F&B, M&E, Ancillary Revenue

In the past ten years of experience working with hotels, I’ve learned that marketing strategies are only as good as the data and information they build on. That’s why it’s mission-critical to have proper analytics and business intelligence handy when making big marketing decisions.

The tech industry is experiencing rapid change due to technological advancements, changes in consumer behavior, and the impact of the pandemic. This creates challenges and opportunities for how the industry adapts to the changing landscape.

On Thursday, March 30, thousands of organizations will celebrate Global Meetings Industry Day (GMID)–an international day of advocacy that amplifies the irrefutable value of in-person meetings, events, trade shows and conventions and the benefits they provide to employees, attendees, communities and industries of all kinds.

The past several years have not been kind to the restaurant industry. Covid certainly was traumatic on many so levels and with the significantly rising cost of goods and labor, so many operators have been forced to shut down or are scrambling to survive.

In 2011, Marc Andreesen wrote that “software is eating the world.”1 That same year, Gartner estimated global enterprise software spending was $269 billion.2 For 2023, Gartner estimates global enterprise spending will be $790 billion.3 The 3x growth since then and the accompanying rise of unicorns4 have confirmed that software has indeed eaten the world. However, the hospitality industry, the lodging sector particularly, has been slow to adapt, with some of the most well-known and valuable hotel brands still relying on legacy tech developed in the 1990s. With hotel industry revenue projected to reach over $408 billion in 2023,5 this represents a multi-billion-dollar opportunity for the next generation of SaaS6 builders.

With more than 50 years under its belt, HITEC is something of a household name in the hospitality industry. Produced by HFTP, HITEC reigns supreme as the world’s largest hospitality technology conference, attracting thousands of industry leaders and technology innovators to its stage each year. This year, the highly anticipated showcase and networking event will be taking place in Toronto, from June 26th to 29th and will, as always, give exhibitors a coveted opportunity to showcase their products, services, and knowledge to key decision-makers in the industry while also making meaningful industry connections. To check out the conference floor plan with all participating vendors and their booth information, click here.

In 2023 it was expected that Spain would see a 30% increase year-on-year in investment in Artificial Intelligence (AI), but as we approach the end of Q1 this forecast has already been exceeded and could even be doubled by year-end. The reason? Open AI’s ChatGPT. Conversational artificial intelligence employed by ChatGPT has reached 100 million users in just the first two months of 2023, and it’s already the fastest growing app in history.

Hotel operations involve numerous distinct processes that are not fully transparent without data analysis. Collecting and analyzing data about hotel operations brings much-needed transparency to these processes, which in turn reveals new opportunities to improve guest experiences and increase profits.

Las Vegas’s 38.8 million total visitors in 2022 was roughly 91.3% of 2019 levels and only 4.1 million below the peak number of visitors in 2016. Gaming revenue for Clark County in 2022 was $12.8 billion, a new record for the market. Statistics from the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority reflect 43.6 million total occupied room nights for Las Vegas in 2022, 20.6% more than in 2021. Occupied room nights, as well as total occupancy (79.2%), continued to lag 2019 performance, but the market’s ADR ($170.98) and RevPAR ($135.42) reached record levels in 2022. This article examines the latest trends and developments relevant to the Las Vegas hospitality market.

Being part of a hotel sales team is a challenging job. Quite frankly, being a hospitality professional – regardless of your scope – is no easy job. The hospitality industry is an ever-shifting, ever-demanding industry that twists and bends according to the whim of travelers, which, as you might have guessed, can be hard to satisfy. But as challenging as it may be, the hospitality landscape offers countless opportunities for personal and professional reward; there is something to be said about working within a landscape so firmly rooted in great service, tradition, and human connection and exploration.