The world is changing at a fast pace and we have to strive to keep up with it. Businesses now face a whole new facet of problems that were not faced in the past. The hotel industry is one of them. A lot of things have changed in the past few years since the pandemic and the hotel industry has been facing a wide range of problems.
Here are the list of 6 major challenges faced by the hotel industry?
1. Keeping up with latest technology
Every day there are new technological breakthroughs that are impacting our day to day lives. Even the way businesses are conducted these days have drastically changed thanks to technology. The hotel industry is no exception. In the olden day customers would readily wait for hours to receive an answer about their query or bookings. But that is not the case anymore. People expect fast and prompt response from the hotels. Most of the business is also conducted online through various portals. Constant change in the working technology is arduous to adapt to and this poses a great challenge to the hotel industry
2. Payment & Cash Flow Issues
Handling accounts is a vital part of any business including hotel. It is important to have a system in place to handle all your accounts, have a trusted accountancy team and well trained staff who can handle payments without errors.
Another major issue that arose in the past 2 years due to Covid is that hotel industries saw a drastic decline in hotel bookings due to lockdown. This resulted in a heavy cash flow issue and many hotels even had to lay off their staff significantly as they couldn’t afford to pay their salaries on time. Even if we don’t account the pandemic, hotels have seasons when they get a heavy flow of customers like during summer vacations or during festivals and break. Other times there is hardly any bookings during the off season. This leads to irregular cash flow issues and difficulty paying the staff arises. This is where 1 Click Payroll can help the hotel industry by providing a line of credit in order to help the hotels pay their employee’s salary on time. 1 Click payroll also comes with the benefit of 1 Click Salary Advance, which enables employees to draw a contingency salary through their employers in the time of need
3. Soft Skills for Excellent Service
The main agenda that a hotel industry must work on in giving excellent service to guests. Providing comfortable and luxurious service is an USP of this sector. This is why it is very
important to have staff that are exceptionally well trained in soft skills to make them attentive, have great communication skills, who have a respectable tone and have the ability to make a guest feel comfortable and welcomed. They must be trained in grooming themselves well and in looking neat and professional at all times. This requires a lot of time and resources to train staff in communication, dressing etiquettes, restaurant and dining etiquettes etc. Many hotels have tie ups with specialist consultancy firms to train their staff in soft skills and hotel and hospitality management. This needs revenue to invest in training the staff, so when the hotel management doesn’t have to worry about paying salaries to employees because they enrolled with 1 Click Capital they can divert these fund to train their staff instead.
4. Ever Changing Expectations
Guest expectation keep changing and upgrading every year. It’s not as simple as it used to be. Guests these days expect much more than just a comfortable clean room. This is a great challenge that hotels have to keep up with. Guests now a days expect free Wi-Fi, an entertainment zone, gym area, swimming pool, child friendly area and since Covid hotels also have to provide contactless service to ensure customer safety.
5. Building brand image and maintaining online reputation
In the world of social media an online reputation is everything. Maintaining the online reputation is another challenge that hotels need to deal with. Customers have become internet savvy and check for brand reputation before they select and book a hotel. Guests also read hotel reviews before booking a room and according to a survey travelers do no prefer hotels that have no reviews online. You can get to learn a lot about your service and the flaws in your system through the reviews that guests post online. Managing reputation on the internet and building it in a positive way boosts hotel bookings and builds brand image.
6. Increase in competition from local hospitalities and homestays.
In this new age there is a whole new plethora of challenges for hotels since the rise of homestays and local properties and Airbnbs have increased. It has been observed that people these days prefer renting properties or opting for a home stay with a local family to get a more local enriched experience. This has impacted the traditional hotel market to a great extent. Hotels now have to come up with various amenities, new schemes in order to attract clients
These are some of the challenges faced by hotel industry that need quick and prompt solutions to keep them in business. Out of these 6 which is the challenge you have faced the most?
