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Log In / Register | Jun 18, 2013

Expert Advice

John Q. Hammons (1919-2013): Master Hotel Developer and Builder

Expert | Stanley Turkel | Jun 5 | hotel, manage
Have you taken notice that the hotel legend called "John Q." passed away at age 94?  He's been on a unique and singular track for 87 years and, if you didn't know who he was, you've missed one of the great hotelier/developers of our time.  Of course, I'm referring to John Q. Hammons, who developed 185 hotel properties in 40 states.  But the statistics hide the essence of Mr. Hammons' special development techniques.  Hammons disdained the standard feasibility studies when assessing potential sites for hotel development.  Instead, he relied on his own experience, knowledge and intuition. Here are some reflections by John Q. Hammons on being an exceptional hotelier: Be in Tune with Change.  Have a Plan of Action.  "...
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JOLT Act Being Integrated into Immigration Reform Bill

Member | Prat Patel | May 28 | hotel
In 2011, more than 18 million visitors to the United States – nearly two-thirds of all overseas visitors – arrived through the Visa Waiver Program. While here, they spent $69 billion, supported 525,000 jobs and generated $13 billion in payroll and $11 billion in government tax revenues. It is arguably the nation's most important visa program. That being said, the United States has still seen a decline in its share of global travel over the past decade. This has been largely due in part to the burdensome visa application process. To combat these issues, a revised version of the "Jobs Originated through the Launching of Travel" (JOLT) Act was introduced, which called for an expansion of the Visa Waiver Program as well as reforming the visa processing standards...
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Turning Gray into Gold

Expert | Stanley Turkel | May 28 | hotel
There are now more Americans age 65 and older than at any other time in U.S. history. According to a new Census Bureau report, there were 40.3 million people age 65 and older on April 1, 2010, up 5.3 percent from 35 million in 2000 (and just 3.1 million in 1900). The 65-and-older population jumped 15.1 percent between 2000 and 2010, compared with a 9.7 percent increase for the total U.S. population. People age 65 and older now make up 13 percent of the total population, compared with 12.4 percent in 2000 and 4.1 percent in 1900. All regions of the country have seen growth in their 65-and-older population since the 2000 Census. The older population is growing most rapidly in the West, where the number of senior citizens increased 23.5 percent, from 6.9 million in 2000 to 8.5 million in...
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Nobody Asked me, But... A Hotel Consultant's Eclectic Opinions

Expert | Stanley Turkel | May 20 | hotel
For the past 25 years, I have written hundreds of articles, columns, essays, editorials and blogs.  They have appeared in many different formats. Before the Internet, I was published in the following print outlets: Cornell Quarterly, Lodging Hospitality, Hotel & Motel Management, National Real Estate Investor, The Bottomline, The Info Franchise Newsletter, Lodging, The Franchisee Voice, AAHOA Lodging Business, Arizona Hospitality Trends, Successful Hotel Marketer, the New York Times, the Wall St. Journal, etc. My most recent published articles have appeared under the title "Nobody Asked Me, But..." (NAMB). This title was created by the late, legendary New York sportswriter Jimmy Cannon whose best columns (from the Daily News, New York Post and Newsday) were selected and...
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Nothing Like Home: Designing the Hotel Experience

Expert | Stanley Turkel | May 2 | hotel
The New York School of Interior Design (founded 1916) organized a panel discussion in conjunction with NYSID's current exhibition, "Designing the Luxury Hotel: Neal Price and the Inter-Continental Brand."  The panel discussion took place on April 10, 2013 with the following panelists at the NYSID building at 170 E. 70 Street, New York, N.Y. 10021 Stanley Turkel, a recognized authority and consultant in the hotel industry.  He is one of the most widely-published authors in the hospitality field: his most recent book, Built To Last: 100+ Year-Old Hotels in New York, features 32 hotels that have defied the passage of time. Todd Lee, FAIA, LEED AP, has his own architectural practice based in Boston; projects include major hotels and resorts in North America,...
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Without Proper Access to Capital, Communities Will Suffer

Expert | Fred Schwartz | Apr 18 | hotel
The fight to increase access to capital for hotel owners continues to be one of the Asian American Hotel Owners Association's points of emphasis when it comes to our legislative priorities. Anyone truly invested in the hospitality industry understands that just because the overall economic outlook has rebounded to levels seen before the downturn doesn’t mean that everything is back to normal across the board. In fact, one of the biggest obstacles currently facing hoteliers stems from a policy change implemented years ago during the recent economic crisis. The Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act in 2010 implemented changes that overhauled the lending behavior and supervision of financial institutions. Specifically, it prompted hotel banks to start...
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Go with the Flow

Expert | Robert Mandelbaum | Apr 17 | hotel, trends
Figure one The U.S. lodging industry recovery made great progress in 2011 with over 70 percent of the hotels in the nation showing increases in both revenue and profits during the year. Many industry prognosticators, including PKF Hospitality Research, LLC (PKF-HR), are expecting this trend to continue in the future. Based on the PKF-HR's December 2012 Hotel Horizons® forecast, U.S. hotels will enjoy compound annual growth (CAGR) in rooms revenue (RevPAR) of 6.5 percent through 2016. In turn, this should result in a CAGR of 6.1 percent in total hotel revenue during the same period. Given these strong projections of revenue growth, how much profit can hoteliers expect to earn in the coming years? To understand how these increased revenues will flow to the bottom line, PKF-HR...
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Hotel History: The Magic of 800-325-3535

Expert | Stanley Turkel | Apr 9 | hotel
In 1968, after ITT acquired the Sheraton Corporation of America, Sheraton needed a new advertising program after the highly-successful "Keyed-up Executives Unwind at Sheraton" campaign.   In the spring of 1969, ITT President Harold Geneen was touring the Sheraton Boston Hotel when Sheraton executive Dave Turner began to describe the Sheraton new Reservatron system.  Geneen thought that ITT could create a national single number watts line to replace the 200 phone numbers that Sheraton listed nationwide.   With the help of ITT's telephone technicians, the new system was created. Perhaps the greatest problem facing Sheraton's Marketing Director William Morton was picking one unforgettable number.  With the advice of telephone...
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Creation of the Havana Hilton Hotel

Expert | Stanley Turkel | Mar 27 | hotel
With the easing of the U.S. trade embargo on Cuba, I contacted my friend Curt Strand in Aspen, Colorado to recall the creation of the Havana Hilton Hotel which opened in 1959.  Curt was president of Hilton International from 1968 until 1986.  In response to my request, he wrote the following: You asked for a war story about the Havana Hilton.   It took a long time for us to negotiate the lease.  This was before we came up with the concept of a Management Contract.   The Cubans had many great qualities, but punctuality was not one of them.  It was nothing for them to schedule a meeting for 10 am and walk in at 1 pm with no apology.  In addition, I had to negotiate a second agreement ̶  a labor contract ̶  with the same group because...
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Hotel Owners, Select Your Profits

Expert | Robert Mandelbaum | Mar 19 | hotel, trends
The definition of "select-service" within the lodging industry may vary from person to person, but there is no doubt that properties in this segment are the most popular among developers. Using the broadest definition of select-service, this category comprised an estimated 85 percent of the total projects in the development pipeline according to the October 2012 U.S. Hotel Pipeline Outlook report from Smith Travel Research. While developers may be influenced by emotional and other non-economic factors, financial return is typically the main criteria considered when choosing to develop one type of hotel versus another. To gain a better understanding of the financial performance of select-service hotels, we compared and contrasted the operating performance of select-service...
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