Posts by Sarah McCay Tams
How Hotels Use Data to Make Faster, Smarter Decisions
Hotel teams are not lacking data. They are lacking clarity. Across most properties, data sits in separate systems. Revenue in one platform. Labor in another. Financial reporting somewhere else. Each system answers a different question. None provides a complete picture. Why Data Alone is Not Enough Many hotels invest in reporting tools but still struggle to…
Read MoreQ1 Hotel Profitability Improved, But 2026 Will Test the Discipline Behind the Margin
Hotel profitability improved in Q1 2026, and that should give operators reason for confidence. But the bigger question is not whether margins moved in the right direction. It is whether hotels can protect those gains throughout the rest of the year. According to the Q1 2026 Hotel Profitability Report from HotelData.com, based on data from…
Read MoreWhat is CapEx Planning and Why it Matters for Hotel Profitability
Hotel assets shape profitability. A boiler, roof, HVAC unit, elevator, guestroom asset, or major renovation project can affect operating costs, guest experience, owner confidence, and long-term asset value. Yet many hotel teams still manage capital planning through spreadsheets, email chains, static budgets, and disconnected maintenance records. That creates risk. When asset data sits in one…
Read MoreThe Quiet Data Problem Hiding in Your Night Audit
Most hotel labor management conversations start with scheduling, forecasting, or cost per occupied room. Those are the right places to focus, but there’s a step further upstream that quietly sets the tone for all of it: the moment someone manually enters housekeeping cleans into a labor management system at the end of a long shift.…
Read MoreHow Hotel Software Improves Guest Experience Without Losing the Human Touch
Hotel technology should not replace hospitality. It should protect it. Guests expect faster communication, cleaner handoffs, and fewer points of friction. They want to message the hotel from their phone, get clear answers, and trust that requests will not get lost between departments. At the same time, they still expect warmth, judgment, and personal attention.…
Read MoreHow Agnelo Fernandes is Making Cote Hospitality Epic
Agnelo Fernandes is on a mission to make Cote Hospitality ‘epic’. He wants to transform both the guest and the associate experience to drive meaningful connections, and he’s doing this through hands-on management and embracing technology and AI. Founded in 1928, Cote Hospitality prides itself on delivering a wholesome, family vacation experience at all its…
Read MoreHow to Reduce Hotel Labor Costs Without Sacrificing Service
Labor remains the largest controllable expense in hotel operations. At the same time, it is one of the hardest to manage well. Rising wages, staffing shortages, and higher guest expectations have made labor strategy more important than ever. Operators need to protect margins without weakening service. Many still rely on outdated processes to do both.…
Read MoreWhat Is Hotel Business Intelligence and Why It Drives Profitability
Hotel operators have no shortage of data. Daily reports, revenue metrics, labor costs, and guest feedback; the volume continues to grow. Yet many teams still struggle to turn that data into clear, timely decisions. That gap is where hotel business intelligence software, such as ProfitSword, has become critical. Not as another reporting tool, but as…
Read MoreA Hospitality Journey: Ditching Wall Street for Warm Welcomes
Charles Oswald is CEO of Aperture Hotels, but his career nearly took a different turn. While working for Hyatt in college, he had his sights set on Wall Street. That was until a friend pointed out how great he had it working in hotels. Now, he’s passing his love of hospitality onto the next generation,…
Read MoreActabl Launches Integration Connecting ProfitSword Budgets with Hotel Effectiveness to Streamline Hotel Portfolio Labor Planning
Atlanta, GA — March 24, 2026 – Actabl, the leading hospitality software company dedicated to empowering hotels with actionable insights to drive profit, today announced a new integration that seamlessly connects ProfitSword labor budgets with labor plans in Hotel Effectiveness. Coming at a time when operators face increasing pressure to control labor costs amid rising…
Read MoreHotel Labor Costs Jump 12.8% in 2025, Squeezing GOP Margins
Labor remains the defining variable in hotel profitability. The latest HotelData.com by Actabl report shows a clear pattern in 2025: wage-driven cost pressure accelerated, productivity improved in pockets, and margin outcomes depended on how precisely operators aligned labor to demand. The headline figure tells the story. In Q4 2025, Wages Cost per Occupied Room (CPOR)…
Read MoreActabl Introduces Digital Itineraries to Deliver More Seamless, Sustainable Guest Experiences
New Alice feature replaces static PDFs with interactive, real-time itineraries guests can access from any device. Atlanta, GA – March 3rd, 2026 – Actabl, a leading hospitality software company focused on helping hotels operate more efficiently and deliver consistent guest experiences, today announced the addition of Digital Itineraries within its Alice hotel operations platform. Digital…
Read MoreProfit Protection in a Slower Market: What Q4 2025 Data Reveals About Hotel Margins
Hotel profitability tightened in the final quarter of 2025. According to the latest HotelData.com report, Q4 2025: The Profit Squeeze That Followed Peak Season, the industry shifted from holding rate to protecting margin as demand softened and revenue growth slowed. While ADR declined modestly and RevPAR fell more sharply in Q4, the deeper story sits…
Read MoreHotel Forecasting: How to Win In 2026
Want to unlock the secrets to success in hotel operations in 2026? We asked a hotel data scientist, financial coach, and hotel visionary how to win in 2026 on our latest thought leadership webinar on hotel forecasting and portfolio reporting, which took place on February 5, 2026. We wanted to help our webinar participants learn…
Read MoreHow Hotels Can Streamline Labor Planning Across Finance and Operations
When labor budgets and labor plans live in separate systems, hotel teams lose time, accuracy, and alignment. When budgets are built in one system and labor standards in another, on-property teams end up working from incomplete or inconsistent information. The result is a fragmented labor story unable to scale across a multi-property portfolio. Connecting Workflows…
Read MoreUnderstanding How Hotels Adapted To The Labor Challenges of 2025
Hotel leaders found themselves caught between revenue reductions and cost challenges in 2025, with both putting pressure on profit. Rising wage levels, higher headcounts, increased overtime, and pressure to improve productivity per occupied room all tested hotel operators. Entering 2026, many of these challenges look set to follow hotel leaders into the new year. We…
Read MoreA Hospitality Journey: Eric McCarthy-Zink on Disney Lessons, Leadership, and Scaling With Purpose
From washing dishes at his local Chinese restaurant to Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of a global hospitality company, Eric McCarthy-Zink’s career is a shining example of the opportunities that can come from a career in hospitality. He caught up with Josiah Mackenzie, VP of Marketing at Actabl, to talk about his career path, how Disney’s…
Read MoreHow Hotels Used Labor Efficiency to Protect Margins in 2025
The 2025 Labor Costs and Trends Report from HotelData.com by Actabl examines how hotels navigated labor costs during the first nine months of the year. It reveals a year shaped by clear labor realities: wages remained high, forecasting accuracy mattered more than ever, and operators leaned on efficiency over headcount cuts. The data covers 5,000…
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