HOLLYWOOD, Florida — Hotel company executives are hotel guests, too, and as they navigate operational changes at their hotels necessitated by the pandemic that are likely to linger for some time, they strive to think like guests.

Taking care of the company and the guests requires balancing costs, in many cases amid reduced staffing, with guest expectations and satisfaction.

Hoteliers looking to make cuts might have opportunities with housekeeping — as many safety-conscious guests are willing to part with daily room cleaning — but are best advised to bring back the free breakfast, said David Kong, president and CEO of BWH Hotel Group, the global hotel brand company that includes Best Western Hotels & Resorts.

"For sure, there are going to be changes" in operations, he said during one of two "Boardroom Outlook" sessions at the Caribbean Hotel & Resort Investment Summit.

"If you look from the owners’ standpoint, they lost so much money last year, they want to be able to make some money to make up for that loss," Kong said. "And they want to do whatever they can to take costs out, which means they don’t want to serve that breakfast in the midscale segment … for free. They don’t want to do daily housekeeping. Basically they will cut back on a lot of things to save money and also to deal with the labor crisis."

He said 5% to 7% of the company's hotel rooms are "out of order every single day because we just can't find enough people to clean the rooms; it's not that we can't sell them."

Meanwhile, guest surveys have shown that "about 70% of people still don't feel comfortable having someone go into their room every day to clean" he said.

"I think that is an opportunity, but it also depends on the chain scale segment," Kong said. "If you're in the luxury segment, the upper-upscale segment, and people are paying those rates, they might have the expectation that you will clean the rooms more frequently. It's a balance. You have to listen to your customers.

"In terms of breakfast, 70% of people want that breakfast. If you don't provide it, guess what, you're going to lose that business," he added.

Alex Zozaya, chairman of all-inclusive resort management firm Apple Leisure Group, said hotels can't cut back on experience.

"What we sell is experience. The resort is what we sell. That is the product. As a result of that, we cannot afford not to have a swimming pool, or even the spa open or restaurants. ... How much the consumer is willing to put up with, for how long, also depends how much you charge," he said.

"The key is not to be that invasive that you hurt the experience, but not cut short when it comes to really delivering, or creating the perception that we’re delivering the whole product they’re looking for."

He added that successful restaurants don't skimp on service.

"If you go to a good restaurant that really takes care of the customer, and they don’t have enough labor to take care of all the customers, they’ll only take half the customers, so they know that the half that shows up is going to be well taken care of," Zozaya said. "They’ll have the same experience, but only 50% of the people. If the hotel chooses to continue to have 100% occupancy but they cut the services in half, they’re going to lose them."

Hoteliers "have to decide," he said.

"Do I want to provide a top experience to a [smaller] number of guests, especially to our most loyal guests, or do I want to take the opportunity to maximize the revenues in the short term, look good in the short term, and then lose the loyalty from those customers?" Zozaya said.

Kong shared a story about an experience he had as a guest at a hotel.

"I was a guest at a hotel in a town in Michigan over the summer," he said. "This hotel normally charges $250 a night. I paid $400 [a night] to stay at this hotel over that weekend. There's no room service; there's no restaurant, no breakfast, no housekeeping — I mean, just bare-bones minimum. And I'm paying $400 — $150 more than I used to pay. How do you think I feel? It leaves a really bad taste in my mouth. Guess what, I’m never going back to that hotel."

Carolyne Doyon, president and CEO for North America and the Caribbean at French all-inclusive resort brand Club Med, said that while hotel operations might never return to pre-pandemic norms, guest expectations are already there.

"In terms of guest satisfaction, what we have seen is that for a while, our guests were much more lenient," she said. "You know, little things that would have bothered them pre-pandemic, they were accepting. But as we are moving forward, we're back to pre-pandemic expectations, and that's a killer for us because we don't operate like we did pre-pandemic, and I don't think we ever will [again]."

How hotels meet those high guest expectations will be key for the future of the industry, Doyon said.

"To match your guess expectation, along with your new way of operating, I think for all of us is the new reality; it's the new challenge," she said. "And every time we receive feedback, it's something that we pay attention to."

Scott LePage, president for the Americas at Wyndham Hotels & Resorts, said clearly communicating offerings to guests will go a long way.

"We know that we're going to continue to change and evolve the way this moves forward, whether it's housekeeping or the services available in the hotel; and some may have changed permanently. And so it's making sure that the description of that room, description of the services, and what the guests would expect are clearly there," he said, adding that technology is aiding in that communication.

"I do think that guests will accept certain differences in the long run, but they're looking for a clear understanding of what they’re getting for those dollars," LePage said. "And as the dollars go up, which is what we all want, then that clarity becomes more and more important."

Jorge Giannattasio, senior vice president of operations for Latin America and the Caribbean at Hilton, added: "It's not the same expectations that the guests had before. The key is to really listen to the guests, to really understand what really matters and what things they can live without, without making any impact in their satisfaction."

Craig Smith, group president, international at Marriott International, said what guests ultimately want is "frictionless" travel.

To enable that, Marriott has invested heavily in tech. Guests "don't want to go and check in at a desk," he said. "I don't want to have to call down [to the front desk]; I want to do everything on my phone."

At the same time, Marriott made "a decision to double down" on guest satisfaction, he said.

"I’ve been through four downturns in my career, and the one thing I used to complain about is that the corporate office was only focused on cutting costs. You need to watch your costs and trim your costs in a downturn. But it's also a great time to pick up more clients," he said.

"We have pushed our hotels and said, 'Sorry, you're going to have to cut costs, and you're going to have to increase your guest satisfaction, and we don't know how you can do it, but good luck.' And we've been surprised that they came back and again satisfaction numbers went up over 2019. What we didn't do is we didn't say, 'Push on the brakes and don't even worry about the speed of the vehicle going forward.' And it's been satisfying to see the results."

Giannattasio said the pandemic was "a free training course in technology" for everyone, and the use of technology in hotels will be "much more pervasive" from now on.

He also said he expects that "housekeeping on demand will be something that will stay" after the pandemic.

"Right now, even when we still provide free-of-charge daily housekeeping in every room in the region, we realize the essential guests value their privacy. They value the freedom of choosing when someone is going to enter their room. Probably we will adapt our housekeeping procedures going forward to a more flexible approach so the guests can decide who and when [someone enters] the room over their stay," he said.

James Bermingham, CEO of hotel chain Virgin Hotels, said hoteliers who manage to balance guest expectations with necessary cost-cutting will reap rewards much sooner than their counterparts.

"Our teams at Virgin Hotels have done a great job of maximizing cash flows during this time, and we'll continue to do that, because there's a whole lot of catching up to do. But equally, we need to stay laser-focused on that experience because guests ... want to come back and they want to consume like they used to pre-COVID," he said.

"They’ve been pent up, sheltering in place for so long that it's time to party. Just look at Miami ... that's really happening, in one of the strongest markets probably in the country, if not the world."

Bermingham said hotels that have been able to hold and push rates higher have an advantage.

"Sure, we have labor issues, but we're charging a premium for those who stay," he said. "And we are doing our very best to provide every service that we possibly can so that not only can we meet our guest expectations, we can exceed them. And because we're not reducing pricing, we can maximize cash flow. And I think the businesses that do that, and do that well, are really going to get back to 2019 levels faster."