Top,mistakes,when,opening,hote business, insurance Top 10 mistakes when opening a hotel

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800x600 Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE TH MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable{mso-style-name:"Table Normal";mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0;mso-tstyle-colband-size:0;mso-style-noshow:yes;mso-style-priority:99;mso-style-parent:"";mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt;mso-para-margin:0in;mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt;mso-pagination:widow-orphan;font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";mso-bidi-font-family:"Cordia New";} After actively participating for 18 hotel openings as a managerand hotel consultant, I am somehow surprised aboutthe fact that most independent hotel investors unintentionally – but alsointentionally - make exactly the same mistakes over and over again which alwaysturn out to be very costly! I am writing down these “top 10”mistakes in a hope that this list might help some developers and owners.   As we are hotel consultants, wesincerely believe that a consultant must be the most honest, transparent,straight-forward and therefore most trustworthy person close to the owners andinvestors. A consultant’s intention shouldNEVER be to keep hotel owners and investors ‘in the dark’!  A true consultant must educate advice andprovide samples of good and bad practices.  A hotel consultant must also be a good teacher– not a lecturer!  We must guide and useall channels of communication to pass on knowledge to others.  We choose to write articles in a hope that ithelps and inspires others.   Mistake No1 - Vision and Mission. Honestly, it is hard tounderstand that so many hotels and resorts open their doors without a proper writtenvision and mission statement.  OR, thevision and mission is most of the times not clear at all, or only clear in themind of the owners.  On top of that, nobodycommunicates the vision and mission to managers and employees.  How the employees will know what is expectedand understand the ‘big picture’?  Asmentioned in one of our earlier articles, this silly mistake ensures that thebusiness ends up following the habits of senior managers and owners and not theorganizational vision and mission. Mistake No 2 - Salesand Marketing? – No need now! “I have many friends and theyare well connected.  I and my relativesare well known people who are VIP.  Wewill all ensure that we will have many guests using the hotel and ourfacilities!” Yes, don’t be shocked! - Theabove sayings are what I did hear from several hotel owners.  Those VIP hotel guests did come, yes, but theynever paid their bills as they almost always expected to be invited since theyare good friend of the owners.  The resultof non-existing Sales and Marketing is very costly. Mistake No3 - Hiring of Departmental Managers. Surprisingly, some new hotelsand resorts do hire their Hotel Manager and Department Head Team just weeksbefore the opening and strongly believe that this will be fine.  After all, they are manager, expensive andshould be able to get it right in a few days…… some owners think! To my knowledge and from myexperience, this is mostly done to save some hotel pre-opening costs as the neededmoney has been already lost during the construction process because of badplanning and ongoing adjustments to drawings and the building.  At one occasion I have seenthat the whole management team for a 150 room hotel here in Thailand to be hiredjust 2 weeks before the opening.  Theowner kindly fired the team after 2 months as in his opinion, the teamwas not able to implement proper systems and service standards fast enough.  Some of the bestemployees did resign as well, as the pressure working without a properpre-opening was too much.  I say itagain, if you don’t work professionally, your most capable employees will leaveyou first!  Mistake No4 - Purchasing. The purchasing process forequipment, utensils and amenities is all done by the owner without any hotel managerand departmental manager comments, input and specifications.  Once the manager and departmental leadersjoined the hotel for the opening, there was no budget left for any additionalpurchases, as most of what owners choose are to serve their own preference andstyle, but not functional or practical to the workers and guest use.  So, the hotel or resort did end up withequipment and utensils which are not always usable, have wrong specifications, over-specsor under-specs. Again, the owners or seniormanagers never stopped wondering why professional people left the company andwhy the quality of products and service are not up to any standard! Mistake No 5 - EmployeeRestaurant and Facilities Strangely, employees, employee facilities and welfareseem to be the least and least important thing on owners and developers minds.I know one hotel where the owner had even meetings with the employees, right afterthe opening, lecturing them how good the hotel will be, explaining howprofessional and generous the owners are as they did buy only the bestqualities and products for the guests.  He said he is not stingy and use only the best and mostcomfortable furniture, amenities, cars, etc.  The owner also asked staff to work harder andbe more committed to have a good hotel forgetting that all employees worked 2months without a day off!   The employees listen and wondered what he istalking about while sitting on a dusty concrete floor inside a badly ventilatedand non-air conditioned concrete shell of room, eating from a Styrofoam foodbox with plastic cutlery and without any proper uniforms and only one rest-roomfor 100 employees.  I am sure I don’t haveto write down here what those employees did think and even say to each otherabout this owner after the meeting was over. Mistake No 6 - Training So far I found only 3 independent hotel owners andinvestors who actually provided proper facilities and time to have proper stafforientations and training for employees before opening the business. Although EVERY single hotel developer said in thebeginning that they fully agree and fully understand that training is very importantand that they fully understand that people need to be trained before openingthe hotel, the fact is that only the true professionalowners did what they say.   Most of the time, employees did not go through anyorientation program or basic training. And then, on the first day of operationthe managers and owners complain the staff directly that they know nothingabout the hotel, that they don’t follow hotel systems, that they don’t providegood service etc.  Mistake No 7 - HumanResource In my humble opinion, any hotelthat opening / running their property without a proper HR person, HR manual andHR systems are operationally committing suicide!!!    I have seen businesses where the majority of staff hasbeen hired without having a written employee benefit list, written rules andregulations, written basic systems etc.  Employeeshave been verbally promised different benefits by different managers etc. Theresult was simply a disaster! And then, once the managementstarted to implement some standardized benefits for each level of employees andsome standard rules and regulations, the Human Resource nightmares become didbecome reality as many employees complained that they only joined thisparticular hotel because of benefits verbally promised by managers. Noteveryone promised the same…..  Mistake No 8 - Back ofthe House Design Seldom is this area given good attention.  In most cases, back-of –house areas have beenassigned based on vacant areas. I wonder so much why proper storage, properoffices with strategic locations, proper restrooms,proper walkways etc. are almost never important to developers and owners.   It ishard, and sometimes almost impossible to explain how the hospitality industry couldmake money from providing a good and smooth service and for this, within arough back-of-house workflow.   It is not only the waiter and the front officestaff who provide a service!  EVERYONE inthe hotel provides a service and ALL Departments and employees work somehowinter-connected. Mistake No9 - Back of the House areas  ·        Why some people believe that that staffdormitories not need proper restrooms, showers and a common room?·        Why some people believe that employees don’tneed proper food and variety of food?·        Why some people believe that employees will nothave cars and bikes which need to be parked somewhere?·        Why some people believe that a proper TrainingRoom is a waste of space?·        Why some people believe that employees don’tneed comfort?   Mistake No 10 - Goodmanagers and staff are easy to find!!!!! Those are some nice actualsentences from owners and developers to think about:·        Spa Therapist not need training, just hire somesexy girls and let them massage the guests.·        My gardener at my home can make up Bed’s; pleaseconsider him as Housekeeping Manager.·        Don’t worry about Accouting and Purchasing; Ihave someone who works for me since 10 years and he is very good with figures.Right now he controls all my drivers in the transportation company.·        I found a good Human Resource Manager for our5-star hotel.  She is the wife of thelocal police Chief. Nobody will dare to complain.·        My Son will be the General Manager; he justgraduated and is very knowledgeable!  ·        Just go to the local market, there are 100 oflocal people who would be happy to work at our hotel even below minimum wage! Mistake No 11 - HotelOpening Support from owners or developers other companies.  Yes, many business ownersforgot to focus on some if not all of the above mentioned points and now theyare very nervous and scared about the operation of the hotel.   So, they ask some family members and employeesfrom other owned businesses which are most of the time not from the hospitalityand service industry, to come and help to do the following:·        Sales and Marketing,·        Purchasing,·        Finance Department,·        Human Resources, “I, my family and staff fromthe factory only like to help! You should not complaint, be happy about it!” I am sure you noticed that Idid end up with a “TOP 11” and not “TOP 10” list! Who cares! JAs a matter of fact, it shouldbe a “TOP 100” list as there are so many areas andsubjects to discuss about.