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SORTING OUT THE INTERNET
INFORMATION STORM

Gabriele Piccoli, Ph.D.

The internet has brought hotel operators almost too much of a good thing, as guests offer a blizzard of information about themselves when they make inquiries and reservations. Sorting out which pieces of information are useful is the key to improving a hotel’s profits. To that end, a new report from Cornell University provides a specific mechanism for winnowing the data.

The report, "The Strategic Value of Information: A Manager’s Guide to Profiting from Information Systems," is written by Cornell Professor Gabriele Piccoli and Paolo Torchio, vice president, E-site Marketing. It is available at no charge from The Center for Hospitality Research, www.chr.cornell.edu.

“We suggest that you begin by making an inventory of all the data that are available from your transaction-processing systems,” said Piccoli. “Then imagine what you’d like to learn from all those data, and you have a set of potential data-driven initiatives.”

The system, which was developed by Piccoli and Torchio, submits the list of potential initiatives to a triage—in which the manager can perform a cost–benefit assessment to determine which project is worth pursuing.

The potential initiatives can be put in one of the following four categories, according to the availability of data and the potential of the project:

1. Imperatives - initiatives that have considerable upside potential and rely on readily available data.
2. Quick wins - those that have readily available data, but do not have overwhelming upside potential.
3. Trade-offs - initiatives with great potential but no readily available data.
4. Losing causes - those that offer neither upside potential nor readily available information.

“Information is powerful, but you have to know how to use it,” Torchio concludes. “We believe that this straightforward approach provides a relatively quick way to determine how to profit from the flow of data flowing from the internet.”

All CHR Reports and Tools are available at no charge from the Center for Hospitality Research at www.chr.cornell.edu.


Featured Cornell Quarterly Article -
How Businesses Can Build Consumers' Affection

The false accusation last year that Wendy’s had served tainted chili damaged company sales for many months afterward. Wendy’s tried to bounce back with a sales promotion, with mixed results. Instead, the company might better have invoked warm, nostalgic memories to bring customers back, according to an article published in the May 2006 edition of the Cornell Hotel and Restaurant Administration Quarterly (CQ).

The article examines the use of autobiographical advertising and reconstructive memory to rekindle customers’ affection for a product. Written by Kathryn A. Braun-LaTour, Michael S. LaTour, and Elizabeth F. Loftus, the article, “Is That a Finger in My Chili?: Using Affective Advertising for Post-crisis Brand Repair,” is available at no charge as the featured CQ article from the Cornell University Center for Hospitality Research (www.chr.cornell.edu).

Wendy’s sales continued to suffer even after it was demonstrated that the claim of tainted chili was totally false. Seeing that Wendy’s campaign offering a free Frosty did not restore customer traffic, LaTour and her coauthors tested another type of advertisement, a more “affective” autobiographical ad, which referenced childhood experiences at Wendy’s.

Additionally, the study shows that advertising can be used to reconstruct memories that may not have actually occurred. The autobiographical ad featured an image and text of a “Wendy’s Playland.” Since it is McDonald’s that is the proprietor of Playland, any mention of “Wendy’s Playland” on subsequent questionnaires shows the advertising influenced respondents’ memory. Indeed, some respondents did “recall” playing at Wendy’s as a child.

The authors are not suggesting that companies present untrue information in their advertisements, but instead are demonstrating how people use present-day cues to recall past events.

Most important to companies that are trying to recover from unfavorable publicity, the authors found that respondents who saw the autobiographical advertisement said that they held warmer feelings for Wendy’s. In contrast, respondents who saw the chain’s actual response to the incident, offering the free Frosty, neither recalled playing at Wendy’s nor felt any more affection for the chain.

The article, which is now posted at http://www.hotelschool.cornell.edu/research/chr/pubs/quarterly/featured/, was published in the May 2006 issue of the (CQ ), the premier journal of applied research serving hospitality practitioners and scholars. The award-winning CQ is published by The Center for Hospitality Research at the Cornell School of Hotel Administration. Subscriptions are available from Sage Publishing (sagepublications.com). For more information on the CQ, see: http://www.hotelschool.cornell.edu/research/chr/pubs/quarterly/.

Featured Advisory Board Member

Leland C. Pillsbury

Lee Pillsbury is Chairman and CEO of Thayer Lodging Group. Thayer is a privately held real estate operating company managing total assets in excess of $2 billion. Its current investment fund has in excess of $700 million in available investment capacity. Thayer Lodging Group invests on behalf of institutional investors in quality hotel properties, seeking to increase the cash flow and value of the assets through repositioning, renovation and capital investment, rebranding and management improvements. Its nationwide portfolio includes hotels operating under the Ritz Carlton. Doubletree, Marriott, Embassy Suites, Sheraton, Residence Inn, and Fairfield Inn flags.

Mr. Pillsbury graduated from Cornell School of Hotel Administration in 1969, and began his career as a management trainee with then Marriott Hot Shoppes.

He graduated with honors from Northwestern University J.L. Kellogg Graduate School of Management in 1982, and joined Marriott headquarters. Mr. Pillsbury was Marriott's youngest Executive Vice President and Corporate Officer until retiring in 1988 to launch his own business. While with Marriott, he launched venture teams that led Marriott's entry into the time-sharing business, Fairfield Inns economy lodging business, and acquired the Residence Inns company. As Vice President and General Manager of Fairfield Inns and Residence Inns, he supervised 18,000 people and in excess of $1 billion in annual capital investment in lodging products. During his tenure, the number of hotels increased from 125 to over 700.

In 1989, Mr. Pillsbury founded and served as CEO of Grand Heritage Hotels. In this capacity, he also acquired and sold several individual hotels. In 1990, he arranged the sale of the company to its key executives to concentrate exclusively on hotel real estate investment.

In addition to Thayer Lodging Group, Mr. Pillsbury is a founder and partner in TIG Global Internet Marketing Company, EMC Venues, representing conference centers and resorts, and Thayer Insurance Group, providing specialized health, benefits, liability and property insurance to hotels nationwide.

Mr. Pillsbury serves on the University Council at Cornell, the Dean's Advisory Board of J.L. Kellogg School of Management, and is a director and investor in several privately held companies.

Cornell Research Fellows at Industry Events

HITEC 2006 Features the Latest Hospitality Technology

HITEC 2006, the largest hospitality technology exposition and conference, will be held June 19-22 at the Minneapolis Convention Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Produced by Hospitality Financial and Technology Professionals (HFTP), HITEC features a 664 booth exposition displaying the latest hospitality technology products and services geared to the hospitality industry. HITEC also offers an exceptional education conference with presentations from experts representing all segments of the industry. New to HITEC 2006 is GUESTROOM 2010, a 90 x 40 ft pavilion that will feature a guest room prototype with the latest and near-future technologies for the modern hotel room. For more information, visit www.HITEC.org.

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Cornell's Center for Hospitality Research is pleased to announce its participation in I-CHRIE on July 26-30, 2006 at the Hyatt Regency Crystal City in Arlington, Virginia. The I-CHRIE annual conference is both a social and an educational event that provides opportunities for attendees to network, for members to attend the annual membership meeting, for acknowledgement of the annual awards winners and for I-CHRIE committees, special interest groups and its board of directors to meet to conduct the business meetings of the organization. For more information, please visit http://dev.chrie.org/i4a/pages/Index.cfm?pageID=3329

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With record attendance in Monte Carlo in 2005, the 4th Annual International Hotel Conference moves to the spectacular Rome Cavalieri Hilton from 11-13 October 2006. The conference, co-sponsored by the Cornell School of Hotel Administration, focuses on hotel financing, development and management in Europe and beyond. The program will feature superb networking, deal making, and 100 industry expert speakers presenting 40 interactive sessions designed to engage the audience of executive level hoteliers, managers, owners, developers, lenders, members of the media, and those who service the hotel industry.  

Cathy A. Enz, Ph.D., Associate Dean of Industry Research & Affairs and The Lewis G. Schaeneman, Jr. Professor of Innovation & Dynamic Management, will be presenting at the conference. Additional information about the event, registration, sponsorships, and related activities can be found at the event’s web site www.internationalhotelconference.com, or by contacting the conference organizers, Morris Lasky and Mary Lou Koys of Lodging Unlimited, Inc. at mlasky@aol.com

Research Fellows And Industry Projects

The CHR has chosen Cornell School of Hotel Administration faculty members to receive the 2006 Summer Research Fellows Grants. The grant recipients will study the following key issues facing the hospitality industry:

Cornell Researchers and Topics of Study

CHR reports are available free of charge from the Cornell Center for Hospitality Research website. To access the reports, please click on: http://www.hotelschool.cornell.edu/research/chr/pubs/reports/.

Featured Corporate Partner

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