Tag Archives: Hotel Employees

by | November 6, 2014 · 9:33 am

Hospitality Industry Management Update: “3 Obamacare Decisions for Hoteliers”

Unless the act is repealed, over time employers will realize its effects, both positive and negative.illness(1920x1080) Rather than waiting around, however, employers are already adopting offensive moves to blunt financial impact beyond a certain level, seeking improved productivity through reduced costs and updated methods. 

Despite attempts by health care experts to demystify the Affordable Care Act, some employers remain unsure of how to comply. Their questions are basic and familiar: Who is a covered employer? What type of coverage must be offered? May we keep our 90-day waiting period for enrollment?

While these questions are important, a more urgent imperative looms: The deadline for many employers to comply with the mandated coverage provision of the Affordable Care Act is approaching rapidly. Some smaller companies will not face mandatory coverage decisions until 2016, but for many employers a compliant health coverage program must be in place as early as New Year’s Day 2015.

Critical decisions must therefore be made without delay.

For more: http://bit.ly/1wzWL39

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by | November 5, 2014 · 9:48 am

Hospitality Industry Marketing Update: “Becoming Guest-Centric: Why Hotel Marketing Needs to Change”

At a time when guest-centric thinking has become critical for differentiating hotel brands,reinvent marketing hoteliers need solid information about guest preferences and behavior in order to deliver customer-centric marketing. By transforming not only their marketing efforts but their entire businesses in this way, hoteliers can deliver the value that today’s empowered guests crave.

Hoteliers: It’s not about you.

Is your marketing all about you? About how beautiful are your rooms, how delicious is the restaurant’s menu, how soothing are the spa services? All this may be true, but let’s be realistic: Your potential guests are hearing the same thing from every hotel.

There definitely is room for differentiation among hotel properties, and travel searchers yearn for it. Leisure and business travelers alike are usually undecided when they begin the online research process. Sixty five percent of vacationers and sixty percent of road warriors are considering multiple hotel brands when they begin planning. While most business travelers have a handle on the differences between hotel brands, sixty five percent of leisure travelers are unclear on hotel differentiation.

For more: http://bit.ly/1vJxmQh

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by | November 4, 2014 · 8:47 am

Hospitality Industry Health Update: “Maintaining a Healthy Workforce, Workplace Keys to Hotels’ Ebola Response”

So far, it appears that the Ebola outbreak is not holding back companies’ road warriors. According to a poll of corporate travel managers released by the Global Business Travel Association Foundation,Ebola-620x330 nearly 80 percent of the managers said international business travel has either not been impacted at all or has not been impacted much during the past month. Likewise, more than 90 percent of managers said that domestic business travel has either not been impacted at all or has not been impacted much during the past month.

Travelers aren’t immune to the fear of Ebola generated by top headlines, so even though the dangers of a serious outbreak in the United States remain extraordinarily low, hotels must be prepared to respond to guests’ and employees’ concerns. And with flu season upon us, they should be ready to take responsible action no matter what the serious health care scenario.

“The health, safety, and security of our guests and team members is paramount,” stated Katherine Lugar, president and CEO of the American Hotel and Lodging Association (AH&LA) in a press release. “In these kinds of rapidly evolving situations, it is imperative that we stay informed, dispel fact from fiction, and follow official guidelines.”

For more: http://bit.ly/1x3lCeB

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by | November 3, 2014 · 9:09 am

Hospitality Industry Legal Update: “California Ranks Highest For Workers’ Compensation Costs”

California employers are required by law to have workers’ comp insurance, even if they have only one employee.Workers Comp (NO LOGO) The California Department of Industrial Relations (DIR) imposes assessments on employers to cover the cost of potential workers comp claims. The amount a business pays into the system depends on how many employees a business has and what its total payroll is.

California has been ranked as the most expensive state for workers’ compensation costs, according to a newly released report.

The Workers’ Compensation Premium Rate Ranking Summary from Oregon’s Department of Consumer and Business Services shows that California businesses spend $3.48 for every $100 of payroll issued.

That’s 188 percent of the median cost of $1.85 for all 50 states. California was the third most expensive state in 2012 and the fifth most expensive in 2010.

“California’s workers’ compensation system is incredibly inefficient,” said Jerry Azevedo, a spokesman for the California-based Workers’ Compensation Action Network, which seeks to reduce costs for employers and improve services to injured workers. “It does not do a good job of achieving its goal. For as much as employers pay, they don’t get a lot out of it.”

For more: http://bit.ly/1pgVFZb

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Filed under Claims, Employee Benefits, Health, Hotel Employees, Hotel Industry, Insurance, Management And Ownership, Risk Management

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by | October 22, 2014 · 8:37 am

Hospitality Industry Risk Update: “Liberty Mutual: Retail and Hospitality Institute II”

“Best practices for mitigating risk and reducing losses for guest and employee injuries and incidents in the retail, hospitality, restaurant, gaming and entertainment industries.”

Liberty

At the conclusion of this institute, you will be able to:

• Explain what drives best-in-class performance in safety and risk
management
• Implement best practices for achieving safety and
operational excellence
• Apply resources and take advantage of networking opportunities that
can lead to stronger risk mitigation practices and related expense control

For more information contact Liberty Mutual at LPED@libertymutual.com with questions.

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by | October 21, 2014 · 8:27 am

Hospitality Industry Management Update: “Hotel Housekeepers Are at Great Risk for Sexual Assault From Guests”

“Women described men who insisted they close the door while cleaning, grabbed their hands as they handed over change and asked where they could “find a girl.”housekeeper-387x580 Kensbock and her colleagues identified a few factors that put women in the hotel industry at a heightened risk for sexual harassment, including the “gendered” nature of their work as housekeepers and their lack of power relative to the guests…Most of the women in Kensbock’s study coped with harassment using passive strategies, like humor or deflection. Though the hotel management had protocols they could follow to report inappropriate behavior, women—fearing guests would retaliate by leaving negative surveys—rarely complained.”

When Dominique Strauss-Kahn was accused of assaulting Nafissatou Diallo, the maid who was sent to clean his hotel room, hospitality workers thought the story seemed all-too-plausible. In a New York Times op-ed, Jacob Tomsky, a veteran of the hotel industry, wrote that housekeepers are assaulted by guests “more often than you’d think,” and that their employers don’t offer much protection. In a recent account on xoJane, an anonymous woman describes a decade’s worth of sexual harassment in different parts of the hotel industry—from working the front desk to cleaning rooms. It’s so systemic, she says, that the women developed coordinated strategies to cope with it—like enlisting other housekeepers to stay with them when they’re assigned to clean the room of a “known pervert.”

For more: http://bit.ly/124uEO7

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by | October 20, 2014 · 11:16 am

Hospitality Industry Legal Update: “Justices Will Decide Privacy Case on Hotel Records” (VIDEO)

“Los Angeles has said the ordinance makes prostitutes and drug dealers less likely to use hotels if they know that the facilities must collect information about guests and make them available to police on a moment’s noticegavel (1)…In dissent, Judge Richard Clifton said that courts previously have ruled that hotel guests have no expectation of privacy in records of their names and room numbers. “A guest’s information is even less personal to the hotel than it is to the guest,” Clifton said.”

The Supreme Court agreed Monday to referee a dispute over police access to hotels’ guest information without first getting a search warrant.

The justices said they will hear an appeal by the city of Los Angeles of a lower court ruling that struck down an ordinance that requires hotel operators to open their guest registries at the demand of police.

The federal appeals court in San Francisco divided 7-4 in ruling that the ordinance violates the privacy rights of the hotels, but not their guests.

For more: http://bit.ly/1zi8CGd

And for more information on how to best handle police requests for information, check out Petra’s own Director of Risk Management, Todd Seiders, in this P3 Risk Management Update “How to Handle Police and Law Enforcement Request for Hotel Guest Information”.

[vimeo https://vimeo.com/109469870 w=500&h=281]

P3 (Petra Plus Process) is the Risk Management Division of Petra Risk Solutions – America ’s largest independent insurance brokerage devoted exclusively to the hospitality marketplace.

For more information on Petra and P3 visit petrarisksolutions.com or call 800.466.8951.

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by | October 17, 2014 · 8:30 am

Hospitality Industry Health Update: “Official Recommendations of the P3 Team Regarding Ebola”

Petra’s Director of Risk Management, Todd Seiders, has put together his best recommendations regarding the Ebola virus. Please click the image below to view the list at it’s full resolution and be able to save the image for personal use or to pass along to anyone you may know in the hospitality industry!


P3 Ebola Sheet

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by | October 16, 2014 · 9:59 am

Hospitality Industry Health Update: “Ebola is Spooking Wall Street”

Ebola fears are most obvious in the airline sector. Shares of American Airlines Group (AAL) and Delta Air Lines (DAL) fell sharply on Wednesday,ebola hurt by the news that the new Ebola patient flew the day before being diagnosed. Both airlines are down nearly 20% over the past month alone….Hotel stocks like Hilton Worldwide (HLT) and Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide(HOT) have also been punished by the Ebola concerns.

The Ebola epidemic is starting to contaminate sentiment on Wall Street, which is already losing sleep over countless crises.

The arrival of Ebola in the U.S. has coincided with a period of extreme turbulence in the stock market, which has tumbled about 8% from record highs.

The deadly virus is clearly not the only factor behind the market slide, but it’s a major unknown that is increasingly weighing on market psychology. That was the case again on Wednesday as the Dow plummeted as much as 370 points and health officials revealed a second health-care worker in Dallas tested positive for Ebola.

For more: http://cnnmon.ie/1CqQcQ7

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by | October 15, 2014 · 9:30 am

Hospitality Industry Management Update: “Reviews Increasingly Drive Booking Decisions”

The next step for the industry is taking those positive and negative reviews into account when setting rates. ratesreviews_featureMolinari said Las Vegas Sands isn’t quite there yet but noticed software developers are innovating in the space…Davis said she has developed her own metrics and is taking ratings and reviews into account when determining her price positioning, although she admits her process is a bit subjective and does not rely on a specific algorithm, such as a software program might.

Online reviews increasingly are affecting booking decisions, although not all traveler segments behave the same way, according to research and various industry sources.

Multiple studies recently have highlighted the importance of guest reviews and ratings in the booking funnel.

A study conducted by TrustYou and Donna Quadri-Felitti, clinical associate professor at New York University’s Preston Robert Tisch Center for Hospitality and Tourism, concluded that guest reviews have a significant impact on hotel conversion rates as well as the rates that travelers are willing to pay. Given equal prices, travelers are 3.9 times more likely to choose a hotel with higher review scores, the study showed. And when hotel prices are increased for hotels with better review scores, travelers are more likely to book the hotel with the higher score despite the higher rate.

For more: http://bit.ly/1wHkOuy

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