Nothing irks people more than paying for something they don't need or use. I once paid $50 for a pair of pants I never ended up wearing—but that's on me. I'm to blame. It's another thing altogether when you are forced to pay for a pair of pants that you didn't want in the first place.
Hotel Lawyer: We hate to say "we told you so" on Resort Fee litigation
Look at these two coffee mugs. Both say Pantone Universe (trademarked) on the surface. But one is a knockoff. Can you tell which one?
Change is inevitable, and more so in an industry as dynamic as hospitality. Market performance, lending environment, number of players, owner and operator objectives, costs and margins, and customer profile are all changing almost constantly, and so are hotel management contracts that have evolved remarkably in India in the past decade. Once an operator stronghold, hotel management agreements had little to no room for negotiations, leaving an inexperienced owner (with no expert advice) with a sub optimal contract. However, the game is now changing!
On August 1st, the city of Miami Beach, Florida will require all hotels to implement "Employee Safety Devices, AKA Panic Buttons, AKA Staff Alert" in their properties. Miami Beach is important because it will induce a 12-month domino effect, in which all hotels across the USA will be required to implement Employee Safety Devices.
The hotel business is unique with owners, brands and assets all vying for their individual needs and attention. All the while this delicate balance has some interesting business characteristics that are essential for hospitality financial leaders to understand. It's not terribly complicated, quite the opposite. It hides out in plain sight, so it can be easy to miss if you're not looking for it. I can remember an old boss telling me his thoughts on what I call "owner spend." I thought at the time he was full of whatever, yet the concept was bold and incredibly clear. It also struck me in that moment that no one else had ever spoken of this, in exactly this way in my many years working inside a large brand. Owner spend is the key to understanding the relationship between the owner and the brands and it plays out inside each individual asset on a daily and annual basis in a managed hotel.
This is a special case that I've been waiting to write about since it hit the airwaves here in Canada in late October. Most interesting here is that it has a few powerful implications for the fight traditional hotels are facing against industry disruptors coming in the form of home sharing.
Now in its fourth iteration, it is time once more for some awards season fun. As I continue to traverse the world and experience the countless variations and regional nuances within the hospitality industry, my hope is you will find some learnings from these honors.
With the millennial generation leading the charge in striving to be the most exercise-obsessed demographic to date, it would seem as though a fitness center is primed to become a major selling feature for hotels beyond the cursory amenity addition that it is often inscribed for most properties built during the 20th century.
Committing to preventive maintenance in the hotel industry involves an extensive knowledge of the hotel's systems, equipment, and utilities, as well as the most effective routes of intervention. Above all, care must be taken not to interrupt the flow of hotel guests. Out of all types of existing maintenance, preventive maintenance is the most effective asset of hotel managers, as well as, directly related to satisfaction of the guests.
Great news came out of the Annual Conference of the Leading Hotels of the World held in Shanghai earlier this month: a distinguished hotelman was picked by the membership and the board to be given the 2018 Leading Legends Award. Congratulations PAUL ZUEST.
On a basic level, the hospitality business is simple - as is often said, it amounts to putting heads in beds. But finding the heads to put in the beds is a complex process and requires hotel companies to find out a great deal of information about their guests. Gathering and processing that information provides not only opportunities, but creates obligations, one of the most basic of which is ensuring the security of guests' personal information.
In life, few things make us less productive and more distant than other people's expectations of us. Expectations are everywhere, at work and at home. People detest others expectations.Uncommunicated expectations were not productive, especially when real work and strong relationships were required. Yet uncommunicated expectations were cast everywhere and they were weak.If I had a complaint in my world, it quickly became an expectation that someone else needed to fix. I tended to fixate over the injustice and in doing so I created my expectations. What I saw was that this was completely ineffective for getting things to change. Complaints were very easy to ignore and diminish; however, requests were not easy to ignore. Once we made a request we were heading in the right direction, because on the other side of a request we now have the ability to make an agreement.Let's take a hotel example. Currently, I was having a very hard time getting other managers to prepare detailed monthly forecasts and get these to me by the 30th of the month. I sent a schedule and reminders. I spoke at the department head meetings about the deadline, but I still didn't get a high success rate on submissions. It was always a struggle to get others to do what I expected. Without the forecast, I was left with two very unattractive options: do it myself or go without it. Both options meant I was shortchanged because others were not living up to my expectations.Now, I had two alternatives: 1) Complain about it, which I had done for years without results, or 2) Make another request. This was the pivot point.If I was willing to admit that my current status was due to my expectations, and I could bring myself to ask the other party for agreement, the conversation might go something like this."Peter, will you help me? I want to include your numbers, not mine, as part of the detailed forecast. Will you complete your part and get it to me by noon on the 30th?"Now it might not be easy for Peter to say, "Sure, no problem."But now the exact expectation was known because it was what was asked for. Or the request might get reviewed in a different light like, "I could, but that means I'm going to have to rearrange my week because my assistant is on holiday and our second office computer is dead."This was what I wanted to hear. This was the foundation of an agreement as now both parties asked for something. It was no longer the case of my having a single expectation. Now there were multiple balls in the air; some were mine and some belonged to other people.Turn the unmet expectation into a request and the request into an agreement like this: "OK, so I will send the systems person to your office today to switch out the second computer, but I'm not sure what I can do to help you rearrange the rest of the week."To which Peter replied, "No worries, with the computer replaced I can manage. I will gladly get you my forecast by the 30th."Let's break it down and figure out what happened in this example:
The housekeeping department more often than not represents the heart of a hotel's operations as a clean room is an essential part of guest service delivery. Moreover, it's backbreaking work with wages that aren't exceedingly high, while the room attendants themselves can be put in compromising situations as they roam the corridors by themselves.
Although a layman's perception of hospitality is overwhelmed by the notion of "guest-oriented services", the scope of hospitality management in India has drastically expanded in recent years. There must be more to an industry with an annual revenue worth $1 trillion and over 8 million employees globally. The share of travel and tourism within the Indian economy is around 10% and steadily growing. More importantly, the industry claims to create nearly 8% employment in India which is expected to grow in the future. Within the next ten years, the hospitality sector will create nearly 70 lakh new jobs directly and nearly 1 crore jobs indirectly.
There are plenty of industries that appear to be slowing down in the world today. Hospitality is not one of them. According to last year's global travel report by the research firm Deloitte, global bookings surpassed AUD $2.1 trillion in 2017, with continued growth projected through 2018 and beyond. Influential factors include greater competition amongst airline companies, a renewed focus on face-to-face business meetings, and a growing preference for experiences over things.
Meet the Money® is a productive conference with a casual atmosphere; the executives and other hotel industry representatives who attend often speak candidly about their expectations for hotel finance, development and investment throughout the upcoming year.
Just like every other business organization, it is essential for hotel management to truly care about their staff in order for them to be as engaged, productive, and as happy as they can be. Happiness in the workplace is important because a happy employee will go to greater lengths in order to accomplish their tasks and satisfy their managers.
For many years, businesses operating in California have been plagued by "bounty hunter" and government lawsuits brought under Proposition 65 — the California law that requires warnings about hazardous substances. The technical disclosure requirements have bedeviled many legitimate businesses for some time. From our continuous interaction with members of the hotel industry, it appears to us that many are not aware of new requirements they must meet by August 30, 2018.
Every GM knows the equation for implementing new hotel services. Benefit must be greater than the cost. In 2017, the most popular new craze for hotels was text messaging guests. The cost was low and the benefits were high. But in 2018, that cost is going to sky rocket, thanks to the GDPR or General Data Protection Regulation. If your hotel hasn't heard of the GDPR yet, you better learn fast, because it's going to change how nearly every hotel around the world does business. At its core, the GDPR is the strongest consumer privacy and protection laws in history. Though the GDPR was created by the EU, it's not limited to Europe, its Global. And starting this May, the GDPR goes active. So why will the GDPR affect guest text messaging services in hotels? Because the GDPR has 4 requirements that text messaging just can't accomplish, leaving a legal liability with penalties of up to 4% a hotel company's entire annual revenue.