SAN FRANCISCO — Hotel leaders are ready to face both the trends and troubles that come their way in 2024.
On stage at the recent 2023 Indie Lodging Congress, executives said they're keeping a close eye on labor, technology and personalization.
Strategies that some hoteliers are keeping in their front pockets include apprenticeship programs to address labor, artificial intelligence to streamline operations and the guest experience and storytelling to increase personalization.
Staffing
Kevin Osterhaus, president of Graduate Hotels, said first and foremost the hospitality industry needs to improve in how it gets people excited for their careers.
Then, it's about keeping them engaged once they enter the industry. A key part of that is transparency from leadership.
"Our team talks a lot about remaining transparent ... and bringing the team along for the ride," he said. "We've implemented a few things in that regard. I will stand in front of the company four times a year, reporting on what we are doing, making sure that people are along for the ride on the initiatives that we are working on. [Employees] don't want surprises; I think that's a quick way to see the bad side of somebody, is to not include them in those types of things."
Graduate implemented a new messaging platform that allows employees to know what's going on at other Graduate hotels and gives everyone direct contact to anybody at any level within the company.
All general mangers are also given unlimited access to a global network of performance coaches.
"A good way to improve retention and engagement is to make sure that our leaders have advocates and a source of development outside of work," he said.
A newer program that Graduate implemented this year is its "Graduate Academy," which fully covers an employee's undergraduate tuition if they want to go back to school. The company will also fund university certifications, even if it's not directly related to their role within Graduate.
"We've got people pursuing CPA certifications, human resources certifications; [and] engineering teams pursuing certifications in trades so they can grow with us and continue to advance their career," Osterhaus said.
Tom Luersen, president of CoralTree Hospitality, said his company first looks internally when searching for staff.
As an example, CoralTree has a housekeeper on staff that just celebrated their 39th year with the company and another one celebrating 37 years.
"When you think about retention, which is really the focus of how we find talent, it's to take care of the talent that we have," he said. "Then, of course, there's creative ways to find talent. I think you find talent in the most unexpected places."
Luersen's company has a large resort in Oregon where they were challenged with finding culinary leaders to incubate talent. The solution they implemented was an apprenticeship program.
People could become certified and trained through the program.
"We could give them career stewardship that could help them leave our company; that's how much we trusted them. Earn your career/degree here, then move on," he said.
He added the company is also going back to a grassroots approach at times, which he feels many strayed away from and instead pivoted to use technology to hire.
"We kind of lost touch with the flesh, going to the churches, going to the schools and going after younger talent and not going to hospitality programs; that's the expected place. But going to marketers in the marketing programs, folks of the arts," he said.
Technology and Personalization
Elizabeth Harlow, chief brand officer of Sonesta Hotels, said the company is still in its infancy stage of its brand journey as it grew from a few dozen hotels at the onset of the pandemic to nearly 1,200 today.
To help manage productivity and a seamless guest experience, Harlow said Sonesta is leaning on technology. Sonesta is currently piloting a robot to enhance its guest experience in Miami. She said the robot's human element includes joke-telling.
Harlow said Sonesta as an organization has a lot of work to do from a customer relationship management perspective.
"I do think that [artificial intelligence] has to play a huge role in our future. Yes, that's speaking to marketing jobs and functions like CRM and analytical reviews, but I also see it pulling through to the guest experience through room control and customizing the experiences from in-room to on-property," she said.
Ultimately, Sonesta wants to be low-tech and high-touch.
"That's what hospitality is built on, and I think that all of us are going to find ourselves in a different capability set in terms of where we are with our technology," she added. "I think people evangelize that as the end-all, be-all; with an excellent CRM platform, you're going to deliver the most personalized experience ever. The truth is, not everyone is going to have that capability right here right now."
That's when hoteliers need to lean on the basics of hospitality and the service training that on-property employees go through, she said.
"How do you engage with your guests, how do you ask those open-ended questions to learn more about why they're visiting you, what can you do to drive that stay with them and how can you personalize it in a way that's truly meaningful and not necessarily machine-based?" Harlow added.
Osterhaus said Graduate Hotels was featured in a New York Times article this summer for intentionally being analog instead of high-tech.
Instead of a shortcoming, it's what makes Graduate Hotels what it is, he said.
"We are about nostalgia, we are about low-touch, we are about storytelling," Osterhaus said, admitting the hotel chain has been slow to implement "clunky systems that don't work or have to be changed out."
"I have yet to find a keyless entry that is worth implementing at 40 hotels. We'll take our time. I think data is where we're going to focus and continue to meet people where they are. We continue to focus on messaging in different systems that allow contact in various ways. I think we should continue to create seamless ways to order and pay [for food and beverage]," he added.
Luersen said to have a great bottom line, it's crucial to stay focused on the top line. That includes creating efficiencies through technology and design.
"The top line is to create experiences that people can feel value in and it gets monetized. We want revenue share. We'll find ways through efficiencies, through the use of technology, through design services," he said.
From a design standpoint, Luersen said some of the company's architectural partners are finding creative ways to make rooms easier for housekeepers to clean and for banquet teams to clean ballrooms.
In terms of technology, CoralTree Hospitality operates the Lake Nona Wave Hotel in Orlando, Florida, which uses "smart windows" that extract the ultraviolet rays coming in and will adjust the climate of room.
Luersen said the hotel also has a robot named Rosie in its lobby that can take beverage orders or remove dishes.