TOURISM, ARTS & CULTURE INTERVIEW
Slow recovery The hotel industry is seeing the recovery favor those with beach and outdoor access over city hotels
Heiko Dobrikow Executive Vice President & General Manager – The Las Olas Company & Riverside Hotel
As the economy reopens in South Florida, how has the hospitality business shared in the recovery? The recovery for our hotels has been super slow, and when you take a look at our county, you have the beach, the city and then the west. The beach properties have recovered a little bit better than the city hotels, and even better than out west. The reason is that everybody wants to have that al fresco experience. When you stay at resorts or our hotel, you have outdoor experiences like the beach and Las Olas Boulevard where you can walk outside from wherever you are staying. That has made the recovery for the beach resorts and hotels in an entertainment district more prevalent. However, all of us have posted poor results since the pandemic started. How did you pivot your business focus during the pandemic? We have truly been the poster child in our community for how to do things right when it comes to putting protocols in place. We are not selling the hotel, we are not selling Las Olas, we are not selling Ft. Lauderdale. We are selling safety, and a clean and safe environment. That’s what our customers are telling us because right now what’s most important to travelers is not the hot breakfast, not the comfortable bed or the food and beverage outlets that you have, it is how you are keeping everybody safe. We put a very strict protocol in place in our hotel. Everybody was temperature checked, be it a group attendee or a transient customer. We followed all the CDC protocols for social distancing markers, for glass barriers and sanitation stations throughout the hotel. What opportunities are arising for your business from the pandemic?
The analog version is that we had to become much smarter in how we deal with all our expenses. Expenses were a pivotal aspect of surviving this game. We had to tighten our belt, and many of us had to double up on our duties to find the balance to handle the limited occupancy we had and not drain our savings as rapidly. The digital version relates to all the new technology that might come out. For the most part, the young folks in our hotel are the innovators of our future, whether it is new marketing apps, new technology for how we are processing, how we handle production in the culinary area – whatever it is, more robotics will come from this. Looking at the touch points, you might not have to stop at the front desk, for example. You check in with a credit card on file and your phone, which can be used to check into your room without seeing a front desk person. www.capitalanalyticsassociates.com
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