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Hamilton Beach Commercial Blog

Hospitality

What You Need to Know About Hotel Sustainability Certifications in 2024

Less single-use plastic? Energy-saving guestroom appliances? On-site composting? 

“I think if you asked 100 different travelers to define what they mean by sustainable, they would probably give 100 different answers,” Jeremy Sampson, CEO of the global nonprofit The Travel Foundation, told HotelDive

Not only that, but hotel guests don’t necessarily believe the sustainability hype. While 74% of travelers surveyed for Booking.com’s Sustainable Travel Report 2023 said they wanted more sustainable choices, 39% didn’t trust that travel options labeled  “sustainable” really are better for the environment.  

Hotel sustainability certification programs are one way to build trust and make it easier for travelers to choose greener options. But which of these certifications is the right choice for your business — and what must a hotel do to earn one?

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Topics: Hotel Sustainability

Three Key Hotel F&B Trends for 2023

Hotel dining is having a moment.

Hotel restaurants used to have a stodgy, old-school reputation as “a three-meal-a-day café where you just get a club sandwich and a burger,” Ewart Wardhaugh, executive chef at the Epicurean Hotel Atlanta, tells FSR magazine. “But now, the food and beverage within a lot of hotels is just as good as a freestanding restaurant, if not better because they have better support.”

While many hotels’ F&B profits have struggled to rebound post-pandemic, the industry is seeing increases in F&B revenue per occupied room. The drivers: more in-room dining, menu price increases, and event revenue.

Working to boost your F&B in 2023? Look to these trends.

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Topics: Hotel Management, Hospitality, Hotel F&B, 2023 food trends

Hospitality Trend Watch: Outdoor Adventure Hotels in the U.S.

If glamping is luxury camping for indoorsy people, then Field Station is its natural extension: a low-frills hotel for outdoorsy people.

A new hospitality concept from AutoCamp, Field Station promises “an all-in-one gear, food and lodging experience” that serves as a launching point for outdoor adventure. Picture simple, spacious rooms with extra storage, on-site equipment rentals and service, and educational programming.

What’s behind this new hospitality trend? Let’s take a dive into the emerging niche of outdoor adventure hotels.

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Topics: Hotel Trends, hospitality trends, outdoor adventure hotels, outdoors-focused hotels

What Hoteliers Can Learn From New Lifestyle Hotel Brands

In the 2010s, large hotel chains noticed the growing popularity of boutique hotels: chic urban properties that seduced younger guests with impeccable design and quirky charm. “We can do that too,” the big chains said… and thus began an explosion of millennial-focused lifestyle hotel brands.

How have these brands fared since? And what can hoteliers learn from the new generation of lifestyle hotels?

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Topics: hospitality trends, Hotel lifestyle brands, Lifestyle hotel brands

How to Welcome Back the Business Traveler

Conventions and trade shows are back in a big way — but the crowd of attendees is smaller.

People are buying more business-class airfares — but companies continue to limit their employees’ travel.

Business travel within the United States is picking up steam — but international business travel may not recover fully until 2026.

The upshot: Work-related travel is bouncing back from its COVID hiatus, but the hospitality industry shouldn’t expect things to be exactly the same. What can hotel operators do to win back the business traveler?

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Topics: business travel trends, business travel

6 Ways to Elevate the Hotel Bar

Of all the aspects of hospitality lost to COVID, the hotel bar was missed more keenly than most (second only, maybe, to the breakfast buffet). The bar is a uniquely convivial experience: a place to sit shoulder to shoulder with fellow guests and savor the experience of being somewhere unfamiliar but welcoming.

People want that opportunity to socialize again. That’s why it’s time to reinvest in the hotel bar and end any limitations on food and beverage services, hospitality experts say.

“International travelers want a great bar experience in particular,” Sloan Dean, CEO and president of third-party management company Remington Hotels, said at the NYU International Hospitality Industry Investment Conference. “Often they stay and dine in the hotel, whereas domestic travelers often don’t. So we need our food-and-beverage really dialed in.”

Here's a look at some hotel bar trends and opportunities to maximize revenue and guest satisfaction.

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Topics: Hotel F&B, hotel bar trends, hotel bar

Intuitive Layout, Essential Amenities: Hotel Guestroom Design Trends

Clean. Streamlined. Efficient. These are the hallmarks of pandemic-driven hotel guestroom design.

“As designers, we are being mindful of choosing items that are durable and easy to sanitize,” Lisa Rapp, hospitality principal at the Hawaiian architecture firm AHL, tells Travel Weekly. “Design is leaning toward clean lines and less clutter. Things like room service menus and brochures are being removed.”

Decluttered is one thing… but guests don’t want their rooms to be empty. Certain guestroom amenities are essential for comfort and convenience. Which ones do you need? And where should you put them?

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Topics: guestroom amenities, hotel guestroom design

The Triumph of Extended-Stay Hotels

Quick quiz: Which hospitality segment saw the highest occupancy rates in 2021?

Chic city hotels? Urban hotels — particularly those reliant on group travel — had 2021 occupancy rates that were lower than in 2019.

What about upscale vacation properties? Resort occupancy was around 60% and luxury occupancy was 52%, said Jan D. Freitag, National Director of Hospitality Market Analytics for CoStar Group. This represents a 12%-13% increase, respectively, over 2019.

The real winner has been extended-stay hotels, with an average occupancy rate of 73% in 2021. “Given reaccelerating business demand and continued strong leisure travel, expectations are that extended stay hotels will continue to outperform, with further occupancy and rate acceleration and continued strong investor demand,” Freitag wrote.

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Topics: extended stay hotels, extended stay amenities

2022 Hospitality Trends: A Big (But Bumpy) Rebound in the Hotel Business

Michael G. Medzigian, Chairman and CEO of Watermark Lodging Trust Inc., remembers the absolute devastation wreaked on the hotel business in 2020. His April occupancy rate plunged from 76% to 4%. His company furloughed 10,000 people and lost around $50 million in cash in the first month.  

It “took unimaginable effort to get to where we are now,” he said in The View for 2022: Insights and Expectations for the U.S. Hotel Industry, a recent webinar hosted by the Cornell Nolan School of Hotel Administration. And the journey’s not over: While Medzigian is generally optimistic, he sees more challenges piling on now than he’s ever seen before.

We distill four of the key insights he and other hospitality professionals shared in the webinar, to guide hotels through an encouraging but tumultuous year.

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Topics: Hotel F&B, hotel food & beverage, 2022 hospitality trends, Hotel FF&E

Year-End Recap: Top 5 Posts for 2021 from the HBC Hospitality Blog

Check out our most popular content for the year on the Hospitality blog -- here is your recap of our top posts from Hamilton Beach Commercial®.  

Read on...and if you see content you like, be sure to join the HBC Community for regular updates, whether it's Beverage, Food, Hospitality or Recipes.

 

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