10 Solutions to Challenges the Hotel Industry faces in 2023

Although tourism soars once more, many challenges in the hotel industry remain. However, with an informed strategic approach, hotel managers can meet these challenges head on and drive their business’s performance to new heights.

1. Experience & Personalization: Meeting the Needs of the Modern Guest

It simply isn’t enough to look the part anymore as a hotel. While image, offering comfort and nice hotel appointments is important, customers increasingly want a complete guest experience and personalization from their hotel.

To drive true personalization, the right data management technologies can do most of the work for you, while effectively capturing, storing, analyzing, and interpreting each customer’s data on a micro level, while also spotting trends on a macro level.

Experience and personalization are the new battlegrounds between competitor hotels. Whoever is able to deliver on both fronts will stand to gain, in a fiercely competitive market.

2. Hiring the Right Employees

From the ostensibly lowerskilled roles such as waiter to specialist roles like treasury or accounting employees, it is becoming more difficult to hire well in the hotel industry. As any good hotel manager knows, it is relatively straightforward to hire bar and restaurant staff, but finding truly good waiting staff is a very difficult task. Moreover, getting them to stick around for long is another key task.

Put simply, organisations of all industries are finding it more difficult to hire and retain good employees because workers are more demanding of what they want from an employer. By embracing this change rather than resisting it, your hotel will already be one step ahead of your competitors.

By offering more than just a wage and offering a whole career package, your hotel can attract and retain top professionals. This package may include a commitment to true career progression, ongoing training, and real benefits such as medical insurance, stock options, travel expense coverage, and so forth. Frankly, things such as a ping pong table and some fresh fruit once a week are

3. Continuously Changing Consumer Demands & Markets

Of course, it is more difficult to plan when your market is liable to change. Predictability makes business much more straightforward. For instance, business travel has been slower to recover, in large part due to the migration to remote and hybrid working. However, there is opportunity for those willing to embrace it in this

The pandemic illustrated exactly how vulnerable hotels are to factors outside of their control. With this in mind, a way of generating greater business resilience and business continuity is to focus on local customs. This could be the local area or further afield to neighbouring towns and cities with experiential staycations, whether for individuals, couples, or families. Additionally, in the off-season, hotels can drive occupancy rates by delivering an outstanding experience to the local market.

Some tips to achieve this include:

• Designing a resilient and updated hotel business plan

• Analyzing the entire business to improve business agility and future-proofing it against potential downside risk

• Optimizing for different guest buyer personas and reimagining hotel spaces for different uses

4. Missing the Marketing Boat

Marketing increasingly drives business from the front. This is especially the case in the travel and tourism industry. Many hotels still treat marketing as something of an afterthought though, with the impression that it is a ‘nice to have’ rather than the essential business driver that it is in reality.

hotel stand out from your competitors? This is what to focus on to drive business.

You can address the bottleneck of inadequate advertising by:

1. Getting your marketing tech stack right

Some prerequisites include a best-of-breed CRM system, automation tools to take over manual tasks and help with data management, and a robust, fast, and mobilefirst website with an intuitive customer experience.

2. Create a wide marketing funnel

A funnel that is wider can give you greater possibilities of capturing and retaining new customers. Better still if it is optimized for hotel package guests. Packages drive higher revenues and are typically better for more hotelimmersive experiences.

You can attract potential guests with a blog and dedicated package pages and through paid campaigns with Google and social platforms for relevant keywords. If these keywords match the kind of experiential stay you offer –especially if it is a more niche experience concept – you will be able to position your hotel for optimal ROI.

3. Research your market well and often not benefits, they are now the expected bare minimum. market development.

Workers want to work for an employer that offers a whole package and where they can feel like they are part of something that they believe in. This latter point ties into point one too: a mission that includes providing a true and unique experience to guests, workers can, by extension, feel that they are part of something that provides a highly valued service to people.

As an example, hotels can offer a working space experience to attract clientele. Rooms and hotel spaces such as conference and meeting rooms can be converted into coworking spaces. The key is to be agile in order to respond to market shifts well. The pandemic witnessed a lot of hotels going out of business or experiencing a massive downturn in customers, as a result of a failure to adapt to the shift from international to local and national tourism.

With the right CRM system and retargeting strategy, hotels can quickly generate new and repeat business. Another important rule of thumb is to advertise where your market is. For instance, if your hotel’s ideal buyer persona is the over 50s market, Facebook adverts would be the way to go, whereas if you want to attract a younger clientele with a summer break, Instagram adverts would be more appropriate.

The crucial goal with any advertising campaign is to demonstrate your value proposition: what makes your

Carrying out proper market research on a periodic basis, such as quarterly, is critical. This will help you understand any key shifts in market demands and behaviour, which will, in turn, inform business strategy decisions.

5. Rising operational costs

Inflation and energy price rises are driving operational cost pressure. Moreover, employees in turn are feeling the cost of living crunch, which in turn drives pressure on hotels to increase salaries.

One way to address this pressing issue is to integrate

HOTEL MANAGEMENT BY PATRICK LANDMAN

automation technologies where possible across your hotel business. In particular, these usually cloud-based technologies can take over time-consuming, laborious processes. For instance, your website could incorporate a smart AI chatbot and you may consider introducing self-check-in and checkout processes, as well as selfservice buffets in place of table service in the restaurant.

You can also remove certain services that no longer add value to the guest experience. Moreover, your hotel can benefit by outsourcing revenue management and operations management to specialist providers.

6. Driving Direct Business

Online travel agencies (OTAs) dominate the market when it comes to spending power on research and hotel marketing. Some hotels come to derive most or all of their business from third-party entities. While they can have an important role to play in business generation, you must ensure to have a well-balanced business mix between all channels, and not overly depend on one or a few channels (like in any business).

To do so, you can follow these best practices: a. Invest in an excellent website

Your website is the online “face” of your company. It represents you. As a result, it should be attractive, modern, and crucially, fast. Studies show that after the first two seconds of page load times, each additional second generates a conversion rate drop average of 4.42%.

Other things that are important include being mobile-optimal, to display high-quality, non-stock photos. The website should be optimized for customer conversion with a first-class call-to-action strategy.

b. Invest in advertising

Paid ad campaigns can seem to create an additional expense from the outset. But it is these adverts, when done well, that will drive business, and essentially pay for itself multiple times over. By focusing on direct business, you wrest control without it impacting your bottom line negatively. On the contrary, it can generate good profit margins.

c. Measure and track performance

You can use Google search console, analytics, and Google ad analytics. Data is power. Each social media platform tends to have a detailed insights dashboard for businesses to analyze paid campaign performance too.

7. Advancements in Technology

Across industries, it is a challenge to keep up with all technological changes taking place. However, it is critically important to do so.

It is essential to match any new technology integrations with your brand. For instance, a luxury hotel has different needs compared to a budget aparthotel. Technology that can replace employees can make sense for a budget aparthotel but luxury hotel guests would expect a full hotel workforce to be on hand.

The best practice here is to assess the hotel technology solutions on the market and analyse each area of your own hotel for inefficiencies that they can address. However, they must be on-brand and in line with your hotel’s experience offering to guests.

8. Lack of Synergy Between Departments

It is all too common for different hotel departments to work in a siloed manner, with little to no communication or collaboration with other departments. This approach is fast dying out and the hotels that are unable or unwilling to update with the times may struggle to survive, let alone thrive.

9. Protecting Your Online Reputation

In the modern hotel and tourism market, where customers leave reviews, opinions, and complaints on OTA websites, Google, Facebook, TripAdvisor, and of course, social media channels, effective reputation management is of utmost importance.

According to Tripadvisor, 96% of their users consider reading reviews as “important” when planning trips and booking hotels. 83% will “usually” or “always” reference reviews before deciding to book a hotel.

When it comes to communication management, 85% of TripAdvisor users agree that a thoughtful response to customer reviews is necessary and that it improves their impression of the hotel.

Keeping a high review score on OTA sites also makes sure your hotel doesn’t lose traffic from potential guests who filter by review scores, from highest to lowest. However, you can also use your review scores and guest feedback on social media platforms on your website itself by showcasing your average score(s) and using customer quotes from positive reviews. Importantly, customers, by and large, understand that all businesses can make mistakes sometimes. The important thing is how you respond to it: quick rectification of any issue and prompt, courteous, and caring communication online goes a long way to protecting your hotel’s reputation.

10. Prioritization is Key: Avoid Getting Overwhelmed

It can seem like there is so much to do and with not enough time. However, this does not have to be the case at all. Many hotels face the same challenges. What will separate the successful leaders from the industry laggards is the ability to prioritize in terms of importance and urgency of execution, and to execute well and without hesitation.

This requires an ability to understand the strategy that is necessary on a profound level. It also necessitates a total willingness to embrace change – to do away with old habits and ways of doing business in place of the new – and to instill this adaptiveness as a part of your hotel’s company culture among staff.

Rising to the Challenge and Solving Your Hotel’s Problems

First and foremost, it is always worth remembering that all industries are becoming increasingly complex, driven by the rise of data and advanced technologies, changing demographics and customer preferences and demands, and lately, factors that are generating increased volatility in the global economy, such as inflation, energy price rises, and supply chain gridlock. However, in every difficult situation there is opportunity.

With the right strategic approach and by prioritizing challenges to address with efficiency, your hotel will already be ahead of the majority of its competitors. After all, humans are hardwired to resist change. Therefore, if you embrace it, you are one big step ahead.

The Maldivian band SkyRock formed in 2017. The current lineup has been together for the last couple of years and consists of Insha on vocals, Faffu on vocals and rhythm guitar, Husen on keyboard, Inan on bass guitar, Faizan on drums and Zayaan as the lead guitarist.

The band’s name was conceived on a beautiful starry evening while ordering dinner at Amilla Maldives Resort and Residences. A menu item, rocket salad, caught a band member’s attention. The band’s name, SkyRock, was born out of the glistening night sky and a zesty arugula salad. The band has since found deeper meaning in the name to mean the sky, the earth and the space in between.

SkyRock is currently playing regularly at One & Only Reethi Rah. The band also performs at private events and corporate functions at many resorts, including Waldorf Astoria Maldives Ithaafushi and Jumeirah Maldives Olhahali Island.

In resorts, SkyRock tends to play nostalgic old school hits. The band prepares the set list depending on the type of guest a resort attracts. During shows, the set list is fluid and responsive to the crowd’s mood and reaction. SkyRock’s original music is progressive fusion rock, with Maldivian influences. This unique style is exemplified in the band’s popular hit, Samugaa that fuses ancient Dhivehi language with modern elements.

To celebrate International Women’s Day 2023, SkyRock released a new single, Heyvallaa Thayyaaru. The single is a teaser to the album that will be released later this year. The song paints an empowering message about determination in the face of hardship. Skyrock wishes to celebrate women who break through glass ceilings. The band hopes that after hearing the song, listeners feel ready to take on any challenge.

SkyRock attributes their success to the band’s chemistry. While on stage, the band feeds off of each other’s energy to give the best performance. Drummer Faizan elaborates, “Any band can come and play the same songs, but the audience will remember the energy the band is delivering. No one will remember how we played the songs, but the feeling of the performance makes for a memorable night.”

When asked what is the biggest misconception about resort musicians, Faizan remarked that in Maldives resort musicians are often undervalued. Many outside the music community don’t consider it a serious profession. This sentiment may be influenced by the lack of formal regulations or protections for resort musicians. In many countries, to busk or perform, one must obtain a license. Formal regulations could help maintain the quality of musicians to ensure they are prepared, professional and committed.

Lead singer Insha adds that many have the misconception that it is an easy profession. Not only does it take talent, but the logistics can be a headache. No matter the weather, the band must travel by air or sea to give a remarkable performance.

When asked if the band has any advice for aspiring professional musicians, Insha recommended treating music like a career and not a hobby. Discipline is crucial for success. When music is a hobby, you will work on it in spontaneous bursts of energy. SkyRock attributes dedication and discipline to the band’s success. The band recommends scheduling and being on time to regular practices.

Faizan recommends challenging yourself to be better than you were yesterday, but to not compete against others. He elaborates, “We often confuse music with sport. Music is an art. We shouldn’t compete with but appreciate and learn from others.”

BY JANET SMAILES