Best Practices in the U.S. Lodging Industry

Abstract

A wide-ranging, Cornell-based research study sought to uncover the U.S. lodging industry's best practices, both in specific functions (such as marketing and property management) and in overall business strategy, from the perspectives of both managers and customers. For the managers' perspective, after inviting nominations and scanning media reports, the team examined 3,528 nominations. Using a screening analysis the team selected 115 best-practice champions in eight functional areas, and 29 overall champions divided according to industry segment (e.g., economy, midscale without F&B, upscale) and key competency (e.g., employee satisfaction). Following detailed interviews, the team wrote case studies for both the functional champions and the overall champions. The customers' perspective on functional and overall best practices was assessed in phone interviews conducted with a national sample of end-users and intermediaries. Customers assessed the value created by the best industry performance on key functional areas and, for overall champions, they specified what created value at the time of purchase and during the experience. Examples of those cases and a summary of the customer research are published in this article and will be detailed in subsequent articles in the series.