A little age often allows for well-earned wisdom. Hotel Management’s Forty Over 40 winners shared some of their hospitality industry concerns as well as their creative approaches and solutions to find success. This special report is sponsored by DIRECTV.
Charles Cushman
CEO, Heron Hospitality
The biggest concern for us this past year has been acquiring hotels that have been making record revenue for the past few years that have not adjusted their asking price based on the increasing interest rates. This has made it difficult to find good long-term investments to grow our portfolio. Our company looks for hotels in destination locations that have been owned for long periods of time and the sellers are looking to retire. This gives us the opportunity to enhance the legacy of that property with the latest technology, revenue management and service standards.
Catherine Diem
Director of Sales, Worldwide Financial and Insurance Accounts, Hilton
Making travel accessible to all and continuing to find the next generation of hoteliers. The hours are long, and the work can be hard. I'm encouraged by the number of hospitality programs available to students. We need to evolve to meet the needs of the future workforce to provide the opportunities and balance they will demand. We need to identify and promote non-traditional routes to hospitality.
Richard Garcia
SVP of Beverage & Food & Head of Operations for Caribbean and Latin America, Remington Hospitality
The increasing environmental awareness and the imperative to address climate change are steering the industry towards sustainable practices. This entails reducing waste, optimizing energy consumption and adopting eco-friendly initiatives to align with consumer expectations and global sustainability objectives.
Karen Gilbride
Vice President Global Marketing, avid hotels, Atwell Suites & Garner hotels, IHG
Labor is a challenge on many fronts. For our franchise owners, the rising costs of labor and also turnover challenges, which are high in this field, are what we most often hear is a concern to them, and to us. This is a rich, diverse, complex business—and ensuring we are training talent to stay in this field and grow and also look for ways to optimize how we deliver the experience through people is key.
Nicole McAlister
Area Director of Franchise Performance, Choice Hotels International
Interest rates not going down soon will hurt our industry; it will slow the development and hurt those who need to refinance. I would suggest that we continue to work with our states and cities to control property taxes and help developers, and provide owners more knowledge of financials and cost controls so they can be more financially stable. We need to make sure we don't allow more revenue to go to OTAs but remain on brand sites, really value our brands and position and guide our travelers to our loyalty programs. I would also make sure Airbnbs are controlled and paying the same taxes as our hotels have to, as well as limiting the amount of them in our cities. I advocate that franchises work closer together to improve all of our values and cultures and stop allowing third parties to take from our brand sites.
This article was originally published in the July/August edition of Hotel Management magazine. Subscribe here.