At noon on Friday, Northwest Airlines calls to tell us our 2:30 flight has been canceled and we have a choice of 1:15 or 6:30. Knowing we had an engagement that evening, that set the tone for my entire trip to New York for The International Hotel/Motel & Restaurant Show until I sat down for a cheeseburger at the McDonald's on the Gold Concourse at MSP International Monday night at 9:00.
The International Hotel/Motel & Restaurant Show and the Fall Conference of the American Hotel & Motel Association are held together each year in New York. The Fall Conference of the A.H.& M.A.includes the A.H.& M.A.'s Board of Directors meeting, other committee meetings, the Inaugural Reception & Dinner where the A.H.& M.A.'s new officers are installed for the coming year.
The International Hotel/Motel & Restaurant Show is big. There were 1,422 exhibitors scattered over 250,000 square feet of exhibit space. To compare, the UPS Show sponsored by Upper Midwest Hospitality here in Minneapolis has about 500 exhibitors in 75,000 square feet.
Over 30,000 buyers will go through the New York show and that doesn't include college and technical students, dealers, distributors, etc. Bill Sharp of The Whitecliff Group, here in Minneapolis, who also attended, said he thought total attendance of all types approached 80,000 people.
Getting Settled In
Our hotel was at 55th and Broadway. It was a great location close to Central Park, Times Square and the Theatre District. Our room was so recently remodeled that the bathroom didn't have towel bars, toilet paper hanger, curtain rods, etc. Of course, if those things are missing there isn't much likelihood that the room attendant would leave towels! Maintenance came and installed temporary curtains to block the view into our room from the office building and apartments across the street. Due to some installation problem we also received all the SpectraVision pay per view movies for free!
Friday evening we joined some friends who live in New York for cocktails before going out to dinner. To give you an idea of living cost in New York, the nice one bedroom apartment in a good area of Manhattan rented for $2,100 per month. The same apartment in Minneapolis would have been $650 to $850, without the doorman, but with parking. In other words, if you had a car in New York City, and most people don't, it would cost you an additional $300 or so per month to park it, not to mention insurance! It is cheaper to rent a car when you need one for a weekend getaway to a place you can't fly or take the train to.
The Show Starts
Saturday we went over to Javits Center where the show was and started working our way through the exhibits. One can get to the show by taxi or from any of the area's larger hotels which have room blocks for the Show/Conference. Buses circulate through Manhattan just for this show on about five routes every ten minutes and they are generally full. There are a lot of people attending this show and each one goes for several days. There are tens of thousands of people in the aisles.
I was specifically looking for guest room energy management systems including electronic start fluorescent guest room lighting. Other than that I simply wanted to see what new products were available and touch base with regular vendors and business acquaintances.
Many people take time out to attend seminars put on by the Educational Institute (E.I.) of the A.H.& M.A. Seminars and panels included: Supervisory Skills, Improving Employee Performance Through Leadership; Taking Charge of Your Career; Hilariously Healthy: Learning to Laugh and Play in a Diverse World; Motivation and Team Building; How Color Affects your Bottom Line (Yes, color's impact on consumer preferences!); How to Write a Winning Resume; Customer Driven Quality, Is It Really Here To Stay, plus another 20 more or so! Presenters and panelists included very prominent educators and senior executives of major companies.
At 1:30 Saturday afternoon I went as a guest to my first meeting of the E.I.I. Certification Commission, which I will be joining next year for a three year term as a Commissioner. This is the body within the hotel industry that oversees all the certification programs such as Certified Hotel Administrator, Certified Food & Beverage Executive (and every other hotel department), Certified Hospitality Educator, Master Hotel Supplier, etc.
The Commission's goal, like the E.l.'s, is to improve professionalism among those working in our industry. If you want to know more about being certified in any number of positions in our industry call 1-800-752-4567.
The New York Dining Scene
After the Commission meeting ended at 5:00 pm I wandered around the exhibit floor for a while before meeting Vicki and some friends of ours for dinner. We went to a restaurant in the Soho. This is a good point to mention restaurants in New York City. You may think high finance, fashion, jewelry, bad government and whatever else comes to mind is the city's principal industry. It is not any of those. It is eating and dining and there is a difference.
In Manhattan alone, over 150 new restaurants opened last year and only 64 closed. Sure there are hotel restaurants, McDonald's and Olive Gardens but that is not the important thing. There are innumerable delis, bagel shops, and small ethnic restaurants. There is fine dining in New York-very fine dining-hip restaurants, world renown restaurants, new trendy ones.
Sunday we brunched at the Marriot Marquis (1,850 rooms) with the Internship Coordinator for Ohio State University's hotel administration program. He is putting together a Spring conference to showcase their program. After brunch we went over to Javits Center to finish seeing the exhibits before our afternoon meetings.
Local Names and Faces
During our several trips through the exhibits we ran into a number of people from Minnesota: Dennis Breamer with our own state associations; Dick and Lorene Carlson of R. J. Carlson Company. Over at the Carlson Companies booth I saw Jim Olsen of Radisson Hotels Corporation and Nancy Johnson of Country Inns by Carlson.
Vast Array of Products
It is difficult to categorize the exhibitors. Any product or service you might imagine to be necessary or unnecessary to operate a hotel or restaurant is available for inspection or discussion at this trade show. From real estate and mortgage brokers on through designers to demitasse sugar stirrers, not to mention more espresso machines than one can count. It is all there.
The exhibit booths range from the simple ones to combinations of up to 20 with forests and discotheque light shows. There were only two companies selling pool enclosures to about 50 selling chairs. Did you know there were at least 40 oven companies broken down into: ovens; ovens-baking & roasting; ovens-brick, wood burning; ovens-convection & combination; ovens conveyor; ovens-infrared, ranges, broilers; and ovens-microwaves!
The category listings took 47 full magazine pages less a few ad spaces. The fact is, one could make arrangements to build a hotel, equip it, franchise it and supply it with consumables-without leaving the exhibit floor. The only service not being exhibited, that I found missing from the list, was management companies. Both the largest and the more modest sized management companies were attendees, however.
Sunday evening we attended the Florida International University cocktail party before dinner. The party was hosted by Dr. Tony Marshall, Esq. CHA, who visited Minnesota not too many months ago to give his tremendous class on Hotel Security, the class where everyone is harassed and, "Reasonable Care" enters one's vocabulary.
The real brains behind the F.l.U. academic program is Associate Dean Rocco Angelo who was also in attendance. Small world; Rocco was my dad's boss in Puerto Rico over 30 years ago.
At the cocktail party we made some new acquaintances and renewed some old ones. The high point for me was encountering W. Kirk Smith, CHA of Southern Host Hotels, who was one of my mentors for many years. Another surprise was that Kirk's son Russ and his beautiful wife were there. Russ is a brilliant hotelier (Cornell graduate) who is one of New York's best General Managers.
Dinner Sunday night was with Jim and Margaret Carro and their friends Pamela and Lee. We had a delightful time talking about many things including a great day of sailing Jim took Doug Brutger (Sunwood Inn, Morris) on several months ago on Chesapeake Bay. For those of you who belong to the Minnesota Hotel & Lodging Association, Margaret enters your office every month. She is Managing Editor of the A.H.& M.A.'s magazine Lodging.
MFIA Committee
While waiting for our Monday lunch appointment in the lobby of the Waldorf Astoria another Minnesota couple passed by: Brian and Deb Thuringer of Madden's Resort on Gull Lake. After "dining" at lunch time with a client at the Peacock Alley in the Waldorf Astoria we attended a meeting of the Market, Financial and Investment Analysis Committee.
I have been on this committee for over 12 years and Vicki has been for seven. Its purpose is to give hotel financial analysts a vehicle for exchanging ideas on improving the analysis of hotel investments. Members include consultants from major CPA firms such as KPMG Peat Marwick, development and operations executives from major hotel and cruise ship companies such as Cunard-Crown, Holiday Inn Worldwide, Hyatt, lender/owner representatives from Prudential, deal makers like Kidder Peabody and Landauer and so forth. I always learn something from these meetings and was sorry to have to leave for forty-five minutes or so to speak before another committee meeting. I returned in time to hear an informative presentation from a representative of Hilton Grand Vacations about marketing interval vacations (a.k.a. Time Sharing).
Time Sharing Changes
It was interesting to learn that time sharing isn't time sharing any more. One buys that same thing from one of the three or four big companies in the business, such as Hilton, Marriott or Disney. The units are exchangeable, not just for other time sharing times and places but also for stays at hotels affiliated with those companies. One can buy a time sharing unit in Florida and use it in exchange for a unit in Hawaii or a stay at the Waldorf Astoria while shopping in New York.
When the meetings ended at five I caught a taxi to Laguardia while Vicki stayed in New York to visit with friends and attend meetings for a few more days.
I got to the airport early and ran into Rose and Jimmy Sadier, CHAs of Rochester. They were on an earlier flight than mine by about thirty minutes so I had myself changed. I got on the plane and got settled in to my seat and began to get acquainted with the person next to me.
We had lots of time because the engines wouldn't start! My seat mate turned out to be J. Owen Boarman, AIA of Boarman Kroos Pfister Rudi & Associates. Owen's firm is well known in the Twin Cities and elsewhere for their architectural and master project designs including some important hotel projects. In the row in front of us was Tripp Snyder, owner of the Madison hotel in Moorhead.
After waiting a half hour or so we were all told to get off the plane and move to the departing flight which I was originally booked on! We all moved over to that plane and got settled in. A gentleman kept my coat from failing out of the overhead compartment. Anyone would have recognized him from the most recent cover of Lodging or from just keeping their eyes open in Minnesota as Juergen Bartels, head of the Hospitality Division of Carlson Companies! I thanked him and we visited for a few minutes before we settled into our seats.
SOURCE:http://www.hotel-online.com/Neo/Trends/Payne/Articles/International_Hotel.htm
The International Hotel/Motel & Restaurant Show and the Fall Conference of the American Hotel & Motel Association are held together each year in New York. The Fall Conference of the A.H.& M.A.includes the A.H.& M.A.'s Board of Directors meeting, other committee meetings, the Inaugural Reception & Dinner where the A.H.& M.A.'s new officers are installed for the coming year.
The International Hotel/Motel & Restaurant Show is big. There were 1,422 exhibitors scattered over 250,000 square feet of exhibit space. To compare, the UPS Show sponsored by Upper Midwest Hospitality here in Minneapolis has about 500 exhibitors in 75,000 square feet.
Over 30,000 buyers will go through the New York show and that doesn't include college and technical students, dealers, distributors, etc. Bill Sharp of The Whitecliff Group, here in Minneapolis, who also attended, said he thought total attendance of all types approached 80,000 people.
Getting Settled In
Our hotel was at 55th and Broadway. It was a great location close to Central Park, Times Square and the Theatre District. Our room was so recently remodeled that the bathroom didn't have towel bars, toilet paper hanger, curtain rods, etc. Of course, if those things are missing there isn't much likelihood that the room attendant would leave towels! Maintenance came and installed temporary curtains to block the view into our room from the office building and apartments across the street. Due to some installation problem we also received all the SpectraVision pay per view movies for free!
Friday evening we joined some friends who live in New York for cocktails before going out to dinner. To give you an idea of living cost in New York, the nice one bedroom apartment in a good area of Manhattan rented for $2,100 per month. The same apartment in Minneapolis would have been $650 to $850, without the doorman, but with parking. In other words, if you had a car in New York City, and most people don't, it would cost you an additional $300 or so per month to park it, not to mention insurance! It is cheaper to rent a car when you need one for a weekend getaway to a place you can't fly or take the train to.
The Show Starts
Saturday we went over to Javits Center where the show was and started working our way through the exhibits. One can get to the show by taxi or from any of the area's larger hotels which have room blocks for the Show/Conference. Buses circulate through Manhattan just for this show on about five routes every ten minutes and they are generally full. There are a lot of people attending this show and each one goes for several days. There are tens of thousands of people in the aisles.
I was specifically looking for guest room energy management systems including electronic start fluorescent guest room lighting. Other than that I simply wanted to see what new products were available and touch base with regular vendors and business acquaintances.
Many people take time out to attend seminars put on by the Educational Institute (E.I.) of the A.H.& M.A. Seminars and panels included: Supervisory Skills, Improving Employee Performance Through Leadership; Taking Charge of Your Career; Hilariously Healthy: Learning to Laugh and Play in a Diverse World; Motivation and Team Building; How Color Affects your Bottom Line (Yes, color's impact on consumer preferences!); How to Write a Winning Resume; Customer Driven Quality, Is It Really Here To Stay, plus another 20 more or so! Presenters and panelists included very prominent educators and senior executives of major companies.
At 1:30 Saturday afternoon I went as a guest to my first meeting of the E.I.I. Certification Commission, which I will be joining next year for a three year term as a Commissioner. This is the body within the hotel industry that oversees all the certification programs such as Certified Hotel Administrator, Certified Food & Beverage Executive (and every other hotel department), Certified Hospitality Educator, Master Hotel Supplier, etc.
The Commission's goal, like the E.l.'s, is to improve professionalism among those working in our industry. If you want to know more about being certified in any number of positions in our industry call 1-800-752-4567.
The New York Dining Scene
After the Commission meeting ended at 5:00 pm I wandered around the exhibit floor for a while before meeting Vicki and some friends of ours for dinner. We went to a restaurant in the Soho. This is a good point to mention restaurants in New York City. You may think high finance, fashion, jewelry, bad government and whatever else comes to mind is the city's principal industry. It is not any of those. It is eating and dining and there is a difference.
In Manhattan alone, over 150 new restaurants opened last year and only 64 closed. Sure there are hotel restaurants, McDonald's and Olive Gardens but that is not the important thing. There are innumerable delis, bagel shops, and small ethnic restaurants. There is fine dining in New York-very fine dining-hip restaurants, world renown restaurants, new trendy ones.
Sunday we brunched at the Marriot Marquis (1,850 rooms) with the Internship Coordinator for Ohio State University's hotel administration program. He is putting together a Spring conference to showcase their program. After brunch we went over to Javits Center to finish seeing the exhibits before our afternoon meetings.
Local Names and Faces
During our several trips through the exhibits we ran into a number of people from Minnesota: Dennis Breamer with our own state associations; Dick and Lorene Carlson of R. J. Carlson Company. Over at the Carlson Companies booth I saw Jim Olsen of Radisson Hotels Corporation and Nancy Johnson of Country Inns by Carlson.
Vast Array of Products
It is difficult to categorize the exhibitors. Any product or service you might imagine to be necessary or unnecessary to operate a hotel or restaurant is available for inspection or discussion at this trade show. From real estate and mortgage brokers on through designers to demitasse sugar stirrers, not to mention more espresso machines than one can count. It is all there.
The exhibit booths range from the simple ones to combinations of up to 20 with forests and discotheque light shows. There were only two companies selling pool enclosures to about 50 selling chairs. Did you know there were at least 40 oven companies broken down into: ovens; ovens-baking & roasting; ovens-brick, wood burning; ovens-convection & combination; ovens conveyor; ovens-infrared, ranges, broilers; and ovens-microwaves!
The category listings took 47 full magazine pages less a few ad spaces. The fact is, one could make arrangements to build a hotel, equip it, franchise it and supply it with consumables-without leaving the exhibit floor. The only service not being exhibited, that I found missing from the list, was management companies. Both the largest and the more modest sized management companies were attendees, however.
Sunday evening we attended the Florida International University cocktail party before dinner. The party was hosted by Dr. Tony Marshall, Esq. CHA, who visited Minnesota not too many months ago to give his tremendous class on Hotel Security, the class where everyone is harassed and, "Reasonable Care" enters one's vocabulary.
The real brains behind the F.l.U. academic program is Associate Dean Rocco Angelo who was also in attendance. Small world; Rocco was my dad's boss in Puerto Rico over 30 years ago.
At the cocktail party we made some new acquaintances and renewed some old ones. The high point for me was encountering W. Kirk Smith, CHA of Southern Host Hotels, who was one of my mentors for many years. Another surprise was that Kirk's son Russ and his beautiful wife were there. Russ is a brilliant hotelier (Cornell graduate) who is one of New York's best General Managers.
Dinner Sunday night was with Jim and Margaret Carro and their friends Pamela and Lee. We had a delightful time talking about many things including a great day of sailing Jim took Doug Brutger (Sunwood Inn, Morris) on several months ago on Chesapeake Bay. For those of you who belong to the Minnesota Hotel & Lodging Association, Margaret enters your office every month. She is Managing Editor of the A.H.& M.A.'s magazine Lodging.
MFIA Committee
While waiting for our Monday lunch appointment in the lobby of the Waldorf Astoria another Minnesota couple passed by: Brian and Deb Thuringer of Madden's Resort on Gull Lake. After "dining" at lunch time with a client at the Peacock Alley in the Waldorf Astoria we attended a meeting of the Market, Financial and Investment Analysis Committee.
I have been on this committee for over 12 years and Vicki has been for seven. Its purpose is to give hotel financial analysts a vehicle for exchanging ideas on improving the analysis of hotel investments. Members include consultants from major CPA firms such as KPMG Peat Marwick, development and operations executives from major hotel and cruise ship companies such as Cunard-Crown, Holiday Inn Worldwide, Hyatt, lender/owner representatives from Prudential, deal makers like Kidder Peabody and Landauer and so forth. I always learn something from these meetings and was sorry to have to leave for forty-five minutes or so to speak before another committee meeting. I returned in time to hear an informative presentation from a representative of Hilton Grand Vacations about marketing interval vacations (a.k.a. Time Sharing).
Time Sharing Changes
It was interesting to learn that time sharing isn't time sharing any more. One buys that same thing from one of the three or four big companies in the business, such as Hilton, Marriott or Disney. The units are exchangeable, not just for other time sharing times and places but also for stays at hotels affiliated with those companies. One can buy a time sharing unit in Florida and use it in exchange for a unit in Hawaii or a stay at the Waldorf Astoria while shopping in New York.
When the meetings ended at five I caught a taxi to Laguardia while Vicki stayed in New York to visit with friends and attend meetings for a few more days.
I got to the airport early and ran into Rose and Jimmy Sadier, CHAs of Rochester. They were on an earlier flight than mine by about thirty minutes so I had myself changed. I got on the plane and got settled in to my seat and began to get acquainted with the person next to me.
We had lots of time because the engines wouldn't start! My seat mate turned out to be J. Owen Boarman, AIA of Boarman Kroos Pfister Rudi & Associates. Owen's firm is well known in the Twin Cities and elsewhere for their architectural and master project designs including some important hotel projects. In the row in front of us was Tripp Snyder, owner of the Madison hotel in Moorhead.
After waiting a half hour or so we were all told to get off the plane and move to the departing flight which I was originally booked on! We all moved over to that plane and got settled in. A gentleman kept my coat from failing out of the overhead compartment. Anyone would have recognized him from the most recent cover of Lodging or from just keeping their eyes open in Minnesota as Juergen Bartels, head of the Hospitality Division of Carlson Companies! I thanked him and we visited for a few minutes before we settled into our seats.
SOURCE:http://www.hotel-online.com/Neo/Trends/Payne/Articles/International_Hotel.htm
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