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.

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.

By Bryan K. Williams: As we begin 2013, I’ve decided to put together a compilation of my articles about the 5-Star service experience. Hopefully, they will help to re-ignite your commitment to provide consistently engaging service. Wishing you and your team continued success in 2013!

By Lily Lin: In business, any top sales executive or contract negotiator could testify on the importance of understanding their clients’ or opponents’ paralanguage. After all, hotel business is people business. People communicate – verbally and nonverbally. It is only natural that hotel staff should acquire a good understanding of nonverbal communication and be able to identify their guests’ emotional state as well as their likes and dislikes.

By Andrea: The New Year is upon us and many of us will be making yet another load of New Year's resolutions, having still not learned by our previous failure to keep them (for example for me: must not drink so much, must actually go to the gym instead of just paying for it, etc….).In a spirit of helpfulness then let me suggest some resolutions for hotel owners and managers, at the risk that some of them may merely reflect my own quirks and foibles.

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.