By Julie Weed: Hotels want to hear your opinion of your stay. But they no longer feel that it is enough to leave a questionnaire in your guest room and hope for a response, not when TripAdvisor and other public rating sites display customer satisfaction — or dissatisfaction — for all to see.

By Vivian Wagner: It's not always easy to know how to engage your Facebook fans and keep your page relevant. What do people want to hear? How can you make your page fun, interactive and meaningful?

By Hugo Martin: If you stay at any of the Hilton Hotels & Resorts, Double Tree or Embassy Suites hotels in North, South and Central America, you will find only one brand of coffee and tea in each room.

Cruise ship safety is a topic often in the media in light of the number of incidents worldwide, the latest of which is the fire that broke out early Monday morning on a Royal Caribbean cruise ship that sailed from Baltimore on Friday. What is currently underway to improve safety aboard cruise ships?

According to Jones Lang LaSalle's study on Madrid and Barcelona's hotel market, the luxury segment will have a brighter future in the medium to long-term.

By Jennifer Faull: A communications manager with Accor Hotels in Asia and the Pacific, has been caught posting a series of boastful reviews on TripAdvisor for his own hotel group, while leaving critical reviews for a number of the company’s competitors, following the introduction of the TripAdvisor Facebook app.

By Scott McDowell: The trend toward flat organizations has consequences, and I believe one of them is an emerging leadership gap. As the notion of “coming up through the ranks” dies off, the traditional trajectory to leadership has been short-circuited—without being properly replaced.

By John Brunton: In the first of a new series on wine routes in Europe, we explore the Champagne region, skipping the famous vineyards in favour of small cellars, staying at winemakers' B&Bs and dining at rural bistrots, tasting excellent champagnes at every stop

By Sara Hamden: Dubai is in need of more eligible candidates to fill current and future jobs. The government plans to triple annual income from tourism to 300 billion dirhams, or $82 billion, by 2020 and double the existing number of hotel rooms, according to an ambitious government agenda made public last week, Vision 2020.