Opening a new hotel is a feat. With ever-changing variables such as construction delays or excessive city-agency bureaucracy, an opening can prove to be a challenge even in a compressed market with high demand. I’ve had the pleasure of opening properties in various cities both domestically and internationally. My experiences have varied as much as each hotel’s beautifully unique design.
Contributed by Maggie Houston, general manager, Arlo Midtown, New York City
Despite my familiarity with pre-opening preparations and transitioning from heavy construction to “heads in beds,” opening a hotel amidst a worldwide pandemic brought unique challenges that tested my perseverance and, at times, my patience. While I believe we are all hopeful to see a return to a new normalcy, our industry has forever changed and so must our approach.
The keys to success in any opening involve preparation, modification, and determination. While my recent experience required a bit more of the later, I hope my insight can prove helpful to those who may have the chance to bring light to our industry with new designs, new concepts and, most importantly, new opportunities.
Every successful opening starts with a plan. Whether playfully termed a “Pre-Opening Playbook” or a more conventional “Critical Path,” it’s a general manager’s guide to every activity that requires execution prior to opening day. Just as furniture, fixtures and equipment traditionally have standard shelf-lives in our industry, our critical paths typically carry concrete action dates.
This was not the case in a pandemic. Construction and operating supplies required significantly increased lead times due to both the lack of available inventory as well as the lack of available transport. Products that would typically have immediate availability began to carry six-to-nine-month lead times due to the impact of the worldwide shutdowns. While our project management team ordered most of the hotel’s case goods pre-COVID, the department managers ordered the hotel’s operating supplies at the height of the pandemic. With most vendors beginning to recognize the impact of the shutdowns, it was necessary to work with our procurement agent to cast a very wide net and source products from multiple vendors versus selecting a preferred partner.
Typically, industry suppliers will have ample inventories of standard products such as hairdryers, irons or steamers. With the pandemic’s manufacturing closures shorting supply chains, we asked our procurement agent to contact multiple vendors to source the same products to piecemeal our full orders. For some products, this strategy still did not meet the hotel’s opening needs. In these instances, we directly worked with the manufacturer to understand if there was opportunity to ramp up to the full order as the hotel onboarded rooms or if there was an opportunity to acquire product from another hotel opening that was delayed.
Conversely, marketing initiatives required inverse strategy. Traditionally, so much of the advanced pitching of a hotel involves personal contact. Whether donning custom hard hats for advanced tours or delivering samples of the delicious pastries from the hotel’s coffee shop, sales and marketing teams typically employ “boots on the ground” strategy to make a personal connection with clients. In an era of masks and social distancing, the team tabled most of this strategy in favor of creating virtual awareness.
We pre-packed bottles of the hotel’s custom fragrance with detailed virtual 360-renderings to help clients experience the hotel from the comfort of home. Our marketing team postponed plans for a grand opening party in favor of creating intimate, outdoor introductions from the safety of the hotel’s stunning rooftop. After months of being trapped indoors, most clients jumped at the opportunity to have a social engagement, a brief escape from the confines and loneliness of work-from-home.
This emphasis on virtual connection also extended into the hiring and onboarding strategy. With strict restrictions prohibiting communal gatherings such as job fairs, the hiring efforts were initiated much sooner than traditionally planned. Most interviews were conducted virtually to provide the ability to freely communicate and emote mask-free. While daily temperature checks and physical separation became a new standard across the industry, great importance was placed in encouraging that sense of camaraderie and community that is naturally developed during an opening. In lieu of traditional team building exercises, the employees built virtual rapport by collectively contributing to “working-remote” playlists and shared photo albums which helped bridge personal interests and inspirations.
While it was critical for our employees to connect with each other, it was even more crucial to guarantee connection with guests. In understanding the challenge that plastic barriers and masks would pose, considerable energy was focused on conveying the smile that would unfortunately be temporarily hidden by a mask. In role playing service standards, the teams analyzed how simple adjustments in body language or use of specific words could more easily express warmth and welcome despite the obstacles.
Gesturing such as waving, giving a thumbs up or placing hands over the heart were natural additions. While a bit more complex, posturing of the shoulders and manipulation of the eyebrows greatly helped to convey emotion. As New Yorkers, we tend to do everything fast, so great emphasis was also placed on slowing down our speech and articulating with singular words with standard endings: happily, certainly, absolutely.
Perhaps most important to the opening was anticipating how the guests’ immediate needs had changed and understanding how drastically the market had changed. While a new hotel rarely realizes its ideal business segmentation nor fair share in year one, the market saw a complete loss of corporate travel with the traditional demand nights becoming the slowest days of week. Leisure travel was the only producing segment and it was key to focus on this customer and pivot the opening strategy accordingly.
While a brand-new hotel always carries allure, it especially does during a pandemic. The idea of being the first customer in a room without a history of concerning contagion is very appealing, and we wished to capitalize on the safety we could provide our guests. Technology that was already defined well before COVID became opportunistic in that our mobile check-in and touchless elevators became incredible selling points in our distanced and transfer-phobic world. The addition of in-room hand sanitizer, Clorox 360 machine room sweeps, and post-cleaning room seals also gave our customers further peace of mind.
As much as guests wished to feel safe, they also eagerly desired an escape. The concept of the “staycation” was another focus of our strategy. Our hotel was by no means suite-based nor luxury, but our design naturally offered a sense of urban retreat with a lush greenhouse-style amenity space and ample terrace rooms overlooking the west-side. While our brand platform had historically not offered traditional room service, it was quite easy for us to execute a room service “to go” program which further promoted exactly what our guests wanted: a safe getaway, close to home with all the modern amenities desired.
In the midst of uncertain times, all our preparation, modification and determination yielded results: our hotel opened on May 27, 2021. My overriding emotion that day was pride. I am proud of our hotel. I am proud of the dedicated team who brought her to life. I am proud of what we’ve accomplished together. Pandemics are rare, thankfully. Human resilience is not. Our industry thrives on the strength of the teams we build. We are stronger together, celebrating our diversity, adaptability and hospitality.
1 comment
Comment
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Michele Vrod
September 16, 2021 at 12:51 pmGreat highlights on all the hard work put into opening a hotel and plus now adding COVID to the mix. Congratulations to you and your staff Maggie! Super exciting time to have such an amazing property opening in our city and amazing efforts and attention to detail to make it safe yet enjoyable.