The hospitality industry can sound like a gold mine, because it fulfills a series of universal needs, meaning that it’s always in demand. However, one can’t simply decide to open a successful hotel chain. Like any other industry, the hospitality industry offers plenty of fierce competition standing in the way of you and your fortune. In order to develop a successful hospitality business, you’ll need some help. Here’s what you need to know.

Sales

A feature shared by many different hospitality business models is that they do not typically sell products. This can trick the brain into abandoning sales as a concept, but sales are nonetheless a crucial part of any and all businesses, even when they offer a service instead of a product. Whether it’s a product or a service being offered, the end result is the same: a payment is made for services rendered. In much the same way as you buy a soda from a vending machine, you also pay for a hotel room, after all. It’s important when managing any business to invest heavily into sales. For starters, your sales team will need proper training as salespersons, even if their role is technically “receptionist.” However, it’s important to give your workers, regardless of their roles, the proper motivation, and sales leaderboards can drive competition to increase the overall efficiency of your company. A milestone for your sales team to strive for will lead to more skill being plied in the name of topping that leaderboard.

Cleaning

One of the most important aspects of most hospitality business models is cleanliness. Really, it’s far more important from the consumer perspective for a business to look clean, on average. Meanwhile, the actual cleanliness of an establishment is crucial from the business’s perspective, because bacteria can get customers sick even if things look like a million bucks on the surface. Tackling both of these logistical problems will prove to be an essential part of reputation management, as well. Simply put, don’t skimp on the cleaning of your facility. While cleaning is theoretically so easy that anyone can do it, you need to employ cleaners with a more discerning eye and a greater repertoire of pertinent skills and techniques. Experienced and qualified cleaners form the sturdy backbone of a successful hotel chain, and even run of the mill cleaning in restaurants is often supplemented with more professional, deep cleaning on an occasional basis to make sure things are always above board.

Marketing

Last, but certainly not least, marketing is one of the most foundational aspects not just of hospitality businesses, but also all commercial endeavors in general. Marketing serves as the primary method by which a business can expand its sphere of influence, after all. Marketing your business entails first understanding your audience, and this can be achieved by commissioning a PR firm to conduct market research, first and foremost. The market data that this kind of research can yield can paint an expansive and relatively certain overview of your target demographics, which can inform both your marketing and business strategies. On the other hand, this data needs to be taken into consideration in the context of your industry in particular in order to derive meaningful conclusions from it. The hospitality industry, particularly hotels, depends heavily on travel, meaning that the owner of a hotel has to be ready to pounce at the right time to take advantage of the influx of travelers around certain times of year. Naturally, summer and winter will best serve a seaside hotel, because people during both of these seasons could stand a warm, sandy beach, and most of those people won’t live near a beach themselves.

The hospitality industry is one that always has a place in society, and it stands to reason that there’s a fortune to be made from that eternal demand. These tips can help you beat out the competition in order to take your piece of the pie.

Author: Paisley Hansen