By Halah Touryalai: What do Hilton Hotels, the Palms Casino Resort, Motel 6 and the Fairmont San Francisco have in common? They’re all owned by private equity firms.

Benchmark Hospitality International® has released its Top Dining Trends for 2013. The trends were observed by Benchmark’s executive chefs and culinary experts at the company’s 39 luxury hotels, resorts and restaurants coast to coast and off shore.

By Anne Banas: Unspoiled and isolated, hidden islands are vacation bait for anyone with escapist tendencies. Protected from crowds and the stress of modern life, these retreats will allow you to become one with nature, soak up local culture, and live in paradise. Here are 10 secret places—from the mysterious North Atlantic to the warm waters of the Indian Ocean—where you can completely surrender to island time.

Will it be QT Sydney’s sleek design? The Upper House’s mouth-watering restaurant? Or Crosby Street Hotel’s coolest bar? Globe-roving boutique hotel experts Mr & Mrs Smith are celebrating 10 years in travel with the launch of their own stylish hotel awards, and they’re inviting boutique hotel fans around the world to participate.

By feature writer Alan Fairweather: A waste of time! That may sound a bit strange coming from someone who has delivered hundreds of customer service seminars over the past twenty years. However, there are two provisos.

By feature writer Alan Campbell: It has been a very interesting week of speaking to local university hotel majors. There is a lot of excitement in tackling the next era of the hospitality industry. In all of these speaking segments I discovered that I am a dinosaur of the hotel business; the young students can’t imagine how I was able to run a hotel without a computer, imagine that?

By Mia Taylor: Pin.Pack.Go is an industry first. It's a new, worldwide, collaborative trip planning service created by the Four Seasons that reinvents the way luxury travelers research and receive information when organizing a vacation.

In a time of tough competition, marketing departments are working overtime to fill our beds. They have lured families with kids to our hotels, business people, single women, rainbow travellers, culinary discoverers and group and adventure tourists. Have they now run out of ideas? No, the latest trend is guests with pets!

By feature writer Bryan K. Williams: My work is my brand. How I make others feel is my brand. The manner in which I do my work is my brand. Each morning when I awake, I will be grateful for yet another day to make a positive contribution to the world. Each night, when I’m in bed, I will assess my day to see if anyone’s day was any better because of some contribution I made.

By James Durston and Chuck Thompson: Few things are worse for the traveller than nasty surprises. Yet we keep traveling. Not simply because we like to travel or because we must travel, but because we accept that the world is an imperfect place and the travel industry an imperfect business that likes, when possible, to get by on the bare minimum. Nevertheless, there are some fixes that could be implemented quickly and cheaply that would make travel much more pleasant for everyone.