Our analyst was first sent to visit the Holiday Inn.  The analyst had never visited this Holiday Inn before.  He arrived at the airport and called the hotel to request a shuttle to pick him up.  The GSA who took the call verified the analyst’s name and checked the reservation before sending over the driver.  The hotel was only a few minutes from the airport so they analyst arrived a the hotel pretty quickly.  As soon as the analyst walked into the lobby, the GSA greeted him with ‘welcome to the Holiday Inn, Mr. Smith’.  Obviously, the GSA was really prepared.  He logged the analyst’s name when he requested the shuttle so he knew to use it when he saw the shuttle drop off the analyst.  Even though the analyst had never been to that hotel before, that initial 10 seconds really made the analyst feel like he was returning home.  The GSA then conducted the check in as he normal does by thanking the analyst for being a Priority Club member, telling the analyst about the hotel amenities, and then directing the analyst how to get to his room. 

A few days later, our analyst was sent to the Ritz-Carlton.  This was the first time the analyst visited this Ritz-Carlton.  The analyst arrived at the hotel by car and pulled into valet parking.  The analyst was immediately greeted by a valet attendant and welcomed to the hotel.  The valet attendant asked the analyst if he was checking in and then asked him for his name.  He wrote the analyst’s name on the valet ticket and had the bellman load up the luggage onto a bell cart.  The valet attendant then told the analyst that he could enter the lobby to register and the luggage would be delivered and the car would be parked.  As soon as the analyst entered the hotel, a GSA greeted him with ‘good afternoon, Mr. Smith’.  The GSA was wearing an earpiece and was told by the valet attendant that Mr. Smith would be entering the lobby.  Just like at the Holiday Inn, it is a truly amazing feeling to be welcomed to a hotel by name.  It made the analyst feel like a celebrity.  The Ritz-Carlton also repeated the experience at check out.  The analyst called down to ask for a bellman to check out.  When the analyst arrived at the lobby with the bellman, the GSA who never met the analyst before immediately greeted him by name.  He was also tipped off by the radio so he knew that when a guest came down with the bellman that it was Mr. Smith. 

How often does this type of service happen?  Almost never.  But I can promise you that if your hotel can achieve this level of service with your guests, you will have more repeat guests than you can imagine.

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:

Fanciest – 1. Ritz-Carlton  2. Grand Hyatt

Luxury – 1. Renaissance  2. Embassy Suites  3. Marriott  4. Westin  5. Hilton  6. Hyatt  7. Doubletree  8. Sheraton

Upscale – 1. Homewood Suites  2. Walt Disney Resorts  3. Residence Inn  4. Hilton Garden Inn  5. Harrah’s  6. Springhill Suites  7. Hyatt Place  8. Courtyard by Marriott  9. Wyndham  10. Crowne Plaza  11. Radisson

Some interesting observations:

Out of 48 brands, only one hotel, the Ritz-Carlton, scored excellent on service.  Only 10 others scored very good.  The other 37 hotels scored average or worse on service.  Ouch.

Many full service brands like Doubletree, Sheraton, Wyndham, Crowne Plaza, and Radisson, are falling behind the limited service brands in overall satisfaction. 

Guest are experiencing a surprising number of problems.  Out of the 48 brands, not a single brand scored excellent, and only 7 brands scored very good.  The chain with the least amount of problems (Drury Inn & Suites) still had 14 percent of guests reporting a problem!  The chain with the most problems had 47 percent of guests reporting a problem.

Sounds like we all have some work to do on our guest service!

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!

Other travel companies that made the list were Jetblue Airlines (19) and Enterprise Rent-A-Car (16).

To view the full list on BusinessWeek’s website, click here.