Customers (and more often, consumers) now have more choice than they have ever had in the professional history of hospitality. From budget airport to luxury resorts, from rowdy city-centre lifestyle to family-focused nature reserves – guests have the ability to book and experience a variety of hotels.
Liutauras "LV" Vaitkevicius has applied his considerable hospitality acumen in leadership roles with Point A Hotels, Good Hotel Group, Birch, and Zetter Group. He's renowned for his ability to create streamlined tech stacks of integrated systems and processes, but in this guest blog, he reminds us about the basics behind great hospitality.
Graveyards of hospitality are littered with concepts and ideas that never quite took off, or simply died quietly after much fanfare. In a world where investment cycles are getting shorter, and interest rates remain stubbornly high, it is the reliability and predictability of basics that continue to attract and build loyalty of ever-better-educated consumers.
Yet, seemingly, there are still loads of developers and hoteliers that miss the mark, and seem to forget the very basics of truly great hospitality. Layering experience with artwork will seldom help with the fact that perhaps beds are old and uncomfortable. Just as a Michelin-star chef will not compensate for the fact that service may be slow, inattentive or downright poor.
So let’s examine and define what makes hotel stays good or even great – regardless of location, branding, concepts or whose artwork hangs in reception.
Firstly, it’s the human element. Hospitality unavoidably starts, lives and ends with the human touch. No amount of transactional layering, tech or procedures will ever replace this. For it is a uniquely service industry, driven by interactions and ambience that teams and individuals are able to create.
From first touchpoints, be it over email, telephone or simple ‘hello’ at reception, to troubleshooting during the stay, to final ‘goodbye’ – all of these are exclusively delivered by us humans. While design and artwork may attempt to make us feel a certain way, it is personal interactions that either cement or detract us from it.
Great leaderships (or, more rarely, ownerships) recognise that, and in turn they create cultures and ways of working to enable these interactions. They also recognise that there are only one or two steps between them and the guest – those steps quite literally being every single employee of the business, and this is what defines the aura and ambience of the place.
Allowing employees to be themselves while still delivering standards is no easy job. Not only does it require fine-tuning, it’s also an ongoing balancing act. As every experienced manager will tell you – they are nothing without their people. And business will never be successful unless those same people care about every guest, care about quality and results day in and day out.
Secondly, hotel cleanliness and maintenance are the epitome of a brilliant basic. As many operators will tell you, this is often the hardest yet most invisible part of the operation. Labour costs, training challenges and ever-changing team structures truly do create headaches more often than any hotelier would care to admit. And yet, this is a core principle of the hotel business: to provide a safe and comfortable good night’s sleep. And this, regardless of location, concept, brand or size of the asset, is one single constant in every hotel, everywhere in the world.
However, as most well-travelled guests know, this is an area that fails to deliver way too often. Too often, and perhaps unfairly, the glory of a great hotel is attributed to sales, revenue, design and front of house teams. Yet, after all goes quiet, our guests expect to be in their own space, where they feel the building is looked after, spaces are truly well maintained, and cleanliness upholds only the highest standards.
Too often there is dust on AC vents, the shower head hasn’t been descaled since Moses crossed the Red Sea, and there is a cobweb in the corner. It is scary to think how many of those things are noticed immediately by the guest, yet seemingly invisible team of cleaners, engineers and supervisors.
Clarity of concept and proposition is another basic that leads to confusion and downright complaints. Hospitality, by its nature, is both innovative and archaic. Humanly interactive and transactional. Asset-led and delivered through service. Contradictions are built-in, and yet owners and operators seemingly continue to recognise the need to be clear about what it is that they are offering.
In this day and age, where our needs and wants are driven by FOMO (Fear of Missing Out), social media and the whole concept of “influencing”, there is truly something for everyone. Yet doing everything for everyone always risks killing the very essence of whatever concept you are building. This transpires through all layers of the business: sales (are you selling to the right clientele), marketing (are you appealing to the right crowd), operations (are you delivering what’s promised) and financials (are you actually running a sustainable business).
Accepting that not everyone will find your idea attractive is good. In fact, it’s great – for it will allow you to focus on your ideal guests. Those that will not only come and stay with you, but will also become your natural ambassadors. So, whatever it is that you want to do – do it well. Be clear and be brave and be unapologetic. And be crystal clear, starting with yourself.
And thus, we move to comfort. Many design magazines have been dedicated to the art that is interior design. In hospitality, perhaps more than any other industry, for it tends to be our calling card, and a marketing shortcut in itself. Nevertheless, too often, actual physical spaces tend to be a let-down.
That beautiful chair actually doesn’t match the height of the desk, and that designer sofa is too soft, and guests naturally avoid it. And what about those plates, cutlery and glasses that looked amazing in photoshoots – turns out all these are awkward to hold, are perhaps too heavy and simply do not fit on the table when there is more than one of you! Any opening manager could probably write an essay about things that had gone wrong, and how it all has undermined guests’ basic perception of the space.
We are not at all advocating simplifying or dumbing everything down – quite the opposite. Design, aesthetics and general ambience are an essential part of creating memorable experiences. Yet basic human (some would say anatomical) comfort should not be forfeited because of aesthetics. Quite the opposite – it should be enhanced through all possible senses. Thinking back on concepts, it has reiterated that not everything will fit or work for everyone. And that is perfectly fine.
Soft or hard pillows are a subjective preference; power showers are rarely a demand, but often an expectation. However, moving awkwardly around tables, or not having a basic shelf in the bathroom to keep your toothbrush on shouldn’t ever be open to debate. Not when it’s a matter of the basic comforts of a hotel stay.
And so we move to the last, but not the least, area of brilliant basics: customer service. Many books have been written, many bestsellers discussed (my personal favourite – Unreasonable Hospitality by Will Guidara), debated and dissected by all of us in the industry. But one theme is constant: pay attention to your customers.
Regardless of your concept, your level or your location – it is how you pay attention to your customers that defines you in both the short and the long term. Expectations, of course, come into play strongly here too. You wouldn’t rave about Royal treatment in a five-star hotel on Park Lane in Central London (it’s expected), yet you would tell everyone and their mum about the amazing meal you’ve had in the outskirts of Florence, when you were hungry, and this Italian nonna pinched you on the cheek and shoved a bowl of pasta into your face.
My point being – service and delivery are an innately human trait, created by human interaction. And being memorable is only possible by being true to yourself, regardless of training or whose uniform you are wearing.
Focus on your guests, enable your teams to be themselves, and watch the magic happen. Brilliant basics will always be there as non-negotiables and will always enable the rest of the business to be successful. For when your foundation is strong, so will be your walls and your roof.