45 Edition 2020 FINAL

45th | Vol 30 | 2020 | www.hotelier-indonesia.com 55
Throughout history, the hospitality
industry has never been completely
destroyed in any tough period.
Convention hotels may explore
expanding into new markets, such as
office buildings or small enterprises in
the area that do not have a staff cafeteria,
to provide food delivery and deli
products. This can help to promote the
hotel’s reputation, increase total revenue
by fully using the resources as well
as release some cash flow pressure.
In addition, convention hotels are
qualified officially as outside catering
businesses, so you can get business
from this segment for banqueting
revenue during the recovery period.
Additionally, people will still have concerns
about lunch or dinner gatherings
in big groups. Chinese hoteliers may
consider providing a western dining
style instead of the traditional Chinese
family style in restaurants, even for
wedding events. This new style can
prevent the spread of the virus contagion
and also avoid food wasting.
However, it will require careful calculation
on the potential increase of labor
expense and food cost.
4. Operations
Focus on forecasting for sanitation and
room control. During this outbreak,
revenue managers should update
hotel daily occupancy forecasts and
provide them to the operations
department for proper staffing. The
revenue manager needs to keep close
communication with the front desk
and housekeeping department to
make reasonable arrangements for
the use of rooms so the hotel can carry
out energy control, saving energy by
floor or by area.After the outbreak, to
keep up with increasing public attention
on a healthy environment, hotels
need to focus on more details of
health services, including guest room
hand sanitizers, fresh-air systems, display
of indoor air quality, high-quality
bedding, nourishing, organic food
supplies, airport transportation vehicles
in clean and disinfected condition,
etc., to improve service quality and
customer satisfaction.
5. Finance
Forecasting is key! The forecasting of
cost focuses on energy, labor and all
those unnecessary expenses, and then
controls those costs to minimize it. This
process requires collaboration from all
departments.
In terms of labor cost, try to clear out
staff overtime and encourage everyone
to take annual leave and/or
schedule mandatory training sessions
during the period of low demand.
Maintain cash flow and hotel operations.
In times of economic crisis and
major emergencies, most small- and
medium-size enterprises fail to survive
due to cash flow disruption. The
hotel management team and finance
department can consider the following
ways to counteract this:
Energy cost controlling is always the
crucial way of saving. Based on the
business forecast shared by your revenue
management team, the energy
consumption of guest rooms can be
arranged in advance. When occupancy
drops significantly, block the area by
floors or by areas to reduce unnecessary
energy consumption.
The finance department can negotiate
with the purchasing suppliers
to extend the payment cycle or temporarily
reduce the proportion of
expenses.
Try to seek help from rent reduction
or reduction on brand management
expense.
With the help of the policy of loan
rate reduction, only keep the necessary
purchases to maintain hotel
operations.
Throughout history, the hospitality
industry has never been completely
destroyed in any tough period.
Although we can’t press the “restart”
button on 2020, we can definitely
launch into “repair” mode now, despite
being forced to a standstill by the big
pause button that is COVID-19.
Chinese hoteliers have done a tremendous
job thus far staying calm
and responding positively to the challenges
in this freezing period and
should stand as a testament to other
regions being affected. The rapid
response of hotel groups to protect
the health of staff and guests and to
take various actions to support the
first-line medical staff has been heartwarming
to see.
Meanwhile, the future of our industry
is bright, the outlook remains positive
and better, healthier days lie ahead.
Authors : Yuki Hu, Eva Liu and
George Yu are part of IDeaS
Advisory Services, China.
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