Creating opportunity and community impact

Hello. We have a great lineup of stories for you heading into this weekend:

• Strategy: Creating opportunity and community impact

• People: 2023 women in hospitality benchmarking report

• People: Three innovations to solve hotel staffing shortages

• Technology: AI isn’t a party trick

• Sustainability: Hotel sustainability shouldn't be boring

• From our community: a note from Steve Turk

Let’s jump into it…

STRATEGY

Creating opportunity and community impact

with Christopher B. Randall, Director of Impact at 21c Museum Hotel St. Louis for the Hospitality Daily Podcast

One cool trend I'm seeing is hotel companies putting more of a focused effort on community building and impact, and our guest today has a job that's 100% focused on this.

Christopher B. Randall is the Director of Community impact at the 21c Museum Hotel St. Louis. I came across his work on LinkedIn and kept seeing photos of all the cool things he was doing in the community. So I invited him to join us on the Hospitality Daily podcast today, and we discussed:

• What Christopher's role covers

• Why this matters today

• Some of the areas he is focused on

You're going to be inspired by ways you can engage and impact the community around you...

Listen now

PEOPLE

2023 women in hospitality benchmarking report

by the School of Hospitality Management at Pennsylvania State University for the AHLA Foundation

What’s going on: Steady, but slow progress is being made toward diversifying the upper ranks of hotel companies.

• Women now hold one in four of all chief-level positions at hotel companies, although mostly in human resources and sales/marketing roles.

• At the director level, women now occupy an equal number of positions as men. Women have experienced gains in leadership positions in hospitality investment and development since 2019, going from one woman for every 10 men to one woman for every 7.9 men.

• Women held 24% of the podium spots at hotel investment conferences, up from 16% in 2017. On the main stage, 37% of prime speaking spots in 2022 went to women—up from 22% just a year earlier.

In their words: “Although we must continue to increase representation of women leaders in hospitality, it’s encouraging that the hotel industry is steadfastly working together to address longstanding inequities. This report shows that change is possible.” - Donna Quadri, Marvin Ashner director of the Penn State University School of Hospitality Management

Read now

PEOPLE

Three innovations to solve hotel staffing shortages

by Ryan Mann, Esteban Ramirez, and Matthew R. Straus for McKinsey

What’s going on: McKinsey proposes three innovative solutions that allow hotels to align staffing with dynamic demand: using activity-based metrics to forecast staffing needs, redesigning roles to combine jobs, and creating job networks across properties. These solutions have the potential to improve employee satisfaction and operational effectiveness, but hotel owners should prioritize employee engagement and retention when implementing them.

In their words: “As hotel occupancy continues to recover post-pandemic, hotels have the opportunity to think innovatively about staffing. By adopting a more flexible staffing model based on dynamic demand, hotels can deliver pre-pandemic levels of service even if they are short-staffed.”

Read now

TECHNOLOGY

AI isn’t a party trick

by Martin Soler, Partner at Soler & Associates, on LinkedIn

What’s going on: Search engines have taught us to adapt our language and search methods for machines, we expect the machine to be dumb and thus search to be long and painful. But AI is about to change that.

In their words: “If you deal with data and build human interfaces to manage that data, AI will disrupt you.”

Read now

SUSTAINABILITY

Hotel sustainability shouldn't be boring: celebrate impact

by Jeffery Smith, Vice President of Sustainability at Six Senses Hotels Resorts Spas, for HospitalityNet

What’s going on: Embracing sustainability offers a distinct opportunity for the hotel industry, as it can help lower operational costs and cater to the preferences of increasingly environmentally-aware guests. A significant number of travelers are looking for sustainable options but find it challenging to find them, which gives hotels the chance to set themselves apart - and have fun doing so.

In their words: “Move past the basics and make sustainability fun and inspiring. Not only because it's a good thing to do, but also because it improves the product, it adds value to the visitor experience. Travelers want to do more and hotels are poised to offer it.”

Read now 

FROM OUR COMMUNITY

by Steve Turk