As soon as the school bus returned, I hoped into the car and headed for FLL airport and my flights to San Diego.  Due to the time change I got in early enough to grab a decent night’s sleep so I could conduct my third in a row regional “Power Meeting” for the Embassy Suites brand.  I hadn’t been back in San Diego for a few years now, so I’d forgotten just how beautiful it really is, especially from the balcony of the suite they had provided for me overlooking laceName w:st="on">San DiegolaceName> laceType w:st="on">BaylaceType>.  From my room I could see some of my favorite sites such as the Star of India historic sailing vessel that now is a maritime museum and our Pacific Fleet at the San Diego naval harbor.

The next day I was back in action to present another of the Embassy Suites regional “Power Meetings,” this one for Talene Staab and Melissa Smith.  Since Melissa was getting ready to go out on maternity leave and couldn’t travel I didn’t get to meet her, but very much enjoyed working with Talene on-site.  It was also great to bump into an ole’ client friend of mine named Per Nilsson, whom I’d last seen when he was Front Office Director at the laceName w:st="on">BostonlaceName> laceType w:st="on">ParklaceType> laceType w:st="on">PlazalaceType>.  He has now aspired to the level of Regional Vice President of Operations for one of the industry’s top hotel management companies, Remington Hotels.  Being a West Coast booking and since I don’t usually do red-eye flights I actually got to hang around a little this time, versus bolting out after my speech for the last flight back to Ft. Lauderdale.  This afforded me the chance to grab a couple of drinks with my new friends at the bar as pictured here.  (Talene Staab is to my immediate right, but not to worry she had only a club soda with lime at the bar!)

On The Road To Washington, DC 

Instead of heading home on Friday morning I found myself on a non-stop from San Diego to Washington DC to attend a wedding reception for one of Cathy’s close friends at Marriott Corporate.  We had a very enjoyable weekend staying at the Crystal Gateway Marriott thanks to Cathy’s employee rate and got to catch up with all her old gang at the Crystal City Sports Pub on Saturday night.  Here’s a picture of Cathy and I at the wedding reception and one of her and some of her friends from Marriott:

                    

On The Road to Orlando:  Newport Hospitality Management GM/DOS Conference

Cathy and I flew back on Sunday and Monday morning found me packing, but this time for a nice easy road trip to speak at the GM/DOS conference for Newport Hospitality, which was being held at the Hard Rock Hotel in Orlando.  What a great choice of properties that turned out to be.  I’m not sure if it was the influence of the Loews management and branding or the Hard Rock brand, but it was once of the best guest service experiences I’ve had in some time.  I was even welcomed upon arrival instead of my usual greeting at the front desk, which is a raised eyebrow followed by the phrase “Checkin’ in?”   After stashing my bags I had just enough time to make the evening cocktail reception, which was a great opportunity to mingle with the General Managers and sales directors who were to be in my session the next day.  After the reception they headed out in small groups for a special “dine around” that had been arranged for the Universal Orlando/City Walk area.  Knowing just how fun that destination can be for a group like this, I had better judgment to instead head back to my room to catch a full night’s rest before my half-day seminar the next morning.

Soon enough it was time to head downstairs to conduct my “Building revenue and increasing RevPAR Through Front Desk Sales” seminar as part of their conference.  What made this booking very special for me was that I got to see my dear friend Lizz Chambers-Land, who is their Corporate Director of Human Resources and Training.  I’d first met Lizz exactly 10 years ago when she attended one of our two-day Trainer Certification Seminars, coincidentally in this very same city despite that they are based in Williamsburg, VA.  Lizz has built an incredibly successful career for herself at Newport Hospitality, and along the way taken their company to even higher levels of sales and service effectiveness.  Based on the comments and input from their GM’s and DOS’s, this company has a number of exemplary “best practices” that Lizz has her stamp on.

Here’s a picture of me with Lizz Chambers-Land (left) and Amy Walker, Corporate Director of Sal (right):     


                                

After the presentation I was back in my minivan again and headed home to laceType w:st="on">Ft.laceType> laceName w:st="on">LauderdalelaceName> for the rest of the workweek and in this case  - the work weekend.  On Saturday I said goodbye to Cathy and the kids at the airport and headed off for what would be the longest trip of my year – a six-night, 3 city booking.  Cathy headed home with the kids and it warmed my heart to know they already had big plans involving cookie making, a trip to Blockbuster, and best of all a sleepover with their best friends.

On The Road to Cancun:  Preferred Hotels & Resorts Conference

I headed off to what sounded like the most exotic business trip ever but was really just another booking, which as to speak at the Preferred Hotels & Resorts conference in Cancun, Mexico.  Since I had a prior commitment to speak at the Montana Innkeeper’s Association meeting in Bozemon, MT on Monday, had any other client asked me to speak in Cancun on Sunday I would probably have declined.  But in this case it was my good friend Courtney Granger, who is currently the chairperson of our HSMAI Revenue Advisory Board, along with Deena Kauffman, Senior VP of Revenue & Distribution.  Deena has been a loyal client of mine while at Preferred for over 12 years, so I simply couldn’t say no despite the required travel heroics.   

Soon I found landing in Cancun and being picked up personally by a driver and taken right to the Secrets couples resort.  I have to admit I felt really important and special when I was greeted by name by an assistant front office manager, who then walked me over and introduced me to the front desk associate, except that I later learned that they did this for each and every guest not just me!  What a great first impression it makes though, and Secrets turned out to be just as good at discretely hosting this corporate meeting as it did hosting the numerous honeymoon and romance couples otherwise milling about.  Here’s a picture of Deena introducing me at the meeting Sunday morning. 

On The Road to Bozeman, MT

Sunday afternoon I found myself back at the laceName w:st="on">CancunlaceName> laceType w:st="on">AirportlaceType> the required 2 hours ahead of my flight.  Good thing, as it took at least an hour to get checked in and I needed to get some food ahead of this 5.5 hour first leg of my 8 hours of travel to Bozeman.  Not to complain, but this was one of the travel days where I felt I earned my pay for sure, especially since it all ended at about midnight MT with me standing outside the Bozeman airport waiting 45 minutes after the terminal  closed for the hotel van due to a front desk miscommunication. 

The redeeming factor was that since I didn’t have to present until 1pm I was able to sleep in Monday morning, and right after breakfast I headed down for their luncheon.  I knew right away I was in Montana when I noticed that the presenter at lunch was from Yellowstone wildlife conservation group and that he had brought along birds of prey and some small animals.  Here’s a picture of him with a Great Horned Owl.

                                    

Soon it was my turn, and being the closing speaker for a two day conference right after lunch I was glad to have myself had the sleep and was ready for action.  The topic was a customized, half-day version of my two most popular hospitality and guest service seminars, “So You REALLY Like Working With People?” and “Creating Ordinary Excellence, DAILY!”  Since it was the first time I’d combined those two keynotes I was glad to see it was especially well received.  Here’s a picture of me presenting to their group, along with a picture of me an Stuart Doggert, the Association Administrator, who is on the far right. 

That night I attended their awards banquet but decided to cut out early, as tomorrow was to bring the next and final leg of this journey, my flight to Denver and onto Aspen.

On The Road To Aspen

This part of the story requires a little background information in that my good friend Bill Tomchich, who is the President of the Stay Aspen Snowmass area-wide tourism association had personally arranged my airfare since it was such a complicated itinerary to get me from FLL – CUN – BZN – ASE – FLL.  Coincidentally, he mentioned he’d be returning to Aspen the day of my arrival and was already booked on the same flight from Denver to Aspen. 

It has been said that ignorance is bliss and in terms of this trip it was true for me.  Unbeknownst to me, the Aspen airport had been closed for the better part of 3 days prior to my arrival.  Upon landing Bill called my cell to say he had some bad news, some good news, bad news, and then good news.  The bad news was that the Aspen airport had been mostly closed for days, but the good news was that we were about to board the first flight cleared to take off.  But the bad news was that if the pilot couldn’t see the airport when we landed he’d have to abort and return to Denver.  But the final good news was that despite that every rental car and hotel room in Denver was booked, Bill had managed to reserve an SUV 4-wheel drive and had found that some back highways were still open.

So there we were boarding the jet with a lot of uncertainly, but at least a back-up plan that would get me there in time to conduct the full-day seminar KTN had scheduled for the following morning, with more than 25 participants that I didn’t want to let down.  I must say that I wasn’t looking forward to what would have probably been a 7 hour or more ordeal, so when we descended from the clouds and saw the runway I broke into applause and cheers with the rest of the plane.  Here’s a picture of me with some of the participants of my area-wide Reservations SAILS Seminar in Aspen.

Since the seminar was being held at the Inn at Aspen, which had been my first client in all of Colorado let alone Aspen 15 years prior, I felt right at home and it was great to head straight down the hallway to my room to catch up on some e-mailing before calling it a night. 

The next day was an easy one as far is it goes for us speakers, as my only major task was to present the 30-minute keynote speech for Bill’s Stay Aspen Snowmass (SAS( annual area wide tourism meeting.  My 30 minute talk entitled “Have You Listened To What Reservations Callers Are Saying LATELY?” seemed to especially hit home with everyone in this market as distribution in this market is highly competitive and they are already starting to see an impact from consumer-generated media and social media reviews on the web.

After working most of the afternoon back in my room I headed out for the annual open house at the SAS offices, which I’d attended a couple of years back and found to be quite fun.  I tried to bum a ride from my “new” old friend Brett Huskey, who I’d just reconnected with the Inn at Aspen’s new GM, but it turns out he had to work late.  Here’s a picture of me with some of the SAS executives:  (Left to right; Eric Fuller, J.R. Reid, Trisha Roberts, Douglas, Bill Tomcich; last name is unknown.) 

Finally on Friday morning it was time to head back home for a final pre-holiday weekend with Cathy before she headed home to her family farm for “huntin’ season” with her father.  Despite all of the business travel this month, I couldn’t miss out on the Cook Family Thanksgiving experience, so I flew up Tuesday and returned Friday to finally spend a relaxing weekend with the kids. 

On The Road to Jacksonville, FL

Monday of the last week in November started early, and I was soon on a flight to Jacksonville, FL to conduct a workshop that afternoon for Shaun O’Donnell at the Ponte Vedra Resorts, which include the five-diamond Ponte Vedra Inn & Club and the prestigious Lodge at Ponte Vedra.  Since they’d even arranged a car service, this was such an easy trip for me and I had one of the best room service dinners I can remember that even, did my second workshop the next morning.  The only bad part was that I forgot my camera!  After the seminar I headed back on the Southwest Airlines (bus in the sky) to laceType w:st="on">Ft.laceType> laceName w:st="on">LauderdalelaceName> just in time to get my kids after school.  After a night of homework and Karate class I dropped them back at their mom’s to get ready for my early AM flight to Hilton Head, SC the next morning.

On The Road to Hilton Head, SC

The next day it was time for my 7^th booking of the month and my 9^th trip, counting two leisure weekends, so I was glad it turned out to be smooth traveling.  After working with mostly large companies and resorts this month it was great to present the training for a smaller, entrepreneurial company in The Vacation Company, which while being one of the smaller vacation property rental companies I’ve worked with has to be one of the most sales/service oriented.  What an excellent team of “Guardian Angels” this company has to watch over your vacation plans when you need them.  Here is a picture of me with the group, and you can see Bob Hawkins on my far right: