9 Ways on How to Improve your Hotel Operations

Here are some ways to improve hotel operations:

Streamline Check-in and Check-out Processes: Simplify the check-in and check-out processes to reduce wait times and improve guest satisfaction. Consider implementing mobile check-in and check-out or self-service kiosks.

Use Technology: Use technology to automate and streamline hotel operations. This can include implementing a property management system (PMS), using mobile devices to communicate with staff, and providing in-room technology such as smart TVs.

Train and Empower Staff: Train your staff to provide excellent customer service and empower them to make decisions to resolve guest issues. Empowered employees can create a positive guest experience and help to reduce guest complaints.

Personalize Guest Experience: Personalize the guest experience by offering tailored recommendations and amenities based on guest preferences. Collect guest data and use it to provide personalized service and recommendations.

Focus on Housekeeping: Ensure that the housekeeping staff is well-trained, equipped with the right tools and technology, and follows a consistent cleaning protocol. Consistently clean and well-maintained rooms can improve guest satisfaction and prevent negative reviews.

Monitor and Respond to Guest Feedback: Monitor guest feedback through reviews and social media and respond promptly and professionally to any complaints or negative feedback. Use guest feedback to make improvements and address any issues.

Analyze and Optimize Revenue: Analyze revenue data and optimize pricing and inventory to maximize revenue. Use data to identify trends and opportunities to upsell and cross-sell amenities and services.

Offer Upselling Opportunities: Offer upselling opportunities to guests to increase revenue and provide a better guest experience. This can include upgrades to rooms, packages, or amenities.

By implementing these strategies, hotels can improve operations and provide a better guest experience, leading to increased guest satisfaction, positive reviews, and ultimately, increased revenue.

1. Making the Right Decisions

Anyone working in the will know that it is easy to get overwhelmed by the number of tasks and opportunities that are always at hand. For this reason, it is highly important to set priorities. Without establishing the right set of priorities you will run the risk of overlooking more important responsibilities that can directly compromise service quality of your hospitality operations.

2. Know your Guests and Personalize

Another question that hoteliers should ask themselves is “do you know what your guests want?”. If not, it’s about time to get to know them a little better! Start reaping the benefits of a well built and maintained customer database.

3. Preparation is Key: Don’t wait until your Guests Arrive!

Waiting for opportunities until the guest arrives will work against your operations in many ways. Instead, it is better to take a proactive stance and start driving customer experience and revenue from the get go. The benefits are abundant, namely:

Increase the interaction time with your guests:

Making the service feel more attentive and generally of a higher level;
Increase exposure of your products and services to your guests. This equals more revenue opportunities;
Higher chance the guest will get the most out of their stay, by providing them with more inspiring plans to add to their itinerary.
Facilitate a truly worry-free vacation!

Take care of the planning and decision making process. Curate a selection of various activities for different stay durations so every guest can just follow the itinerary without having to do their own research and planning.

Answer pre-arrival questions:

Any questions or issues can be answered before arrival, alleviating some workload that otherwise would be carried by front office staff.

4. Empower your Employees

Foster an environment centered around empowerment and training. Employees should be able to become the one person guests can go to for everything.  

Equipping them with the right knowledge and tools will help them in dealing with any unexpected situations. The confidence that is built in this process can both be felt by guests and the employees themselves, who will feel more comfortable and prepared for any situation they might encounter. 

5. Create a Culture of Ownership

A problem we see too often is lack of ownership. Nothing is worse than making the guest feel like their issue is being passed on and on to others. You might even be better off saying that you’re not interested in dealing with the issue in the first place… This goes back to our previous point about empowering employees to take care of any situation by themselves. Dealing with issues directly shows you care and lets guests know you’re involved in ensuring they have a wonderful stay.

6. Communicate and Cross-communicate

One thing we’ll always keep preaching for is increasing the level of communication between departments and breaking existing silos. And for good reason. Cross-communication is the only way to overcome persisting operational bottlenecks. 

7. Work smarter, not Harder…

Find ways to reduce the execution time of operational processes without skimping on services. Working smarter will have a positive effect on service delivery time and reduce the workload carried by employees.

8. Standardization, The Key to Building a Strong Brand

Talking about improving hotel operations can´t go without addressing SOPs, which are at the heart of a hotel´s operations. They play a key role in making sure processes run smoothly and guests are provided with the best service, as consistently as possible.

9. Leverage Technology and Software for Efficiency

Technology plays an integral role in improving hotel operations. A solid tech stack can help hotels save time and improve guest experience. Specifically, the below tools can greatly improve your hotel´s operational performance:

PMS (Property Management System) & POS (Point of Sale System)

Frictionless interaction with customers;
Reduce labour intensity and risk of errors through automation;
Access to better data (less prone to errors than manual reporting);
Well designed systems allow for features such as keyless check in.

CRM system (Customer Relationship Management)

Drive loyalty and increase service level through personalized offerings;
Automated marketing initiatives including email campaigns.

RMS (Revenue Management System)

More in-depth analysis of hotel performance;
Less time consuming analysis.
Internal collaboration tools

Software to manage guests preferences, requests, complaints, maintenance, housekeeping, internal communication and more…