Hotel Operations

🍴 In 2025, Youri Sawerschel, founder of Creative Supply, shared five strategies to boost F&B revenue and perceived value at the HOW Festival in Zadar. His strategies include reframing business models and utilizing guest presence as content, derived from working with luxury hospitality clients in Europe and the Middle East.

📱 Owner, manager, host, or property operator: Identify frequent guest questions in 15 minutes, fixing in 1 hour. Applicable to hotels, B&Bs, vacation rentals. Analyze frequent questions through staff input, remote message review, or solo tracking over 30 days. Choose the most significant question to address weekly, prioritizing arrival-related queries. Provide solutions like pre-arrival messages or visible signage. Proactively acknowledge issues with no easy fix to prevent complaints. Repeat this workflow monthly for continuous improvement.

🏨 Göbel Hotels capitalized on the low season by offering a 10% discount with the Göbel Card to enhance guest loyalty. La Bastide de l'Oliveraie leveraged February festivities to attract visitors. Palladium Hotel Group in Madrid promoted an Extra Perks Package during low demand. Guldsmeden Hotels offered a 50% discount on the third night. The G Hotels Istanbul encouraged longer stays with a "Stay Longer, Save More" offer. AI personalization tools were used to increase bookings and extend stays during low seasons.

📅 THAIFEX - HOREC Asia 2026 takes place from March 11-13 at IMPACT, Muang Thong Thani, focusing on hospitality operational execution. Over 600 brands from 25+ countries participate, including Hoshizaki, UNOX, and Lavazza. New markets: France, the Netherlands, Macao SAR, and Spain. The event features the Xperiential Zone, THAIFEX – HOREC Academy, and competitions like the ASEAN Coffee Roasting Championship. Key additions include the Workshop Zone offering hands-on training with experts. Registration is open.

📡 Shep Hyken highlights common customer service issues, emphasizing that the problem often lies in systems, not personnel. Key issues include hard-to-find contact information, reliance on AI without human agents, lack of self-service options, ineffective self-service, long hold times without call-back options, unreturned messages, and poorly trained representatives. Companies should brainstorm solutions to address these system failures and enhance customer experiences.

💸 Hotels seeking to boost ancillary revenue should focus on mobile ordering for F&B services, as it offers significant potential. Deployment of QR codes, covering guest touchpoints, can capture orders 24/7. IRIS, a leader in digital F&B platforms, reports hotels using mobile ordering technology can boost revenues by 20%. The strategy includes upselling, multi-lingual support, and creative marketing. Since 2010, thousands of hotels globally have utilized IRIS technology to enhance guest experiences and streamline operations.

🛂 A guest arrives frustrated after 40 minutes of wrong turns due to incorrect information from a third-party site. In 10 minutes, five such guests arrive, overwhelming the single staff member at the desk. A simple change in greeting from “How was your trip?” to “Your room’s ready, let’s get you settled” significantly eased check-ins within a month. Clear signage and concise arrival instructions, like providing a door code upfront, reduce guest frustration and improve their experience.

🏨 In hospitality, embracing Lean management prioritizes "Respect for People" to enhance efficiency and service quality. Instead of traditional "command and control," managers act as "barrier removers," empowering staff as problem-solvers. True Lean reduces overburden (Muri) and avoids "redline" operations, preventing burnout. Technology like Demand Calendar automates tasks, reallocating time for guest-focused experiences. Lean management's success lies in valuing human potential, eliminating waste, and using technology to ease workloads, fostering a supportive, high-performing culture.

🚧 In 2023, a study showed burnout among hotel workers leads to high turnover. During COVID, hotels cut staff intending to rehire post-pandemic, but 80% still report vacancies in 2025. Chronic understaffing impacts guest experience, property maintenance, and staff well-being, leading to increased costs. Replacing staff costs between $5,000 to over $25,000 per person. Solutions include rehiring past employees, cross-training, and prioritizing well-being. Short-term savings from understaffing often result in long-term financial losses.

📈 Hotel teams often face data misalignment, with departments using different KPI definitions and data sources. This leads to longer meetings, slower decisions, and missed revenue opportunities. Establishing a shared data language with standardized KPIs, consistent data mappings, and visual storytelling boosts collaboration, speeds up decision-making, and improves alignment. Implementing a shared data language can transform data from a battleground into a strategic asset, enhancing hotel performance and competitiveness in volatile markets.