We have all stayed in hotels. We’ve had either wonderful, customer-for-life experiences or harrowing (or revolting) encounters. Whatever the case, the Hotel Manager is responsible for it.
The world travels a lot. And whether for business or pleasure, travelers need a place to sleep. The most recent counts put the number of hotel rooms worldwide at something like 13.5 million. That’s 13.5 million beds that need to be made, showers that need to be cleaned, toilet paper rolls that need to be threaded onto holders. Sure, it sounds like a ton of pressure. The business never closes, caters to picky clients’ most personal needs, and is expected to be spotless. Know how hard it is to clean your whole house? Try being responsible for 50 houses. Not only do you need to worry about clean sheets, but you order the flowers for the lobby, you oversee the kitchen, you make sure every big and little things are in working order and the staffs are getting their work done. In fact, the Manager's attention to detail and a drive to make clients happy are probably the two most critical characteristics a Hotel Manager can have. If you can’t stand the thought of catering to someone’s complaints in the middle of the night, look elsewhere. Don’t really notice that your bathtub hasn’t been scrubbed in a year? Hotel Manager may not be for you. You are also going to need to be a people person. You are going to really, truly need to enjoy and be good at working with people. A successful Hotel Manager runs a business of making people happy – and it takes a lot of other people to do that. And you will be in charge of everyone. A good portion of your day will be spent on rounds, observing how well the hotel is running, greeting customers, checking in on staff. And meetings – there’s lots of those. You will have meetings in the morning with the kitchen staff and chefs. You will meet with housekeeping. You’ll meet with marketing and accounting. Don’t forget all of the assistant managers – you’ll meet with them too. These are just the internal aspects of running a successful hotel. Good managers also need to be sure that the outside world knows all about how great they are. Getting the word out about your hotel to drum up business takes marketing and social media savvy. You want potential guests to see your hotel associated with positive reviews and to have access to your reservation system through multiple websites, magazines and emails. It takes mad marketing skills to do this well. With so many aspects to the business, a hotel is sort of like a small town, which would make you governor of that town. Or king. Or queen. Always wanted to be royalty? Then maybe Hotel Manager is perfect for you. So how can you get there? What does it take for you to ascend to the throne of running a hotel? Back in the day, the path to becoming Manager was to learn all the different facets of the job by working them. Hotel Managers started scraping spaghetti Bolognese off of pans or checking under beds for forgotten underwear. They eventually got so good at what they did, that they started supervising other people who scraped and stooped. Eventually they knew so much about how things worked, they started managing the place. This could be done with a high school diploma and lots of elbow grease. Hotel Management has become a more competitive field (just like most lines of work). Now most positions require that you have a college degree in Hospitality or Hotel Management. You will get to study food service, housekeeping, building maintenance, accounting and marketing. But, we still prefer people that work from the bottom up as they sincerely chose to make the client happy and takes pride in doing so. Once you have your degree and get a job as Supreme Commander – that is, Hotel Manager – the rest is up to your ability and the reputation you can build. If you are able to run an organization that builds client happiness and loyalty, you will go places. If not, well, just work behind the screen, you can send smiley to your client even when you are crazily mad.
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We have been in hospitality industry for more than a decade and find that hotel guests, needs and wants, changes through time like all others things in our life. Demand to fulfils their needs and wants, has been the ultimate goal for hoteliers who wants to remain strong in the hospitality industry.
Travellers are looking for more, besides meeting basic comfort needs, these guests now looking for more. Hotel operators like us need to pay attention on this because these requests are becoming effective drivers of choice for travellers to chose your hotel or another. We need to constantly ask ourselves, what does this guest need? Sometimes its just as simple as asking the front desk people on what guest ask them most. In our hotel, we gathered that most of our guests are here for business, their most priority needs is having a good quiet sleep so that they can continue their work the next day, feeling refreshed. They need strong and un-interrupt WIFI connections and adequate power plugs for their gadgets and devices. Thirdly, food. They need a quick bite before rushing out to their hectic chores. Business people have no time to waste on considering what and where for breakfast. They are always on the go so that they can finish their business as efficient as possible and then heed back home to their families. So, from this understanding, each rooms in our hotel comes with very comfy mattress to ensure our guests can sleep better and wake up rested and refreshed. We take in consideration that some side and back sleeper tends to prefer softer mattress and stomach sleeper prefer firmer mattress. In order to accommodate these, our hotel chose a firmer mattress with a softer and fluffier pillows for all our rooms. Also, we always make sure our guests are able to connect their devices to our WIFI in their rooms in fact during their check in, we provide them with our WIFI password without them asking because we understand their needs. As for food, we provide complimentary breakfast daily for our staying guests. Our daily breakfast consist of our Malaysian Favourite - Nasi lemak bungkus (banana leaves wrapped rice with coconut milk), fried vermicelli, hot dogs, hash browns, fried eggs, nyoya kuih (lady in Portuguese, bite sized dessert), cakes, fruits and with coffee and tea options (varies daily). Our breakfast choices are liken this way as we are small intimate no frills hotel where our priority is to provide affordable and worth staying accommodation. The new-age guest is more evolved than ever and it takes more than basic levels of service to please and our hotel management acknowledged that we constantly need to upgrade our staffs in providing their best service at all times. This is not an easy task as requires dedication at the recruitment, selection and training (initial and ongoing) stages so that they not only are knowledgeable when dealing with guests but also personally connect with hotel property and brand. 2015 New year passed us way too quick and the Chinese lunar year is fast approaching. Hotel situation is quite chaotic and busy with pulling down and putting up Christmas, New Year and Chinese New Year decorations. Though is chaotic but everyone in the hotel felt the excitement on the approaching celebration especially waiting for the red packets from our Big Boss. Employees like us, worked, slaved for a year and hope our hard work paid off with huge bonus or with "big ang pau" from the Big Boss which also indicate if the management appreciate what we have put in the year. So, excitement in the air for people in PJ Park Hotel now. Festive seasons also means more holidays, more guests, more work and more of everything. Some staffs need to work extra hours to relief staffs who went for holidays. More guests booking pouring in just before the holidays, maybe for work but mostly came to do some Chinese New Year shopping. 1 Utama shopping centre, 4th biggest shopping centre in the world just around the corner, are crowded with people from all races and ages. The biggest mall in Malaysia has a strings of events to celebrate this coming Chinese New Year with its customers. Ikea, nearby also brightly decorated with Chinese New Year decorations. Hotel got some beautiful potted pussy willows from Ikea, many guests loved the red and pink colour pussy willows and been asking where to get it. Look no further, just 15 mins away from our hotel. The best part of staying in our hotel, is the location, especially if you are a avid fan of shopping and after your shopping spree, head back to our hotel for a quiet and bustle free stay. Just minutes away from shopping heaven which consist of big malls like 1 Utama, Ikea, Ikano, Curve, Tesco, Giant, Tropicana City Mall and the latest most happening place, Empire City. They just kick off the Party of the Century on January 2015. Also, we have the best food restaurants surrounding us. The most famous nasi lemak joint, Village Park is just a stone throw away from our hotel and the first pie shop in Malaysia, is just below us. If you are pregnant, i can safely say, whatever food or dishes you are craving for, can be found in Damansara Utama. |
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