Lodging Books

I work for a hotel/property management software company now and never worked in the hospitality industry other than being a busboy at a Howard Johnson's when I was 16, so I bought this book to give me a better feel for what goes on in the heads of the people using our software. I was disappointed in my choice as soon I opened the package and saw how briefly each topic is covered.

There are plenty of pictures and short biographies of the great hoteliers, which were about the most interesting parts of the book. Many other pictures showed typical workers smiling as they did their jobs, taken right out of the archives from the major hotels. Each chapter also had a summary and review questions section which takes up a good portion of the book. Other than things I had no interest in, such as pages of checklists on the steps to efficiently cleaning a hotel room and sample franchise agreements that used up more valuable pages, there was very little depth to any of it.

It only glanced at the subject of the night audit and accounting functions, which is what I originally bought the book for, and it's coverage of PMS (Property Management Software) systems was limited to remarking that this is one of the biggest changes to happen in the past ten years. I wondered if the author had ever had any exposure to any of the popular PMS packages in use today, or even knew of any since he didn't list or provide references for further study on this subject. With a copyright date of February 2001 I assumed I would get the most up to date coverage but the few pictures and paragraphs of front desk automation were of ancient terminals circa 1985 or so and virtually nothing was mentioned of recent technology changes such as the Internet and online reservation systems now being integrated and handled in-house.

This book is listed as 400 pages but is actually only a little over 300, which was a blessing in a way, since I couldn't wait to get through it and get started on more substantial book on the subject. I'm used to buying computer books with list prices in the range of this book's price tag, and expect to get a comprehensive guide to the subject when I do. I was disappointed with what I got for my money on this purchase though, and couldn't recommend it for anyone who doesn't have to buy it for a course they are taking in school. As a book to keep around just for knowledge, review and reference it is of little value to me.

Joe Buchberger

This article was only scanned in to the end of page #1...you will not get page 2-3! Go directly to Hawaii Business to order this article (which is an excellent update on the state of trail permits in Hawai'i). Shelley Attix, Co-author, "Opportunities for Nature-Based Tourism in Hawai'i," HI State DBED&T & U. Manoa TIM School, 1994.

I moved to the Portland area early 2001 and bought or got 3-4 books on the area. I bought this one but didn't realize this was published in 1998.
Besides being out of date, I found it lacking in content compared to many of the others. It did have good info on restaraunts.
Look at a few other books or citisearch for the latest and greatest.

Most of the motels listed can be easily found by looking at the web sites for Motel6, Super8, and Day's Inn. This book will save you time if you have slow internet access, or no access. Otherwise, not too useful.

Basically, this book combines the location guides from Motel-6, Econolodge, Day's Inn, and several national lower-price chains, and organizes them by state, then city. There are no maps to help you find motels along your route, and few, if any independent inns listed.

Pretty much all of the material in this book can be gotten for free by picking-up the location guides the motels offer.

If you are used to the logical organization of the more prevalent guides such as Eyewitness, Frommer's, Routard, etc., you will be very frustrated by this guide. For instance, restaurant descriptions in Frommer's are first categorized by neighborhood and then by cost. This book contains a list of top restaurants by neighborhood and cuisine (only names); however, for descriptions/cost, you have to thumb through an alphabetical list to find the restaurants listed. It gets extremely frustrating and annoying. After spending money on this book, we left it at the hotel and decided to use websites and other travelers' recommendations rather than use this book - we travel about five or six times a year and this is a first.

Also, the practical information is incomplete. For instance, this book suggests using a shuttle to the Del Coronado from the ferry landing, but it doesn't say where the shuttle stop is or how frequently the shuttle operates. There is no information on ferry timings either. San Diego has a pretty good trolley system, but this guide does not even have a map of the trolley system.

The maps (if you could call them that) are also missing key information. Other guides show a map of a neighborhood and then have markers on the map showing hotels, restaurants, places of interest, etc. This book contains only half-complete map with some street names. Highly irritating.

This was the first and last Best Places book for us. We only bought it because it was city specific. We will stick to our usual suspects.

The first two accommodation telephone numbers were incorrect and the third had changed their policy on accepting pets. I'm not sure what all the fan fare is about.. this book was less than helpful

I have never received this book so I am unable to give an honest review!