Category: Recent News

The Baird/STR Hotel Stock Index fell 11.7% in February to a level of 4,296. Year to date through the first two months of 2020, the stock index dropped 18.5%. “Hotel stocks fell off a cliff at the end of the month due to mounting COVID-19 concerns do…

While home TV tech keeps marching on, hotel TVs seem hopelessly behind: They feature few channels, no on-screen menus and lots of other outdated annoyances. So what’s the problem? It’s not just you. Hotel TV systems are a constant pain point for fre…

NEW YORK – Leading luxury and experiential travel network Virtuoso® has been closely monitoring the impact of coronavirus, collaborating and consulting with its travel agency members across the world as well as its preferred partners. Since COVID-19…

How should hotels respond to the current coronavirus situation? Occupancies are down, mass gatherings have been canceled and tourist arrivals have dropped. I decided to go back and look at some of my previous research to get some tips on how to deal…

The region has diverse hospitality products, recently expanded to include more international brands, strong destination marketing support and the local business community has invested heavily in infrastructure. These combined efforts mean that Galac…

MGM Resorts International is closely monitoring the global health response to the coronavirus (COVID-19) and guidance provided by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and Prevention and the World Health Organization. The CDC and Vice President Penc…

I’m no health expert but, for what it’s worth, I’m pretty pessimistic about this whole thing. The graph below shows spread so far (to March 6th) outside China, and, as you can see, the cases are exploding: More interesting to me, as a mathematician,…

The chapter below is an excerpt from my new book. It’s fiction but some of the characters and story lines are based on people I have worked with and events that have taken place in the hotels I have worked in. The book is a fable about a hotel manag…

Despite any rhetoric or debate, the fact is that every hotelier needs to recognize that being a good corporate citizen means doing your part. At all costs, you want to avoid being labeled a violator of our planet’s ecosystem, especially when there a…

Much has already been written about the impact of the Coronavirus on the travel and lodging industry, and I’ll leave it up to the experts in each field to talk about how this impacts revenue, distribution and cleaning procedures. Right now, I’m in t…