3 Challenges Facing the Hospitality Industry

Finding good help:

• With very low unemployment rates in most of the country finding and retaining good help is one of the greatest challenges facing the Hospitality industry.
• A recent blog article on the Orbital Shift website notes “According to Talent Management and HR, one third of employees quit their jobs after only six months, whereas 45 percent of referred employees stay an average of two years”
• Moving your business to a referral based employer may help retain employees longer.
• Offering cash rewards to current employees for referrals of potential new hires is one way to up the quality of applicants.
• You need to offer benefits. Flexible schedules, bonuses, paid vacations, Retirement plans, Wellness plans for local gyms, free lunches are just some of the inexpensive ways to attract and retain help.
• While expensive offering health insurance to employees. The competition for a limited pool of potential employees is intense. The marketplace is offering these types of benefits. You will need to as well if you are going to retain top talent.

The AirBNB Challenge:

• AirBNB only represents 3% of the hospitality market. They are very real thorn to the Hospitality Industry due to what they may become not what they are currently.
• AirBNB currently has over 3 million listings in 65,000 cities in 191 countries. They collect a fee from both the host and the guest. Carley Milligan, Associate Editor of the Baltimore Business Journal writes: “Approximately 5,500 families in the state hosted at least one Airbnb guest in 2017, bringing in a total profit of $42.4 million for families in the state — up from $25.3 million in 2016.The online home sharing site also recorded a 98 percent increase in guest arrivals in Baltimore booked for New Year’s Eve 2016 and New Year’s Eve 2017. There were 990 Airbnb arrivals planned for Dec. 31, 2017, up from 500 bookings on the same date in 2016.The state saw a total of 265,000 Airbnb guest arrivals in 2017, with the average Maryland host sharing their home 51 nights out of the year, and earning $5,600 in additional income, the site found. About 58 percent of those hosts are women.”
• In San Francisco the average cost of an AirBNB room is 18% less than a regular hotel room in 2015.
• While AIRBNB presents a real challenge to the Hospitality Industry there are ways to beat them. AirBNB has had issues with security. Marketing and showcasing the safety of your Hotel, Inn, or B&B needs to be part of your game plan. Updating your security systems, plans are needed as well.
• Hotels need to beat AirBNB at their own game by offering guests the four trends fueling Airbnb’s success: personalization, local expertise, location, and technology. Most hotels, Inns & B&B’s are in a better spot to capitalize on these trends. In fact many have been offering these services for years without realizing it.
• Tnooz writes”; Personalization is the most critical trend for hotels to leverage in order to attract guests and build loyalty.
• Hotels should furnish travelers with personalized journeys that consider each guest’s unique preferences, budgets, and interests.
• Be an integral part of the experience through travel planning platforms that balance artificial intelligence and human insight to provide true personalization to each and every traveler.”
•  The hospitality industry is best suited to offer expertise on local attractions by tapping into their Professional staff for ideas on where to go, and what to see. Thriving hotels guide guests to exceptional neighborhoods and rarer attractions. Integrate trip planning technologies to complement a hotel’s digital presence to invite personalization and discovery, and to create an experience that is differentiated.
• Technology: Hotels have the resources to tap into technology that many AirBNB can’t offer. Again Tnooz suggests that: “It is imperative that a hotel’s digital platforms, from its website to social media, provide value in every stage of the travel lifecycle.”

International Travel:

• According to the U.S. Travel Association, over 75 million international travelers visited the U.S. in 2016, and that number is expected to hit over 83 million by 2020.
• Hotels that can cater to this market by providing international guests with a unique and local experience are leaders. It starts with providing guests with materials in multiple languages, learning what each foreign guest is interested in and guiding them to those destinations will personalize each guests’ experience while visiting.