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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