Safety, care and the well-being of guests are top priorities for Fairmont San Francisco GM Markus Treppenhauer.
As part of HNN’s Q&A with a GM series, Treppenhauer said via email that the hotel closed due to the pandemic and reopened to guests on 17 September.
He added that “welcoming, safeguarding and taking care of others is at the very heart of what we do and who we are.”
“Today, this means keeping our guests and employees safe by preventing the spread of COVID-19 (by) partnering with top experts to implement new standards of safety and enhanced operational protocols and procedures which are among the most stringent in the hospitality industry,” he said.
What has the process been like of operating the hotel during this pandemic while abiding by state and city COVID-19 regulations?
New operational standards have been implemented at the hotel and at Fairmont properties across North and Central America. These standards were developed and vetted by a team of expert advisors to ensure maximum efficacy in preventing the spread of all viruses and pathogens, including COVID-19, with oversight by Bureau Veritas, a world leader in testing, inspections and certification; Amesh Adalja, senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins University Center for Health Security and fellow with the Infectious Diseases Society of America; and Ruth Petran, senior corporate scientist, food safety and public health, for Ecolab, global leaders in cleaning and hygiene, and trusted advisors to the CDC.
In addition, the hotel will be adhering to operational guidelines as per City of San Francisco mandates. At each touchpoint along the guest journey through the resort, extensive measures are being taken to protect guests and employees, including physical distancing; mandatory screening for all guests and employees, which may include a temperature check; masks provided to guests and worn by all employees; a 48-hour settling period for occupied rooms post-departure; increased frequency of cleaning and disinfecting, with a focus on high-touch points; and continued use of (Environmental Protection Agency) registered disinfecting chemicals, proven effective in preventing the transmission of COVID-19. Hands-on training for all employees, a dedicated on-property rollout committee and a formal audit program, validated under the global ALLSAFE Cleanliness label, ensure initial and continued compliance.
San Francisco is a city that normally hosts a lot of large meetings and conventions. With the loss of those groups, where has demand been coming from at your hotel?
The pandemic has caused significant cancellations in expected visitor spending from citywide conventions in San Francisco along with most global destinations. The hotel is now shifting to promote San Francisco’s many parks and outdoor walking in neighborhoods in hopes of attracting California leisure visitors by car. The first step toward recovery is reopening the city’s hotels for tourists. We’re confident we’re going to come back.
It seems like we're getting closer to getting a vaccine to the public with news from Pfizer and other companies showing promising vaccine study results. Do you think these developments will help people feel more comfortable traveling?
The news of the vaccine will indeed be critical to regular travel resumption. From regional sources, we understand that travel could return to ‘normal’ early next year—as long as a COVID-19 vaccine is effective, ready soon and distributed widely.