Light at the End of the Hospitality Tunnel

Left: The Sheraton Nanjing Kingsley Hotel & Towers: My local hotel, office, gym, bar, restaurant... Well, everything really! The Sheraton brand of hotels is an industry leader when it comes to innovation and resourceful marketing.

Light at the end of the tunnel

Whether you are in the hospitality industry and trying to ensure your hotel or motel keeps its head above water, or in the software development industry and desperately searching for hotels and motels to purchase your booking system, there looks to be light at the end of the tunnel! It may only be a small and flickering light, but at least it’s no longer a never ending pitch black tunnel of doom.

Now is the time to withdraw your ostrich-like head from the hole you have created in the sand and take stock of your current situation and take charge of your future opportunities. It appears that the upside of our current economic downturn is not too far off and you want to be (read ‘need to be’) the first hospitality business to switch from ‘survival mode’ to ‘all stations are go’.

A changed market

As you step into the sunlight, you will see that your market has changed considerably; and with it, your competition. Your prospective customers have a new attitude to spending, and the companies they work for are still holding on tightly to the spending reins; their values have altered; they now expect the best value, complete price transparency and uncompromised honesty.

No longer will they pay slightly above the odds purely for the convenience or to save time. No longer will they put up with receiving slightly less than they’d expected purely because it’s time-consuming to complain.

Also, many of your less market-savvy competitors have disappeared never to return; so, now is the time to embrace your new market and the new ideals of your customers and expand your market by adapting to these changes.

Rewarding loyalty

Start by rewarding your loyal customers; those that stayed in your hotel or bought your booking system during difficult times. Any marketing initiatives or reward schemes that were put on hold because of the recession; now is the time to put them into action. Ask for feedback, listen intently, and respond promptly; make them feel special and make them feel appreciated.

Let customers know you've done more than survive

You also need to increase advertising, once again. Let previous customers and prospective customers know what your plans are for the future, and how you have changed. Do you have an upgrade to your software package? Have you renovated your rooms? Now is the time to spread the word. Tell the world that not only have you survived these difficult times, but you’ve improved and grown! Tell the world before your competitors do; don’t blend in; be one step ahead. Shout about your achievements.

Train, train, train

Finally, if you didn’t continue to do so during the downturn (which I hope you did!) invest again in employee Training and Development. Your employees will be unsure about the market and even more unsure about their future; they need to be reassured and motivated. Without the reassurance that you are investing in their future, they are likely to head for the hills, or worse, your competitor. You need highly motivated staff to deliver your message to the market and promote your excellence; with lack of motivation and training, this just will not happen.

Be one step ahead

After so many months of cutting costs, putting initiatives on hold, freezing marketing budgets, and improving resourcefulness, it feels irresponsible and risky to start expanding and adapting to an improving market; but do it. You must stay two steps ahead of your competition in order to survive, and they are only one step behind you in firing on full cylinders… So, put your foot down and see where this exciting new road might take you.

In my next post, I will be providing you with more detailed findings from my booking system research. Watch this space for more information.

Best of luck!

Emma

If you are a small to medium sized hotel, motel or guest house, or a hotel booking system developer, in need of independent advice from an industry expert, please contact me on eharradine@hotmail.co.uk. Even if I’m unable to offer you the exact advice you need, I can put you in contact with a company that can.

Why Do We Read Blogs?

Today’s post is going to differ slightly from previous posts. I have spent a great deal of time over the last few days, reading other business and hospitality blogs, making comments, and generally getting involved in the blogging stratosphere. It has been both fun and informative.

However, when making a judgment about a blog and deciding whether or not to bookmark the site, I discovered that my thoughts were heavily related to whether or not I liked the writing style AND whether I liked the person doing the writing.

As I have become more involved in conversation with business blog peers, I have formed definite opinions on whose ideas I trust, who can provide me with useful information, and which writers I think are genuinely decent people. It’s a blog that ticks all three boxes that gets bookmarked, commented on, and reviewed.

Take, for example, The Happy Hotelier…

The Happy Hotelier, also known as Guido J. van den Elshout, operates something between a luxurious B&B and the suite floor of a luxurious hotel called Haagsche Suites (i.e. Suites of The Hague). Guido writes a blog that entertains, informs and guides, whilst driving traffic to his hotel site. He updates his blog regularly, is the CEO of another company, runs the aforementioned hotel, and still had time to reply (within a day) to my comment on his site:

“Hi Emma,
Thank you for coming by.
I know your site.
Wanna know how? because of your comment to the Vibeagent blog shout out to my version of the T-List
As a matter of fact you are researching an area that I’m interested in as well.
As every hotelier knows, finding the right software is always of importance to enhance your business. Go on and enlighten us please.
Greetings!”

I cannot recommend The Happy Hotelier enough, and it is for this reason that I have bookmarked his site and would like to urge others to do the same.

It is also for this reason that I’ve decided to share a little more of myself with you HERE.

I hope by finding out a little more about me you’ll be motivated to read my blog and leave your comments.

Once again, thanks for reading!

Emma

I am still on a search for the best hotel booking system for small to medium sized hotels. If you know of hotel booking software that can beat HotelSystems.co.uk for ease of use and functionality then please contact me on eharradine@hotmail.co.uk

The Importance of Decision Making

Today, I wish to cover a subject often spoken about within the hospitality industry, which is also a topic I broached not long ago when discussing empowerment and customer service related issues: Decision making!

The decision making abilities of hotel employees can make or break a guest’s stay. However, hotel owners and GMs too often reward the managers who achieve immediate results (often through luck) and not those who have made some admirable (lateral thinking) judgments which, often through no fault of their own, have not produced the instantaneous results required.

The owners, CEOs and GMs have got where they are thanks to their excellent decision making skills, however, if they were to look back at all the good decisions they made which went badly, they should be thankful to have a job at all. In today’s climate they be cleaning the toilets rather than managing hundreds of employees.

Professor Zeger Degraeve, who is the ‘Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Professor of Innovation, Professor of Decision Sciences’ at London Business School, believes that “the result is irrelevant… as a measure of decision quality.” Professor Degraeve goes on to say that a decision is made in a split second and then implemented (often by others) at a later date, the result is then observed in the future. Events happen that a manager could not possibly foresee and not every variable is controllable by the hotel or the decision maker. “Therefore, the quality of the result is not an indicator of decision quality and the result is irrelevant as a measure of decision (and execution) quality.”

It is important for hotel industry leaders to observe the decision being made at the time and judge the employee based purely on their decision making ability. The judgment may be made based on efficiency, profit, or even guest satisfaction, but it needs to be made based on the question, “what are we trying to achieve?” In the hospitality industry, the answer to his question will nearly always be guest satisfaction and therefore, if the customer was happy with little extra cost to the hotel then the decision was a good one, even if the result in the long run is less than originally hoped for.

For more information on Professor Zeger Degraeve and his thoughts on decision making, please go to HoteleMarketer, where there is an in-depth interview with the aforementioned thought leader.

To link this back, briefly, to hotel booking systems:

Hotels, motels, and guest houses choose hotel systems based upon their needs at the time of purchase. They cannot possibly foresee future events that will render the booking software unusable to them. It doesn’t mean that a bad decision was made; it purely means the results are poor. The overriding factor of hotelsystems.co.uk is the ability to customize the software for individual requirements... Meaning no bad decisions short or long term.

Hospitality Industry Networking

As a hospitality industry professional it is of utmost importance to keep up-to-date with latest industry trends and practices. This isn’t difficult if your hotel or hospitality-related business is based in a large city of a developed country; however, if you are based in a small village on the outskirts of somewhere like Ouagadougou or Timbuktu, then staying ahead of your competition isn’t always easy.

It is for this reason that online social networking sites are vital for communicating with hospitality peers and experts.

Sites like Facebook have become popular with Food & Beverage Managers and Marketers for keeping in touch with clientele. I receive messages and wall posts almost daily from the Sheraton Nanjing Kingsley Hotel & Towers and also the Sheraton Tianjin Hotel. The Starwood Group has been quick to adopt modern methods to attract guests and clients to their bars and restaurants. And it works!

However, what about exchanging ideas and practices with hospitality peers?

Sites like LinkedIN are great for networking with a wide range of professionals. However, my personal favourite for networking within the hospitality industry is WIWIH (Who is who in hospitality) which allows you to discuss anything from the day to day running of a hotel to occupancy and RevPar with industry experts.

I have been using the forums to continue my search for the ultimate hotel booking software.

The extremely active forums will provide inspirational ideas for promoting your hotel and getting ahead of your competition.

Until next time,

Emma

I am still on a search for the best hotel booking system for small to medium sized hotels. If you know of hotel booking software that can beat www.hotelsystems.co.uk for ease of use and functionality then please contact me on eharradine@hotmail.co.uk