As a hotel manager what should your top priority be this year?
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, hotel costs are a constant worry, requiring regular monitoring and a second look to avoid unnecessary and inefficient drain on the bottom line. Compounding matters is the escalating energy and food prices including fluctuating spending habits of customers.
As the markets continue to progress in a post-COVID environment and rate and occupancy sooner or later flattens out, hotel managers need to be intently focused on preserving margin. The momentary surge of ADR growth will eventually flatten, and unwary hotel managers will be left with a stack of fixed costs and labor expenses, that will need to be off set with resourceful expense and labor management to improve margins.
Assemble the right team: A digitalized society, artificial intelligence and ever-changing guest expectations have produced seismic changes in our industry. However what has remained consistent is the importance of human contact in delivering exceptional guest service. Prioritize the recruitment and retention of talented individuals through extensive training and development initiatives. Retaining talented people is hard, but finding their replacement is much harder.
An on-going priority for any hotel manager is how to continually motivate his or her associates. Leaders will need to know each and every member of the team and work with them, to gain their trust and to get them to believe in hospitality’s mission of taking care of people.
The challenge of AI: Generative Artificial intelligence (AI) is at the forefront of hospitality technology heading into 2024. AI is changing the world – and one of the main areas it will affect in the short-to-medium term is the workforce.
The remarkable capabilities of artificial intelligence are clear the moment you try it. But remarkableness is also a problem for managers. Working out what to do with a new technology is harder when it can affect so many activities; when its adoption depends not just on the abilities of machines but also on humans. What machines do well is tactical; what humans do well is strategic. The right balance between AI technology and human interactions and the ability to thread the eye of this needle can result in exceptional guest service while delivering excellent outcomes.
Focus on the customer: Reinforce the organization’s focus on end-to-end customer journeys that seek to understand what drives satisfaction, loyalty and advocacy, in order to acquire and retain the best customers.
Guest reviews provide a perspective influenced by individual experiences and expectations – what the hotel promised vs. what was delivered. While this personal insight can be valuable, it introduces variability that can make comparisons more challenging. Understand though, that a guest’s perception of a hotel can be significantly influenced by their personal preferences and expectations, which may not align with those of other travelers.
Ilzaf Keefahs is a freelance writer who enjoys focusing on hospitality related matters that he is passionate about, and likes to share his views with hoteliers and customers alike. He delves into the heart of hospitality to figure out both customer service and consumer trends that impact the industry
|
|
|
|
