By Chris Daly: Whether it’s your grandparents celebrating their 50th anniversary or Star Wars fans just starting on their journey with Disney, successful relationships are based on making the most of your shared opportunities.  Expedia’s Josh Saunders, director of market management, recommends the following to maximize your hotel’s return with its online travel agency.

By Glenn Llopis: The most successful leaders are instinctual decision makers.  Having done it so many times throughout their careers, they become immune to the pressure associated with decision making and extremely intuitive about the process of making the most strategic and best decisions. This is why most senior executives will tell you they depend strongly upon their “gut-feel” when making difficult decisions at a moment’s notice.

By Oliver Cann: Switzerland, Germany and Austria lead the world in terms of their travel and tourism industry competitiveness with Spain, the United Kingdom, the United States and Singapore. The biennial report, published under the theme, Reducing Barriers to Economic Growth and Job Creation, sees considerable movement in the Travel & Tourism Competitiveness Index’s top 10 countries. France fell four places from third in 2011 to seventh, while Spain climbed to fourth from eighth. Also showing strong improvement were the United Kingdom – up two places to fifth – and Canada, up one place to eighth.

By Claudette Covey: Flying in the face of such governmental challenges as fiscal cliffs and sequesters, U.S. hotels will continue to achieve strong gains in both revenue and profits in 2013, according to the recently released March 2013 edition of PKF Hospitality Research’s(PKF-HR) Hotel Horizons.

By Gene Sloan: One of Norwegian Cruise Line's next ships will have a special effects-infused "illusionarium" that's billed as a first of its kind at sea. The dining and entertainment venue planned for the 4,000-passenger Norwegian Getaway, unveiled today at the annual Cruise Shipping Miami conference, will feature illusions designed by top magicians and come with an extra charge.

By Isabel Choat and Georgia Brown: From feeding lambs on a Welsh farm, to Horrible Histories at Warwick castle or guided glamping gypsy-style, there are plenty of late Easter trips to choose from.

By Sheena McKenzie: What do you get when you combine a hotel and a boat? Inevitably, you get a boatel. Catering for those who seek the romance of the high-seas without sacrificing the creature-comforts of dry land, an increasing number of enterprising hoteliers are converting historic vessels into over-night stays. From old lifeboats to classic military ships, these are our top five.

Expedia, Inc., the world’s largest online travel company, released data from the first nine months of 2012 indicating that the company has partnered with a larger number of small hotel partners, defined as hotels with 50 rooms or less, and an increase in net transactions from this sector by nearly 30 percent year on year for that period. Small hotels represent about half of the hotels in Expedia’s direct global inventory.

Some people prefer to read a magazine in the restroom, but we’d much rather gaze out over a stunning view. There’s nothing we love more than exotic sights, no matter where we’re taking in the view — the shower, tub, or elsewhere. From Hong Kong to Miami, Boston to Barcelona, here are our favorite hotel views from the best seat in the house.

By Max Starkov: For years now hotel marketers have claimed that search engines are on the way out as a viable marketing and distribution channel in hospitality. These claims, of course, have been followed with boasts of “the next big thing” to save hotel distribution – from social media to retargeting to the mobile channel. Regardless of what some in the industry say, the search engines are still alive and well. There is a reason why the search engines are travel consumers’ favorite travel research and planning tool. Google in particular dominates hotel search; results provide deep and relevant information, the best mapping and directions, extensive customer reviews via Zagat’s acquisition and now provide real-time hotel availability and pricing via Google Hotel Finder. No other meta search or travel site comes even close to match the richness and relevancy of hotel information provided by Google.