Research

By Chekitan Dev and Laure Stroock

Step into the shoes of Aman Nath, founder and co-chairman of Neemrana Hotels, one of the most successful heritage hospitality brands in India. Since the company began operating in 1993, the Indian hospitality industry has changed dramatically—notably, the luxury/upper upscale segment has become more crowded with domestic and foreign brands, and there’s a growing demand for experiential travel to destinations off the beaten path. Along with CEO, Sonavi Kaicker, Aman will need to position the company to capitalize on these changes to the market, so the Neemrana Hotels can survive and thrive.

Read the full case and decide if and/or how Neemrana Hotels should:

1. Redefine its brand architecture
2. Broaden its brand focus
3. Expand its brand position

By Linda Canina and Nicole McQuiddy-Davis

COVID-19 has disrupted travel and the hospitality industry like no other historical event. As travel slowly resumes in the US under strict government guidelines, our survey results suggest that travel-related businesses like hotels are now serving a more cautious guest who appreciates mask wearing, social distancing, and increased cleaning.

By Gary Thompson

This report describes the many spreadsheet-based analyses in this tool that can assist an individual, restaurant, or bar in managing a wine cellar.The Wine Cellar Management Tool Version 4, which is available at no charge from The Center for Hospitality Research at Cornell University, does not require actual knowledge of how to construct a spreadsheet. It does require diligent data entry regarding wine purchases and withdrawals.

By Cathy Enz and Gary Thompson

For any organization, “Duty of Care” is the obligation to avoid or diminish any reasonably foreseen harm to customers and employees resulting from exposure to the coronavirus that causes COVID-19. Formalizing rules, procedures, standards, processes, and guidelines serve as a compliment to managerial oversight and help companies run smoothly with improved efficiency and coherence in Duty of Care activities.

by Elena Belavina

This research brief provides guidance for entrepreneurs on the benefits and effective use of crowdfunding for hospitality ventures

by Cathy Enz and Gary Thompson

The Disaster Recovery Priority Ranking tool is a spreadsheet-based decision-making tool designed to help managers apply a set of evaluation criteria to a variety of recovery-focused strategic initiatives.

Imagine you’re the CEO of Beach Enclave, a company that operates a luxury resort on Turks and Caicos Islands. You’ve just purchased three acres of beachfront property to expand your resort. With three possible choices of how to proceed, how do you ensure your decision makes sense financially and aligns with your existing branding strategy?

This is the scenario co-authors Chekitan Dev, professor of marketing at the School of Hotel Administration (SHA), and Laure Stroock, research associate, propose in their new case study challenge: “Beach Enclave Turks & Caicos: Creating a Luxury Villa Resort Brand.”

Read the full case and see how your answer stacks up to the solutions sent in by students, alumni, and hospitality experts.

by Pamela C. Moulton and Yifei Mao

When hospitality managers price out potential new or replacement equipment, they generally can choose among several different models that could do the job. Sometimes a particular model is a standout, but more often the comparison involves each model’s up-front costs, ongoing running costs, and expected useful life, as well as each machine’s specific features. However, […]

by Eric Ricaurte

This report presents the results of the fourth annual Cornell Hotel Sustainability Benchmarking (CHSB) study, an update to last year’s CHSB2016 study, which was undertaken as a collaborative effort of the Cornell University Center for Hospitality Research, hotel participants, Greenview, and an industry advisory group.

by Breffni M. Noone, Cathy A. Enz, and Jessie Glassmire

Hospitality firms are expanding traditional revenue management (RM) practice to focus on customer value and strategic profit management. Participants in series of semi-structured interviews suggested that revenue management is moving away from a sole focus on top-line rooms revenue toward a bottom-line orientation focused on the customer.

by Chris Anderson and Saram Han

As a follow-up on two earlier studies, this report confirms the so-called billboard effect on demand that occurs when online travel agents (OTAs) include a particular hotel in their listings. Even though many guests book directly with the hotel brand, this study’s findings are similar to those of earlier studies which showed that being listed on an OTA site increased reservations through the hotel brand’s site.

by Chris Anderson

Hotels that encourage guest reviews increase their ratings on sites like TripAdvisor and also improve sales and revenue. Using data from TripAdvisor, this study found that hotels that encouraged and responded to guest reviews (using Revinate Surveys) saw increases in their ratings, as compared to their competitive set.

by Rohit Verma

Service and room quality are overwhelmingly the most important aspects for guests at high-end properties, based on over 95,000 reviews on TripAdvisor.

by Sheryl Kimes

Slowly but surely, hotels are becoming more strategic with revenue management and are integrating RM into all areas of hotel operations, according to this survey of more than 400 hotel professionals.

by Chekitan Dev

Hotels can subject amenities to an analysis of return on investment. In this study, free Internet attracted new guests, but free bottled water was a large factor for returning guests.