Travellers today tend to prefer staying in hotels than in the homes of friends and family when attending events like weddings, parties or business trips. This is usually for security reasons or just to have a sense of privacy. However, there are cases of the guests bringing back to the hotel these friends and family member so work you may want to work out how to manage that

• Fresh and Healthy Options

People are preferring freshly made drinks to the usual packaged drinks easily served in restaurant, bars or as room service. It would be wise to come up with recipes from our local fruits available in the markets and/or recipes that do not contain sugar or presevatives. Try to serve the recipes fresh and dispose of any that shows any sign of spoilage

• Hotel Shopping

Because of the increase in the number of new hotels, tourists now try out different to experience something different or just to find out what each hotel is all about, so make each visit a memorable one so they can come back

• Decision Making Process

Tourists tend to choose the easiest, sophisticated and most publicized hotel when trying to decide where to stay so make people aware of your hotel, your contact details readily accessible and good directions on how to get there

• All in One dishes

Consumers are tending to prefer small-size main dishes, but with more varieties as side dishes, starters, dessert if necessary. This could mean very little rice but with more smaller portions of salad,suya, spring rolls, croissant or interesting ice cream flavour or cake slices

• Food laboratory

Our restaurants could be likened to a food laboratory now as consumers are more willing to try out or experiment new cusines and dishes than in the past. If well presented, your unpopular dishes could be sold more than the traditional dishes usually chosen.Creativity in presentation is becoming more important.

• Knowledge is Marketing

Today’s consumers like it when the waiter or waitress can describe the aroma or taste of the dishes on the menu. Research shows that dishes with strange names are usually avoided by some consumers because they want to spend their money wisely

• Fast Service Delivery

Guests like to be attended to immediately so speed up your service delivery. It could be at checking in, room service, internet, at restaurants or when they are just trying to get a piece of information. This can improve your customer loyalty while  poor service delivery may lead to poor customer loyalty or no customers at all

Guests are looking for a balance between quality and value when choosing a hotel. So you may consider making your value of rooms and services equivalent to the prices you are charging. You may just need to touch them up a little this year  like brightening up bathrooms, improving on cleanliness, complimentary gifts like water,chocolates,sweets, more tv stations, internet,airport taxis,security etc

• Employee Management

The hotel industry is growing really fast so take care of your employees and they will not be in a hurry to leave. Give them some sense of ownership and responsibility in little decision making and always acknowledge their efforts. This way you reduce the cost of training and re-training and  also the cost of advertising for vacant positions

• Technology makes it cheaper

If you have a website, you can reduce your marketing cost but advertise to a bigger market. Being on online, anyone will find you easily and your rates and promos are readily accessible to the public. Technology has a way of captivating and keeping customers, so look at your booking and payment system, conference facilities, the finishings in your hotel and your internet faciltiies

• Benchmarking

Try to find out what your competitors are doing that can be introduced in your hotel but take and extra step and do it better. You could decide to be a guest in the other hotel or just go online to read reviews about the hotels.

• Update Websites Regularly

Updating your website regularly makes it more interesting for viewers and this way your can put more recent pictures of rooms, events and facilities available to your customers. Promotional offers or change in room rates are also made known to guests on or before arrival

• Fresh Food and Healthy Recipes

Customers are appreciating healthier options when choosing a meal as the world is tending towards healthy lifestyles. Include more of these in your menu and ensure these fruits and vegetables are properly washed and preserved to avoid food poisoning

• Advertise on tickets of coaches and airlines

Most hotel guests are travellers who come in either by air or by road. Make your hotel information available on the airline  ticket envelopes, their websites, at airports or coach stations.

• Wedding Market

This is one market that is sustainable. Partner with the Customary court or churches so intending married couples could easily reach you regarding catering, halls for reception or rooms for honeymoon. You could drop your brochure at these places with deatiled information about your hotel and its offers

• Update Customer Database

Update your customer database regularly and endeavour to preserve the relationship you have with your customers by sending them emails or text messages about recent development in your hotel

• Google, Twitter and Facebook

Let google find you and get connected with twitter or facebook encouraging your guests to visit your page and possibly drop comments of their memorable stay. This way people get to know you better

Although it was not planned, I found myself at the feet of nature and could not just leave immediately. I was a bit frustrated on my way there as there were no sign posts or directions on the road regarding how to get there, we just had to depend on other friends – the plan was to go drop off someone and hurry back home.

I couldn’t believe I was still in the Lagos after Ajah, the road was free of the renowned lagos traffic and it was smooth all the way. 45 minutes from Ajah crusing, 100box for the community so called gate pass and I was good to go. On getting there, I sensed so much peace and tranquility and walking down the beach just made me decide to spend the night there.

The chalet was not comfortable as I thought it should be but it was clean, the staff were nice and the food was good too. The ocean was actually blue, the air was fresh and the beach was clean. It was a good break from all the hustles and bustles of Lagos and I’ll do it again.

On arrival, the number of officials at the nothing to declare area is so intimidating. It’s amazing that now we are asked to pay customs for our personal things and the two suitcases we are entitled to. It’s confusing what is banned and what isn’t. Some don’t even who the circumstances surrounding your trip and just incase you have no money to pay them, they make it very clear to you how kind they have been to you by letting you go. This should be home and one should be glad to be back not anxious.

You need to:
Train your employees to be pleasant- whether you are related to them or not
Make them understand that they will face disciplinary actions if they abuse the relationship
Assume you work for someone else when you start feeling lazy about doing your work
Remember that how successful you become depends on how hard you work and how serious you are about the business
Be careful with habits like withdrawing money from the business to meet your personal needs

It’s not difficult to do, it’s all about discipline and setting your priorities right
Good Luck

• Cutting room rates should be recommended for hotels whose target market is sensitive to prices. Even though the global economy is not encouraging, there are many products and services consumers cannot do without and will pay the current market price for like hotel and conference facilities.
• Identify a niche in the industry and explore such opportunities. There are many classes of customers that need hotels. Weddings, Churches, Corporate Bodies, Leisure and so on. Package a special deal to meet the needs of your niche and offer superb services. It may be something additional to the conventional style or fresh ideas that may just solve Nigeria’s problem- publicize it. They say that where are many problems, there you will find many business opportunities so be observant.
• Monitor how you are doing compared to your competitors. Find out how they are better than you, how you are better than them and also what the leaders in the industry do to make that stand out. It helps you to sit up or work on your lapses.
• Remember, hotels belong to the service industry so try to recruit for attitude and train for skills. You may know the job but if your attitude towards your customers is discourteous then you may end up sending customers away. For non-management positions, it is cheaper to recruit industrial attachment students or even NYSC members as they are learned and have some level of exposure. By doing this, you reduce your operational costs because you pay little or no salaries. If the person is really good, then do not fail to recommend managerial training after a while.
• Encourage regular training, reward system and mentorship in your organisation. This empowers your employees with some sense of acknowledgement, belonging, job security and technical Know-how. Take care of your employees and they will take care of your business.
• Improve customer service delivery- make efforts to stand out do your competitors and you will have customer returning for more