Being on the road as much as I am, I depend on the hotel I’m staying to be a safe haven. A place to feel comfortable, secure and “at home.” During the past year I’ve had some really exceptional experiences and some I’ll never forget – but not in a good way!

Yes, my hotel stays in 2008 were the best of times and the worst of times. Here is my tale of 20 cities I stayed in this past year and what I gleaned from my experiences on the road.

Best Hotel Experience: The Broadmoor

These days everyone can build a great hotel, but where an indelible difference is made with guest experience is with the staff. And that’s why this property was tops in my book last year. The highly trained staff is so intuitive to guest needs and downright friendly it actually took some getting used to. Every staff member would make eye contact and say hello in such a natural way it was beguiling to behold. Their friendly overtures were so genuine it took me a day to realize I didn’t actually know these people; they were just doing their job.

Middle and lower income Americans staying home and spending much less this year

With bad news continuing on nearly every economic front, holiday travel remains a tradition -- at least among those that can afford it. According to a recent Maritz(R) Poll, wealthier Americans plan to spend, on average, nearly $1000 more this year on holiday travel, compared to last. However, lower middle income earners plan to spend half as much on holiday travel compared to last year.

"Holiday travel has been consistently one of the most resilient practices of Americans. It has withstood economic ups-and-downs since Maritz started tracking it in 2001," said Rick Garlick, Ph.D., director of consulting and strategic implementation, Maritz Research. "However, these are unprecedented times. The data from this study show that the incidence of holiday travel is expected to decline, particularly among lower wage earners."

The preferred answer would be to do both since these are the two key components of the guest satisfaction equation. Unfortunately, in today's climate of credit crunch and limited funds doing both at the same time may not be feasible, at least not in the short term.

Successful operators are often choosing to enhance guest service while delaying or scaling back physical renovations. Please note that I say 'enhancing' guest services, I do not say 'expanding'. I see a major difference between the two. Perhaps I can best illustrate by giving a specific example.

A property is already providing room service delivery which is basically the 'drop and run' variety, there is also a complementary daily newspaper placed at the guestroom door.

Restaurants may be facing the toughest New Year in recent memory, but opportunities are still present for operators that know how to focus their efforts where it really counts-on the consumer. The coming year will see even more of a 'buyer's market' than 2008, making it especially essential for restaurants to recognize and respond to consumer preferences.
In particular, food industry consulting and research firm Technomic sees these five trends as looming large in 2009:

1. Experimentation and innovation will flower.

An upside of operators' struggles will be innovations resulting from experimentation with new menu items, delivery services, price/bundling schemes and unit designs (including smaller, more efficient footprints).

Hotels.com has surveyed over 1,000 members of match.com, the UK's most popular online dating site, revealing that four out of five women (84%) expect their partner to pay the full cost of their first mini break away, even though 73% of women still expected to decide when and where they go.

The survey found that the average man is left with a bill of £351 for a romantic away-break while women almost equal that, spending £322 buying underwear, make up and new outfits to look the part. Hotels.com also revealed that, when planning their first trip away, 32% of men are fearful of running out of things to say to their date while 18% of women are concerned about their partner seeing them first thing in the morning.

The warning came from PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, which forecast that “aspirational” holidaymakers will abandon the multi-billion pound sector in the downturn, forcing poor health for luxury travel. As UK growth begins to recover in early 2010, luxury travel firms will be left stranded at recessionary levels until late 2011 or possibly 2012, as even their core customer base (high net worth individuals or HNWIs) become more nervous, PwC believes.

Despite optimistic sentiment early last year, luxury travel is not insulated to the recession as sales decline across the sector and individuals lose the feel good factor following consumer uncertainty and asset deflation. Luxury travel providers are advised to ensure finances and working capital are in good order; liquidity is protected; treasury, financing, funding and pension exposures all re-examined.

A new report from travel industry research authority PhoCusWright Inc. reveals that as the online leisure/unmanaged business travel market in the U.S. has matured, supplier Web sites and online travel agencies (OTAs) appear to have reached relatively stable market share. PhoCusWright's Online Travel Overview Eighth Edition, finds that supplier sites account for 61% of the online market vs. 39% for OTAs in 2008. This balance is projected to hold steady through 2010, although intense competition and tumultuous dynamics underlie this uneasy equilibrium.

The current global economic news is not generally positive these days in the hospitality and many other industries. The need for planning is more critical than ever and the quote from Peter Drucker says it all - it takes focused efforts to address the situation and begin to turn the situation around.

This 2 part series is very straight forward and common sense in approach.  The first part addresses revenue building and the second will examine some expense evaluation topics.

Principles of Success in Planning in a Challenging Economy - Part 1 of 2

Reducing costs by automating business process has emerged as a leading strategy for surviving tougher times among North Asia travel agents. Abacus International surveyed more than 40 leading travel agents from China, Hong Kong, Korea and Taiwan markets at the recent Abacus Regional Conference, North Asia, and found that 30% of the companies surveyed saw automation as a key way to survive the financial crisis.

“Having gone through past crisis of varying magnitude from health scares to economic issues and coming out of them for the better, experience has taught North Asia’s travel agents that a strong business technology infrastructure can boost productivity and ROI,” says Abacus International President and CEO Mr Robert Bailey.

Hotel companies are always looking for creative ways to reduce expenses. It’s a mantra that most industry experts are espousing now that the lodging business is backing off several years of record high profits.

But cutting expenses for the sake of cutting expenses is not a good thing when it comes at the expense of service. Russ Olivier, SVP of Reservations and Customer Care with Hilton Hotels Corporation, believes he’s figured out a way to significantly reduce expenses in his department by encouraging his employees to stay at home. It’s a win-win for Hilton.