Lodging Leaders

Squeezing every last ounce of profit from a hotel’s top-line revenue has always been a challenge for hotel operators but the COVID-19 pandemic has tested the mettle of even the most savvy revenue manager. One trend hoteliers are debating is à la carte or attribute pricing for amenities and services that are typically rolled into room rate. Some hoteliers are giving it a go while others are in a wait-and-see mode. Episode 339 of Lodging Leaders podcast explores how the industry may unbundle services and find ways to tap revenue from guests willing to pay extra to craft their own stay experience.

In the course of her hotel career, Kate Burda learned the business inside and out, from Minneapolis to Miami. Along the way, she figured out that the sound and fury of the hotel business could truly signify something by focusing on a traveler's point of inspiration vs. a hotel's product offering. Susan learns how Kate's company helps hotels and other businesses ignite the connections between financial performance goals and sales and marketing strategies.

From the start of the coronavirus pandemic in early 2020, the hotel industry turned to technology to solve immediate challenges. The very nature of hospitality can make a hotel vulnerable to cyberattacks. As the industry adopts new technology to help it recover from the coronavirus crisis, the threats are greater and the number of attacks are growing. Episode 338 of Lodging Leaders podcast focuses on the pervasive cyber threats the hospitality industry faces as it deploys technology to modernize its business processes and improve guest experiences.

As a teenager, Cat Meek took any restaurant job that would have her, working her way to becoming a certified sommelier and manager of a "very fahhncy" restaurant. Over romantic dates spent writing the business plan for a future fine dining establishment, she met and married her husband, who was conveniently also a chef. Susan learns how Cat built a multi-unit restaurant empire by making the guests part of the story.

Susan Barry started her hospitality career sleeping in her car between parties as an off-premise caterer. Since then, she's worked with hundreds of hotels, restaurants, and other hospitality companies to improve commercial strategy performance, gathering a bevy of wild experiences and crazy stories along the way. Top Floor explores how hospitality businesses can tell their stories, with expert tips and entertaining tales from engaging guests.

In spring 2020, more than 1,700 hotels in the U.S. were closed as the coronavirus pandemic shutdown the travel industry. Eighteen months later, hundreds of hotels have reopened to a world still influenced by the ongoing crisis. In Episode 337 of Lodging Leaders podcast, we explore the challenges owners and managers faced in deciding to close hotels and what it took to reopen. We also talk to hoteliers who struggled with ramping up business at hotels that were at such low levels of occupancy, they might as well have been closed. And we feature owners who opened new properties during the pandemic.

As America approaches the 20th anniversary of the terrorist attacks on its homeland, Episode 336 of Lodging Leaders podcast explores the impact 9/11 had on the U.S. travel sector. We feature hotel industry leaders who were on duty that fateful day and can recall the shock of the attacks, how they cared for frightened guests and how the event changed hotel operations. They also draw parallels to the coronavirus crisis and remind listeners of the resiliency of the nation’s hospitality industry.

With 20,000 hotel owners as members, AAHOA is the largest hotel owners group in the world. But it’s not exercised the power that comes with size. Until now, that is. A new study by Oxford Economics reveals the membership’s combined economic strength, including the fact that members own 60 percent of America’s hotels. AAHOA Chairman Vinay Patel and other AAHOA leaders say the association plans to wield its might in forging a post-pandemic recovery that ensures everyone a more profitable future.

Although hotel franchisees’ discontent with the brands existed before the pandemic, the crisis has heightened owners’ fear and uncertainty of being able to stay in business and take part in the industry’s recovery. Episode 334 of Lodging Leaders podcast takes a look at how hoteliers’ dissatisfaction with franchise agreements is leading them to take drastic steps through the courts as well as turn to state and federal lawmakers for reform.

This week’s episode of Lodging Leaders podcast continues our report on how new and small franchisers may hold the answers to franchisees’ discontent amid the coronavirus crisis as well as the post-pandemic recovery. Episode 333 features leaders at Hospitality International Inc. and FairBridge Hotels International who share how the pandemic forced them back to the drawing board to build stronger and more sustainable businesses for themselves and their franchisees.