As we plow through the first quarter of 2018, the war for your top talent is well underway. Unemployment is below 5 percent. Employees have more options than ever for who they want to work for, as well as when, where and how they want to do the work than any time in history. The buzz on the streets from the HR world is: The gates are officially wide open. Which way will your employees run? As a hotel executive, are you prepared to win the war for the top talent? READ MORE

Impressions. Leads. Conversion. Bounce Rate. Hands up who is really obsessed in monitoring these social media quantitative metrics on a daily basis? Quantitative metrics tends to be the main priority when analyzing social media reach or success but there are some new key indicators and metrics that have been overlooked and can also be a key element for a successful hotel social media performance. Most hoteliers are constantly worried about the same old metrics and looking for benchmarks that can help them to monitor their performance successfully on social media. But what about qualitative metrics and sentiment analysis? Are they meaningful? Which ones to use? What can we learn from them? How can we measure them? READ MORE

Creating content is hard, especially with limited budgets, time, and resources. Not to mention, the content that your hotel is publishing is not only competing with content from other hotels but also with content from other brands, other industries - even users' family and friends. In the digital world, community managers are constantly trying to think of creative ways to attract and engage followers. As a social media manager, it is not always necessary to create content from scratch. Engaging content can be discovered and re-shared with your network. Often times, content curation can even be the key to increasing engagement. READ MORE

Designers and hoteliers know that while exceptional design is one component of a well-appointed property, luxury relates more closely to what guests see, touch, taste and hear. David Ashen, principal and founder of interior design and brand consulting firm dash design, shares how an elegant yet simple approach to design, moderate sensibility, exceptional service and the intangible qualities of well-considered, sensorial experiences are hallmarks of luxurious accommodations. READ MORE

Is the travel industry forgetting one of the largest untapped niches? With 320 million single parents worldwide, the single parent family travel is a untapped market begging for attention. Gone is notion that single moms are poor. We work hard and play hard, but we require something unique …..for the travel industry to market to us! See what single parents demand from single parent family travel authority, Hillary Bressler, who has her ear to the ground on what single parents want when they travel. READ MORE

All communication available on the web - whether feature length article, tweet, or guest review - is classed as content, and it is a powerful tool. Leverage this tool to your advantage and you have the possibility to enhance your brand reputation, increase revenue and grow your business. As the quantity of web information has increased, so has the search for authenticity. People are savvy to advertising and marketing strategies, and want to hear real voices, and real guest feedback. To really harness this, every hotel marketer needs to know about this one thing: 'earned' or 'user-generated' content. READ MORE

As the appeal of unique experiences continues to drive the success of the Travel-Tourism industry, hotels and hospitality brands must adapt to defend the current trend of industry success, engage with consumers by using a visual, personalized, experience-oriented language, and connect with 2018 audiences across a social media spectrum over-saturated by industry growth. With experience surpassing product as a driving factor, hotel and hospitality brands must address the change in consumer perspective by highlighting the personalized experiences of their brand and property. Perhaps the most successful tool available to hotels to convey and market these new, 2018 "destination" brands is the highly visual, image-sharing platform, Instagram. READ MORE

Social media has become the new norm for hotels when it comes to free marketing. It's easily accessible, there is no acquisition cost, and almost everyone uses some form of social media on a daily basis. Yet now, with the added competition of influencers, ads, and the high standards that have been set, this once "free" marketing tool has become anything but that. It can be difficult to quantify how much money you should budget for your social media platforms to market your hotel, but there are some methods that make it possible to get a reasonable estimate of your social media ROI. READ MORE

With 59% of marketers increasing their budget to work with social media influencers, Influencer Marketing is going to continue to grow. We will see hotels getting feature stories on top blogs and/or highlights on influential social profiles. There are a variety of reasons influencer marketing is taking over, including more compelling and entertaining stories told to a targeted audience as well as the increased ability to measure the impact and affect behavior and drive conversions. Whether or not you can increase your budget, here are a number ways you can increase the value of your influencer marketing strategy. READ MORE

The decision to appeal a hotel's property assessment for tax purposes is only the first of a series of judgments before the case is resolved. Who will defend the appeal? Based on what facts? How far is an appellant willing to go to gain a remedy for the assessment? In order to be successful in this effort, particularly if the appeal involves a large amount of money or is extremely complicated, the hotelier would be wise to seek out expert guidance. With this decision, new questions arise of where to find that guidance and how much it will ultimately cost. READ MORE

“Who are you wearing?” will again be asked up and down the red carpet this year during Hollywood's annual awards season. Big names in the fashion and jewelry world like Gucci, Carolina Herrera, Christian Louboutin, and Cartier are likely to be the answers. This may leave one to wonder - how are these high-value items protected when the celebrities are off the red carpet and back in their hotel rooms? And then, how do non-celebrity hotel guests ensure their higher value items are protected during their vacations and hotel stays? In this article, we discuss insurance coverages hotels provide or should consider providing to protect guest property - whether high value or standard, tips on how to mitigate risk exposure, as well as additional options for hotel guests to expand their personal coverage when they are on the road. READ MORE

What makes them even more attractive to the hotel industry is that they are nearly twice as likely to travel for business as Baby Boomers. In fact 46% of Millennial are willing to do so versus 26% of their older counterparts. This interesting statistic came of light from a study by the Global Business Travel Association. So even though there are technologies like Skype and Gotomeeting, Millennials want to meet face to face and their companies have the funds to send them on that business travel. Predictions are that by 2025, this group will make three-quarters of the workforce. Understanding and growing with this generation will make or break you in the hotel world of the future READ MORE

Social media has been ingrained into the fabric of our lives. For travelers, it has become an integral part of the guest journey during their research and decision-making as they book hotels. A typical consumer, when making a purchasing decision about booking travel, will have hundreds of touchpoints across multiple websites and social media platforms. Prospective guests use a hotel's video and imagery to get a deeper sense of what it would be like to experience a location, and they use the interpersonal aspect of social media to get feedback from others who've been there. READ MORE

There is no doubt that marketing for hotels has evolved over the years. Hoteliers have more options than ever to spend advertising dollars in both traditional forms and digital forms, so how do you choose? While there is a need for advertising methods through specific channels like billboards, Google AdWords, and TripAdvisor, none of these channels can simultaneously maximize your hotel's digital presence in the three important ways that social media can: by managing your reputation, marketing your property by telling your story, and targeting your ideal guest. READ MORE

For a hotel property, appearance in search results has long been a vital strategy for increased bookings. Hoteliers must stay competitive in search results on online travel agency (OTA) websites and TripAdvisor, along with traditional search engines like Google and Bing. However, there's a new frontier in traveler search behavior. Social networks are some of the most frequently used search engines online. When marketing hotels, traditional SEO practices are not enough to reach travelers. By participating in social networking, hoteliers can take advantage of some of the most used search engines and appear in the most engaging search results online. READ MORE