As I write this, the New York Hotel Show has just concluded and the NENA Federation has completed a very successful week in NY. It is a busy time for our members as the Hotel Show continues to be the focal point of many of our Federation activities.

Thanks to the efforts of Fred DeMicco, ICHRIE members and students are allowed to attend the Leadership Forum (held on the Saturday just prior to the Show) for the cost of admission to the Show. While I never got a head-count, there were many colleagues and students in the room this past Saturday morning at the Forum including Fred and myself. The University of New Hampshire students whom I brought were very pleased with the sessions. There were a variety of sessions on the economy, leadership, technology, marketing and others. The information was current and I picked up several nuggets which I will, in turn, use in my classes. There is also an optional lunch (for an additional charge) which is also supposed to be very worthwhile, though I did not attend. Thanks to Fred for making this happen and we hope to be able to continue this next year.
 
NENA also continues to support the Alligator Hour (along with ICHRIE and HEMAR). This year, the reception was held at the Waldorf=Astoria and attracted approximately 70 ICHRIE members. Fred made some brief remarks and we made a presentation to Eric Long, General Manager at the Waldorf, for being such a great supporter of ICHRIE and hospitality education. We hope to hold the reception at the same venue next year – the hospitality provided by the Waldorf was great. We will provide more information in the months to come. The NENA board also decided that we will switch back to asking attendees to RSVP next year, so please keep this in mind when planning.

The Alligator Hour is a great ICHRIE tradition and is an excellent opportunity to catch up with fellow ICHRIE members in a relaxed setting. All are encouraged to attend next year.
 
The final NENA gathering in NY was for our bi-annual meeting. NYU (Fred Mayo and Donna Quadri-Felitti) hosted a NENA meeting at the mid-town campus on Sunday morning (at an hour deemed too early by some). We had a productive meeting in which we assessed our goals and discussed some new ideas. The meeting was followed by an incredibly informative presentation by Steve Hood of STR. His presentation focused on distribution channel analysis and, specifically, distribution channels, data on different markets (including ADR by channel), etc. He has made his presentation available to several of us and is willing to share it with others: you are welcome to contact him directly if you are interested. Thanks Steve for the excellent presentation and your support of ICHRIE and its member programs.
 
In addition to our support of the New York Hotel Show activities, the Federation continues to work toward establishing a faculty internship program for its members. We are in discussions with several companies and hope to begin making them available to NENA members next summer. We are very excited about the potential that this program has, especially in providing ongoing professional development for our members, both new and not so new to the academy. I have personally participated in several faculty internships and always find the informative and valuable.
 
In conclusion, it was great to see many of you in New York. And thanks to my fellow board members for their hard work this year.

If you have questions or comments on anything that the Federation is working on, or want additional information about our goals and initiatives, please do not hesitate to contact me.