The interiors were redesigned by architects Trowbridge & Livingston and a three-story restaurant and bar was added with seating for 2,000 diners.
Executive Summary: All service providers seek to provide a comprehensive experience for their customers, with the goal of cementing customer loyalty and encouraging future purchases. In most services, we can identify core aspects (e.g., a good night's sleep at a hotel) and supplementary aspects (e.g., concierge and valet services). For professional sports, the core service is the sporting contest itself, but many other supplementary services may also be included. We use a comprehensive dataset of over 7,000 patrons of a major professional sport in the United States to determine how customers' satisfaction with core and supplementary services influence their intent to repeat a ticket purchase. We find that satisfaction with both core and supplementary services are important for loyal customers, but first-time customers tend to focus only on core service satisfaction when considering whether to purchase another ticket. One implication of this study is that firms should focus on their customers' full experience. Firms must first focus on their core services and then augment them appropriately with supplementary services.
As a Google certified partner, Vizergy continues to grow and evolve with the ever-changing marketing trends and practices. Exclusive insights and tools are provided to Vizergy straight from Google in order to meet specific goals and market demands. Earlier this month, a representative from Google met with our paid search analysts and several other members of our team for a day of training. The representative discussed several topics including: advertising on YouTube, the latest paid search optimization methods and products for our clients, and new beta products from Google.
This Thanksgiving holiday in the US was an eventful one for the hospitality industry. What got my attention was the Black Friday offer of $7 rooms on Hotel Tonight (my favorite mobile travel app). Important: Before you read this – No matter who got paid how much in the end or what the real breakup of advertised rate versus actual payment made by Hotel Tonight was was like. The fact is that the guest paid $7 for booking those hotels and that is what he/she will remember.