• New Research Report to Help Monitor Hotel Housekeeping
• hospitalityInside.com and 4Hoteliers.com join Center
• CHR Featured Advisory Board Member - Kevin Fitzpatrick
• CHR Research Fellows and Staff at Industry Events
• Featured CHR Corporate Partner- Thayer Lodging Group

Michael Sturman, Ph.D.

Hotel managers use many methods to ensure that their rooms are cleaned in a consistent manner, but an objective, reliable metric has proved elusive. A new report from the Center, "A New Method for Measuring Housekeeping Performance Consistency," points the way to creating such a metric—but information from many hotels is needed to confirm this technique. It is available at no charge from the Center's website (http://www.hotelschool.cornell.edu/research/chr/pubs/reports/).

In a study sponsored by JohnsonDiversey Inc., Michael Sturman, Ph.D., an associate professor at the Cornell School of Hotel Administration, was examining the cost of cleaning rooms. He found that the cost of chemicals was negligible compared to the cost of the housekeeping staff. At the same time, however, he noted that by measuring chemical use a hotel manager could determine the consistency with which housekeepers adhered to a hotel’s cleaning standards.

James Scolaro, Director of Customer Discovery, JohnsonDiversey stated, “We were delighted to work with Cornell researchers on this project and contribute to the design of the methodology. The hospitality manager now has an additional management tool to help maintain housekeeping consistency. This is a win-win for hotel and resort operators as well as their customers.”

“Hotel managers will now have an objective measurement of housekeeping consistency,” Sturman said. “While that would not replace inspections and other methods of checking room cleanliness, this would afford a quick, easy, and inexpensive check of how things are going.”

The cleaning-chemical metric operated as expected in a pilot study of three hotels, but Sturman says that the next step is to confirm the metric using information from many other hotels. “I’m inviting hotel managers to participate by sharing their housekeeping data,” he said. “A hotel operator can download the data-collection kit, fill in the necessary information, and send it to me. I’ll do the analysis of each hotel’s housekeeping consistency and report to each hotel on a confidential basis. Then I’ll create an aggregate report of how well the cleaning-chemical metric operates. This will allow hotels to benchmark their housekeeping consistency against comparable hotels.”

The chemical use information packet is located on Cornell’s Center for Hospitality Research web site at: http://www.hotelschool.cornell.edu/research/chr/pubs/reports/hotelcleaning.html. Managers who register with the site and share their data will receive a custom analysis of their housekeeping consistency.

The Cornell Hotel School's Center for Hospitality Research has added two affiliates in its ongoing drive to build the world's preeminent hospitality research organization, bringing the number of corporate affiliates to 50. As friends of the Center, hospitalityInside.com and 4hoteliers.com will expand the Center's media reach by covering Center research reports relevant to the European and Middle East markets respectively.

Founded in 2005, hospitalityInside.com is a purely editorial, bilingual and international online magazine for the hotel industry. Published in English and German, hospitalityInside.com seeks to create a network of editors, practitioners, and experts. Available only by paid subscription, hospitalityInside.com particularly focuses on the European and international market, with 14 correspondents in seven countries.

Germany-based hotel consultant Rudy Muenster, a graduate of the Cornell School of Hotel Administration and principal of RWM Consult, relayed his enthusiasm for the new affiliation of hospitalityInside.com: “It is a great pleasure to hear that Maria Puetz-Willems together with her team of journalists has joined forces with Cornell to provide the newest and most valuable information for the hospitality industry."

Launched in 2002 by a group of hoteliers and industry consultants, 4Hoteliers is the global on-line hotel & travel news publication of Lifestyles Concepts Limited. 4Hoteliers.com has grown to become the news and information web site for the industry and serves a worldwide audience of executives and other professionals. The site features thousands of free articles, industry news headlines and press releases from a number of reliable sources and carefully selected freelancers as well as a web link databank for easy reference and search and a global events & trade show calendar. 

“Our network of corporate friends has made it possible for the Center to reach deep into the industry to share research findings,” said David Sherwyn, Academic Director of the Center. “I’m delighted to be working with hospitalityInside.com and 4hoteliers.com.”

Kevin Fitzpatrick

Mr. Fitzpatrick is responsible for the worldwide real estate activities of AIG Member Companies, including fund management, financing, development and acquisitions. He joined AIG in 1987 and is responsible for AIG Global Real Estate, a globally-diversified operation, with a portfolio of approximately 53 million square feet of Properties worldwide. He has more than 25 years of real estate experience. Before joining AIG, Mr. Fitzpatrick was an Assistant Vice President with Metropolitan Life Insurance Company in Washington, D.C. Prior to joining Metropolitan Life, he was employed by Rockresorts, Inc. in the Virgin Islands. Mr. Fitzpatrick received a bachelor's degree in Hotel Administration from Cornell University and an MBA in Finance from Fordham University. He is a Certified Hotel Administrator, former President of the Cornell Hotel Society and trustee of the Cornell Hotel Society Foundation. He is also a member of the Real Estate Roundtable, the Urban Land Institute and the Advisory Board for the New York office of the Enterprise Foundation.

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. 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.

Cornell's Center for Hospitality Research, is pleased to announce its participation in The International Hotel/Motel & Restaurant Show^(R) on November 11 - 14, 2006, at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center in New York City. The International Hotel/Motel & Restaurant Show is the world's largest showcase and exchange of industry products, trends, and developments, attracts every segment and facet of the industry. Each year, over 35,000 attendees and 1,400 exhibitors meet for three days of concentrated and intense business. Please stop by the Cornell School of Hotel Administration booth #2645 at the Javits Center. For more information, please visit: www.ihmrs.com.

Cornell is pleased to invite the industry to attend the Cornell Hotel Society Reception (CHS) held in conjunction with the IH/M&RS on November 13, 2006. Following last year's success, we are returning to the Bryant Park Grill for a cocktail reception and silent auction benefiting the CHS New York City scholarship fund. Stay tuned for more information about this event, or contact Kimberly Hehir '94 at 212-515-5630 (or email at khehir@lhw.com) if your company is interested in sponsoring this event.

SynXis, a Sabre Holdings company, enables hotels to maximize revenue and reduce costs through innovative, market-driven technology combined with outstanding customized support. The RedX(TM) Distribution Management System, at the solution's core, empowers hotel operators to consolidate and manage hotel inventory from all sources -- seamless GDS connectivity, popular Internet travel sites, private-label central reservations systems, and full-service hotel Web sites. It also helps hotels build revenue by enabling them to independently manage each distribution channel from one easy-to-use control center. All of these reservations can connect directly with the PMS. SynXis is the technology source for more than 7,000 hotels, bed and breakfasts, resorts, and destinations, including, Harrah's, Vantis, Interstate Hotels & Resorts, Destination Hotels & Resorts, and Jumeirah Hotels. SynXis' corporate headquarters is in Dallas, with offices in Denver, Boston and Amsterdam. For more information on SynXis and its products, please call 303-595-2500, e-mail info@synxis.com, or visit their web site at: www.synxis.com.