Trade shows are a way for people to come and see the latest offerings from their favorite companies. Managing trade shows and business events effectively results in revenues for both the hospitality venue and the exhibitors.
Know your attendees
When designing a trade show or business event, you must think about your attendees. There are the consumers who come to visit the venue, and there are the exhibitors that come to present and/or sell their products to a captive audience eager to buy.
Determine how long the trade show will run
You also need to determine how many days that the show will run, and which visitors will be eligible to attend for those days. Some trade shows are open to the public for all days. Other trade shows, like the New York Times Travel Shows, only allow travel trade partners (e.g., travel agents, tour operators, etc.) to attend on the first day, and then opens it up to everyone for the remaining days.
Booth rentals and revenues
The hospitality venue generates revenues via ticket sales from the visitors and booth rentals from the exhibitors. The venue space is parceled out into different areas and rented to the exhibitors, which then bring their magic to fill and transform the space to create an experience for the visitors.
The booth space is especially important. A visitor will generally spend more money at booths located in the center of the exhibition hall rather than a booth tucked away into a corner somewhere.
Each exhibitor and their staff need to think about how they can entice visitors to choose their booth over the others. One idea is to provide giveaways. There are also companies that cater to special lighting or special carpeting for trade shows specifically with the purpose of enticing visitors.

The wheels of travel are constantly going through waves of innovations. When we think about innovation, we think about design thinking. Design thinking is a methodology that helps us develop innovative solutions to pain points.

The reason we talk about hospitality, travel, and tourism from the perspective of the traveler is that we want to empathize with the traveler. Empathy is one of the first steps in the design thinking methodology. It enables you to think about the travel journey from the traveler’s point of view. You can then identify the things that just don’t work, the pain points.

Think about the wheel of travel as if you were the traveler, and go through it from that perspective. For example, identify yourself as a young independent traveler that is traveling alone. Think about that and think about the dream phase. Think about the planning phase, the comparison phase, the booking phase, the travel phase, the experience and stay phase, and the post-trip review phase. Empathize with that young independent traveler throughout the travel wheel. Then identify all the pain points you can think of. Identify the things that don’t work, things that require too much effort with very little payoff, and things you’d like to change.

Once you’ve identified the pain points, think of a solution to fix them. That’s how innovation works. Think of the customer pain points using the design thinking methodology.

(following two paragraphs in blue are optional and may be better to remove)

At the XXX (please insert inaudible name here) Center, all of our programs are rooted in that innovative framework. We’ve designed them with one goal – making people job-ready but also innovative and entrepreneurial.

We have an innovation lab at the XXX (please insert inaudible name here) Center. We would be very happy to take you through our lab that is designed to have our students become the innovators of tomorrow. We also host entrepreneurs that start in a garage with an idea and then scale up to become a larger disruptor in the travel and hospitality wheel. One example is Askblue.

Askblue is an artificial intelligence that takes a deep dive into all of the data available on the cloud. It’s mines that data and enables a completely automated concierge service that is free from any human inputs. It offers concierge services in hotels but also in restaurants.

Imagine you’re in your hotel room and you’re wondering, “Oh, when is checkout time?”

Traditionally, you might call the front desk or find an information sheet somewhere in your room. With Askblue AI, you can simply say “When do I need to check out?” Askblue would then tell you that checkout time is 12:00 tomorrow. Askblue goes into the cloud and takes that information from the hotel website. You don’t have to do the searching, you just have to Askblue.

That’s one of the examples of the innovation that we see every day in hospitality, travel, and tourism.

The wheel of travel is changing and it’s providing a host of wonderful job opportunities. This ranges from existing jobs such as hotel general manager, front of house receptionist, or an investor or a consultant in real estate development..It also includes newer jobs, such as working for social media or the new artificial intelligence companies, ensuring that the customer service takes full advantage of what the data can give them.

Even from the Second World War palace hotels in the ’50s and ’60s, the model of traditional hotels has changed over time. From the internationalization of hotel chains, the proliferation of brands, the emergence of online travel agents, and to the cloud artificial intelligence and machine learning – the wheel of travel is changing constantly.

Hospitality, travel, and tourism is not just fun for the customer. It also can be really fun to experience as part of the business. Whether you want to take on a traditional career or whether you want to be an entrepreneur, there are ample opportunities in the space.

​​

The experience phase of the wheel of travel happens in the real world with physical products and services. They all rely on some type of real estate. Whether it is a theme park or driving from an airport to a city center, it is all about real estate. Furthermore, anything that happens at the experience phase relies on some sort of real estate. Staying in a hotel is a piece of real estate. Individuals going to eat at a dine-in restaurant is a piece of real estate.
The Companies That Invest in Hospitality
There are various companies that specialize in the hospitality and travel real estate of the general real estate market.
Some of these companies are the owners or professional investors who know how to invest in and maintain assets, such as hotels. We refer to companies like Host Hotels & Resorts, which emerged after Marriott spun off its real estate. Now, it has become a professional investor and asset manager of hotels.
Another company is Park Hotels, which is a real estate investment trust. They only own and professionally manage hotels. They manage any investments, renovations, and maintenance of the assets.
Consultants in the Hospitality Industry
Many consultant companies actively advise individual owners or investors. They provide various services, including valuation, food and beverage, tax, and debt advisory services. One of these companies is Hotel Valuation Services (HVS). Founded by Steve Rushmore, VHS is a legend in the industry that began in New York. It has spread globally with offices in London, Brazil, Hong Kong, and many more places.
Joes Lae, LaSalle (JLL) does consulting services like VHS but is also very active in brokerage. Brokerage is about making a buyer and seller meet to make the transaction. They advertise hotels and other properties to potential buyers and connect them with the sellers.

Why do people travel? There are so many reasons for travel. It could be for special events, occasions, to see new sites, or just visit an interesting city. Let’s take New York City, for example. One of the greatest global cities in the world.

The idea for global tourism is that people leave their home country to experience something interesting that they can’t experience back home. And if you look at the list of the most popular international destinations — France is number one at 85 million international visitors, followed by Spain, and then the United States, at about 75 million. New York City itself gets about 13 million visitors a year.

So why then, do people come to New York City? It’s an amazing place, for one. Diversity. Different cultures. Chinatown. Little Italy. Koreatown. But, there are also very interesting sites too. Central Park is probably the most popular site because it’s open, free, and provides such a contrast in a park experience. Take for example, a traveler from Finland, who might view Central Park as akin to a Finnish forest in the middle of skyscrapers.

And there’s also the 9/11 memorial and museum. The One World Trade tower. And a lot of museums. The famous Metropolitan (Met). The Museum of Natural History. There are many sites here to choose from. A common travel custom now is for the tourist to act like a local and experience things that the locals do. Consumers find these experiences to be authentic. And that’s something that New York City can offer a lot of.
And now thanks to social media, you don’t even have to do a lot of advertising anymore.

In creating your destination marketing plans, look at various sources that rate and rank the most popular attractions and activities in New York City. You don’t have to choose the most popular ones, but use some criteria to choose the ones that you would actually have as part of your vacation plans. For instance, you’ll be traveling to New York City for one week. Find out what you would do during those six nights and seven days. Then describe this in a one-page memo in terms of the criteria you used.

NYC & Company is a destination management organization in New York City that puts together programs that attract tourists to the city.

New York City, industries like hotels, restaurants, retailing, and Broadway shows all come together and finance NYC & Company, which then creates programs for marketing the city abroad.

They have done very creative partnerships with London. They exchange some advertising space on buses in New York City. So New York City buses are promoting London, and the same thing happens in London.

Reasons to come to New York City are plenty: there are attractions such as Central Park, 9/11 memorial museums, and events like the New York City Marathon in the first weekend of November, Fashion Week, and many others.
During these times, it’s very hard to get a hotel room, and even if you do, they’re pretty expensive.

Industries have to come together to make it attractive for consumers to come to New York City, because we compete against the likes of Paris, London, and Tokyo.

Luxury Hotels in New York City
NYC has 14 historic landmark hotels. There are the big ones like the Marriott Marquis, Sheraton, and Hilton, all of which have about 2,000 rooms.

There are also very boutique hotels with up to 20 rooms like the Casablanca library hotel at Times Square.

So how do consumers choose? They usually look at TripAdvisor and see the ratings! Interestingly enough, the #1 rated hotel on Trip Advisor is a small 10 room hotel on 44th Street.

There is a group of small hotels which get very high ratings on TripAdvisor.
Restaurants in New York City
There are about 26,000 restaurants in New York City, many of them in Manhattan. Every year, about 26% of this inventory of 26,000 restaurants closes and something new comes.

It’s a very competitive and creative market! If you want to be an entrepreneur in restaurant business in New York City, you have to create and innovate.

Companies like STL Steakhouse and Jonathan Siegel are at the forefront of innovation. Jonathan Siegel has created an amazing new concept: a steakhouse for ladies, breaking away from the traditional Smith & Wollensky style of older gentleman serving in long white coats and people with huge steaks. Instead, steaks are smaller and there’s seafood.

People come for food, but they also come to see other people. There are also very interesting restaurants that are vegetarian, and you have pockets of restaurants, like in Chinatown, which are very authentic, Little Italy and Koreatown.

While in New York City, you’ll never go hungry! You can get the total culinary experience for the six nights, seven days. This includes breakfast, lunch, and dinner. It’s your choice where you’re going to eat. Variety is key: you can’t be at McDonald’s every day for every meal, even if it’s a Happy Meal.

First, decide on the criteria, and it can differ. For breakfast, it could be maybe grab and go, fast. For lunch, it could be something healthy. For dinner, something where it’s more about the atmospherics, the feeling, the mood of the place, and the food.

In a one-page memo, you can give us the list and links to those restaurants. If you have a favorite dish or have some preferred aesthetics of a restaurant, illustrate that.

The hotel company Marriott is a global leader with 29 brands, 6,800 locations in 150 countries, and various lifestyle brands. They also have an element, which is an extended stay. They have Aloft, a sort of an innovator in this space for Gen X and millennials. Then they have Moxy, which is probably targeting Generation Z, which will be a customer group in the future. So those are the brands. And then they also have AC Hotel, which is a company they bought. It’s a European Spanish company. And that profile, sort of a Spanish lifestyle with tapas and other Spanish cuisines in New York City.
How Does the Consumer Differentiate These Brands?
And having 29 brands, it’s a challenge because of consumer demand- the same consumer might be a business traveler during the week and leave a traveler during the weekend. The brands need to position themselves very clearly in the marketplace. The challenge is that the same customer can use the brand for different purposes.
Luxury
Within Mariott’s luxury category, there are two subsets. St. Regis and Ritz Carlton fall in the classic luxury subset. They also have distinctive luxury, which is the joint venture between Bill Marriott and Ian Schrager.
Ian Schrager is an innovator in the 1980s after Bill Clinton. Bill Clinton created the first boutique hotel in San Francisco with the theme. And then Ian Schrager and his partner, Steve Rubell, who founded Studio 54, got stuck with the hotel. That’s how that segment started to evolve. Ian talks about host boutique hotels, which are also called lifestyle hotels. So what makes them different? The consumer who considers a lifestyle brand has a solid affinity for it because it is part of their lifestyle.
Lifestyle Brands
Lifestyle brands emulate the customer’s life versus traditional brands that offer a standard fare. A customer seeking a New York City experience may choose two hotels, where they’ll stay for, say, seven days. The hotels they pick will be ones that really cater to their needs and desires.

Dr. Jukka Laitamaki is a clinical professor at New York University SBS Jonathan M. Tisch Center for Hospitality. His background is management consulting and he holds a doctorate from Cornell Hotel School. His expertise is in strategy, branding, and business development.

With his background in management consulting, Dr. Laitamaki was with McKinsey and Company and Service Management Group, and worked in the hospitality industry in several sectors in Europe and the United States. As a professor, he has taught in all six continents in executive programs.

An avid world explorer, Dr. Laitamaki has traveled to a total of 63 countries. He has also spoken at the United Nations. His most recent research is on sustainable tourism and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) World Heritage sites. He has focused on Cuba which has 11 sites and four historic city centers.

Sustainable development, especially in tourism hospitality, is very important to Dr. Laitamaki. The principle that we should leave this planet in a better condition than we received it for the future generation is important. UNESCO does wonderful work in preserving many historic, cultural, and natural sites.

Sustainability in the hotel sector is also important because it saves energy. More consumers, especially millennials, are looking for environmentally conscious companies. Companies like Marriott, for instance, has a brand called Element, which is an extended stay brand. Element is very energy efficient and uses recycled materials for their buildings from floor to ceiling.

With this online hospitality education course you will learn about the tourism industry. You will learn about global destinations as well as a lot about New York City. Why do consumers come here? You will learn about hotels and how consumers choose hotels, cruises, and car rental services. You will learn about this growing industry and how it’s transforming.