Our Hotel Friends – Thank you. We watch and respect your daily hotel hustle and we are with you and really. We are in awe of you.
I have traveled many times in the last few months, staying at your hotels and watching you do what I did (in hotels) for 14 years, only during crazier, more trying times – I never had to go through what you are going through.
I make sure to say to each of you directly “thank you for all you are doing for our industry”. I say this to every employee I see. I tell you a little bit about me so that you truly feel like “someone gets it” and understands. I say to you, “hang in there – it will all pay off….there are so many amazing career opportunities for you in our business”. You smile at me and realize I am one of you and you are grateful that someone gets it. A couple of you have had shed some tears, which makes me choked up, too.
I’m perfectly fine if housekeeping cannot clean my room, or if there is limited food and supplies. I understand and I wish every guest could understand, too.
But, they don’t. They want and deserve the hotel experience they came to you for. So, we hustle some more to make it happen as best we can.
Little do guests know, in the background, you’re trying figure out when and where to get supplies and food to operate and give them what they need and want. You may be a GM cleaning toilets and checking in guests, you may be an Engineer, helping to clean rooms, you may be a Housekeeper, operating with two par instead of three or four. You are scrambling and figuring out staff shortage issues. It’s at a level we’ve never seen before.
Your hustle can feel like a race, a contest, a day to day battle at times. More than anything, you need to find creative ways to get what you need into your hotels to operate your business, while all the while, costs of goods keep rising.
You are managing the best you can, thinking outside of the box and you are AMAZING because – you are being hospitable, putting a smile on your face to welcome your guests through the doors because, guess what? They are returning! They are excited to be there and they want to use all your services and….they are hungry and thirsty and they want a good night’s sleep.
You cannot drive down the costs any more than you are right now. You may have a wonderful group purchasing company partner and your management company is ultra-focused on helping you, but it’s hard. Everyone is doing the very best they can.
So, what else can you do?
You can do something else to drive your business. There is a bright side and a variety of unique options. There are ways to drive efficiencies, make a dent in costs and get a ROI, and give help the guest and staff experiences better. It’s a learning process though, you may not have thought of these options before – it may be brand new ideas.
Like what, you say?
Sometimes technology add-ons help, sometimes it’s about giving healthy, robust food options in your retail centers in the hotel, sometimes it’s about other departments within your hotel that have been typical cost centers and finding options to turn them into profit centers. There are definitely solutions out there to help your hustle.
Keep thinking outside of the box. That is literally all we do at our company at iDEAL…we are hotel veterans just like you….trying to figure out “what can we do – what can we affect our business positively, how and we solve problems?” We want to feel good about helping you. We are trying to laser focus on benefits for hotels BEYOND COVID. Sustainable innovation. We totally get it – it’s complicated.
Thank you. 1000 times, thank you. You hoteliers are the most welcoming people on the planet. We will overcome and believe it or not, we are getting better now and in the long term. We are in this together and we are #hotelstrong.
Founder/CEO