Doug Kennedy

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Despite that there is more information for guests to view online than ever before in the history of the lodging industry, the phones continue to ring in reservations offices and at the front desk. Simultaneously, hoteliers continue to increase direct bookings.  Hardly a day goes by that I don’t see another article on this topic, […]

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]As hospitality industry trainers know, using symbols and models can help trainees grasp abstract concepts and make seemingly-complex paradigms easy to understand. Seems like is a good time for the hotel industry to update its model, so let’s get your team onboard The Tricycle of Guest Service. When you think about it, a tricycle is […]

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]As a hotel reservations consultant and sales trainer, I’m often asked for my perspective on the current trends regarding the number of inquiry reservations call received vs. previous years. Many hotel marketers seem to think this is a simple question and I suppose that on one level it should be. It certainly is possible to […]

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Increasingly, hoteliers recognise upselling training as an opportunity to generate additional revenue, yet it is also essential to properly measure the results and incentivize success. Most only measure “incidents” of upselling at registration. Similarly, most incentivize a percentage of the “per stay” revenue per incident. As a result, colleagues generally focus exclusively on scoring a […]

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Considering all of the many components of a positive guest experience during even just a 24-hour stay, and how many guests are in a hotel on any given night, it should not be surprising to any hotelier that at some point during a shift every colleague is likely to encounter complaints. Surely we can and […]

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]If you’re like most hotel managers, chances are you are highly focused on securing more direct bookings and thus reducing the costs of customer acquisition. If so, here are some train-the-trainer style tips for providing your reservations and front desk colleagues with the skills they need to covert today’s over-informed, channel surfing callers. You can […]

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]As I often say in my hospitality workshops, we in the hotel industry are in a unique business of selling space and time, so we had better be REALLY good at the intangibles. Although we charge them for rooms, the guests are buying an overall experience that is made up mostly of human interactions. With […]