Hotel expert and educator Howard Feiertag, who wrote a column on hotel sales and marketing for Hotel Management for 35 years, died on March 3 at the age of 94.
According to The Howard Feiertag Department of Hospitality & Tourism Management at Virginia Tech, Feiertag grew up the youngest of 10 children in a Brooklyn, N.Y., family, working in a luncheonette throughout high school. When he graduated in 1945, he enlisted in the U.S. Army, just before the end of World War II. Following three years of duty in the military police and military intelligence, he attended Michigan State University under the G.I. Bill.
He then worked as a counselor at Michigan State Prison, then returned to active duty during the Korean War, where he was commanding officer of the 56th Military Police Prisoner of War Camp. After his two-year tour of duty, Feiertag worked as an insurance investigator in Georgia before moving to Charlotte, N.C. In 1962, he was recruited by the Chamber of Commerce to be the first manager of the new Charlotte Convention Bureau; followed by being recruited by Orlando Chamber of Commerce to be the first CVB manager for its new bureau. He was then recruited to be a sales manager for two Charlotte hotels and then joined American Motor Inns of Roanoke, Va., to do sales work for the company's 22 hotels. Over the years, the company grew to 50 hotels and Feiertag became SVP of operations. In 1983, he was recruited by Servico, a hotel management company headquartered in West Palm Beach, Fla., to be its SVP of operations for 60 hotels. In 1989, he was recruited by Mike Olsen, department head of the Hotel, Restaurant and Institution Management program at Virginia Tech, to share his experience with undergraduates. He initially signed on for a five-year stint and remained for more than 30.
In addition to his industry and teaching career, Feiertag contributed columns to industry magazines. Starting in 1980 he was a columnist for several trade magazines including Hotel Management. In 2001, he co-authored his first book, "Lessons from the Field: A Common-Sense Approach to Effective Hotel Sales." For three decades he ran a personal blog called Howardsez where he shared his insights in hospitality sales. In 2020, he compiled many of his writings into a second book—"Hospitality Sales and Marketing: An Evolutionary Journey with Howard Feiertag."
In 2019, an endowment was created that named the department at Virginia Tech, provided a professorship and launched the Feiertag Academy-to-Industry Library Collection, which provides a conduit between academic research and the hospitality and tourism industries by creating accessible, applied summaries of current research. The collection includes information ranging from both academic and trade publications to audio files and blog posts and has attracted online visits from around the world.
During his career, Feiertag was the recipient of numerous accolades, including Hospitality Sales and Marketing Association International’s Hall of Fame Award, HSMAI Lifetime Award and the 2001 Arthur Landstreet Award from the Educational Institute of the American Hotel & Lodging Association. In 2004, he received the Award for Excellence in Outreach from Virginia Tech.
In an interview with the Events Industry Council, Feiertag once said “I would like to be remembered for contributing to other people’s lives, helping to make them successful, helping them to have the joy of living.”