Every visitor to your hotel carries a story
Shoppers visit the store or supermarket with one story: to purchase something. Customers stroll into a café or restaurant, with at most, three stories in mind: to quell their hunger, quench their thirst or meet someone over a meal or drink. What happens in hotels however is a totally different ball game. People who come into the hotel lobby do so with a singular or collective purpose. The countless reasons could range from meeting friends from abroad, being there for someone’s wedding, to celebrate a reunion with college mates, an important business meeting, to stay the night when attending a nearby exhibition or when visiting the destination on holiday.
Whatever the reason, to every visitor, the trip to the hotel – be it in daytime, night time or anytime, centres on positive experiences and moments charged with emotions and eager expectations. And yet, those experiences can actually break down, bringing conflict or drama into a story that should otherwise be a happy one - from the beginning to the end.
Hotel staffs operate in a living, breathing environment where no two days are alike. Guests arrive with different expectations, operational issues emerge without warning, and market conditions can dramatically alter at short notice.
From the guest’s perspective, he or she experiences the hotel as one system, one continuous story from entering the hotel to leaving it, or in the case of the stayover – from booking to checkout. But most hotels operate as a collection of isolated departments, and systems and that disconnection is where disappointment takes root. It affects the guest as well as the hard-working hotel staff.
Studies have shown that the primary cause of frontline staff quitting is not because of pay or shift work – but for burnout. Those who leave include dedicated staff members who have compensated for significant levels of system dysfunction through sheer individual perseverance, effort and knowledge. They filled gaps and smoothed over inconsistencies created elsewhere in the operation. But over time, this hidden effort takes a toll. In most cases high turnover is mistakenly blamed as a people problem, a recruitment problem or a training problem, when in fact it’s a systems problem that is causing human exhaustion.
A President of a hospitality group claimed “You cannot truly deliver hospitality without a scrappy mindset.” He went on to explain that he understood something fundamental about hospitality professionals, “We thrive in chaos, even if we do not always describe it that way,” going on to emphasise that “this environment is not unusual, and that more importantly, it is manageable.” Indeed, there is a lot of truth in what he says.
So, what is a scrappy mindset in hospitality?
A scrappy mindset in management means doing more with less, and by staying highly adaptable, resourceful, and action-oriented. It’s about resetting the competitive landscape to focus on what you can control rather than relying on massive corporate budgets and letting you out-maneuver larger competitors through agility.
A scrappy mindset requires individuals to reassess their strategies, be open to new ideas, and adjust their actions accordingly. It highlights the importance of being adaptable and willing to evolve quickly and confidently when responding to changing situations and to achieve success or overcome challenges that seldom come with a clear roadmap.
What worked yesterday might be irrelevant tomorrow. Think about it. Many of us build something that works and then spend years using and defending it. A scrappy mindset is about being alive, recognising that the core of hospitality is to meet guests where they want to be met and ensuring that they receive the best possible experience in that moment. A scrappy mindset seeks out creative problem – solving solutions including the ability to break complex problems into manageable pieces. It’s about spinning around a set plan when circumstances change.
Shafeek Wahab– Editor, Hospitality Sri Lanka, Consultant, Trainer, Motivational Speaker, Mystery Guest Auditor, Ex-Hotelier
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