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Had Trouble Getting a Fridge or Cooler In a Room?
How I see it as a young, small fish in an old, large pond...
Had Trouble Getting a Fridge or Cooler In a Room?
In this article, a reader expresses their concerns about being questioned too thoroughly on the reason they are requesting a refrigerator. The questions he claims to have been asked do indeed sound too personal, like asking if they throw up from an allergic reaction. A spokesperson for Marriott said that it is to make sure that the right people are getting the refrigerators in the case of their inventory running low. While that may be true, I feel there is a different reason. At many hotels, they charge for the rental of a refrigerator, but usually make exceptions for medical purposes. This turns into one of those experienced-travelers tricks where someone learns what they need to say in order to avoid paying a fee. The downside to this is that it makes hotel employees skeptical and dig a little deeper to make sure they are getting deserved revenue.
Another concern addressed in this article is that the traveler writing in said that the bellman allowed him to take a cooler to the room, even though it was against hotel policy, as long as the guest didn’t say how he got it up there. This is a problem industry wide. Whether it is bringing alcohol or pets up to the room, many bellmen will look the other way if it means getting a better tip, or a tip at all. If the bellman tells the guest they can’t bring an item to the room, it’s like kissing their tip good-bye. When things like this happen, it is important to explain to the employee who made the exception. In the case of allowing a guest to sneak alcohol into the guest room, there can be grave consequences, which employees may not always understand. In some states, it is not legal for guests to consume alcohol on property that was not provided by the establishment, so this creates a liability risk. Also, allowing a guest to sneak up alcohol may turn a room that has only one name registered to it into a 10+ person party creating noise disturbances on the floor, leading to room rate adjustments for near by guests. That is when you have to ask the employee who allowed the guest to take the cooler up to the room if $500 in room rate adjustment was worth their $10 tip.
Had Trouble Getting a Fridge or Cooler In a Room?
In this article, a reader expresses their concerns about being questioned too thoroughly on the reason they are requesting a refrigerator. The questions he claims to have been asked do indeed sound too personal, like asking if they throw up from an allergic reaction. A spokesperson for Marriott said that it is to make sure that the right people are getting the refrigerators in the case of their inventory running low. While that may be true, I feel there is a different reason. At many hotels, they charge for the rental of a refrigerator, but usually make exceptions for medical purposes. This turns into one of those experienced-travelers tricks where someone learns what they need to say in order to avoid paying a fee. The downside to this is that it makes hotel employees skeptical and dig a little deeper to make sure they are getting deserved revenue.
Another concern addressed in this article is that the traveler writing in said that the bellman allowed him to take a cooler to the room, even though it was against hotel policy, as long as the guest didn’t say how he got it up there. This is a problem industry wide. Whether it is bringing alcohol or pets up to the room, many bellmen will look the other way if it means getting a better tip, or a tip at all. If the bellman tells the guest they can’t bring an item to the room, it’s like kissing their tip good-bye. When things like this happen, it is important to explain to the employee who made the exception. In the case of allowing a guest to sneak alcohol into the guest room, there can be grave consequences, which employees may not always understand. In some states, it is not legal for guests to consume alcohol on property that was not provided by the establishment, so this creates a liability risk. Also, allowing a guest to sneak up alcohol may turn a room that has only one name registered to it into a 10+ person party creating noise disturbances on the floor, leading to room rate adjustments for near by guests. That is when you have to ask the employee who allowed the guest to take the cooler up to the room if $500 in room rate adjustment was worth their $10 tip.
HMT: Issue #15 for the week 8/17/08
Hotel Manager Talk: Issue #15 for the week of 8/17/08
Stories Read:
Stories Read:
- STR Report update from previous week
Found on - The Fraud Triangle
Article by Ken Burgin found on hotelnewsresource - Women-Friendly Hotel Floors Return
Article by Paul Burnham Finney found on nytimes - Hyatt Overhauling Regency Brand Hotels
Article by Michael Baker found on btnmag - Polishing for the Inauguration
Article by Jane Levere found on nytimes - Air Travelers Avoid 41 Million Trips
Found on hotelnewsresource - Industry Mourns Loss of IHG America's Leader
Article by Patrick Mayock found on HotelNewsNow
Download | Duration: 00:22:07
How the Minimum Wage Will Affect Your State
How I see it as a small, young fish in an old, large pond...
How the Minimum Wage Will Affect Your State
The federal minimum wage is going from $5.85 to $6.55. What is the difference between the government saying that you must charge a minimum rate of $10,000 a night for a standard room, or that you must pay an employee $6.55 per hour? A lot actually, but the commonality is that the government is essentially establishing contracts for you. Whether it is a contract for an employee-business relationship or for a consumer-business relationship, each party involved should be able to come to an agreement on their own, with out having the government interfere in their negotiation. If you want to hire someone to only pick the cigarettes out of an ash tray and nothing else, you shouldn’t be required to pay them a certain amount more if the job is only worth $3 an hour rate of pay. Competition would probably increase that hourly wage in short time, but let the industry regulate the position’s worth. And what does a bigger paycheck for an employee mean for the government? The same percentage of taxes taken out, but now a bigger amount. And with a slumping economy, who is paying business owner’s back for this required increase in pay? Perhaps another $600 rebate check is just around the corner!
How the Minimum Wage Will Affect Your State
The federal minimum wage is going from $5.85 to $6.55. What is the difference between the government saying that you must charge a minimum rate of $10,000 a night for a standard room, or that you must pay an employee $6.55 per hour? A lot actually, but the commonality is that the government is essentially establishing contracts for you. Whether it is a contract for an employee-business relationship or for a consumer-business relationship, each party involved should be able to come to an agreement on their own, with out having the government interfere in their negotiation. If you want to hire someone to only pick the cigarettes out of an ash tray and nothing else, you shouldn’t be required to pay them a certain amount more if the job is only worth $3 an hour rate of pay. Competition would probably increase that hourly wage in short time, but let the industry regulate the position’s worth. And what does a bigger paycheck for an employee mean for the government? The same percentage of taxes taken out, but now a bigger amount. And with a slumping economy, who is paying business owner’s back for this required increase in pay? Perhaps another $600 rebate check is just around the corner!
Parking: A Neglected Profit Center
How I see it as a young, small fish in an old, large pond...
Parking: A Neglected Profit Center
The best part of one of my previous properties not contracting valet services was that I got to drive amazingly expensive cars that I’ve only driven in my dreams. Even better is when the parking lot is empty in the middle of a snowstorm and doing “8’s” on the ice with someone else’s car…just kidding. Parking, to guests, is like the Internet charge- a surprise upon arrival. Guest’s fail to ask the right questions or do the proper research and it is a huge shock to them that they need to pay to park their car. It would be great if during every booking a Reservationist could give a guest every piece of information ahead of time, including local laws, like when a guest insists they can keep their horse in their guest room because they weren’t told they couldn’t (true story). Smaller hotel chains and bed and breakfasts will usually mention it at the time of booking over the phone, but bigger reservation centers not on the hotel property won’t always press for that info from the guest. So when the guest arrives it and first finds out about it, it sometimes creates a rocky start to their experience. That is why prying for information from guests over the phone, and in person, is so important, and why all of your employees who answer a phone need to be on the same page, and forecast the guests’ needs. I wouldn’t call it lying-by-exclusion, but it is better to let the guest know up front. And if nothing else, it’s a nice bargaining tool when you don’t want to make any adjustments to your room revenue for an unhappy guest. As long as your rates are competitive, the guest has little bargaining power thinking you are taking advantage of them.
Parking: A Neglected Profit Center
The best part of one of my previous properties not contracting valet services was that I got to drive amazingly expensive cars that I’ve only driven in my dreams. Even better is when the parking lot is empty in the middle of a snowstorm and doing “8’s” on the ice with someone else’s car…just kidding. Parking, to guests, is like the Internet charge- a surprise upon arrival. Guest’s fail to ask the right questions or do the proper research and it is a huge shock to them that they need to pay to park their car. It would be great if during every booking a Reservationist could give a guest every piece of information ahead of time, including local laws, like when a guest insists they can keep their horse in their guest room because they weren’t told they couldn’t (true story). Smaller hotel chains and bed and breakfasts will usually mention it at the time of booking over the phone, but bigger reservation centers not on the hotel property won’t always press for that info from the guest. So when the guest arrives it and first finds out about it, it sometimes creates a rocky start to their experience. That is why prying for information from guests over the phone, and in person, is so important, and why all of your employees who answer a phone need to be on the same page, and forecast the guests’ needs. I wouldn’t call it lying-by-exclusion, but it is better to let the guest know up front. And if nothing else, it’s a nice bargaining tool when you don’t want to make any adjustments to your room revenue for an unhappy guest. As long as your rates are competitive, the guest has little bargaining power thinking you are taking advantage of them.
HMT: Issue #14 for the week 8/10/08
Download | Duration: 00:24:56
Hotel Manager Talk: Issue #14 for the week of 8/10/08
Stories Read:
- STR Report update from previous week
Found on Smith Travel Research - Hotel Guests Are Considerably Less Satisfied in 2008
Found on HotelNewsResource.com - Best New Budget Hotels
Article by Andrea Bennett found on TravelAndLeisure.com - Fewer Airline Hotel Vouchers Means More Sleeping at Airports
Article by Shannon McDonnell found on www.IHT.com - Social Networks Target Business Travelers
Article by Claire Atkinson found on www.IHT.com - Suite Dreams Are Made of This
Article by Sarah Nassauer found on WallStreetJournal.com - Gay Rights Groups to Boycott Manchester Grand Hyatt
Article by Bill Ainsworth found on HotelsMag.com
Wyndham Hotels to Offer 'Allergy-Friendly' Rooms and Meeting Spaces
How I see it as a young, small fish in an old, large pond...
Wyndham Hotels to Offer 'Allergy-Friendly' Rooms and Meeting Spaces
I am glad to hear that at least one company is forecasting the guest need by having the rooms preset feather, odor, and allergen free. This will save housekeeping countless hours of searching for foam pillows and it will no longer be out of the ordinary to have sheets prepared that have been washed with no chemicals. By 2009, Wyndham will be required to have at least 25 rooms ‘Allergy-Friendly’. This is one of those helpful quotas to have, versus the smoking room requirement. A guest staying in an ‘Allergy-Friendly’ room may not even know, and will have no reason to complain when they are all you have left at the end of the night. In fact, it is the opposite of forcing people into a smoking room on a sold out night when they claim they are allergic to smoke. Thankfully, few are allergic to foam and a lack of odor. CleanAir rooms, part of the PURE Solution offered by Wyndham, go the whole nine yards to ensure rooms are fully compliant to be ‘allergy-friendly’. From the walls, to the carpet, to the fabrics and bedcovers- they’ve got it all covered, literally. As a plus, every less squeeze of the spray bottle trigger is a few pennies saved. I wonder how they will handle violators that smoke in these rooms if they can’t spray odors to hide the smell.
Wyndham Hotels to Offer 'Allergy-Friendly' Rooms and Meeting Spaces
I am glad to hear that at least one company is forecasting the guest need by having the rooms preset feather, odor, and allergen free. This will save housekeeping countless hours of searching for foam pillows and it will no longer be out of the ordinary to have sheets prepared that have been washed with no chemicals. By 2009, Wyndham will be required to have at least 25 rooms ‘Allergy-Friendly’. This is one of those helpful quotas to have, versus the smoking room requirement. A guest staying in an ‘Allergy-Friendly’ room may not even know, and will have no reason to complain when they are all you have left at the end of the night. In fact, it is the opposite of forcing people into a smoking room on a sold out night when they claim they are allergic to smoke. Thankfully, few are allergic to foam and a lack of odor. CleanAir rooms, part of the PURE Solution offered by Wyndham, go the whole nine yards to ensure rooms are fully compliant to be ‘allergy-friendly’. From the walls, to the carpet, to the fabrics and bedcovers- they’ve got it all covered, literally. As a plus, every less squeeze of the spray bottle trigger is a few pennies saved. I wonder how they will handle violators that smoke in these rooms if they can’t spray odors to hide the smell.
Using Downtimes to Boost Production & Cut Costs
How I see it as a young, small fish in an old, large pond...
Using Downtimes to Boost Production & Cut Costs
Ah, "downtime", the escape we all look forward to, and then beg for business to pick up when boredom sets in. There are only so many times you can gamble on who can make the most shots of crumpled paper into the waste basket (the recycling one of course). But downtime less people and more work for you. Who can forget being M.O.D., F.O.M, security, bellman, concierge, and PBX all at once? As the person to bear the burden of being an “entry level manager” it is easy to want to be furious with your upper level managers who aren’t there to; check in the guest, make their dinner reservation, deliver their luggage, answer the house phone when they get locked out and then be the one to unlock their door. It turns out to be one of those things “you understand when you’re older.” Everything looks better on paper.
When there is time to lean, there is time to clean, and there is always something that can be done. Don’t let slow days take a toll on your employees, they want something to do. Have a list of tedious tasks that get overlooked during busy season, and reinforce the task’s importance. Have a contest on who can answer the phone quickest. Go through old guest envelopes/packages and trash the items that have been there all year. And my all time favorite, get out the key card cleaners and have your staff make sure there isn’t a speck of dirt in any guest room door-lock. And my last resort, which would be my bosses first preference- take volunteers to go home early. My biggest fear with cutting staff is when the hotel sees that you can operate your department with such low staff levels; they try and make it even tighter the next year, just to mess with you.
If you scheduled someone for two hours to clean your house and they finish after the first hour, would you let them just sit around getting paid? We all want our money’s worth, especially the person analyzing your payroll.
Using Downtimes to Boost Production & Cut Costs
Ah, "downtime", the escape we all look forward to, and then beg for business to pick up when boredom sets in. There are only so many times you can gamble on who can make the most shots of crumpled paper into the waste basket (the recycling one of course). But downtime less people and more work for you. Who can forget being M.O.D., F.O.M, security, bellman, concierge, and PBX all at once? As the person to bear the burden of being an “entry level manager” it is easy to want to be furious with your upper level managers who aren’t there to; check in the guest, make their dinner reservation, deliver their luggage, answer the house phone when they get locked out and then be the one to unlock their door. It turns out to be one of those things “you understand when you’re older.” Everything looks better on paper.
When there is time to lean, there is time to clean, and there is always something that can be done. Don’t let slow days take a toll on your employees, they want something to do. Have a list of tedious tasks that get overlooked during busy season, and reinforce the task’s importance. Have a contest on who can answer the phone quickest. Go through old guest envelopes/packages and trash the items that have been there all year. And my all time favorite, get out the key card cleaners and have your staff make sure there isn’t a speck of dirt in any guest room door-lock. And my last resort, which would be my bosses first preference- take volunteers to go home early. My biggest fear with cutting staff is when the hotel sees that you can operate your department with such low staff levels; they try and make it even tighter the next year, just to mess with you.
If you scheduled someone for two hours to clean your house and they finish after the first hour, would you let them just sit around getting paid? We all want our money’s worth, especially the person analyzing your payroll.
HMT: Issue #13 for the week 8/3/08
Download | Duration: 00:24:25
Hotel Manager Talk: Issue #13 for the week of 8/3/08
Stories Read:
- STR Report update from previous week
Found on Smith Travel Research - Hyatt Place Named Top Mid-Scale Full Service Brand by J.D. Power and Associates
Found on BusinessWire.com - The New Wave in Hotels Making a Big Splash
Article by Alexandra Peers found on MSNBC.com - I'll Have the Dress That Matches My Room...Please
Article by Lorenza Alessie found on HotelNewsResource.com - New H.R. Trend Shows Shift to Aging Workforce
Article by Fern Glazer found on HotelInteractive.com - Sleeping Under the Stars
Article by David Wilkening found on HotelInteractive.com - Million Dollar Gems
Article by David Wilkening found on HotelInteractive.com
Useful Hotel and Hospitality Links
HotelBlogs.org gives you direct access to the best hotel, resort, restaurant, hospitality, tourism and travel blogs on the web.
HotelToolBox.com
A site hosted by Michael Chafin, a two decade veteran in the hospitality industry. This site has great operational tools and resources for new hotels. Michael also hosts the podcast IndieHotelier.com
"Part insider, part employee, part consumer." Chris, editor of VacantReady, is a Canadian hotel professional based out of Cairo, Egypt. This blog features original stories from the hotel industry in Cairo and far beyond.
A simple base for the posting of news and commentary related to hotel, inn-keeping, restaurant and other tourism and hospitality related industries and sectors. Comment on articles posted on this blog and let everyone know what you think - the main audience for these pages are students, alumni, educators and professionals from the industry, so it makes for a great discussion and exchange platform for ideas and developments.
YoungHotelier.com
A blog embodying the spirit, knowledge and expertise of those who are involved in the hospitality industry and have made that life choice to devote their time and efforts to serving others.
Border Land Hospitality Blog
A valuable site "helping hotels do what they do best, better." This is a great spot to find books, articles, and principles for providing excellent customer service and doing whatever it takes, all from the mind of Will Maguire, CHA.
Blowing Smoke at $500 a Shot
How I see it as a young, small fish in an old, large pond...
Blowing Smoke at $500 a Shot
My favorite response from a guest when I tell them I have charged them for smoking in a non-smoking room is “BUT I REQUESTED A SMOKING ROOM!” If only it were that simple, then you could ask for the “Murdering Room” as well. Since this trend began, it makes it easier and easier for other hotels to jump on board since they aren’t the ones who came up with charging the guest an insane fee, whether it is $500 in Hawaii or $250 in most states. I agree it is a complete pain to get that smoke smell out, let alone for a non smoking guest into a room that smells with no other options on a sold out night- but most hotels don’t use that money to “deep clean” the room, they just put it to the bottom line. With a picture or a credible manager with a nose, it is pretty difficult for a guest to get these charges removed from their bill, even when they bring it to the corporate level. Obviously it is easier for your front desk staff to inform the guest that their room is non smoking before going to their room so that you cover yourself even more, but a lot of hotels put up non smoking signs on the room-number signs, in the room, and on the guest floor signs. Sometimes that is still not enough. I am not sure why guests think we OWE it to them to have smoking rooms for them, but just like with everything else- they should call to confirm availability. My hotel only has 0.4% of the inventory as smoking rooms, but in a business district it is usually not a problem to fill them. The problem is dealing with the people who “NEED” smoking rooms. I show them entrance of the hotel where there is an ashtray outside just for them.
Blowing Smoke at $500 a Shot
My favorite response from a guest when I tell them I have charged them for smoking in a non-smoking room is “BUT I REQUESTED A SMOKING ROOM!” If only it were that simple, then you could ask for the “Murdering Room” as well. Since this trend began, it makes it easier and easier for other hotels to jump on board since they aren’t the ones who came up with charging the guest an insane fee, whether it is $500 in Hawaii or $250 in most states. I agree it is a complete pain to get that smoke smell out, let alone for a non smoking guest into a room that smells with no other options on a sold out night- but most hotels don’t use that money to “deep clean” the room, they just put it to the bottom line. With a picture or a credible manager with a nose, it is pretty difficult for a guest to get these charges removed from their bill, even when they bring it to the corporate level. Obviously it is easier for your front desk staff to inform the guest that their room is non smoking before going to their room so that you cover yourself even more, but a lot of hotels put up non smoking signs on the room-number signs, in the room, and on the guest floor signs. Sometimes that is still not enough. I am not sure why guests think we OWE it to them to have smoking rooms for them, but just like with everything else- they should call to confirm availability. My hotel only has 0.4% of the inventory as smoking rooms, but in a business district it is usually not a problem to fill them. The problem is dealing with the people who “NEED” smoking rooms. I show them entrance of the hotel where there is an ashtray outside just for them.