Hotelier Perspectives

In the best of times, it’s important to keep your best employees. In tough times, it’s even more important. Customers are beginning to feel the results of The Great Resignation, which quite honestly, is not so great. It has resulted in longer lines, longer hold times, and slower service – basically a lower level of customer service.

What is the bedrock of great service? This is a question that any service provider should be well equipped to answer, but there is, perhaps, no industry more deeply rooted in the art of service than hospitality. Hotel and travel brands are, after all, in the business of experience; specifically, experience as a service, and today’s guest expects best-in-class service at every turn. So, let me ask you again, hoteliers: what is the bedrock of great guest service? The answer, if you ask me, is quite simple: technology.

To what extent will a company go to try to get customer feedback? Is it a simple email request? Is it an incentive to fill out a survey? And, if there is an incentive, can that skew the results?

Perhaps you’ve heard about hotel benchmarking but are not quite sure where to start. How do you define a compset? What kind of metrics can you compare? How should you go about interpreting the results? We’re going to dig a little deeper into all of these points but first, let’s think about why benchmarking your hotel’s performance makes a lot of sense.

Guest expectations have evolved in recent years especially during the pandemic. The right technology – specifically, a Central Data Management (CDM) system built around a centralized guest profile – can enable hotels to meet these.

Even as the world continues to ease its COVID-19 restrictions, for those of us who are restaurant owners, suppliers, and hospitality staff, we are not expecting a return to “business as usual.” In fact, after 20 months of navigating government restrictions set to combat the virus, many of us in hospitality are beginning to reevaluate our business models altogether.

When not traveling for work, we travel to explore destinations, seeking relaxation and inspiration to recharge our batteries. As tourists, we want an environment that is clean and untouched. Nobody wants to go on vacation and lie on the beach next to a pile of garbage. Whether diving in the ocean, climbing a mountain for a glorious view, or heading out on a safari, one of the major reasons we travel is to discover foreign ecosystems and their wildlife.

Guests need to be informed of hotel measures and procedures well before their arrival. They should be given this information without having to seek it out themselves, and via the channel that suits them best.

The countdown has begun as we approach our big relaunch of GHA DISCOVERY in early December! Though there is a multitude of changes across the programme, the most considerable enhancement is our new reward offering – DISCOVERY Dollars (D$) – the first of its kind digital rewards currency, which is accepted as a payment method for pretty much everything across our hotels.

A further easing of restrictions over the past month has allowed confidence to build, as travellers prepare for a holiday season away from home. Currently, the World Hotel Index shows us that an average of more than 1-in-5 existing hotel bookings globally are for the three weeks leading up to year’s end, while an average of almost 10% of booked stays are due for arrival in the week around New Year’s Eve.