By Guestcentric:  Imagine for a second that someone is trying to make a reservation for that same evening, but has already left the house so all they can use are mobile devices. Will your hotel’s website be able to let that person make a reservation from their smartphone? What if it was a tablet instead?

Alexandra Levit: An important part of long-term success is developing your top talent so they can eventually replace you and other key players. Succession planning doesn’t have to be painful. After all, your organization is evolving, and you don’t want all the great progress you’ve made to be undermined due to an unplanned departure.

By Tatiana Rokou: Here's a rundown on what travellers can expect to see in the new year, as proposed by USA Today.

By Ruth Hill: Travellers with a love of luxury are joining the nation's record number of visitors — 3.5 million in 2012 — to this epicenter of the Holy Land. Hotel investors and developers are answering the heightened demand for rooms with several new upscale hotels which will open this year. Here's a sampling.

By Melanie Nayer: Food & Wine recently named their top hotels for food lovers, which range in concept from celebrity chefs to fancy vending machines. I've added a few of my favorite hotels for food to their list. Whether you're into private picnics, extraordinary room service or feasts fit for a king, these hotels are sure to fit any palette.

By Jeff Weinstein: Marketing communications firm JWT has released its Things To Watch in 2013 Food & Beverage Report. This is part of its eighth annual forecast of key trends that will drive or significantly impact consumer mindset and behaviour in the year to come.

By Molly Hannon: Berlin now has 13 restaurants with Michelin stars, the most of any city in Germany. The stars, many bestowed in the last few years, are a signal that the country’s culinary landscape has shifted from Munich and Hamburg.

By Nancy Trejos:  Hotel lobbies are starting to feel more like coffeehouses or French salons in a bid to lure guests and neighbours.

By Julie Bawden-Davis: Keeping employees happy and productive in a tough economy may not be an easy task, but your business is sure to benefit when you incorporate these tactics for creating motivation in the workplace.

It's a social media world, one where consumers rely more heavily on their peers' online opinions than ever before. A company called Olery acts as an aggregator for all reviews posted about a particular hotel online. This gives the hotel the ability to respond to reviews in a more timely fashion. Whether a patron posts to Twitter, TripAdvisor, or Facebook, the service lets hotels see such activity in real-time and respond accordingly. Olery's data, summarized in visual form below, shows that most people consult reviews before deciding where to stay. Roughly half of all travelers post reviews – and wouldn't book a hotel without any reviews.