TORONTO — Hoteliers are always itching to straddle the latest in hotel innovation, but not everything pans out. “For every hotel innovation that changes the industry, there is at least one (and likely many more) that falls flat,” writes Chris Atchison in a recent story for The Globe and Mail‘s Report on Business.
According to the report, innovations that worked during the past 20 years include: In-room, high-speed, wireless Internet access; extended-stay hotels; and hotel-condo combinations. “The condo-hotel has enabled developers to build five-star properties that they wouldn’t be able to do otherwise because the condo sale subsidized the hotel,” Monique Rosszell, of the Toronto-based senior vice-president of hotel consulting firm HVS Global Hospitality Services, told the paper.
On the other hand, in-room fax machines; strata title hotels; and no-frills lodging were not such a hit. “There have been efforts to introduce (ultra) economy hotels into the Canadian marketplace, with some limited success,” Brian Stanford, the Toronto-based director of hotel industry consultancy PKF Canada, tells Report on Business.
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