Egyptian President opens Four Seasons Alexandria

Within a seaside tower, the 118 guest rooms and suites of Four Seasons Hotel Alexandria are light and airy. Each has a private balcony, from which to absorb panoramic vistas of the Mediterranean or the glittering city. Designed by Pierre Yves Rochon, the rooms' and suites' classically chic décor is enhanced by traditional Egyptian accents and spacious Roman-style marble bathrooms. Varying in size, these deluxe accommodations offer supreme comfort for living, working and gracious entertainment.

The photo and the review from here.

Subway is a FAST food place

Subway is trying to convene us that it is not a fast food place like Burger Kings and KFC, but it is a restaurant. I don’t know how the marketing people at Subway expect us to believe it.
Subway is a good fast food place and it is not a restaurant unless they meet the basic detentions of a restaurant!!

Pay check vs Career

As a Manager, you will see 2 kinds of employees. One of them is looking for pay check. the second one is looking for a career. The one who is looking at the job as Pay check, they should earn it. The second kind; who is looking at the job as career, as a manger, you should push them further. You should find out the leader inside them and help them grow and move up.

Tudor Hotel at the UN

Tudor Hotel at the UN was runing a special rate of $19.31 for July 7 to August 26. Why $19.31 because the hotel was built in 1931. however, the $19.31 special rate is sld out and you can not book it any more. So many hotels do this kind of special rates to attract people and creat publicity.
click here to see the hotel.

People book people

One of my frind sales manager told me that GUEST dont book the hotel rooms. They book the people who work in the hotel. If the GUESTS like the people so they will keep booking the hotel no matter what.
interesting??

Check in & Out

Front office staff is the most important department of the hotel. They are the image of your hotel. They are the first people to make contact with your guests. And they are the last people to say good bye to your guests. When arriving to a hotel, you should be greeted by the doormen, and from this moment you can tell whether you will have a good stay or not. Door staff will open the car door for you, welcome you to the hotel, and assist you with your luggage. That will make you happy already. Door staff will direct you to the front desk to check in. You must have enough front desk agents all the time. All guests heat waiting on line to check in. If your guests wait on line to check in, they will ask themselves hundred questions about the service level. One of these questions is “if I am waiting all this time to check in, how long it will take to get my luggage or my room service order?" By letting your guests wait on line to check in, you give them the chance to doubt your service and they will wait for a mistake so they complaints. Front office staff should have people and problem solving skills. They should be friendly and know how to smile if the guests have problem with the room, they will call the front desk. If they food is late or not good, they will call the front desk. If the bill has some errors, they will call the front desk. If the laundry is not done, they will call the front desk. I remember in one of my jobs, we tried to encourage the guests to call the right department when they have concerns or questions so we can take some of the pressure of the front desk, but it did not work. It did not matter how many notes we put by the phones or in the rooms. Guests still call the front desk for every thing. Basically, the front desk cleans all the mess. They can make your guests happy and they can make them miserable. It does not matter how hard your sales team works to get business to the hotel. The front desk team is the one who will make you have a repeat business or who will drive every guest out and never come back Choose the right people for the front desk

Got people Skills?

People skills are the most important skills you have to look for when hiring new hospitality employee. The hospitality industry is one of these industries that require exceptional people skills. You don’t have to be friendly to be an engineer. You don’t have to smile if you are computer programmer. But working in a hotel, you have to smile, you have to be friendly. When hiring new employee specially those who have guests’ contact, you must look for the smile. Don’t look for computer skill or business experiences. You can teach everyone how to use the computer and how to create a spread sheet, but you can NOT teach them how to smile. If the new employee knows how to smile, everything should be easy to learn after that. Employees with good people skills will save your company a lot of money because with their skills they will know how to solve problems and they will make every guest happy. And when the guests are happy, they will return to your property with no extra ads costs or discount. Look for the employees with people skills, it will pay back.

Hotel Managment Lay out: 1- Director of Revenue

Let's start with director of revenue. So many people in the hotel business don't know what the job descriptions of the director of revenue are. Forget about the written description; let's talk about the real ones. The director of the revenue is the head coach of the revenue he or she is the one who should know how to maximize the revenue. If you have a smart director of revenue and good sales team, your hotel is set. You will gain all the dollars you are looking for. The director of revenue should be aggressive, risk taker, and should think outside the box. You will never make money if you are always afraid to lose it. Some directors of revenus don’t know their product and therefore they can not make the money. If you don't your product, you will not be able to set your competition. For example, four seasons does not have holiday inn in the comp set. Your competition should not only be the companies around your zip code. Your competition is a hotel almost same size as you and offer same level of service as you. So know your product in order to know your competition in order to set the correct rates. So many director of revenue do not want to higher the rates. They are afraid that they won't get the budgeted occupancy. So they would rather lower the rates. But if you lower the rates and one guest paid the lower rate, and you did not improve your service, you can not ask for a higher rate later one. The first thing the guest will say why I should pay higher for the same room and the same service I got in a lower rate last month. After September 11, 99% of the director of revenues lower their rate to attract business and that was stupid. This people are still struggling to get their rate to the before September 11 period. Very few 5 stars hotel in NYC refused to lower their rate because they know for sure the business was slow any way, lowering the rate would not give any more business, and getting your high rate back is very hard because you have the same product. Directors of revenue should think outside the box as we said. They should be able to guess and predict the market. Good directors must know what their hotel pattern is. Are they busy on Mondays? Do they sell out on holidays? And so many other questions that needed to be answered. We are not done yet To be continued

Online Interviews

So many companies post their job opening on their website or on other website such as www.Hcareers.com for the hotels industry. It is great tools in the internet aura. Some companies ask you to fill out basic application such as your contact information and they give you the option to attache your resume. Other companies make you fill out everything including you job history, salary requirement, education, language and computer skills. And that is still fine because they may be afraid of virus attachment. Other companies are pushing it a little by adding few questionnaires to answers. They think that they are saving time by giving you bunch of interview questions online and you have to choose the answer. May be they are saving time but I assure you that they are loosing some good employees. I asked five good employees who work in one of the best hotel in the world. 4 of these five employees preferred faxing over a resume and cover letter, the fifth one said that if she had the time she would do it. The 5 employee agree that it discourages them from applying. I think this is very stupid system. How do they know you answer the questions and not you friend or any one else you know. Also, they don't see your facial reaction to the questions. They don’t see the gestures. Thy don’t see how calm or nervous the interviewee is. Technology is important in so many aspects of business, but human relations are still more important in hiring people.

Is training important?

Training is very important Tool Company must use to insure success to all new employees. Good companies have training manager who handle the training process to the new staff. And when I say training I don’t mean how to use a computer system or how to do the job you are hired for. They hired you because they know that you did the job or you can do it. The training I mean is that the introduction of the new hire to the company’s culture and philosophy. The new hire has to know what the goals of this company and what makes this company different to others. You have to let the new hire knows and believes that your company is different and better than any other company in your industry. This way the new employee will know that he or she has to drop any bad habits from their systems. I remember once, I worked for a great company in the hospitality industry. And I assure you that I did not go to my work station or started doing my job before 3 full weeks of training and orientation from HR. and after the HR orientations and training, I took 2 more weeks training in my department. They trained me how to great people, how to make eye contact, and how to answer the phone. I remember that my trainer told me “I know you have experience, but I want you to forget everything you learn outside this place and focus on what we are trying to do her.” When he told me these words, I knew for sure that I was going to have different job. I left this company and worked in 2 different places, and I assure you that the total training days for both jobs was less than 3 days. My training for the other 2 jobs was like that’s what we do and that’s how we do it and good luck! To tell you the truth, I hated both jobs and I hated the people in both jobs. These people have nothing but gossiping and talking about everyone behind their backs. I once shared an office with 3 employees, and they were the kings and queens of talking about other people; making fun of them; thinking everyone else is a stupid, and when one of the 3 employee leaves the office, the other 2 start talking about him/her. If these employees had the right training and if they were told that in this company we respect each other, they would never do such a thing. Training is important and it will pay you back. It will reduce your turn over rate. It will reduce your employees’ problems, and it will make your company more successful and profitable.