Hotel Industry News Archive for 2009

Union contracts covering 30 hotels and more than 6,000 workers in downtown Chicago expired on August 31, 2009. Contract negotiations between Unite Here Local 1, Chicago's hospitality workers union, and the area's largest hotel employers, Hyatt, Hilton, and Starwood, began earlier this month and remain far from settlement.

CHART Celebrating 40th Anniversary Year in San Francisco and New Orleans

As a hotel owner or lender with a distressed property in the worst business environment for more than 70 years, you have a decision to make. Do you sell the hotel now at a deep discount, or do you hold on for things to get better? How long does it take to market a property in this environment?

IHG (InterContinental Hotels Group) and the University of Oxford have joined forces to accelerate vital and innovative research into conservation, with IHG pledging up to $1million over a five year period to help Oxford increase its research capability. IHG will use this research to inform its future hotel design and operations.

In view of the current influenza A(H1N1) pandemic, UNWTO held a two-day review and preparation exercise on 'Travel and Tourism under Pandemic Conditions' in Madrid 26-27 August. The workshop was convened to anticipate the challenges the virus will bring over the next few months and ensure that the travel and tourism sector is fully prepared for the evolving pandemic.

2009 will likely rank as one of the worst years for the United States hospitality industry in modern history. The week of June 27, this drop off entered a dangerous new phase - when compared to the same week, year over year, the national hotel average room rate began to fall more rapidly on a percentage basis than the average hotel occupancy percentage. This trend has now continued over the past eight weeks.

New York City consistently ranks as one of the top U.S. destinations for NTA tour operators, but this visitation is likely to be impacted with today's expansion of hotel room occupancy taxes to include remarketers.

In an age of economic and political turmoil, hospitality executives must plan for business conditions one, five, or ten years ahead. But how can anyone anticipate events such as the global economic collapse of 2008? In Hospitality 2015: The Future of Hospitality and Travel, a new book published by the American Hotel & Lodging Educational Institute (EI), two leading futurists and a hospitality educator offer a primer of business forecasting, then apply their methodology to identify trends and extrapolate likely world and industry developments and events based on those trends.

I want to share important tips on how to make relationship selling calls that drive maximum loyalty. A transaction sales call is one where you are under the gun to make an impression, get in and get out...phones are ringing, people are standing in line to possibly buy your product or service and time is of the essence.

The role of user-generated reviews is exploding. Nearly 1 of 5 travelers say they read online guest reviews of hotels before booking, and about 1 in 10 travelers will write a review after their stay. The percentage of travelers who read reviews prior to booking a hotel has remained stable for the past year, but the number of persons who are writing reviews about their hotel stay is rising.