Hospitality businesses have to remodel to tap changing opportunities
Seasons come and they go, as the saying goes. However, some seasons never leave the world the same when they finally go.
Coronavirus plague is likely to be one such season, when it is finally done with us. During this time, we have appreciated that we can conduct board meetings with stakeholders spread out across the globe.
We can have real-time, document-sharing and insightful sessions in which business information is reviewed and discussed as it would in a physical meeting.
We have learnt that one can sit in Kampala and project a PowerPoint presentation onto a screen in a boardroom in Lagos and make a presentation that leaves little to be desired from a couple of flight hours, accommodation in a hotel and subsequently making the same presentation, accompanied with handshakes with participants. In fact, to even drive through the jam in Kampala city to cross from Nakasero hill to Namuwongo for a business meeting is not the most efficient way to spend part of one’s work day.
The time spent in the involved crisscrossing could be better utilised. Even when the enabling technology was already in place, it has taken the reality of a crisis for us to accept that we do not have to meet physically to carry on with making business decisions, sharing knowledge and discussing work projects.
Traditional hotel and hospitality business is a service that depends mainly on handling guests in their physical presence at the business premises.
People visit hotels and other related facilities for service such as accommodation, meals and are accorded top class and homely experience away from home.
The design of hotel facilities sees a lot of effort put into creating the right ambience and visual appeal since guests coming in will have to be made comfortable beyond the experience they receive in interacting with hotel staff. Hotels thus make money mainly from handling guests physically.
Reduced travel means reduced business
As things are going now though, the numbers of people having to travel and utilise these facilities have dropped significantly.
With international travels almost reduced to nil in recent times, the traditional means of earning from hotel and hospitality management have been greatly compromised. Since overall, the world has realised that business can go on without necessarily congregating physically, and that meetings can get conducted in a manner that reproduces advantages of physical meetings, there is a possibility that business may never be the same again for hotel and hospitality ventures.
Perhaps it is a remote possibility, on the assumption that people will still crave physical interaction. However, considering that conducting business affairs online is financially cheaper, that possibility seems even more remote.
If some hotels decide to put into context the above fact, they still have a lot to offer in the new trend of things. For example, they can invest in superior technology that facilitates online meetings at a superior grade than what ordinary individual persons can afford.
This would require putting monies into acquiring high-end tele-conferencing facilities that will add value to clients, to the extent that the clients will find it necessary to spend on these facilities for quality business meetings and conferences.
A facilitator for a workshop may as well be seated in Perth, while facilitating a session in Kampala. Whereas it might be useful to have participants meet up in Kampala in one room for enhancement of relevant discussions, the hotel could then provide a facility that affords superior online interaction between the group and facilitator, over and above what it would be, if each person was to sit by oneself someplace of their choice during the session.
Using superior facilities and technology such as large screens, surround systems and coupled with a great internet connection, the participants would have a much better experience. The hotel would possibly have lost out on the would be income, were they to host the said facilitator for accommodation if the person had come physically, but they would reap from hosting an online meeting.
Some of the participants may as well be offsite, and still benefit from enhanced online experience facilitated by the hotel in an aggregator role.
The way things are going, one dares to think that one day even tourism will become an online experience. It may be that in future, people will visit Bwindi and have a gorilla trekking experience, fully online conducted, while seated in their living room in Johannesburg.
Of course part of the thrill of tourism experiences is in being able to move and see new places, but we may not rule out the possibility that some may prefer to only concentrate on the key subject of their tour trips and utilise such future possibilities.
Hotels and hospitality facilities must therefore modify their service offering to include a significant online-experience component to be able to survive and thrive in the future business space.
Raymond is a Chartered Risk Analyst and risk management consultant
