TOP NEWS

🏨 Streamline your booking process for speed and simplicity. Adopt a mobile-friendly booking system, as a significant portion of bookings happen on mobile devices. Personalize guest experiences by leveraging technology to remember preferences. Implement automated confirmation emails, instant booking options, and follow-up with personalized messages. Post-stay, engage guests with thank-you emails and exclusive discounts for future stays, ensuring the hotel remains top-of-mind.

🏢 R200 Awards 2024, part of the Restaurant​ R200 series, will announce winners at Hawksmoor Canary Wharf on November 4. Categories include Best New Opening, Innovation Award, and International Company of the Year, among others. Votes are cast by hospitality industry leaders. Partners include Chapman Ventilation and Zonal. The shortlist features various establishments like Albert’s Schloss in London and Heartwood Collection for Food-led Pub Group of the Year. Contact for attendance: [email protected].

🍷 William Sheard, co-owner of Ibai steak restaurant, curates a wine list with around 175 options, focusing on bottles produced in the first 20 years of the 21st century. The list aims to offer various styles at different price points, ensuring wines are at their optimal drinking age. The Miros de Ribera Reserva stands out for its value, imported directly from the winery for over a decade. Sheard respects Alvaro Palacios from Priorat and enjoys wines like Trevallon 2014 for their harmony and identifiable grape components.

📌 The European Union introduced the Digital Markets Act (DMA) in 2022 to regulate digital 'gatekeepers'. As of September 2023, the EU Commission designated seven companies as gatekeepers: Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, ByteDance, Meta, Microsoft, and Booking.com (as of 13 May 2024). The DMA imposes obligations like enabling the uninstallation of pre-installed apps and data sharing with business users. Booking.com must comply with the DMA within six months of its May 2024 designation, affecting rate parity clauses and competition fairness. The UK's Digital Markets Competition and Consumers Act (DMCC) mirrors the DMA, with the Competition and Markets Authority enforcing similar regulations. Unintended consequences of the DMA for hoteliers include a 20% drop in organic traffic and increased distribution costs due to greater OTA visibility.

📌 The retail value chain, crucial for delivering products or services, can be applied to hospitality to optimize operations and enhance guest experiences. Key steps include product development (hotel service design), sourcing and procurement (partner management), and manufacturing and production (operational efficiency). Effective distribution and logistics (space and reservation management), along with marketing and sales (guest acquisition and retention), are essential. Retail experiences influence the guest experience, and post-sales service translates to post-stay engagement for hotels. Hospitality can learn from retail to improve service offerings and guest satisfaction.

🏨 National Hotel Employee Day is celebrated on September 1st, in partnership with the American Hotel and Lodging Association, honoring hotel employees' dedication. Mews, a hospitality tech company, designs user-friendly solutions for staff empowerment, such as automating routine tasks and providing mobile accessibility, centralized communication, data-driven insights, and guest self-service features. These innovations aim to enhance guest experiences and support staff in delivering exceptional service.

🏃 Senior travelers today harness technology for safer, easier, and more enriching travel experiences. Virtual Reality (VR) allows pre-travel exploration of destinations; wearable tech like smartwatches monitor health on the go; voice-activated assistants act as personal travel concierges; smart luggage comes with GPS and charging ports; senior-friendly apps feature larger text and emergency services; tailored travel platforms cater to seniors' needs; cybersecurity tools like VPNs protect digital information. These tech tools are redefining travel for seniors, enabling them to explore with confidence and ease.

🏨 Expedia's study reveals 74% of U.S. travelers prefer experiences over things. Soneva Resorts' "Barefoot Luxury" in the Maldives boasts repeat bookings due to its unique offerings. The Wynn Las Vegas integrates Amazon's Alexa for enhanced guest experiences. Booking.com's 2024 report finds 83% of travelers consider sustainable travel important. Hotels are adopting FOMO-inducing strategies, such as transformative experiences, social media content seeding, technology integration, direct booking incentives, sustainability, and secure data practices to stay competitive and build loyalty.

🍴 Ama, an all-day restaurant in Washington, D.C., opened in early-June near Navy Yard and Capitol Hill. The establishment transitions from a morning coffee and pastry spot to a focaccia and sandwich hub during the day, and in the evening, it becomes an aperitivo bar and dinner venue. Led by Johanna Hellrigl and Micah Wilder, the restaurant aims to efficiently serve the community's daytime dining needs. Ama features a diverse, seasonal menu with Italian roots, including Ligurian seafood and Alto Adige comfort dishes. The beverage program, managed by Wilder, boasts housemade bitters, cordials, and a unique cocktail menu served with an exclusive seltz gun sourced from Milan. Ama emphasizes customer lifetime value and staff well-being, adding a 3.85% health and wellness charge to bills for employees' benefits and commits to sustainable practices.

🍴 Thomas Straker plans to open a second café-style eatery in Notting Hill at 60 Golborne Road. The UK Government, with the Employment (Allocation of Tips) Act received in May last year, will enforce new tipping measures in October 2024. John and Desiree Chantarasak are set to open AngloThai, a 50-cover restaurant in Marylebone this autumn. Turtle Bay's '4 days at the Bay' initiative has seen a 'phenomenal' response, improving 90% of staff well-being. Philip Warren's Native Burger opened in Launceston, offering a 20-cover space with nine burger options.