AXIS Hospitality International

HOTELS FAIL MISERABLY AT GROUP BOOKINGS

HOW COME HOTELS ARE NOT USER-FRIENDLY FOR GROUP BOOKINGS?

Would you believe that most group booking order takers in the major hotel companies seem not to know know what they are doing.

One would think that with today's technology, the training focus and the expertise of tens of thousands of hotels, that we would learn how to accurately and competently bid on a meeting for 200 people, some bedrooms and the related F & B.

Our company recently took on the challenge of negotiating room blocks plus meeting & banquet space in seventy cities throughout the USA and Canada. This involved dealing with the Central Sales Offices of three of the largest hotel groups in the world. We are therefore dealing with some 200-300 hotels.

This first step was pleasant, efficient and professional. The Regional Sales staff are everything that one would expect. The promise of additional business in Europe, Asia and South Americal in future years is definitely considered a 'good lead'.

After careful crafting of a detailed RFP (request for proposals) in which we requested that the +/-200 or more hotels to fill in the blanks and PDF it back by EMail,  this was the outcome,

• All hotels but two failed to fill in all the spaces.
• Two hotels filled in no spaces at all.
• 12% of the hotels faxed the information to our client directly, totally ignoring the PDF/EMail instructions.
• 78% did not PDF the proposal but returned the MS Word document
• 68% of the hotels sent a huge AV price list instead of responding to our request for a price on 4 items.
• AV suppliers expect to take orders, not provide service.
• Huge quantities of Monday to Friday Menus came for our weekend lunch.
• 53% of the hotels would not provide a price for a coffee break per person, only by gallon.
• 87% of the nice regret notices did not indicate what dates were not available.
• One major city convention centre was more interested in selling F & B rather than conference space and bedrooms for the adjoining hotel for which it was probably financed and built.

If this were an occasional situation, I might understand.

If we were dealing with a bunch of independent properties in remote rural locations, I might also understand.

If we were not dealing with huge major convention hotels in North America's major gateway cities, I might understand.

However, this is the 'bread and butter' business of these hotels. This represents one third or more of the business to most of these hotels. Some of them rely on 40%-50% of their business from this meetings & conferences market segment.

I am now a frustrated client. Actually mad as hell.

Having operated 40+ hotels at one point in my career, I recall clearly going through some excercises in which we would 'secret shop' our reservation & group booking services and be amazed by the amateurish responses to straight-forward questions. I therefore do not pretend to be any better than today's managers.

Here however are the common findings,

1. Smaller hotels are better at the details than larger hotels.
2. Suburban hotels are more efficient than their urban brothers (or sisters)
3. Large hotels outsource stuff like AV and let the client scramble.
4. City Centre AV providers think like Hollywood producers.
5. Suburban AV providers take a more realistic approach.
6. Hotels with F & B Minimums lose my business because they are unable or unwilling to explain the formula.
7. You think oil is expensive!! Have you looked at coffee recently?

However, I think it is high time that we learn to be precise in our proposals, to listen to the customer and to refrain, where possible, from making our potential customers....mad as hell, in the process of doing business with us!!

GGggggggggggggggggrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!!

HERE WE GO AGAIN!!! ANOTHER PR DISASTER

THIS TIME ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE CHANNEL. ACCOR TO CLEAR UP THE CONFUSION ON A NAME LIKE SOFITEL. APPARENTLY SOME ARE "LESS INSPIRING".

I really can not comprehend how one of the largest hotel groups in the world can think that it can get away with splitting up a questionable 'up-market' product into undefined sub-brands...... and, horror of horrors..... the less-inspiring hotels to be "hived off" under a new Pullman brand....for business travellers.

If they were not ready for the public, how can they come out with a loose announcement like this.

The article is below.

Accor plans luxury refit for Sofitel

Accor plans to reposition its 182-hotel Sofitel chain closer to the luxury end of the market, the Financial Times reported, quoting CEO Gilles Pelisson. Atmospheric properties will be dubbed Sofitel Legends, while boutique-style venues will bear the name So by Sofitel. There will also be renovations and new openings. The hope is that a more consistently upmarket positioning will justify a major price hike, the newspaper added. Accor also plans to hive off 35 of the brand's less inspiring hotels into a new chain aimed mainly at business travellers, where they will trade under the Pullman name.

I always felt that Sofitel was a perfect name for a telephone company, not the upscale version of Novotel, another ideal telephone company name. It therefore does not surprise me that Accor have decided to change it. It comes on the tail of the announcement that Holiday Inn is going to do another shuffle.......and there are some similarities.

Branding is such a science today so it pains me that such an enormous, successful company can talk about "dubbing" its atmospheric properties as Legends and then......"there will also be renovations and new openings" without talking about the features of the hotels that will be known as Legends and the scope of the investment to achieve this rate increase.

Now the language is kind of 'iffy'. They state, " The hope is that a more consistently upmarket positioning will justify a major price hike." That does not sound very convincing to me!

Now we could all have some fun with "So". I don't however think that they are thinking along the same lines as me, but I could be wrong. They might indeed be .....

............So French, So Charming, So Small, So Comfy and if anyone complains, So What!

.............So Tasty and So Delicious but So Expensive but if anyone minds, So What!

Certainly beats the Carlson Slogan of  "Yes, I can!"

............So Expensive, So Chique. So Smart and So Sleek...So you don't like it, So What!

At least Holiday Inn will probably not choose the boutique moniker of "Ho"...as Sofitel chose "So". "Ho" has a totally different ring to it, at least in the USA... where Jerry Springer reigned supreme on the airwaves for far too long....but that's another story!

Well I guess that if any nationality can pull "So" off,  it's the French. They have such a 'je ne sais quoi' approach to life that does not come off through their fine wines or luxury luggage.

The world is definitely ready for a tongue in cheek French brand, by the French, from the French and about the French.

Now while everyone else is courting the Business Traveller, Accor has a different plan. They will focus on hiving off their business travellers into less-inspiring properties. That sounds like a really unusual strategy! It sure could grab the attention of the corporate travel planners because the last thing they need for their travelling workers is to be inspired while travelling.

And Pullman has a nice 1930s ring to it. These were the noisy wooden creaky carriages that sqeaked between train stations before being sent to the scrapyard.......or were they? Maybe they have been saved for rejuvenation as tomorrow's answer to today's 'less inspired'.

I am not sure about Legends. Legendary signifies for me some history about which one can boast, like the Ritz or the George V or the Savoy and Waldorf Astoria. Unless of course the PR Department got it wrong and maybe there was a an error and it should have been Leg Ends which of corse conjures up marvellous creative opportunities, in which

.........furnishings from all the classic eras feature their 'leg ends' as design features. Legs have had such wonderful designs over the generations,

.........beds, chairs, sofas, tables, pianos all could have featured legs. It might not stop there!!

.........It probably will.

Now can anyone explain to me what an 'atmospheric property' is?

So many Brands needing so much sub-segmenting. And it always seems to be seen as so simple. A few new names, new signage, logos, brand specs, some new marketing materials and more franchise fees ........until the next evaluation splits it again.

However, this looks more to me like a brief off-the-record conversation between Gilles Pelisson and the Financial Times where the translation went terribly wrong. How quickly the message can go off track if not handled by the professionals!!

For assistance on anything to to do with hospitality branding, contact [email protected]

REPOSITIONING ANALYSIS PARALYSIS....NOW NEW & IMPROVED!

HOW MANY TIMES CAN ONE REINVENT A HOTEL BRAND?

Are we never satisfied with a great product? Do we always have to find a 'new and improved' version? Can we not build in 'perpetual improvement' into the brand in the first place?

I have never been in the retail business so do not know whether my dishwasher soap needed to be reinvented every year or so. Apparently it does, otherwise the 'new and improved' phrase would not appear every day on the shelves and in the newspapers  promoting this newly concocted product.

In automobiles, it scares me. Why did they have to throw out every part that was 'new and improved' in my model purchased last year. Was it faulty? Did they screw up that badly? *

InterContinental, the brand leaders in our franchising industry, not so much for their InterContinental name but for their Holiday Inn brand, has announced  a new brand re-launch of the basic HI brand. Not the HI Select, not the HI Sunspree, not the HI Express, just the HI.

It caught my eye because they went through that twice before when they wanted to filter out some of the measly franchisors who did not keep up their product quality.....and reward others. Some were bleeding their properties and thence the brand.....a new sweep was called for and a new brand extension, Crowne Plaza and then Holiday Inn Select were born and those with the old green sign and no moniker were left in the dust.... or were they?

Can we see the day when Four Seasons introduces Five Seasons or Three Seasons? I doubt it. Or will Marriott subsegment a Ritz Carlton in suburbia to a Carlton Inn or a small boutique city centre property to an Auberge Ritz....I also doubt that! Although using Barry Sternlicht's keen eye for signage economy with his brilliant "W" projects, perhaps an "AR" might be a first step for Auberge Ritz?!!! Actually, it has a nice relaxing ring to it..............AAAAARRRRRR.

Or perhaps Marriott's base brand could sub-segment and Alberghi Marrio's would hit the streets in Little Italy city sections around the world with specialty Sports Bar combos called RRiots.

Then why does the mother of them all keep having to spin off what are now know as Holiday Outs. In fact a brand was born from that piece of corporate surgery in the early 90s when they went through the same excercise and ended up mailing the franchise fees to a competitor. New signage for the loyal owners, new standards created by a new wave of MBAs and their new brand managers, such a waste of money when all it takes is brand discipline, agility and teeth.

What is brand discipline you may well ask? What will it take to build a brand that has stability, consistency, standards that are not standard.....and built in quality? It is an unrelenting focus on guaranteeing the quality of the FF & E, the services, the F&B and guest loyalty/satisfaction. This is needed by both the franchisor and the franchisee. Put another way...it is needed by the licensor and the client........and therin lies the rub.

Does the licensor have enough 'chutzpah' to eliminate a client just for the sake of some worn carpet, some sagging mattresses, dated bathrooms or faded drapes? Or is it easier to provide that loyal client with a waiver for renos that are then deployed to next ....or future years........and keep the revenue stream coming.

Will it take another pendulum swing where franchisors become managers again, and franchisees are disenfranchised? Will the owners of the brands need to recognise that standards are not delegatable by written agreements nor can they be policed by company negotiators.

I think it should but it won't.

I believe that the management of a brand is a very personal thing, not open to diverse interpretations nor financial difficulties. It is a strong statement of a position. A powerful statement of style......not something that gradually deteriorates and then needs to be re-named. That is a cop-out. A total departure from the basic principles of the brand which were established in good faith.

It is however the way our industry works. The day that each hotel opens is the best day of the rest of its life. From that point on, its carpets and mattresses start to wear, its' sheets and drapes gather dust and grime and the youthful staff each take one day closer to retirement.

As long however as there are new names to throw at sub-standard generators of franchise fees, there will always be a new name for those that excel. It is just not fair for those that toe the line and those enthusiastic employees of all ages who try to make up for the shortfalls of the owner or franchisor.

"Quality is never an accident......................it is always the result of calculated effort."

See also "New & Improved, Oh Really?"

http://www.fool.com/investing/value/2006/01/27/new-and-improved-oh-really.aspx

If you are in need of franchise advice, contact [email protected]

* Actually I drive a Lexus so do not have to buy a new car every year. They just build in perpetual improvement..... so whenever I am ready, I know they will be.