Our five year old company has assumed the management of about twenty hotels and conducted operational reviews of many others.

Obviously, many of these were properties with problems, but not all of them. As a result we have had an opportunity to look inside the workings of a number of hotels, both good and bad. We have noticed some common items which we feel may be symptomatic.

In all cases, good or bad, the items we note appear to be almost cultural issues for that organization. If we find two or three of the good or bad items we can usually bet the rest of the items will be there. Now, don't get confused, there are profitable hotels with shortcomings but they may be the ones to watch when things get tough. Conversely some of the most beautifully groomed hotels with perfect guest service are losers because no one is focused on the bottom line with an adequately aggressive attitude from an owner's perspective.

So what are some of the solid good signs? Well groomed uniformed employees with name tags who greet guests with a smile is a good start. Good curb appeal and immaculate public space cleanliness are usually signs of good things to come. Once we start getting behind the scenes things become very clear. Orderly offices, storage spaces and housekeeping areas are usually the good signs that follow.

When we take over a troubled hotel we always find a messy front desk. Not necessarily on the working surface but in the drawers, cabinets and storage closets. Clutter, disorganization, years of dust and trash appear in virtually every problem property. Years of accumulated old furniture, out of date supplies and "spare maintenance parts", which will never be used, left in store rooms and maintenance shops are something else we inevitably find. Usually these are in hotels where management claims not to have enough storage space!

Clearly I am not trying to tell you these things are the cause of poor profitability. They just seem to be a sign of poor organizational skills and a lack of focus on orderliness and cleanliness by management. In addition to wondering about management's skills there is no doubt in my mind that these unkept areas influence the employees' attitudes about their work quality and timeliness.

Almost, everyone is aware that unkept employee restrooms are not only a sign of management's lack of concern for staff but they also set a poor example of the standard management expects from those same employees in cleaning guest areas.
We recently assumed the management and subsequently closed, yes closed, a hotel in Tennessee. In the process of cleaning up the 160 room hotel to make it orderly we filled ten eight cubic yard dumpsters. This didn't include old unused furniture, guest room trash or kitchen garbage. It was just stuff cluttering offices, housekeeping areas, the front office area, store rooms and maintenance. Can you imagine 80 cubic yards of stuff!

Low linen pars are not a result of poor profitability, they are a cause. If we see housekeepers stripping rooms to get linen back to the laundry to be washed so they can be used again immediately, it is a sure sign of several things besides insufficient linen supplies. The first is that there are undoubtedly days where not all the rooms get made up and therefore occupancy can get held down. As absurd as it may sound linen wears out more than twice as fast if it is washed and used daily rather than every other day or so. Circulating linen daily by stripping beds and running it back and forth also takes more labor. In the end keeping an adequate supply of linen, about 2.15 to 2.5 par saves money.

Accounting offices usually are indicators of what is going on at a hotel. If you can't keep score you probably can't play the game. Its really three issues: gathering data on a timely basis from around the hotel (payroll, revenues, statistics and accounts payable), compiling it quickly and accurately in the form of financial statements followed by interpreting and acting on the information.

If the data in a hotel is not gathered efficiently and compiled quickly and accurately it is another symptom of poor organization and lack of attention to detail. Without that information management cannot effect changes for the better in a timely manner. Management, of course, must know what the data mean and what they can do to cause the relevant numbers to improve.

Over half of the problem hotels we have assumed management of have had financial statements that do not conform in any way to the Uniform System of Accounts for Hotels and Motels. What is amazing is that most of the owners and managers involved were aware of the Uniform System but didn't think it was worthwhile to change to it because they had a better system. What they are really saying is that they think they have a better way of looking at their accounting data than over 80% of the other hoteliers in the world! It reminds me of the soldier in the Chinese army who was marching to a slightly different cadence and told his sergeant, "The entire army is out of step but me."

The condition of printed and other materials with which a guest comes in contact are usually in poor condition in problem hotels. If it is a full-service hotel, menus are one of the first things to get threadbare. Telephone books in the rooms and at the pay phone are another example of things no one pays attention to, and they don't cost anything.

If you are not proud of every corner and detail of your hotel and you don't have an active plan to improve it, you may beheaded towards trouble. Make lists and delegate them. Maybe a good place to start is with organizing and cleaning the front desk area and working your way through the back-of-the-house areas your guests don't see.

Look your hotel over critically and note the symptoms. If the negative symptoms are there maybe you need to ask yourself what your priorities really are.