Mr. Nijhawan

Executive Leadership

Maximizing the Potential of Your Hotel

By Sanjay Nijhawan, COO, Guoman Hotels (UK)

There are two ways of dealing with a severe economic downturn. One is to withdraw - pull back and wait it out. That's the "let's hope and pray" approach. The other is to view the circumstances as opportunity - not to simply forge ahead doing what we've done in the past but the chance to find creative solutions to new realities while remaining realistic about the bottom line.

Around the world, the coming months will represent one of the most challenging sales environments in decades, not only for hotels and resorts but for all industries. According to HTrends.com, Smith Travel Research predicts that the hospitality industry has a 99.9 percent likelihood of falling into a recession. We are already seeing some of the consequences. Media organizations are lamenting steep declines in advertising. Government figures show consumer spending at record lows.

As individuals, businesses and nations seek ways to regroup and revive economically, we as hoteliers will need, more than ever, to develop innovative, cost-effective ideas and methods to retain customers and find new ones. With travelers increasingly concerned about spending, we will need to convince them that we offer outstanding value for money spent. To succeed, we must maximize the potential of our brand and our hotels. At Guoman Hotels we rely on five essential practices to do so.

1) Know Yourself and Your Audience

We are an industry in which everyone sells a similar thing: a place to sleep where varying levels of luxury, comfort, service and, usually, food and drink, are provided, at prices appropriate to the levels offered. Within any single price category, why would travelers care which hotel they stay in? Because of what we offer, and how we offer it, that is above and beyond the actual product and services we provide. In short, who we are - our identity, our brand essence.

In the current economic climate, it is all the more important for us to know who we are. Not in such vague terms as "a luxury hotel with fine dining," but specifically - the vision, history, personality, operating principles, even philosophy of life that make us unique. This is the essence of the brand and it works on many different price levels.

At Guoman, our London hotels are dramatically and substantially different from one another in history, character and ambiance. At first glance, The Royal Horseguards and The Tower could hardly be thought of as the same company. The Cumberland and Charing Cross are equally unique. We are therefore able to celebrate the differences of the Guoman Collection while at the same time emphasizing the commonalities - of philosophy, service, passion and value - that define the brand.

Of course, equally important to understanding who we are is understanding who our customers are. Particularly in times of economic uncertainty and tight budgets, there is no point in trying to be all things to all people; it is ineffective and costly. Much better to reach out to guests who will be glad to stay with us.

2) Sell the Experience

It is interesting that Forrester Research, in developing its Customer Experience Index, bases its evaluation of customer satisfaction on the following criteria: usefulness, ease of use and enjoyability. We should be relieved that the hotel industry ranks at the very top of all these categories in the company's most recent survey but, more important, this tells us what we should be selling: the guest experience. Not the thread count or the size of in-room entertainment systems, number of meeting rooms or restaurants, but what it feels like to stay at our hotel. More than anything, travelers want to feel good when away from home: relaxed, cared for, delighted, surprised, safe, productive in the case of business travelers. Travel itself is stressful; hotel guests repeatedly tell researchers that they just want their hotel experience to be easy, hassle-free and enjoyable.

At Guoman, we pride ourselves on our service standards, such as always providing guests with a warm and friendly welcome; painless check-in, either at reception or in the executive lounge for our executive guests; always having a team member available to help with any questions or concerns; and always doing our best to make sure our guests feel welcome, taken care of and at home.

The guest experience, of course, is the other side of the coin from knowing who we are; one without the other is meaningless, together they make up the essence of the brand. But, in maximizing out hotels' potential it is important to understand that, while inter-related, they are also different and, in communicating our brand, both sides of the coin need to be emphasized.

3) Communicate the Message Efficiently and Effectively

Thanks largely to information technology, the rules of marketing and communications have been turned upside down. Ironically, this may represent a silver lining to the current economic crisis because the new rules mean that there are highly cost-effective ways to communicate our message to our most important markets.

A 2008 study by Deloitte & Touche found that over half of consumers use the Internet for business travel arrangements; two-thirds of travelers use it for leisure travel. Increasingly the traditional, passive advertising model - a hotel places an expensive ad in a newspaper, magazine or on television and then waits for responses - is being replaced by interactive online communication. Consumers are getting their information about us from one another, putting more trust in peer reviews than messages from our marketing departments. They have access to uninterrupted global information whenever they wish to find it.

While this presents major challenges to the way we've always told our story to potential customers, there is an important bright side for hotels as well. The same technology that enables consumers to take charge of the marketing message enables us to know more and more about them. The end result is that we can target exactly those customers we want to reach, including the all important new customer, using technologies and methods that they trust and respond to, instead of using costly, less effective mass-marketing approaches. Whether it is through targeted, cost-effective public relations built on valued media relationships or such technologies as email, interactive websites, blogs, podcasts, PDA's, WiFI, mobile technology and others, it is important to use every available new marketing resource in maximizing our potential.

4) Engage the Customer in Dialogue

Until very recently, the supplier/retailer-consumer relationship was well-defined and static. Suppliers', including hotels, products, facilities, reputation and prices said, "This is who we are, take it or leave it," and the public took us or did not. Virtually the only exchange of ideas, information or dialogue was at purchase, or, in the case of hotels, at the front desk upon arrival.

What a difference technology makes! Today, consumers are designing their own custom-built products. Real hotels and other companies have virtual lives, and sell real products, in virtual universes. Consumers engage in nonstop dialogue not just with other consumers around the globe but with the companies that produce the products and services they want. Media outlets are replacing professional reviewers and critics with consumer-based opinion blogs. TripAdvisor, YouTube and online social networks are trusted sources of information and opinion. And almost daily some new information technology raises the bar higher and higher.

What does this mean for hoteliers who want to maximize their brand's potential? We must join the conversation - through easy to use highly interactive, content-rich websites; by completely integrating our distribution, channel and content management and back office systems; with sophisticated, two-way email communication that begins well before check-in; and through new customer relationship management tools that produce invaluable guest information for the hotel which, if used properly, results in much appreciated amenities and services for the guest.

The key to effective use of rapidly evolving online technology is dialogue, an ongoing conversation between guest and hotel. And the foundation of that conversation is remembering to always relate what you have to offer to the potential individual guest's own needs, interests and tastes. Promoting your steakhouse, however excellent, to a vegetarian is pointless; telling a spa enthusiast about your personalized spa treatments might just close the deal.

5) Invest in Training

The final essential in maximizing a hotel's potential is delivering on our promises. It is fine to thoroughly understand and communicate who we are and to embrace all the wonders of technology available to us, but, in the end, the guest has to experience what we have promised. The alternative is a one-time guest who may be quick to hop on TripAdvisor and tell another story.

The most important ingredient in making our brand essence a reality is staff who are appropriately mannered, knowledgeable "people-persons" who are passionate and confident in their work. This cannot be over-emphasized: the core experience for guests at any hotel, assuming that facilities are acceptable and function properly, is interaction with staff. A memorable hotel stay is far more influenced by a friendly smile or useful assistance from a concierge than a really impressive showerhead or entertainment system. This is why, at Guoman Hotels, we place a very high priority on recruiting the very best people, and by offering on-going training and career development to ensure that our staff retention is consistently higher than the industry average.

The coming months will not be easy ones for the international hospitality industry. There will be major challenges ahead. But, I believe that much can be achieved by addressing these essential practices in the spirit of recognizing current realities as an opportunity to move ahead with confidence in the future.

With extensive experience oin working for some of the biggest brands in the business, including Hilton, Holiday Inn, Marriott and Forte, Sanjay Nijhawan has been in the hospitality industry for over 17 years. Mr. Nijhawan joined Thistle Hotels in 2004 as general manager for The Tower in central London. Earlier this year Mr. Nijhawan was promoted to Chief Operating Officer of Guoman Hotels (UK) overseeing the development of a collection of six international deluxe properties in central London. Mr. Nijhawan graduated from Thames Valley University in 1992 with a degree in hotel management. Mr. Nijhawan can be contacted at 0870 333 9280 or Sanjay.nijhawan@guoman.co.uk Extended Bio...

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