There is certainly an art to hospitality, but ultimately it is in your veins or it isn’t. Striving for true hospitality and delivering a memorable experience to your guest should be your number one priority when considering hotel management. In a consumer-centric world, guests can tell the difference between genuine and perceived value and service. Follow these 5 golden rules to get you on your way to delivering the best experience for your guests and employees.

Set your hotel up for success

Service, location and value for money. This is what drives buying choices and it’s how you will create guest preference for your hotel. Fortunately, location is fixed, but service and value for money are metrics that can vary from guest to guest. The modern-day consumer knows quality, and they except to see it in their rooms, the hotel restaurant and when they are greeted through the door.

Using trusted hospitality supplies by Funktion Hospitality will present your product offering in a way that will impress guests, and play a part in their overall satisfaction of their stay. Identify each touchpoint interaction and fine-tune that delivery.

Engagement is key

You have heard that it is more expensive to find a new customer than to retain an existing one.  The same can be said of your employees. In fact, the cost of listing a job ad, training staff and putting pressure on the rest of the team while the job is vacant – can be a real hit to the business.

The best way to keep your employees is through engagement, making them feel like they are part of the hotel vision and abreast of any internal and top level decision making. The bell boy should have the same information as the director of sales, and the team should be working to a common goal. Facebook groups, newsletters, hotel meetings, as well as meeting with each department will ensure that you are making your employees feel valued and heard.

The lifetime of a guest

The guest experience does not start and end with check-in and check-out. It’s the moment they start looking for a hotel, booking a hotel and the time leading up to their stay. Each interaction with the guest should be seamless, delivering high service and keeping a consistent ‘voice’ of the hotel at every touchpoint.

Empower your staff to treat every guest as a VIP so that when they are in-house, they feel genuinely appreciated and like no ask is too much. When they leave, make sure they are happy so that they can become an ambassador for your brand, referring and recommending their friends to your hotel. Sending these past guests email newsletters will keep your brand alive in their mind, and might even convert future business.

Owner relations

The owner of the hotel is one of the most (if not the most) important stakeholder there is. You may manage the hotel, but it is their asset and their KPIs might be very different to yours. Staff retention and guest satisfaction is a high priority, but their interests lie in revenue generation growth year on year.

Aligning your targets with your owners will save a lot of time and your owners will trust your initiatives as they know you also have a stake in the commercial side of the business. Monthly asset reviews will keep both parties in check, you as the hotel manager delivering a profit, and they as the owners keeping the hotel running and resourced up.

Watch the market

Like any business, it can be easy to put your head in the sand and focus on your own business. God knows, there is always a lot to do! But not keeping an eye on what the market is doing could damage your business and you may miss crucial opportunities. Keep an eye on promotions happening in your immediate area, as well as from hotels in a similar brand scale as your own.

Leveraging key special event periods is a way to increase revenue, as well as increased advertising in low-season periods to make sure you have guests arriving. Competitors visits are another way to know what’s happening outside your doors, and share the responsibility with your heads of departments so they too are across the competition.

For a guest, checking-in and eating the restaurant and a nightcap at the bar is a bit of a treat. For a hotelier, it is business. But differentiating your offering so that guests are left with a memorable stay is what you will need to do to be a successful hotel manager. When in doubt, always put yourself in the guest’s shoes.