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| Room Service Issue 22 - Jul / Aug 06 Many people think that managing a hotel and managing any other commercial development are two distinct undertakings, but this may change as the science of FM looks to become more customer focussed.  In the words of Julius Santos, Manager, Four Seasons Hotel, Shanghai: “We are a management company.” Like most large international brand hotel operators, Four Seasons rarely owns the hotel building, it simply manages it for another owner or developer. Within the building, there are people paid to carry out the tasks required to keep the users of the premises happy and thus increase the value of the building for its owners. Much the same as any other facility management company. But the feeling walking into a hotel compared to the feeling of walking into any other commercial building is remarkably different. The difference lies in the approach of the management company. On the one hand, commercial FMs are usually told that their primary responsibility is to maintain the physical space. On the other, hotel managers are there to “make sure our guests are able to be productive in the hotel and to walk away satisfied,” says Santos. customer service Knowing your customer and customer service is one of the biggest differentiators between these two forms of management. At the Four Seasons, if there is a maintenance or technical problem in a guest room, a customer service representative, with the necessary language skills, will go along with the technical personnel to explain the problem and to follow up with the guest. Through its “Glitch System”, within 24 hours management will have a report of the incident, not to chastise staff who, like everyone, make mistakes, but to work on trying to recover. Senior management will become personally involved if the problem isn’t ironed out immediately.  designing for ROI Responding to a market and serving the customer begins at the design stage of a hotel. Victor Rodrigues, Vice President Technical Services for Middle East Asia Pacific, Hilton Group, currently has 40 projects on the go from Beirut to Fiji, and has been working in the industry for 30 years. He believes in delivering customers a fully interactive experience through what he calls the “interactive design process”. The first step is to take numerous surveys to determine the need for a hotel in that location and, if so, what sort of demographic it will cater to and whether this will change over time. The Hilton Group owns some of its portfolio, others it simply manages, but Rodrigues says the process remains the same. listening to feedback Feedback from other properties that the Hilton Group has built and owns around the world is a core part of this process. At a recent FM conference, Mike Hudson, Director, Estates Management Office, the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, lamented to a highly sympathetic audience of commercial and institutional FMs: “When you stay in a hotel room just one night they ask for your feedback, you can work with an architect for five years and they will never ask you what you think of their work.” When RFP asked Las Vegas Sands Corporation COO William Weidner whether lessons learnt from the operation and management of its integrated developments in Las Vegas, Macau and other locations would be fed into the design of the new integrated resort at Marina Bay in Singapore, he was shocked. “Of course. That is what we do. We operate resorts.” At the Hilton, the process is methodological, so as to get the best return on investment for the developers. For a Greenfield (undeveloped) site, Hilton will provide the first layer of documentation that determines the architect’s brief. This document comprises a “facilities list” based on demographic and geographic information and then members of all stakeholder teams are bought together for desiccated design meetings, rather than simply shooting off documentation for someone to review and revert. Each brand, from Hilton to Conrad, has its own design standards and these are represented along with the wishes of the developer/landlord, who often see a hotel as the jewel in their property portfolio crown. The design is delivered so that the hotel becomes a “tool through which to generate business,” says Rodrigues.  infrastructure Hotels, like hospitals, are very technical properties. The IT infrastructure and ventilation zoning is very intricate and a high level of technical expertise is required to get it right, says Rodrigues. Yet all of this is designed with maintenance and customer needs as the starting point. Scheduling maintenance of different aspects of the supporting infrastructure is also done to maximise the user experience. For example, at the Four Seasons, says Santos, cleaning of public areas will only be done between 12 midnight and 6am. It also needs to integrate other systems, such as security and laundry room services, so that response times to incidents, be they ketchup on a dinner jacket or a bomb scare, are able to be guaranteed. “It is a science,” says Santos. Upgrades of supporting infrastructure, like the addition of wireless broadband are also only considered in response to customer demand.
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| caring for the customer carers Another difference between hotel management companies and property managers generally, is their respective rankings in employer of choice awards globally. Santos explains the reason: “Our employees are also our customers, because if our employees aren’t happy then how can they serve people properly. Successful management companies are ones who treat their staff well, who in turn treat their customers well.” This is why a great deal is spent on training staff and teaching specific skills such as languages or even just to smile more. Some property management companies are beginning to see the mileage in taking this approach. Hong Kong’s Urban Group, for example, prides itself on its staff care and employer of choice status.  developing markets Rodrigues points out that in some locations, including several around Asia, a hotel, particularly a high-end or five-star hotel or resort is the most complex and bestappointed building in that place. Often by a long way. Many times, the buildings have to be completely non-reliant on local infrastructure including sewage, electricity and drinking water. Input from the future operator about how these services will be implemented is invaluable. The Starwood Group, who recently opened its first Sheraton hotel in Xiamen, China, sees its ability to assist in the development process, and inclusion of pre-and post-opening operations support as being central to its success: “The expansion of [Starwood’s] Architecture, Construction and Design Department is inextricably linked to the impressive growth of every brand in the Starwood family”, its development website states. supporting the brand Probably the final and most significant difference is branding. This can also be important for some corporate or retail tenants. For example, it reflects badly on the company’s brand if store or branch light-boxes are consistently flickering or if there is cargo being loaded through a building’s main entrance. For the management company, its own branding is nowhere near as vital as for a five-star hotel brand. In a few places, China being one, tenants can be attracted because management is outsourced to a particular FM service provider but for prospective tenants, the fact that the company is “international” is more noteworthy than the actual brand. For hotel management, company branding is the bottom line, “with our brand we cannot afford to let maintenance slip, it will cost us too much not to get this right,” says Santos. If someone leaves a hotel with a bad impression they will probably not return to that hotel, they will tell other people and they will likely avoid hotels managed by that brand. End users in office and retail spaces are not yet quite so demanding. But if you are a FM, who has noticed the shift from maintenance to customer service, it might be worth taking a few notes the next time you check in. RFP
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Key title: RFP magazine
Abbreviated key title: RFP mag.
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