5 trends that Sri Lankan hoteliers should embrace in 2021 and beyond
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 pandemic. Meanwhile, what does 2021 hold for us? Here are five that are prudent for Sri Lankan hoteliers.
Cleaning, sanitising, and disinfecting are topics that we covered on Hospitality Sri Lanka through an article and our video series ’19 Hospitality Questions on Covid 19’. One of the best ways to encourage guests to return is to provide them a safe environment. Guests will appreciate clean bed sheets, spotless walls, tables - so dust-free you could eat off them if desired, and window glass so shiny that you do a double-take to check if the window is open or closed. Your guests need to be re-assured that their rooms have been cleaned to an Adrian Monk or Sheldon Cooper-esque level, so let them know at every opportunity. Proudly proclaim your protocols, technological aids used disinfection regimes and any other prudent information so that they feel re-assured.
Personalised service in the pre-Covid-19 era was relatively easy – you just sent a team of wait staff to literally wait hand-and-foot over the guest who would enjoy the attention. Try that now and the guest is likely to recoil, quickly slap a serviette over their face, and request (or order) your staff to take a step back. Space and peace are the desired characteristics. The key is to offer service when required in a quick and efficient manner, whilst remaining unobtrusive at all other times. A simple way to practice this is to ask your waiters to observe whenever a guest’s water glass level falls below half and top it up without the guest even noticing! Being the son of a hotelier, I’ve enjoyed stays at over a hundred hotels, and have observed only a handful being able to achieve this, whilst more than half required me to ask for refills! This is just one way – there are plenty of others so gather your team and brainstorm.
Tech is rapidly replacing touch in the Covid-19 era. It was anyways en-route prior to Covid-19, but the pandemic put it on the expressway and removed the speed limits to boot. Mobile apps, QR codes, contactless transactions and e-wallets are quickly replacing paper and plastic alternatives. Your hotel would do well to jump on this bandwagon ASAP. However, make sure you stick to one or the other – and don’t confuse your customers. Case in point – my wife and I went to a popular five-star hotel for some Noodles. There was a placard on the table advertising the fact that the menu was available via a QR code and we were about to scan it when the waiter assured us that the printed menus were in fact available and quickly brought four (two drinks menus and two food menus) to our table. A great service initiative but let us take a step back and digest the implications. We had no prior information on how these printed menus were cleaned, who had touched it prior, whether it had gone by several other restaurant patrons, or any other pertinent information. We were not even informed if it was sanitised. The solution for this would have been for the placard to read “Please scan the QR code to access our menu. Should you prefer a printed menu (sanitised for your safety), please request from your waiter”.
I’ve already seen a handful of city hotels advertising a room for the day, with fast Wi-Fi and plenty of tea/coffee re-fills along with lunch served to the room, to capture the remote working crowd. Resort hotels situated a few hours’ drive from the major cities can take this a step further, by offering tailored vacations that cater to the remote-working crowd. Let’s call them “Workations”, and these would enable a guest to check in on a Friday morning for example, finish his or her work remotely and stay on into the weekend. Use this opportunity to promote auxiliary services such as massages and reflexology (where permitted and conducted under strict health guidelines) or leisure activities in the early morning and late evening such as bird watching tours, quiet rides on a lake or other activities to unwind and relax. Ensure that the room offers a sturdy desk, comfortable chair and fast Wi-Fi, but mix it up a bit – some people like to work on the balcony or veranda as well! Turn those traditional ‘relax’ places into tranquil ‘workation’ spaces.
Hear me out on this one. I know it throws multiple monkey wrenches into your finely tuned system of having a guest check out at 12 noon or prior, so that you have two hours to get the room for the next guest who has been informed that he or she may check in at 2pm or later. But that is old hat. Guests will come and go at all times, and in the current industry climate, you don’t want to lose a guest to a competitor simply because you told them an early check-in or late check-out wasn’t possible or chargeable as an ‘extra’, while your competitor welcomed them gratis. You never know – that guest who requested a late check-out might avail themselves of dinner at your dining room! Or that early check-in guest may partake in some of the water sports activities you offer. Your guest satisfaction and incremental revenue dividends will be the result should you do away with this antiquated policy and be more flexible.
Think about it folks...that’s it -for now.
Ashraaq Wahab is Technical Director Hospitality Sri Lanka, Automotive Journalist, Marketer and Writer, who enjoys penning his thoughts, insights and ideas on a variety of topics.
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