The first of its kind, The Hospitality Show is a bold new event for the entire hospitality ecosystem with one shared goal: operating hotels efficiently and profitably. Brought to you by The American Hotel & Lodging Association and Hotel Management, the event will bring together top industry leaders, senior executives of hotel brands, owners, operators, management companies and procurement specialists—and their teams—to discover, network and drive profitability.
Business accelerates when the right people are in the room, and this new weekly series of advisory board interviews goes 1:1 with the industry’s best and brightest as they build the inaugural event to be held June 27-29, 2023 at The Venetian Resort Las Vegas.
In this installment, we catch up with Michael Frenkel, principal at Travel Conversations and MFC PR.
What issues are currently causing headaches for the industry?
Frenkel: Labor is on everyone’s mind, and rightfully so.
Hospitality is a “people first” industry, and no hotel or brand can take good care of its guests or achieve optimum profitability without a smart, well-trained team of people running operations.
What is most interesting is the way in which, in the current environment, every major challenge confronting the industry has refocused us on our people: Guest service and profitability of course, but also hotel finance and budgeting; cost control; staffing and hotel development, DEI – they all point back to the importance of training, properly managing and equitably rewarding our teams. That is the challenge of today, and the future.
What will it take for those issues to smooth out and when do you anticipate that will happen?
Frenkel: Interestingly, the key to the industry’s “people challenge” may be the most impersonal, automated set of solutions of all: The tools of technology.
As in other businesses, harnessing the tools of technology and innovation will both free up our people to do their jobs better – and elevate efficiency and performance across the industry.
From online staffing and workforce management to revenue management and automated guest check in tools, the more we innovate, the better our operational results – and the more we empower team members to do what they do best: taking great care of our guests and growing their own careers.
What new trends do you see affecting the hospitality industry the most in 2023?
Frenkel: It’s probably no surprise that I believe the path and shape of innovation will have the most impact on the hotel industry. I’ve seen this up close and personal for more than a decade.
In 2013, it was a struggle to get the hotel C-Suite to pay attention to the importance of innovation in shaping the industry’s future and working through core challenges. In 2023, every leader acknowledges the central role of technology.
A wise CEO I know, remarked that in the early 2000s, the OTAs took $200 billion in value from the industry, by bringing booking online first. In 2015, Airbnb created more than $100 billion in new value by essentially creating a marketplace for alternative accommodations.
How much value can the industry create for itself by innovating new tools to take care of guests, and run its own businesses, better?
What do you see as the biggest opportunities for the industry as we make our way through 2023?
Frenkel: The biggest opportunities always present themselves under the guise of the biggest challenges.
Not just the hotel industry but the entire financial world is wrestling with the collapse of SVB and the concomitant attempt of financial decision-makers to avoid the worst impacts of recession while also reducing inflation.
The smartest owners and operators are gauging the impact of these developments across stakeholder communities and positioning themselves to take advantage of future opportunities for investment, growth and expansion.
The big winners of tomorrow will be those who read the tea leaves right today.
What do you think the industry’s biggest win this year will be?
Frenkel: Demonstrating and confirming our sustainable resilience as an industry.
The performance of companies across the hotel industry during and after the pandemic crisis was remarkable: We went from massive layoffs and shuttered properties to a return to peak performance and profitability numbers in the blink of an eye. It was amazing to watch, and experience.
Now the key is to normalize high levels of performance for the long term, and transition hotel owners and operators from a “twentieth-century” mindset to an industry that operates and thrives on agility, nimbleness, and the ability to change and evolve quickly.
Investors, partners and most importantly our guests are watching to see how quickly we can adapt to rapidly evolving consumer and financial trends to sustain performance.
I think we are up to it.
What are you most looking forward to at The Hospitality Show?
Frenkel: The people! THS is the first industry conference built on the concept that having “the right people in the room” makes all the difference.”
It should be a uniquely valuable experience for everyone who attends...