William François, lecturer at EHL (Ecole hôtelière de Lausanne), underlined the impact of the COVID-19 crisis on the hospitality sector and discussed the future path for the “bleisure” segment.
The past year has clearly shown how important it is for companies to be embedded in the local and international structure. All industries have suffered from the crisis, but the hospitality industry, which divides its clientele between business and leisure segments, has been particularly hard hit.
The effects of the crisis?
Urban hospitality is vast and varied, and is aimed at a wide variety of people – if they are eligible – which has not been the case in the past 12 months, and yet questions are emerging on the horizon of possible recovery. The crisis has undeniably changed our behavior. Will guests who are used to fast travel ever return?
Nothing can be taken for granted, and this should encourage us to rethink our approach to city hotels and their ecosystems.
Where are some bright spots?
digitalization
Of course, the question of digitization, which has been a part of our daily life in recent years, cannot be avoided, and we ask ourselves the question: What is the right balance between people and digital? The goal is clearly not to replace the human factor with robotics despite the long-term profitability prospects, but clearly to use the digital tools at our disposal to empower the human factor and provide our guests with an experience that engenders emotion.
We have never had so much data about our customers on hand and still hesitate to use it. Why not activate this dormant information in order to better customize the interaction with our customers while strengthening our know-how and our hospitality at all levels?
design
Why should design become more important today than it was before the crisis?
This claim is supported by tourist projections that seem to point in the direction of a less intense travel volume, but for longer stays, which means that the seduction factor and the ease of use of the hotels will be important criteria for potential guests.
However, traditional hotels should not be leveled to make way for new modern buildings. The charm of old hotels and inns should be preserved. In fact, we have the opportunity to tap into several generations who have different wants and needs depending on the occasion.
Instead, an update could be in stock with the aim of harnessing the strengths of your design that are so important to first impressions and making the customer experience inside your company easier. A variety of amenities are available to make a hotel room more functional, personal, and Instagram-ready. In fact, our guests are more informed than ever and their needs continue to change at warp speed.
Services
So far we have been used to having hotels of different categories with services of different sophistication tailored to our own vision. This business model seems increasingly untenable in a world where every company must be profitable. In response to this problem, certain hotels have considered closing their facility or converting it into rental apartments, but there is another way out: go “hybrid”.
As with cars, the hybrid approach could be applied to hotels by:
- The sale of rooms, which are our core business, is part of our activity
- Use some rooms for pop-up stores based on topics like visibility for local stores and improving your visibility with services that change regularly.
- Creation of “co-officing”, also known as “co-working”, in which customers are offered real workspaces in which they can hold meetings with their own customers while maintaining their flexibility (daily, weekly, monthly rental).
- Developing “co-living” solutions as we should be aware that one facet of hotel demand that is expected to increase is the “extended stay” segment. So why not put a few rooms aside for longer stays and use relevant rental platforms that specialize in this? this burgeoning market?
These ideas could give our operations a certain degree of flexibility while adding to existing hotel services such as B. Housekeeping and room service exist.
The importance of the ecosystem
This crisis has put our commitment to hospitality to the test, but I firmly believe in hoteliers’ ability to use their creativity to look at even the most complex periods. It may be hard to believe, but this crisis could help us transform our profession and guide it into the future. This time around we actually have the time to sit down and rethink what we are doing, our qualities and the areas in which we can improve.
Nonetheless, hoteliers must take into account that hospitality is part of a tourism ecosystem and that all actors must take these changes into account, especially given the economic importance of tourism in many regions of the world.
Travel destinations can accompany hoteliers to adapt their offer to the “bleisure” segment and to involve local players in the revision of their offer.
