How Each Hotel Department Can Start Preparing for A "New Normal"​ Re-opening

The re-opening of hotels will likely be gradual, done by risk assessment, and it will probably include many restrictions

By the way, this list is based on the scientific process of baseless, wild speculation, while waiting out the quarantine.

F&B and Restaurant

• Re-do your shift schedule for different % of the usual business. In other words, one schedule each for 30% of last year's business, 50%, 80%, etc. You'll be able to explain to your staff why they are getting only a fraction of last year's hours.

• Research which food costs will increase when you order less volume.

• Move kitchen stations (if at all possible) to create more space.

• Create a re-opening menu with items that limit the number of cooks in the kitchen.

  Front Office/Reservations

• In expectation of occupancy restrictions, add "Covid19 Out-of-Order" designation in your PMS system. These rooms will be tracked differently than regular OOO rooms.

• Decide which rooms you will take out-of-order to ensure social distancing and limit elevator use.

• You may have to read the temperature of all guests when they check-in so decide on whether that will happen at the front door or front desk. You may want to start writing an SOP for this.

• Start talking to your GM about the possibility of requiring a Covid19 affidavit to be signed at the front desk where guests confirm that they have not been close to anyone with virus symptoms.

• Start crafting a Covid19 disclosure for Phone Reservations to read to each guest and to post on the website (with an electronic "Agree" button).

Finance/Revenue Management

• Add a new line for "Covid19 Out-of-Order" rooms to your Pace, Forecast, and Yield reports. This will allow you to better compare Year-over-Year results this year and next year. If you bundle all the OOOs together you will affect the variances.

• Find alternate years to Pace against, maybe 2009. All Pace reports will be negative this year and positive next year so you have to put the number in a different context.

• If there are occupancy limitations, you may be sold out every night, so you have to find alternative metrics to track the strength of the market. Try putting together data from your POS or CRM to track KPIs like average guest spend for all outlets year-over-year.

Operations/Engineering

• Establish process for changing room access and locker distribution for social distancing.

• Simulate common area distancing scenarios, furniture distribution, common bathroom usage rules.

• Do you allow access to the pool by reservation only? If you do, you will need a process for that.

Marketing/Sales

• Practically every page on your website will need a pop-up advisory so might as well start loading those now.

• Compile "Best Guests" list from your CRM to send personalized messages. A simple email blast will be lost in everyone else's email blast.

• Redraw your meeting space floor plans for social distancing requirements. Load the new floor plans to your website.

Spa/Valet/Parking

• Publish your temporary limited menu of spa services.

• Determine bag handling procedures. Is the bellman allowed into the rooms when they are exposed to common areas of the hotel?.

The Art of War, Post-Covid19, and the New Sales and Revenue Managers

"Plan for what is difficult while it is easy, do what is great while it is small."

The New Sales and Revenue Manager should always be strategizing. As horrible as this crisis is, it presents a pause that can be used to become smarter about your work.

"In the midst of chaos, there is also opportunity"

The New Sales and Revenue Manager needs to forget the pre-Covid19 world. When there is an economic reset, all the old rules are discarded, at least for a while. Accounts that you could never reach, will now be open to speaking with you. People who would have never accepted your invite on Linkedin are more likely to accept now. Dig into your PMS or CRM and extract your old contact file. If you have data on old bid requests, begin to segment them by group size first since you will not be able to bring large groups for now. Then segment these contacts by as many dimensions as your system has and attack that list with no recollection of when they last rejected your offer.

"If quick, I survive. If not quick, I am lost.."

Analytics on discounts performance will be critical. Knowing when a dicount's performance is statistically significant will help you quickly judge whether it is working in this new world.

The New Sales and Revenue Manager needs to be creative. The vast majority of hotels will reopen their operations offering only a slightly more relaxed version of the same old cancellation policy, contract terms, and rewards policies.  You need to rethink your norms from the point-of-view of a traveler that is scared to make a decision that may cost them more than just money. To create more flexible terms, you need to understand your cancellation data, your group wash numbers, and any other data on business that did not materialize. This information is waiting for you in your PMS.

"Know yourself and you will win all battles"

The New Sales and Revenue Manager needs to understand their position. All hotels will reopen from a position of weakness because they will be begging for business.The New Sales and Revenue Manager needs to be proactive. When times are good, we can be reactive and not lose much. However, under crisis mode, only those that are ready for anything, will thrive.The New Sales and Revenue Manager needs to be ready to lower rates. 

"He will win who knows when to fight and when not to fight"

The New Sales and Revenue Manager needs to stay calm. Again, the first reaction of the market will be to lower rates. Hotel owners are just under too much financial pressure right now to stand their ground.

The New Sales and Revenue Manager needs to think like the competition. Look back at your old STR reports to see what your competition did when demand was slow. How far did they lower their rates? It's very likely that they will run the same playbook. Know what to expect so you can plan how you will react. The last thing you need is to adopt the old attitude that you are smarter than your competition or that they have different motivations than you do. Everyone is now in the same boat trying to get to the same destination. Your competition is just as eager as you are, but you can be way more prepared.

"Therefore, just as water retains no constant shape, so in warfare there are no constant conditions."

Hotel Sales Teams: Two Sales Tasks You Can Do This Week To Get Ready For The Rebound - By Doug Kennedy

About Doug Kennedy

Doug Kennedy is President of the Kennedy Training Network, Inc. a leading provider of hotel sales, guest service, reservations, and front desk training programs and telephone mystery shopping services for the lodging and hospitality industry

Since 1996, Doug’s monthly training articles have been published worldwide, making him one of the most widely read hospitality industry authorities

For most hotels in North America, the sales team is entering week three of the Covid19 disruption. The first week or so was just crazy, as salespeople from all market segments endured a frantic wave of cancelations and postponements.  Just as that wave was starting to pass, most sales leaders had to make the difficult move of furloughing or laying off sales staff to pare down the payroll costs

Rather than signing off work early, here are two sales-related tasks you can do right now to get ready for the rebound, with more to come soon in my future blogs published here.

1) Reach out personally to your key client contacts.Instead, use your time to connect personally one-to-one.  For your very top tier, long-term clients, consider a phone call during their local business hours. State upfront that you are just calling to check on them personally. For most clients, a personal email is the best medium. While it’s okay to start with a template for an opening and ending, be sure to include something in the first few sentences that shows the receiver it’s genuine, not generic.

2) Master the use of your sales CRM.  When travel fully reopens, the competition is going to be greater than ever for the leads that resurface first.  

Instead, they use a mixed bag of inefficient tools such as flagged emails, calendar appointments, post-it notes and handwritten notes scribbled on print-outs of RFP’s.  This is a great time to become hyper-organized so you can be efficient later when the pent-up demand breaks through the barrier.

Register for the online tutorials that most sales CRMs offer, or to schedule a screen-share meeting with a coworker or friend to share tips and tactics.  Clean-up your CRM “task lists” and eliminate the past-due ones that have been haunting you for too long now. Get with your system administrator and redo the “auto-tasks” that occur when business goes definite, so they match what you truly need, and don’t clog-up your future lists with red flags.