Roomkey.com should be your booking tool!

Finally, Franchises collabarated and came up with a website to compete with marging eating online booking giants such as hotels.com and Priceline.
Roomkey.com Panel moderator Adam Weissenberg, vice chairman at Deloitte, asked whether the hotel companies are now competing with the Online Distributors.
“The more places you have your product, the more likely you are to sell it,” was the answer from a high end executive. For hotel owners, this comes as good news as this is the beginning of seeing direct consumer booking, foregoing fees due to online companies. This will not only bring more revenue to the hotel, but also providing better rates for the consumers. Let's hope roomkey.com is successful in attracting consumers.

Should we build a Franchise or Independent Hotel?

This is a question most people ask themselves when they pay a large percentage of their revenues in fees to Franchises. Its common knowledge that without an great location, being a franchise or an independent would not matter, due to chances of failure are high to begin with. Saying that, if you have a great location, you would need to make a decision on which option to choose. Due to social marketing blowing up in the last decade, Independent hotels have the same marketing medium as Franchise hotels, with access to third party wholesalers and other booking mediums. Independent hotel owners also have the advantage of not being pushed financially by a Franchise - who make you spend money, without taking a peek at your financials to see if it would be affordaeble. Franchises are sort of like teachers who make you do your homework, and independent hotel owners tend to procrastinate and make improvements at a snails pace. Maybe thats why, the independent hotel market, has not gotten a foothold in the industry. Consumer reviews are generally better for franchisees rather than Independent hotels/motels. Also, the ADR you can command on a good brand is far more than a independent can due to its preceeding reputation. I am generally in favor of building an franchise only if the brand is good enough to invest in. I would deter from buying an Wyndham or Choice Property simply because the return is not good nor is their brand awareness. I have years of experience in the hotel industry, and would gladly help anyone who needs help choosing an franchise or conducting market studies for such decisions.

Best Books for Travel Destinations

What do Travel Books Tell You?
Travel books tell you all that you might want to know about different places on Earth. From very exotic locales to bustling metropolises, there is hardly a place not described by travel books. These books offer amazing insights into the pros and cons of visiting a place and details about the weather, famous landmarks, festivals, culture, etc. In fact, no matter what kind of holiday you are planning, travel books can help. I came across a very good site, which recommends books based on Geographic locations. Check it out and you will see an insight on experiences in traveling through books!

Bailouts to Banks do not help small Businesses

During the financial crisis, policymakers put capital into banks and increased loan guarantees. However, these efforts were not very effective at encouraging lending to small businesses, the report shows. Banks' goals are very different from those of the federal government: While policymakers want to keep credit flowing, bank executives want to shore up their companies' financial strengths, which may lead them to curtail lending. This difference meant that during the financial crisis, some banks simply refused the additional capital the government offered them while other banks took the money but didn't increase lending. To make sure that banks keep credit to small businesses flowing, policymakers need to require financial institutions that are cutting back on small business lending to take government money and use it to maintain their loans to those companies.

Government needs to define small businesses consistently across to help

Define small business in a coherent manner. The White House, Congress, and various federal agencies all define small business differently. This makes it difficult to compare policy proposals or data. When officials use definitions that encompass 99.9 percent of all companies—including businesses as disparate as a self-employed house painter with no employees and a manufacturing business with 495 employees—they create too much variation to identify common credit problems and solutions. Unfortunately, as the oversight committee report explains, policymakers have done little to narrow the definition of small business or to identify types of small businesses, hindering their efforts. Reach out to local Govt reps to get your business noticed.

Should we add more countries to the VISA waiver program to drive revenue?

Currently, more than 60% of international tourists do not require a U.S. visa, in most cases because they travel under the Visa Waiver Program. The Secretary of State has formally requested that the Secretary of Homeland Security consider Taiwan for the Visa Waiver Program. Over the past year, Taiwan has undertaken significant efforts to improve its law enforcement and document security standards to meet the strict requirements for Visa Waiver Program eligibility. Under the Visa Waiver Program, participating nationals can travel to the United States for tourism or business for stays of 90 days or less without obtaining a visa. The program was established to promote travel and tourism with our foreign partners, stimulate the tourism industry, and permit the Department of State to focus consular resources in other areas. Since November 2008, the Department of Homeland Security has added nine countries to the Visa Waiver Program, bringing the program total to 36 countries.

Increase in Travel coming?

President Obama signed an Executive Order and announce new initiatives to significantly increase travel and tourism in the United States. The U.S. tourism and travel industry is a substantial component of U.S. GDP and employment, representing 2.7% of GDP and 7.5 million jobs in 2010 - with international travel to the United States supporting 1.2 million jobs alone. The travel and tourism industry projects that more than 1 million American jobs could be created over the next decade if the U.S. increased its share of the international travel market. Today's announcement offers important steps to bolster job creation through a range of steps to better promote the United States as a tourism destination and improve secure visa processing. This is the most recent of a series of executive actions the President has announced to put Americans back to work and strengthen the U.S. economy.
"Every year, tens of millions of tourists from all over the world come and visit America. And the more folks who visit America, the more Americans we get back to work. We need to help businesses all across the country grow and create jobs; compete and win. That's how we're going to rebuild an economy where hard work pays off, where responsibility is rewarded, and where anyone can make it if they try," said President Obama.
According to me, till i dont see an result from an property point of view, all these promises will be just promises.

Expedia fined for lying to clients

Internet holiday site Expedia has been ordered to pay €427,000 to French hoteliers after being found guilty of a series of 'false price reductions', 'false prices for hotels' and 'false information on hotel availability'.

The world's No1 internet travel agency - which also includes travel advice site Tripadvisor.fr and hotel booking site hotels.com - was condemned by the Tribunal de Commerce de Paris for misleading customers and ordered to pay the money as damages.

It must pay €305,000 to the hoteliers federation Synhorcat and the rest to two hotels which sparked the initial complaint: €79,000 to the Hôtel de la Place du Louvre in Paris and €43,000 to the Château Guilguiffin, in Landudec, Finistère.

Expedia was investigated by the anti-fraud agency DGCCRF who found that internet bargain-hunters had been misled by the American-based sites. Buyers were given information that certain hotels were full and were directed towards other hotels with whom Expedia and Hotels.com had commercial links.

Hotel Franchisee wins 25million lawsuit

InterContinental Hotels Group, owners of Holiday Inn Worldwide, has been ordered by a court to pay $25 million in damages to an Arkansas franchisee for fraud involving a hotel in Texas.
J.O. "Buddy" House of West Memphis, owner of Hotel Associates, claimed in a lawsuit that InterContinental Hotels Group breached its contract and fiduciary duty with his company over a Holiday Inn Hotel and Suites in Wichita Falls, Texas.
House claimed he lost millions of dollars in renovation costs and loss of value during various changes in ownership and personnel at the world's largest hotel franchiser.
All 12 members of a Crittenden County jury agreed that Hotel Associates was the victim of "deceit," while 10 jurors agreed that House proved he suffered from promissory estoppel, meaning the hotelier lost money after relying on a broken promise from InterContinental Hotels Group, according to verdict forms filed Friday.

IHG to launch new brand in China

InterContinental Hotels Group PLC Wednesday said it will launch a new upscale hotel chain in China in the next six months and eventually export the brand across the booming economies of Asia Pacific as it strives to become the operator of choice for increasingly wealthy Chinese travellers at home and abroad.
In an interview with Dow Jones Newswires, Jan Smits, chief executive of the Asia, Middle East & Africa operations, also said the outlook for the hotel industry in his region continues to show positive growth indicators, even as economists and investors are concerned that macro-economic weakness in key Western markets, including the ongoing sovereign debt crisis in Europe, will spill over into emerging countries of the East. Will wait to see what the new brand name will be.