PHOENIX — During the second day of The Lodging Conference, hoteliers emphasized the need to connect to younger generations and adopt artificial intelligence to bolster the workforce, retain talent and increase productivity.
Labor challenges have been a problem for hoteliers since the beginning of the pandemic — and even before that in some cases. Sloan Dean, CEO of Remington Hospitality, said during the “Leaders in Hospitality” panel that staffing has gotten better, but it’s far from being resolved, as the majority of properties across the U.S. are understaffed.
“You have to supplement with either increased productivity, automation or immigration law,” he said. “The solution is productivity sped up the last three to four years 8% to 10%. Everybody had huge productivity gains. How long is this sustainable? Well, automate — that’s actually part of the answer is automation, AI, etc. Job replacement: It’s coming, it’s now and it’s happening.”
Neal Patel, immediate past chairman of the Asian American Hotel Owners Association and managing partner of Blue Chip Hotels, said during the "Tech Talk: Real-World Solutions for Your Hotels" panel that labor is the top challenge facing hotel owners, and the lack of staffing led to an expedited use of technology to fill the gaps. He said one of his properties in Austin, Texas, started using kiosks that connect to a live person in an international country as a way to outsource labor and use technology to ease staffing woes.
“Is it perfect? I don’t think it is right now, but for us, where we had no other options, this has been a huge resource for us in our entire portfolio,” Patel said.
At the corporate level, leaders need to pair empathy with authenticity to gain the focus and support of their teams, said Kevin Davis, Americas CEO for JLL Hotels & Hospitality Group, during the "From the CEO's Perspective" panel.
“If you’re not prepared to be empathetic and authentic, you will lose your team,” he said. “I find [authenticity] to be particularly effective, particularly with our younger people because … they’re so cynical just given the environment that they’ve grown up in.”
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“I think we're in a fairly normalized environment, so not as hard to budget. We're in an economy that's continuing to recover. We're going to see a bit more increased demand. We should see some fairly good [revenue per available room] growth, at least RevPAR growth ahead of inflation, so I'm fairly bullish on ’24. I think all those fundamentals are in place, and I think we understand them and how to manage them.”
— Joseph Berger, president and CEO of BRE Hotels & Resorts, on budgeting for 2024.