Over the last few months HU has connected with many industry leaders through interviews, surveys and casual chats over dinner.  Kris Burnett has logged hundreds of hours behind the camera (and Remington at least that many in the editing bay).  A few of the recently released industry videos are below, and by scanning the page with the LAYAR app you can view these interviews on your phone.  The remaining series of videos (at current count more than a hundred) will be rolled out over the course of the next few months and with the launch of our new hospitalityupgrade.com website at the end of the year.  While there are challenges in the industry, there are also great champions.

Speaking of interviews: Please check out my Q&A with Cindy Estis Green (pg 114).  We discuss the primary themes that have emerged in the distribution landscape – how does Airbnb affect hotels and what’s the effect of direct-booking campaigns.  Over the last month, we’ve been conducting an extensive survey of hospitality CIOs about technology initiatives, trends and challenges (pg 14).  In our surveys and interviews we'll ask personal, random questions to remind us that all the leaders in our industry are human, and they like the same things we do.  We take technology seriously, but that doesn’t mean we can’t make it real and fun, too.