Welcome to the hertelier email! 

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It's been a super busy week, here's what happened--

• Happy Mother's Day!! Was your Mom your original mentor?  We round up the best motherly advice and suggest watching DUTY FREE, a heartwarming new film about a hotel housekeeper and her son.
• Have you ever been to Mongolia? This week we discover the fascinating story of Undraa Buyannemekh, President of Nomadic Expeditions and Three Camel Lodge, whose life has come full circle.  After leaving Mongolia for Russia and the US to further her education, she now runs an eco-lodge and sustainable tour company that promotes the nomadic culture she learned as a girl with her grandparents in the Gobi desert.
• Joanne Taylor-Stagg, General Manager of The Athenaeum, shares leadership advice and her career journey--from serving Nelson Mandela in South Africa to running one of the top luxury hotels in London, just a stone's throw from Buckingham Palace.
• In F&Be, we meet Emma Watts, pastry sous chef at the Shangri-La at The Shard. Working in the tallest hotel in Europe, we find out how her career has risen to such heights, her tips on home baking, and her secret recipe for Pavlova!
• No matter WHY you are looking for work, we share 4 tips for returning to work on YOUR terms, written by Lisa Rangel, a top-rated Forbes career coach and resume writer. 
• This week, advice columnist Nancy Mendelson asks: IS IT ME??  The lack of human connection is so pervasive, even the CEO of Zoom admitted he's got meeting fatigue (aka "zoom gloom").

hertelier round-up of the week’s interesting articles relating to the hotel industry:

• The big economic news this week was the U.S. picked up just 266,000 jobs in April, well below expectations.  For scope, 8.2 million jobs were lost during the pandemic.  An interesting explanation is in The Washington Post (sorry, paywall), "It’s not a ‘labor shortage. It’s a great reassessment of work in America." Citing growing evidence — both anecdotal and in surveys — that a lot of people want to do something different with their lives than they did before the pandemic.  In terms of hospitality, the article noted, "people who used to work in restaurants or travel are finding higher-paying jobs in warehouses or real estate," despite rising wages in the hospitality sector.
• Which leads nicely into recent research from McKinsey, "Nearly two-thirds of US-based employees we surveyed said that COVID-19 has caused them to reflect on their purpose in life...Millennials were three times more likely than others to say that they were reevaluating work...People who live their purpose at work are more productive than people who don’t."  While none of this is surprising, it does bring to the forefront the idea that values and mission are more important to employees than ever before and companies "need to help meet this need or be prepared to lose talent."
• In industry-specific news, meetings business in the U.S. is up nearly 60% in April according to data from Knowland reported in Hotels magazine. The fastest-growing segment is corporate and the leading markets are Anaheim, Chicago, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, and San Antonio.
• In The New York Times, "The Dream: International Travel. The Reality: Chaos and Confusion," while there are 105 million vaccinated Americans that want to travel abroad, the reality is much more complex as other countries are still dealing with COVID, vaccination rates in Europe and elsewhere are still quite low and there is no standard "vaccine passport." 

We welcome your feedback, concerns, and especially your questions.  If you have any questions about your job (or life) send them to Nancy (nancy@nemglobal.com).  Benefit from her years of experience and therapy!

Thank you for your support--reading, liking, and sharing our stories of women rocking the hotel industry!  If you have a friend or colleague that you think would enjoy hertelier please forward this email, anyone can sign up by clicking here or the button below.

Have a great week,

Emily