USA Today: Hotel Guests More Satisfied During Downturn According to J.D. Power

According to the Hotel Check-in section of the USA Today, guests are more satisfied with hotels during the downturn.  You can read the entire article and some pretty insightful comments here.  From the article:

“Hotel guests have generally been happier with their hotel experience in the past 12 months vs. the prior year as room rates dropped and crowds thinned, according to J.D. Power and Assoc.’s latest study that measures how well hotel chains satisfy their customers.”

The reasons for increased satisfaction according to the article:

“The travel downturn: With fewer people on the road, people who did travel found emptier hotels, which meant they encountered less competition for the treadmill in the fitness center, or less of a chance to stand in line at a busy convention hotel.”

“Cost: Hotel rates fell in the last 12 months, and customers generally felt more satisfied with what they received for their money.”

“Hotels operations: Hotels genuinely got better at pleasing their customers in the past year due to stiff competition for guests. “All of them are focused on improving guest satisfaction,” Schwartz says. Almost all of the chains increased their scores on a year-over-year basis – and not a single hotel chain saw its score drop significantly, he says.”

Our take:  It is somewhat surprising to see increased satisfaction as we are all battling with being understaffed.  Most hotels that we talk with have similar or higher occupancy but have much lower staffing levels because the ADRs are so low.  We believe that much of it comes down to cost.  Many guests are more satisfied simply because the rooms cost less and there is much more perceived value.

The Ultimate Arrival Experience in Action

If you our working hard on improving your guest welcome with our Guide to the Ultimate Arrival Experience, we wanted to share a few stories of the Ultimate Arrival Experience in action.  The great thing about these two stories is how they show how our Ultimate Arrival Experience will work for any hotel.  These two hotels were both visited by one of our mystery shoppers during the same week…  both took a similar approach to the arrival experience… but are very different hotels.  The first hotel was a budget friendly Holiday Inn, the second was a ultra-luxurious Ritz-Carlton.

Read the rest of this entry »

Hospitality Jobs are the 7th Worst Jobs for Workers with College Degrees, According to Yahoo Jobs

Yahoo Jobs released their 10 lowest paying jobs for workers with college degrees.  The study, found here, compares the salaries of workers in the middle of their careers.  Hospitality and tourism jobs have a starting salary of $37,000 and a mid-career salary of $54,300.  The worst paying jobs on the list also include drama, fine arts, education, horticulture, Spanish, music, theology, elementary education, and social work.

Consumer Reports Rates Hotels, Results May Surprise You

In the June 2010 issue of Consumer Reports, they have a special travel section that tells readers how to get great deals on travel.  They also announce their ratings for the year.  The hotel ratings, based on over 27,000 reader’s surveys, are somewhat surprising.  Consumer Reports has odd categories of hotels such as ‘fanciest’, ‘luxury’, and ‘upscale’.  The ‘upscale’ category for instance has both full service and limited service hotels.

The top score was a tie between Ritz-Carlton in the ‘fanciest’ category and Homewood Suites in the ‘upscale’ category.  The Homewood Suites scored an excellent in value and the Ritz scored very good. 

Here are the rankings for a couple of the categories:

Read the rest of this entry »

How Google’s Real-Time Search Can Help You Save Customers

We have posted a few articles on how to successfully maintain your internet reputation.  If you missed them, start by reading this one.  Maintaining your hotel’s internet reputation is one of the most important things you can do to save customers who had a bad experience and capture new customers. 

Google has now started to do ‘Real-Time Searches’.  What does that mean?  Google says real-time search is:

“… new features that bring your search results to life with a dynamic stream of real-time content from across the web. Now, immediately after conducting a search, you can see live updates from people on popular sites like Twitter and FriendFeed, as well as headlines from news and blog posts published just seconds before. When they are relevant, we’ll rank these latest results to show the freshest information right on the search results page.”

What does that mean to you?  Well, for starters, your hotel will now appear in Google if people post a tweet on Twitter about you or mention you in their Facebook status update.  This can be either really good for you, or really bad for you.  Here is how I first noticed Google’s real-time search.  I was going to go out to a local restaurant and needed the address so I did what I always do… pulled out the iPhone and googled it.  I found the address on the first Google entry.  I happened to scroll down to the bottom of the page and saw someone’s Twitter tweet that said ‘got food poisoning at XYZ Restaurant’. 

Obviously not good for business.  I know that I found another restaurant to eat at.  I am sure that many others did as well.  So, what should you do?  First, have a good plan in place to monitor your hotel’s internet reputation.  Then act on anything both positive and negative that you may see.  It is very easy to contact someone who posts about your hotel on Twitter or Facebook or in their Blog.  Be sure to send them a thank you if they say something positive about you and make sure that you offer to fix any problems they may have had if they say anything negative about you.  Make sure that you have a plan in place today!

USA Today reports ‘Hard Times Send Hotel Industry into Survival Mode’

A really good article from USA Today about hotel’s struggling to survive.  Check out the full article on USA Today’s website. 

The article features some high profile hotel closures such as the W Hotel in San Diego and the Ritz-Carlton in Las Vegas.  The article also mentions how 76 California hotels have already fallen into foreclosure and that 330 out of the states 10,000 hotels have defaulted on their mortgage payments in the last year. 

As far as the cuts, the article really only mentions that Concierges are being replaced by lower cost employees and some hotels are changing their approach to food and beverage.

We have noticed quite a few changes at hotels over the last year or so to cut costs or drive revenues.  A few of the changes we see:

• Many hotels have closed restaurants and bars.  Instead of having 2 or 3, many have closed all but one restaurant and one bar.
• Hotels have cut costs and gone green by eliminating newspapers and printed folios.
• Parking rates are on the rise.  Many hotels have increased the parking fees for both self parking and valet parking.
• Breakfast buffets have really been changing.  The prices have increased and the quality and selection of food has decreased.
• Overall staffing has really decreased.  Many hotels have eliminated positions like bellmen or concierges.  Also, we see longer lines at check in because the hotels have less GSAs with similar occupancy as in the past.

What are you doing to survive?  Please post in our comment section!

USA Today Reports that Cybercriminals Still Consider Hotels Easy Targets for Credit Card Info

There is a great article in the USA today on how criminals target hotels and steal their guest’s credit card info.  You can read the entire article on the USA Today website by clicking here. 

The article says that hotels are considered hacker’s number one target and mentions how Wyndham was breached 3 times in the last 12 months. 

Our favorite post from the comment section:  Ladies Man writes “A bigger and far more serious crime is coming down to breakfast and discovering it consists of bagels, honey buns, and those weird chewy off-brand fruit bars. If my credit card info must be stolen, I’d rather find out after I’ve had a large and proper breakfast.”

Great Comment Card Scores Through Bribery

We found a good laugh.  In the ‘Goofs, Glitches, Gotchas’ section of the newest Consumer Reports, a reader sent in a hotel’s attempt to bribe them to being happy.  The hotel included the following message on their folio:

“For every guest that rates their stay as VERY SATISFIED, we will issue 20,000 points to your priority club card”

The reader asked the manager who said that his intent was to thank people for completing the survey.  Consumer reports adds ‘but not, it seems, for completing it honestly.’

What are you doing to bribe your guests?

Why Google AdWords Should Be Near the Top of Your Hotel Marketing Plan

It is no secret that most people start their search for almost everything on the internet these days.  Most of these searches start with Google, yet few hotels have a good marketing plan to take advantage of this.  Using Google AdWords (those little ads that appear on the top and side of your google search) can really impact your hotel revenues.  It is a very cheap (and easily measurable) way to increase your business. 

First, don’t assume that people skip over those ads just because you do.  Most people read the ads.  Many people actually have no idea that they are even ads.  If you are new to Google Adwords, click here for a brief tutorial. 

Now, what type of keywords should you be buying?  Here are some ideas to get you started:

The name of your hotel – Sounds like a no brainer but most hotels do not buy the name of their own hotel.  You would be suprised how many times I Google the name of a hotel and the hotel’s website does not come up at the top of the list.  Often, the top searches will be third party websites like Expedia.  If you want Expedia to sell all of your rooms for you, there is no need to buy your own name.  Otherwise, this should be your top priority.  Many hotels also buy the names of their competitors.  I am not saying that this is ethical, but it happens. 

The word ‘hotel’ and the name of your city and nearby cities – These clicks might be quite a bit more expensive than buying your name because you will be competing with the big third party travel websites.  However, they may really pay off for you with increased bookings.  It may be worth it to appear the top of a Google search instead of on page 5.  Few Google searchers even make it half way down the first page. 

The word ‘hotel’ and the name of local attractions – For example, if you are near Disneyland, buy ‘hotel Disneyland’.  Many people search for a hotel simply by Googling ‘hotel near Disneyland’.  The major attractions may be more expensive but keywords with the names of your nearby museums, zoos, or concert halls might be surprisingly cheap. 

Keywords to fill your banquet space – If your hotel does meetings, weddings, or other social functions, be sure to buy those keywords.  Get creative.  Buy the keywords for every social function that has ever been at your hotel. 

Keywords for your hotel restaurant and bars – If your hotel has a unique restaurant or bar, buy up some keywords to increase traffic.  These might be more expensive because you are competing with every restaurant and bar in your area, but could really pay off. 

Hopefully, this will help you get up and running right away.  Be sure you have someone on property that is responsible for maintaining the ads at least once per week.  Also, someone should be tracking your website data to see how the ads are increasing your traffic.  Google AdWords makes it really easy to play with different keywords to get the results you need.  Good luck!

Ask Five Diamond: Best Methods for Pouring Alcohol

Dear Five Diamond Hospitality,

I can’t seem to get our liquor costs under budget.  What is the best control for measuring the bartender’s pours?

Good question!  There are a few different methods for pouring alcohol such as free pour, jigger, or measured spout.  Which one works best depends on your bar. 

Typical lobby lounge – If your bar is typically slow, usually a measured jigger works best.  Just be sure to have plenty of jiggers on hand so the bartender always has one within reach.  We like the measured jigger because it is easy for your supervisors to monitor from across the bar.  Also, customers are accepting of a jigger in most cases.  Of course, the down side is that it is easy for the bartender to overpour using the jigger.  Most bartenders we see using a jigger like to run a tail with each pour.  Here is a good video on basic jigger techniques:

High volume bar – If your bar gets pretty busy and the bartenders need to crank out drinks fast, we like the measured spout.  The ball bearings in the spout automatically pour the exact amount and then stop.  The bartender would have to tilt the bottle back a second time to be able to overpour with these spouts.  Here is a good video of how the Precision Pours work:

We really do not like any bars to use the free pour method.  It is both dangerous to your profits and to your customers.  Our mystery shoppers have reported time after time instances where they were poured a drink that had over 4 ounces of alcohol when a bartender free poured.  You can easily see how pouring 3 times the correct amount can be very dangerous.