Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, Aimbridge Hospitality, the largest third-party hotel operator worldwide, has focused on supporting its hotel owners and its employees.
In a video interview with Hotel News Now during the Americas Lodging Investment Summit, Aimbridge President and CEO Mike Deitemeyer spoke about how his company is working with owners to help them control costs, navigate the labor shortage and grow Aimbridge’s scale further.
The pandemic dramatically affected hotel owners over the past year and a half, and they’ve been stressed financially, Deitemeyer said. Now that rates are coming back, though, owners' margins are improving. That creates an opportunity to recoup some of the lost profit, but that’s balanced against determining how much service to return to hotels and wage pressures.
“It’s trying to maximize some of the efficiencies that were gained and then still deliver on the brand promises,” he said. “That’s the tightrope that we’re walking.”
At the property level, the story Deitemeyer is hearing from staff is the same all around the hospitality industry.
“People are excited to be working, are happy to be back, but they are tired and exhausted,” he said.
As difficult a job a hotel general manager already has, throwing in the staffing shortage and new COVID-19 regulations that change weekly by market just adds to that fatigue, he said.
Aimbridge has been expanding its task force to give relief and support to its hotel general managers around the U.S. and its international properties, Deitemeyer said. Because of the staffing shortage, and particularly at smaller properties, general managers have been taking on more roles around their hotels, such as cleaning rooms and checking in guests.
“Sometimes it’s as simple as sending somebody in so they can take some days off,” he said. “We’re in some cases flying somebody in just to give them a break.”
Part of the beauty of the hotel industry is the opportunity it presents to grow and develop, but the challenge is creating more awareness of it, Deitemeyer said. The American Hotel & Lodging Association is doing a lot with its apprenticeship programs, but part of growing this awareness needs to come through a grassroots effort by hoteliers to articulate the opportunity for those who work in the industry, he said.
“A lot of folks started as a dishwasher, a bellman, a restaurant server or a front-desk clerk,” he said.
Deitemeyer, who served as Omni Hotels & Resorts’ president for 13 years, recalled a server who worked at one of Omni’s hotel restaurants while earning his degree. The server later became a general manager for Omni and moved up into executive roles at several hotel companies. Deitemeyer later brought him over to Interstate Hotels & Resorts. The server was Pete Sams, who is now chief operating officer at Davidson Hospitality Group.
“This is a guy who was working tables while he’s going to college and didn’t set out to be in the hospitality industry,” Deitemeyer said. “How do we touch more people like that? How do we bring them in and create that awareness of what the opportunities are that are available?”
For more on how Aimbridge has navigated the pandemic and handled the labor shortage, watch the video above.