Investment in the hotel business: «Give a guest more than just a bed»

In this article, we will not analyze the theoretical component of the hospitality industry, but discuss the importance of standards at facilities.

We have prepared for you only practical recommendations from the founder of 4* Milano Hotel - Marco Sartori, whose business portfolio includes cooperation, partnership and close work on such projects as:

• Amerikano Apart Hotel
• Continental Hotel
• Hotel Marenero
• Il Decameron Luxury Design Hotel

The information guide for creating this material was a regular meeting in the framework of Hospitality talks in partnership with the Union of Ukrainian entrepreneurs (SUPP) and the management company Ribas Hotels Group. The meeting was held at the Bossfor hotel, which, by the way, is managed by the Ribas hotel group.

Recommendation pool from Marco Sartori:

• Do not build a hotel just because there is a plot of land that will fit the hotel. It is necessary to take into account the features of the area and location, in particular.
• Remove your emotions. Don't make a hotel for the soul. Build for business. It is necessary to "put your heart and soul" into your apartment or house for your guests. It is necessary to invest in the hotel standards, ergonomics, environmental friendliness.
• Analyze: the market, the audience, the specifics of the country and territory. If you are in the center of Paris - build a hotel for guests of the center of Paris. If you are on the outskirts of a small town, build a hotel for the peripheral guest. If you are in Odessa, build for the Odessa guest.

• Give your guest more than just a bed. Because if you cover only basic needs - sleep, hygiene — competition with hotels from your price segment will be very high.
• If you increase the price threshold for the room rate, you need to increase the quality of service. You will find a guest who will be willing to pay, but only if you provide them with a high-quality additional service.
• Engineering and electrical networks and communications are the veins of your hotel. You should never skimp on them. Therefore, for these purposes, buy the best samples and materials.
• It is difficult to compare Italy and Ukraine in the context of HoReCa. In both cases, such aspects as format, location, and service are important. In Ukraine, everything is great with the location. But you need to work with the format of hotels and the level of service in them.

• We need waiter schools where staff will be taught not only standards, but also that it is a good profession. In Italy, waiters have been working in the same restaurant for many years and are proud of their profession.
• It is also necessary to teach staff to take some of the responsibility and initiative on themselves. If the maid is not asked to wash the floor, work surface, or door again — she will not wash it, even if she sees that it needs to be washed. There is also the problem of negative perception of this profession. We need to change this mentality.

• The experience of doing business in Italy helps to work in Ukraine and set up processes based on a good attitude and love for the guest. This suggests that we need to work a lot with Ukrainian employees in this regard. In order for them to come out to the guest smiling, it is necessary that the management did everything to make them want to smile: created comfortable working and living conditions for them.
• Visa-free travel should be an occasion to improve the quality of tourism in Ukraine. The modern tourist understands that for a hundred dollars he can relax not only in Zatoka or Koblevo, but also in a good hotel in Turkey. Therefore, Ukrainian hotels will lose guests if they do not develop their standards.
• However, there are problems not only at the stage of contact with the guest. In Italy, when building a hotel, they provide everything to make both tourists and staff comfortable: one-to relax, the other-to work. So, in hotels, even when laying the Foundation, they calculate the ventilation system and other aspects. So that you don't have to solve these difficulties when the object is already built.