Imagine this — now the Industry is putting CEO’S at the helm that have no hospitality know how. I am sure that in their respective fields they are very good, but the hotel business is a different animal, and you have to understand it if you are going to be the driver. Some will agree that this type of move is a positive one, seeing the industry through a different perspective. The amount of different kinds of hotels and their acronyms alone would overwhelm them. Yet several hotel chains have opted for non-hotel CEO’s – Four Seasons, Accor. Will there be a difference in how the companies perform? Time will be the benchmark for that, the problem will be if it goes wrong. Who will step in to fix it? What will the customer reaction be?
What Are the Characteristics Peculiar to the Hotel Industry?
Hotels are in the people business, not real-estate business. Somewhere along the way this piece of information got lost. When you try and make a hotel work like a real-estate transaction it never works. Hotels have cycles, they go up, and down according to the business at hand. Revenue has to be predicted, and at best it becomes a crap shoot at times. There are fierce competitors trying to lure guest away from you. Customers seek the best hotel for what they feel is the right price, not what you think they should pay.
Can Managers Who Are Not Hotel Savvy Cope?
When it is all said and done you will have remember that we are not in the finance business, we are in hospitality business. I don’t think that you can be the helms captain of a ship if your former job was a NASCAR race driver. That is exactly what these hotel companies are doing. Like I have said in the past small hotel owners that are not hotel savvy hire a damn good GM. If they tried to run it themselves, they would soon discover that this unique industry bites back when you don’t know what you are doing. My question is, has any of this new breed of CEO’S actually worked in a hotel? These new people are very well qualified in their respective fields, however it will be interesting to see where they navigate to. As I write this article, I can’t help but wonder what would be the reaction if a hotel owner asked me to provide a hotel consultant to help him, and I sent him Joe the Plumber.
About the Author
Alan Campbell has been in Las Vegas for over 30 years and has worked for the major strip hotels. He has spent some time in California, Los Angeles where he worked for the Radisson and Sheraton hotels. Alan considers the hospitality industry the best job in the world – it is the only place that both king's and Paupers will visit you.
The Hotel Guy
