Austin Hospitality Blog

I am not entirely sure Hilton’s re-launched meeting incentive will necessarily generate any additional corporate travel, but it is nice that the consumer will be able to see greater valve added to their contracts.  Although I am indeed a firm believer of the necessity of meeting face to face I do find it ironic that the research is in fact benefiting the hotel industry in general.  I recently read of another study preformed by an airline company that came to the same conclusion and I chuckled a bit at the sheer convenience of it all.  Can’t say that I am going to complain about any piece of research encouraging travel though!

As it launches its new ‘1 in 5 go free’ meetings promotion, Hilton Hotels has conducted research that shows face-to-face meetings are far more effective for business than the increasingly popular ‘virtual alternatives.’

Hilton’s international marketing research team conducted a study looking at the impact of the recession on business travel, surveying 600 executives from France, Germany, the United Kingdom and the United States.  According to 83% of the respondents, developing personal relationships remains one of the most important elements of doing business and is impossible without meetings, and almost 50% believed that video conferencing and web based meetings are a poor substitute.

Recent changes in company travel policies have seen business trips and events cancelled or reduced and there is a major concern that business performance may suffer as a result.  In the survey, more than 20% indicated that external meetings had been reduced and half of those respondents noted that staff morale is in decline. Overall, two-thirds of the 600 people surveyed said that business travel can increase motivation, performance and teamwork and raised concern regarding an over reliance on technology that could reduce business efficiency.

The results support an academic paper commissioned by Hilton entitled ‘Why Face-to-Face Business Meetings Matter’ published by Professor Richard D. Arvey PhD, Head of the Department of Management and Organization at the National University of Singapore. The paper addresses the business and psychological values derived from face-to-face meetings. Dr Arvey concludes that meetings definitely matter to the modern business and whilst companies are increasingly relying on ‘computer-mediated’ channels such as email or the Internet, they should be careful to ensure that they are still selecting the most appropriate medium for their business discussions.

Speaking about his research Dr Arvey said, “Current trends suggest that face-to-face meetings are increasingly being substituted by virtual alternatives, but research shows that face-to-face meetings provide many positive effects compared to computer mediated alternatives. It is my belief that eliminating face-to-face meetings would be a mistake for businesses because of the variety of positive psychological as well as general business outcomes that meetings can offer corporations.”

The research also highlighted key differences between nationalities, with 90% of those French and Germans surveyed viewing personal relationships as key to doing business, compared to 83% for the UK and 75% for the USA. Additionally, 57% of French and Germans believe technology is a poor substitute for face-to-face meetings, versus 50% of Brits and only 36% of Americans.

The Hilton Family of Hotels has re-launched one of its biggest ever meetings promotions to help organizations continue to hold face-to-face meetings at a time when budgets are tight. The promotion allows up to 20 meeting attendees to go free at meetings held until March 31_^st 2010 at more than 180 participating Hilton Family hotels  - bookings just need to be made before the December 4th 2009.

One in every five attendees booked will not be charged the hotel’s regular meeting rate, so that for a meeting of 10 people, two attendees are free, right up to a meeting of 100 attendees where 20 are free.

According to James Farrow, Senior Vice President Sales for Hilton Family of Hotels, “Our research clearly shows that face-to-face meetings are still the most effective means of business communication, and we hope this ‘one in five’ promotion makes external meetings more affordable for our customers. Businesses should not have to compromise on how or where they hold their next meeting, and we want to offer the best value for customers, whether they need a meeting space for 10 or 1,000 delegates.”

The offer is available for meetings and events to be held up to March 31_^st 2010, both residential and non-residential, and must be booked and confirmed between August 25 2009 and December 4 2009.  With this promotion conference bookers can also earn Hilton HHonors Event Bonus points.

Examples of how bookers can save:

• A group of 20 attendees is booked at a Hilton Family hotel that charges a meeting fee of $50 per attendee. Four attendees are free, offering a saving of $200.
• A group of 60 attendees is booked for an overnight stay at a Hilton Family hotel that charges a guest room rate of $180 per attendee. Twelve attendees are free for the night, offering a saving of $2,160.

Many companies expect to increase travel spending next year from what is expected to remain a craterous 2009, but some industry players are convinced it will be a matter of years before they resume pre-recession levels, according to speakers at last month’s National Business Travel Association International Convention in San Diego, conversations with industry buyers and suppliers and recent surveys of corporate travel managers.

The industry consensus is that the recession’s bottom has been reached, but that it likely will be a long slog out—particularly as corporate travel this year has continued to lag other major travel segments in showing signs of recovery.

“We want to be optimistic about some of the upward trends we’re seeing,” said Sabre Holdings chairman and CEO Sam Gilliland, “although what we could be experiencing is just bumping along the bottom. Considering where we’ve been, bouncing along the bottom isn’t such a bad thing, frankly. We are beginning to be encouraged.”

According to a UBS survey of 61 large-market travel buyers released last month, the median air spend this year has fallen between 30 percent and 40 percent—leaving a deep hole from which the corporate travel industry must climb.

Continental CEO Larry Kellner during a general session at the NBTA convention, which also featured Southwest CEO Gary Kelly, said he has seen the impact. “Our business travel’s been down in the 30 percent level the last couple months,” Kellner said. “It’s a little better than where it was in April and May. I would tell you that a couple of points don’t make a trend yet, but we do feel some sense that things have stabilized.”

According to a research note by UBS airline analyst Kevin Crissey, “More firms expect their air spend to increase rather than decrease in the remainder of the year, but most think the trend will remain the same.” In fact, 72 percent of respondents to the UBS survey said air spend would keep its sluggish pace for the remainder of 2009. Similarly, in a Topaz International survey of 260 travel buyers released last month, only 28 percent expected business travel spend for “the balance of 2009″ to increase.

“It’s very typical in a recessionary environment to see a drop in business travel. We’ve definitely experienced that,” said Southwest’s Kelly. “We’ve seen some markets off as much as 25 percent to 30 percent. We’re not seeing that much of a return in the business travel market yet, but at least things aren’t getting worse overall.”

Kellner said Continental—like other carriers—is treading with caution into the fall shoulder season, awaiting a better read on whether business travelers come back in any meaningful way.

“Business travel has traditionally started up about the second week in September, so we’re just getting to the point where we’re seeing the bookings for that business travel,” Kellner told conference attendees. “We’re very interested to see what happens in the middle of September and in October.”

Asked when they expect their firm to “spend meaningfully more on air travel,” 35 percent of the respondents to the UBS survey answered that there is “no pickup in sight,” though 33 percent said it would occur in the first half of 2010.

Most corporate travel buyers expect their company’s travel spending to increase or stay the same next year compared with 2009, according to the Topaz International survey. Of the respondents, 49 percent said their companies would spend more on business travel in 2010, while 41 percent expect spending next year to be about the same as in 2009 (see chart, page 1).

“I think it’s too soon to call it a turnaround, and I know everybody is talking it up and hoping Q3 will show some growth,” said Travelport GDS president and CEO Gordon Wilson. “It doesn’t seem to be getting any worse, so perhaps it’s plateaued, but I think it’s too soon to say that it’s turned.”

Wilson, speaking with Business Travel News during the NBTA conference, said that as the year progressed, the trends have stabilized. While Travelport GDS bookings in North America were down 16 percent in the first quarter year over year, Wilson said bookings were down 11 percent in the second quarter. Wilson said booking trends suggest the industry is “on the bottom, with a marginal pickup.”

Still, like the airlines, Wilson noted that leisure travelers are the primary reason the decline in bookings has been stanched. “Corporate travel in America—the big travel management companies—remain the largest in year-over-year declines,” Wilson said. “It seems to be stabilizing, but hasn’t turned the corner yet. The big regionals are doing a bit better from a volume perspective, which you kind of expect because the bigger corporates have been much more draconian in cutting costs.”

Several travel management companies said that for the most part the bleeding stopped over the summer months. Yet, except for isolated cases, their clients are cautious about strongly increasing their travel and will remain so until at least budgets are set for the upcoming year.

Carlson Wagonlit Travel president Jack O’Neill said transaction deterioration started to level off in March, yet there hasn’t been much of a steady move upward as most clients indicate no travel growth in 2009. “In June and July, we saw transactions in our U.S. commercial business increase a little, but I don’t know if I would get all excited about it. In terms of internal business planning, we’re not expecting it to come back until the second half of 2010.”

Orbitz for Business president Frank Petito said things “are thawing a little bit with signs of improvement. It’s going to be a bit of a rough year. Even if the switch was flipped and the recession was behind us, people would still be cautious. It’s a little bit better, but I don’t know if we are ready to start breaking out the champagne yet.”

For HRG North America, the positive signs first seen in the spring have not come without speed bumps. TMC president Tom Gleason said that for every few weeks of increases comes a week of transaction softness.

Egencia’s business is down 20 percent, year over year, according to senior vice president of North America Pam Keenan Fritz. While the TMC has seen increases in its meetings and incentives business with bookings for 2010 and 2011 rising, its transient business provides a less clear picture. “A lot of CFOs and CEOs will spend early fall going through the financial planning process, and until the results of that are done and the plans are set for 2010, people are still nervous about traveling,” she said. “Once businesses set their objectives for next year, it will be very clear to travel managers and travelers what is on the table and what’s not.”

Though the industry has seen a few positive indicators, executives are quick to note that comparisons get more difficult as the year moves on, as the year-over-year trends begin to lap the abysmal corporate travel declines that began late in 2008.

“You do have to do quite a bit of work to ferret out the noise of the year-over-year comparisons, but a couple of months don’t make a year,” Gilliland said. “We’ll remain hopeful, but in the meantime we have to remain realistic that, particularly for corporate travel, it will be a long time before it comes back to the levels it was at. I see more gradual improvement over the next couple of years. It may be five or six years, but it will come back.”

It doesn’t matter if you like Change or not. When it blows, there is nothing you can do to stop it. You can pretend that it won’t affect you and that you don’t need to change because you are who you are or because you have been so successful for years, but Change will just laugh in your face and sweep you aside. You can ignore this, if you wish, but very significant changes are coming to the nature of the guest experience and how it will be created. Traditional hotel chains will not survive if they are intransigent to change.

The current chain hotel group concept of cloning an emotionless, spiritless, corporate SOP template to every hotel in the group will die out in a few years, along with the hotel groups that refuse to give it up. Because it is so easy to create hotel chains that are based on an infinitely variable concept of spiritual hospitality, those hotel groups that choose rigidity, conformity, and tradition over the INFINITE possibilities resulting from the freedom of the human spirit, will be blown aside by the ever-quickening winds of change. People are tiring of this SOP template as global social and economic changes bring with them ever stronger emotional and spiritual needs that the SOP template cannot meet.

Did you know that by changing the way you develop your staff, you can increase manifold the desire to show love to the guests and to make them happy, and increase the energy that the human body’s energy field gives off? I’m sure that some of you are thinking, “Oh that’s New Age nonsense.” Maybe you don’t realize it, but you are already trying to do this in your spas. It just hasn’t occurred to anyone, it seems, that you can apply this to transforming the whole hotel guest experience.

Indeed, even big hotel groups that refuse to change could be relics nicely exhibited in the Museum of Hospitality within only a few years. Change will start to come quickly now as the global economy recovers because hotels and small hotel groups will be thinking about what they can do from now on to improve their chances of survival and financial success. Copying the hospitality concept and methods of the big chains is and was obviously not a wise strategy.

Once one hotel group makes the change to spiritual hospitality, the rest will follow; except the die-hards, of course. A lot of momentum will be created when the corporate office of a medium-sized hotel group decides to give it a try, and creates a guest experience throughout the Group that is dripping in spiritual values. It will discover that whatever level of spirit it wants to create, it CAN create because we are human beings endowed with unlimited spiritual capacity. We are not people that can be squeezed into the narrow confines of a corporate SOP template.

Hotel group corporate offices should just let their imagination go about how much loving-kindness, warmth, and compassion they want to have in each of their hotels, and it can be created. The only obstacle to creating those as yet uncreated higher levels of guest experience above 5-stars is one’s imagination. You just have to do things differently to create it, that’s all. You surely don’t think that hotels will still operate according to a spiritless, corporate SOP template in, say, 10 years time, do you?

We are made to exude unlimited amounts of love and heart-warming care, but the traditional concept of hospitality and approach to creating it, which just won’t lie down and die, constrict the human spirit so much that staff cannot be their true selves.  Perhaps there are too many old men in corporate boardrooms and not enough women. If you want change, give the job to women, and then get out of their way.

Here is another idea that will have the conservative corporate folks quivering with horror. Watch that glass of Cognac, sir! … A corporate office can create throughout the Group a level of guest experience that does not exist without rolling out a corporate template that has to be cloned. In spiritual hospitality, the corporate office just needs to point its hotels in the right direction and create a minimum standard while dumping the concept of conformity in the corporate bin. A hotel group does not need conformity to an SOP template to be a united group of hotels. This way of thinking is obsolete.

In the near future, competition between hotel groups will not be based on who practises the SOPs the best and who has the best material luxury or gadgets. They will compete on the basis of who can create the strongest feelings of love, loving-kindness, compassion, and empathy; who can amaze the most with mystery; and who can create the strongest positive, high frequency energy and vibrations throughout the property. The hotel group that does not master energy and vibrations in the future will suffer the same fate as a hotel group with no website nowadays.

Instead of imposing a corporate mission/vision on all the hotels in the Group, the corporate office will leave each hotel in the Group to create its own spiritually oriented mission/vision that must go far beyond that of the corporate office. The corporate office’s will only be a guideline and a minimum goal for the hotels in the Group. The guideline might be that, ” … the hospitality experience must fulfill the innermost dreams of the guests, and make the guests feel like they are in heaven.”

This kind of experience is not hard to create, but you have to use different methods to how hoteliers create the guest experience nowadays. What traditional corporate folks don’t understand is that impossible-sounding mission / vision statements are easy to create if you change the way you go about creating them, and let the human spirit fly freely. Like everyone else, hotel staff exude energy and vibrations. When you know how to increase the strength and frequency of that energy and vibrations, you will discover that there is no such thing as an impossible mission / vision. You will also feel embarrassed for ever thinking that the 5-stars level is something to be proud of having achieved.

Starting with the corporate guideline above, a resort might create the following guideline as its overall goal: “Staying at the resort must be a relaxing, and totally unforgettable experience. Guests will say: ‘I have never felt so much love and care before.’ ‘This is how I imagine heaven to be.’ ‘I feel revitalized.’ ‘I have never experienced anything as wonderful as this before.’”

The dull sentences that the corporate offices of the behemoth chains trot out for their hotels in the name of respectability and political correctness must have passed through a dozen corporate lawyers before reappearing completely sanitized of all human spirit and emotion, and made ready to be turned into left brain oriented SOPs before being sent out to the Cloning Department further down the conveyor belt. No wonder staff get bored with their jobs and lack motivation! The human spirit is being suppressed for the sake of SOP perfection.

I’m sorry to be so direct, corporate folks, but I would give my children a D if they came up with your mission and vision statements, and that’s only because I’m too soft to fail my children! I can’t believe that anyone thinks that those missions and visions represent the best of human capacity and are worthwhile goals. You know very well that those mission / vision statements can be achieved within 6 months of a hotel opening. Then what?  More of the same for the next 10+ years? … Surprize, surprise! That is exactly what happens!

The corporate office of the enlightened medium-sized hotel group will teach every hotel in the group about the science of energy and vibrations, and how to change and increase the energy and positive vibrations that a member of staff gives out so that the energy and “feel” of the hospitality and physical spaces becomes heart-warming beyond belief. This will have beneficial side-effects, such as improved self-esteem and health, amongst others.

There are other things to do in creating spiritual hospitality, of course, but this will get each hotel going. The corporate office will let every hotel create and go about achieving their own “impossible” mission / vision in their own way, and let the staff express themselves as they wish. No more conformity to a strict SOP-Customer Satisfaction template! The hotels will expend their efforts to increase the temperature of love, compassion, and warmth continuously instead.

The fun of hospitality will return. SOP hospitality is thoroughly boring. Let’s be honest about this. When you change the job to practising spiritual values and to exuding them more and more strongly – the very same spiritual values that are now enshrined in the core values of the new mission / vision – you cannot get bored. Your job becomes about making people happy, and what happens when you make people happy? Yes, you become happier. How do the guests feel? Yes, happier. You know the rest of my questions and answers.

While the traditional hotel chains constrict the human spirit, hotel groups in the future will allow it free rein. Competition between the hotel groups will be at the level of how to make the spirit of hospitality even stronger in love, compassion, mystery, and empathy, for example. The sorry concept of SOP-Customer Satisfaction will at last disappear down a hole never to be heard of or talked about again, except by tour groups passing through the Museum of Hospitality.

While the big traditional hotel chains are still focusing on perfecting their SOPs, on developing new kinds of SOP-Customer Satisfaction brands, and on boasting about their incomparable, excellent, high quality SOP service, the rest of the industry will have raced ahead into the limitless and infinite world of spiritual hospitality, which also has high standards, but which in contrast are infused with the positive vibrations of love, compassion, etc, in such a way that the guests literally feel the energy and spirit, and the staff feel so much happier about their jobs, which will become focused on creating spiritual warmth, exuding a spirit of genuine love, and on finding all sorts of ways to make people happy.

The enlightened hotel chains will discover that there really are many levels of guest experience above the self-imposed ceiling of 5-stars. Just give it a go and you will see what I am talking about. Dare to break away from tradition! Go on! You will feel so much happier, and you will attract more guests and shareholders too.

In my opinion, though, the behemoth hotel chains are too big, intransigent, and traditional to change in time. For sure, the traditional forces in the corporate offices will resist change to “this absurd folly and nonsense of spiritual hospitality, which will never replace the fine concept of our venerable founder. It’ll never catch on. People won’t want it. No, let’s carry on as we are doing. It’s worked for the last 50 years, and it will work for the next 50.” Their shareholders will smile politely and move to where the winds of change are blowing and the money will be made. The traditional chains will be bought up and broken up as fast as they can say, “What were the names of those car companies that went bankrupt because they didn’t change in time?”

In the first major hotel project to be announced for downtown Austin in nearly two years, developers plan a 17-story hotel that could mark the debut of a new global brand.

The hotel, proposed for the southwest corner of West Fifth and Colorado streets in the Warehouse District, would be a concept called 1 Hotel, by Starwood Capital Group. Starwood Capital has billed the concept as the first luxury eco-friendly global hotel brand.

Starwood has hired Woodbine Development Corp. to build the hotel, which would have about 250 to 275 rooms.

Woodbine, a seasoned hotel developer based in Dallas, developed the Hyatt Regency Lost Pines near Bastrop, as well as the Hyatt Regency Hill Country and the Westin La Cantera in San Antonio.

Steve Drenner, the Austin attorney for Starwood Capital and Woodbine, has filed a request for a zoning change that would allow a building with more square footage than city rules allow. Many downtown projects have received such allowances, including the 360 condominium tower and the W Austin Hotel and Residences under construction north of City Hall, Drenner said.

The tallest side of the Starwood project would face Fifth Street, rising 210 to 215 feet, Drenner said. The south side, backing up to the Warehouse District, would be 30 to 35 feet high. There also will be a deck, about 60 feet above ground level, with such amenities as a pool, a public bar and “green” roof with landscaping. A restaurant would be on the ground floor of the Fifth Street side.

The site now has a two-story brick building on it.

Drenner said he did not know the estimated cost of the project or when construction might start, saying that depends on the market and the city approvals. He said the project “will be the first or among the first examples” of the hotel brand.

The board of the Downtown Austin Alliance, a group of property and business owners, has backed the zoning change.

Tom Stacy, chairman of the alliance, said the building, with its stepped heights, would strike a good balance in the Warehouse District area. The Heritage Society of Austin is lobbying for measures to preserve the character of the area, and proposals are being debated to limit heights in the district.

The project must move through several city commissions, and the City Council would have the final say on the project. The zoning process is expected to be completed before the end of the year.

Mayor Lee Leffingwell said he is inclined to support the project: “This green building project is very intriguing. I especially like the concept of celebrating environmentally friendly design. The project will provide west downtown with an anchor hotel that is certainly needed to support our thriving tourism industry.”

Though she wouldn’t comment on the project specifically, Council Member Randi Shade noted that visitors may spend from $250 to $500 a day.

“Between the sales tax, the bed tax and the increase in property values, luxury hotels can make a serious impact on city revenues,” Shade said.

Council Member Mike Martinez said the project would have the highest energy efficiency rating of any hotel in Austin. In addition, the hotel “will incorporate many of Austin’s values as it relates to downtown development,” he said, including wide sidewalks, public space and retail other than a club or bar.

The project would be the first hotel development proposed downtown since Hixon Properties Inc. announced plans in February 2008 for a Westin hotel at Third and Colorado streets. Hixon has not said when it would start the project.

Several hotel projects have been put on hold because of a lack of financing, including a Marriott hotel planned for Congress Avenue between Second and Third streets.

At the former Seaholm Power Plant, a mixed-use project is planned that would include a 180-room hotel. Work might not start until next year, said Jeff Trigger, whose La Corsha Hospitality Group will oversee construction and management.

“Currently, neither we nor the debt financing market are ready to begin construction of the high-rise building where the hotel, office and residential uses will be housed. We hope next year when we are ready, the financing will be as well,” Trigger said.

The Hotel Van Zandt, a 327-room hotel planned at Red River and Davis streets, also “is in a holding pattern waiting for the construction lending community to get back in business,” said Greg Clay, chief investment officer for the project’s developer, JMI Realty.

“While Austin, and to a lesser extent all of Texas, is really surviving this recession quite well, the rest of the country’s real estate is getting crushed, and unfortunately the banking community cannot see past the other problems to make good loans in Texas,” Clay said.

All the years I have worked in hotels I never realized how magical it was to have access (with just a few simple clicks of my mouse) to all available employee rates for any given city. Simple, fast & loaded with all pertinent information needed to make an educated decision as to where I would stay on my next vacation. Now, let us place ourselves in the guests’ shoes. It’s not quite that easy. I have been to many hotel booking engines in the last couple of months to check rack rates and this process is almost painful.  Two days ago it took me 15 minutes to check availability and rates (for one property alone!) I don’t know about you, but I really don’t have that kind of time to waste on a hotel that I wasn’t even sure I wanted to stay at! Quick is definitely better. I understand a lot of hoteliers have to abide by certain standards to keep their flag and the online booking GDS system is no exception. So, in the event modifications can be made this would be a great use of the marketing budget. Think of all the time you’ll be giving back to the staff. If your guests are using the Internet for all of their booking needs -the amount of phone calls to your front desk will drop dramatically. Oh, how nice it would be to focus on what is actually written in your job description! On a side note…I know most hotels offer some sort of member loyalty program. Enrollment and retention in the last 18 months has significantly dropped. Being a member of one of these programs can dramatically reduce the time it takes to book a room. Just input city, dates and member number and voila!!! Your reservation is booked. Sell that loyalty program!

It is astounding that, despite the current climate, hoteliers are still missing fundamental requirements in terms of the usability and functionality of their website and website booking engine. Even more frighteningly, many hoteliers are missing the vital ingredient that promises to increase their reservations – the capacity for instant online sales! The absence of a web booking engine on your website means that visitors experience a pre-historic process which leaves them unengaged, irresolute, on occasion confused and likely to abandon your website! With hoteliers fiercely competing for relevant website visitors and with the cost of acquiring them ever increasing, it is flummoxing that some hoteliers insist on dragging their heels, sticking with a relic booking model that will not convert traffic into the maximum number of bookings.

In a hospitality index report published recently, it was demonstrated that 40% of website visitors did not complete their booking due to navigation problems. Research also shows that the booking process can take up to 12 clicks. This does not bode well with the 21^st century traveler – an effective booking process should rely on a few quick and simple steps. It has been established that the more experienced a customer is, the less likely he is to abandon a booking because he is more familiar with online booking processes. However, many of those booking online are first-time customers with no experience. To lose these customers due to a complex and lengthy process, will have a huge impact on conversion rates; therefore this type of shopper must be catered to.

Hotel websites that do have a web booking engine installed, are not exempt from high abandonment rates. I have seen web booking engines stuck behind vaguely entitled menu bars or behind two or three unnecessary pages, making it hard to find. Again, the customer is relied upon to click around the site to find the online reservations system. The web booking engine must be easily accessible. Ensuring there is an obvious link to the web booking engine, which is clearly titled on the home page, will eliminate any confusion. Moreover, having a “quick book box” on the first page will allow any potential guest to quickly and effortlessly check availability for their travel dates.

There is a plethora of web booking engines available on the market, but they are not all equal in their ability to convert “lookers” into “bookers”. The Guest Connect Booking Engine is an example of a web booking engine that has proven to deliver a significantly higher level of reservations. Furthermore, in an independent usability study among consumers Guest Connect received a score of 95 percent, higher than any other similarly tested engines. Extensive market research, hotel customer feedback and technical innovation during the launch period have ensured the Guest Connect web booking engine meets traveler’s usability needs. Key features that add value to the booking process for consumers range from multiple language capability to its consistency with the theme of the website. Installation of such a reputable web booking engine enables hoteliers to track all marketing efforts and gain a clear understanding of return on investment for specific advertising initiatives. These statistics are invaluable and easily acquired from the web booking engine data. With more and more room sales happening online, this type of quantifiable process may eventually replace traditional reservation processes, making it crucial that hoteliers come to grips with it.

Your hotel’s web booking engine plays a pivotal role in converting website traffic into reservations. Therefore, having a relic process that relies on your website visitors chasing you for booking confirmation or counting on them to click around to find your web booking engine, is going to mean you lose out on valuable bookings. Today, travelers are looking for immediate access to information, rates, policies and they want instant electronic confirmation that their booking went through. By ensuring your web booking engine meets these requirements, you are setting the foundations for a good web experience and consequently the start of a good relationship with your future and invaluable guest.

If anyone has had the opportunity to step foot in one of these uber hip and modern select service hotels, they will wonder why it took a whole year to develop an opportunity to re-adaptive any building with exposed brick work and structural pillars! Aloft is billed as the high design/low cost option for the 20 something year old traveler, targeting toward those who do not quite have the taste (or financial means) for the W Hotel chain. Each aloft property boasts itself on offering a fun, tech friendly environment. They offer guests free funky pool tables in the lobby, sleek European designed furniture and guest room connections for anything that can be plugged in and played with! And to top it all off, everywhere you turn the thumping of music fit for a fashion runway in Milan fills your ears. Aloft is definitely shaking up the hospitality industry with its loft inspired design, tech savvy touches and encouragement of a “hip social scene” Like I said, a re-use train station/warehouse/factory is right down the brand’s alley. What is your opinion on the brand? Does it have sticking power? Like they say at every aloft across the world….Aloha!

Starwood Hotels announced yesterday the debut of the Aloft brand’s first adaptive re-use project in the heart of downtown Dallas. Offering jet-setting style at a steal, Aloft Dallas Downtown opens in a historic railroad freight depot, now transformed into the city’s newest destination sensation complete with 193 spacious, loft-like rooms, accessible technology and a hip, social atmosphere.

Aloft Dallas Downtown occupies an eight-story antique gem built in 1924 as a Santa Fe Railroad freight terminal and commercial dry goods warehouse. Evoking an era when train tracks formed the arteries of the commercial district, the sleek, new hotel delivers the Aloft brand’s signature, urban-influenced design elements, while incorporating the building’s distinct, structural attributes including original buff brick, large windows, structural pillars and high ceilings. Blending seamlessly into its loft-like, historic setting, this singular, contemporary hotel is owned by a joint venture between Hamilton Properties Corporation and Sava Holdings, Ltd., both Dallas-based development companies.

“In today’s challenging economic environment, adaptive re-use projects like the Aloft Dallas Downtown can offer developers significant advantages and provide great benefits to communities in search of urban renewal opportunities,” said Simon Turner, President of Global Development, Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, Inc. “Through the redevelopment of historic or older structures, developers can gain access to prime real estate to create an innovative and historically meaningful hotel, while benefiting from unique zoning opportunities and public subsidies. We see great opportunities to use this approach in many cities throughout the world.”

Aloft Hotels shook up the select service industry with the debut of its first property in Montreal in June 2008. Fueled by the popularity of its prototype hotel, Aloft has since opened 30 more hotels in three countries. While the Aloft prototype continues to generate strong enthusiasm among owners, developers and hotel guests, Starwood plans to further the brand’s footprint through adaptive, re-use projects like Aloft Dallas Downtown.

“While all of Starwood’s nine lifestyle brands are candidates for adaptive reuse projects, Aloft is particularly well-suited based on its urban design aesthetic and appeal to savvy travelers,” said Brian McGuinness, Senior Vice President of Specialty Select Brands for Starwood. “In this case, an 85 year-old railroad depot was successfully transfigured into a modern, hip hotel by incorporating the loft-like design scheme, high ceilings, open floor plans and large windows that are characteristic of Aloft.”

The transformation of the original train depot into Aloft Dallas Downtown was completed over a three-year period under the direction of architecture and design team at One Group Design, LP.

“The designer did a fabulous job marrying the old building with the new. We essentially dropped a new, ultra-modern building inside the bones of a warehouse that is on the historic register,” said General Manager Al Hunter. “This concept preserves the history of Dallas and showcases all the Aloft brand’s modern amenities.”

Aloft Dallas Downtown is pursuing LEED certification – an internationally recognized, third-party certification for the design, construction and operation of high-performance green buildings established by the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC). The hotel features natural materials like cork and sustainable wood veneers, and in-shower product dispensers replace non-biodegradable bottles to reduce landfill waste. In addition, nearly 75 percent of the demolition debris was re-used below ground in the lower-level meeting and ballroom spaces.

Ideally located at 1033 Young Street, Aloft Dallas Downtown is just steps from City Hall and the Dallas Convention Center. Also nearby are the American Airlines Center, the Arts District and the corporate offices of AT&T, Deloitte & Touche and PricewaterhouseCoopers.

Every time I visit The Driskill I find it hard to believe it was built in 1886. With it’s beautiful architecture, attention to detail & charm it only seems fitting that it has been deemed an Austin icon. As you stroll through the halls you can feel the energy of past politicians, actors and dignitaries. Occupying a wonderful location in downtown Austin is exudes “Texas” everywhere you turn. Between the soaring ceilings, elaborate woodwork, marble floors and stained glass dome, the lobby will wow you every time you enter. With all this hotel has to offer it is a wonderful home away from home for any group. The Driskill now offers, exclusively through Austin Hospitality, the D Club Program. Designed especially for wedding blocks, brides and grooms can expect:

• A special negotiated room rate
• One complimentary room upgrade*
• A custom online booking code for their attendees
• Early check in*
• Late check out*
• Curbside check in
• Complimentary champagne in the bride and groom’s room on their wedding night
• A complimentary Horse & Carriage ride departing and returning directly outside the Driskill**
• Reduced 50% attrition contract compared to the standard 80% hotel attrition contract

*based on availability

**50 total room night criteria

We sat down and talked to Tommy Belton, Sales Manager with The Driskill, to find out what makes this property so special!

How many rooms does your property have? We have 189 guestrooms and suites.

Does your hotel have meeting space? We have 18,000 square feet of function space.

What can a guest expect when they walk through the doors? A guest can expect to receive a uniquely Austin experience when staying at The Driskill. The Driskill offers an elite level of distinction and service to rank as one the world’s finest hotels.

What sets your hotel apart from other hotels? The grandiose lobby and traditional Texas feel are legendary; however, it is our exceptional service that truly sets us apart. The smiling staff is always ready to accommodate any request and make every guests stay one they will never forget.

To book your group at The Driskill please contact Austin Hospitality at 512.691.9555 or info@austin-hospitality.com

The Holiday Inn brand is currently undergoing a $1 billion global relaunch-the largest in the hospitality industry with more than 3,200 hotels being updated to improve quality and drive consistency at Holiday Inn and Holiday Inn Express hotels around the world. A redesign of the iconic brand logo required new exterior signage for over 3,200 locations. The signage incorporates energy-efficient, long-life GE Tetra® LED lighting systems, which are GE ecomagination certified solutions from Lumination, GE Consumer & Industrial’s LED business. The new signage will save Holiday Inn an estimated $4.4 million annually over previous neon and fluorescent lighting ($3 million annual maintenance savings and $1.4 million energy savings).

This massive signage project involves more than 20 sign manufacturers creating 9,300 channel letter and box signs with high-performance GE Tetra LED lighting inside. There are more than 270 different lighting configurations across five Holiday Inn brands, where the signs range from 11 inches high to as large as 8 feet. In addition to new signage, the Holiday Inn brand relaunch is focusing on the things that matter most to guests. Changes include new outdoor lighting, building exterior updates and new landscaping; a redesigned lobby with a new, de-cluttered reception desk and a signature scent and music program; refreshed guest rooms include new bedding, a selection of firm and soft pillows and redesigned bathroom features; and a new service training program. The global estate of Holiday Inn brand hotels is expected to be relaunched by the end of 2010.

“We are increasing quality and driving consistency across all Holiday Inn properties, and being more contemporary with this major rebranding. It only makes sense to use the greenest signage solution possible,” says Angela Brav, chief operating officer, North America, InterContinental Hotels Group. “We are replacing more than 9,300 signs across several countries, so the energy savings GE’s LED systems are providing is significant. Plus, they offer proven reliability for even greater savings from a maintenance standpoint and improved brand consistency across all properties.”

Leaner and Greener

Holiday Inn expects to cut energy usage by more than half and achieve an estimated 52 percent reduction in kilowatt hours with signs lit an average of 12 hours per day, 365 days per year. That represents an estimated reduction of 8,700 metric tons of carbon dioxide annually or the equivalent of planting more than 2,300 acres of trees per year. The GE Tetra® LED systems are significantly more energy efficient than commonly used neon or fluorescent, and they overcome performance challenges fluorescent can encounter in cold climates.

“GE has more than 19 million feet of Tetra LED lighting installed with less than a 0.05 percent warranty return rate,” says Eric Stevenson, GE’s global product manager – signage. “Holiday Inn recognized the importance of this long-term, real-world reliability in choosing a signage solution that would deliver years of consistent, virtually maintenance-free operation.”

Built to Scale

In addition to proven reliability, Holiday Inn and its signage consultant/project manager, Sign Management Consultants, sought an LED systems supplier that could carry out such a large project under tight deadlines.

“A project of this scale requires suppliers that can deliver. We were confident GE had a variety of LED solutions to meet Holiday Inn’s needs,” says Mark Burkett, vice president, Sign Management Consultants. “In total, more than one million feet of GE Tetra® LED lighting systems will be installed across 3,200 properties. More than a year into the re-launch, they continue to deliver.”

The Tetra® LED lighting systems used in this program include Tetra® Power White and Tetra® MAX for channel letters, and Tetra® PowerGrid for box signs. Tetra® Power White is a high-performance LED system that delivers up to 66 lumens of brilliant white light per module. Tetra® PowerGrid is a high-brightness, modular system that is easy to install and lasts up to four times longer than T12HO fluorescents. All three lighting systems last up to 50,000 hours and are RoHS compliant, containing no lead, mercury or glass.

As the recession unfolds, a growing number of budget-minded businesses are shifting to lower-price hotels, whether by choice or because their bosses are telling them to.

The biggest beneficiaries of the shift, travel experts say, are the hotels that keep prices down by not offering amenities like restaurants or meeting rooms.

“Travel managers have told us within their companies they’re moving travelers to lower-tier hotels, ” said Caleb Tiller, spokesman for the National Business Travel Association. “It’s definitely a trend we’ve seen.”

He said companies were taking a varied approach to the switch. Some are requiring it, others strongly encouraging it and others trying to set an example by having even top executives book more modest accommodations.

For those now staying at more bare-bones properties, the downgrading has some discomforts. Alan Hawrylyshen, a technology applications director for a manufacturer of mobile and voice-over-Internet networks, said he had encountered a host of minor inconveniences.

At full-service hotels where he once was a regular, Mr. Hawrylyshen said checking in was welcoming and efficient. “There was never a line. They’d be expecting you, greet you by name.” Hopscotching to different hotels in search of low rates now means staying at places where his information is not already in the computer system.

“Suddenly, checking in takes longer because they have to process your credit card and you have to fill out forms,” said Mr. Hawrylyshen, who travels one to four times a month. “It adds 10 minutes or more, sometimes up to half an hour” to his already hectic schedule.

Unfortunately for travelers like Mr. Hawrylyshen, this trend shows no signs of abating. According to Peter C. Yesawich, chairman and chief executive at Ypartnership, a travel marketing and research company, a quarter of the nearly 800 business travelers surveyed this year indicated that they were booking less expensive hotels.

The trading down has been occurring on all levels: top executives who may have previously stayed at luxury hotels are staying at full-service hotels, while middle managers who used to stay at those properties are now switching to limited-service hotels.

“If you used to stay in a full-service Sheraton, Marriott or Hilton, you may trade down to a Four Points, Courtyard by Marriott or Hilton Garden Inn,” said Al Calhoun, managing director of Jones Lang LaSalle Hotels, a real estate management and investment firm.

Industry analysts say the one sector that has fared better than others is what is known in the business as “upscale” or “select-service” hotels. While the terminology may not be familiar to travelers, the brand names are likely to be; Courtyard by Marriott, Hilton Garden Inn and Four Points by Sheraton, among them.

These hotels are distinguished from their full-service sister brands by a lack of restaurants, lounge areas or meeting rooms. While some hotels may have one or more of these amenities, they vary by property. By contrast, their presence is a given at full-service hotels.

According to Mr. Calhoun, revenue per available room, a crucial measure of a hotel’s fiscal health, has not dropped as sharply for select-service properties as it has for other types of hotels. While room rates have softened in recent months, prices have been hit hardest at luxury and full-service chains.

Data from Smith Travel Research shows that hotel room rates dropped by an average of 8.1 percent in the first four months of the year, compared with the same period in 2008, with rates at luxury hotels falling by 13.9 percent and rates at select-service hotels declining 8.3 percent.

Select-service hotels are also holding their own in occupancy. Occupancy rates are expected to fall across all hotel levels in 2009 because of the recession’s impact on business and leisure travel. However, Robert Mandelbaum, director of research information services at the consulting firm PKF Hospitality Research, said select-service hotels would end the year with less of a drop than most other brands.

While overall occupancy is expected to drop by 5.6 percent and luxury hotel occupancy by 8.3 percent, select-service occupancy is projected to end the year with a much smaller 3.7 percent decline.

This relative robustness could prove to be a double-edged sword in the coming months, though. Hotel investors and developers are increasingly flocking to these types of properties because the select-service hotels are viewed as a relatively safe haven during a time of overall distress for the industry.

“They’re cheaper to build, they’re cheaper to maintain and they’re cheaper to operate,” said David Loeb, a real estate analyst at Robert W. Baird & Company. He said new hotels were opening at a rapid rate and would most likely add to the problem of too many rooms and not enough travelers to fill them.

“The impact of all of this new supply is a really bloody market-share war,” he said. “The operators of these hotels are trying really hard to achieve or keep market share, and they’re doing that by lowering prices.”

While this is bad news for hotel operators, it is a silver lining for road warriors and corporate travel managers trying to hold the line on lodging expenses in a tough economy.

While I am completely on the hotel’s side of “maximizing revenue” at every opportunity, I DO understand the consumer’s point of view on this one as well. We have become a society that is so technologically driven that internet connection is a huge deciphering factor as to where a traveler will stay. USA Today does make an excellent and very valid point in this article, which never even crossed my mind while working in a hotel – revenue from telephone usage has almost become obsolete, what other source can generate the same kind of constant, dependable revenue??? Or, is this revenue hotels will have to embrace by going without? Where exactly to you stand on the issue of internet charges? I would love to hear your thoughts on whether this has affected your property!

Frequent business traveler Randall Blinn refuses to stay at hotels that charge for Internet access.

“It really irritates me that the more expensive hotels charge for Internet access when the inexpensive hotels provide it for free,” says Blinn, a computer consultant in Louisville.

Blinn is one of many travelers disturbed by hotels that charge a daily fee for Internet access. He says he books less-expensive hotels with free Internet access, even if his company will pay for a more expensive hotel that charges for online access.

Yet, charging guests for Internet access in their rooms remains common as hotels continue to look for revenue, especially as occupancy rates have fallen during the recession. According to a USA TODAY survey of 80 hotel brands, 40% charge such a fee at all or most of their U.S. hotels. The charge can vary at hotels within the same brand but often ranges from $9.95 to $14.95 daily.

“As long as hotels can generate the revenue, they will charge for it,” says Jeff Weinstein, editor in chief of Hotelsmagazine, a trade publication. “There is no more telephone revenue, and this is one way to replace it.”

Weinstein says he thinks that most upscale hotel guests “can live with” a $10 daily fee for Internet access but find some higher charges unacceptable.

For Blinn, who has spent about 50 nights in hotels this year, any charge is unacceptable. If he must stay at a hotel that charges, he says, he leaves the hotel for a fast-food restaurant or a coffee shop that provides free Internet access.

A few weeks ago, Blinn says, he spent a lot of time in the concierge lounge of the Marriott hotel in Salt Lake City, because the hotel was charging for Internet access in rooms but not in the lounge.

Going around charges

Some frequent business travelers avoid hotel charges by bringing their own devices for Internet access.

Michael Sommer, a consultant in Jacksonville, uses Sprint’s MiFi device, which is about the size of a credit card and provides Internet access for up to five people for a monthly charge.

Many hotels offer free wireless Internet access in lobbies, lounges, other common areas and guest rooms on floors for higher-paying guests. Sommer suggests booking rooms near those areas to pick up an Internet connection.

Mason Blacher, a fundraising consultant in Seattle, who has spent about 50 nights in hotels this year, says a complaint about access charges to a hotel manager can result in free service.

“Sometimes, I offer to return the expensive toiletry amenities, which arguably cost the hotel more, in exchange for free Wi-Fi,” Blacher says. “That usually gets ‘em.”

Besides offering free Internet access to higher-paying guests, some hotel brands offer it free to frequent-guest-club members.

All members of Omni Hotels’ Select Guest program get free Wi-Fi in the guest rooms of the brand’s 36 U.S. hotels, Omni Vice President Caryn Kboudi says. Membership in the program is free.

At all Hyatt hotels, members of the chain’s Gold Passport program with platinum status receive free Internet access, Hyatt spokeswoman Karrie Leung says. Platinum status is achieved after five stays or 15 nights per year.

Omni says that about 12% of its guests used in-room Internet access when free Wi-Fi was offered in 2003. Now, 50% to 70% of guests use it daily, and about one-fifth of all users — those who are not frequent-guest-club members — pay $9.95 daily.

Message is ‘getting louder’

Most guests in the past used Internet access to check personal e-mail, says Richard Tudgay, Omni’s vice president of information technology.

But today, he says, they’re using it for much more: for work, to visit websites such as Facebook, to watch movies and even to connect to home video recorders to watch favorite TV shows.

Despite the multiple uses, many frequent business travelers say that Internet access in hotel rooms should be free or available for a nominal charge, such as $5 per day.

USA TODAY asked members of its Road Warrior panel — volunteers who travel very frequently on business — for the most expensive Internet access charge they have seen.

Linda Curran, a Las Vegas-based software consultant in the food and beverage industry, says she recently was at the Conrad Istanbul in Turkey. The hotel charged about $40 per day for Internet access, she says.

Weinstein, of Hotels magazine, says the Hong Kong-based luxury chain Shangri-La eliminated Internet access charges at all its hotels earlier this year, and there’s more relief in sight for guests at upscale hotels.

“I think the message from consumers about this is getting louder, and you will continue to see more (hotel) brands move toward free access over the next year or two,” he says.