The next stop found me in my home state of North Carolina. I travelled down to Pinehurst to attend the 4th Annual HFTP Mid-South Atlantic Conference. Instead of having to navigate airports, I was able to have a leisurely drive with the company of my wife as we engaged in four hours of stimulating conversation. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

The day was absolutely gorgeous. It was in the high 50's and not a cloud in the sky. A fantastic change from all the winter weather we've had over the past several weeks. We arrived just before the conference was to begin and were amazed at what we saw. The attendance exploded over the last couple of weeks and they out-grew their conference space. The vendor/sponsors had to be moved to a different location and the conference lunch had to be moved to the dining room. AWESOME!! This is just another great indicator that things are turning around. The conference was organized by The Central Carolina Chapter, The Charlotte/Blue Ridge Chapter, The South Carolina Chapter, and The Central Virginia Chapter.

The numbers that were provided to me say there were 94 attendees!! This is a record for this conference. So, let's recap on how 2010 is shaping up so far for HFTP. First, January exceeded the projections for new membership and membership renewals. Then EHTEC breaks the record for attendance. Then the Mid-South Atlantic Regional has a record attendance. This is looking extremely good and encouraging. Let's keep it going as we look ahead to the HFTP Development Conference March 15 & 16 in New Orleans and HITEC in June.

There was a great lineup of speakers headed off by Daniel Conti, CHAE, CAM, and Director of Finance for The Ritz Carlton Golf Club & Spa of Jupiter. Daniel is also a current member of the HFTP Global Board of Directors. His session was on "Providing Superior Customer Service Without Spending Your Last Dime." Daniel gave his usual great presentation. The afternoon was packed with great quality sessions finished up by Merilyn Feldstein, M.P.A., JCTC, MBTI helping us to "Understand Yourself and Others."

There was also a networking opportunity for the attendees to mix and mingle with the 19 vendor sponsors!! I am so thankful to all of our vendor partners that support HFTP with events such as this as well as our Global events. Part of the education opportunities for our members it to share what vendors are offering the solutions that we need in our operations. It is very difficult to research and find vendors that we need, so your willingness to support our events and display your solutions just makes for a win-win opportunity. I encourage all of our HFTP members to thank all of our sponsors for all of our events. Without them, we could not provide the members with all the services at such affordable prices.

The evening was capped off by an amazing dinner. The food was great, the company was awesome and we had a great time. So much so, I forgot to take any pictures of the dinner.   You'll just have to take my word for it, it was beautiful.

The next day began with one of my personal favorite speakers at HFTP events, Mr. Jerry Trieber. Jerry, Director of Field Accounting for Crestline Resorts & Hotels is a certified everything and all-around great guy. He has spoken at nearly every HFTP event for many years now and when you hear him present, you'll know why. To make a topic like fraud fun and interesting is not an easy task. But, Jerry can sure do it and even have us singing about it. That song is stuck in my head, by the way. THANKS!!

The remainder of the morning was packed with some more great sessions and we concluded just after lunch. It was such a gorgeous day that we assembled for a group picture out in front of our host property The Carolina. I'm not really sure what R.P. is doing, you'll have to ask him yourself.  The picture is at the bottom of the blog.

After we finished Arlene and I had lunch with Joann Phillips from The Country Club of North Carolina. She served as one of the property contacts for the conference and has been a key player in the Central Carolina Chapter of HFTP for years and years. She has been a source of encouragement for me over the years and is a very dear friend. Of course, she's going to kill me for writing all this for everyone to read, but there's nothing she can do about it!!

After lunch Arlene and I headed back home. We had another four hours for some more stimulating conversation, of course when Arlene wasn't taking a nap. But it was a beautiful day and when you have scenery like this staring you in the face, you can't really complain about anything. Life is just too good to us.

When we returned, we went to see the final performance of the play Chicago as performed by the North Buncombe High School Drama Team. My youngest daughter Jill stole the show, of course. She was in the ensemble, but still the star.

I'd love to hear from you, so drop me a line.

Look for the dates for next year's Mid-South Atlantic Regional Conference as we go up to Virginia.

Hope to see you real soon.

The EHTEC was a great conference.  We'll talk more about that later.  First, let's talk about the travel over.  As I was heading to work in the morning last Friday, I received a call from Delta telling me that my flight from Asheville to Atlanta was cancelled.  In case anyone didn't notice, there was a snow storm that went through Atlanta last Friday.  My flight wasn't supposed to leave until around 4:30 that afternoon, but they decided to cancel the flight by 8 that morning.  I guess the concept of "let's wait and see what it does" wasn't in their snow emergency plan.  Anyway, they were gratious enough to rebook me on a flight that left SUNDAY AFTERNOON!!  A little panic-stricken, I dialed the Medallion Customer Service line to get this straightened out.  After all, I'm a Platinum member and they are there to take care of me.  Right?!?!  We'll I guess that concept only worked if you are actually able to get them on the phone.  The phone never rang.  It either went to a busy signal or a "All curcuits are busy" message.  I guess all the other Medallion members that were bumped from the 2000 flights that got cancelled that day thought they were more important than me.

I arrived at work and went on-line to see what I could do.  I was able to rebook on a flight that left Asheville at about the same time through Detriot and it arrived in Amsterdam at nearly the exact same time as I was previously schedule.  Now, why THEY could have not booked me on that flight instead of saying I had to wait until Sunday, I'll never know.  Anyway, I went to the airport and everything was looking good.  My flight was slightly delayed (15 minutes or so) but nothing major.  Then it started to SNOW!!  I was getting a little worried.  But we loaded the plane and took off heading for Detroit even though the runway was white with snow cover.  Now, I want to pause on how screwed up this winter has been.  I re-route a flight through Detroit in February to avoid the winter weather in Atlanta.  And those of us that live in the South just to avoid such weather can undoubtedly share my pain. The flights to Detroit and then on to Amsterdam were fine and I arrived pretty close to on-time.

This sounds a little harry, but it was actually a blessing.  Rich Siegel of Hospitality Upgrade was on the same flight from Atlanta to Amsterdam that I was scheduled on originally.  It pulled back from the gate on-time at 9:30 p.m., however, it set on the tarmat for 4 HOURS waiting to be de-iced.  So, his 8 hours flight turned into 12 hours on the plane.  Sorry Rich.

Once there, I took a taxi from the airport, which, by the way, are all nice Mercedez Benz sedans, to the Hitlon Amsterdam.  On the way, we pass my favorite building.  It is the ING Building.  It is shaped like a big shoe.  As you can see, they even put shoe laces on it at times.  I really don't know the reasoning for the design, but hey I'm writing about it in my blog and not any other building!!  Amsterdam fasinates me with so many people that ride bicycles.  They are by far the majority of the people on the road.  They have their own road system dedicated to them, even down to their own stop lights.  (I started to put "red lights" but we all know that means something totally different in Amsterdam)  One morning it snowed and they actually have a small scraper/salt truck for the bike lane.  They were scraping and salting the bicycle lanes before they were the main road.

Amsterdam is a great town.  The beautiful architecture just reminds me of a village in the Swiss Alps.  Just gorgious.  I've heard people saying that you can get in trouble in Amsterdam.  I just wanted to put your mind to ease that no trouble was sought or found.

Now, on to EHTEC!!  WE BROKE THE RECORD!!!  That's amazing to be able to say during these uncertain times.  We had the most attendess (150) from the most different countries (30).  And that's not counting the hills of Western North Carolina as a different country, which some have argued.  We tried to make it a different country, but Lincoln got in the way!

The conference started off with the Chair of the EHTEC Advisory Council, Michael Levie leading a session entitled Knowledge Sharing - Navigating in the World of Hotel Technology.   Michael is the owner and CEO for CitizenM. CitizenM is short for Citizen Mobile where they have taken luxury and brought it down to affordable.  Check out their hotels at www.citizenm.com.  Michael was telling us that we need to institute "reverse-thinking."  Sounds easy, but try reading the next paragraph.

.detnaw yeht tahw dengised neht dna srellevart ,elpoep ot gniklat yb detrats eH  .stnatlusnoc ro ,stcetihcra ,sknab ot gniklat ton yb gnireffo letoh wen sih detaerc leahciM

(Hint: it is backwards)  Having our brain to reverse, or think in a different manner is extremely difficult, but that is what we may need to be doing to be ready for the guest of the now and next decade.

Michael's "reverse-thinking" in constructing his hotel has been well received by travellers.  So much so, he has recently been named "Trendiest Hotel in the World" by TripAdvisor.  Check out the story www.hospitalitynet.org/news/154000320/4045129.html.

Ok, enough for the paid advertising for CitizenM.   The rest of the day included some great sessions along with a round-table discussion during lunch that solved all the problems of the world.  We tackled such questions as:

• What new guestroom technology will be in the guestroom in 5 years? 
• What current technology that is in the guestroom now will be obsolete in 5 years?
• How is your property using social media? 
• Do you have any regulations/rules/guidelines for your employees in regards to social media? 
• If you could only purchase a technology solution for one area of the hotel, which area and why?

Of course, answers were varied, but the discussion was enlightening.  The first night capped off with a fabulous Gala Dinner where we were all well fed and well entertained by Mr. Derek Woods' amazing card tricks.  I always knew there was something shifty about him. The second day was filled with great sessions as well and we ended with Mr. John G.C. Kester, Head of Market Trends and Competitiveness with the World Tourism Organization.  Mr. Kester gave us a Tourism and Travel Update: Where to Next?

I would consider the conference an extreme success.  The attendance was high all the way up to my last joke as we closed the conference on Tuesday.  I have learned something, don't tell any redneck jokes if the audience is not clear on what a redneck is.  Looses some of its punch. Of course, it could have been that they just couldn't understand what I was saying.  Heaven knows I was having trouble understanding some of them.

The next day found R.P. Rama, HFTP Global Secretary, his lovely wife Daxa and I heading back to the airport for our journey home.  On the way, we passed the Olympic Stadium from the 1928 Summer Olympics.  The statium was recently restored and it looked great.  A since of history.  The world gets together for competition and sport and on the same land, just over a decade later, the world was split in war.  We need to always cherish the moments we have together and remember them when times get hard so the hard times do not create a split in your lives.

The flights home were pleasantly uneventful except I froze to death when I stepped off the plane in Asheville!!  When is spring supposed to get here again!!

Don't forget to make plans for the first ever HFTP Development Conference in New Orleans March 15 & 16.  Get the details at http://www.hftp.org/Pages/Events/DevConf.aspx.

Hope to see you soon!!