America’s Haunted Hotels

October 30, 2008

Last thing I remember, I was
Running for the door.
I had to find the passage back
To the place I was before
Relax, said the night man,
We are programmed to receive.
You can checkout any time you like,
But you can never leave!
     — Hotel California

The Eagles probably would have felt right at home at some of these hotels. Forbes Traveler has released a list of America’s haunted hotels, including one right around the corner from the Salem Witch Museum.

Happy Halloween from the staff of Nestlé Library.

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Global Occupancy Rates Continue Decline

October 24, 2008

The global hotel industry recorded declining occupancy rates  for the month of September 2008, according to data from Smith Travel Research (STR). Differences in regional performance were evident in the report from STR, with Europe showing marked declines while Asia Pacific and South America posting significant growth in occupancy rates. STR gathered data from more than 36,150 hotels comprising 4.93 million guestrooms worldwide. Read the full report.

The Nestlé Library subscribes to several STR publications, including:

  • U.S. Lodging Review – weekly, monthly, and quarterly performance reports on the U.S. lodging industry (call number TX909 A1 S77) .
  • The Host Study – annual hotel operating statistics (call number TX901 H685).

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Number of International Visitors to U.S. Rises

October 23, 2008

International travel to the U.S. rose significantly during the first seven months of 2008. According to the U.S. Department of Commerce, 29.3 international visitors traveled to the U.S. from January through July, an increase of 10% over the same period in 2007. For the month of July, total visitation was 5.4 million, an increase of 2% over July of last year.

More visitors mean more money. International visitors spent $83.5 billion during the first seven months of 2008, an increase of 24% over the same time period in 2007.

Monthly tourism statistics are available from the Department of Commerce, through the International Trade Administration’s Office of Travel and Tourism Industries (OTTI). Read the full press release from the OTTI news page or find additional travel statistics on their monthly tourism statistics page.

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New Book: The Integrity Dividend

October 21, 2008

Hotel School Professor Tony Simons has released his new book, The Integrity Dividend. To test his theory that employees’ assessment of whether their managers live by their word had an effect on a hotel’s bottom line, Professor Simons surveyed the attitudes of employees at 76 hotels, all franchises of one chain. For all the factors that he measured, he found that managers’ behavioral integrity was the factor with the greatest correlation with those hotels’ financial results, exceeding even fairness. He called this effect the “integrity dividend.”

Professor Simons conducted dozens of focus groups, surveyed thousands of employees, collected financial and operational numbers, and interviewed over 100 senior executives and executive coaches. The book lays out the research clearly and provides proven tools for managing common integrity challenges. It offers guidance for building individual credibility and for creating an organizational culture of integrity and accountability. Throughout, Simons uses real-world insight and stories drawn from senior executives, line managers, and coaches.

A copy of The Integrity Dividend is available in the Nestlé Library – located on the New Books shelf under call number HF5387 S568.

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The Psychographics of Restaurant Menus

October 17, 2008

Well-written menus are excellent sales tools.

Consumers’ decision-making processes can sometime be complex and unpredictable. Well-designed menus can play a crucial role in ensuring a pleasurable experience for restaurant customers.

Brian Wansink, the John Dyson Professor of Consumer Behavior at Cornell, has published award-winning academic research on food psychology and consumer behavior. According to Professor Wansink, consumer patterns can be predicted when it comes to reading menus. A person’s eye will move in a Z-shaped pattern beginning in a menu’s upper left corner and moving to the upper right, down through the center, to the lower left and, finally, exiting at the lower right-hand corner.

A recent article in the October edition of Restaurants and Institutions explains many of the psychographic characteristics of menu design. Included in the article is the research conducted by Hotel School doctoral student Sybil Yang on the importance of price presentation in menu choices.

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What’s In A Hotel Rating?

October 13, 2008

Travellers looking to book hotel reservations often rely on star ratings - those celestial metaphors that judge the overall quality of hotel properties. In most countries, there is no standard classification system, which sometimes results in a wide discrepancy for the same properties rated by similar agencies.

A recent report by Independenttraveler.com provides some case studies of hotel properties and helps to explain the subtleties of some of the most popular star rating systems.

For updated lists of hotel rankings, visit the Nestlé Library’s Hotel Ratings web page.

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The Giant Pool of Money

October 9, 2008

For years, financial firms have been willing to loan large sums of money to people with insufficient assets or income to pay back the loans. It’s called subprime lending and it has had a significant effect on the mortgage industry. About 21 percent of all mort­gage originations from 2004 through 2006 were subprime. And now – surprise! – many of those borrowers are unable to make payments on the loans, resulting in real problems for many financial services companies. It’s not a coincidence that the current financial meltdown is centered in the U.S. housing market.

Need a simple but thorough explanation of the whole mess? National Public Radio (NPR) recently produced a show called The Giant Pool of Money that tells the story of how the U.S. got into the housing crisis and how it effects the current turmoil on Wall Street.

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New Book: Dollars and Cents of Shopping Centers

October 8, 2008

Looking for shopping center benchmarks? Get the latest income and expense data for retail centers and tenants. Published by the Urban Land Institute and the International Council of Shopping Centers, this data-packed volume provides authoritative figures from hundreds of centers in the U.S. and Canada.

The 2008 edition includes more detailed income and expense categories, and provides reports by region, center type, and age - drawn from nearly 20,000 stores.

At the Nestlé Library, we continue to build an excellent collection of real estate resources, including books, journals, and trade magazines. To find additional real estate resources, consult with a reference librarian in person or by email, or search the library catalog.

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Casual Dining Chains Experience Growth Slowdown

October 6, 2008

Casual dining has become a casualty of the current economic slowdown. Many casual dining chains have announced plans to cut back on new restaurant openings in 2009. Reduced consumer spending and financing difficulties are largely to blame for the segment, which includes chains such as Applebee’s, Buffalo Wild Wings, and Olive Garden. For the latest information, read the Reuter’s report.

Cornell students have access to detailed market research for the casual dining segment through a database called Mintel Marketing Intelligence. The Casual Dining report from Mintel includes the following sections:

 Market Share
 Trends
 Frequency of Attendance by Chain
 Attitudes Towards Ethnic Cuisine
 Loyalty

The Mintel database can be accessed from the home page of the Nestlé Library web site. For help with Mintel, or any of our databases, contact a member of the reference team.

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How Green is Wyndham?

October 3, 2008

Wyndham Worldwide has kicked off WyndhamGreen, the company’s environmental and sustainability program. “As one of the world’s largest hospitality companies across six continents, Wyndham Worldwide initiated WyndhamGreen because it fits our global commitment to corporate social responsibility and the environment. WyndhamGreen is not just a program, but a way of living and working that is based on our vision and values,” stated Stephen P. Holmes, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Wyndham Worldwide.

According to the latest report (2007) by Innovest Strategic Advisors, Wyndham has a lot of room for improvement in the areas of social and environmental sustainability. From the Innovest report: “The company’s hotels generate considerable levels of (predominantly paper-based) waste and consume large amounts of electricity, which translates into carbon emissions. More proactive sector peers generate significant cost savings by minimizing electricity consumption, incorporating green building design.”

Cornell students have access to Innovest reports through the company’s Innovest Analytics web site.

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Hotel Stocks Slide Expected to Continue

October 2, 2008

NASDAQ headquarters in Times Square

The travel industry is not immune to the recent turmoil on Wall Street. Amid growing economic concerns, many economic analysts have lowered their outlook on major lodging companies.

On Monday, Goldman Sachs analyst Steven Kent said he expects U.S. REVPAR to remain negative into next year largely due to declines in corporate travel spending throughout most industries.

Read the full article on Forbes.com.

Members of the Cornell community can obtain current analyst reports from leading brokers through a database called Investext Plus. Contact the Nestlé Library reference team for help using Investext Plus, or any of our other databases.

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Hilton Places 2nd in InformationWeek 500

October 1, 2008

Honoring the most innovative users of business technology, the InformationWeek 500 spotlights the power of innovation in information technology, rather than simply identifying the biggest IT spenders. In 2008, Hilton Hotels Corporation landed the second spot on the annual list – the highest ranking ever for a hospitality and travel organization.

The Hilton Hotels Corporation signature IT program is an internally developed enterprise platform for all hotel business functions. OnQ was introduced in North America in 2003 and includes a mix of proprietary and off-the-shelf technology that bridges all of the company’s nine brands together. Unique to the hospitality industry, OnQ is one of the strongest selling points for prospective and current owners and franchisees.

Visit the InformationWeek web site to see the full list, including details about each company’s IT strategies. Industry snapshots are also available, including one for the hospitality and travel industry. Copies of InformationWeek magazine are available in the Nestlé Library.

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