Every person has an email address.

Every small group should have one, too.

Communication is an ongoing challenge in any organization. Conversations can happen at any time, in any place, with any medium now. How does all that information get disperesed to the proper people to keep everyone in the loop?

A simple, and effective, solution is: Basecamp Breeze

Basecamp Breeze – Overview from 37signals on Vimeo.

It is quite easily the best email solution I have found for working with teams. I never want to get bogged down with a system that requires a lot of administrative work, or requires people to log into a web portal to access messages and participate. I prefer to keep things to email where: a) nearly everyone has regular access to, and b) where I want to do most of my work.

With Breeze, you get a special email address that acts like a forwarder. Send the message to that special address, it sends it out to everyone in the group. They respond to the message, that response goes out to everyone, as well.

It is that simple. For a one time purchase of $10, it is also well worth it. You can add up to 50 addresses, easily delete contacts, and setup so you can use alternate email accounts to send messages from.

We are using it for our Front Desk Team and management to make everyone aware of what is happening both at the hotel and special events in the city. If someone only works on the weekends, the group email allows them to keep up with the latest news without feeling a bit lost when they do show up for work.

I also attached it to the Front Desk email account so if someone sends out a memo during their shift, they can read it right away without having to check a personal account. It also eliminates any excuse has for missing messages since they will all be going to work at least once a week.

It is a great little solution for a big problem in most organizations. Even if you can’t see it being used at your property, you may want to consider it for other groups you communicate with frequently.

The question actually is, ‘why shouldn’t independent hotels outsource revenue management?’.

I am often surprised by the initial reaction of many hoteliers. In general we are willing to outsource specialist fields like legal, accounting and payroll, but are not averse to getting professional help when it comes to improving our strategies to generate more income.

– Patrick Landman, Why Would Hotels Outsource Revenue Management

This is an excellent post from Patrick as to why independent hotels should consider hiring someone to handle revenue management duties or assist in their properties. He makes some great points as to what not only a professional revenue manager can do for a property, but also what someone outside of the hotel can do for them.

A similar situation has been happening at one property I am working with which has shown tremendous growth in the nearly two years I have been working with them (I promise to get the annual review up shortly.) They had some Front Desk agents leave, and the new ones are going through some growing pains with learning the property management system, the hotel, and so forth.

The immediate response from the staff at the hotel was: We need to simplify the system and strip down the rates to bare bones.

It’s an easy human reaction to have. When things get overwhelming, we want to pull away, strategize, then attack the problem. With a business, this does not usually mean success. The machine was working before, so why stop it to rebuild it?

The better solution is to work with the staff to give them confidence in using and mastering the system, not to protect them and have them shy away from it. As they grow more confident in the system, they will feel better about overcoming those challenges. If the system was simplified, it would not help them grow as a person and would also not help the business grow.

This approach is easy to see with someone who is involved, but not immersed in the situation on a daily basis. People can easily grow attached to numbers like they do people and be frustrated when things change. A good example: gas prices. When prices stabalize at a certain price point for a week and then increase 5 cents, people easily get upset. Same happens with staff members at hotels. They grow accustomed to memorizing the rate structure in their heads and being able to quote it quickly. A sudden change means they are having to relearn the numbers.

In the case of the property I am working with, a simple demonstration of how the numbers would change was enough to keep the rates the same (a potential drop of $100,000 will do that.) I not only feel confident with the rate structure as is, but I feel confident that the people that have been hired at the Front Desk will be able to quickly master things and help the hotel continue its growing success.

Below is a snapshot assessment of the property that I put together in a few hours. It has some information about how the guests feel about the property, how it compares to the market, potential changes and the growth that may exist. It is not meant to be a detailed business plan on how to make things happen, but to give ideas on what could be done. In the case of this Inn, there are definite areas of weakness that can be fixed. This won’t happen with all properties, of course, since some are excelling in all areas.

If you are interested, I put together these reports for free. Contact Me and be ready to provide a little information (the property name, location, asking price, your background, and so forth.)

Inn – Initial Assessment

At first glance, this property is full of potential. The revenues are slowly climbing up, the rates are in line with the competition in the immediate area, and the website is an untapped market for increased growth. Looking through the TripAdvisor reviews, there are a few negatives that need to be addressed in order to sustain this growth, however.

TripAdvisor

3.5 Stars 82 Reviews

The reviews are fairly balanced in nature. 11 of them were Excellent. 39 Very Good. 16 Average. 8 Poor, 8 Terrible.

I only read through the past two years so some of the problems may have been fixed, but here are some of the negatives:

• Breakfast was poor quality or very limited in number
• Shady business practices (getting charged for a broken window or other miscellaneous charges showing up on the receipt)
• Door locks weren’t locking properly (late November 2011)
• Handicap accessible rooms are not very accessible (can’t get past the doorway in the bathroom)
• Sound proofing in the rooms can be terrible on weekends
• No rapport with the owner/manager

Since the inn is rather limited in its services, the positives are equally limited in quantity:

• Location is one of the first things people mention.
• Value given by the lower cost compared to larger hotels
• Some people loved the beds (Tempur-pedic)

No one loved the continental breakfast, didn’t read anything about the pool or wireless internet. Wireless internet is usually the biggest complaint about a property of any size so this is a positive. I was a bit surprised about the pool area not being mentioned. The general impression I get from the people posting reviews is they only stayed 1 night, arrived late, and were more leisure travellers than business.

Website and Online Bookings

The website was developed by the same company that did a lot of the other motel/hotels in the area that are independent. The design is rather basic and could use improvement. It also hasn’t been updated. There are links for virtual tours that lead to pages saying, “Coming soon” or a calendar that is blank. Lots of room for improvement here. There are hardly any pictures of the rooms even which is one of the main reasons why people go to the website in the first place. The cost involved can range from $3,000–5,000 depending on the design firm.

I did a quick look around online and found that the Inn is not very active with bookings. The main site to book online (apart from the website) is Booking.com. Expedia is one of the biggest sites for revenue so I was surprised that they weren’t even listed. Not being on Expedia is a sign that they may not be active in a GDS (global distribution system) which is how travel agents find their hotels, plus Expedia, Travelocity, Hotwire, etc.

To get onto a GDS would require upgrading the booking engine on the site and hotel (most likely). My preferred vendor is usually around $250 a month or less, plus commissions. With my main client, upgrading their GDS brought in an extra $100,000 a year without doing anything else, so it’s something to look into if the purchase goes through.

Competitive Market

I did a quick scan of the other motels/inns that are similar in nature to the Inn (e.g., limited service, under 90 rooms) and it matches up well from a price point. A lot of the competition has airport shuttle service, fitness centre, free breakfast, and updated rooms.

The impression I get from looking at the hotels’ websites and pictures is that the competitive market has a sense of identity, whereas the Inn doesn’t. This is probably because of the owner who doesn’t care much about building a business. There are quite a few options here in terms of creating a brand for the Inn, which will help build some loyalty with returning guests and have a reputation within Salt Lake City. It can be as simple as changing the artwork in the rooms to be the same style to more expensive as replacing a lot of furniture in the hotel. Lots of ideas floating around in my head after just seeing the front of the building.

In terms of rates, the Inn’s rates are in line with the competition. There is a lot of fluctuation happening depending on the day, probably because of different conventions and such. Rates are generally $10 below the competition, which makes sense if the services remain limited. By increasing the quality of services available, the rates can easily go up. Some ideas would be microwaves and mini-fridges in all the rooms, increased speed and quality of wireless internet, putting in a fitness room in a less desirable room (one by the elevator.)

The Business

I did a search to look at the price of hotels sold in previous years in Salt Lake City and discovered that the Inn was purchased in March 2007 for a price in the 3–3.5 million range. This helps explain the dip in revenues for 2010. A lot of the business for 2008–09 was most likely built upon previous arrangements with the previous owner/manager. If they had contracts with companies that lapsed or couldn’t match certain services that the property had in the past, this could easily add up to $300,000+ drop. I am not sure if there are other reasons for the drop, like whether the entire market dropped.

One option is to purchase the Hotel Horizons report for Salt Lake City. It costs $500, but contains 5 years worth of information about the market in Salt Lake City. Occupancy, ADR and RevPAR (Revenue per available room).

For the numbers you do have, I can project some basic growth:

2012: 23 rooms (per day) @ $85.00 ADR = $700,000

2013: 25 rooms (per day) @ $87.00 ADR = $800,000

2014: 26 rooms (per day) @ $90.00 ADR = $854,000

2015: 30 rooms (per day) @ $92.00 ADR = $1,000,000

The combined effort of upgrading the website, installing a new booking engine, and getting connected to a GDS will be a huge, immediate impact to the operation. The remainder of the year can be spent building relationships for future years, putting rate structures in place, and learning more about the quirks at the hotel that need repaired.

In 2014, there should be a few more contracts or loyalty in place to help build some growth. Any renovation plans should occur to improve the facility (furniture, decoration, exterior). Word will spread around and in 2015, the fruits of those labours should really shine through.

If the inn was producing revenues of $700,000+ already with little care to detail, revenues should easily increase if you have people in place that deeply care about the guests entering the hotel. The costs to reach that amount can be minor or major depending on the direction you would like to take the property (focused more on business, leisure, or a combination of the two).

The asking price seems slightly higher than some other properties I found that sold last year. In August, a slightly newer property of 60 rooms sold for 30–35,000 per room. The hotels were being sold around 55,000 per room. Depending on fast the owner wants to sell, you may be able to offer 45,000 per room (2.7 million) and finalize a deal around 49,000 per room (2.94 million).

One thing I forgot to ask on the phone is whether the owner has been putting down a management fee of some kind, paying himself, on the profit/loss statement. The absence of laundry wages may be accounted for there. If not, it’s another reason to project a slightly lower asking price to account for those additional services. I’m not sure what the minimum wage is like there, but I would estimate laundry wage to be at least $20,000. A Front Desk Supervisor would be $25–30,000, at least.

I hope all of this has been useful to you. Please get in touch if you believe you will carry forward with this property or if you’d like to look for some alternatives in the region. I would be more than happy to assist you in finding something reasonable for longterm growth.

I recommend all owners at least explore the possibility of having a vacation rental video in their marketing portfolio. Please, whatever you do, don’t invest in one of those slideshows that has photos whizzing in from outer space or messages disintegrating into mist. A slideshow displaying different photos of your property does not constitute a video: even if it has music or voiceovers. A video is an actual video. One that communicates space and personality and ambiance. Ask to see your videographers portfolio before signing up. And don’t think of videos as your first two-piece suit. Rather, a compliment to that.

Matt Landau, Videos are for Winners

Matt is a smart guy. I have mentioned him previously in a post about The Value of Professional Photographs for Hotel Websites in which he tested how the quality of photographs effected overall bookings. In his latest post, he talks about the value of videos for promoting the vacation rental, but it also works for properties of all sizes.

Videos are becoming more common on hotel websites, but it is extremely important that they are done as a professioanl. It will help you control the viewing experience that potential guests have when watching the video. What I mean by this is that if a promotional video is a minute long, but starts off a bit choppy or uninteresting, people are more likely to click forward on the video, perhaps missing parts you wanted them to see.

The other reason why hotels should consider including a video on their website and cross-posting on YouTube, is because people are seeking out these videos more and more. For example, yvr2002rtw is a user on YouTube who posts only videos of hotel rooms and luxury airline services. He has over 60 videos posted, and over 600,000 views. That’s an absolutely staggering amount for videos that aren’t popular music videos or comedic events gone viral.

The problem with his videos, which becomes quickly evident after watching several in a row, is that they are a bit disjointed. There is no real story with them, more “show and tell.” This style of video is difficult to watch all the way through and leads to people skipping forward or not bothering to watch it at all.

Something else that Matt touches on his post is the value of capturing both the neighbourhood and the owners’ personality. The rooms at your property are only part of the story there. As I said in my post on Aligning with Your Guest’s Needs:

If people can recognize the indentity of the property immediately, they will buy into the services that are offered, and the ones that are not.

What better way to help people identify what your property is about than by watching a video? A quick two minute video will give a person much more information than two or three pages of text. Plus, it will be more enjoyable to watch than to read something on their computer screens.

Matt paid for two videos, one of the property, and one of the neighbourhood around his property. They are both very well done, and I encourage you to click through to watch them. The one of the neighbourhood is posted below to show you the effect a promotional video can have.¹

If I were to do a video of a property, here are the elements I would be sure to include:

• Share the experience of the property (the lobby, the restaurant, staff, pool area, lounge)
• Share some of the experiences from local activities (a neighbourhood pub, a winery, a market, coffee shop or other destination activities like a golf course, ski hill, beaches)
• Share the experiences of your more popular rooms (the sitting area, the bathtub/shower, and finally the sleeping area)

I would probably design multiple videos depending on the amenities your property offers. Perhaps a video to showcase your amenities that would draw in the corporate people (meeting rooms, a focus on the work space in the hotel rooms, business services) or a meeting planner (catering, meeting rooms, accessibility to/from hotel rooms).

To find a media company to work with, do a quick Google search, and be sure to look at several of their portfolio videos before making a final decision. It would also be useful to have a sit down meeting with them to discuss your needs and what they can provide to you. If you need assistance in tracking down a company, get in touch and I will gladly assist you.

I told the front desk person that she was overcharging me, and she disagreed and said there was nothing she could do.

That is a snippet of an email received by a client’s Front Desk team this morning. It contains the four words a guest/customer cringes at hearing.

Nothing they could do

When a guest approaches or calls the Front Desk with a problem, there is only one thing they are after: a solution.

They are not there to listen to the agent complain about how there is nothing they can do, how they are restricted by management, or how they will get in trouble if they push forward with that decision. They want to voice their concerns and have them resolved. That’s it.

When I was a Front Office Manager, I encouraged my staff to charge of the situation and resolve issues to the best of their abilities without concern. If someone is reporting that they were quoted a lower rate, it is better to offer them the lower rate than to dispute it with the guest. Take note of the issue so the manager could look at it the next day. It is much better to investigate an issue at the Front Desk and come up with a solution to prevent future issues the next day, than to investigate the issue but then report back to the guest the next day to resolve their issue.

My rule of thumb is that if a decision effects a small percentage of the rooms for one night’s worth of revenues, make the change. That decision isn’t going to effect the bottom-line dramatically, and may in effect help by preventing the guest from spreading a negative review about the property.

This rule can be applied from the top down, as well. One of my former General Managers wanted to be informed of the decisions we were making, but if a problem was going to cost less than $5,000 to repair, he gave us the authority to resolve the issue (it was a multi-million dollar property, so the cut-off amount will likely scale up/down depending on the size of your property).

Putting this policy in place will relieve a lot of stress in the work place, and keep the guest calm. It will put out the fires before they grow into an unstoppable force. I wrote about this in my article for Rethink Hotels, How to Minimize Damage and Fight Fires with Reputation Management

In the case of the email above, not only did the guest send multiple emails to the hotel about the issue, but she then went on to leave a sour review on TripAdvisor right away before the management could respond. The damage has been done, and we are having a meeting with the Front Desk to make sure they never utter these words again, “nothing they could do.”

That price is reasonable if you have a large operation with steady occupancy, but what are the options for a smaller property who are looking to setup from scratch a website?

I thought I would write a short series of posts about the process, including some things that people should consider along the way. There are four different steps in order to produce a website:

1. Domain name and hosting
2. Website design (static or CMS-based)
3. Content
4. Promotion of site

The last three steps are the most involved, so I will start with the first step.

Domain Name

The domain name is the item most people are going to know without knowing the proper term for it. It is what you see in the address bar of your browser: Google.com, Apple.com, USA.gov, etc. If you have a website currently and only need to redesign it, you don’t need to be concerned about the domain name. If you are starting a new property, purchasing/registering a domain name is going to be something you want to do as soon as you decide on a name for your property.

If your property is going to operate under a flag (Best Western, Quality Inn, Ramada, etc), the brand management team will help you get a site up through the brand’s website. It is still important to setup your own website in addition to this branded page for a couple reasons. For one, you will be able to fully control the content on the site and modify it without having to wait on someone. Another reason, it will be much easier to tell people CoastCapriHotel.com instead of http://www.coasthotels.com/hotels/canada/bc/kelowna/coast_capri/overview.

A domain name is priced depending on the TLD, top level domain. That is the .com, .org, .biz part of the domain name. The cheapest ones (.com, .biz, .net, .us) will cost around $15.00 per year. Specialized ones (.ca, .nu, .bz, usually the country codes) are going to cost more, from $20.00 per year to $50.00 per year. You can register multiple domain names to protect your brand, and then have the extra ones redirect to your main website. I would suggest doing this if your hotel name is very general.

For example, Hotel Colorado can be reached at hotelcolorado.com or thehotelcolorado.com. But if you type in hotelcolorado.net, you get a property in Italy. Even worse, when you type in hotelcolorado.it (.it being the top level domain for Italy), you get a different property in Italy. Very confusing. Some of these issues are unavoidable if your property has been around a long time, or you are located in an area that shares a name with different areas in other parts of the world (Rome, NY vs Rome, Italy).

For the actual name, I would encourage you to register the main property name domain, and one that include your type of property, even if it isn’t part of your official name. The reason for this is to help search engines drive traffic to your site. People will search for “hotel colorado,” and sites with either of those terms in the domain are generally going to show up higher in the search rankings.

To register a domain, there are many services out there to use. The one service that I would not suggest is Go Daddy, as they tend to send non-stop emails about product enhancements. If you plan on registering a country-specific domain, you may have to investigate locally to find a solution as the registry companies I will suggest may not be able to handle them.

The two companies I suggest over the rest are HostGator and Hover. Both are reasonably priced, no hassling emails, and straight-forward to register a domain. Support is also available whenever you need it, in case you need to change where your domain is going to be directed to (more on that in a bit) or need to add another top level domain. Both services handle a large number of domains, so you can easily grab a .com, .biz, .net or .ca, .uk, .co, etc. HostGator is also a hosting site, so you can have your domain and website there. Hover is only a registry, so you will have to find a different hosting site.

Web-site Hosting

Having a domain name is a crucial step, but you won’t be able to see a website if you enter it into your web browser. You are most likely to receive a page from the registry company saying the website has not been constructed yet. In order to build a site, you are going to need to host it somewhere.

Like registry companies, there are countless hosting services available. Their prices and products are all going to vary, as are the support and the realiability of the services. For every hosting site that exists, there are probably 5 denouncing their reliability, so do be careful in which company you choose.

There are three different options to choose from:
1. Local company (an internet service provider, web design firm, your own computer)
2. International company (a large company with multiple servers in remote locations)
3. Free hosting (WordPress.com being the main one)

With the free hosting, it may suit your needs, but they are generally restrictive. Some of the free services place ads on your website (a banner at the top and/or bottom) that may annoy your visitors. A professional designer will most likely be unable to work in that environment, as well, because it will be restrictive in what actions may be done.

The local companies and the international companies will generally offer the same services. There are some differences between the two. The local companies are likely to be a little pricier than the big companies, and the customer support may be a bit delayed depending on the size of the company. If you send a request in for help on a Friday, you may have to wait until Monday for a response. At the larger companies, this is not the case. They have dedicated support teams, plus huge knowledge bases on their sites or available elsewhere on the web to help you solve your issues.

Another potential drawback is where the local servers are located. When I worked in Whitehorse, Yukon, there was only one internet and phone connection serving the territory. If something happened to that line between Whitehorse and Edmonton (2,000 kilometers), all internet services would go down in Whitehorse – cable and cellular connections. This meant that any website that hosted on a local server would be unavailable to someone outside the territory. The downtimes also ranged from 3 hours to 2 days, which could mean lost business since the competitors’ websites were hosted outside of the city and could still be reached.

If the local company is helping you with some other services (designing the website, brochures, marketing campaigns), then I would suggest using them. But do be careful, and do some research if you are in a remote area about where the websites are being stored.

For the international companies, there are many to choose from. Here are the ones that I have read the most positive reviews about:

• In the USA/Canada: 1&1 USA
• In the UK: 1&1 Internet Ltd
• JustHost – $3.95/month plus free domain
• Blue Host – free domain with $6.95 hosting package

My preferred hosting company (and the one I use currently) is HostGator. Apart from the low prices offered on the site ($3.95 a month), I have received nothing but great support from them. They have a large knowledge base available for me to browse through, forums for support from users, or I can contact the support and get an answer quickly. Unlike Go Daddy (which I used previously), I never receive an email from HostGator apart from a renewal notice one month prior to the end date of the term.

The main draw for me is how much control I have with the site. I have full access to the file server, have one-click install for the popular CMS options (including WordPress), can setup as many email accounts as I like, and includes some free Google Adword coupons. There is a free site builder available, as well, but if you choose to have a web designer assist you, giving them access to the site is simple without giving them the master account information.

There are plenty more positives about HostGator that I won’t list here, as this is getting fairly long as is. You can get in touch with me with me if you have any questions about HostGator.

In addition, if you go to their site and enter in this coupon: FSCONSULT2012

You will receive 25% off their services, plus I will assist you setting up a basic site for free (your logo, main page text, linking to your social media accounts).

After purchasing, contact me to make the arrangements.

The next post will be about choosing a style for the site and why I suggest people choose WordPress over a static site.

I have been busy developing a more advanced version of the pickup report that I released at the beginning of the year. This version is going to provide a little more detail with tracking the numbers.

You will be able to track the rooms and revenue by the day, along with the rooms and revenue picked up since the start of the month. You will also be able to compare the daily numbers to last year’s numbers, including the pickup data that you have been collecting this year.

If you have been using the report for this year, you can easily import the data into this new form to get ready for 2013. If you are unaware, there is a free version of the more basic pickup report available for 2012 and 2013. You can find it here.

For the more advanced version, I am asking for $5 US. After purchasing, I will send out an invite to be notified of a guidebook I am developing on how to get the most out of the pickup report. Buyers will receive that guidebook for free.

Let me know what you think and whether you have any issues. A screen shot of the main screen is below.

Day to Day – Pickup Report

Circus Circus:

70s comfort, style

A great place to bring your kids

’Cept it’s in Vegas

– Paul Carr, We’ll Always Have the Flamingo: 33 Dry Nights Along the Las Vegas Strip

33 Dry Nights is a series that Paul Carr wrote for Huffington Post to help promote his new book, Upgrade: A Cautionary Tale of a Life Without Reservations. With the series, Paul spent a night in a different hotel along the strip, writing a little bit about the hotels, but more so about life in Las Vegas and the characters he has come across. That only scrapes the surface of this series, and Paul’s writing in general.

Paul Carr comes from London, England, putting a different perspective on Las Vegas than most American writers (here is my take on Las Vegas. Paul is also a former alcoholic, so in the series he shares some of his former exploits alongside his more sober and constrained ones. He’s an insightful and funny writer.

I haven’t read Upgrade yet, but it is on my list of books to read. 33 Dry Nights is availabale to read through Amazon or through Huffington Post in its entireity.

You may also be interested in exploring his main venture, the Not Safe For Work Corporation, which is an editorial site written by over a dozen different writers.

1. Service is paramount, not style

You can have a well-designed hotel, complete with an infinity pool on the viewing deck and a shark tank in the lobby. However, without good service your hotel will fail. According to Inc.com, boutique hotel owners often place too much emphasis on style and not enough on serving their guests. Boutique hotel customers expect quality service which is personalised and which they can’t find in larger hotels. According to Inc.com, they need service that’s almost intimate and totally centred on them. They will expect you to know their names, their favourite kind of wine and whether they’d prefer Egyptian cotton or satin sheets.

2. Location

Before signing any real estate agreements, make sure that your boutique hotel is located in a central, popular area (preferably in a big city). According to Inc.com, cities provide a diverse market, from business people to up market travellers. Although you want a varied crowd, you should also have a niche, as this will define the overall style and character of your hotel. Convenience is also important, as your guests will expect no less.

3. Cost

Starting a boutique hotel is a big investment, and if it’s not planned properly you can say goodbye to your life-savings. According to Inc.com, it’s recommended that you renovate an existing building, as the costs of starting from scratch will be astronomical. How much you invest will also depend on the number of rooms and amenities you want created (where the sky is the limit, but so is your budget). You should also take land and improvement costs into consideration. The Telegraph adds that you shouldn’t expect to see a profit for a while, as it can take between three months and three years just to cover overhead costs!

If you’re going to run a successful boutique hotel, you will need to create a memorable, out-of-this-world experience for your guests. You will need to live and breathe style and be equally obsessed with service. Although it may take some time to see it paying off, have some patience and keep at it. A well-run hotel with personalised service is the best form of marketing and money-making, as guests will keep coming back for more!

This guest post was written by Natalie Simon, a freelance writer based in Cape Town, South Africa, Natalie grabs the opportunity to write on any topic that comes her way, including travel, tourism and hospitality, such as online and on-campus hospitality courses in Australia.

When asked how Omni Hotels came up with such successful offerings, Vice President of Corporate Communications, Caryn Kboudi, expressed, “we are all moms too. Many of us who work at Omni are parents, so more times than not, our best ideas are conceived by moms and dads. The saying goes, ‘when moms are happy, everybody’s happy.’ But only when kids are happy, are moms truly content.” Take recommendations from your colleagues who know what kids want and what they don’t want. Better yet, gather the most honest feedback of all – the children’s.

– Cherryl Marie, Don’t Kid Around with Your Kids’ Programs | Hotel Interactive

I am always fascinated with how larger hotels solve minor problems or improve their services without adding much cost to their operation. A lot of the hotels Cherryl writes about would be fun to visit, especially now that I have a young daughter in my life. That being said, the article focuses entirely on older kids, ones who can do a lot of activities on their own or teenagers.

Seeing as how my daughter is under the age of three, my challenges with keeping her entertained are a bit different than an older kid. Sometimes, she can sit still for an activity, othertimes, she wants to run around and play. And, of course, eating is a whole different story.

Here are some ideas I hope to see implemented by more hotels as I start traveling with her more:

• Have a map at the Front Desk available for parents with a list of parks within a reasonable distance, beaches, swimming pools, or other centres that focus on kid activities (centres with ball pits, climbing walls, etc).
• If you happen to have a playground next to or close to the building, try to keep access to it clear of debris – not just for looks, but young children are infamous for picking up anything and trying to put it into their mouths.
• If possible, inform the parents which channels cater for children or youth so they can find them easily – Treehouse and YTV in Canada, Nickolodeon or Nick JR in the U.S.
• If there are events happening in your area that will be of interest to kids, let the parents know – parades, festivals, community celebrations, etc.
• If your property has a lot of kids coming through the door, maybe have a small play area for kids (a small table with crayons, colouring books) to help keep the kids entertained while the parents check into the hotel.
• Have playpens available and keep them clean on a regular basis.
• Have a few items on a restaurant menu that most kids will eat and keep them healthy (macaroni and cheese with cut up vegetables mixed in, spaghetti with lots of vegetables, mini hamburgers, sweet potato fries)

There are plenty of other things properties could do to cater to their younger guests, so feel free to share any additional ideas you have in the comments below.