(John Hogan is a former Instructor of mine and a great friend.)
“Change is a process, not an event.” James Prochaska, PhD
Change is also something personal that requires focused and individual attention.
We have all heard the question on change: If we continue to do as we have always done, how can we ever expect to achieve different results?
It is a New Year and we are in
The First 100 Days of 2011
The expression of the First 100 Days sets a tone, introduces a sense of urgency or an anticipation that something positive or significant will occur. Many elected officials use that time period to initiate as many new programs and ideas as they can, while business leaders and sports coaches similarly use this short time period to launch as many new strategies and as much discipline as possible into their organizations and teams.
For hotels and the hospitality industry, the potential for dramatic change in the first 100 days of 2011 is there, as there is finally a sense of optimism in the direction of the economy[2]. Optimism alone is not action or change, and what do The First 100 Days of 2011 mean for you personally?
What do I personally need to change to make my hotel or hospitality business more successful?
Dr. Prochaska (who was quoted above) is a psychologist at the University of Rhode Island and is known for his model of the “stages of change.” While his research deals primarily with health issues and he was not addressing the hospitality business specifically, one can easily see the parallels in almost every situation.
Which Stage of Change Are You In?
1. Pre-contemplation (“Never”) Stage
Standard Statement
“From my point of view, there is nothing I need to do but stay the course. That has always worked before and should work again.”
Or
“ I may have some shortcomings, but so does everyone else.”
Vulnerability
The world has changed in the last three years globally. It is easy to blame the government, the banks or the competitors, but little is likely to change for the positive until something changes. Each of us must take specific assessments of our own position
2. Contemplation (“Someday”) Stage
Standard Statement
“If I only had more time, I could address the challenges I am facing.” (Challenges can be service, revenues, or other unique areas to your business)
Or
“Eventually, I’ll come up with a plan to address for (my specific problem areas)
Vulnerability
Good intentions do not bring results, only a sense of potential. Think back to the last time you made New Year’s Resolutions – how did that work out? How will you get beyond the thinking stage to the action level?
3. Preparation (“Soon”) Stage
Standard Statement
“I will begin the new sales and marketing campaign as soon as we update the marketing plan and finalize the new ad copy…………sometime in the next four weeks.”
Or
“We are committed to completing our staff reviews and making the necessary changes by the middle of next month.”
Vulnerability
“Soon” may or may not happen. Research shows a substantial percentage of people who need to modify their behavior for health reasons either never get to the “soon” stage or progress beyond it. I would say from my professional experience that many business decisions likely share this high percentage
4. Action (“Now”) Stage
Standard Statement
” Talk is cheap and while others talk about changing,. I’m actually taking action .”
Or
“We are working on making improvements, but are having challenges in measuring the results more.”
Vulnerability
Change is not easy – we all understand that. It is essential to be able to change quickly enough to both feel some short-term benefits. It is also essential to be able to measure progress so that we can continue the improvements that accompany the change.
5. Maintenance (“Forever”) Stage
Standard Statement
“I need to find sources of encouragement to assist me in continuing and maintaining the changes I’ve already begun and are continuing .” (Changes in procedure, marketing, operations, hiring, etc. can all bring stress)
Or
“It was not easy, but understanding and accepting the positives of these changes are now becoming the new normal and I actually look forward to the new challenges because I can see the new results happening“
Vulnerability
Change by definition is doing something different and dramatic change can be hard to maintain. The new protocols or practices are becoming accepted in your spirit, but the “old” ways of doing things are likely still prevalent in your mind. Look for the centers of strength and assurance for the hard days.
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
Monday, January 10, 2011
Is Money Spent on Indoor Environmental Quality Worthwhile for Hoteliers?
We're learning to Go Green Gradually®. By reducing our energy consumption, reducing our water usage, and perhaps creating some of our own energy through geothermal or solar thermal products, we've seen the immediate improvements in our profits. Then, suddenly, we're hit with "Indoor Environmental Quality" – also known as "IEQ". I am pleased to see that this often overlooked environmental concern is now garnering the attention it deserves. How did we forget this? Have we been taking a CATNAP* (defined at the end of the article)?
Basically, we've been primarily focused (and for good reason) on improving our energy consumption. It is now time to take a close look at this previously orphaned topic, relatively ignored under the plethora of energy specification attainment.
How can IEQ help our bottom line, we ask (we are, after all, successful business people, not only involved in the green movement for the sake of philanthropy). Can our air quality and acoustics make a difference in our business? Is it worth the trouble, for example, to use "green" cleaners, knowing that staff training and breaking old habits will be a must?
As an eye doctor and LEED AP, B,D + C, I am in the unique position of digging through both the medical jargon and "LEED-speak". As such, I performed a basic review of the studies to date, and am eager to share what I have learned with you. We all want to know if improved environmental quality and indoor air quality ("IAQ") is truly healthier – does it increase productivity, decrease sick days, and reduce turn-over in our hotels? Of course, we want to know if this extra effort is profitable, especially for a retrofit. Shall we take a look?
First, it is important to know that IEQ involves many facets of indoor comfort. The WBDG (a program of the National Institute of Building Sciences) includes "indoor air quality (IAQ), and focuses on airborne contamination, as well as other health, safety, and comfort issues such as aesthetics, potable water surveillance, ergonomics, acoustics, lighting, and electromagnetic frequency levels." This may seem complicated at first, but let's break it down into the elements that may have the greatest immediate impact.
Increased Air Quality:
Can we increase our guests' and staffs' health and productivity by increasing the air quality in our hotels?
Most of us have heard of "Sick Building Syndrome" (SBS) – when building occupants experience acute health and comfort effects that appear to be linked to time spent in a building, but no specific illness or cause can be identified. We've also heard of "Building Related Illness" (BRI) – used when symptoms of a diagnosable illness are identified and can be attributed directly to airborne building contaminants (as described in Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America). But do these conditions pertain to our hotels?
Cited Causes of SBS include:
•Inadequate ventilation: ASHRAE recently revised its ventilation standard to provide a minimum of 15 cfm of outdoor air per person in non-smoking areas. ASHRAE is attempting to balance energy consumption with an adequate IAQ. If you have an existing hotel, an engineered study of ventilation will give you all of the information you need to make adjustments as needed.
•Chemical contaminants: Research clearly shows that V.O.C.'s (volatile organic compounds) can cause chronic and acute health effects at even low concentrations, and many V.O.C.'s are known carcinogens. This is why LEED standards address V.O.C.'s as found in adhesives, carpeting, upholstery, manufactured wood products, copy machines, pesticides and cleaning agents. Your "green" advisor can assist with low or no V.O.C. options for your hotel. GreenSeal.org can provide all of the details you need.
•Chemical contaminants from outdoor sources: This includes motor vehicle exhaust, plumbing vents and building exhausts (from kitchens or bathrooms, for example) and combustion products from a parking garage. Air intake vents must be carefully located to avoid these sources of contamination.
•Biological contamination: These include bacteria, molds, pollen and viruses. Unfortunately, hoteliers are all too familiar with the history of hotel-borne Legionnaire's Disease, and as such, must be vigilant in testing our cooling towers and indoor decorative fountains.
Examining the effects of poor IAQ and allergies and asthma, William J. Fiske, P.E. and Member of ASHRAE states,
"The scientific literature reports statistically significant links between prevalence of allergy and asthma symptoms and a variety of changeable building characteristics or practices, including indoor allergen concentrations, moisture and mold problems, pets and tobacco smoking. The reported links between these risk factors and symptoms were quite strong."
How strong are these links? In many studies, mold or moisture problems in residences were associated with 100% increases in lower respiratory symptoms indicative of asthma. This is just one reason why you will want to be vigilant at your hotel for moisture problems. One picture of mold at your hotel on TripAdvisor can be a blow to your hotel's reputation – one that is difficult from which to recover.
Daylighting, Biophelia and Lighting Controls:
When we "daylight" our hotels, we are bringing a bit of the outdoors, indoors. This relates to "biophilia" – literally, a love of nature. The term "biophilia" was coined by Harvard biologist Edward O. Wilson, Ph.D, when he argued that humans have an innate affinity for nature, loosely tied in with evolution.
As explained by Judith Heerwagen, Ph.D,
"People will fight to keep biophilic features" as she describes the competition in commercial buildings for offices with views to the outdoors. In workstations without views, you'll often find biophilia in the form of potted plants, images of nature, and nature-focused screen savers."
One strong belief is that people are happiest and most productive with good "daylighting." Provide them with windows and the ability to control the level of their task lighting and our intuition tells us this may contribute to the satisfaction of their work environment. After all, when an executive receives that coveted promotion, what often comes with it? The corner office – with views of the outdoors. When you walk into your hotel room, throw down your bags, what is the first thing you usually do? Do you head to the window to check out the view, and if there is a terrace, squeal in delight (well, perhaps only I squeal)? Humans tend to gravitate toward this touch with nature. But what does science tell us?
In a landmark study published in 1984 by Roger Ulrich, Ph.D., patients recovered from gall bladder surgery more quickly (2.5 days sooner, on average) and required less pain medication if they had a view of trees outside their window, verses the view of a brick wall. Views of nature appear to reduce our pain levels, likely through stress reduction, distraction, and the elevation of serotonin. Sunlight exposure increases the body's stores of serotonin – a neurotransmitter that inhibits pain pathways in the central nervous system (think "feel good, happy juice".)
We also see increased school performance in LEED-certified schools. The average school today is 42 years old, built during the time when some believed that windows would be distracting to students. Proper daylighting (without glare), however, has shown to actually increase students' attention and performance. The Heschong Mahone Group, Inc. in its most recent study of daylighting in schools, found statistically significant evidence that access to views through windows in classrooms improves student performance by 5 – 10%. Add an improvement in acoustics, and tests scores improve an average of 18%.
According to the Green School Initiative,
"The study by the Heschong Mahone Group, covering more than 2,000 classrooms in three school districts, indicated that students with the most classroom daylight progressed 20% faster in one year on math tests and 26% faster on reading tests than those students who learned in environments that received the least amount of natural light."
Can we extrapolate these shocking findings to our hotel staff? Obviously, many more studies are being conducted, but initial estimates indicate that the increase in productivity resulting from improvements in ventilation will likely be offset by the increase in energy costs needed to achieve these changes. Daylighting and lighting control, however, identifies a 13.2% increase in productivity, a 25% reduction in absenteeism and 69% lighting energy savings following a lighting retrofit (PP&L / Romm and Browning 1994). There is a potential for maintenance savings of $0.47/sq. ft. per year as well (Knissel 1999). These are significant sources of decreased operating costs for hoteliers.
And potential profits? The CBPD (Center for Building Performance and Diagnostics) team has identified nine studies linking effectively designed daylighting and daylight control with 8.6 – 60% reductions in annual lighting energy consumption. Emerging studies on the effectiveness of missed-mode HVAC, which balances natural ventilation and mechanical air conditioning, are demonstrating 39.6 – 75% reductions in annual HVAC energy consumptions
Thermal Comfort:
We are sensitive to the needs of our hotel guests for individual thermal comfort in their rooms. The same awareness needs to carry over to the thermal comfort of our staff. This involves both general thermal comfort (temperature, humidity levels and air velocity) and local comfort (which varies with clothing and activity level). Fisk (2002) reported that temperature differences may impact the speed or accuracy of workers in tasks such as keyboarding and reading speed by 2% to 20%.
For thermal comfort standards, including humidity control, please refer to ASHRAE Standard 55 – 1992, Addenda 1995 (at ASHRAE.org). By following such guidelines, you'll see fewer staff members either so cold that they can not use a keyboard, or so warm that they can't think clearly. Interestingly, we usually find both types of people in the same room. Take a look at these general guidelines and see if you can't minimize the back-of-the-house fighting over the thermostat.
The Center for Building Performance and Diagnostics (CBPD), after identifying eight case studies and including the cost of individual temperature and comfort controls, found that the individual productivity gains for 3.5 – 36.6% yield life cycle benefits with ROI's of 23 – 205%.
Acoustic Privacy and Comfort:
Developing a hotel to include good acoustics is no stranger to hotel developers, and must be considered in all areas of the hotel – from the front desk (can your staff hear while on the telephone?) to the restaurant and bar (and surrounding areas), the guest rooms, laundry, pool, conference rooms, and areas adjacent to the elevators.
The same care and attention should be given to the back-of-the-house. Areas near the laundry room, the engineering room, kitchen, etc. should be properly insulated for sound abatement. Your acoustical engineer is invaluable for these evaluations.
Poor acoustics can lead to unhappy staff members.
Life Cycle Cost Analysis:
An excellent study conducted by The Construction Management School of Planning, Design and Construction at Michigan State University (May 2009) provides us with a Life Cycle Cost Analysis of Occupant Well-Being and Productivity in LEED Offices. In this study, they analyzed three things:
•The first costs related to attaining LEED IEQ credits
•Changes in the occupants' well-being and productivity
•The life cycle benefits as compared to full costs
Their study determined that life cycle benefits far exceed the incremental costs, indicating economically viable investments. However, many developers and hotel owners do not plan to hold their hotels for life. Instead, hoteliers must be able to find the "low hanging fruit" and begin with the changes that have the greatest impact with the fastest ROI.
Fortunately, there are many options for hoteliers to improve upon the IEQ of their hotels, with a rapid return on investment. As many hotels and hotel flags are "going green", I believe it is essential to pencil out these changes and begin to go "green" for our health, the health of our staff and guests, and for our profits. This may mean developing a hotel above and beyond code requirements. With our knowledge of green options growing, the cost of green products dropping, and the inclusion of tax deductions, utility rebates and local incentives, building and retrofitting above code may not be more expensive than a more traditional build.
It is my belief that the days of developing buildings to code are over. Or, as beautifully put by Barry Katz,
"Building to code basically means not breaking the law by the narrowest margin possible. My favorite description of this is known as the
CATNAP* principle – "Commonly Accepted Techniques Narrowly Avoiding Prosecution."
Let's rise above, shall we?
Basically, we've been primarily focused (and for good reason) on improving our energy consumption. It is now time to take a close look at this previously orphaned topic, relatively ignored under the plethora of energy specification attainment.
How can IEQ help our bottom line, we ask (we are, after all, successful business people, not only involved in the green movement for the sake of philanthropy). Can our air quality and acoustics make a difference in our business? Is it worth the trouble, for example, to use "green" cleaners, knowing that staff training and breaking old habits will be a must?
As an eye doctor and LEED AP, B,D + C, I am in the unique position of digging through both the medical jargon and "LEED-speak". As such, I performed a basic review of the studies to date, and am eager to share what I have learned with you. We all want to know if improved environmental quality and indoor air quality ("IAQ") is truly healthier – does it increase productivity, decrease sick days, and reduce turn-over in our hotels? Of course, we want to know if this extra effort is profitable, especially for a retrofit. Shall we take a look?
First, it is important to know that IEQ involves many facets of indoor comfort. The WBDG (a program of the National Institute of Building Sciences) includes "indoor air quality (IAQ), and focuses on airborne contamination, as well as other health, safety, and comfort issues such as aesthetics, potable water surveillance, ergonomics, acoustics, lighting, and electromagnetic frequency levels." This may seem complicated at first, but let's break it down into the elements that may have the greatest immediate impact.
Increased Air Quality:
Can we increase our guests' and staffs' health and productivity by increasing the air quality in our hotels?
Most of us have heard of "Sick Building Syndrome" (SBS) – when building occupants experience acute health and comfort effects that appear to be linked to time spent in a building, but no specific illness or cause can be identified. We've also heard of "Building Related Illness" (BRI) – used when symptoms of a diagnosable illness are identified and can be attributed directly to airborne building contaminants (as described in Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America). But do these conditions pertain to our hotels?
Cited Causes of SBS include:
•Inadequate ventilation: ASHRAE recently revised its ventilation standard to provide a minimum of 15 cfm of outdoor air per person in non-smoking areas. ASHRAE is attempting to balance energy consumption with an adequate IAQ. If you have an existing hotel, an engineered study of ventilation will give you all of the information you need to make adjustments as needed.
•Chemical contaminants: Research clearly shows that V.O.C.'s (volatile organic compounds) can cause chronic and acute health effects at even low concentrations, and many V.O.C.'s are known carcinogens. This is why LEED standards address V.O.C.'s as found in adhesives, carpeting, upholstery, manufactured wood products, copy machines, pesticides and cleaning agents. Your "green" advisor can assist with low or no V.O.C. options for your hotel. GreenSeal.org can provide all of the details you need.
•Chemical contaminants from outdoor sources: This includes motor vehicle exhaust, plumbing vents and building exhausts (from kitchens or bathrooms, for example) and combustion products from a parking garage. Air intake vents must be carefully located to avoid these sources of contamination.
•Biological contamination: These include bacteria, molds, pollen and viruses. Unfortunately, hoteliers are all too familiar with the history of hotel-borne Legionnaire's Disease, and as such, must be vigilant in testing our cooling towers and indoor decorative fountains.
Examining the effects of poor IAQ and allergies and asthma, William J. Fiske, P.E. and Member of ASHRAE states,
"The scientific literature reports statistically significant links between prevalence of allergy and asthma symptoms and a variety of changeable building characteristics or practices, including indoor allergen concentrations, moisture and mold problems, pets and tobacco smoking. The reported links between these risk factors and symptoms were quite strong."
How strong are these links? In many studies, mold or moisture problems in residences were associated with 100% increases in lower respiratory symptoms indicative of asthma. This is just one reason why you will want to be vigilant at your hotel for moisture problems. One picture of mold at your hotel on TripAdvisor can be a blow to your hotel's reputation – one that is difficult from which to recover.
Daylighting, Biophelia and Lighting Controls:
When we "daylight" our hotels, we are bringing a bit of the outdoors, indoors. This relates to "biophilia" – literally, a love of nature. The term "biophilia" was coined by Harvard biologist Edward O. Wilson, Ph.D, when he argued that humans have an innate affinity for nature, loosely tied in with evolution.
As explained by Judith Heerwagen, Ph.D,
"People will fight to keep biophilic features" as she describes the competition in commercial buildings for offices with views to the outdoors. In workstations without views, you'll often find biophilia in the form of potted plants, images of nature, and nature-focused screen savers."
One strong belief is that people are happiest and most productive with good "daylighting." Provide them with windows and the ability to control the level of their task lighting and our intuition tells us this may contribute to the satisfaction of their work environment. After all, when an executive receives that coveted promotion, what often comes with it? The corner office – with views of the outdoors. When you walk into your hotel room, throw down your bags, what is the first thing you usually do? Do you head to the window to check out the view, and if there is a terrace, squeal in delight (well, perhaps only I squeal)? Humans tend to gravitate toward this touch with nature. But what does science tell us?
In a landmark study published in 1984 by Roger Ulrich, Ph.D., patients recovered from gall bladder surgery more quickly (2.5 days sooner, on average) and required less pain medication if they had a view of trees outside their window, verses the view of a brick wall. Views of nature appear to reduce our pain levels, likely through stress reduction, distraction, and the elevation of serotonin. Sunlight exposure increases the body's stores of serotonin – a neurotransmitter that inhibits pain pathways in the central nervous system (think "feel good, happy juice".)
We also see increased school performance in LEED-certified schools. The average school today is 42 years old, built during the time when some believed that windows would be distracting to students. Proper daylighting (without glare), however, has shown to actually increase students' attention and performance. The Heschong Mahone Group, Inc. in its most recent study of daylighting in schools, found statistically significant evidence that access to views through windows in classrooms improves student performance by 5 – 10%. Add an improvement in acoustics, and tests scores improve an average of 18%.
According to the Green School Initiative,
"The study by the Heschong Mahone Group, covering more than 2,000 classrooms in three school districts, indicated that students with the most classroom daylight progressed 20% faster in one year on math tests and 26% faster on reading tests than those students who learned in environments that received the least amount of natural light."
Can we extrapolate these shocking findings to our hotel staff? Obviously, many more studies are being conducted, but initial estimates indicate that the increase in productivity resulting from improvements in ventilation will likely be offset by the increase in energy costs needed to achieve these changes. Daylighting and lighting control, however, identifies a 13.2% increase in productivity, a 25% reduction in absenteeism and 69% lighting energy savings following a lighting retrofit (PP&L / Romm and Browning 1994). There is a potential for maintenance savings of $0.47/sq. ft. per year as well (Knissel 1999). These are significant sources of decreased operating costs for hoteliers.
And potential profits? The CBPD (Center for Building Performance and Diagnostics) team has identified nine studies linking effectively designed daylighting and daylight control with 8.6 – 60% reductions in annual lighting energy consumption. Emerging studies on the effectiveness of missed-mode HVAC, which balances natural ventilation and mechanical air conditioning, are demonstrating 39.6 – 75% reductions in annual HVAC energy consumptions
Thermal Comfort:
We are sensitive to the needs of our hotel guests for individual thermal comfort in their rooms. The same awareness needs to carry over to the thermal comfort of our staff. This involves both general thermal comfort (temperature, humidity levels and air velocity) and local comfort (which varies with clothing and activity level). Fisk (2002) reported that temperature differences may impact the speed or accuracy of workers in tasks such as keyboarding and reading speed by 2% to 20%.
For thermal comfort standards, including humidity control, please refer to ASHRAE Standard 55 – 1992, Addenda 1995 (at ASHRAE.org). By following such guidelines, you'll see fewer staff members either so cold that they can not use a keyboard, or so warm that they can't think clearly. Interestingly, we usually find both types of people in the same room. Take a look at these general guidelines and see if you can't minimize the back-of-the-house fighting over the thermostat.
The Center for Building Performance and Diagnostics (CBPD), after identifying eight case studies and including the cost of individual temperature and comfort controls, found that the individual productivity gains for 3.5 – 36.6% yield life cycle benefits with ROI's of 23 – 205%.
Acoustic Privacy and Comfort:
Developing a hotel to include good acoustics is no stranger to hotel developers, and must be considered in all areas of the hotel – from the front desk (can your staff hear while on the telephone?) to the restaurant and bar (and surrounding areas), the guest rooms, laundry, pool, conference rooms, and areas adjacent to the elevators.
The same care and attention should be given to the back-of-the-house. Areas near the laundry room, the engineering room, kitchen, etc. should be properly insulated for sound abatement. Your acoustical engineer is invaluable for these evaluations.
Poor acoustics can lead to unhappy staff members.
Life Cycle Cost Analysis:
An excellent study conducted by The Construction Management School of Planning, Design and Construction at Michigan State University (May 2009) provides us with a Life Cycle Cost Analysis of Occupant Well-Being and Productivity in LEED Offices. In this study, they analyzed three things:
•The first costs related to attaining LEED IEQ credits
•Changes in the occupants' well-being and productivity
•The life cycle benefits as compared to full costs
Their study determined that life cycle benefits far exceed the incremental costs, indicating economically viable investments. However, many developers and hotel owners do not plan to hold their hotels for life. Instead, hoteliers must be able to find the "low hanging fruit" and begin with the changes that have the greatest impact with the fastest ROI.
Fortunately, there are many options for hoteliers to improve upon the IEQ of their hotels, with a rapid return on investment. As many hotels and hotel flags are "going green", I believe it is essential to pencil out these changes and begin to go "green" for our health, the health of our staff and guests, and for our profits. This may mean developing a hotel above and beyond code requirements. With our knowledge of green options growing, the cost of green products dropping, and the inclusion of tax deductions, utility rebates and local incentives, building and retrofitting above code may not be more expensive than a more traditional build.
It is my belief that the days of developing buildings to code are over. Or, as beautifully put by Barry Katz,
"Building to code basically means not breaking the law by the narrowest margin possible. My favorite description of this is known as the
CATNAP* principle – "Commonly Accepted Techniques Narrowly Avoiding Prosecution."
Let's rise above, shall we?
Tuesday, January 4, 2011
Powering the Hotel Industry's Recovery Through Effective Revenue Management
The hotel industry is on the road to recovery, but it hasn't progressed as far as it could. Tourist spending in the U.S during 2010 grew 11 percent, according to U.S. Commerce Department¹, with a large amount of that increase ending up in hotel cash registers. Although an encouraging metric, it wasn't enough to make 2010 the recovery year that many predicted: the hotel industry is still not at the level it was during the era of prosperity before the recession, leaving many wondering: Is there a better way forward for the industry than the path it has been following?
The answer is a resounding YES. As revealed in REVPAR GURU's new guidebook, "Rethinking Revenue Management: A Collection of Articles," hotel revenue management processes and strategies worldwide have much room for improvement. All too often, revenue management has been treated as an inflexible process of setting a price for a room and hoping a customer will accept it. But using sophisticated RM software, hoteliers have a powerful, flexible tool that provides a much wider scope for customer acquisition, retention, and most enticingly, revenue maximization. And today, RM hasn't been utilized to anywhere near its potential.
"Rethinking Revenue Management: A Collection of Articles" provides the road map to reaching that potential. The guide explores how hoteliers can effectively master the three key principles for maximizing RevPAR: understanding, anticipating and influencing the customer. Additionally, the guide examines why hotel pricing is - or SHOULD be like - the stock market, and illustrates how this can be accomplished through good RM software and a savvy, proactive revenue manager.
The guide also provides numerous easy-to-implement tricks to boost any hotel's visibility and attractiveness on the OTAs. For example, many hotels aren't aware that page placement (in the results page of the OTAs) is of upmost importance for increasing bookings and RevPAR; in fact, there is one specific page position that consistently produces room bookings - and, counter-intuitively, it is not on the first page. Considering that 60 percent of all leisure, and 40 percent of business travel bookings were made online in 2009, it's obvious the internet is now a massive engine driving the market. That information isn't only useful, it's absolutely critical.
To thrive in business, the modern revenue manager must yield to practicality, optimizing customer needs and purchasing trends, while anticipating consumer resolutions - all in a rapidly changing environment. Revenue management is a complex and ever-evolving art which is difficult to master. With fresh thinking and thoughtful analysis on the subject, this guide can help make it that much easier - download "Rethinking Revenue Management: A Collection of Articles" here
The answer is a resounding YES. As revealed in REVPAR GURU's new guidebook, "Rethinking Revenue Management: A Collection of Articles," hotel revenue management processes and strategies worldwide have much room for improvement. All too often, revenue management has been treated as an inflexible process of setting a price for a room and hoping a customer will accept it. But using sophisticated RM software, hoteliers have a powerful, flexible tool that provides a much wider scope for customer acquisition, retention, and most enticingly, revenue maximization. And today, RM hasn't been utilized to anywhere near its potential.
"Rethinking Revenue Management: A Collection of Articles" provides the road map to reaching that potential. The guide explores how hoteliers can effectively master the three key principles for maximizing RevPAR: understanding, anticipating and influencing the customer. Additionally, the guide examines why hotel pricing is - or SHOULD be like - the stock market, and illustrates how this can be accomplished through good RM software and a savvy, proactive revenue manager.
The guide also provides numerous easy-to-implement tricks to boost any hotel's visibility and attractiveness on the OTAs. For example, many hotels aren't aware that page placement (in the results page of the OTAs) is of upmost importance for increasing bookings and RevPAR; in fact, there is one specific page position that consistently produces room bookings - and, counter-intuitively, it is not on the first page. Considering that 60 percent of all leisure, and 40 percent of business travel bookings were made online in 2009, it's obvious the internet is now a massive engine driving the market. That information isn't only useful, it's absolutely critical.
To thrive in business, the modern revenue manager must yield to practicality, optimizing customer needs and purchasing trends, while anticipating consumer resolutions - all in a rapidly changing environment. Revenue management is a complex and ever-evolving art which is difficult to master. With fresh thinking and thoughtful analysis on the subject, this guide can help make it that much easier - download "Rethinking Revenue Management: A Collection of Articles" here
Sunday, January 2, 2011
Customer Service by Any Other Name is Customer Service.
We decided to take the kids to a local family pizza place before school resumes as a treat, now this is a chain, and we go there several times a month since there are 2 close to the house. We went to the new one, which is like a barn, it is huge, and the game area has a roller coaster. When you order you get a number, and they call your number and they’ll announce that your breadsticks, wings and pizza are ready.
Never in all the time have you had to bring your receipt to pick up your food, at this particular location which we have been to twice before, which recently opened, they called our number, and I went to get the breadsticks, and the girl asked me in a not so kind way that I needed to show my receipt, which I had to go back and get, I asked to speak with the manager, and literally threw my receipt at the girl, I chatted with the manager, and he apologized me about it, and we spoke as he had seen me at the other store. It was new, and they had problems with orders being taken by the wrong customers.
(I never understood that, On a separate note in Santa Fe about 10 years ago, I ordered a pizza from Domino’s and waited for an hour, and called twice, it was delivered, yes, to the wrong house, was accepted and paid for.)
Upon leaving I felt that I needed to follow up, and I did, I discovered, that
She was ahead of the manager I spoke with in seniority, and that he knew that there were problems with her prior, and she had issues with people taking how she spoke with them the wrong way, I agreed with him, and he was going to follow up with the Regional Manager, I suggested to him that she needed to have some counseling, and that they needed to explain to their customers when they ordered that they needed to bring their receipts to get their orders. If they had done this as we ordered, problem solved, and done.
In the end he and I concluded that it is how it is handled and perception by the customers, which alleviate a situation like I encountered.
Never in all the time have you had to bring your receipt to pick up your food, at this particular location which we have been to twice before, which recently opened, they called our number, and I went to get the breadsticks, and the girl asked me in a not so kind way that I needed to show my receipt, which I had to go back and get, I asked to speak with the manager, and literally threw my receipt at the girl, I chatted with the manager, and he apologized me about it, and we spoke as he had seen me at the other store. It was new, and they had problems with orders being taken by the wrong customers.
(I never understood that, On a separate note in Santa Fe about 10 years ago, I ordered a pizza from Domino’s and waited for an hour, and called twice, it was delivered, yes, to the wrong house, was accepted and paid for.)
Upon leaving I felt that I needed to follow up, and I did, I discovered, that
She was ahead of the manager I spoke with in seniority, and that he knew that there were problems with her prior, and she had issues with people taking how she spoke with them the wrong way, I agreed with him, and he was going to follow up with the Regional Manager, I suggested to him that she needed to have some counseling, and that they needed to explain to their customers when they ordered that they needed to bring their receipts to get their orders. If they had done this as we ordered, problem solved, and done.
In the end he and I concluded that it is how it is handled and perception by the customers, which alleviate a situation like I encountered.
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