Hospitality

A drink at the hotel bar. A lavish breakfast buffet. A perfectly planned wedding reception. A romantic dinner at the lobby restaurant.

Hotel guests worldwide had to give up these pleasures in 2020… and hotels felt the pain. Now, hotel operators are getting creative about F&B to win back their guests.

“The perceived value goes beyond portion size,” writes Matt Rinehart, Vice President of Food & Beverage, HRI Lodging in Lodging magazine. “Guests will measure value through the delivery of a thoughtful dining experience or to-go order that is consistent, guest-focused, and detail-driven.”

Here are four ways hotels are delivering just that.

After the most grueling year any hotel operator can remember, there’s good news on the horizon: People are yearning to travel.

A recent survey by Amadeus found that 71% of leisure travelers would travel immediately or within 1-3 months of COVID-19 restrictions being lifted. The same survey found that 2 out of 3 travelers agree that COVID-19 prevention measures are important to consider when choosing a hotel.  

The American Hotel and Lodging Association’s 2021 “State of the Hotel Industry” report says that 56% of consumers expect to travel for leisure this year — on par with pre-pandemic years — while business travel lags. Enhanced cleaning and hygiene practices are guests’ second-highest priority, after price.

As hospitality pros prepare for a busier, better travel season, we take a look at how guest expectations and hotel sanitation measures have evolved in the past year.

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.

Hotels in the United States and elsewhere in the world must now work to attract those guests who are considering a return to travel, says Taimur Khan, who is Vice President and GM, Global Transportation, Travel and Hospitality Solutions Team for Salesforce.

“For this next cohort that has never traveled in the last seven, eight months, their health and safety is going to be paramount. They have to be made comfortable,” Khan advised in a recent roundtable discussion sponsored by the Cornell School of Hotel Administration at Cornell University.

Making guests comfortable: It’s what hoteliers do best, but it’s also an enormous challenge in the age of COVID-19. Hamilton Beach Commercial analyzes the roundtable experts’ recommendations for hotel cleanliness and communications, and offers a few of our own.

Great coffee and a satisfying breakfast are among the most cherished amenities hotels offer. What happens now, after COVID-19 has forced hotel operators to rethink the way they serve guests? 

One thing hoteliers agree on: Coffee and breakfast must stay. They just have to be served differently now. We’ll take a closer look at how hotels are adapting to this new reality.

Tomorrow’s hotel guestroom is small and sustainable, pretty and personalized. It might look like an office; it might just be a chill place to crash. It might not have a closet, but it will definitely keep the in-room coffeemaker. 

Hospitality has changed in remarkable ways over the last decade, as major brands have jostled to introduce boutique-y brands, attract the Instagram generation and keep up with the global tourism boom. What does the future hold? These are the hospitality trends we believe have staying power over the next five-plus years.

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.

The coffee urn is an unsung hero. It’s people’s first stop at the hotel breakfast bar, the conference catering table and the early-morning meeting. You plug it in, turn it on and it does its thing — day after day and week after week. No one ever really pays attention to it… until something goes awry.

How can you fix problems with your commercial coffee urn? And how do you know if you should upgrade to a newer, shinier model? Here are four signs to look for.   

On TripAdvisor, we stumbled across a hotel review titled: “Amazing hair dryer, but terrible beds!” The reviewer didn’t sleep well, but nevertheless rated the hotel three stars:

“The reason I'm not giving this facility a 2 is because I LOVE the hair dryer... yes this is silly, but so many hotels have the worst blow dryers ever... I want to take this one home.”

Hotel owners should take note. While a blow dryer isn’t the most important object in the guestroom (we’d argue that the coffee maker earns that title), it has the potential to change your guests’ attitude, for better or worse. These key questions will help you choose a hotel hair dryer that fits your property and your budget, while helping all your guests have good hair days.

A bad cup of hotel coffee will mess up your whole morning.

You turn on the in-room coffee maker, desperate for some caffeine to prepare you for the long day ahead. To your dismay, you find your cup filled with a liquid that is almost, but not quite, entirely unlike coffee (to paraphrase Douglas Adams).  

It’s watery. It’s weak. All you can do is grimace and drink it, or put on some pants and stumble down to the lobby to find something stronger.

Don’t inflict this on your guests! Hamilton Beach Commercial®’s (HBC) hotel coffee makers are designed to maximize coffee extraction for a more satisfying cup — and more satisfied guests. Here’s how we do it.