Our take:  We agree with the travel industry analyst who said ‘it is the absolutely the wrong decision to make at a time when hotel demand is down from corporate business, conferences and leisure.”  It will save cash, but the timing is very poor.

In a follow up post, found here, three other brands seemed to distance themselves from Hilton’s strategy. 

Our favorite comment was from IHG’s Jim Abrahamson who said that rewards members are twice as profitable and elite-level members are 12 times as profitable.  He goes on to say “if one platinum-level member leaves us, we’d have to go out and find 12 new customers just to replace that one.”

Market Metrix and TripAdvisor did a recent study and found that “85 percent of hotels have no guidelines for monitoring, responding to or acting on guest reviews.”  85 percent!  They also state that “only 4 percent of negative reviews are responded to!”  The entire article can be read here.

The article suggests many of the same techniques that we do for mainting your hotel’s internet reputation.  You wouldn’t ignore a bad comment card, right?  Then why would you ignore a bad internet review of your hotel?  Get a plan in place today!

It appears that many hotels have taken our advice to far and are now manipulating their tripadvisor ratings by posting fake reviews.  Check out this terrific article by Jason Cochran titled ‘Is TripAdvisor.com One Big Joke?’  His article mentions that tripadvisor has had to place disclaimers on at least 92 hotel pages because they believe the hotels ‘may have attempted to manipulate our popularity index by interfering with the unbiased nature of our reviews’. 

The authors provides some great tips for people to interpret user-review sites.  One tip he has is ‘If a hotel’s managment consistently responds to negative reviews, take it as a promising sign that testifies to their attention to service’. 

Continue maintaining your hotel’s internet reputation!  But do it legitimately please!

Should you be adding fees like these to make up for a loss in room revenues?  Absolutely not. 

First off, mandatory fees are often illegal.  The article describes how Wyndham Worldwide and Marriott were sued and settled with the Florida’s Attorney General over adding mandatory surcharges.  The Florida AG aslo has six ongoing investigations.  Undisclosed energy surcharges (we all remember those) and in-room safe fees are among the issues being investigated. 

Second, it is a pretty short sighted plan to increase revenues by upsetting guests… or should we say soon to be former guests.  Check out the comment section on the article.  One commenter says that ‘I have been a loyal Marriott customer but this disgusts me’.  Another commenter says ‘I do not really understand why hotels do this.  How many guests leave thinking to themselves I will never stay here again’.  Another commenter says ‘I’ve been successfully fighting these hotel surcharges for years’.  Finally, another  commenter cracks everyone up with ‘last week I had a phone charge for calling room service.’  Ok, that is pretty funny.

What ‘fees’ make sure that we never become a repeat guest?

Mandatory gratuities or service charges – Hey, if I want to give a tip I will give a tip. 

Fees for internet access – Those of us with cell phones with built in Wi-Fi know that free internet access is everywhere.  There is no way that I would ever pay $12.95 a day for it unless my company reimbursed me and I didn’t like my company.

Resort fees – $30 bucks a day for local phone calls and use of the fitness center?  I have a cell phone and I am on vacation.  There is no way that I am using the fitness center.

Any fee that comes with poor service – In room dining and valet parking are the top two for us.  The service is often poor in those areas and the fees are incredible.

We really believe that these ‘hidden fees’ are really short sighted and bad for your future business.  Stay away from them if you can!

Hilton scored a 79 (a 1 percent increase) while Marriott scored a 77 (a 1 percent decrease).  Hyatt’s scores have plunged 5 percent since last year and now two budget brands (Choice Hotels and Best Western) actually scored higher.  Wyndham scored the worst of any hotel.  Here are the 2009 rankings from best to worst:

1. Hilton
2. Marriott
3. Choice Hotels
4. Best Western
5. InterContinental
6. Hyatt
7. Starwood
8. Wyndham

Overall, despite the rough times that hotels have faced in the last year, the average score in the industry remains unchanged.  However, that is mainly due to guest’s satisfaction with the budget hotels.  Both Choice Hotels and Best Western had a 7 percent increase since last year.

Our take:  Guest are certainly demanding more and it shows.  While it is great to see that overall satisfaction is unchanged, it is tough to see that the budget brands are passing the luxury hotels.  Once luxury brands lose guests to budget brands, it is very difficult to get them back.  What do you think?  Is your hotel losing guests to another brand?  Post your comments below!

I am a food and beverage manager at a hotel with two bars.  Can you tell me some ways that we can increase our revenues?  We are obviously a little bit slower lately, but is there anything that we can do to help?

The selling area of a bartender’s service is always overlooked. These selling standards are extremely important to generating higher revenues. Bartenders can come across as uncaring and unfriendly if they just approach and ask guests, “What can I get for you?” They also will not sell much more than the minimum guest order. Most hotel bars are not like the bars or nightclubs that stand alone. People usually expect more from a hotel bar. The service of a bartender should be similar to that provided by servers to a table of guests that are eating. There are many selling standards that should be in place for each time a guest arrives at the bar. This includes practices such as offering your drink menu to guests whether they know what they want or not, providing a food menu, suggesting any specialty drinks, offering more beverages, and offering bar snacks. Each of these practices has its own effect and benefit on your bartender’s guest service as well as revenues. Here is a breakdown.

Providing Food or Drink Menus

Having a menu in front of a guest makes it more likely that he or she will order something in addition to their normal order. Something on your menu may catch their eye and the guest might try it, giving you more revenues. They may not have been extremely hungry at the time, but just hungry enough to order that shrimp cocktail appetizer. They would not have known about it if a menu was not given to them. This can be done by simply asking the guest if he or she will be eating and providing them with a menu regardless of their answer. It is surprising how few bartenders do this even if the guests are sitting next to other guests that are eating. You cannot wait for a guest to ask for a menu.

Suggesting Specialty Drinks

Most hotel bars have their own special drink creations. Usually, by placing these drinks on your menu, you feel that they are tasty and charge a premium for them. Why then, would bartenders not try to sell them? In addition to providing a menu upon greeting the guest, bartenders need to offer a specialty drink or two by name. Most guests have their own predetermined drinks, but may try certain things on a bartender’s suggestion and recommendation. Why let the guest order an $8 vodka tonic when you can attempt to pour them a $13 special martini. This makes the bar more revenues and the bartender higher tips.

Offering Bar Snacks

Offering bar snacks to the guests will show that you are being attentive to them. There has been many times where our mystery shoppers sit at the bar and watch other guests eat their bar snacks without being offered any. Yes, most guests will ask for them but why make your guests ask. Provide them along with every drink that is served. Bar snacks also make your guests a little thirstier and can make them order more drinks. It is a small cost to pay to make your guests stay at your bar longer and order more drinks.

Up-selling To Premium Liquor

Many bartenders will just pour the bar’s well liquor if a guest asks for a generic beverage such as a vodka tonic. It only takes an extra second to ask if the guest would like Grey Goose, Belvedere, or Ketel One. This provides a choice of premium vodkas to the guest, earning your bar those extra few dollars in revenue. Instead of making your well brands the standard, why not make your premiums the standard and your well brands a second choice? If the guest asks what other vodkas your bar has, then you can tell them all your brands. It is pretty uncommon for bar guests to ask directly for the cheapest vodka you have.

Offering a Second (or Third) Drink

Before the guest is finished with the beverage in front of them, make sure that your bartender is offering them another one.  By doing so, you are attempting to keep the guest there longer and ordering more drinks.  They may not have stayed but by asking if the guest wants another beverage frequently causes the guest to quickly finish up their current one and agree to another one.  Everyone knows why guests go to your bar, so you have got to keep them ordering before they think they have had enough.  Obviously, remember your TIPS training and do not overdo it.

To make sure that your bartenders are consistently hitting these selling standards, continue to do regular mystery shopping.  You will see your revenues start to climb up in no time.

Have any tips of your own?  Post them below!  Have a question that you would like answered?  Post it below or send it to us via the contact page.

The article talks about how guests are finding much better deals on hotel rooms now then ever before, especially at luxury hotels.  But the most important part of the article is the section titled ‘Guests Notice Cutbacks’.  From the article:Hotels cannot hide all the cutbacks. Some frequent travelers say they’re starting to notice little things.  From the article:

Some amenities — such as a bottle of water in the room or a newspaper delivered to the door — are gone. The quality of complimentary food and beverages has diminished in some club rooms or lobbies, or at hotel managers’ guest receptions, they say.

Because many hotels have cut their staffs, frequent travelers say they’re waiting longer to check in and out, have rooms made up and have cars retrieved by valets.

“There are fewer people to provide basic services, answer questions and make suggestions for restaurants and activities,” says Howard Knoff, an education consultant in Little Rock.

 

Our Mystery Shoppers have also noticed the cutbacks.  In fact, many hotels have already cut back too far.  Our shoppers have waited in lines to check in and check out where there used to never be lines.  The phone calls that used to always be answered within 3 rings are now being placed on hold by the automated attendant.  Many outlets are now closed or are operating at reduced staffing levels and reduced hours.

What should you be doing now?  We understand the need to make cuts to maintain a profit level, however, don’t take it to far that the guest experience today is different than the guest experience in the past.  Keep in mind that hotel revenues and profits come and go.  You cannot keep cutting to maintain the same pre-recession profits.  Most hotels have made great profits prior to the recession.  Hopefully, some of those profits were saved to get your hotel past these rainy days.The main focus should be on keeping guest service at the same level.  Your competition is.  Guests are more price sensitive then ever before.  Any slight decrease in guest service will have your guests looking for better options.

At a recent stay at a very fancy and expensive hotel, we ran into many issues.  The issues ranged from very small to a very large one but regardless, it did not seem that the guest service team was properly trained to handle the problems that we encountered.  Though they were able to fix the problems quickly and satifactorily, the guest service team was not empathetic or even apologetic at all.  This made our mystery shopper feel very unimportant even though we had just paid over $400 for the night.  

To see the effect of slight changes in your team’s words on your guest service, please read this article on the Hotel & Motel Management website.  

The author, Doug Kennedy, provides great examples of what many of your associates currently say to guests and what they should say instead.  It is a great way to improve your guest service without much cost!  For example, Kennedy points out the dreaded way to greeting a lone-diner at a restaruant with, “Just One?”, making the diner feel even lonelier.    He provides an excellent way to greet those guests by using, “Welcome to the restuarant, are you ready to be seated?”  The author also gives a few other great examples but leaves you to figure out how this concept can be applied to the many other areas of guest contact in your hotels.  It is a great way to keep your current guests happy and have them continue to choose your hotel in the future without spending any money!