Operations
highly volatile marketplace, the risks from simply staying the same are, in my opinion, significantly higher. And, in any case, part of the built-in benefits from being agile is the ability to right any wrongs fairly quickly. I mentioned earlier that there has been
Of all the many roles in a hotel, asset managers could be the key to a more fi nancially secure and stable future.
hospitality sector in an unprecedented state of flux, placing even greater expectations on asset managers while at the same time giving them an extraordinary opportunity to make the difference between ultimate success and failure. If that sounds overly dramatic, it is important to consider the fact that we still do not fully grasp the long-term effects of the pandemic on tourism and hospitality. We do not know which customer segments will come back, let alone how they will come back. There are so many questions around hybrid working, meetings and incentives, corporate travel, and leisure travel that remain unanswered, and hotel owners and operators need to be ready for when the time comes to tackle those questions.
“If investors want to make the most of the post-pandemic recovery, in whatever form it takes, it is essential to have a strong pipeline of talented individuals.”
How can hotel owners and operators do this? By
making the guest space more customisable, more flexible and more easily adaptable to rapid market shifts. It is simply no longer feasible to establish a positioning and say ‘that’s good for the next ten to 15 years’ when you do not really have a clue what the market segmentation is going to look like over the next 12 to 18 months.
Adapt to thrive Moving from a fixed state to a dynamic-state approach is highly challenging, and of course there is always a chance that you have read the trends wrongly and miss the target. But in our present,
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an increased demand for asset managers who have the specialist knowledge to work within a hospitality context. And I do not mean just hotels by that, but also the many other operational assets that fall within the broader hospitality definition – such as co-living, branded residences, serviced apartments and youth hostels. When it comes to fulfilling this demand, the major hospitality business schools – like Glion, where I teach – are on the case. In this, Glion is working closely with the Hospitality Asset Managers Association (HAMA). This group, which started in the US, represents the world’s major owners of hotel and hospitality real estate. And, each year, it runs a competition in collaboration with a member company for hospitality students to test their asset management skills on a live consultancy project relating to a real-life hotel property, giving them valuable experience in simulating reality. For this year’s competition, we are working with Starwood Capital, one of the world’s leading owners of hospitality real estate, and I am also pleased to say that the competition has expanded to involve four major European hospitality schools, including – for the first time – Glion’s sister school, Les Roches. The high status conferred on this competition is exemplified by a prize that includes the opportunity to present the winning concept at the HAMA annual meeting in Berlin – a great way to not only honour the winners, but to showcase their talents and feed their ingenuity back into the industry. This is a clear indicator of how the hospitality asset management industry recognises that it is waging a war for talent. If investors want to make the most of the post- pandemic recovery, in whatever form it takes, it is essential to have a strong pipeline of talented and appropriately trained individuals who can combine knowledge of hospitality operations, financial nous, the bravery to try new things and the all-round soft skills to bring different factions together and ensure everyone is aligned and on the same pathway. There is nobody else who can perform this role in the same way or with the same level of sophistication that the asset manager can. Without this specialised class of management, we will struggle to emerge from the Covid-19 quagmire with the hospitality assets we want to offer – and, more importantly, that customers want to experience – in the future. ●
Hotel Management International /
www.hmi-online.com
David Tadevosian/
Shutterstock.com
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