Browsing by Author "Kennedy, Doug"

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  • 5 Easy Ways To Reduce Turnover At The Front Desk
    Kennedy, Doug (2019-02-08)
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    7 Trainer’s Tips For Hotel Reservations Sales Success
    Kennedy, Doug (2017-08-10)
    If you're like most hotel managers, chances are you are highly focused on securing more direct bookings and thus reducing the costs of customer acquisition. If so, here are some train-the-trainer style tips for providing your reservations and/or front desk colleagues with the skills they need to covert today's over-informed, channel surfing callers. You can use these at your next departmental meeting or during one-on-one coaching sessions.
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    Conquering Complaints – Part Two
    Kennedy, Doug (2017-01-11)
    With the proliferation of online guest reviews and social media postings, training all of your guest contact colleagues to properly respond to guest complaints is more important than ever before in the history of the lodging industry. As we explored in Part One of this series, the first step in Conquering Complaints is to understand their root causes. Last month we explored what I call the "Carrot Model" as a way of analyzing the root causes of guest complaints.
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    The Difference Between Hospitality and Guest Service
    Kennedy, Doug (Costar, 2021-07-22)
    The author shares the importance of understanding the difference between "Hospitality" and "Guest Service." His friend and mentor Howard Feiertag, the namesake of the Howard Feiertag Department of Hospitality and Tourism Management at Virginia Tech, expresses that when we care "for" others, we are doing our jobs. When we care "about" our guests that we understand how each guest is going through a unique travel experience.
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    The difference between rate maximization and upselling
    Kennedy, Doug (Hotel News Now, 2018-06-13)
    Revenue managers should know the difference between maximizing rate and upselling, and be able to better explain it to owners.
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    Embrace sales tech you have before investing in more
    Kennedy, Doug (Hotel News Now, 2018-04-04)
    Rather than continue the constant pursuit of the latest bells and whistles, hotel sales departments first should undertake a thorough assessment of their current technology and how it is being used.
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    Get Your Hotel Operations Team Onboard The Tricycle of Guest Service
    Kennedy, Doug (Hotel online, 2018-02)
    As hospitality industry trainers know, using symbols and models can help trainees grasp abstract concepts and make seemingly-complex paradigms easy to understand. Seems like is a good time for the hotel industry to update its model, so let’s get your team onboard The Tricycle of Guest Service. When you think about it, a tricycle is a perfect model for a positive guest experience. For one, it has three wheels, just like the three components of a memorable guest stay. The back wheels represent Technology and Systems Efficiency and a quality Physical “Product,” while the front wheel stands for Hospitality and Guest Service Skills.
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    Guest personalization: What it is, and what it is not
    Kennedy, Doug (Hotel News Now, 2019-02-20)
    There’s nothing that makes a stay feel less personalized than poor attempts at personalization. Here’s some guidance for hoteliers who are willing to make the effort to do it right.
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    “Heart Failure”: The Leading Cause Of Bad Reviews
    Kennedy, Doug (2019-03-20)
    When you read a cross-section of negative comments from online reviews and guest surveys, it's easy to recognize a common theme across all lodging operations: "Heart failure." More specifically, I am referring to the failure to understand the true heart of hospitality, which is "caring about as well as caring for others."
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    Hotel Industry Vendor-partners Could Also Benefit From Sales Basics Training
    Kennedy, Doug (2017)
    As hotel companies continue to invest heavily in arranging sales training for their outside sales associates, our industry’s vendor-partners would do well to provide a little fundamental sales training for their salespeople too, especially if my experiences are indicative of others’ experiences.
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    Hotel Sales - Are You Giving Your Guests Enough RevPAH?
    Kennedy, Doug (2017-04-04)
    In the hotel business we measure our RevPAR, which everyone knows is Revenue Per Available Room Night. Fortunately for us, our guests do not use a similar equation to evaluate their hotel stay, which they might call RevPAH, because even at an economy hotel the RevPAH is exorbitant at times.
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    Hotel Sales Best Practices For The Era Of Electronic Inquiries
    Kennedy, Doug (HSMAI, 2017-06-12)
    As anyone who has worked in the profession of hotel sales and catering sales for 10 or more years knows, the skill-set required to be a top performer is quite different these days. Today's sales superstars still have to have exceptional "people skills," which today is more formally referred to as emotional intelligence.
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    Hotel Sales Best Practices For The Era Of Electronic Inquiries
    Kennedy, Doug (2017-06-12)
    As anyone who has worked in the profession of hotel sales and catering sales for 10 or more years knows, the skill-set required to be a top performer is quite different these days. Today's sales superstars still have to have exceptional "people skills," which today is more formally referred to as emotional intelligence. Equally as vital, however, is the need for sales colleagues to develop an excellent organizational skill set. These days, one has to be good at both "people" and "process" skills in order to succeed. This is because today's sales teams are dealing with an overwhelming flow of electronic correspondence throughout the sales cycle and it is, therefore, essential to be highly organized.
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    Hotel sales tips from real-world meeting planners
    Kennedy, Doug (Hotel News Now, 2017-09)
    Insights from interviews with meeting planners include ideas for how hotels can personalize their RFPs and event experiences to boost bookings.
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    Hotel Sales – It’s Time to Use Video Email to Outsell the Competition
    Kennedy, Doug (2017-02-07)
    Based on what I hear from the hotel sales and catering sales managers I train each month, the vast majority of inquiries for groups, meetings, conferences and catering events are being received electronically. Some come in via direct email; others arrive after a planner completes a "contact us" inquiry form at the hotel's website. Most, however, arrive via third party platforms such as CVENT, Starcite, MeetingBroker, or via the local DMO or CVB. When planners reached out by phone, they tended to inquire at far fewer properties as it took much more effort. Now after a few keyboard strokes and the push of a "submit" button, their inquiry goes out to dozens of hotel sales offices.
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    Hotel Sales: “Why Do Our Rates Change? We Discount When It’s Slower!”
    Kennedy, Doug (2017-03)
    Every day your hotel sales, reservations and front desk colleagues are fielding questions from both prospects and guests regarding why it is that the rates are so much higher during certain periods as compared to other dates.
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    How Did The Bartell Hotels’ Call Center Capture 7% More Revenue From 11% Fewer Calls?
    Kennedy, Doug (2017-05-10)
    Founded in 1975, Bartell Hotels is one of San Diego's oldest and largest independent hotel companies with eight hotels, including six that are branded (from 4 different national brands) and two independents. Bartell Hotels include: Holiday Inn Bayside, San Diego Airport Hilton, The Dana on Mission Bay, Paci c Terrace Hotel, Sheraton La Jolla Hotel, Humphrey's Half Moon Inn & Suites, Best Western Plus Island Palms Hotel & Marina, and Days Inn at Hotel Circle by Sea World.