The Search for Excellence in Lodging

NEWSFEED

August 24, 2017

2017 Excellence Awards for Lodging & Hospitality

Recognize the Best
Your Property
Your Staff
Your Owner

Applications are now available for the CLIA 2017 Excellence in Lodging & Hospitality Awards.

The deadline for submission is October 16, 2017.

The awards will be presented to the winners at the Evening Reception at the California Lodging Expo & Conference on November 6, 2017.

Apply now to share your success stories with your peers.

Click here for application.

Hospitality Financial Leadership - Creating Hotel Financial Policies

By David Lund, brought to you by www.hotel-online.com

Having a policy manual that covers all the important aspects of your business that relate directly to the financial function is a mission-critical building block for your hotel company. Not too many people would argue with that statement.

Why then do most small hotel companies still not have a financial policy manual for its hotels and what do they need to do to create one? In this article, I will lay out why this project is on the backburner, how to construct a policy and a process for getting this project completed in short order.

There are two main reasons why the creation and completion of this policy manual are so elusive:

One, there is just no time. We are too busy buying hotels, repositioning them and running around from meeting to meeting to sit down and get serious about putting this manual together. Tomorrow is the word. But ultimately, we know tomorrow never comes. Things are changing so fast we do not have time to stop our world long enough to capture what should be the correct governance for our financial function. We know it is an important project but it never really gets to a boiling point, not to the point where we must act.

The main reason there is no time is that we do not make the time for it and - let's face it - the COO and CEO are not exactly killing you daily because it is not done. It is kind of like your underwear drawer, out of sight and largely out of mind.

Two, there are just too many cooks. That is right, too many opinions and not enough certainty about all the various aspects of the operational minutia of your business. You know what it is like when we get 10 people together to discuss how we should do something. We get the 10 people in a room and we have 12 different ways to do the same thing. Everyone has an "opinion."

"It's not about making the right choice. It's about making a choice and making it right." - J.R. Rim

Click here for full article.

For more information, visit www.hotelfinancialcoach.com.

Travel Continues to Drive the Economy

Information contributed by the U.S. Travel Association

Every month, the U.S. Travel Association prepares the U.S. Travel Outlook, which analyzes trends in the economy and the travel industry.

There are some very interesting highlights for July 2017:

Domestic Travel is Strong

In June, the U.S. Travel Barometer showed that almost 78 percent of U.S. residents searched for lodging within the U.S. that month. This is the highest percentage since September 2016, and equals that of June 2016.

Some regions saw an increase in travel searches. However, the Far West, which includes California, Alaska and Hawaii reported a 20% decline.

Recently reports show that in 2016, domestic travelers spent $836.6 billion in the U.S. This equals 84% of all travel expenditures. Nearly 7.4 million American jobs can be attributed to domestic travel spending. The last few Travel Trends Index reports point to domestic travel spending as one of the main sources in expansion for the U.S. travel industry in the future.

Inbound Travel Grows Overall Exports

The good news is that the U.S. trade deficit shrank in May 2017, as exports increased to the highest they have been in more than 2 years according to reports by the Commerce Department. Travel exports, saw an increase of $21.4 billion in May 2017, a share of over 40 percent of the increase in U.S. exports. Although travel import levels increased slightly, by $0.3 billion, the surplus from travel trade was more than $7.1 billion. Fortunately, for without that surplus the total U.S. trade deficit would have been 17% higher in 2016.

This increase can be accounted for by a 15.6% growth in international visitor spending between February and May 2017, the fastest three-month increase in nearly two years.

Consumer Spending, Inflation and Travel

The Commerce Department reports that personal incomes increased 0.4 percent in May 2017. This slight increased actually represent the highest level seen in eight months. But U.S. consumer spending and inflation was reduced during that time.

The Labor Department data shows that consumer price inflation was level in June 2017. This affected travel prices. For example, airfares, declined by 2.7% in June and auto fuel prices declined by 2.8% while motor fuel prices decreased by 2.8%. These figures resulted in a 1.3% month-over-month decline in U.S. Travel's current Travel Price Index.

More detail into the data available provided by the July 2017 U.S. Travel Outlook is online here.

Save The Date!

California Lodging Expo & Conference

November 6, 2017

Hilton Concord

Mimi Chakravorti, Executive Director of Strategy of Landor

Keynote Presentation: "Being Agile in an Age of Disruption"

The year's most popular Lodging Trade Show is just around the corner. Attendees can look forward to a full day of education, enlightenment and:

 Cash prizes
 Vacation getaway prizes
 Industry Luncheon
 Wine Tasting and Evening Reception
 Educational Sessions
 Networking, Fun and much more

Click here for registration and information

Thank you to our sponsors!