Exclusive Feature: Is individuality ruling the world in modern hotels?

When looking at considerable amount of personalization in hotel rooms, restaurants catering for each and every taste of the customer, we start asking ourselves whether guest's personality is already a central object of hotel management.

Interestingly, like all new tendencies, personalization has not arrived without smoke. Like every fire, it started with something unnoticeable. Hotels simply wanted to satisfy their guests and expanded reservations systems. This seems to be nothing special. But when reservations started to take into account personal features of guests, guest pre-arrival requests, and even newspaper tastes, hotels decided to sharpen their senses in recognizing the needs of the guests prior to their requests.

Technology quickly responded with a big ‘yes we can do it' function. Everything is customized nowadays, even the selection of channels in IP TV in our rooms. Room temperature, colour of the flowers on the table, towels and pillows, and event the toiletries. 

Restaurant menus went even further: we now have special offers and seasonal menus addressing each festival. And if the hotel targets special audiences based on nationality, religion or other cultural criteria, menus are also adapted according to the taste of these people.

Sounds great if you're a guest. Understanding this tendency really helps you feel special. You know now that you can ask for tiny requests prior to your arrival and during your stay. And the hotel will be more than happy to help you with it. But there is a problem if you're not a guest. This problem happens if you're a hotel.

Remember the old rule of keeping minimum inventory to reduce higher costs? Well, now you simply have to have a lot of things ‘just in case guests ask for that'. And the hotels seeking guest loyalty forget about their financials and bottom line. Higher wastage usually results in guests being satisfied (though not yet loyal) and higher total costs on your annual financial statement.

What is the solution to the problem? You have to minimize the customization of the materials but not services. Remember, the salary of your people remains unchanged if they really run this extra mile for a guest. Additionally, you can always train them to understand the guest and provide him with services before he ever asks about them.

Such actions cause guests loyalty without objection. Your staff is trained and learns how to perform better. Staff awards and motivation programs will always cost you less than an extensive amount of unnecessary ‘customized' products for guests. And you can increase your guests' loyalty without letting your financials down.

This is strictly an exclusive feature, reprints of this article in any shape or form without prior written approval from 4Hoteliers.com is not permitted.

Mila Petruk is a hospitality consultant and a founder of Milina Outsourcing Management (MOM) which provides consulting to hotels and restaurants including mystery guest audit, temporary staffing and training support. Being a hospitality industry enthusiast, Mila has a global insight into the developing trends of hotel and restaurant business all over the world.

Having a rich international hotel work experience and an MBA from one of the reputed Swiss hotel schools, she has applied it in almost every hotel department she had worked. Contact Mila at mila.petruk@gmail.com.

Mila writes a regular column for 4Hoteliers.com.