Hotel Management and Operations, 3rd Edition (ISBN 0471370525)

Hotel Management & Operations, 2nd ed:
My review is based on having used Dr. Rutherford's book the past consecutive 7 semesters (incl summer) at Hawaii Pacific University's Travel Industry Management program. The compilation of articles is ideal for us because chapters are short, but comprehensive and interesting enough to retain student attention. 95% of my students are foreigners, and my average class size is 30 students from at least a dozen countries. Chapters have numerous references, and all the chapters have challenging case studies except Finance. This particular construction lends itself to a variety of delivery techniques, as stated in the Preface. My wish list for the 3rd edition would include: an instructor's manual or workbook, a testbank of questions, e-book version, reducing the content on Marketing (almost double the amount of information in other chapters), and adding a section on Information Technology. Students, educators, and hospitality professionals will enjoy a favorable ROI on this purchase.

Reviewing both 2nd AND 3rd editions of HMO:
As soon as Dr. Rutherford's 3rd ed came out, I continued to use his text book for two more semesters and 1 summer, under the same conditions described in my review of his 2nd ed. Hotel Management & Operations, 3rd ed is the premier hospitality reference for students, educators, professionals, and researches. The reservations I still have with the 3rd ed (see comments for 2nd ed) is that Dr. Rutherford did not have plans (confirmed via E-mail) for any of the following: an instructor's manual or workbook, a test bank of questions, an e-book version, and reducing the content on Marketing (almost double the amount of information in other chapters). It is great that Denney added a much-needed section on Information Technology. The great new additions include "As I see It", "A Day in the Life", and a variety of new articles for each departmental section. These articles, as are the original ones in the book, are also written by working professionals in the hospitality industry. There are now 536 pages vs 462 pages: the additional 74 pages are a good contribution to the 3rd ed. Educators should have no hesitation using Hotel Management and Operations, 3rd ed, but must ensure the actual text reading is appropriate for their target market. Students, educators, and hospitality professionals should continue to enjoy a favorable ROI on this purchase. With my ESL (English as a Second Language) student body, however, I was hard pressed to continue using this textbook. I decided to design such a CD-ROM workbook, Making Hotel Operations Work! (Summer 2002), and Dr. Rutherford wrote the Preface.

Not good for real world application:
This book was made for college students. It has alot of statistics and historical information that would provide fodder for a semester of lectures for people who will never own a hotel but not really applicable to the real world and the people who really run hotels. It does not really give the realities of hotel operations and restaurant management. It does not give procedures or even discuss the import aspects of hotel operation. It is missing the real world application of managment concepts. Anyone interested in really running a hotel should not get this book. I would suggest getting "Front Office Operations & Management" by Ahmed Ismail or some other book that provides checklists, real world application of theory, marketing techniques, reservation softwares, etc. I am just glad I got the book used.

For those new to the hotel business:
I am a 22 year real estate professional, but have never been involved in the hotel business. This book is a comprehensive introduction to the subject. Most articles are by people who have been in the business for a long time, and these are very helpful. I highly recommend it.