I could ask, 'define success'. Are you running a Motel 6 on an I-80 offramp in Podunk, Kansas; or are you going to go all out with mega-luxury, rooms you can rent for $800 to $3000 per night, lots of meeting and banquet space, and a restaurant that people will fly in for; and give the St. Regis [http://www.tripadvisor.com/Hotel...] a run for it? It makes a difference. Usually. For this answer, I'll try to not let it.
Like my answer to What does it take to start a hotel?, this is one of those open-ended questions that I wouldn't touch with a ten foot pole, but for the fact that someone of the caliber of David S. Rose was doing the asking (which could work into a great leap forward for my company if he should ever decide to stray outside tech ventures and into more real estate, "Main Street" businesses, and bricks and mortar-related stuff, and he likes my answers on the subject); because no answer anyone could give would come close to adequate.
Anthony Melchiorri, Bill Marriott or the late Conrad Hilton would know better than to try, and I wouldn't waste five minutes talking to someone who offered an answer that he considered complete and adequate; who was ignorant enough to think it was that simple, or enough of a know-it-all to come off like he could answer it accurately and fully. Or that his answer would still be valid ten years, or five years, or even one year from now.
But while this answer might not become the 'hit' on Quora that What does it take to start a hotel? worked out to be, it might be useful if I come back to it from time to time and play with it and add to it and modify it as needed; meanwhile taking on asking it myself time and again as a means of obtaining clarity and insight into possible answers for myself. It's one of life's little questions that you become better at what you are by asking yourself from time to time, and searching for answers that work.
There are certain things that apply across the board. At every level. To any hotel. Any year, forever. Whether a Mom-and-Pop built in the fifties, or the Fontainebleu. If I'm forced to simplify it so that I can leave it for now and come back to it, I would reduce it to this:
You're not in the 'hospitality' business. You're not in the 'service' business. You might like to think you are, it sounds good to people with whom you do business to present yourself as someone who is, it's certainly what your peers in the business want to hear (so do many of your guests, although many of those who hear it like "yeah, right..."), but you're really not. Maybe I studied to be an architect and didn't get to go quite as far with it as I would have liked, but here is what people rely upon hotels to do for them, nothing more or less: You're in the business of creating and maintaining space. And you're in the business of having that space, and everything in it, work well for anyone who comes into it and stays for a night, or several days.
'Hospitality' is just a part of that. 'Service' is also just a part of it - in many cases, an even smaller one. At a cheaper property, that space may not come with much more than just that -- space. Six feet of space to sleep and access to a bathroom and shower, the guy just doesn't ask much more; in many cases, he's just as happy to be left alone -- and that's how he's best served. At the upscale end, that space will, in order to work for the guest, include a lot of personal attention from several people, and a lot of detailed -- sometimes even, custom -- advance preparation and subsequent maintenance.
"Where the fulfillment of extraordinary service is registered for the provider is in the experience of the customer only." (If the wording of that seems kind of stilted, it's actually a Zen koan, believe it or not.) In other words, it's like one of your better teachers back in school probably told you, "if the learner didn't learn, the teacher didn't teach". If the guest isn't served in some way that she notices and appreciates, then it isn't service. (Michael Forrest Jones' answer to What are some good questions to ask a Customer Service candidate in an interview?)
Inside your commitment to creating and maintaining space; and having that space, and everything in it, work well for anyone who comes into it and stays for a night, or several days; several things must be in place.
- The facility has to be in absolutely pristine condition. No exceptions. No excuses. If it doesn't look right, fix it.
Consider Hilton, Kimpton, Four Seasons, hotels in that category and above; and boutique independents. Everything perfect, even the previously used stuff looks brand new, nothing out of place, nothing broken, discolored or deteriorated, right? If a plaque directing you to the elevator is faded or cracked, it comes off and gets replaced. The carpet may not be new, but it never looks old and worn (and certainly not dirty). The wallpaper might not have gone up last year, but there are no scratches or dings.
Now, at the other end, consider the hotels you see on Hotel Impossible, which tend to be old cheap, independently-owned or family-owned properties, many of which could not pass a punchlist for a Super 8 franchise (meaning, according to Super 8's brand standards, they aren't 'good enough' to be a $59.99 per night Super 8 motel).
What's the first thing Anthony does at each of those (after raving about the town or the location, or gushing over the view, as he drives up and checks in at the desk)? He starts noticing flaws, usually things that have been there so long that probably the staff and management isn't noticing anymore and has come to take for granted. The disgusting ashtray outside the front door. The raggedy old plants. The frayed mat that's as much of a tripping hazard as it is a convenience. And once he gets into a room or a pool area, he starts tearing the place apart. Anything goes. Worn out or damaged furniture? Smash. Discolored, stained or damaged linens or drapes? Rip! Old phone with a cracked or discolored faceplate? Rip it out of the wall. Stains on the mattress? Off the bed and up against the wall - and if it bounces into the floor, just leave it there. More than once, after the commercial break, he brings in his designer and she says something like, "Oh, I can tell you've been in here . . ."
He gets downright nitpicky. Running his fingers along the top of the picture frame checking for dust. "You'd think they know when I come here I'm going to do this", he says, as he comes away with his fingers covered with it. Look under the bed - it's a place housekeepers don't like to clean (which is why most hotels go with box bedframes). Light bulb out in a corridor? Change every flippin' light bulb in the corridor on that floor.
Sometimes you have to prioritize a bit - sometimes something can be old, but it can't look old. And it can't be nasty, or broken.
Oh, and it has to be clean. Speaking for made-for-TV drama, if you ever watched that TV movie about Leona Helmsley that came out in 1990, the only good or wise thing to ever come out of the mouth of that Evil Woman From Hell was, No, that's dirt. How do you repair dirt?
It's made-for-TV drama, but it makes a point. Noticeable flaws don't work. Any noticeable flaws. Even in a seventy-year-old, $39.99 per night Mom-and-Pop. No excuses.
- If you can't keep your guests safe, anything you could do for them is wasted.
Hotel guests tend to be people from out of town (unless too many of them are the kind of people you're asking for trouble renting to). They tend to be off their guard, and if they're injured or their belongings are stolen from them, they're less likely to report it - and less likely to travel back and forth to appear in court for a successful prosecution if they do. This makes them more vulnerable to the sort of criminals who think ahead and plan accordingly. And even where you're not legally responsible, you have a responsibility here.
No one should be permitted to loiter about the common areas, even if they have a room rented. Anyone you see doing so for no apparent good reason should be presumed up to no good - to someone, maybe a guest, maybe you. Twice, I've worked at a property that had an armed holdup - in neither case, fortunately, was I the guy behind the desk at the time. Both times, it all began with a couple guys sitting in a car in the parking lot for no apparent good reason.
You don't owe anyone to put up with obnoxious, borderline, or illegal activity -- and your good guests will like you a lot more if you don't -- even at a cheaper property. Especially at a cheaper property. If you're running an economy-tier property, or a property in an iffy area, consider fencing around the entire perimeter.
Make sure your fire safety systems are inspected and in good working order, and that all of your fire extinguishers throughout your property are fully charged. You'd be amazed how frequently hotels get slack about this, especially if the fire department doesn't come around for frequent inspections.
Keep your pool area fenced and locked, promptly repair any loose carpet you find - this is all common sense stuff. You've got a facility where you invite people to come in, settle in for the night, tuck in the kids that are traveling with them, make themselves comfortable, and sleep -- and trust you and/or your staff to be in the next room, or just downstairs or right down the hall nearby -- confident that you'll take care of them and handle anything that can go wrong. They'll sleep better if you keep it up accordingly.
And every hotel should have a fire bill.
- Your cat can sleep in a box, and probably prefers to no matter how much your wife splurged on the plush kitty bed. Your guests are human beings and perhaps want a little more.
The room doesn't have to be fancy at the low-end price point (at the higher-end, more luxury tier price points, extra-nice goes without saying), but it does have to be comfortable. The heat and air conditioning has to work. The TV has to work, and should pick up an average range of cable channels.
At the very least, plan on having enough of everything in the room by way of furnishings or amenities so that, even if your guest is stranded for the night and didn't bring a bag or a change of clothes, he has everything he might need in there and does not need to leave the room. Essential items at even the cheapest hotels include soap, shampoo, towels (fresh, clean and in good condition), and I once had to explain to an owner, if someone pays sixty bucks a night for a room, it won't wipe out the profit to keep a seventy-nine-cent toothbrush behind the desk if he shows up there and asks for one.
I hear no end of it about free wi-fi, yet some people don't get it. Cheap Econo Lodges have it, but luxury properties try to charge for it, go figure. No one likes paying for it: why can't Hilton and Marriott learn? (Last year, on my blog, I dumped all over Marriott for blocking people's wi-fi and making their guest pay for that offered by the hotel ["C'mon, you people are capable of better...", part 1: Marriott fined $600,000 by FCC for blocking guests' Wi-Fi by Michael Forrest Jones on WWMD: What Would Mike Do? The hotel blog ], as though just charging for it isn't bad enough. This year, it was Hilton's turn to get busted for doing just that [http://fortune.com/2015/11/04/fc... ].) If you're going to charge for it at all, at least provide enough bandwidth at no charge so that a guest can check his e-mail and surf the web, and save the charge for someone who wants to have four people in the room doing a lot of streaming and pigging your bandwidth (SpotOn Networks [http://www.spotonnetworks.com/ ] offers a package where you can offer normal bandwidth for free, and charge for access to an upgrade that'll allow you to do a lot of live streaming.) And cut the crap with it: having your guests agree to Terms of Service when they log on with it is one thing, but they shouldn't be bombarded with advertising, or have to uncheck the 'yes' box the downloading of games or other crapware. (That actually happened in a hotel I stayed at a couple of months ago.)
- The environment you create and maintain is more than just air (mixed with any stray odors your housekeepers missed).
One of my earliest lessons as I moved into management from hourly and salaried staff jobs within a hotel is, to always insist when I'm interviewing for a new job, if I'm the general manager, I have complete control of the hiring, firing, staffing, scheduling and discipline, and I have final say in any such questions or problems that come up, with no right of appeal. If the answer is no, I can't do the job -- no matter how I might want or need the job, I'm not going to succeed at it anyway if I have to be accountable for people who are not themselves accountable to me. Mere partial control of that particular function doesn't work: either I'm the g.m., or I'm not. As the g.m., I'm not a "team player" -- I'm the team captain and my word is law. And final. No one who works there wins an argument with me unless I choose to let them win; and although I don't do it that way unless I have to, I can end any argument by handing someone a pink slip and pointing them to the door.
One owner very quickly agreed -- although he was an engineer and his hotel background was limited, he understood perfectly. Indeed, he taught me a thing or two about it. I don't want any ongoing problems or friction between anyone in the hotel, he told me very clearly. If you don't want someone there, fire them and get rid of them. Don't get sucked into it with someone, don't have issues that go on and on forever, don't just let a problem go on and on. Fear, anxiety, anger and resentment are emotions that one expects to find in a prison, but have no place in a hotel.
With that 'nuclear option' in place, I'm covered: now, it's time to put it in a drawer and forget about it. Because I don't want a working environment for my people where they have to constantly be paranoid over whether they're still going to have a job next week, or next month. (Of course, neither does anyone else, especially on the staff.) If I'm not creating the space for a happy environment for the staff, I can't have a space for a happy environment for the guests. Even the best staff can't have issues without sooner or later acting them out in some way.
The environment in a hotel needs to be warm, friendly, amicable, harmonious. I never encourage from even customers - and don't tolerate from staff -- any behavior that plays guests against staff, guests against management, staff against management, or staff against one another. If you want to play politics or power-trip on someone, go to work for the government.
There's a strict "no asshole rule" [http://amzn.to/1T1M8Po] in place, and everyone there understands that no supervisory accountability, not even mine, brings with it a prerogative to treat anyone arbitrarily or badly. (I do it sometimes -- I'm human like everyone else and have an ego and a temper -- but I try to notice it and clean it up with the person when I do, and insist that anyone else who works there and has people reporting to them does the same.)
We expect employees to act like adults, but we try to be sensitive to employees with special problems or needs. We budget for employee incentives and benefits, and don't play games with separate corporate entities to keep the number of employees working for one below 50, or to keep them under 32 hours a week, in order to screw them out of their Obamacare. We provide lots and lots of training -- good training, intended to advance the employee and expand his or her capabilities and value, not "how to greet the guest" training that hospitality consultants like to sell -- and try to offer every employee a career path. Our reviews aren't mere evaluations, but require managers to ask the questions, how can we best use this person, how can we better use him or her in the future, and what's the next step in taking him or her there? And they need to come up with answers - and ways to implement them - for which they'll be held accountable.
If you pay peanuts, you get monkeys. If you pay minimum wage or close to it, you'll get people who can't get or keep a job somewhere else, and who can always get another job that's just as crappy (unless the economy where you are is so bad that your hotel has other problems besides payroll costs), so why bother behaving or performing in ways that'll make this one last; and it'll show in their behavior and performance. For hourly employees, pay starts at 125% of the legal minimum wage in the jurisdiction where the hotel is located: lose it or walk away from it, and the next hotel job you get nearby doing the same work won't pay as well. We do reviews, and we go higher for experience and added competency that can result in expanded accountability -- automatically, without having to be asked or begged. It's worth the investment.
People on your staff are never going to care for your guests any more than they get that the company cares for them. So, we try and treat them accordingly.
Employees are encouraged to connect with guests as much as possible (within our fraternization policy -- which, by the way, encourages friendships and personal connections with guests, so long as these don't stray into specifically defined forbidden areas) but here again, so long as an employee isn't so completely asocial or antisocial, impossible to relate to or like, that it's questionable how he or she made it through a hiring interview, we accept varying levels of skill in this area. We don't demand a fawning, gushing, self-deprecating or obsequious 'service personality': rather, we choose good people, and encourage them to be themselves. (And by the way, if you ever see one of our employees wearing a vest that looks like one you'd see on an organ grinder's monkey, please call me and tell me and I'll have someone suggest to him that in the future, he invests in clothes that fit. Such apparel is never a required uniform item at a Beechmont-operated hotel: rather, it's a fashion statement by an individual employee with bad fashion taste.) Authentic, willing service done out of self-expression at a more modest level is more to be desired – even by the customer – than forced, robotic, or even grudging, 'service' at a more ambitious level.
Employees are permitted off-duty use of the hotel's facilities, so long as they don't abuse the privilege. They're likewise permitted at least some access to any food provided on a complimentary basis to guests, with the understanding that it won't take but one or two little piggies (either in terms of quantities consumed or mess left behind) to screw it up for everyone and provoke the general manager to padlock the pantry. We want the employees to feel as much like guests as possible, within the realities of cost control and the fact that we're running a business and can only give them so much, without it getting in the way of the work. The more they themselves have the experience of the hotel as a great place to be, the more likely they will be inclined to share the experience.
- Guest expectations have to be met, and guests have to be cared for.
Guest expectations tend to be created by the guest, to be sure -- with a little help from the hotel management. You have no business building, or owning, or running, a hotel unless you know where it fits on the food chain, and what is expected of you at each level -- and are prepared to deliver them.
If you want to rent your rooms for $400 per night, you need to have the facility, furnishings, services, amenities and location that goes with that. If you're content to run a $65.oo per night economy property, you can actually get away with having it pretty spartan - but it has to be spartan in the right places.
And if you want to offer a little extra, that's up to you, but once those expectations are in place, you have to meet them consistently. You don't have to offer bell service - at the lower end, you won't -- but if you do, it won't do for the bellman to be off on a smoke break when a guest shows up to check in. You don't have to offer a complimentary breakfast and if you do, it's up to you what items to include -- but if you do, those items have to be there every morning, and they have to be fresh and appetizing, not left over from yesterday.
In any hotel, housekeeping and maintenance and safety and service are non-negotiable. No one picks a hotel on the basis of "oh, how very clean it is": where cleanliness is done right, it's taken for granted. Where cleanliness becomes an issue, it's a dealbreaker. The same goes with maintenance and safety and service.
- Your revenue has to cover it. And it can't cost a lot of money: you have to watch your costs.
There is one really nicely designed hotel here in Winston-Salem, located in a historic old building that was originally a cotton mill. It has a full, hot breakfast that requires two or three hostesses; and you get to eat it in a very nice dining room with real plates and flatware -- and someone is in the back to do the dishes when you are done. It has an afternoon wine-and-cheese reception that takes a bartender and at least one other person to staff. They put a tremendous amount of work and effort into gardening: there are plants and flowers all around the property and in the courtyard between the two wings of the building. There are other areas where I'd suggest economizing, or in some cases even elimination, but those three things make it extra nice for guests. Caring is not open to question here: these people do care, and they are always looking for new ways to express it. There is a Keurig coffeemaker in each room, something I think should be considered in the future for our mid-market hotels. And it's a very unique property, in a nice area of town next to the historic district.
I would call this hotel one of the best hotel values in Winston-Salem. If you came to visit me for a few days and I didn't know you well enough to put you up at my house, it's where I might put you.
Its rates -- and I just opened TripAdvisor in a new tab and checked to be sure that they're still that way, that it's not just something I thought I saw one or two times -- are less than what you'd find at a Hampton Inn, or a Courtyard, or a Spring Hill Suites. But a Hampton Inn, or a Courtyard, or a Spring Hill Suites, doesn't have a quite so service-intensive full breakfast, or evening wine and cheese, or a courtyard patio surrounded by nicely-kept flowers and plants, with lots more around the perimeter of the building, or historic character in a high-value location.
You can increase your rates and include such things (well, most of them) with the room, or you can charge extra for them; but one way or another, if you're going to have things like that, guests are going to have to pay for them. If they’re not paying enough to cover the cost of them . . . guess who is?
Are the owners of this hotel having money problems? I've never seen their P&L's . . . but I have seen dings in the wallpaper, scratches in the paint in common areas and even some of the rooms, carpet that needs replacing in the corridors, paint that's starting to reach its 'replace by' date. Little things that need fixing that aren't being fixed, that properties for whom cash is tight are tempted to let slide more than they should. Those little things can't be allowed to get any worse, and they can't be allowed to continue. Let 'em go for a day, a good manager will notice them; let 'em go for two days, the staff will start noticing; let 'em go for three, and the guests will start noticing (and an average manager might notice) and you’ll start seeing it on TripAdvisor.
And it's probably going to require a capital call -- where the management company has to ask the owners to put in some fresh money -- to fix all of them, because the hotel can't be very profitable, if at all, running that way.
Having it all subsidized by outside investors works for as long as it works, but what if those outside investors have to stop for a time? What happens when they get tired of it, when they get to thinking, “I should be making money on this by now”? Or, when they just plain can’t? Like the teabaggers say about socialism: it works great until you run out of other people’s money. No one, not even the United States government, can spend more than they’re taking in but for just so long.
This hotel should be easily able to increase their rack rates by fifty dollars a night (save the $125 rates for weddings and groups -- business that its sales department does very well -- and certain extended-stay guests), and not draw too many complaints by doing it, if they tap up the rack rate gradually over six months to a year. It has one of the better sales and marketing departments I've seen in a hotel, but the wedding and event business keeps them pretty busy, and business and corporate business (which would keep a difference-making number of rooms rented during the week and not be nearly so service- and attention-intensive) shows up as a missing.
And of course, one of the first things I'd look at is, who actually shows up for the wine and cheese? Count noses: how many people show up? I'm serious. One, two, three, four people, use your finger if you have to . . . how many warm bodies? And write it down. Every day. I want to see it on the night audit spreadsheet (with the math already done that tells me the total cost of having it, per person who shows up to use it; less however much we charge per person if there's a charge). If it's only two or three people most days, if no one really cares; then dial it back, have it only on special events and weekends, or phase it out altogether.
The same goes for any other amenity that you provide, even the sort of complimentary breakfast that you can't run a limited service/select service, Class A mid-market hotel without. (The limited service/select service concept, rolled out in the early eighties with the introduction of Courtyard by Marriott, Comfort Inn and Hampton Inn, called for reducing or eliminating costly items and amenities; including tipped employees, and any food or beverage service that costs more than you could afford to give to the guest without charge, and have the cost of it covered by what he or she paid for the room, and still have a hotel nice enough that anyone other than the most pampered, spoiled-rotten, rich socialite could be happy with for a few nights . . .) If the cost per person is too high, and you can't get rid of it, look for ways to get the cost down -- and/or increase your revenue to cover it. (Michael Forrest Jones' answer to What is REVPAR in the hotel industry? )
Or consider keeping it, if it adds to the ambience and experience of staying at the hotel, without causing more problems than it's worth; and the cost per person is within reason and covered by the revenue that it generates. Hotels that have a wine-and-cheese reception, for example, usually charge $175-200 per night for their rooms: okay, can we get $175-200 per night for our rooms?
Or, if people are willing to pay extra for it, and it pretty much pays for itself, then do it that way . . .
Furnishings, and expectations, should be realistic and in line with the price point. Some starry-eyed dreamer's vision of "what guests expect" can, if you go with it without thinking about it, result in the creation and subsequent encouragement of guest expectations that you can't meet consistently, or that cost more to provide than you can get the revenue to cover. You can’t make money that way, and no matter how nice your hotel, you’d only end up with something that not even God could spend the night in and be happy with . . .
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Like our old friend Steve Jobs used to say, 'real artists ship'. I could keep working on this one until I finish it, but it would never be complete and I'd never get it posted. So, I'm going to go with it for now, and come back to it . . .
Originally appeared on Quora
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