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Recommended Reading : 90 Days to Success in Sales Sep 24, 2012: Overall, I believe this is a solid reference for someone who is new to selling, regardless of age. It has substance for those in career change situations, as well as those just entering the field from college. Hoxie asserts throughout the book that being a professional and successful sales professional is an ongoing commitment to building rapport, honest customer relationships and follow through.

How to Unmask the Red Tape and Increase Government Group Business Sep 21, 2012: A smart move was made on GSA’s part earlier this week. The agency made a decision to freeze government-wide per diem travel reimbursements rates at the current 2012 levels for 2013 which will save $885 million in revenue and thousands of industry jobs. Although the meetings industry has not made a full comeback and federal agencies are facing a 30% cut to their travel budgets, there are possible ways to get around the red tape and increase group bookings at hotels, resorts and conference centers.

The Curious Identity of RoomKey.com Sep 21, 2012: Consumers shopping for a hotel online have many options to find the property they want at the prices they demand. RoomKey.com, a website originally founded by six of the largest hotel chains, launched earlier this year to help the founding brands capture bookings that might otherwise happen on an OTA
To gauge its success to date, Compete evaluated traffic volumes and sources using our patented normalization process which leverages Compete’s industry-leading panel and ability to unique consumers (which avoids false positives associated with double-counting).

Room Key started small but has grown at a remarkable pace, reaching over 4 million unique visitors in July. The growth rate reads as a success, though the obvious next question is around the sources of its traffic as the site has evolved. We identified two distinct phases.

Profit Management 3.0 Sep 18, 2012: Revenue management has been in the hospitality spotlight since the mid 1980's; a gift from American Airlines.
American successfully created, what was then called yield management, in order to compete with the deeply discounted fares of People Express airlines. The problem was fairly simple; how can we offer lower rates, to be more competitive, without reducing our total revenue "yield"?

"There are no big problems, there are just a lot of little problems."
- Henry Ford

Hospitality Tip of the Week: Innovation strategy key for future success Sep 11, 2012: Insights from HospitalityEducators.com

A fundamental first step is to understand what innovation means. One way of defining it is the formula:

Innovation = Ideation + Implementation

The Cost of Loyalty Programs Sep 9, 2012: Robert Mandelbaum on the Cost of Loyalty Programs

To gain an understanding of the costs associated with guest loyalty programs, PKF Hospitality Research, LLC (PKF-HR) analyzed 'Loyalty Programs and Affiliation Fees' (guest loyalty fees) data from the PKF annual Trends® in the Hotel Industry survey.

2012 HVS Hotel Cost Estimating Guide Sep 7, 2012: Over the course of the past few years, performance in the lodging industry has risen steadily, if not sharply, with overall nationwide RevPAR increases generally ranging from 5% to 7% and going as high as 8.2% in 2011. However, this spike in performance has not necessarily translated into a flood of renovation or new build projects, at least not yet