TEMPE, Arizona — While much of the discussion around the hotel industry right now revolves around emerging technologies or headwinds such as high interest rates, hotel executives still believe focusing on the people who work on property is the most important part of the business.
During the "View from the Boardroom" session at the 2024 ALIS Summer Update conference at the Omni Tempe Hotel at ASU, Omni Hotels & Resorts President Kurt Alexander said "we're always going to be a people business," despite concerns on the capital side.
"Capital is really a commodity," he said. "So this is a beautiful building and our capital built it, but labor makes it come to life."
Alexander said part of the issue hoteliers are seizing on at the moment is that the "pendulum has swung" to where labor is taking a bigger share of the profits from hotels, but that doesn't mean hoteliers should be doing less to "invest in our people and equip them to deliver these incredible experiences that keeps people coming back."
Dina Belon, president of Staypineapple Hotels, said enabling employees to deliver better experiences was the primary focus of redoing her company's tech stack. She said that work was done in part to give employees artificial intelligence tools so they could interact with guests more seamlessly.
"We use AI significantly already, but none of it is guest-facing," she said. "We have something called Chat Pineapple, and any team member can put a question into Chat Pineapple and ask it any number of things. It can be something as simple as 'Can you give me the confirmation number for Mr. and Mrs. Smith in room 202.' ... It can be something more complicated like 'I need to understand what my overtime hours are and what the rule is,' and it taps into our policies and procedures. There are no more [standard operating procedures]. It's an app."
She said Staypineapple is also using AI for first-draft responses to guest reviews.
Peachtree Group CEO Greg Friedman agreed that AI represents a huge opportunity across the industry, but he added brands should have been investing in it "for years" instead of playing catch-up now.
"It's so underfunded, and I'm not picking on any specific brands, but they're the ones driving what's happening in hotels," he said. "I think team members would be able to deliver a better guest experience if there was a bigger spend on the tech side through the years."
Larry Cuculic, president and CEO of BWH Hotels, said it's vital how the hotel industry manages staffing during the next downturn given how much hoteliers struggled restaffing after laying off the majority of the labor force during the depths of the COVID-19 pandemic.
"You have to be very measured," he said. "I think we learned now that we can survive. So don't overreact because our industry kind of got a black eye for what we did when we cut all those people. That's part of the labor challenge."
Belon agreed.
"It's super important that we don't miss taking care of our team members, who are the hoteliers in our hotels," she said. "We're not hoteliers. They are."
Asked what the industry can do to better recruit and train the next generation of hoteliers, Friedman applauded the work being done by the American Hotel and Lodging Association, but added hotels are still not viewed as the most desirable career path.
"Getting jobs doing stuff in AI is more compelling to a lot of the younger generation," he said. "They're attracted to some other industries that seem glamorous. We just need to do a better job showing the upside of a long-term career."
Cuculic added some of the solution is encouraging the next generation in family businesses to become more involved.
"I think we just have to feed and water the next generation, so to speak," he said.