In today’s competitive hospitality landscape, hotel managers often feel pressure to cut operating costs in order to increase profit. But when it comes to things like staffing and property management, there’s only so low you can go before negatively impacting guests’ experiences—and that’s also going to affect profit margins.

Understanding High Hotel Operating Costs

The key is thinking about analyzing and managing your hotel’s operating costs, rather than engaging in quick “cost-cutting” measures like decreasing staff or purchasing cheaper supplies. The best way to do that is to not just look at which operating costs are the highest, but to understand why.

Labor Costs

Labor costs are always going to be a large percentage of your hotel’s operating costs, that’s just the way it is. However, a common cause of higher than necessary costs is a lack of understanding of when and where that staff is needed.

Most hotels have a certain seasonality, even if it’s not as drastic a shift as you’ll find at ski lodges or beach-front properties. By examining the occupancy rates at your own hotel, you can likely determine when higher staffing is necessary and when you can probably get by with more of a skeleton crew.

Cross-training staff is a great way to ensure that you can lower staffing at those times and still have all necessary skill-sets covered in case of emergency.

Customer Acquisition

Marketing is another area where hotels can over-spend. If you’re spending a large piece of your budget on customer acquisition without using your current customer base to your advantage, you’re missing out on a major opportunity.
Online hotel reviews are currency in today’s market, and maximizing their positive effect can be a relatively inexpensive way to market your property with a potentially huge return on investment.

Utilities

Another common cause of high hotel operating costs is a failure to analyze utility usage. The Internet of Things has made it possible for hotels to actually measure and adjust energy and water usage by monitoring everything from unoccupied room temperature to the amount of water used cleaning linens.

Taking advantage of that technology is no longer a luxury in the hotel business—it’s a competitive necessity. According to the 2016 Lodging Survey by the American Hotel & Lodging Association, in-room energy management sensors are being used in almost half of hotels now, while whole building energy management systems have been implemented in 77% of luxury hotels and 59% of upper-upscale hotels.

For many hotels, it’s hard to even know where to begin when evaluating laundry costs. The cost of operating an on-premise laundry is based on two lines of a P&L statement—labor and chemical costs, in addition to the initial investment in equipment. Hotels typically overlook analysis of other costs in laundry, like water, and energy, which when looked at more closely, can add thousands of dollars to your bottom line.

Sourced from Hydrofinity. 

The post Common Causes of High Hotel Operating Costs appeared first on fanute.

Yet both luxury and sustainability are key selling points for hotels in today’s market. Guests want to make environmentally responsible lodging decisions, but still expect cleanliness, comfort and that certain feeling of indulgence that only comes from staying at a place where everything’s taken care of for you.

Laundry and Hotel Luxury

Linens and towels are a huge piece of creating that luxury feeling for your guests, whether you’re running a high-end boutique hotel or an affordable business travel property. In an online survey, respondents were almost unanimous when asked if towel quality is important to their overall satisfaction with a hotel stay. A whopping 94% said it is, and 73% said towel quality impacts their decision to return to a hotel.

In the same survey, one third of respondents said they would write a negative review of a hotel online if they were not satisfied with the towels.

Reviews are incredibly important to your hotel’s reputation. In another recent survey, 90% of those polled said that ratings on a review site played an essential role in their booking decision. The cleanliness of a hotel room is almost always featured in online reviews, and linens are typically among a guest’s first concerns in that area.

Hotel Laundry Sustainability

In addition to being incredibly important to your guests’ overall experience and satisfaction, traditional hotel laundry operations are one of the most wasteful divisions within a property—particularly when it comes to water and energy use. And so hotel laundry is often a core issue in the struggle between sustainability and luxury.
But it doesn’t have to be.

With Hydrofinity near-waterless laundry systems, your hotel can reduce water usage in your laundry operations by up to 80%, and energy usage by up to 50%, while still achieving a superior level of clean on your towels and linens. The Hydrofinity system is also gentle on fabrics, helping you maintain the luxurious feeling of your linens longer and avoid high replacement costs.

Sourced from Hydrofinity.

The post Luxury Without Waste: How to Achieve Hotel Laundry Sustainability appeared first on fanute.