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McGlashan: ‘Everybody’s just desperate to get back’

Valor Hospitality Partners co-founder and CEO Euan McGlashan has strong thoughts about how governments have responded to COVID-19. He said that because he listens closely to what guests tell him, he has a very definite approach to operating that might not be in step with most hoteliers.

“It’s not about getting back to a new normal,” he told HOTELS from his Atlanta home office. “I hate that term. I don’t think there’s a new normal. I don’t think it’s even about getting back to normal. I think everybody’s just desperate to get back.”

The groundswell he is hearing from guests is that they’re mature human beings and will appropriately take care of themselves. “They don’t need governments to be continually shutting us down.”

He added that he does see guests acting appropriately, using hand sanitizers, wearing masks where they should. But he also said guests are moving around Valor properties the same way as they did pre-COVID, doing the same things.

“I think there’s huge relief when they see that all the F&B outlets are open,” McGlashan said. “That’s what I say to the guys all the time: ‘Don’t cut the hours or cut it back. Ask what they want. They don’t really want to have to go out.’”

“We have doubled down on service and guest experience because that needs to be paramount. If we’re all feeling depressed and stressed, then bloody hell, our guests are depressed and stressed… We immediately try to make them feel super calm and relaxed.” – Euan McGlashan
“We have doubled down on service and guest experience because that needs to be paramount. If we’re all feeling depressed and stressed, then bloody hell, our guests are depressed and stressed… We immediately try to make them feel super calm and relaxed.” – Euan McGlashan

Yes, McGlashan wants to bring back normal as fast as possible. “Make guests feel better about themselves. They don’t need to come to us for us to shout COVID in their face. They deal with that every day of their lives.”

McGlashan was also not shy about how he feels about all the plexiglass installed to separate guests and guests from staff. “I hate the plexiglass. I understand why we’re doing it, but that stuff has to go away,” he stated. “We have doubled down on service and guest experience because that needs to be paramount. If we’re all feeling depressed and stressed, then bloody hell, our guests are depressed and stressed… We immediately try to make them feel super calm and relaxed. We’re really focused on that more than ever.”

As for the industry’s new focus on reinventing cleanliness, again, McGlashan calls, “B.S. If your hotel wasn’t clean, then you were a bad hotel and you were doing a bad job anyway. People come to you because that’s the very basic they expect.”

While he’s at it, McGlashan suggested getting rid of the ugly blue tape, too. “People were sticking blue tape on everything with big crosses that say, ‘Don’t come here.’ We never did that,” he said. “Take restaurants – hotels were removing half the seats and putting blue tape everywhere. It made it feel like a canteen, so why would a guest want to even go there? What better way to shout COVID than do that?… The blue tape brigade, right? They think that making a guest feel safe means wearing gloves and a mask, but it’s actually not true… We’re just completely there for the guests. It feels completely personalized, and it has paid dividends.”

Of course, Valor properties are following COVID-related protocols and sees some awkwardness among guests not 100% sure how to act in his hotel’s public spaces, but outside of that McGlashan said guests go to the bars and restaurants and “they can’t get the mask off fast enough,” he said.

“You can feel it. It’s like there’s this massive pent-up energy where they’re thinking, ‘Please, God, let us get back to normal.”

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