Though I’m not exactly the most frequent of travelers, I decided to explore what exactly made a great hotel great and came up with a few of the most important parts of a hotel which help to make one’s stay as comfortable as possible.
1. Remembering your Preferences
Something that some hotels do which can change the feelings of a visitor from the time they check in to when the leave is the basic action of remembering a customer’s preferences. Four Seasons is a chain which is proud of what they do in this regard, speaking about how they keep a customer file on every visitor to ensure that their needs are met, no matter how out of the ordinary they are. Though it may make some uncomfortable, staff are trained to study and take in subtle clues given off by guests and add any information gleaned from these encounters to their customer file, ensuring that in the future they can have a more comfortable experience.
2. Meeting Customer’s Requests
Numerous hotel chains such as the Ritz-Carlton believe in meeting every guest’s needs, however unusual they are, with these hotels ensuring that their concierges are of the highest caliber. Hotels take the commitment of their concierges so seriously that some hotels only hire those either accepted by the international organization of concierges, Les Clefs D’Or or those working towards acceptance by the organization, as they understand that meeting as many requests as possible, from the usual requests like finding a high floor for a guest, and applying this knowledge (possible through a customer file) and remembering their preferences from previous visits, to very unusual requests, such as bringing in a 12 foot python to help some guests guests remember their stay in a Four Seasons in Thailand.
Every hotel employee and every guest understands the value of the presentation of the hotel in terms of both the quality of the furniture and furnishings, and how they are maintained. Maintaining a hotel can be a job which often ends up disrupting many guests stays, with employees working to clean the lobby at the same time that people are checking in, creating numerous disruptions which can change the way one feels about the hotel they are visiting. This problem can be solved, but has a cost which only a small amount of hotels are willing to pay. One of the actions which is seemingly cost inefficient is the usage of manual tools rather than power tools. Using manual tools, especially on a monotonous task such as trimming hedges, can take much longer and require more energy than using power tools, but becomes worth it when one can relax near the pool which the hedges are near and not have sounds similar to a bridge being constructed over your head. Another change that a few hotels have recently begun to make is the removal of the annoying carts which many hotel employees use. The simple act of just packing all these items into a bag can make a world of difference for every customer. With these carts removed, hotel visitors can then move through the hallways freely, allowing them to have a more efficient traveling experience as a result of the disappearance of these large roadblocks.
Though I feel that these three components are necessary to allow one to have the most enjoyable hotel experience, opinions differ – What are the three most important actions that a hotel should take to make your stay as comfortable as possible?