What is the difference between a glum looking doorman silently opening the door and a smiling doorman who warmly welcomes everyone with a ‘welcome to our hotel ‘or a ‘have a nice day’ greeting, whilst opening the door? One might read more...
Within the Corporate world, company loyalty needs to be cultivated. Our parents taught us that ‘trust needs to be earned’, the same applies to employees – we need to earn their trust and loyalty. In my over three decades of read more...
Too big for your britches? Do you think you are more important that you are? What are you doing each and every day to prove your worth? There are certain jobs in which you need to produce results every day, such read more...
The probe on planet Mars by NASA reveals the existence of a dry lake that possibly held water thousands of years ago. Describing the findings as ‘extremely exciting’, a biologist when interviewed on CNN went on to explain that this read more...
Today’s modern ships are such that if the Captain gets the systems right and the right people, the ship will run itself. This is why in the Navy, if the ship runs aground, the captain is the one who get’s read more...
Among countless other questions that race through a good General Manager’s mind, this is perhaps one that keeps coming back regularly - the desire to be different; especially over those other hotels in the area and in the similar category. read more...
“Check-in was a poor experience. The only receptionist on duty was busy answering the phone and didn’t even look at us. After nearly 5 minutes of waiting and while still on the phone she pressed a button and a colleague read more...
Recently someone contacted me to find out if I knew of anyone who could be recommended to manage their hotel. Apparently, the owners had looked at several candidates and found none to be a suitable fit. This doesn’t surprise me: read more...
Sometime ago, I received an email from a hotel employee highlighting an issue that is rarely spoken about but very pervasive in the workplace – particularly in the hospitality sector. Reproduced below is a condensed version of that email:- ‘Dear Sir, read more...
There are two types of sexual harassment: ‘quid pro quo’ and ‘hostile environment’. Quid pro quo, or ‘This for that,’ harassment is when a manager or supervisor either promises to give someone a better position, enhanced pay, or some other improvement in a read more...
It is clear that 2018 has been and will continue to be a challenging year for hoteliers. In an environment where price slashing and high rates are consistent issues for the hotelier to deal with, competition is a major concern. read more...
Hotels make a huge investment to create traffic and drive it to the door and hotels spend a fortune on their image and on their brand. If these two significant investments are not aligned you don’t have a fighting chance. Mystery read more...
In her blog, Sally Pope who lives in New South Wales, Australia wrote “We have just returned from a few weeks in Asia and are pondering our old friend TripAdvisor. I have always been happy to write reviews, hoping to read more...
Women in the hotel world - it’s my world - I want to see more ladies reaching for the stars. Can women reach the top of that ladder that so often seems unreachable? I recently met with one of my mentees read more...
When I book a hotel I look for one that provides comfort and a secure environment. In a hotel environment, safety and security are two sides of the same coin. Let’s examine this on an imaginary – but not totally read more...
Safety and security priorities Safety and security of hotels, be it prevention of accidents, theft or for fire safety, is not only the business of the security department. Yes, it is their core responsibility, but it is also every employees business, read more...
Are hotels well prepared? When we talk of hotel safety and security, fire safety plays a major role. It is essential that there is; a fire warning system; a fire fighting system; a fire prevention programme; and a fire evacuation plan. read more...
In their article ‘Maximizing Your Return on People’ which appeared in the Harvard Business Review, Laurie Bassi and Daniel Mcmurrer state that “Managers are fond of the maxim employees are our most important asset. Yet, beneath the rhetoric, too many read more...
Excellence guru, Tom Peters once said: “I can think of no company that has found a way to look after external customers while abusing internal customers. The process of meeting customer needs begins internally.” Sometime ago, four of us dined at read more...
While it differs from country to country, there are many parameters by which we can judge the quality of a hotel – the most coveted of which is the 5-star rating. The AA has used a star rating system to classify read more...
What occurs when an organisation puts a heavy emphasis on operations and is less focused on marketing? One would usually see a ‘see-saw’ swing type operation. I.e. the administration of the business practice would change rapidly and repeatedly from one read more...
Most people think that money alone is enough to ‘start’ a hotel. They fail to realise that they need more than that. Unsurprisingly, the ‘ending’ often turns out to be disappointing and an unhappy one at that! Such people may read more...
Starting a hotel as a business can be a challenging undertaking. Whether you’re envisioning no-frills accommodation for business travelers, high-end boutiques or a comfortable bed-and-breakfast, you will need to spend ample time researching and planning before taking the plunge because read more...
The morning meeting is a mainstay in almost every hotel. All the key department managers and leaders gather, usually in the front office or sometimes an in-house meeting room, to devour the day’s business at hand. It is a great read more...
Invariably, I will start the onboarding of new hotel owners by using a metaphor: “Opening hotels is like boiling eggs…” Wikipedia defines boiled eggs as “(typically) chicken eggs cooked by immersion in boiling water with their shells unbroken.” It takes read more...
Nora Gomez came from Colombia to the US in 2003 to study English. Working as a secretary for a construction company in Connecticut, she was suddenly laid off. Desperately, searching for a job…any job, she spotted a vacancy sign at read more...
Reaching out to a new key segment; the millennials, hospitality chains are doing everything from changing up decor -- updating rooms with trendier furnishings and glitzing up lobbies with musical acts -- to adding services such as budget prices, 24-hour read more...
When I attended the IHIF in Berlin in March, I was again overwhelmed by the number of brands on the market. From hostels to luxury – there seems to be a brand for every type of property, location and clientele. read more...
The great physicist Richard Feynman once described how you can spot a real expert versus a phony. Look for three little words, “I don’t know.” The phony will have all the answers, while the expert will be willing to admit read more...
When you board a plane, you have the right to be transported in a safe and well-maintained airplane that complies with regulations and fulfills fire and life safety standards. When you check into a hotel, the operator guarantees to you read more...
Having a Standard of Operation or SOPs as they are commonly referred to is never going to guarantee perfection. However a large number of hotels operate without any documented SOPs and that is alarming. When it is suggested that SOPs read more...
Someone said that ‘one of the most effective ways to hold down insurance costs has nothing to do with the coverage you choose, it’s about the way you treat your employees. A happy workforce often leads to lower premiums, since read more...
The blurb appearing in a hotel advertisement that said, “Please cast your valuable vote for the Kxxxxxxxx Hotel in the 2017 World Luxury Hotels Awards...” caught my eye and immediately and had me thinking. Have you noticed that everything has read more...
People in the hospitality trade often ask me about differentiation. First of all, let’s examine the true definition of product differentiation. Product differentiation is a marketing strategy whereby businesses attempt to make their product unique to stand out from competitors. Businesses read more...
Applying the theory that by creating positive outcomes at every interaction the business would be successful, Jan Carlzon, president of Scandinavian Airlines in the 1980’s went on to make that airline one of the most admired in the industry. Thus read more...
Donald J. Trump built the Trump Hotel Collection based on the concept of providing exceptional service for guests who value luxury and have the means to pay for it. His concept of "sensibility" resonates especially today despite the reality that read more...
New hotel projects suffer from frequent delays due to poor – or no – project management. The consequences hurt hotel owners and operators alike. This blog addresses some of the key concepts of project management and defines what hotel opening read more...
After all that planning you finally get to go on vacation. You arrive mid-afternoon, at the upscale holiday hotel and the smiling doorman, who was chatting with a chauffeur, greets you pleasantly and opens the door. As you walk past read more...
Prior to 9/11, terrorists mainly targeted military and government facilities. However, after drastic improvements in security measures by government authorities, extremist terrorists shifted their attention to hotels, which are viewed as ‘easier-to-hit’ targets. Consequently, the hotel and tourism industry is read more...
To terrorist extremist, it’s all about vulnerability. It no longer matters if yours is a ‘no-frills’ hotel or five-star hotel. So long as there are rooms, food, service and staff, people are going to be staying there. It’s the same read more...
Hoteliers in Sri Lanka will have hardly any time to brace for the downturn that will hit with extreme swiftness after the horrific terror attacks on Easter Sunday.
As the impact begins to bite, the majority of - if not all read more...
People stay in hotels for several reasons. It could be a business related trip, when going on holiday, when visiting family or friends who live far away or for any number of other purposes. Hotels play an important role, and, read more...
Take the case of a hotel which has two upper floors with a bar on each level and linking the two floors are stairs of glass blocks, lit from below. Architecturally and visually it is stunning in appearance and has read more...
Once again hotel security comes under the microscope following the dastardly attacks by terrorists that left over 250 innocent people dead on Easter Sunday. Hotel security has become such a ‘top-of-the-mind’ issue among people in the hospitality industry and guests read more...
Dear Hotel Friends
Why don’t you appreciate me more than you do when I show up at your doorstep? Have you lost sight of the fact, that, as your guest, I am at the centre of the hospitality industry and in read more...
Efficiency: Many of you opt for leaner staff as a strategic decision or a financial necessity. What you fail to do is to adapt to the staffing realities by updating procedures and creating new efficiencies. Properly managed, a reduction in read more...
In the aftermath of the horrific attacks that occurred in April, one now encounters several security measures adopted by many hotels. During my recent visits to several hotels in Colombo, I found a range of different approaches to executing security read more...
Phillip, my friend from England visits Sri Lanka very regularly whilst also travelling to various other worldwide holiday destinations. Phillip’s link to our island stretches back to the time when he was born in Ceylon (as it was then known), read more...
As I review more than 30 years of management consulting, some executives and their practices stand out in bold relief. A chief executive I met in the early 1960’s and continue to meet now and then gets things done in read more...
Running a hotel takes social skills, business sense, an artist's eye for detail and last but not least, posses a people person DNA - four traits that are rare enough individually, let alone coming together in one package. The hotel industry really read more...
Hospitality requires a unique mix of skills. Not only is staff expected to know physical hard skills, but they are also expected to perfect soft skills, which are a lot more difficult to teach or are hardly taught in a read more...
Proactively problem-solving
Problem-solving skills will come into play no matter what career path you choose. Some problems are easier to navigate while others are trickier to handle. Service and perception is a double-edged sword in hospitality. Get one or the other read more...
I would like to share a couple of hotel stay frustrations that are emblematic of our unwillingness to change our behavior and reduce negative impact on the environment.
Straws: Scientists have confirmed there are five garbage patches across the world’s oceans where read more...
In an earlier blog, I mentioned that project management is not a bandage to be applied when a new hotel project is already derailed, but a strategic competence. It is the ability to predictably, consistently delivery projects for strategic goals.
The read more...
The hotel industry is a fast growing sector, with an average female participation nudging 55%, globally. Women are employed in a variety of roles, including as housemaids, kitchen and restaurant staff and front-line customer care agents. However, despite women representing read more...
Dear lord, help me become the type of manager my bosses would like me to be, especially when they think they know it all…which can be very frustrating to those of us who do.
Please give me the strength to tell read more...
During a recent assignment, one of our principals used the business fable of the chicken and the pig to explain the difference between commitment and involvement. Apparently it came out of the agile project management space and is about commitment read more...
Leadership can be a confusing application. Just google leadership and you will get so much information it can make your head spin. I am going to try and simplify the definition of leadership in this article. I am writing this read more...
We have all learned the value of continuous improvement and appreciate the discipline of applying Lean principles to map out existing processes and remove waste. But in some cases, companies stop too soon and fail to explore more innovative opportunities.
Some read more...
As a leader, it is no surprise to hear someone say that teaching others is one of your core responsibilities.
When it comes to delegation it is important to remember there is a big distinction between giving the work you do read more...
In the last decade or two, several hotels have resorted to outsourcing services in an effort to cut costs. Outsourcing services means less payroll burden for the operator and improves the hotel’s cost efficiency. This shift to outsourcing is gathering read more...
In 1914 Sir Ernest Shackleton led an expedition comprising seamen and scientists to the Antarctica with the aim of crossing the then-unexplored continent. Unfortunately, the expedition ship ‘Endurance’ was trapped in ice and drifted off course for 10 months before read more...
Recently I attended a hotel association conference where I was a speaker for one of their breakout sessions. The opening morning of the convention started with a breakfast where we listened to the many great developments within the association in read more...
Since of late, I’ve been asked on more than a few occasions, whether hotels are doing enough in the name of sustainability? And, that has got me thinking. For starters, let’s ask ourselves ‘Are enough hotels doing enough to be read more...
In my career I have worked with a lot of interesting characters. To say the least, they were all quite colorful, usually fanning the flames of the hotel’s drama and adding their own seasoning. One boss I had was particularly read more...
Touchpoints in the hospitality business as we know them are important in shaping customer experiences. It is a proven fact that an interaction between your staff and your guest is essential for shaping a rapport; positive ones when the interaction read more...
When news of the coronavirus emerged last December, the conversation on the street was like “Oh, we've been through this before, remember SARS? “Or “We came back strong after the last terrorist attack, didn’t we?” And then, in late January read more...
#1 – The Lie is Complexifying Everything
That’s a word that means we’re making things complex or what Complexifying also means: You are taking one issue and applying it to many situations or people. For instance, the issue of leaders not read more...
Dear Hotel Manager,
In the aftermath of the coronavirus outbreak subsiding, and, after choosing to stay at your hotel, as you’re soon-to-be guest, there are a few steps I would take to protect myself, my family, my fellow guests and your read more...
Employers have a statutory duty to ensure the health and safety of employees whilst at work. No employee will also wish to put any fellow employee at risk of contracting the coronavirus while at work. Simple precautions and planning can read more...
Dear Hotel Manager,
In continuation of the letter I wrote to you last week, let me share a few more ‘thoughts’ on what I would expect when visiting your restaurant during my upcoming stay in your hotel.
No doubt even in the read more...
Having been around awhile I have seen the changes that have come as a result of major global events. The starkest example is our pre- and post-911 world. It showed us that the idea of getting on an airplane means read more...
Everyone keeps talking of the ‘new normal’ in hospitality. So what is the ‘new normal’? To get a handle on what this really means, we may perhaps have to first look at the ‘old normal’.
Before COVID-19 turned the hospitality industry read more...
There has been a lot of talk about how a hotel and its guest rooms are meant to make guests feel as though they never left home. This originates from a ‘school of thought’ that says “what guests have in read more...
It is critical for destinations, in particular tourism-reliant nations such as Sri Lanka, to develop strategic actions to be able to recover from COVID-19. These must be implemented now otherwise it will be too late. Already destinations in which lockdowns read more...
Reputation can make or break any business, i.e. unless your hotel is named the ‘Thief’ - a highly successful conversion of a historical prison with an unsavoury past to a chic luxury boutique hotel in Tjuvholmen, Norway, where a bad read more...
“That’s enough detail. I already have a good understanding of the requirements.” – Jeff Haden, New York Times
Inside of the hotel company I worked for there has always been a constant movement to increase efficiency, especially inside the financial function. Not read more...
To some, if not many, this may, come as an easy question. The truth of the matter is that whilst everyone in the industry may know the answers…communicating the asked and unasked answer properly is vital. How you answer will read more...
“Here we go again with the slogans,” I thought as I was reading hospitality e-news about yet another CEO claiming “I (it’s always ‘I’) am going to open another 1,234 hotels globally.”Of course no hotel company accomplishes such a feat read more...
Let me frame my answer from a different perspective.
There are two key words in this question; service and hospitality – both markedly different.
Prior to COVID-19, there was the ‘service versus hospitality’ debate with several hoteliers’ confusing providing service as being read more...
Seeing that it is so difficult to define exactly what a boutique hotel is…it may be far simpler to discuss the characteristics that separate a boutique hotel from other lodging options, as well as the distinct common features they have read more...
Firstly you need to understand what each ‘cation’ means and how they differ.
Both Daycations and Staycations are ‘vacation-like’ experiences taken by people within the country of their residence.
Daycations (often called as a ‘day outing’ in local parlance), does not involve read more...
Historically, the hotel lobby has undergone many changes over the years. In fact, hotels generally did not have lobbies until the 19th century. In those early days, only the luxury hotels had ‘statement producing’ lobbies that were large gathering places. read more...
Since we began our series “ 19 hospitality questions on Covid-1 , and as hotels began to re-open for business, we have responded to several interesting questions on COVID-19. This is one question that everyone should not only ask, but read more...
As the manager, is it possible that you are helping your people in a way that is similar to feeding their monkeys? No? Guess again.
Can you recall how often this has happened? You, as the manager, whilst walking in the read more...
Up until COVID-19 brought the world to a standstill, the running of a hotel, whether it was in 1820, 1920 or 2020, didn’t differ much. Guests were welcomed, given a room, served breakfast and bid goodbye. Best practices built around read more...
Macau is six months into the COVID-19 crisis, and the Special Administrative Region has fared remarkably well, with only 46 cases and zero deaths to date. Of course the casinos remain empty for now, as border crossing remains subject to read more...
COVID-19, travel restrictions, shutdowns and lockdowns have brought about an unprecedented impact on lives and livelihoods in the entire world. Much has been said about it and while it is affecting the health, economy, business and geopolitical structures of every read more...
Hospitality legend Ian Schrager who helped pioneer the boutique hotel concept believes it’s only a matter of time before things return to normal. He is convinced that that ‘return’ will be to the ‘same normal’. “It’s just a question of read more...
Some years ago, I recall my work colleague Marlon confiding to me with a rueful grin “Guess what? I avoided a ticket for exceeding the speed limit on the way to work this morning, and also managed not to run read more...
Up until March 2020 or thereabouts, you were quite familiar with your operations. You had a handle on what type of room occupancy you expected (if you had planned accurately), what time your coffee shop got really busy during morning read more...
Moving on after COVID-19, if the hospitality industry is to stay at the forefront of change it must envisage certain potential scenarios and anticipate the future before it happens. The industry, especially hotel and restaurant operators must imagine a tranche read more...
In the pre-pandemic world as we knew it, the gurus of business stood on stage at some seminar or another exhorting everyone in the audience to be ‘agents’ of change. Then the coronavirus swiftly swept across the planet making us read more...
What is one of the most powerful words, and one that we are typically trained to minimise resorting to in Hospitality? It is the word “No”.
Being in Hospitality is all about going the extra mile to keep your client happy, read more...
Sometime ago, I ran a one-day course for 35 participants in a hotel. For various reasons, a number of participants were late and the morning sessions could not start on time. So, around 9.10 am, I asked a member of read more...
By focusing on what guests really want—warmth, welcome and genuine interactions—true leaders will rise above the challenges of this pandemic era.Inarguably, the current pandemic era is the most challenging time in the modern era of hotel industry history.
Hotels are operating read more...
The COVID-19 pandemic pushed us to look at the way we operated in a totally dramatic manner. Policies that were rigid and seemingly non-negotiable pre-pandemic were thrown out as the world chaotically spun around in all directions.
One outcome that arose read more...
Imagine this scenario: After a short flight, a guest arrives at a hotel for a five-night stay. A few days later, not feeling well, she goes to a local hospital for a COVID-19 test. She returns to her guestroom, advises read more...
Let’s face it – Covid-19 is old hat. It’s been around for a year now. Still, we find ourselves facing lapses in conducting business and providing our customers with the service they demand and deserve because of, wait for it, read more...
Every business in the world is now operating in a high-risk environment and hospitality is firmly on the front-line as the economy struggles to get back on its feet. Usually, there are winners and losers coming out of any crisis. read more...
A budget is future oriented –an estimate of the future. It sets the framework for the company to hold its costs under a fixed limit and its revenue over a fixed limit. Budgets are prepared using historical values with estimates read more...
Odysseus was one of the greatest of the Greek heroes who fought during the Trojan War. Known for his cunning intellect, Odysseus crafted the plan that destroyed the city of Troy and ended the Trojan War. The story of Odysseus begins read more...
Customer expectation is a measure of the customer’s anticipation of the quality of the product and service he or she receives when visiting a restaurant or hotel. Overall, the expectation is that it would turn out to be an enjoyable read more...
In his book “Setting the table”, Danny Meyer highlights the importance of balancing both service and hospitality, reiterating that “understanding the distinction between service and hospitality has been the foundation of his success”. Let’s discover that distinction.
Hospitality follows many of read more...
Inaction is described as the lack of action where some is expected or appropriate. Other words associated with inaction are; inertia, non-action, passivity, passiveness, immobility, indifference, slackness, apathy, laxity, idleness.
‘Why does not the government do something about this?’ is an read more...
Before the coronavirus descended upon us, there was business travel, pleasure travel and other travel. Around early 2010 or thereabouts, a new trend emerged. One that combined the world of business with that of leisure…and soon the word ‘bleisure’ was read more...
A quick Google search on ‘hospitality trends 2021’ reveal articles with three to one hundred predicted trends that hoteliers will need to embrace in the current Covid-19 era, soon to enter the post-Covid-19 period Hopefully, we will not encounter another read more...
To say the coffee industry is massive is simply a massive understatement. Did you know that on average, over 2.3 billion cups of coffee are drunk globally in a single day? By itself, the coffee market is the second most read more...
The work environment in the hospitality industry can be brutal; extended working hours, excessive workload, and poor remuneration. Hospitality staffs, particularly those at the front of house are expected to face customers with a smile and show friendliness - even read more...
“Your mind is in your power. You have power over your mind – not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength”. – Marcus Aurelius
In part one of my article that appeared last week, I wrote of understanding yourself. Being read more...
“By teaching people to tune in to their emotions with intelligence and to expand their circles of caring, we can transform organizations from the inside out and make a positive difference in our world “ – Daniel Goleman.
Working in the read more...
We cannot always be expected to account for the unexpected – despite what the pundits all say! Did anyone foresee the calamitous outcome from COVID-19? No, not even the best of the lot saw that coming – but that’s another read more...
If there’s one thing that’s a dead cert, it’s that every company will face some sort of customer complaint. This is not a shortcoming in any way; it is simply a testament to the fact that we are human and read more...
Change is the encapsulation for disruption. That being said, at the heart of change is the view of interrupting what the norm is to bring in a new desired state. According to the Cambridge dictionary, change is “an interruption in the usual read more...
Those who have read my earlier article “Hospitality in a Post Covid 19 Sri Lanka” scenario would have observed that I concluded it after raising the following salient points, for Hotel Managers to ponder and act upon in this ever read more...
If you were the Human Resources Manager in a company that found itself in a situation where by, in order to keep the company afloat, it has no other option left for it than to downsize or reduce the number read more...
Simultaneously, I strongly suggest that the finance and accounting team keep the hotel staff appraised of the actual financial status of the hotel. It is always best to keep one’s staff to be abreast of the tight financial times that read more...
With some semblance of a recovery from the forced closure of hotels due to the pandemic looming ahead, it is time for hotels to cast their attention beyond the COVD-19 related safety protocols and consider other areas that may possibly read more...
Those who work in the manufacturing industry may not be aware that the production of an item that ends up spending time on a shelf or display counter to be sold, is far less complex than what goes on into read more...
It is about others, so let’s begin this posting by saying… You are special! You are amazing! You are unique and different! You can accomplish all that you want in this world! Now… hopefully, I have addressed you before anyone else.
I watched a video read more...
Systems are essential for pretty much anything to function in a consistent manner. They advance almost all things we do in the modern world, including how we rest and relax. Let me ask you this; who created these systems? Who read more...
Developing and retaining customer relationships with customers, is a key, if not critical strategy for sustaining business, and this includes protecting the loyalty and welfare of one’s’ current customers.
Problems and complaints are bound to occur over the lifetime of any read more...
When it comes to addressing climate change it matters to everybody and we will all have to step it up, including all those involved in tourism.
Tourism is a global industry that has numerous stakeholders existing in separate factions, divided in read more...
In a previous article we carried very recently, titled, ‘The shift towards contactless technology in hospitality’; Ilzaf Keefahs wrote about the seismic shift that is now taking place in hospitality, with hotels, adapting to technology quicker than prior to COVID-19, read more...
No matter what proclamations are made by various governments, the CDC, the WHO or any other regulatory bodies, PPE, sanitization and physical distancing have been so ingrained into the mindsets of travelers that hotels cannot relax on this front. Through read more...
Dear readers, you may recall that around this time last year, we did a 19-part YouTube video series called ’19 Hospitality Questions on Covid 19’, where we took questions from you pertaining to how the hospitality industry could and should read more...
Here we are, under yet another ‘lockdown’ in Sri Lanka amidst the latest wave of Covid, and the dreaded Delta variant to boot. Local and international tourism is well and truly down. But it will rise like the proverbial phoenix read more...
Since of late, I’ve been regularly asked whether hospitality will return to what it was before COVID-19. The question, though seemingly straight forward has many twists and turns. Firstly, surrounded by a pandemic that simply won’t go away or just read more...
The Devil is in the Details is a saying that you will doubtless have heard at some point in your life. It’s an idiom that means that while something may appear simple and straightforward at first glance, it is actually read more...
Looking ahead requires a look back at what we have learned since the outbreak of the pandemic. How did we react? If we had to roll back the clock, would we have done things differently? Are we wiser now than read more...
A lot of times when a speaker addresses people… be it at a gathering, a meeting or an event, and when it is done do without any podium or from behind a table, there is the tendency to walk a read more...
As a manager, a key part of the job requires developing your people. I recall, the time my son began learning to walk. There was no showing him how to do it only once, and going away expecting him to read more...
As a hotel or restaurant manager, you are no doubt familiar with employee turnover. Not only do exiting employees disrupt productivity and impact guest service in a number of ways, replacing them usually requires a significant investment of time, effort read more...
A restaurant that had opened a couple of months earlier, serving dinner with maximum seating for 60 people displayed tent cards on each table, claiming “90% of our guests are satisfied”. The restaurant operator considered this the key recipe for read more...
‘This pandemic might be an era, not a crisis that simply fades’.
The tourism industry underwent a revolution during the past 70 years. In 1950 there were 25 million international tourists. In 2019, 1.5 billion international tourist arrivals were recorded in read more...
As we gingerly step out of the carnage wrought by the continuing COVID pandemic, a key question persists after more than nineteen months of fear and uncertainty, “what do travelers look for now?”. Whilst travelers’ wants and needs have changed, read more...
“The term tourism industry is rather a misnomer as there is not one industry, rather a collection of both linked and also unrelated activities that make up what is termed ‘the industry”.
This means tourism cannot exist in isolation from the read more...
In his book ‘The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable’, Professor Nassim Nicholas Taleb defines the ‘black swan’ event as a high impact, low probability event with certain pre-conditions: it’s unpredictable and rare beyond what is normally expected read more...
Although it happens everywhere and anywhere in our everyday lives, Most of us have probably never heard of the concept of “Overshooting and Undershooting”. Whenever we buy products and services, we overshoot, undershoot or prefer to stay in the middle. read more...
Empowerment requires enabling people to be able to ‘speak up’ without fear of retaliation – particularly for those in the lower ranks. They must feel confident to raise matters that affect them at the workplace – especially if in hinders read more...
As the coronavirus turned into a pandemic, there were numerous predictions that the world as we knew it, prior to COVID -19, would no longer be the same; that ‘normal’ was now replaced with a ‘new normal’, and that too, read more...
Sandwiched between two enormous crises; a public health emergency and an economic meltdown the business world is in upheaval - none more so, than the hospitality industry, and, particularly the restaurant industry where several establishments have closed for good.
Those working read more...
There is an old aboriginal ritual called the ‘Walkabout’ which is a ceremony that marks the stage where aboriginal boys transit from childhood to manhood. This spiritual transition requires the boys to embark on a journey of self discovery by read more...
When designing a hotel during Covid-19, the industry will have to revisit its role in the face of having to recognise that customer expectations and altered behaviours will have an impact on design considerations and the functioning of the hotel read more...
Having been in the profession of hotel training for over three decades, with an average of six clients a month, one can imagine I have stayed in a lot of lodging facilities across all segments. I am often asked “What read more...
Say you intend visiting Donald, your tailor, to have a new suit sewn for an upcoming important event to be held in a month’s time. Accordingly, the next day, you make an appointment, go to Donald’s tailoring shop on the read more...
Until hit by the coronavirus pandemic, global travel kept dramatically rising every year, with people considering travel as a necessity rather than a luxury - to the extent that it became an important part of their lives.
The increasing number of read more...
As the hospitality industry recovers slowly from the impact of COVID, a recent hotel guest satisfaction survey relating to product and service standards encountered during guest stays, done over a specific period, reveals that the overall level of satisfaction was read more...
That unforgettable day in early March, 2020 is when life as we knew it changed. Like falling dominoes, businesses, airports hotels, restaurants, schools and all activities including sports came to a grinding halt. Countries closed borders, cities virtually shut down, read more...
As the COVID-19 spikes diminish, it’s clear that hotel stays will not immediately revert to precisely how it was prior to the pandemic. In the meantime, there will be winners and losers. Some hotels will scramble to bring back some read more...
Tom Peters calls empowerment “purposeful chaos”. Robert Waterman refers to it as “directed autonomy”. What does one call it in terms of the hospitality industry? There are a multitude of descriptors. What I liked most was the one that goes read more...
If your hotel is looking to improve guest service satisfaction, one of the first steps midlevel managers should do is evaluate how they’re mentoring or developing front-line staff.
Nearly every week I head out on the road delivering hotel sales and read more...
To survive and thrive in today’s world, it takes a lot more than clinging or going back to yesteryear’s strategies and hoping for the best. For sure budgets are tighter, consumers harder to reach and hiring staff a nightmare, but read more...
A real ‘moment of truth’ emerges after an interaction with a hotel employee or the experience from eating out; be it a telephone call with the hotel reservationist to make a room booking or when you walk away after dining read more...
In 2004, The School of Hotel Administration Cornell University invited Peter Kline the then CEO of the Bristol Hotel chain to deliver the Commencement address for that year’s graduation ceremony. What Kline, himself an alumnus of the University, having earned read more...
I just put down the book titled “Heads in Beds: A Reckless Memoir of Hotels, Hustles, and So-Called Hospitality”- written by Jacob Tomsky in 2012. The stuff that he shares with the reader includes those that hotel guests rarely get read more...
Dropping in one morning, at a takeaway counter located at the lobby of a 4-star city hotel to fetch myself a ‘latte’, I happened to notice the patisserie counter had an impressively wide range of cakes and pastries on display. read more...
All too often we hear hotel managers complain of having to keep ahead of the paper work, which they claim traps them to the desk. This is apart from having to attend countless meetings in-between. That said, the uncontested truth read more...
Hotels, companies must put purpose behind goals.
For decades now, it has been fashionable for companies from all industries to craft a mission statement to summarize their shared values and to give work more purpose. I first encountered this concept as read more...
As hospitality continues to experience bouts of uncertainty throughout the recovery and guests continue to practice new travel behaviors, historical data, i.e. predictive analytics that mirrored past performances as a benchmark, is by and large, no longer relevant. Forecasting hotel read more...
Biases, survey fatigue have diluted reliability.
As a frequent reader of this and other daily lodging industry news publications, I am always intrigued when I see headlines referencing the results of guest and traveler surveys, and these seem to be popping read more...
The distance between very good and superb is actually quite far and it requires a highly motivated team, attention to every detail, and, above all, creativity to break out of the commodity service delivery crowd to get there.
Hoteliers talk of read more...
Have you heard of the law of ‘The Principle of Least Astonishment (POLA)? It is an interface and software standard. Basically, it says that programmes should operate in a way that least astonishes the user. In other words, the system read more...
The nowadays experience, we all too often receive when dealing with retail suppliers and others like them, is service just limited to websites. The age-old method of dealing with a ‘live’ person is rapidly vanishing.
When you phone a bank, a read more...
Chatbots have been around for a while where artificial intelligence (AI), and automation have already been introduced earlier in various other industries. The hospitality industry though, has been reluctant to accept this new technology; largely because of the fear of read more...
Having written hospitality and sales training articles for over two decades now, I’m often asked 'How do you continue to come up with new ideas every month?' Truth is that it’s actually quite easy when you’re out on the road read more...
After a two year hiatus, following the havoc wrought by the pandemic, when the number one priority for hospitality operators shifted to health and safety, travel has returned in full force, and it’s now important to acknowledge how the behavior read more...
Those of us in the business of hospitality are frequently told how the latest technological tools can improve the guest experience. No doubt these devices can provide significant value, but not everyone has the budget to invest in them. For read more...
When dining in restaurants, I am sometimes unsure whether the waiter took my order correctly? That’s partly because it’s too easy to pretend to be listening, instead of actively listening. Very often, despite informing the waiter that I am allergic read more...
Imagine walking into a hotel room where there is no bed to be seen, not even a working desk? No clutter of furniture and lots of space – ideal for an office! That’s perhaps how the guestroom of the future read more...
Alexander Pratt the Area Director of Human Resources, Omni Hotels & Resorts recalls the closure of the hotel where he worked - which happened to be the longest continuously operating one in the US, in March 2020, due to the read more...
Lately, tourism in Sri Lanka seems to get a lot of attention. That’s not to say that it didn’t in the past’. But, with the country desperately looking for a quick way out of the mess it finds itself in, read more...
“The best executive is the one who has sense enough to pick good men (and women), to do what he wants done, and self-restraint enough to keep from meddling with them while doing it” Theodore Roosevelt
Whilst there are those who read more...
Any business, including those under the umbrella of hospitality, consists of multiple departments or functions, each performing a specific set of tasks, with defined responsibilities, duties, KPIs, budgets, etc. However, the smooth functioning of the business as a whole depends read more...
Comes that time to leave and suddenly no one is interested. You want to pay, but staff now ambles about before taking your money! You take a last minute visit to the public toilet and wish you hadn’t. You’ve lost read more...
Most people define professions in a simplified manner by what those professions do. Engineers build things; Economists study money; Psychologists look into people’s minds; Doctors take care of patients; Hotelier’s look after people and so on…
It gets a bit more read more...
Most dictionaries define ‘integrity’ as “the quality of being honest and having strong moral principles that you refuse to change”.
Everyone seems to want integrity from their leaders, but…there appears to be great uncertainty about what it is or how to read more...
Christopher Barnatt, a futurist, author, videographer and Associate Professor of Strategy and Future Studies at Nottingham University Business School describes what future gazing and future shaping is all about: ”the process of taking actions today to select and work towards read more...
When you read a cross-section of negative comments from online reviews and guest surveys, it’s easy to recognize a common theme across all lodging operations: “Heart failure.” More specifically, I am referring to the failure to understand the true heart read more...
The pursuit of been labeled a good hotel is a common desire although not all hotels are created equal. Been ‘good’ though, is no longer good enough. In a market where there are hundreds, if not thousands, of other hotels read more...
A recent movement to hit the hospitality industry is the idea of guest personalization.
Some hotels however don’t seem to get it though. For example, if you talk to them about mobile check-ins, they’ll tell you “Our guests won’t like that”. read more...
Of all of the slogans used by hotel companies over the years, for me the most pithy has to be the one that Sheraton used in its pre-Starwood days: "At Sheraton, little things mean a lot."
When it comes to success read more...
In common usage, organic is used to mean “healthful” or “close to nature.” It can also describe foods grown without artificial pesticides or fertilizers. In other uses, organic refers to living things or material that comes from living things. In medical terms, organic means “relating to read more...
If one were to change the lyrics of the song ‘Where have all the flowers gone?’ to relate to the hospitality industry, it may well begin:
“Where have all the workers gone, long time passing?
‘Where have all the workers gone, long read more...
Businesses across the service industry spectrum report employee retention as both problematic and costly. This is not a new phenomenon. It began a long time before the pandemic. The reason an employee decides to leave an organization varies. Commonly perceived read more...
For any country to succeed in tourism it must overcome enormous economic, political and social barriers. For tourism - particularly international tourism to flourish, a nation needs to be peaceful and safe.
The coronavirus sent the world into an indeterminate state, read more...
The other day I took my family including my 14 month grandson to a Sunday buffet lunch at a leading 5-star hotel. Having made a table reservation the previous day and upon announcing this, the employee at the entrance said read more...
Recently, we saw on the news how staff of a clothing store ganged up on a physically abusive customer and proceeded to beat the living daylights out of him. Later investigation revealed that the shopper had, in fact started the read more...
In the hospitality business, it is amazing how little tiny details can transform an experience from good, average or just ok, to amazing!
There’s this drive-in laundry operated by a 5-star hotel which I regularly visit for washing and / or read more...
We’ve all heard the dreaded phrase “something wrong with the system”. It always seems to come at the worst possible time. Like when you’re checking into a hotel after a 12-hour flight and just want to catch some shut eye. read more...
Someone once wrote “The first step to complaints management is not to have a complaint at all and have total customer satisfaction”. True...but it’s never ever going to happen! No hotel is perfect, and it’s only a matter of time read more...
Nowadays, everyone it appears, talk of peoples’ eagerness to travel, despite airfares, hotel rates and everything else costing an arm and a limb. After being released from a virtual home imprisonment sprinkled with lockdowns and restrictions caused by the recent read more...
Ever wonder what actually happens inside a hotel that has no core values? What one usually sees is negative or unhappy behaviour, low productivity and high staff turnover among other toxic issues.
The notion of company values or organizational core values read more...
I’ve come to realise lately that the overall dining out experience in the majority of instances, has not been really great. Despite the hype by some, of their concept been different to others and so on, it makes little difference. read more...
Businesses have never done as much hiring as they do today. They’ve never spent as much money doing it. And they’ve never done a worse job of it.
Many years ago, I recall driving up to a hotel and as I got off read more...
A new restaurant, announcing its arrival with great fanfare opens in town. The slick marketing carried out by the restaurant, fuelled potential customers’ anticipation of an unique dining experience: That’s the ‘Before’.
Soon after the opening, diners are welcomed with impersonal read more...
A lot of leaders, including some with decades of experience who work at top-tier companies, do not fully understand the difference between “hospitality” and “guest service.” Industry expert Doug Kennedy shares his insights on which hotel leaders must understand both.
These read more...
A leading hospitality expert remarked “Hospitality is supposed to bring joy, but it brings frustration and can feel like frustration, not happiness, is hardwired into hospitality systems”. Harsh words but not entirely wrong. Unsurprisingly, some travelers lower their expectations so read more...
The story which we carried last week of a group of 13 year olds who went to a diner for the first time without any adults, only to realise later that they had inadequately tipped the waiter for his excellent read more...
It’s something that virtually all humans have experienced in our lives, especially those who work in guest-facing jobs in the hospitality industry when we make an authentic, personalized, and heartfelt connection with another human. For me, it seems to happen read more...
Risk is inherent is almost every activity. It surrounds us in our educational, business and personal lives. Learning how to identify, analyze, assess, control, avoid, minimize or eliminate unacceptable risks is a life skill needed by all.
To begin with, let read more...
Force #1: Competitors in the industry
Harvard Professor Michael Porter identifies competitors as the core of this strategic framework. When several hotels of similar standards and star ratings operate in the same area, competition can be fierce - especially where supply read more...
New tech always moves the needle for hotels, but only goes so far
As I read the headlines in lodging publications and in social channel posts lately, there are countless experts touting the advantages of using AI to improve guest experiences.
This read more...
During my time of having worked over three decades in the hospitality industry, I’ve had the opportunity of befriending several guests. Of the many conversations we’ve had, one in particular, was how hotels and restaurants treated them when their birthday read more...
“Emotional labour is emotion work (the management of human feeling) performed in exchange for pay and as a condition of employment.” Arlie Russell Hochschild
Remarkable hospitality typically stems from remarkable employees. Perhaps more than any other industry, we rely on the read more...
Me and one of my ex-coworkers, eating a slice of pizza, sitting on top of the racks before polishing all the glassware and going straight into dinner service. Before this picture, we were already around 8 hours deep into our read more...
In the hospitality industry, where people deal with people, it can be a challenging workout comparable sometimes to a full contact game. Because, the needs of customers or their demands can vary from the mundane to the extremely intricate, and, read more...
Hyatt, IHG and Marriott hotels all offer two paths for their most frequent guests to upgrade into suites: they can be confirmed in advance a limited number of times each year, or hotels should offer them suites that are still read more...
“How we do things around here” is the well known phrase the McKinsey organisation coined to describe the oft used term corporate culture. If that be the case, it is a sad indictment on the hospitality industry, which at a read more...
Legal shenanigans have given rise to a cottage industry where unhurt plaintiffs lob lawsuits of questionable merit, while using the threat of attorney’s fees to extract settlement payments.
Some disabled persons (plaintiffs) and their lawyers find the US’s Americans with Disabilities read more...
Business leaders in almost every industry speak in one voice, that looking ahead; differentiation will separate the successful organisations from those that are not. For example, if all hotels were identical offering very similar products and prices – they provide read more...
Like most trainers, I frequently engage participants in interactive activities that hopefully shift their paradigms. With one such activity, I give participants a list of like-hotels in a location they've never been to, and then have them each place a read more...
“Recognizing the need is the primary condition for design.” - Charles Eames
A well designed hotel lobby can create an atmosphere that instantly affects the guests’ first impression from the moment they arrive, but if the relationship between the function and the read more...
My job as a hospitality industry conference speaker and training facilitator affords opportunities to speak with lodging industry leaders from a broad spectrum of management companies, brands, and independents.
Based on my observations, I think there are a lot of leaders, read more...
The hospitality industry has seen unprecedented volatility over the past few years, which may make creating a budget for 2024 intimidating. However one has to get ready to plan the hotel budget for 2024 pretty soon.
Before getting started, let’s remind read more...
When I joined the hotel industry after passing out from the Ceylon Hotel School (as it was then known), I had some doubts as to whether I had it in me to work at the highest level. Joining a new read more...
The biggest challenges in 2024 are economic uncertainty, supply chain issues, cyber-security, digital transformation, the war for talent, and increasing customer expectations. Lets delve into the last two mentioned, namely, the war for talent, and customer expectations.
Hospitality is a world read more...
Many executives mistakenly believe that being a good manager makes one a fine leader or vice – versa. Others assume that holding a senior position within a hospitality business – be it as a general manager in a hotel or read more...
Customer experience and employee engagement go together - because in the hospitality industry, guests or customers are there for the experience, instead of only for the product.
Being the face of any business, customer-facing staff can make or break the customer read more...
A company is only as good as its employees. Hiring the best people - sometimes called talent or even human capital - is one aspect. But showing them the ropes once they’re on board is another. There’s a lot at stake: read more...
Customers form expectations of the services they are about to encounter based on their own prior experience or from narratives received of past experiences of others. And now, thanks to technological advances, the possession of smart phones has resulted in read more...
Many hotels claim to be eco-friendly. But are they? A quick-and-easy test is to look for two items, said Sonu Shivdasani, founder of Soneva and Six Senses hotel brands.
First, sustainable hotels should not have branded water of any sort, read more...
Hotels cannot improve or succeed if they’re missing the basics of customer experience. Research keeps telling us that customers still value the basics of their hotel stay (i.e. location, bed, bathroom, cleanliness, breakfast, speed, convenience, and knowledgeable helpful/friendly service).
In reality, read more...
“There is only one boss - the Customer. And he can fire everybody in the company from the Chairman on down, simply by spending his money somewhere else.” – Sam Walton
Sam Walton, founded the first Walmart store in 1962 with his brother, read more...
As the final days of slip away, how interesting it is that Merriam-Webster’s “Word of the Year” for 2023 is “Authentic,” meaning it was the “most searched” on their site. Because I failed miserably at learning a second language, I have become read more...
Last December, to celebrate my birthday, my wife booked a table for the family at Cinnamon Lakeside Colombo. Unknown to me, she had blurted out the occasion as a celebrative dinner when requesting a nicely located table. The order-taker on read more...
First and foremost let’s distinguish the differences between leadership and management. In my opinion, management is a job with a position one decides to do. It’s about *doing things right. Leadership on the other hand, is about *doing the right things…it’s something read more...
How many times have you heard the word 'luxury' in a hotel description? It seems to be one of the most abused words in the hoteliers' dictionary! I've seen many hotels claim to be luxurious, when at most they are read more...
This is not about providing guests with fast internet speeds. For sure, nothing is going to irritate a guest faster than realising they cannot connect to the internet instantly, or that the flow of hot water is like ‘waiting for read more...
“Nobody can go back and start a new beginning, but anyone can start today and make a new ending”- Maria Robinson
Having recently made a dinner booking at a 5-star hotel managed by a leading International hotel chain, that had just opened; read more...
I have always been a huge fan of articles written by Alan Young, CEO of Puzzle Partner, but I was super happy to read his most recent article entitled ‘Has The ‘New’ Service Culture Become The ‘No’ Service Culture? In this read more...
Gary Leff in his article titled “Full service airlines and hotels have forgotten they’re In the hospitality business”, refers to something he came across in the book “Unreasonable Hospitality: The Remarkable Power of Giving People More Than They Expect” written read more...
People represent the front wheel, which drives all hospitality
As anyone who has ever attended a convention or taken a class knows, conference speakers and hospitality trainers such as me often use tangible, physical objects to represent intangible concepts. While most read more...
It is a more than reasonable expectation that hotel senior management would set the right example through their words and actions. An example of exemplary customer-centric service, an example of follow-through, and an example of being present in the moment, read more...
Planning a holiday used to be straightforward – one picked a destination, selected a hotel, booked a room and planned activities upon or after arrival. Not anymore!
In a landscape currently shaped by social media including Instagram, TikTok and the like, read more...
Successful managers know how to prioritize things and avoid undesirable situations with short and long-term goal plans. The list of hospitality management duties can be lengthy indeed. But, prioritizing is the key for hotel managers.
Margin control: For many hotel managers, read more...
The great physicist Richard Feynman once described how you can spot a real expert versus a phony. Look for three little words, “I don’t know.” The phony will have all the answers, while the expert will be willing to admit read more...
As my frequent readers know, I have been bemoaning the myths that are thrown out as facts at conferences, podcasts, and in books and blogs that, at best, mislead hospitality leaders and at worst, lead to discrimination based on birth read more...