The Hosteltur news website explains to us how hotels adjust to the new protocols without exaggerating and changing the atmosphere of their hotels. So, according to the informations executives from Vincci Hoteles , Room Mate Group , Barceló Hotel Group and NH Hotel Group made it clear last Thursday at FiturTechY, held within the framework of Fitur 2021 , that one of the great challenges they have faced as a result of the pandemic has been to turn its hotels into safe spaces for guests without looking like a hospital .
At the round table on ‘The post-COVID-19 client, safety and health’ , the director of Marketing and Communication of Vincci Hoteles, Aixa Rodríguez , made it clear that “everything we have done in terms of health protection has been to generate confidence in the guest “with the aim of making him feel” comfortable and cared for.
But he admitted that they have had to face the challenge of “how to turn a hotel into a safe space without looking like a hospital”, given the numerous protocols that they have had to implement to prevent contagion between workers and clients, as they have required by national and international regulations.
The constant presence of hydroalcoholic gels , gloves , face shields , screens , markings or even with the performance of free anti-COVID tests in the same accommodation, as launched by Room Mate Group and offered by other chains, could lead the client to think that they are a clinic instead of a hotel.
This is what Txema Xutglá, the commercial director for EMEA of Barceló Hotel Group , also warned , who confesses that at all times they have tried “to prevent the hotel from becoming a hospital.”
Like almost all chains, Barceló has created its own seal with the anti-COVID measures, under the name ‘We care about you’, for the protection of workers and guests in accordance with the requirements of the Ministry of Health and Labor and that have been implemented in all the group’s urban and holiday hotels.
In the case of Room Mate, Pablo Gago, the chain’s Global Chief Strategy & Innovation Officer , says that they benefited from the experience that they transferred 12 of their hotels, as well as several apartment buildings, to toilets during the toughest months. of the pandemic. “It allowed us to learn a lot, and quite quickly,” he said. But he confessed that for a company that shows its kindness to its customers, it is “very difficult to keep a smile with a mask .”
NH Hotel Group has also had to move along this line, as Jacobo Bello, Director of Operations for Spain, France, Portugal and Andorra tells us , who above all have had an impact on staff training, for which they have created a risk committee of COVID. “After a year since we reopened the hotels in May 2020, we have managed to create safe spaces, without any contagion between employees and clients,” he said.
All for trust
The four representatives of the hotel chains agreed that the implementation of these sanitary measures have not sought any “commercial profit” but have been focused on “gaining the trust of the guests “, and of course also because they have been demands imposed by Public Health authorities . “As a sector we have been at the height with the sanitary measures, it was not a question of making it commercially profitable,” said the NH manager.
Once these health protocols have been implemented, now it is time for “the borders to be opened and people begin to travel,” as Pablo Gago recalled, but he believes that it is a priority for public subsidies to reach hotel chains. “Either they raise aid before the summer or we face a very complicated situation. We have been closed for 15 months ,” he warned.
The Vincci representative also recalled that “now what we need are aid”, in addition to accelerating the rate of vaccination of citizens, the creation of safe corridors and, ultimately, recovering freedom of movement. ” The foundations of trust are already in place , now it’s time to travel,” he said.
A domestic summer
Regarding the business prospects for this summer season, Aixa Rodríguez used irony to point out that ” we are positive because we cannot be more negative “, after more than a year of pandemic.
“We all want to travel,” he said, and for this reason he hopes that the national market will be reactivated first , while the European market will do so “more slowly” and, on the other hand, the long haul remains “very stopped” . At Vincci, they do not expect a recovery in the Asian market until 2022 .
Txema Xutglá admits that “it is true that the demand is beginning to perk up “, especially after the end of the state of alarm. “With the opening of May 10, we have experienced a rebound in reserves that gives us motivation and allows us to see the light at the end of the tunnel , but we are obviously not at the levels of 2019,” he clarified.
From left to right: The moderator Mónica Figuerola (Quirónsalud), Txema Xutglá, Aixa Rodríguez, Pablo Gago and Jacobo Bello, last Thursday at Fitur 2021.
He explains that right now the clients they receive at his hotels are mainly national, due to international restrictions, and he does not forget that in terms of reservations “we are still very, very behind the year 2019. “
Either way, he is optimistic and believes that they will finally have “a good summer, although not like 2019,” but it will be thanks to the national market. In particular, the great demand that Andalusia is having among the Spanish clients stands out.
For his part, Jacobo Bello assures that at NH “we are moderately optimistic for the summer after these 15 very difficult months.” He explains that in Portugal they have registered “a very strong rebound”, especially due to the opening of the United Kingdom, which has given the green light to travel to the neighboring country , and thinks that “it can give us a clue of how the market will evolve in the next months “. Currently, of the 16 hotels managed by NH in Portugal , it has 14 open and the other two will open in the coming weeks, while in Spain they have 90% of their hotel plant operational and in a short space of time they will have 100 open %. But he clarifies that the evolution of the business will depend above all on the rate of vaccination and the recovery of mobility between countries.
What has come to stay
After a year of drastic changes as a result of the outbreak of the coronavirus, hotel managers predict that there are developments that have been implemented in these months that will remain once the pandemic is overcome . Above all, they believe that they are the technological innovations that have been made available to the client to avoid contagion and that, as Aixa Rodríguez recalls, it has caused the hotels paper products to practically disappear .
As Txema Xutglá pointed out, due to the pandemic ” the customer can do everything from his mobile phone “, from opening the room door to seeing the restaurant menu.Another important element that he thinks will survive is the ” maximum flexibility in reservations”, which “allows the customer to cancel their reservation almost up to the last minute”. Jacobo Bello also cites the drastic changes that the coronavirus has imposed on professional events, especially by holding events in person and online, and predicts that future meetings will be “hybrid” . Pablo Gago agreed that many of the technologies applied during these months will remain after COVID, but warned that “technology should not be an excuse for us not to serve the customer as we have always served him .”
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