Coronavirus is affecting every industry around the world. The hospitality industry is one of those that are taking the hardest hit, as most people are canceling their vacations and staying at home.
How can you prepare your hotel for the crisis and ensure you don’t experience significant revenue loss? Here are the key practices for effective coronavirus crisis management.
Educate Your Staff on Coronavirus Prevention
Make sure your entire staff knows how to keep themselves and your hotel perfectly clean and safe. They should educate every guest on coronavirus symptoms, washing their hands, using disinfectants, and everything else necessary to maintain a healthy environment.
They should also know what to do in case someone develops the symptoms of the virus.
Proper coronavirus prevention and communication plan that clearly states how to keep everyone safe is what your hotel needs the most during these trying times.
Train Your Front Desk to Address Guests’ Questions
Your staff may know how to educate your current guests on staying safe during their stay. But what about potential guests or those thinking about canceling their bookings? Is your front desk prepared to answer all their questions?
Training them to reassure your guests and reduce cancellations will help you control your revenue loss.
Some guests may go through canceling their booking, which is completely understanding. Of course, you should give them the option to extend their date. That way, when all this blows over, they will still have a reservation and you will not lose potential revenue.
Consider Refunds, Waiving Cancellation Fees, and Other Perks
This may sound counterintuitive when looking to maintain your revenue, but it might be good in the long run.
Let’s say a guest kindly asks you for a refund or to waive the cancellation fees. They say they would love to come to your hotel but are simply concerned about traveling at the moment. If you refuse, you may lose them as a customer.
And if it’s a loyal customer, you wouldn’t be doing your hotel a favor by sticking to your terms and conditions. Long-term value is more essential than revenue loss for a short while, isn’t it?
Apart from allowing refunds and waiving cancellation fees, you could:
● Offer to move a booking to a later date, as many people would be likely to agree to such terms
● Offer length-of-stay discounts
● Upsell your ancillary services
● Provide discounts for dates in the future (you can give extra nights to your guests based on the marketing conditions.
These practices will help you boost revenue from every booking.
Reassure Your Guests Across All Your Digital Channels
Your guests must know you have a prevention plan in place. Some of them may not call to check what you’re doing to ensure your hotel and guests are safe.
You need to share that information on every channel you use:
● Your website
● Social media
● Email
● Dedicated mobile app
If you have decided to enhance your offerings or change your terms and conditions for a specific timeframe, be sure to let everyone know.
Maintain Your Revenue with the Help of Hotel Software
With a hotel management software, you will seamlessly manage your reservations, cancellations, travel agents, rates, billing, guest history, future occupancy trends, and much more.
A robust hotel software will help you maximize your revenue opportunities through business intelligence, automation, forecast and visualization, and more.
With in-depth reporting and analytics, you’ll effectively manage your pricing, promotions, costs, and resources. You’ll be able to capitalize on every market opportunity during low demand and ensure you’re ready for post-crisis high demand.
It’s a time of uncertainty right now, but your hotel software can provide you with the certainly you need. It can help you adapt all your strategies to the current situation, and leverage your data for the best possible results both during and after the crisis.
Conclusion
The impact of coronavirus may seem incredibly negative right now, but returning demand is inevitable. The hospitality industry will always bounce back, no matter the crisis.
So, as soon as this global pandemic comes to an end, everything will go back to normal. People will start traveling again, and your hotel will go back to being overbooked and thriving.
Until then, you must follow the tips above to manage your communication and revenue. If you still haven’t gotten around to using hotel revenue management software, get to it as soon as possible. Book a free online demo to see how it fits your needs and start working on your revenue today!
About The Author
Deepak Chauhan
Deepak Chauhan is responsible for marketing and positioning of “mycloud” platform and is a veteran in the hotel software industry with over 25 years’ experience giving him a strong understanding of the product requirements in the industry. He has very rare mix of working in operations of various hotels and chains for over 10 years and then co-founding a software product and service company, servicing 5 star hotels and chains for 14 years.
Deepak has led the development and marketing of cloud based hospitality systems to meet the specific, business objectives of small and mid-size properties across the globe and has worked closely with a diverse group of hoteliers and hotel technology vendors.
