I was chatting with some of our senior sales team this morning. They had all just returned from recent trips to Kiev, Madrid, Warsaw and Sofia and although they recounted to me the ailing economic impact on revenue per available room (RevPAR), they had met with General Managers of hotels in those regions who remain positive, upbeat and keen to learn about what hotels can do with in-room technology around the world.

We can read all the articles, advertise in all the publications or better yet, we at Acentic, believe face to face is the only way to mutually learn and develop our businesses. Despite negative press editorials about travel budgets we at Acentic are more than ever seeking to meet with hoteliers because our realization for today is that hoteliers remain the best customers to have and they remain positive and always hardworking towards ideas to generate business and improve service.

Relive a scene with me from Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird (Lippincott 1961)

"First of all,” he said, “ if you can learn a simple trick, Scout, you’ll get along a lot better with all kinds of folks. You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view..."

More than ever in business, we must seek to understand.