Operations


apartments to target longer-stay guests. Resident Hotels has decided upon a business model that keeps communal areas to a minimum, with no meeting rooms and no breakfast served. Instead, each room has its own mini-kitchen and there is a grocery-delivery option for guests. “Our guest rooms are set up for working from the hotel and longer stays, which can combine a bit of WFH with a bit of city cultural visitation; the mini kitchen is especially useful for ensuring everything is to hand,” comments Orr. This business model keeps labour costs down and is possible due the vibrant locations of hotels with plenty of F&B and visitor attractions on their doorstep. Targeting the bleisure traveller, therefore, may require urban hotels to provide larger rooms and apartment-style conveniences, including other services such as laundry. For resorts in rural and coastal areas, there is the opportunity to attract digital nomads and bleisure travellers. This may require IT upgrades, however, particularly reliable high-speed internet and the provision of workspaces.


Fairmont is a brand of hotel that has seen an increase in people wanting to use the lobby for work.


pandemic, but now, according to Dardenne, this is changing. “During the Covid-19 crisis, we really relaxed all of our rules in terms of pre-bookings and provided lots of liberty to cancel. But now, occupancy is building up and people realise that they need to book ahead. Obviously it is in their interests as they get cheaper tickets because airline tickets have really gone up.”


5,500


Number of travellers revealing that fl exibility, and the ability to receive a full refund or credit if plans change, remains a top priority for consumers. Expedia Traveller Value Index


26


Changes to services and infrastructure Traditionally, hotels tended to have a core focus on either leisure or business travellers. There was always some overlap, but now there is a growing realisation that hotels can benefit from targeting ‘the whole guest’, for example, the guest who travels for both business and leisure. This new thinking is apparent in the changes hoteliers have made to their services and infrastructure to cater to a wider variety of traveller’s needs. For example, the 350-room Sofitel Dubai Downtown was among those hotels that used the downtime during the pandemic to convert some of its suites into


The future of business travel The pandemic provoked plenty of speculation about the future of meeting, events and business travel, much of it gloomy. Hoteliers looked at their empty venues and began to wonder about when – and if – meetings and events would return. For Dardenne, the bounce-back in business demand this year has been extremely welcome and somewhat surprising. “At one stage we really looked at our meeting facilities and we said: ‘What do we do with these ballrooms? Do we need to do something else?’ And then, all of a sudden, we had to push pause because business is actually coming back.” Pent-up demand for face-to-face meetings and ‘revenge travel’ have been factors, notes Dardenne, adding that there has been almost no demand for hybrid (combining remote/digital and in-person) meetings and conferences so far this year. He adds: “It’s interesting to see the big fair destinations: Munich, Frankfurt, Geneva. The thought was that the fairs are going to change. But I was just in Munich and all of the big fairs there are back to 2019 levels in terms of attendance.” The optimist in us craves for the post-pandemic sugar rush to continue and for the ‘roaring twenties’ to blaze ahead. But could the peak of the recovery be already behind us? The macro-economic outlook is not positive, neither is the continuing disruption at airports.


“I think we will see a recalibration in September,” says Dardenne. Targeting local bleisure and WFH markets offers a way to compensate for the expected reductions in corporate travel. ●


Hotel Management International / www.hmi-online.com


Accor


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