Great hotel marketing and branding are TROWING MONEY AWAY when there’s SLOPPY execution.

Here is one hotel experience STORY. It's about luxury boutique hotel which has amazing marketing, branding, ideas, interior design and many other details!

BUT all this is just trowing money away when there's sloppy execution!

They FAIL TO DELIVER experiences as PROMISED. Their idea description is better than actual experience. Yuck!

They're amazing in theory but there's plenty of room for improvement in practice.

The problem is, MANY HOTEL OWNERS tend to convince themselves everything is as it should be. When instead they AVOID to look at real guest experience and idealise things.

WATCH VIDEO BELOW.

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Video Transcript:

Hello everyone. Welcome to Remarkable Boutique Hotels where we talk about outstanding experiences and everything that leads to them.

Today’s video is about how all departments in one hotel and their cross organisation and communication influence guest experience and I am going to share with you one luxury hotel experience in detail which was complete failure. Let’s dive in.

Hotel owners start their business with a vision. Sometimes they have a clear picture in their head and sometimes they are unaware of it, like not having it strictly planned, but they definitely pick ideas based on a specific concept they imagine.

The problem is they overlook that concept since it came naturally for them and over focus on day to day business which obviously is not easy. But they are missing to fully develop hotel’s identity and character and emerge those into procedures and hotel’s know-how. This is not a huge problem at the beginning but becomes hidden bottle neck once you start developing and delegating things more and more.

It’s crucial to integrate your hotel’s story and values in your know-how, to apply them in every aspect of service design and any physical part of hotel. It will result in clearer organisation and everyone understanding how their actions influence the whole business. This well rounded approach of both intangible and tangible parts of hospitality business is what helps your hotel stand out and become well-known and trusted long term.

For example, when focusing on a specific guest, it’s all about their experience and your brand promise in practice, while focusing solely on day to day execution, it’s only about business and not even in a long run. I’m not saying this is bad but what happens in this scenario is that departments may work well independently, but always fail to integrate well and a guest is the one to see this.

Let’s see this in one example which I experienced about a year ago. This was a seaside small hotel but kind of famous, beautiful boho design with just the right approach so it looked very elegant. It had colourful details, blue was dominant, lots of different textures, different styles in furniture, just to give you some impression.

In room they had literally the best selection of snacks and drinks I’ve ever seen, all locally produced and specific for that region. They had description of area and recommendations for authentic experiences and I also found an invitation for that month’s special which was Hot chocolate month happening in the hotel. It was nicely designed pamphlet welcoming me to join late afternoon bar where chocolate laboratory was and to enjoy my delicious cup. Something like that, obviously I’m paraphrasing but it was such a great copy, mouthwatering in fact, just like it should be, it had that effect of – show me, make me feel it, instead of just telling me.

So the next logical step for someone who loves chocolate was to go and have it. So, I went to the afternoon bar and a nice waitress greeted me and hearing I was into chocolate she literally said “Fantastic, would you like white or milk chocolate?”. Do you feel even now, how it disturbs the flow of my story? I remember thinking – okay, okay, there must be more coming up, so I answered milk, expecting another question like maybe they would do some kind of live menu presentation step by step thing, getting to know my preferences. But nope. She smiled and was about to turn heading back to the bar when I asked her if there was anything more.

Turned out, that was it. White or milk chocolate. For notice, they could add some biscuits and cream on top too.

I can not describe my shock to you. There was no menu for this hot chocolate month activity, there was no creative offer around that idea, I almost felt like I made it all up, like I should’ve brought that pamphlet as an evidence to defend. She was surprised when I asked for some seasonings, spices, sprits, anything. Shockingly, I also learned from her that they used pudding powder, the one from a bag because it was convenient. I didn’t ask this as I wouldn’t expect something like that in this kind of hotel. And honestly, I don’t know what she was trying to fix with that.

Anyway, she was extremely polite and wanted to accommodate my needs but it wasn’t like I was dying to have a cup of hot chocolate or I wanted it to be extraordinary just decent would be fine, after all I wasn’t there to experiment and invent my own recipe but enjoy the creation someone else came up with. Remember, they invited me to come, they made me come in a way, because of that great marketing in the room. I expected to see something new and have an experience of drinking some interesting flavours in that cup because of the marketing, copy, idea they presented. They created my expectations, not me. But none of it was available. It did not exist.

Don’t get me wrong, I was not a complicated guest at all, as I perfectly understand these are careless omissions on a company level.

So, what this example shows is bad backend systems like no complete organisational flow from management top to execution bottom, or quality assessment for example. They did impeccable marketing which led to sales, but they didn’t have that activity thought out at all. And I’m not even going to mention price. Because price is not important until we feel disappointed or like we lost our time and energy or like fools for paying something no matter how high or low the price is.

The most important mistake is realisation that their employees don’t understand the concept of the hotel. They are not explained the values and the story the hotel is telling, like what kind of experience they aim to provide and how they try to present hotel’s personality through food, drinks, as they did through interior design or spa experience for example.

You can also conclude there was no clear responsibility distribution in their team as someone, preferably the whole team, would have tasted that recipe once it was made assuming it was actually created with more care and tested by accountable person.

It was such a pity because with their boho concept in mind they could’ve played with spices, flavours, additional ingredients like mixing spirits, coffee, tea, matcha powder, coco beans, having dark and ruby chocolate option, even go creative with a serving dish or unusual snacks for example.

Oh, yes, I forgot to say how it actually looked. I eventually opted for the mix of white and milk chocolate and cream on top with biscuits, I was like let’s just have everything. I got tall glass with tick pudding to be eaten with spoon served on saucer that was not suited for a glass so it was wobbling. Cold cream on top was melting, it all made the glass dirty and overall experience felt worse then visiting some fast food local kiosk.

At the same time we got those, I noticed a couple across me leaving their table with almost two full glasses of this hot chocolate left behind them.

I’ll probably try to find a photo of it as I gave so many details I feel I should document it.

And you know, the worst part is not even that chocolate, it’s the trust that was broken. After such experience, a guest will question your other services. Situations like this are not a moment to point out whose fault it is. This is cross department coordination, even training of employees, some regular team routines, close relation with management and strategical decision makers and essentially company culture.

Please be better than this. Follow up all processes, from the very beginning when idea is proposed to how it’s executed, what’s the actual guest experience. It’s your responsibility to ensure everyone understands their part in creating that specific guest experience that you envision.

So, I think that’s enough for today, go ahead and experience your offer from a guest’s perspective. Until next occasion, have a beautiful experiences my friends.

Thank you for listening. Here at Remarkable Boutique Hotels, we want your hotel to be worth every penny and every second of your guests. Schedule a discovery call to find more about our remarkable methodology which is unique in the whole hospitality industry. I would love to hear your hotel story. See you there.