Excerpt from CoStar
As the global hotel industry continues on a path of recovery, hoteliers are adapting each day to streamline operations while maintaining an adequate level of service and attracting and retaining the talent to deliver that guest satisfaction.
Here are some of the highlights from Hotel News Now coverage over the past six months about the pain points operators are going through and how they're finding solutions.
In July 2021, hotels in the U.S. began running at nearly 2019 occupancy levels, said Remington Hotels CEO and President Sloan Dean. While the increased occupancy was a positive, most of the bookings came from leisure travel, meaning more guests per occupied room that led to more time needed to clean the rooms.
"In our leisure resorts, we've had to add more trash cans to the rooms because more people are eating in the rooms, they're bringing more with them and leaving more in the rooms," Dean said.
Arbor Lodging Management CEO Sheenal Patel said the entire industry is feeling pain from the lack of hourly employees to spread around duties.
Chesapeake Hospitality CEO Chris Green said his company is investing in ways to get staff members more vacation time.
"They're exhausted. They're emotionally drained," he said.
Some hotel brands in the U.S. shifted to an opt-in model for daily housekeeping over the summer, which executives said can help balance guest preferences with the current labor market.
Hilton moved to the opt-in model at its non-luxury U.S. properties, noting guests had varying levels of comfort with someone entering their rooms after they checked in.
"All in all, we have less people to be able to work in our hotels. We have to figure out a way to still be able to provide the service our guests want and need," said Arbor Lodging's Patel. "My view is that ... changing how we're doing housekeeping requires less housekeepers, but if every hotel out there stayed as is, we would have struggled even more to fill all those positions."
Despite limited services, guest satisfaction scores managed to hold at the same rate as 2020. However, guests were still vocal about what they value during an overnight stay.
The J.D. Power 2021 North America Hotel Guest Satisfaction Index study released in July 2021 noted on a 1,000-point scale, overall hotel guest satisfaction was 830, which is flat compared to 2020 and 10 points higher than in 2019.
The survey said 36% of hotels removed buffet-style services in response to the pandemic's focus on social distancing, which caused a decline in satisfaction.
"It's through no fault of the hotel. They tried to do their best, but it was that variety that guests were missing, the quality guests were missing," said Andrea Stokes, hospitality practice lead at J.D. Power. "What hotels were able to do with a small grab-and-go lunch bag of food, it just wasn't what guests were used to."
Because some hotel brands need to trim the number of items on their menus, they are now focusing on higher-quality items over quantity.
Starting Jan. 1, 2022, brands such as Hyatt Hotels Corp., Hilton and Marriott International will launch new offerings and programs for breakfast, showcasing higher-quality options, including vegan and vegetarian, that can be customized.
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