At part 1 of this article, we talked about the 3 qualifications as follows:
In this 2nd.part of the article, I will address the remaining 4 qualifications and skills that I personally believe are the important aspects for an effective good manager based on my experiences.
In my many years in the hospitality industry I had the privilege to work in many hotels!
I was exposed to Leading Hotels of the World, SLH, Boutique properties, Designer hotels, and many other 4 to 5 star properties.
In my career as manager and hotel consultant, I have been involved in close to 30 hotel and resort openings, so, I know that I am in a good position to write down some facts which might help hotel owners, developers and investors here in Thailand and south-east Asia.
The two most important comments – to keep in mind – I want to say right in the beginning!
”Some of the best architects and designers do NOT know ANYTHING about hotels, resorts, about service, operation, comfort, hospitality, work flow etc.”
“Most architects and designers do NOT CARE AT ALL if your hotel will actually be ‘workable’ and ‘profitable’ – they will blame ‘Lack of service’!
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 Immediate Release
June 29. 2010 – Mai-BS (Thailand) signed an agreement with the owners of Royal View Resort, Bangkok to provide professional consultation and operational support to re-organize and re-structure this leading 3-star hotel in Bangkok.
Service mind, Behavior and how to be Excellent.
I have been conducting service training courses throughout Thailand in hotels, hospitals, education institutions and retail businesses for many years. Often, I have received questions from management and owners of how to make employees have more service mind, how to make staff have better behavior in servicing guests or how to make people be able to deliver excellent service.
First of all, I like to say HR skills are very much needed in all managers, simply because one of several main responsibilities of any manager is “people management”. As a former director of human resources and a current human resource lecturer & trainer, I theorize some human resource functions that need both “Science” and “Art” practices to share here in Mai-BS’s blog.
With “Science”, I mean the “system” of HR implementation and with “Art” I mean the “style” of the HR manager. To be called a 5-star company, system and style cannot be separated from each function of human resource practices. Thus, I would like to share the following “system” for HR implementation and “style” of HR manager.
After actively participating for 18 hotel openings as a manager and hotel consultant, I am somehow surprised about the fact that most independent hotel investors unintentionally – but also intentionally – make exactly the same mistakes over and over again which always turn out to be very costly!
I am writing down these “top 10” mistakes in a hope that this list might help some developers and owners.
As we are hotel consultants, we sincerely believe that a consultant must be the most honest, transparent, straight-forward and therefore most trustworthy person close to the owners and investors.
A consultant’s intention should NEVER be to keep hotel owners and investors ‘in the dark’! A true consultant must educate advice and provide samples of good and bad practices. A hotel consultant must also be a good teacher – not a lecturer! We must guide and use all channels of communication to pass on knowledge to others. We choose to write articles in a hope that it helps and inspires others.
As a hotel consultant based here in Thailand, I frequently observe hotel and resort owners and senior managers informing employees that it is the owners or managements wish that everyone should work as a big family! Even every new employee is informed that this is the owners wish and concept!
ความทุกข์ของคนทำงาน นำมาซึ่งความสำเร็จขององค์กร
(หรือไม่)
หลายคนอาจมองว่า ความสำเร็จ คือ ตึกรามที่สวยงามขององค์กร
สิ่งอำนวยความสะดวกที่ทันสมัย ผลกำไรมากมายจากธุรกิจ
ผลงานยิ่งใหญ่ที่ต้องใส่ในเอกสารเพื่อตีแผ่ รางวัลต่าง ๆ ที่ได้มามากมายระดับชาติ
และนานาชาติ เป็นต้น ซึ่งไม่ได้ผิดเลย
อย่างไรก็ดี จากประสบการณ์ไม่ว่าจะของตนเองหรือการพูดคุยกับคนทำงานเป็นพัน
ๆ ชีวิต สิ่งที่หลาย ๆ องค์กรไม่ได้เน้นอย่างจริงจริง อย่างมีประสิทธิภาพ คือ ความสำเร็จ
ที่รวมด้วย ความสุข ความสามัคคี ความเข้าใจ
ในการทำงานของคนในองค์กร ทุกคนคงไม่ปฏิเสธว่า “งาน” คือส่วนใหญ่ ๆ ของชีวิต หากทำงานแล้วทุกข์
หลายอย่างในชีวิตจะกระทบกระเทือนอย่างแน่นอน
หากผู้ที่ดูแลองค์กรคิดได้ก็จะรู้ว่า หากเราบริหารองค์กรให้เกิด ความสุข ความสามัคคี
รวมถึงความเข้าใจในงานและองค์กรได้นั้น จะเป็น “บุญกุศล” เหลือหลายที่มากกว่าการสร้างโบสถ์สร้างวัด เพราะเราทำให้คน ๆ หนึ่งสามารถต่อยอดความสุขของเขาไปยังอีกหลาย
ๆ ชีวิตได้
I did have a discussion with a hotel owner who claims
that his hotel is a ‘green’ (environmental friendly) hotel and he wants some
advice on how to advertise this with the media and tour operators.
I need to mention that I am a true fan of any hotel owner
who is focusing on sustainable tourism and environmental friendly concepts.
September offer from Mai-BS (Thailand)
Contact us for a FREE detailed audit and report of your business website. Just send us a email with your business email address and website address
(URL) to info@mai-bs.com
Subject:
Free Website Audit
Dear All
Today I like to write a little about the importance of good SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and good E-Marketing)
I see many hotel and business websites lookingvery good, but performing so badly or they not perform at all. The owners of those websites must have thought “This site design looks
stunning and fancy! Let’s upload the website right now! Our guest, clients or customers will love this side and us! They will buy our services and products! After all it’s a fancy site isn’t it?.”
A classic situation! A web designer who designed and created a website without any clue or idea what SEO and E-Marketing means, and this designer couldn’t care less if the website will be popular and a profitable business! After all, the web-designer wants to build and show the most fancy website site to others for his/her own adverting and benefit! The designer couldn’t care less if your side will ever be a high-ranking site, if your site does have visitors or if your site generates any business at all… Trust me, they don’t care or they don’t know that they should care for you!
Let’s talk about
some simple SEO facts:
It is not unusual to see some hotel and other business websites which are over 5 years old and still does not have a good page-rank, very limited or even no back-links and link-popularity at all, an Alexa rank of 15 millions or higher and very limited page view and visitors a day (and even less business transactions). Most of the time those websites are without proper content, only fancy flash and pictures and ‘blinking’ gadgets, with all those mentioned, how your website will help you to make business?
Your Sales and Marketing team should be shot on the spot in public if this is the case!
Most S&M Directors and Mangers don’t like E-Marketing and SEO!
They better adjust their mind-set and learn new techniques or they will really have something to worry big-time!!
We know that especially here in Asia, the owners of those businesses don’t know much about IT and even less about SEO and E-Marketing!
Those owners and managers trust their IT Manager- who uses many High-Tech words at all times! Those owner and mangers, not having any clue what the IT Manager is trying to say will trust this person!
Many owners and managers most time wrongly view that certain IT manager must be good, just because he/she speaks un-understandable IT language which the owner himself cannot even duplicate the word after hearing 10 times. So, what I want to say here is: as an owner
or manager especially in a small to medium size, you have to learn about what truly Information technology is, what social media is, what SEO means, what E-marketing is all about. It is very important as this will help to SUCCESSFULLY complete in business with a minimum
cost involved.
Think about this Hotel Statistics:
90% of your sales and marketing budget produces in average only 42% of the result (Tour Operators and Travel Agents) whereby 10% of the budget (E-Marketing) and SEO) does produce up to 60% of the business.
Most people and managers don’t know that it is NOT the IT Managers’ responsibility to do E-Marketing. Any business must have an
E-Marketing Manager on board or you will lose out badly in today’s business environment! You must insist to get a very detailed monthly report on e-marketing actives, search engine ranking,
If you business is small, you better start learning about E-Marketing and do it yourself or outsource. START NOW or NEVER – Profit is in your hands.
Klaus Rauter
Managing Director
Mai-BS (Thailand) Co., Ltd.
I feel the urge to share with you
this funny and somehow scary story.
–Phuket and purchased my ticket on-line.
I did choose to travel to Bangkok
on the 18th, June and return to Phuket on 20th, June. I
did not realize that I made an error during the online booking process. The
return e-ticket was issued with the return trip to Phuket on the 18th
instead of 20th June.
I checked in at Phuket airport to
go to Bangkok on the 18th,
right after the check-in process, I was asked if I like to check in for
my return flight Bangkok-Phuket and I said yes! I was happy to receive this
service. I received a boarding pass for
Bangkok-Phuket which I did not bother to check my boarding pass.
On the 20th, June late
evening, I arrived at Suvarnabhumi Airport for my trip back to Phuket and did
go straight through the whole security process. (I had my boarding pass issued
in Phuket). The security guard checked
my boarding pass and my passport to ensure all are correct. (I know well they
never check anything, they just do what they are told to do which is ….. “just
make a mark on the boarding pass with your pen”
Let’s look at the
different scenes of my small research summary with different paces of lives
gathered from different organizations.
-
The
third wants to be the second or if chance allows, will beat to be the first, OR
-
The
second wants to be the first, kick the third out and get the first to be the
second instead, OR
-
The
first wants to be always the first and want to kick the second out and get the
third to be the second, OR
-
Everything
remains the same, but unproductively, life goes on.
I feel the strong urge to take over the writing today from
my partner and let you know about an email reply from a hotel owner I had just
yesterday. I know that my writing skill
is not good as hers (smile), .. but will do my best.
The Story:
As you might have seen earlier on this Blog, me and my
business partner stayed in a place branded as a kind of Boutique hotel at
Bangkok (Sathorn Road).We did choose this place because the Website is simply
stunning and very well done!
However, the place was terrible … Non-English or Thai
Speaking employees (Burmese) very noisy hotel, dirty and smelly. (Please note
that we really feel sorry for all the Burmese People suffering, but we strongly
feel that the employees should be able to speak Thai at least or some English)
Once
I am invited to conduct a training session for a senior management team of one
leading service industry in Thailand
on a topic of service management. The
team opens the training by telling me that they are the second best compared to
another brand who is also the leading brand in Thailand in terms of “service
excellence”.
