Tag Archives: Location

Capstone #5

Have you ever been to a hotel and thought about what makes it

successful? Well you’re in luck because today I will be talking about that exact thing. But as you know you can’t just answer that in one sentence, you need to answer it with lots and lots of research. And lucky for you, I did that research for you. We will be talking about how service impacts hotels success, what role has advertisement played in hotels, why is the location of a hotel important, how do amenities add to the experience and how do you make people come back. I know it’s a long list but we will get through it all!

Service is a very important aspect of a hotel if not the most important. You really need to have really great service so that your customers come back. Let me give you an example, say you are at a hotel. You ordered room service two hours ago. And it still had not come. Also the person at the front desk was very rude to you would you want to go back? I know I would not. Like what Phillia Tounta (a hotel hospitality worker) said, “Gone are the days the travelers were satisfied with an ordinary bed and breakfast,” This really stood out to me because this just shows how much you need to do to make sure your customers are happy. On top of the challenges hotels face to keep their customers, hotels also face the challenge of turnover rate (how many people leave). Bureau of Labor Statistics say that every year three quarters of hotels have a turnover rate of 73.8% workers leaving a year. And on top of that 6% of their staff leaving every month. With an average cost of $5,860 for each person leaving and with around 500 people leaving a year that’s $2 million every year. And it’s only going higher. This is so bad for hotel industries. But then again there are all always some hotels that go above and beyond. Like the W downtown located in New York city. The hotel has got the five diamond award seven years in a row. The five diamond award is based off of comfort, cleanliness, security and service of amenities. It is rated one to five. What you get (if you even get one) will most likely to be the rating of your hotel. This hotels has got all seven of the awards rated four. That is really good because it is not only good by itself but it’s even better because they are constituent too. As you can tell service is very important and were won’t stop now!

For a hotel advertisement is very important because without advertisement how would you even know if your new favorite hotel even exists? Sure advertisement is very annoying when you’re playing a game and right in the middle a add pops up but still it is very important. For advertisement you need to make good decisions for where you’re going to put it, because you have a limited amount of money and you don’t want to use it all on all on a video game that nobody plays. That’s a waste of money. It’s also very important to spread out where you use your marketing budget, so you get all kinds of views not just some. Like for example for a hotel you don’t want only ten year old kids to see it, they will just x it out. You want adults to see the paradise you’re offering. Hotel advertisement was all over newspapers and magazines with saying at the top “the best house in America” or something like that, that’s it another way to get adults to see your hotel. But you also want kids to see them to. For hotels it’s important to have advertisement everywhere. Recently studies had shown that social media like Facebook, gets a lot of views. But there is advertisement that by far is the best kind, because one people listen to it the most and you don’t have to pay for. That advertisement is . . . word-of-mouth. Word-of-mouth is when one of your customers love their stay so much that they post photos of the hotel on social media, and write something like “Best hotel ever!” or tell their friends about the hotel they were just at and tell them how good it was. Happy customers are and will always be the most important part of advertisement.

One of the big thing that makes a hotel a great hotel is the location This is very important because almost all the actives your going to do are to be near the hotel your staying at. But for your hotel you want a perfect place. Near everything. For example you want a hotel near a park for little kids, you want it to be close to amusement parks for families, you want to be near a business center for business trips, ect. But it’s really hard to find a hotel in the middle of all those things. It’s way too hard. So a easy solution for that is to have some of those things in your hotel like a meeting room for the people on the business trip. Or a playroom for kids. These things are called amenities. We will get closer in to that later. You also want to have everything walking distance so there is no hassle to rent a car or use public transportation and waste a lot of money. Most hotels have something very important to have that really does makes the customers life so much easier. And that is the hospitality desk where someone tells you about all the hit terrorist locations in the area.

Amenities are a really important for a hotel to have, because I’m sure that everyone would rather go to a hotel with a pool then without one. If you don’t know what an amenity is it is a feature that not all hotels have but they really add to the experience of your stay. The thing is not all hotels have amenities. And that’s what makes some hotels stand out. There are hotels that have meeting rooms, fitness center, kids club, a room with computers so you can do work, dining room, free wifi, free breakfast, room service, free parking, 24 hour front desk, clean rooms, a bar, robes and slippers in hotel rooms, air conditioning, tea and coffee in lobby and room, allow strollers inside hotel, offer free strollers, tell customers about nearby activities and my favorite a pool and on top of that it that pool has a lifeguard that is another amenity. Now this is a very long list but this just shows how much a hotel can have. But most only have three to four. The most common ones are the ones that you would expect from a hotel like air conditioning. But some of these things really make parents life so much easier. For example hotels offering free strollers for their guests. This is very important for guests because they don’t have to spend a forton to take it on the plane with them if their flying in. If their driving it such a hassle to get the stroller in and out. It’s just so much easier. Also the kids club. The kids club is great to have because say their parents want to go out to dinner together they could just take their kids to the kids club and everyone is happy. And the best part is that it is free. And there things that kids and their parents love. Like a pool with lifeguards. The kids love it because it’s a pool, who doesn’t and the parents love it because they don’t have to watch but if they want to they can. Amenities  are very important for a hotel to have and as you can tell . . . everyone loves them. Weather it’s the kids or the parents, everyone loves it!

Making people come back is the whole reason why hotels these days have all of these things I talked about. It’s all about having people loving your hotel and wanting to come back. So everything I said before was a build up to this. I mean who would not want their customers come back right. It’s more money for you and your team anyway. But there are some little strages that really do help people and make them want to come back. But let’s start out with the little things that you would not think help but they really do and things that you know work and it obvious. Like treating your customers well for example it’s obvious but not all hotels do it. Sometimes when I go to a hotel at the front desk instead of someone being nice, they are very rude you can really tell and you won’t feel great and then you would not come back. Or leave a bad review. But once only once that someone was so nice to me that she gave me and my brother lollipops. And that made me feel good. And then we  went there again and again. This shows that things like this really make people want to come back. Also your staff needs to be really good at solving problems, they need to be polite and they need to help customers with ease. If they can do that, that gives your hotel a huge advantage. These things really help a hotel and that makes people want to come back.

As you can tell that to answer my main inquiry question (What contributes to a hotels success?) the answer is my sub questions. What I mean is service, advertisement, location and amenities. All these thing contribute to a hotels success and in my book all these things make a hotel a hotel.