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Fight through Crisis - Page 2 of 2
I tried to explain that if you used to have a price of 370. – Baht per head for your banqueting business, and you cut the price down to 325. – Baht or even lower – you must be able to calculate an exact Baht and Satang of how much you finally would make. Consequently, how much of service charge your staff would earn. The staff may work as hard as before or even harder with a lower service charge to be received by the end of the month. In the hotel industry, some operational staff very much depend on the service charge for their living.
I come back again to the management communication in the meeting! You have to inspire and educate the staff and eventually convince them of how to go through the difficulties.
Some businesses can depend on lower pricing with a bulk selling strategy. However, in the hotel industry, you cannot over do it. It does not mean you cannot do, but, I say it again, don't overdo it, unfortunately many non-hotelier background management or owner could not see the risk.
Many of owners or management accepted to sell at a price that did not making any profit to just show their good face and I think they disrespect their operating team.
Each and every hotel business process needs people. So, to lower the prices with the hope to have quantitative sales will finally affect staff motivation and the expense as you have to finally pay so much for over-time, extra casual paid workers and so on and so forth and please note that some managers never ever calculate things in detail in their whole lives. Therefore, they only look at the revenue and occupancy, but not a detailed profit.
I added on another important thing! E-MARKETING. I shared a good story of the company called Mai-BS (Thailand) which is very successful after only 2 months being in operation. Its website is very participative and popular. I told the audiences to leave this important work to professionals and all hotel owners must seriously invest in this as in Thailand, we can depend very little on our government for any help. We all should bette
r depend and rely on ourselves, Kbank, and I wish to extend here that if you are in need for more, you can also reply on Mai-BS.
Not to forget, you have to be very careful of your expense! What I like to extend here is: I do not mean you have to be tight with your expense. You should be reasonable in your spending! For example; you can take out some of the light bulbs from staff canteen or lockers or even from guest corridors and put out an internal campaign on "saving" throughout the hotel. However, in the mean time, it is not wrong to consider purchasing a "lazy susan" for your tables, as it gives convenience to your guests and your staff - especially when you receive many complaints about it.
Last but not least, I think whatever cost saving exercises you have done – or will do -during a crisis, those saving practices should be continued when the business picks up. I worked in a prestigious 5 star hotel chain and I realized that each time we faced crisis, every GM excitedly called for cost saving measurement. But once the business turned well enough, we were never called or asked for any cost saving meeting. I don't know why? To me, this truly reflects "crisis is an opportunity", I think it is a learning that we gain during crisis and we can also apply some of the exercises during the booming period too,- FOR EVEN BETTER PROFIT AND OPERATING PROFITS!
I ended MY SPEECH that during the crisis; we all can think big, set goal, set strategies, BUT every business process is the most important activity for us to watch over. Sometimes, business is turned down due to a very little mistake, from the way your staff or yourself wrongly respond or treat the guests. So, look into your operation and ensure you have "operational effectiveness" on your daily agenda. It's like you are playing in a football (soccer) match! Every second you can hit the goal.
© Dhevabanchachai Nate-tra (2009), Honorary Advisor / Director, Mai-BS (THAILAND) http://mai-bs.com
© Dhevabanchachai Nate-tra (2009), Program Director at Travel Industry Management Division and Acting General Manager at Salaya Pavilion Hotel and Training Center at Mahidol University International College http://www.mahidol.ac.th
I come back again to the management communication in the meeting! You have to inspire and educate the staff and eventually convince them of how to go through the difficulties.
Some businesses can depend on lower pricing with a bulk selling strategy. However, in the hotel industry, you cannot over do it. It does not mean you cannot do, but, I say it again, don't overdo it, unfortunately many non-hotelier background management or owner could not see the risk.
Many of owners or management accepted to sell at a price that did not making any profit to just show their good face and I think they disrespect their operating team.
Each and every hotel business process needs people. So, to lower the prices with the hope to have quantitative sales will finally affect staff motivation and the expense as you have to finally pay so much for over-time, extra casual paid workers and so on and so forth and please note that some managers never ever calculate things in detail in their whole lives. Therefore, they only look at the revenue and occupancy, but not a detailed profit.
I added on another important thing! E-MARKETING. I shared a good story of the company called Mai-BS (Thailand) which is very successful after only 2 months being in operation. Its website is very participative and popular. I told the audiences to leave this important work to professionals and all hotel owners must seriously invest in this as in Thailand, we can depend very little on our government for any help. We all should bette
Not to forget, you have to be very careful of your expense! What I like to extend here is: I do not mean you have to be tight with your expense. You should be reasonable in your spending! For example; you can take out some of the light bulbs from staff canteen or lockers or even from guest corridors and put out an internal campaign on "saving" throughout the hotel. However, in the mean time, it is not wrong to consider purchasing a "lazy susan" for your tables, as it gives convenience to your guests and your staff - especially when you receive many complaints about it.
Last but not least, I think whatever cost saving exercises you have done – or will do -during a crisis, those saving practices should be continued when the business picks up. I worked in a prestigious 5 star hotel chain and I realized that each time we faced crisis, every GM excitedly called for cost saving measurement. But once the business turned well enough, we were never called or asked for any cost saving meeting. I don't know why? To me, this truly reflects "crisis is an opportunity", I think it is a learning that we gain during crisis and we can also apply some of the exercises during the booming period too,- FOR EVEN BETTER PROFIT AND OPERATING PROFITS!
I ended MY SPEECH that during the crisis; we all can think big, set goal, set strategies, BUT every business process is the most important activity for us to watch over. Sometimes, business is turned down due to a very little mistake, from the way your staff or yourself wrongly respond or treat the guests. So, look into your operation and ensure you have "operational effectiveness" on your daily agenda. It's like you are playing in a football (soccer) match! Every second you can hit the goal.
© Dhevabanchachai Nate-tra (2009), Honorary Advisor / Director, Mai-BS (THAILAND) http://mai-bs.com
© Dhevabanchachai Nate-tra (2009), Program Director at Travel Industry Management Division and Acting General Manager at Salaya Pavilion Hotel and Training Center at Mahidol University International College http://www.mahidol.ac.th
Tags & Keywords : Mai-BS, maibs, Thailand Hotel Consultant, Thailand Training Company, Quality Training, Hotel Opening, Support
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