Updates from the Director

July 2020

It has been almost eight months since the pandemic first hit Asia, six months in Europe and five months in the US. The path to recovery varies by geographical region due to differences in population density, government restrictions and support, and the capabilities of local health and medical facilities for testing and care. The virus has impacted the global macroeconomy, industries to varying extents and consumers across the income distribution differently. As a result, the recovery path for the hospitality industry is very uncertain. In fact, some believe that it is almost impossible to predict with any degree of accuracy. However, this has not stopped us from trying.

In conjunction with our other Centers and Institutes (C&I’s), C&I board members and faculty, the CHR has maintained a COVID-19 industry resource webpage on behalf of the School of Hotel Administration since March. The webpage has been used to showcase relevant thought leadership and content from our faculty and board member companies, along with a series of original webinars produced in partnership with eCornell. Through these webinars, our faculty and board members have been sharing ideas about HR issues related to employment laws, priorities and operational implications, and pivoting a hospitality career; current market dynamics and recovery scenarios, initiatives to bring guests back to hotels; possible solutions to the challenges faced by operators, employees and guests in the restaurant and foodservice industry; real estate and finance issues like loan restructuring, hotel transactions, capital markets, and short- and long-term strategies from both borrowers’ and lenders’ perspectives; and we have more in the pipeline. To see a full list of upcoming webinars and recordings of past webinars, please go to the C&I webinars library. The response from our board members, alumni, students, and other industry professionals has been outstanding, with some webinars garnering up to 11,600 total views. We plan to continue these webinars for the foreseeable future, along with creating other virtual events. Many, many thanks to all of our board members who have participated or will be participating in a webinar for sharing their knowledge and expertise with all of us. Hearing from leaders like you during this unprecedented time has been inspiring — thank you.

We’ve also created three surveys — the Industry Impact Pulse Survey, designed to take the pulse of the hospitality industry during COVID-19; the Data & Decision-Making Survey, to learn about the kinds of data that industry leaders are using to inform their decision-making during this unprecedented time; and the Future Travel Preferences Survey, our most comprehensive survey that looks at past and future travel behavior and preferences. Data collection for the Future Travel Preferences Survey will wrap up in the next month, and we look forward to reporting the major trends to you in the near future.

Until our next newsletter, keep yourself and all of yours safe.

Warm regards,

Linda

Industries and people around the world are facing stress and uncertainty as a result of the COVID-19 virus. As we are all aware, the hospitality and travel industries have taken a big hit. Airplanes aren’t flying, cruise lines aren’t sailing, and many hotels and restaurants are closing. There are many projections about the expected length of this period of isolation, when we will hit bottom, when we will get a glimpse of a recovery, what the recovery will entail, how long the recovery will take and what our new normal will be. No one really knows for sure. We do know that this will end and a recovery will occur, but how should we best prepare for this recovery? Cornell’s Center for Hospitality Research is here to share current information and various perspectives about preparing for the recovery process.

As a result, we’ll be pausing our usual newsletter programming and increasing the frequency of our communications to provide you with up-to-date, research-backed resources and tools including webinar series, round tables, reports, and analyses from Hotel School faculty and CHR Advisory Board Members.

As a school, we have partnered with eCornell, Cornell University’s premiere online education platform, to bring you free, weekly keynotes featuring practical advice and actionable insights from Hotel School faculty and Centers & Institutes’ board members.

At the CHR, we are committed to equipping you with the clarity and knowledge that is needed to get through the challenges facing the industry today, tomorrow, and into the future.

Keep yourself and all of yours safe.

Happy New Year from the Center for Hospitality Research!

As we embark upon a new decade, we reflect on how far the industry has come in the last ten years and are eager to see where the next ten will take us. One thing is for certain—with the continued, generous support of our Corporate Members, Corporate Affiliates, and Media Affiliates, the Center for Hospitality Research is committed to remaining on the cutting edge of thought leadership. Thank you to our members and affiliates for enabling CHR to continue offering engagement opportunities that help us in our mission to advance hospitality research.

We’ll kick off events this year on March 12^th with our spring Advisory Board meeting and roundtable, where thought leaders and academics will discuss the future of lodging space and how the industry will evolve in the face of disruptors, followed by a student career networking event, which will offer CHR board members the opportunity to engage with students, as well as board members from PIHE, CIHLER, and CREF. These events will take place on the eve of HEC 95, the Hotel School’s student-run conference that brings students, faculty, alumni, hospitality executives, and leaders to Ithaca for a fun-filled weekend, featuring engaging speakers, panels, gourmet cocktails, and more. This year’s theme will be Dare to Do: Impacting Society Through Hospitality.

Lastly, our faculty continue to produce pioneering research about food waste, bike sharing, timing flexibility in reservations, dual-branding and more, some of which are highlighted in this newsletter. Please read on to learn more about the recent work of Professors Elena Belavina, Chekitan Dev, Alex Susskind, and Gary Thompson.

Wishing you all a happy, healthy, and productive New Year,

Linda

This has been a busy year here at the Center for Hospitality Research! I want to reach out to all of our members and newsletter followers to update you on the many events and happenings over the past few months. One of the biggest changes here at the CHR is the change in leadership. Allow me to introduce myself: my name is Linda Canina, and along with my responsibilities as Director of the CHR, I am a professor in the Finance, Accounting and Real Estate group at the Cornell School of Hotel Administration (SHA). It has only been a few months since I assumed directorship, but I have been pleased with all the industry related collaborative work we have been able to get done at the Center as highlighted below. Finally, please take a moment to read our updated mission statement, and be sure to check out CHR Insights which includes Cornell faculty research articles, as well as quarterly updates on Real Estate Market Indices, produced in collaboration with the Center for Real Estate and Finance (CREF).

In September CHR hosted a Sustainability Roundtable here at Cornell. Participants representing hotels, restaurants, non-profits and academic institutions, gathered to discuss the struggle of excess food and food rescue in the hospitality industry and presented research and solutions to this issue. With the focus around the world turning more and more to environmental issues, this was a hot button topic we were excited to tackle.

Continued support for our Alumni brought us to the 18^th Annual Cornell MMH Reception on November 10^th in New York City. This was a wonderful networking event, and gave the opportunity to recognize MMH ’03 graduate Mia Kyricos of Hyatt as the MMH Outstanding Alumna of the Year! Congratulations Mia!

Most recently, our CHR Advisory Board Members and Affiliates gathered at the annual Fall Board Meeting on November 11^th. This gave our Board members a chance to present topics they see as important to the advancement of the industry, and also to plan for future collaboration. The CHR Board Members and Affiliates also attended the 97th Annual Cornell Hotel Society Reception at the Gramercy Park Hotel later in the evening. Always a good time!

The CHR will end its 2019 activities at the INSPIRE ’19 – The Luxury Hospitality Conference in Miami, FL on December 4^th. Not a bad location for that time of the year when you live in Ithaca, NY! Our CHR Advisory Board Chair, Mark Lomanno, in an example of collaboration across centers, will be moderating a panel with PIHE Board member Stacy Rosenthal, on the discussion topic: The Impact of Alternative Accommodations in the Luxury Market. Luxury advisors are making adjustments for the client’s growing demand for unique experiences, and might not always have a product to match. We will discuss how to navigate these alternative accommodations while managing the clients’ high-level expectations who, as consumers, are often immune to outside economic conditions. In addition, we will briefly discuss the performance and actions of the luxury market under varying economic conditions and discuss alternatives.

Lastly, I would like to once again thank our new and existing Board Members and Affiliates for their time and commitment to the hospitality industry and more specifically to the Center for Hospitality Research here at Cornell University. Please look for our Board Member Highlights in this Newsletter and our future issues as we express our appreciation for their role in our success.

Welcome from Cornell’s CHR. It is hard to believe, but the fall semester is quickly coming to a close as we approach December!

This fall saw the successful relaunch of the Cornell Hospitality Research Summit (CHRS). We had 180 participants at the event and are already starting to plan for the fifth CHRS.

In an effort to grow attendees and expand the reach of CHRS, we are planning to relocate the next event—preliminary planning has us looking at hosting the event in New York City. Check back to the CHRS website for regular updates!

We are also in the planning stages for two other CHR events—a technology-focused roundtable in San Francisco in early January, and a joint event with the Cornell Institute for Hospitality Labor and Employment Relations and the Cornell Institute for Healthy Futures in April in DC. Watch your inbox for details of these events.

As always, feel free to reach out to discuss ways in which we can collaborate on research projects, as the CHR is always looking to engage faculty and students with industry on interesting projects.

Chris K. Anderson, PhD
Director, Center for Hospitality Research
Associate Professor, Services Operations Management

Welcome from Cornell’s CHR. While campus may be a bit quieter with the majority of students off for summer the center is deep in the planning process for this falls Cornell Hospitality Research Summit (CHRS). CHRS kicks off with our fall CHR Advisory Board meeting October 4th and 5th with the conference itself opening up with a Luxury Panel and opening reception on the 5th of October. CHRS will feature a day and a half of content packed concurrent sessions on the 6th and 7th. Check back to the CHRS website for regular updates as we start to post session details.

On June 27th the CHR co-sponsored a research session and reception in Toronto, Canada as part of HSMAIs Revenue Optimization Conference. The session was a huge success with a packed room listening to talks. In attendance at the conference were 13 MMH students. Thanks to financial support provided by the school and dramatically reduced conference registration offered by HSMAI the students were able to get a chance to listen to and interact with hospitality leaders in the Revenue Management field as well as a chance to tour the conference floor at HITEC and see some of the newest technology facing our industry.

Chris K. Anderson, PhD
Director, Center for Hospitality Research
Associate Professor, Services Operations Management

Welcome from Cornell’s CHR. Spring is finally here in Ithaca, and our academic year is in the home stretch. In March we attempted to have our annual Ithaca CHR Board meeting but attendance was dramatically reduced by weather. Cornell actually closed down for the better part of two days! In spite of the weather we still had a productive meeting. We have several exciting events on the horizon and are deep in the planning process for the Cornell Hospitality Research Summit, which is coming to Ithaca in October–see announcement details below. At this time, we are actively soliciting content for the summit–research talks, industry insights and panels, so please reach out if you are interested in being an active participant in this year’s CHRS. The event is shaping up well thanks to our current sponsors Hilton, ReviewPro, Shiji, USA Today and HSMAI, as well as our title sponsor Accenture.

We will be co-hosting a research session and reception as part of HSMAI’s Revenue Optimization Conference. The conference this year is in Toronto (June 28), with the reception and research session on June 27. I hope to see many of you there as I always look forward to returning to Canada! I would also like to thank HSMAI for becoming a media affiliate of the CHR, as well as a sponsor for CHRS.

An important part of CHR’s mission is to increase knowledge. Two ways we accomplish this goal occur when our Advisory Board meets to share insights, and when we sponsor industry roundtables. We have hosted both the board and the following roundtables in recent weeks:

• How Co-production and Authenticity Effect the Future of Experience Design (Kathy LaTour)
• Sustainability (Jeanne Varney and Rohit Verma)
• Restaurant Revenue Management (Sherri Kimes)

The CHR Advisory Board, which met in November at the office of Davis & Gilbert in NYC, is a tremendous source of energy and ideas. Twenty-four industry executives gathered to hear about research in progress, provide invaluable guidance to students currently engaged in research, and discuss the field’s most pressing research needs.
Four SHA students presented research they are currently undertaking at the school:

• Tiffany Chung ’17 and Justin Sun ’17: “Customer Journey of a Curious Luxury Traveler”
• Bethany Huan ’17: “Hotel Loyalty Points”
• Elizabeth Martyn ’07, MS ’18: “Consistency is the Key to Customization: Training Impacts on Satisfaction & Performance”

The board heard from SHA Interim Dean Kate Walsh and was also introduced to a recently hired SHA faculty member, Eva Steiner, who shared her research interests, heard from the board members about the relevant issues they are seeing that relate to those areas, and discussed opportunities for how the CHR and faculty can work together to facilitate her work.

The Advisory Board meeting is an important part of CHR’s activities to raise the level of hospitality research. Board members’ advice and comments are of great value as we move forward. Likewise, the insights created at the roundtables have become the foundation of research studies published in the CHR Reports series.

Thank you for your continued interest and support of the CHR.

Chris K. Anderson, PhD
Director, Center for Hospitality Research
Associate Professor, Services Operations Management

This is an exciting time of year as we get ready to start the academic year, and this also serves as my first update as the director of the CHR. The CHR is entering an exciting phase as we look to grow along with the school as part of Cornell’s new College of Business. The CHR will continue its strong focus on applied research addressing hospitality and service industry issues, as we look to engage with a larger audience of students with interests in hospitality. Over the coming months keep an eye out for a small redesign of the CHR website as we look to highlight research, blogs and student research in a streamlined fashion. Thanks for your continued interest in the CHR.

CHR’s Advisory Board and members play a crucial role in supporting the School of Hotel Administration’s (SHA) research mission. The Board members do this in many ways: their financial support, their time, the data they provide, their participation in research projects and involvement in roundtables, by writing and reviewing CHR Reports, developing cutting edge research ideas, and aiding in the development of SHA faculty. In this message I want to explain how we are building on this important contribution that our Advisory Board members make to the center.

First, I want to particularly acknowledge the financial support given by CHR members, which is of course absolutely critical. Research is, quite frankly, expensive. And the generous support of our members helps ensure that SHA can continue to engage in industry-relevant research, across a wide range of fields, targeting both top-tier academic and industry-directed publications. But our members are helping in an additional effort that I believe will forever help shape the direction of SHA and the future of hospitality research. That is the CHR Mentor program.

I introduced the CHR Mentor program this year to connect CHR members with new SHA faculty to help them become more engaged in the hospitality industry. This year, 12 CHR members participated, and several more agreed to participate next year. The active engagement between the industry experts who form our board and the new faculty who will help bring a new lens to industry research is a crucial way that the SHA will ensure its maintained focus on the hospitality industry.

CHR mentors have also become increasingly engaged in research with our faculty. Several members have helped faculty by providing research sites and data to assist with ongoing research projects. This involvement has also helped faculty by providing insights and directions to further ensure the relevance to the specific hospitality issues that need to be addressed. CHR members have also worked with faculty to help students with their independent studies, again providing mentoring, data collection opportunities, and resources to build stronger connections between SHA’s research focus and the industry needs.

As Director of the CHR, I am continuously looking for new ways to engage our members, foster research on key hospitality issues, develop SHA faculty, and facilitate the creation and dissemination of research for the hospitality industry. I am hoping over the next few years to introduce new mentoring programs aimed at more senior faculty, new data sharing opportunities between members and faculty, and new resources to facilitate the communication of timely research topics between members, faculty, and students. The CHR is continually evolving and, quite simply, trying to do more. But we could do none of this without the support, and more importantly the engagement, of our CHR Members. I want to thank all our corporate members for the valuable support they provide. And I hope more organizations will see the way CHR Members engage with SHA as a critical way to support SHA to help shape the future of the hospitality industry.

Michael C. Sturman
Director, Center for Hospitality Research

As is now well known, the Cornell Board of Trustees authorized the design and implementation of a plan for a College of Business, comprising the School of Hotel Administration (SHA), the Dyson School of Applied Economics, and the Johnson Graduate School of Management. As a result of this decision, the university has started working with students, faculty, and alumni to help determine what this new College of Business will look like. While there are many questions that need to be answered, there is one key statement I can make: The Center for Hospitality Research is now more important than it ever was before.

This mission of SHA is to shape the knowledge base for hospitality management in order to influence management practice in the global hospitality industry. The CHR helps fulfill this mission by enabling, facilitating, conducting, and communicating research of significance to the industry. The resources provided to the CHR from its members are what allow us to make this happen. Regardless of any pending decisions related to the College of Business, the CHR’s resources will be devoted to the fulfillment of its mission. By university rules, funds given to the CHR must go to fulfilling the CHR’s mission. That simply cannot and will not change. The CHR will remain the industry’s foremost creator and distributor of timely research. We will ensure, as long as we have members to support our mission, that SHA will produce high-quality, industry-relevant research.

These are definitely uncertain times. Many Cornell alumni and industry leaders have voiced concerns about what this new College of Business means to SHA, and much work remains to be done. But in the midst of all that needs to happen, the CHR will help ensure hospitality relevant research in any possible future. I want to again thank our members for all the support they have given to the CHR, and for their continued support in the future. This support has always been important. It is now more important than ever.

Michael C. Sturman
Director, Center for Hospitality Research

Connecting People with Ideas
As you see in this newsletter, the Center for Hospitality Research remains very active as we continuously endeavor to fulfill our mission:  to facilitate and promote research of interest to the hospitality industry. This newsletter features our accomplishments of the past few months, which include published reports, successful roundtables, and the growth of ongoing research. All of these activities are aimed at fulfilling one of CHR’s major functions. We produce new ideas and knowledge and then we connect the hospitality industry with those ideas—with a goal of constant improvement.

The two industry roundtables that we just completed are a good example of linking people with ideas, joining academia with industry, and connecting students, academics, and practitioners with each other. The Hospitality and Healthcare Roundtable, held in March, continues the cross-disciplinary efforts between two major industries. We’ve learned that each enterprise can “borrow” ideas from the other, as healthcare businesses draw on hospitality concepts and hospitality businesses learn procedural disciplines from the healthcare industry. April’s Loyalty Program Management Roundtable highlights one of the hospitality industry’s more intriguing questions: how to get the most from loyalty programs. One thing we’ve learned is that loyalty programs certainly affect behaviors, but whether they have a positive return on investment is a more difficult question. The insights gained through the roundtable help identify the factors that must be present for loyalty programs to have the sort of positive financial impact they were designed to create.

Another way that the CHR connects people with ideas is our publications stream, which we make available to all people at no charge. So far we’ve posted nine CHR Reports in 2014, and I especially want to highlight reports on the value of sustainability and on the status of women in the hospitality industry. CHR supported the research work that made these reports possible.

None of this would be possible without the faithful support of our Partners. These corporate supporters allow us to sponsor research studies, produce industry roundtables, and issue research reports for the industry. We greatly appreciate the members of our Advisory Board who recently joined us for a successful board meeting.