January, 2014 - HospitalityLawyer.com®

The Search for a Uniform 911 System

by Colin Andrews in Safety & Security. Posted January 29, 2014

In a letter sent to major hotel chains, FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai urged hotels to program their telephones to be able to dial 911 without first dialing 9. The motivation behind this initiative is the death of Kari Hunt Dunn, who was stabbed to death at the Baymont Inn in Marshall, Texas this past December, while ...

International Dismissal Toolkit: Individual Employment Terminations

by Don Dowling in Human Resources. Posted January 26, 2014

International Dismissal Toolkit: Individual Employment Terminations Firing an employee in the United States can be a challenge. Group firings — reductions-in-force — can be an even bigger challenge. And from the point of view of a multinational headquartered in the United States, overseas individual dismissals and “collective redundancies” can be an intractable challenge. We often ...

Tackle Hotel Spend in a Disciplined and Professional Manner

by Carlson Wagonlit in Hotel Development, Lodging. Posted January 24, 2014

Hotel spend represents between 30 and 50 percent of a company’s total travel spend but in contrast to air spend, it is often left unmanaged. Corporate travel buyers need to focus greater attention on this complex, inﬂationary spend category to optimize their overall travel program. Unlike the approximately 250 IATA (International Air Transport Association) companies ...

The Legacy of Tony Marshall and Today’s Pressing Legal Issues for Hoteliers

by John Hogan in Lodging. Posted January 21, 2014

We launch this year’s Hospitality Conversations™ with a look at the legacy of Dr. Anthony G. Marshall, or simply “Tony” to those of us who were fortunate enough to have worked with him or known him personally. He was hired in 1972 as Professor of Law and Associate Dean at Florida International University in Miami. ...

NLRB Finally Punts on Rule Requiring Posting of Right to Unionize Notice

by Bennett Pine in Human Resources. Posted January 20, 2014

In several prior issues of the Employment Law Insider Alert, we have reported on the ups and downs of the efforts of the National Labor Relations (“NLRB” or “Board”) to require almost all private sector employers to post an 11-inch by 17-inch notice in the workplace advising employees of their right to form and join a ...

What Hotel Leadership Should Know About the Emerging Trend of Assault and Battery Claims

by Michael Elkon in Human Resources, Legal, Safety & Security. Posted January 16, 2014

Ask nearly any leader in the hotel industry and/or their HR manager for the definition of a “hostile work environment,” and they will have a pretty solid answer. That’s because many of them have had to handle employee claims for illegal harassment. Further, these leaders, for the most part, have dealt with such employee issues ...

Tips for Small Hotels, Inns and Other Hospitality Businesses to Save on Expenses

by John Hogan in Featured, Lodging. Posted January 14, 2014

The first “real” hoteliers I ever worked for owned and operated independent, familyrun inns and other related hospitality businesses. They had learned to be frugal, having lived through very hard times in World War II and the subsequent years as the economy grew and recovered in the decade that followed. When recently looking at a ...

Don’t Fake It to Make It: Prosecutors Crack Down on Business Fake Online Reviews

by admin in Legal. Posted January 13, 2014

Hunting for a top-rated hotel or searching for the perfect dim sum restaurant? Chances are you will turn to sites such as Yelp, Citysearch, or TripAdvisor to guide you through the mass of options most locations have to offer. As the Huffington Post recently noted, “In an increasingly tech-reliant world, most of us do not ...

Wash Your *!&# Hands! Employers And The Flu

by Howard Mavity in Featured, Human Resources, Safety & Security. Posted January 6, 2014

Almost 4.1 million employees missed work due to illnesses like the flu last January, which was the most since 2008. Even worse, the four-month peak season lasted through March, so the numbers continued to add up. Some years, absences during that four-month period ran at 3.8 million a month, for a whopping total of 15+ ...

Human Sex Trafficking in Hotels is a Major Concern for Hoteliers

by William Frye in Lodging, Safety & Security, Travel. Posted January 6, 2014

Because of the transient nature of guests who utilize lodging accommodations and the privacy afforded to these temporary guests, hotels have become prime venues for the exploitation of “at risk” individuals through sexual exploitation and human trafficking. Check any newswire or perform an Internet search and stories of human trafficking and sexual exploitation invariably connect ...

Monthly Archives: January 2014