A major part of Best Western® Hotels & Resorts' (BWHR) evolution has been the emergence of hip and energetic boutique brands under its corporate umbrella, including, among others, GLō®. These new additions have played a critical role in contemporizing the BWHR brand and broadening its reach from economy to upscale with unique boutique offerings. The GLō brand has allowed BWHR to appeal across generations and tap into a demographic that they were previously missing. With a stylish, convenient and technology-driven design, GLō holds a powerful new place in the affordably priced, broad-midscale hotel market. READ MORE

Sam Moon Group's latest hotel development is the JW Marriott Dallas Arts District hotel in downtown Dallas, which will be the first JW Marriott hotel in Dallas. The 267-key hotel will be located at 2000 Ross Avenue and will join the Dallas Arts District, the largest contiguous urban arts district in the nation. The hotel's resort-style amenities, food and beverage options and luxurious rooms with sweeping views will draw visitors and residents to the new destination. The JW Marriott Dallas Arts District hotel is projected to open February 2022. READ MORE

Hotel operators may consider it wise to sign contracts with multiple vendor partners, but who benefits from this strategy? Hoteliers who are juggling conflicting relationships and a tangled web of tools? Vendors who lack access to each other's data, only seeing a piece of the operations puzzle? Or travelers, whose needs are ever-changing? The reality is that a strategy tapping the tools of multiple vendor partners may provide peace of mind for hotel operators, but it also creates an environment that often hampers growth rife with inefficiency. In order to remain competitive, hotels need to reflect on existing partnerships now. READ MORE

If managed strategically, social media can serve as an early warning system, alerting hotel managers of guest concerns and dissatisfactions before such guest discontent mushrooms to the point where it can seriously damage a hotel's reputation and eventually its profitability. To help prevent such a scenario from occurring, hotel managers can turn to technology known as social listening tools. These are applications that search the web for posts and comments about particular hotels. Once such tools are put in place, hotel managers can begin to analyze the results and then take remedial steps to quickly and effectively minimize any damage that might have occurred to the hotel. READ MORE

Online user reviews, on TripAdvisor, Online Travel Agency sites or Google, have become incredibly influential in terms of influencing where the customer books. Most people agree that they send a clear, unbiased signal to the marketplace about the quality of the hotel, and are much appreciated by customers as a valuable and powerful input into their decision making process. However reviews also have a deeper, more hidden value. Properly analysed, reviews can give you deep and meaningful real-time insights into what is important to customers in your marketplace and your relative strengths and weaknesses compared to the competition. READ MORE

A day in the life of a social media manager is anything but slow. But, it can be routine, stale, and tiresome. When that happens, a social media audit is a perfect opportunity to uncover hidden gems and rededicate your efforts to connecting with your audience. Whether you've got a dedicated social media team on-site, liaise with a contractor for social media management, employ an agency for campaign creation, or haven't touched your Facebook page in months - a social media audit can inject some inspiration and strategy into your social. For hospitality brands, there are a few specific boxes you must check to have the whole picture READ MORE

With the start of a new year, customer acquisition and employee retention are both topics of conversation around many board rooms. Brands that understand the challenges are; hiring consultants to educate them, creating strategic plans to implement, or holding annual planning retreats, to find new solutions. Everyone is looking for the secret to brand loyalty. It is no longer enough to attract the ideal customer; brands must find a way to connect with them emotionally, to turn them into raving fans. Not surprising, it seems the same is true for employee retention. Staff turnover, beyond natural attrition, can be largely attributed to a lack of appreciation or a toxic culture. READ MORE

Running a successful bar or lounge operation certainly has its challenges and pitfalls. Putting the right elements together in a package that appeals to your target audience and has longevity is in itself a huge challenge. If you can get this right, just enjoy the fruits of your labors and don't over think things. Chuck Kelley Partner, Cayuga Hospitality Consultants opines on experiences from his early days as a Lounge Manager and provides examples of what can make the operation successful in the eyes of all stakeholders and what are some of the pitfalls that can derail a successful operation. READ MORE

This article offers practical contributions for hotel executives at all levels of the hotel. Hotel executives will see how hotel leadership not only can directly support financial performance, but it can also cultivate effective technological initiatives, which will enable organizational processes within hotels. I also present hotel executives with a new idea in that when change becomes increasingly valuable, hotel leadership manifests as a catalyst to implement effective changes in hotels' internal resources. Hotel executives leverage positive effects on information technology. Thus, I provide evidence that hotel leadership is used in corporate infrastructure for technological decision-making. READ MORE

Year after year, companies invest in off-site meetings and events to better enable their employees to build in-person connections. Face-to-face interaction has consistently been identified as a critical component to company growth, employee success and overall productivity. In my role at Hilton, I am consistently asking for feedback from my team of sales professionals and our customers. From those conversations, we see several trending themes across the meeting and events industry that we expect will continue to grow in importance in 2020. Let's take a look at what these important trends are... READ MORE

Does it make sense to adopt outsourcing as a strategy? Does it have a future? With asset management becoming a critical stakeholder driven role in business performance, outsourcing has been given a dose of steroids. By marrying key asset management strategies in the execution of an outsourcing exercise, predications of success have become better. Thus, the way forward looks bright for outsourcing and other asset management strengthened strategies as they seek to deliver the year on year growth that stakeholders seem to be obsessed about. Stakeholders could be laughing all the way to the bank with this approach to return on investment delivery. READ MORE

Sage Hospitality, founded in 1984, is one of the more innovative hospitality companies when it comes to the historic boutique hotel market. Though Sage also does ground-up new construction, the historic properties that have been developed by the company are iconic. Examples include the Blackstone Hotel, situated overlooking Grant Park in Chicago and host to American presidents and gangsters alike, and Crawford Hotel at Union Station in Denver, which lights up downtown with its neon "Union Station – Travel by Train" sign, among others. READ MORE

Once your hotel has mastered social media monitoring, it is time to take your efforts to the next level. Social media listening is a proactive approach that allows your team to analyze what others are saying about your brand and your market. Effective social media listening can improve your hotel's social media account performance and enhance your entire marketing strategy as a whole while helping your marketing team make educated decisions that yield optimal results. Investing in social listening will help your hotel be in tune with how past, present, and future/ potential customers truly feel about your brand. READ MORE

In the world of hospitality marketing, nothing emphasizes a faster change in popularity or trends than social media. When brands strategize to secure business with a wide range of consumers, those who implement comprehensive social media strategies with newly launched, lesser-known or up-and-coming platforms are rewarded, while those sticking to traditional organic posts may earn a reputation as less hip and less accepting of a growing younger audience of travelers. Understanding the sleeping giants of social media - Reddit, Twitch, TikTok and GIPHY - will help the hospitality industry grow their social media savvy to keep and win customers in the social media age. READ MORE

Messenger services such as WhatsApp have become deeply integrated into most people's lives, being integral tools for communication and coordination. Given the widespread use of such apps, it is time to take a closer look at the possible impact this may have on the hotel industry. This article intends to lay out possible benefits and costs for hotels that are attached to integrating messenger services into daily hotel operations: although there exists a lot of opportunity in offering messenger communication to guests, the associated risks are not to be underestimated. READ MORE