Hello, Round-Up Readers!

We won an award!  Top 25 Social Media Influencers by International Hospitality Institute (IHI) who ranked us (#19). Amazing progress in less than a year! Thank YOU #hertelier community, for your willingness to share your incredible stories and inspiring insights! Big thanks to my partner and pal Nancy Mendelson, who has encouraged hertelier from before the beginning and shows up every week to "unpack" ideas for you. Stay tuned...much more to come as we approach the big one-year anniversary!

BTW, if you're not following on LinkedIn, you're missing out!  Right now, we're honoring Black History Month by celebrating the Black women making history in hospitality. Tune in as we revisit interviews with inspiring leaders Valerie Ferguson, Angel Johnson, Marvina Robinson, Souadou Niang, Tiffany Young, Vera Williams, Davonne Reaves and Tracy Prigmore…and meet new faces! 

Help us keep growing––just forward this email, anyone can sign up by clicking here!  

Now, on to this week's news:

Essential reading on female leadership: The Guardian ran a fantastic tribute to the female leaders across the Caribbean and South America successfully tackling society’s most difficult issues. "It is not easy, and there has never been a linear upward path for female leaders. However, the women highlighted...are courageously carving a path and are a brilliant example to the world. The unprecedented disruption of the past two years has thrown a spotlight on leadership. These women are finding solutions to pressing global challenges with purpose, passion, and people at the fore, and are improving the lives of their communities through harnessing the very qualities that make female leaders so successful."

Good news, bad news from the January jobs report. The U.S. economy added a whopping 467,000 jobs in January despite omicron, showing promising signs of recovery amid the ongoing pandemic and staffing shortages. Yet much of that growth was driven by men: new research from the National Women’s Law Center shows that over one million men joined the labor force in January, compared to just 39,000 women. Men have now recouped all of their job losses since the pandemic began, while women are struggling to catch up. 

NFT or WTF? DIY cocktails for $5,400. In this week's tales from the crypt(o): Eve's, a swanky London bar by lauded chef Adam Handling is set to release London’s first NFT cocktail collection on Opensea (a large NFT marketplace). The exclusive collection will include 13 NFT "pieces" (aka recipes inspired by the bar's signature cocktails), created in collaboration with a local artist and various bartenders. Prices* are set to be as high as 2ETH (£4,000/$5,400 approx) *also includes a few drinks in the actual bar. Cheers?

Social media stock moves: Meta (owner of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp) shares fell 26% this week as the company revealed declining use (hello, TikTok) and challenges from Apple's new data policy. Meanwhile, Pinterest rose 25% and Snapchat stock is up 58%, the largest increase since the company went public in 2017, citing 20% growth in daily users. Alphabet (Google/YouTube's parent company) announced a 20-for-1 stock split.  Just trends to keep in mind as you think about social media marketing. 

I do! 2022 poised to be the biggest year for weddings since 1984: NYT reports 2.5 million weddings will happen this year (up from 2.1). Couples are tired of waiting ("postponement fatigue" is a thing) and will jump through hoops to make it happen. Pandemic friendly micro-weddings are out, expect big blowouts and increased costs overall due to supply-chain issues. How are bookings at your hotel?

More bread for your sandwich. Click to see this adorable illustration by the NYT on how inflation has impacted sandwich prices across the US.

Hotel industry news: 

• Off-site meetings are the new return to office.  The WSJ reports that as more companies embrace hybrid work models and fully remote teams, increasingly the concept of the off-site—gathering employees periodically—is looking like a way to strengthen company culture and foster connections among colleagues.
• Five takeaways from ALIS from the experts at JLL Hotels & Hospitality: 
  1. Optimism remains high. RevPAR going to hit 2019 levels by Q4, lots of capital coming into the hotel market will lift transaction volume.
  2. Fallacy that high tech = low touch. hotels need to integrate tech into service models to cope with the labor shortage, tech also improves sustainability, allows for flexi-pricing, and increases guest satisfaction.
  3. RevPAR doesn't tell the whole story. U.S. RevPAR reached 83% recovery in 2021, but GOPPAR only reached 73% as costs continue to rise.
  4. Bleisure is on the rise and hotels need to cater to hybrid business travel. 1 in 7 U.S. jobs is now fully remote compared to 1 in 30 jobs pre-COVID.  Get aboard the bleisure train or your hotel will get left behind!
  5. Why does the industry still benchmark against 2019?  So much has changed over the last two years, JLL makes a case to rip up the script. 
• If you thought 2022 predictions were over, you're wrong!  Accor and Preferred come in hot 🔥 with more research. 
  • Bravo to Accor for creating new buzzwords––we are 100% here for it!  Accor has not only embraced the bleisure trend but registered and renamed it "workspitality®" and throws up "gramping" (grandparents taking the grandkids minus parents). Plus more of what you've seen before: pent-up demand high, biophilia, longer stays, hotel residences, more family travel (including pets), more flexible loyalty programs, lots more wellness, read more here.
  • Preferred surveyed more than 4,000 members of their I Prefer loyalty program, with most saying they planned family trips to resorts with city hotels and second-tier cities gaining some momentum. 
• USTA industry outlook: Roger Dow and US Travel offered up a "roadmap to recovery," noting that "through December 2021, cumulative spending losses in travel totaled $730 billion; in addition, more than 7% of all leisure and hospitality jobs remain lost...while domestic leisure travel is rebounding well, international travel, professional meetings, and business travel continue to lag." US Travel is working on workforce rehabilitation; collabs with the government on the Brand USA Act to reduce taxation; travel facilitation, security and mobility; sustainability; and diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). Good news is more H2B Visas were released.

• Demand for extended stay accommodations was strong during the pandemic and shows no signs of easing. According to the WSJ, "Extended stay hotels ‘print money’ for investors in Covid-19 downturn."

• Living with COVID: Four health experts offer tips on how to manage travel if you've been infected or vaccinated (WaPo).  Bottom line: take precautions, but we are not returning to 2019.  Meanwhile, the EU relaxed COVID protocols on Feb 1.

On hertelier this week:

• Good news, the fifth Hotel Industry Leadership Study from Castell Project shows progress. It's working! What gets measured, gets done. Women are making moves up the ladder, but some challenges remain as the hotel industry rebuilds.

• She Has a Deal (SHaD) launched a fund + 10 city tour! The real estate investment platform that creates pathways to hotel ownership for women, masterminded by Tracy Prigmore, is going on tour!  Click to see dates and how to get involved with SHaD.

• MUST read: why you need to heed Red Flags. Nancy unpacks the importance of intuition and why you should listen to your gut when business relationships don't feel right.

WATCH THIS: BBC takes a dive into modern farming techniques and cutting-edge solutions and "why we should care what our food eats," very interesting and only 22 mins. Also, the Olympics have started! How to watch for free, online.

If you're a new subscriber, you may not know hertelier was featured by the Cornell University SC Johnson School of Business! Please CLICK HERE to read about the community YOU are helping to build for women in lodging! 

TL;DR or are you still here? I'd love to hear from you. Why do you read hertelier and what would you like to see covered? Is there someone you'd like to suggest for a profile?  My goal in 2022 is to get to know more of our readers, please reply to this email. I am a real person 😃 

Have a great week,

Em