Increase revenues: manage your hotel like a beehivePublished by: Hugo Mechelse
Published on: 08-01-2016 11:09 AM
Pageviews: 3520
Published on: 08-01-2016 11:09 AM
Pageviews: 3520
Who has opted for increasing revenues as part of your plans for this year? Who has put the experience of the guests upfront? Who is looking for augmenting their word-of-mouth promotion?
Realise that they are all part of the very same story. Your hotel is a kind of beehive. Everybody has their distinct task, but it only works when everybody works together. And those 50.000 odd bees manage to do this within their organisation! That is why I are always look beyond the standard skills and procedures, to make the luxury hotels and their staff excel. And yes, Butler Service, our prime expertise, is part of that. But this service in itself does not make your cash flow tick.
In a luxury hotel, Butler Service is becoming a ‘must’, just like wi-fi. But realise that when offering the service you’d better do an excellent job. This is feasible even when you do not establish a full running butler-department. Of course it is not ideal, but you have to make choices. In our training and coaching services this is one of the biggest challenges: to secure the service in the bigger picture. Without butler service department it only requires a bigger effort of the management to safeguard the sustainability of this high-end service. Just training is not good enough.
Often I see and experience good service, but regularly ‘something’ is missing. This is confirmed by the management. Do you recognise this feeling? Well, let me tell you this: nine times out of ten this has to do with the fact that the bigger picture has been lost. Staff might do a pretty good job, but what they do has lost the connection with the total experience you are offering to the guest. And guests only experience the bigger picture. Experiences are made up of fragmented feelings and observations. If they don’t match it is lost and your hotel-beehive will not produce the sweet honey you are looking for.
And guess what: if the big picture is balanced and it works, you will have your word-of-mouth, the guest will have their experience and you will have increased revenues! And on top of this your staff is more motivated. This counts for all your staff, not only the butlers. For you might not even have butlers, or not yet. Start as early as possible, for once a ‘culture’ has been established, it will be hard to turn the wheel. But it is never too late.
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