Balanced Scorecard

Hotel 25 Improvements How To Succeed In Hotel Industry

Hotel blogger

Movement is life. This principle is true for business as well. Every business must develop otherwise it will fail sooner or later. Loss of competitive advantage results in loss of customers. There is a tough competition in all markets, and customers of free to choose any products they like. If a customer is not buying from you it will most certainly buy from your competitor. This is true for all businesses, including hotel business. This industry is highly competitive as there are hundreds of hotels in every country. When high season comes hotel top managers do everything possible to attract customers and make them stay in their hotels. Of course, they do not only promise high quality services but the actually offer them. Hotel is not just a place where you spend the night. Some people want to feel at home in a hotel. This is possible in case you come to a top quality hotel.

In order to improve hotel services owners and managers of our hotel need to know where to start from. In other words they have to be aware of current performance in order to make plans for the future. Until recently performance evaluation was about measurement of financial indicators for the past periods. Such approach is not perfect since it misses nonfinancial indicators that are extremely important in any industry. It is not enough just to announce implementation of new plans and improvements in hotel. A real work begins when these improvements are implemented and measured.

For example, if a new service, say, WiFi connection in all rooms is introduced the hotel spends a certain amount of money to buy equipment and maintain network. Then, the quality of Wireless Network has to be evaluated. However, what is more important is the attitude of customers towards this new service and the way they use it. If it turns out that only 10% of hotel guests actually use wireless network and only half of them really require high speed Internet there is probably no point in spending huge money for super speedy Internet. If most of hotel guests are business people for whom high speed Internet is necessity than well established wireless connection is a must.

If improvements concern reception service top management of a hotel needs to understand who their guests are and why they come to their hotel. If most of them are tourists than it would be reasonable to introduce new services like offering information on sightseeing tours, contact details of various Entertainment Services, taxi phone numbers etc. As time passes by, efficiency of these improvements needs to be tested in order to introduce amendments if necessary.

Such evaluation of improvements can be performed with the help of Balanced Scorecard which is a very efficient performance evaluation and strategic management system. Balanced Scorecard will coordinate efforts of all services and business units of a hotel and align strategies of different departments, for example restaurants and hairdressers service. This is a flexible system which means changes can be easily introduced.

How To Measure Hotel Security Performance

Hotel blogger

Hotel industry is a very competitive one. One high season comes hotel owners begin real wars to win loyalty of customers. Indeed, there is a wide choice of hotels in any country. Customers are free to choose hotels according to their preferences and budgets. Sure, everyone wants to get the most value for his or her money. Every minor detail matters in the hotel. Security measures are of exceptional importance since when visitors miss their personal things they will never come to that hotel again. Moreover, if such a theft becomes public the hotel reputation will most certainly suffer. For this reason, evaluation of security measures in the hotel is as importance as measurement of its business performance. Top security is an inseparable part of the hotel top rate service. These days, hotel owners and managers use the most popular performance evaluation tool which is known as Balanced Scorecard. Having developed strategic goals and chosen a set of key performance indicators, hotel managers can evalua
te current performance as well as locate problems.

Hotel security is provided through various services, from surveillance and installment of cameras to regular checkups of corridors, lobbies and other rooms and areas. Without proper evaluation it is very difficult to say whether or not hotel security measures are efficient. Of course, one can use statistic information such as theft or incidents rates. However, these figures information on what has already happened. It is impossible to plan ahead without having figures on current performance of Security Service.

Thus, in order to get such information as set of relevant key performance indicators has to be developed. To begin with, it needs mentioning that key performance indicators are not just numbers. KPIs represent critical success factors for various aspects of running business, hotel security in our case. Thus, top managers and those responsible for implementation of Balanced Scorecard in a hotel should consider the most important factors that directly influence top performance of a hotel in terms of security. At that, the hotel should take care of safety of both visitors, own personnel, and protection of hotel property.

Key performance indicators used to measure security performance have to be understood for ordinary security officers. If security guards do not understand the purpose of using Balanced Scorecard and key performance indicators they are likely to offer fake figures just to fulfill the tasks. Key performance indicators have to be measurable. For example it is reasonable to measure such indicator as percentage of time corridors and lobbies are not checked by security guards. Logically, the more often security officers checked up rooms and lobbies, the less probable incidents are. Two other relevant key performance indicators for hotel security we can refer number of checkups performed outside, percentage of time that security guards are not working or unable to prevent accidents, number of security officers per storey etc.