David Jerome, senior VP of corporate social responsibility for InterContinental Hotels Group, says there are somewhere near 350 certification schemes and benchmarking programs that have emerged in the froth of the “green” hotel movement.
“Not all of them matter,” he told HotelNewsNow.com’s Patrick Mayock. “There’s a core group of probably 70 or so that maintain some degree of traction.”
For every LEED or EarthCheck or Global Sustainable Infrastructure there’re four or five programs that either don’t fit the hotel industry effectively or simply don’t yield any tangible benefits, Jerome said.
The major hotel companies have responded by turning internally, developing their own comprehensive guidelines that steer strategy throughout their global portfolios with enough wiggle room to accommodate for regional differences and participation in appropriate third-party programs.
As the role of social media evolves, there have been a few recurring themes that seem to garner the lion’s share of attention from hoteliers. Among those issues, dealing with the guest feedback on sites such as TripAdvisor has been a particularly popular concern.
TripAdvisor recently launched a series of regional Master Classes to address hoteliers’ concerns and misconceptions. The education project has been successful, Brian Payea, head of industry relations for the company, told HotelNewsNow.com’s Stacey Mieyal Higgins.
“We bring an awful lot of information to the audience and we bring a lot of resources out for them to use,” he said. “We definitely want to correct any misinformation … fill in some gaps. There are lots of people who have limited knowledge about what we’re all about.”
But there always seems to be a few hotel owners/operators who believe they are victims of fake reviews. What about them?
Deploying an effective social media program at the property level can be stressful for hoteliers. However, it might be a necessary step to stay afloat in the industry, writes HotelNewsNow.com Editorial Assistant Stephanie Wharton.
“Social media is here to stay. Hotels that do not have an active plan will be left behind and lose market shares, especially if you’re an independent,” said Bonnie E. Buckhiester, president of Buckhiester Management Limited, during HSMAI University’s “The Impact of Social Media on Revenue Management” webinar last week.
Forty-eight percent of consumers combine social media and search engines in their buying process, according to data released by Social Media Today. This leads to an acceleration and amplification of information on the Internet, where shoppers research and obtain information very quickly and then broadcast their findings to connections on social media sites.
Seventy-nine percent of hospitality and real estate executives polled byErnst & Young said they were optimistic about the prospects for the economy. Just 66% of executives in more than 1,000 other global industries showed optimism.
The heightened optimism among executives in the hospitality and real-estate sectors is also an improvement within their industry sectors. Just six months ago, only 57% of hospitality and real estate executives claimed optimism about the economy with a quarter of those polled saying they felt less optimistic.
Not surprisingly, given the heightened sense of optimism among hospitality and real-estate executives, a significant proportion are gearing up for what is expected to be an extended period of growth and transactional activity in the real-estate and hospitality sectors. In fact, 42% say they are focused firmly on either raising or investing capital.
In the week ending 2 July, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial unemployment claims was down 14,000 from the past week to 418,000, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. The four-week moving average was 424,750, a decrease of 3,000 from the previous week.
The advance seasonally adjusted insured unemployment rate was 2.9% for the week ending 25 June, a decrease of 0.1 percentage point from the prior week's revised rate of 3%.
However, the advance number of actual initial claims under state programs, unadjusted, totaled 416,798 in the week, an increase of 10,165 from the previous week.
Compiled by Jason Q. Freed.
