July 30, 2010. – I just returned from a visit to the yearly “Amazing Thailand Grand Sales” at Queen Sirikit Convention Center in Bangkok.
As a former Hotel General Manager, I have been there at this and other travel marts and fairs many times to represent the properties I used to work for, so I think I am qualified to comment a little.
There have been not too many people at the fair and as per several resort owners I talked to, there has been so far only very few bookings compared to last year. However, I visited the fair on a Friday so I wish and hope that Saturday and Sunday will be more successful in terms of turnout and sales.
For me, it was good to see some old friends and employees, I enjoyed to network, to introduce our company Mai-BS (Thailand) and of course to observe and learn. It seems like that this low seasons is extremely low for Chiang Mai, Chiang Rai and Koh Chang as per feedback of hoteliers.
The main hall was fully booked with hotels and resorts, but surprisingly, the other hall where booths have been assigned for hotels and resorts had lots of empty spaces.
Emtpy booths at Queen Sirikit Center
There have been some new and smaller hotels and resorts. I never did see their logo or hotel name in the past! Some of the products look really lovely, inviting and innovative when looking at their brochures and displayed pictures. However, when socializing, I also learned that many of those new places do struggle operationally because of a lack of training, sales, marketing and the fact that the business is run by people with very little or no experience in hospitality. They also mentioned that they have problems to attract quality employees. Besides the newer and smaller resorts, I could see also the more reputed and known companies such as Dusit, Accor, Unique Collection, etc.
Today, I like to write down some tips for the newer, smaller and less known resorts in the hope it will help some people.
Please do ensure that you decorate and set up your booth nicely, attractive and inviting! If you do not have the creative skills, take pictures of booths you find nice and attractive for your inspiration. You may not have the same budget as Dusit or Accor, but please trust me, guest will judge your booth and business on attention to details, innovation, professionalism and your employees! Visitors want to see YOUR product, YOUR attention to details, YOUR service and YOUR hospitality! Your booth ‘look’ is 100% your potential guests first impression.
Ensure your employees, relatives etc. who are inside your booth look and dress ‘professional’! Ensure they are service minded, kind, and helpful. I meet one person today working for a hotel which name I don’t mention here who smelled badly from alcohol, did not shave his facial hairs for 1-2 days, had red eyes and simply looked not good at all!! – Would you book accommodation with this person? Would you trust in the hotels quality of service and product if you have to deal with a person as mentioned above? – I found out that this person was actually a relative of the resort owner!
Ensure you have enough employees at the booth so they can have time for a rest, time to take their meals AWAY from your booth, and time to visit the rest rooms. I did see several booths where sales people talked to potential guests while eating, where Styrofoam boxes of food covered the hotel brochures and guest don’t dared to touch and push them aside. At one particular resort booth there have been 2 people sleeping WITH pillows and basic blankets!! This was not in the main hall, but at the second hall which still had empty booths – Questions to you: Would you book your accommodation at this hotel?
Ensure you are able to accept credit cards. Your guests do not carry lots of cash anymore. At one resort booth where I know one of the employees, only cash – no credit cards- have been accepted! For the cash-transactions, the mother of the resort owner was sitting in the booth like an eagle watching, judging and commenting on employees every move, action and talk. I could feel the high stress level and unhappiness of the employees! As a guest I ask myself “Is this hotel operated professional? Would I like to stay in this hotel?” – The answer is “No”! Please! -you can get a GPRS credit card machine from most banks if you just make a request early enough! If your Bank says that they cannot help you with this, please move to another Bank!
Please ensure that your staff has good product knowledge! Today, when asking one person at one resort booth about the number of rooms, food and beverage outlets and also sightseeing opportunities, the person could not answer even one of my questions! The person asked me to wait for 10 minutes until the sales person comes back from Lunch. – I found out that this staff was again a person NOT related to the resort, but assigned by the owners to be at the fair as he was ‘trust worthy”. Needless to say that I did not wait – and others would not wait as well! Please, if you don’t trust your staff, just don’t hire them and ask all your relatives and friends to work in your hotel or resort to ensure you have enough people you believe you can trust!
One sales person at one sales booth told me about her resort owners without me asking here anything about them! She said that the resort owners are a very rich family and the resort was built mainly for owner’s friends and family. She also told me that the owners come with the whole family and friends every weekend! — I did asked myself, why she needs to tell me all this? – I think that the vast majority of hotel guest don’t care about how rich the owners are! A guest expects good service, good quality and good product for a fair price! Or did she mean to say that I am poor and would be privileged to pay for services at the rich owners resort? Hmm…..
However, the good news is, that I also did meet many hotel owner, managers and employees who are very passionate about their product and services, they are very committed and very active, innovative and service minded. Their booth looked good, their staff looked professional and one of the resort owners even gave a “Wai” (Polite Thai greeting) to ALL visitors. I could clearly see that those hotels and resorts had more enquiries and surly more bookings as well.
Klaus R. Rauter
Managing Director
http://mai-bs.com | http://tourismdirectoryasia.com | http://propertiesyouneed.com
