Marketing partnerships can provide multiple benefits. They can help stretch your marketing budget, expand your brand visibility, provide a low-risk test marketing opportunity, generate incremental dollars and create community goodwill, just to name a few. However these same marketing partnerships can explode and cost you unexpected time, money and brand credibility if they are not developed in a strategic manner. At m-k-t-g, we employ an eight-step approach to the development of strategic partnerships and marketing alliances to ensure that all parties involved receive a ROI that is favorable to both their brand image and bottom line. READ MORE

If you think your marketing efforts are finished when your guests walk through the front door, then you are leaving money on the table. Marketing initiatives that generated the guest booking are just the first part of the battle. Getting guests to spend money in your hotel throughout their stay is what drives incremental revenue and makes your marketing efforts a complete success. So how do you maximizing guests' expenditures? By using a touch-point marketing strategy. Touch points are opportunities for generating incremental revenue from hotel guests throughout their stay from the moment of arrival to departure. Touch-point marketing involves determining the message, identifying the areas of opportunity, developing a method of delivery and tracking the conversion rate. In a nutshell, you have to tell the guest what you want them to do, how you want them to do it, affirm that they have made the right decision and tell them thank you for their spending. In addition to driving incremental revenue, touch-point marketing is critical to building brand loyalty. READ MORE

As a major player in the Hospitality Industry, spas have become independent profit centers that justify their existence with bottom line income that adds to overall resort profitability. In addition, spas can enhance resort/hotel occupancy, length of stay and occupancy ratios. Spas also provide the type of experience that all guests want and hotels/resorts should strive to provide throughout the property - a memorable experience that is caring, warm, empathetic and creative. It is no wonder that the number of spas in hotels/resorts continue to grow at a rapid rate. The result of rapid growth, of course, is increased competition. The combination of intense competition, a very savvy spa clientele that demands exceptional experiences and mounting staff turnover requires a serious look at current spa operating and compensation models. READ MORE

Ultimately, planning and people create the profitability of your spa. Your spa profits are greater with a return of loyal guests rather than a return on investments alone. Add in the planning and the people to your budgeting process and you will see a greater customer base, soaring profits and best of all, sustainability. READ MORE

Having a diverse work force is extremely important for any business. A diverse work force is able to respond to your diverse clientele. They have a better understanding of your customers, while bringing new ideas and creativity to the workplace. Successful companies are also understanding that diversity must include lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans-persons (LGBT) employees, and that programs, opportunities and incentives must be put into place and exist for them as well. READ MORE

Spas are almost a rite of passage for hotels and resorts. Is your spa not only a rite of passage but also a financially successful asset to your property? A successful spa attracts guests to your resort/hotel, receives high acclaim from guests, contributes to overall guest satisfaction and desire to retire, adds revenue dollars to the overall property and strengthens occupancy rates. Financial success in the spa means that more guests are enjoying the spa's experiences and, isn't that why we are in the hospitality business in the first place? As you can imagine, this article is about numbers and how to raise them. READ MORE

Employers in the hotel and hospitality industries are not immune from the impact that the weakened economy has on employment-related decisions in the workplace. Often times, even decisions made with good intentions are met with problems and potential legal exposure due to the failure to strictly comply with an employer's obligations. In this article I identify best practices for hotel employers facing five employee dilemmas that can result from the current economic climate. READ MORE

While we all enjoy a luxurious night in a hotel, we rarely think about how it might impact the environment. According to California's Waste Management Board, the average hotel purchases more products in one week than one hundred families typically do in a year. One room can produce up to 30 pounds of waste per day. With numbers like those, we're happy to see a trend of more hotels going green and implementing eco-friendly practices that can significantly reduce global pollution. For most hoteliers, going green doesn't mean you have to tear down your existing property and start from scratch. Here are a few tips that will help your hotel spare the environment, and spare your bottom line: READ MORE

Condo-hotels, also known as condotels and apartotels, are taking the hotel industry by storm. Initially made popular in the Miami area throughout the 1980s, these residences are back in a big way, allowing biggest names in luxury hotel brands to create a whole new real estate market. By uniting the public's desire to invest in real estate with the travel industry's quest for new properties, the condo hotel has reinvigorated the hotel construction business, altering the skylines of gateway cities from San Francisco and Las Vegas to Boston and New York. READ MORE

There are probably scores of inventions that were made by "accident." This often happens when scientists and engineers are trying to develop a product for one purpose but find that it could be used for something else, sometimes something entirely different than what was originally intended. This is essentially how the most effective system to test carpet extractors was developed, and it has allowed hotel housekeepers to keep carpets healthier, cleaner, and Greener. And in this case it came about with a touch of science fiction to boot. READ MORE

Even realizing that the costs of going Green can be negligible and likely to be recouped fairly quickly, some hotel chains and owners still believe the only true value in going Green is that it is "the right thing to do," amounting to little more than a public relations marketing ploy. However, a closer examination appears to indicate that hotel users are increasingly asking for and selecting Green facilities. While guests may not always notice Green measures incorporated into a hotel property, they do appreciate them, and many believe it is now a requirement that major companies be environmentally responsible. READ MORE

A system that was originally created to set some standardized expectations for the hospitality industry and inform and educate the consumer has now mutated into one that does exactly the opposite. While Mobil will proffer its Star system and AAA will offer the comfort of the Diamonds, the truth of the matter is that it's the wild, wild west out there. Any property with an overeager public relations firm and an on-call poolside perspiration valet can stake a claim to star-driven fabulousness. READ MORE

As the definition of "green" intersects with "sustainable" and both mature in the marketplace, and it becomes abundantly clear that a "green" hotel needn't detract from the guest experience, it will behoove hospitality professionals to a) Get on the bus, as sustainable practices will be a required "cost of entry" practice in the future, not a marketing initiative; and b) Figure out how "green" can actually enhance the guest experience. READ MORE

To begin with, please excuse my mangling of the time-honored maxim "If at first you don't succeed, try, try again" in the headline. I fear I have taken what once were innocent words of encouragement to 19th-Century schoolchildren and turned them into some vague threat. The potential menace in my message, however, pales in comparison to that posed by disregarding it. Ignore the first "touch" you have with your customers at your own peril. As those who have regularly read my articles know, my roots (and those of my business) are firmly in the hospitality industry. Of late, those roots have extended to other sectors where the concept of "customer experience" has proven intriguing. READ MORE

Recently released unemployment figures indicate a continued rise in that cheery metric to 8.5-percent, a 25-year high. Even in light of some modest signs of life, the credit and housing markets continue to limp along as well. And despite the OK from President Obama to pursue business travel and corporate meetings, the damage may have already been done and those markets remained strained. Human beings, however, must travel and, in fact, are traveling. READ MORE