How can you, as a hotel executive, minimize the impact of snow on operations? The first step is to make snow and ice removal a top priority year-round, not just when the weather starts to turn cold. Hotels that experience the best snow removal efficiency are those that begin lining up contractors in the summer and fall. These hotel executives recognize that the best snow removal teams require a comprehensive knowledge of their parking lots - and traffic patterns - before it is buried under a mass of the cold, white stuff. READ MORE

Chances are you have rarely - if ever - heard love associated with any business, let alone the hotel business. The "L" word is too warm, too fuzzy, and too mushy. Business has to be hard-nosed, bottom line oriented. Right? Well, maybe that has been true in the past. But all that is beginning to change because consumers have changed. They are far more sophisticated and more demanding; they are no longer content just be satisfied. Your guests want to be WOW-ed. They want a great hotel experience. They want a relationship with the hotel brand to who they give their business. They want to love you. READ MORE

For ten years, MFHA has been promoting the concept of diversity and inclusion as a key management strategy in the hospitality and foodservice industry. During this time, we have seen significant progress made in the areas of minority worker recruitment, diverse and under-leveraged community marketing and minority franchising. According to NABHOOD (National Association of Black Hotel Owners, Operators and Developers) there are more than 200 African-American owned hotels. Consider that it was less than a dozen just ten years ago. Why has Black hotel ownership increased so dramatically? I believe that there are seven reasons for this success. READ MORE

Turning rooms into havens for spa pleasures is quickly becoming a way to generate additional revenue both within and outside of the immediate realm of your property's spa. Assuming that you are doing everything correctly to drive your spa, the suite is the next untapped and obvious choice to mix things up a bit. Promoting the spa suite concept is rather easily done but must be comprehensive to include guests, parties, corporate events and local guests simply looking for a new spa excursion. The best way to define your method of attack is to literally org-chart the pathways that lead to the ultimate sale to the guest. READ MORE

The power of a well-executed public relations plan can go a long way in promoting your brand, telling people what you are doing, and ultimately driving business to your hotel, all with more credibility than advertising and at a fraction of the cost. Building a relationship with your public relations team will allow you to be successful in these goals and bring you the fifteen minutes - and more - that your hotel deserves. What is public relations? Most immediately associate it with media relations, working with journalists to secure coverage about your hotel, a significant part of any public relations plan. On a greater scale, public relations encompasses all of your "publics," including new and repeat guests, employees, media, community and vendors. READ MORE

If you're like most hotel and resort developers, it is likely that your site(s) already have or will have a reasonably sophisticated exercise or fitness center for your guests and/or members. But have you considered adding spa services as well? Growth in the spa industry over the past five years has been dramatic to say the least. A few statistics are worth considering. The spa business is today the fourth largest leisure industry in the U.S. with over $11 billion in annual revenues. There are an estimated 12,000 spas in the U.S. (inclusive of resort and hotel spas, day spas, medical spas and destination spas) which is up 25% from only three years ago. Consumers can now find spa treatments at hotels and resorts, doctor's and dental offices, health clubs, airports, cruise ships and malls. Women account for slightly more than 70% of the market, but spa utilization by the male population has been growing at a rapid rate during the past several years. Currently, about 20% of all spa goers are 55 years of age and older, but the average age of the spa consumer is 40. READ MORE

I have coined the term "the Spa Effect"(TM) to refer to a major growth driver not just in spas, but in the wider personal care services market. That driver is the belief that an investment in a personal care regime, like an investment in a health care regime, is beneficial for well-being in the short term, and for the quality of life in the long term. Personal care regimes, like other regimes, are more effective when used in conjunction with products. Spas are one of the biggest winners of this new consumer attitude. The expectation of a beneficial payoff from a personal care regime is the result of a combination of a number of different factors and of social developments. Among these factors are the larger numbers of appearance-conscious but ageing baby boomers, and higher levels of health-awareness, along with knowledge of product development in related fields. The latter is due to the enormous media attention devoted to, for example, in the health field the "wonder drugs" (such as Botox and Viagra), in skincare to new anti-ageing products, and in food to the many nutritionals (that promise the added value of health). READ MORE

Top executives agree that the "good old days" of rewarding employees for 35 years of loyal service are a thing of the past. Years ago, individuals who had experience at several companies were considered "job-hoppers". Potential employers wondered what was wrong with them and why they couldn't hold a job. Today, changing jobs has become a necessity if individuals expect to advance their careers. The very traits that made them unstable are now hallmarks of a well-rounded, ambitious and assertive professional. Change and its associated risks are never easy. To quit or not to quit is often a gut-wrenching decision - requiring careful consideration and soul-searching. READ MORE

It seems to be an employer's dream come true: tens of thousands of resumes out there in cyberspace, waiting to be plucked. Need more? Then list your position on the Internet and They Will Come. Alas, while companies across the country have experimented and implemented electronic recruiting as a very beneficial and cost effective tool, results can be decidedly mixed for recruiting for all positions. In order to understand the potential and the pitfalls of on-line searches, those who are considering a cruise on the Internet may appreciate a few words of explanation first. Much of this business presence is found on the Internet, the "Yellow Pages" of cyberspace. All sorts of for-profit and nonprofit organizations have established Home Pages on the Web to promote their products and services (and, in some cases, to advertise for job applicants). READ MORE

Certainly, anyone who works in today's corporations knows that far too few employees are trying to do far too much work with far too limited resources. At some point in the last century, people were those companies' most important resource - but that was then and this is now, dude. If not ignored or placed on hold by corporate edict, hiring has become a necessary evil as opposed to a golden opportunity. And with every possible ounce of cost being wrung from corporate budgets, it seems to make sense to hire on the cheap: waste-not, want-not. This has led to the creation of computerized "vendor management systems" for personnel procurement; applicant-tracking software that classifies, files and retrieves r'esum'es electronically; "preferred recruiter" lists based largely on search firms' willingness to discount their services; increased reliance on online job boards, and so on. READ MORE

Chances are you've built or inherited a team that most days seem to work pretty well. Perhaps you yourself are a part of a higher team. Perhaps your team members have their own teams in place. Looked at from this perspective, the entire organization is a collection of overlapping teams - from the board of directors to the smallest sales office and production unit. The organization thus functions like a complex molecule, with the various teams as its atoms and each leader as a nucleus. And as long as any given team does not show obvious signs of radioactive decay, the comfortable assumption is that it's stable and performing as intended. Naturally, team members have their foibles. Tom, for example, tends to become passive-aggressive when assigned tasks he doesn't enjoy. Amanda is too inclined to criticize other members of the team. And Ed shoots first, asking questions later. How many - if any - of such foibles should be accepted as normal human behavior? And how are they affecting overall team performance? Could the team be doing better than it does? READ MORE

Professional baseball teams have developed a lucrative sideline letting middle-aged males sweat it out for a week at a real-life training camp. It's the dream of a lifetime for avid fans, and their mates pay dearly to send them, usually in honor of an otherwise depressing birthday. Travel with us instead to Fantasy Interviewing Camp, where Major League players make the hard-to-master process of candidate attraction and selection look easy. Note that we said "attraction" as well as "selection," because interviewing is a two-way street. It's great that you have chosen Mary as better qualified than Joe, but what if she has not chosen you? Oh, yes: And leave your baggage behind. If your organization is like most others around the world, interviewing is a hit-or-miss process, with more misses than hits. Let's take a fresh look. READ MORE

Recession and recoveries both have a way of sneaking up on the unsuspecting. With the benefit of 20-20 hindsight, government economists now believe that the current recession began the early part of 2001. In fact, the warning signs of an end to a decade of seemingly boundless growth stretched back to the previous fall, when various engines of growth began to sputter. Those warning signs included the implosion of the dot-com economy, lagging sales of telecommunications and computer hardware, a sagging stock market, the drying up of capital investment and the curtailment of corporate hiring. READ MORE

Organizations seldom set out to pick the wrong person for a job - but all too often succeed at that task despite themselves. When the hoped-for superstar proves to be not so super, or maybe just a poor fit, much of the benefit of filling the position has been lost. Last year saw a record number of new CEOs lose their jobs, as their Boards decided that one misstep was one too many. At lower, less visible levels the weeding-out process may take longer. But, sooner or later, mistakes must be corrected, or they will begin to eat away at organizational effectiveness. READ MORE

Is there a silver lining inside the clouds of the economic slowdown and the slow recovery out of recession hanging over the U.S. and other countries? Is a less overheated economy secretly good news for employers desperately seeking employees? As we all know the current Conflict with Iraq has put a major halt on economic growth. As layoffs increase the pool of unemployed workers, will companies have an easier time of hiring - now and in the future? Is it therefore time to slow down from overnight job offers and scale back those astronomical hiring bonuses? READ MORE