By Ralph Varble, Director of Operations, UniFocus: Whether your revenues are up or down, controlling your labor costs is essential to maximizing your bottom line. Focusing on productivity as opposed to merely cutting hours or wages maintains the proper balance between labor and quality-it's not efficiency, but effectiveness. If you cut labor and diminish quality, your revenues will go down. Labor costs can be controlled through careful planning, attentive scheduling, and improving the productivity of your staff.

By Victoria Hsia: In order to leverage the new developments in Pinterest, hoteliers must understand what the changes are and how they benefit both brands and travel consumers. Only then can they start taking full advantage of Pinterest as a component of the overall digital marketing strategy. Read on to learn about the recent changes and find out how to use this social network to reach more potential guests and generate leads.

Ever since HotelChatter's first annual Hotel WiFi Report in 2004, we've insisted that in-room WiFi was as essential as a working shower or air conditioning and that it needed to be offered free, fast, and reliably. Hotels often gave us the run-around, blaming the costs of installing WiFi networks, the contracts they signed with the hotel owners or network security. But as more and more travelers book their hotel stays based on free WiFi, hotels have begun to drop their nickel and diming ways.

By Dr. Peter Tarlow: Tourism is not only the world's largest industry, but also often its most misunderstood. Many people outside of the industry believe that tourism professionals are on a permanent vacation. Others complain about tourism's negative impact. They see greater traffic on the streets, they note the waits in restaurants and cultural events, and complain that visitors often get lost, are loud, and even rude. While certainly the tourism industry has to plead guilty to some of these charges, any fair minded person will soon realize that tourism does a lot more good than harm and without it many a place would be a lot poorer not only from a monetary standpoint but also from a cultural standpoint.

By Isaac John: As global travellers intend to increase budgets for their next trip by an average of five per cent this year, Saudi tourists retain their position as the biggest spenders on the planet by spending an average of $6,666 per trip.

By John Wogan: The best hotels aren't just hotels: they're incubators for the next great trends in food, interior design, architecture, and wellness. We asked five of our favorite tastemakers-each of whom is affiliated with a hotel or spa on this year's lists-to predict the trends we'll be seeing in the Hot List Class of 2014 (Hey, it's never too early to start looking ahead, right?

By Tom Costello: Here are a five ideas that can help you to infuse some energy into your hotel and your guest’s experience.

By Jean Francois Mourier: Only six luxury hotels in the US are expected to open their doors in 2013. That number is consistent with the results seen in 2012, as a total of six properties opened that year. Unlike 2012 and 2013, development in the luxury market during 2011 was high with 23 hotels opened during the year. These declining numbers demonstrate an ongoing trend away from investment in the luxury market, and the growth of upscale properties. This trend reflects the changes in consumer behavior post-recession. Before the recession, consumers were willing to pay high prices for a five-star luxury experience, but since the financial fallout, most consumers have a maximum room rate in mind, that they won't exceed, no matter how luxurious the property.

By Alan Campbell: We have gone through the industrial revolution, the electrical revolution, and the women’s revolution. So now what will be next? Well the next revolution to come will be the hotel revolution. It will be the gadgets versus the customers. As I write these words there are new innovation’s being prepared for the hotel industry that will pamper and make each hotel more attractive to the buying public. We have grown to expect certain standards of what should be in any given hotel that we visit. Every time that some designer comes up with a new idea that appeals to the hotel public, we the customer expect to find it when we check in to the next hotel. How many gadgets can the industry provide before it goes in to overload?