Hotel sweet hotel

Whether its servicing rooms or reception duties, catering, cleaning or repairs and maintenance, hotel owners and managers are increasingly tendering out auxiliary services. Over 30% of staff in hotels are estimated to belong to outside companies and this percentage is predicted to double in the next five years at an increase of 10-15% a year. Auxiliary services depend not only on the relationship with the direct client, however, but also the satisfaction of the guest paying for the stay.

What is a hotel looking at when it considers outsourcing services that could ultimately   determine the success of its business? Emilio Arce, general manager of ACCIONA Facility Services, explains:  “It is not the same as servicing an office or a factory. In a hotel, it’s not just the commercial client (the owner or manager of the hotel or chain) who must be satisfied; the guest must enjoy the services he or she is receiving as part of the stay.”

ACCIONA Service, which has over 30 clients in the hotel sector in Spain, Portugal and Qatar, believes in specialization, offering the full range of services, continuous training, and, above all, end user satisfaction as being essential in its business model. For this, it   offers to manage auxiliary services for hotels as a single supplier and in an integrated way, whether that be cleaning, waiting on, porters, catering, pool attendants, gardening, technical maintenance, security, energy efficiency, waste management, laundry or shows and  events.

Executives, tourists and families with children… the rhythm of each hotel is different and ACCIONA must adapt to the needs of each. The one common denominator is round- the-clock service

The first thing ACCIONA does when it starts work at an establishment is to perform a detailed analysis of the hotel’s features (location, category, target public, distribution and size of rooms, rotas, etc.). Data in hand, it tailor- makes measures to allow the hotel to optimize costs by standardizing activities and simplifying processes, eliminating ‘dead time’, planning purchases and improving inventory efficiencies. “Optimizing the movements of cleaners between the rooms, for example, can reduce the monthly distance they have to walk by several kilometers. This minimizes the time and effort needed to carry out the same tasks.

Identifying improvements to such items is one of the added values ACCIONA offers its clients,” explains David Pradillo, ACCIONA Service manager for hotels in the Madrid area. To implement these changes, when ACCIONA Service assumes responsibility for a service, it creates an ‘integration team’ that, in close coordination with the hotel management, selects appropriate personnel and organizes their technical training. Then an ACCIONA Service manager takes responsibility for coordinating relations with the client so that the latter has a single, constantly available contact person for all the outsourced services.

Evaluation of the quality of these services is another key factor. Modern as well as traditional analytical methods are used for this:  Internet portals, forums, social Networks, etc. Online sources gather the feelings of travellers directly and instantly and should be monitored and understood as a constant source of useful information in the interests of continuous improvement.

KNOWING WHAT A GUEST WANTS

It is essential to understand that offering quality services is different at a hotel by the beach than one in the city. Similarly, catering for a family is not the same as for a business-man or woman.

“In a beach hotel, catering staff must be friendly and the rooms must done before siesta time. In a city center hotel, the guest appreciates pajama folding and a newspaper in the room, etc. This has nothing to do with cost. It is about knowing the sector and how these things directly affect customer satisfaction. If the guest is happy, our client the hotel manager is happy,” says Emilio Arce, general manager of ACCIONA Facility Services.

HOTEL ÍNDIGO, OUR TRAVEL PARTNER FROM DAY ONE

The Hotel Índigo in Madrid signed up ACCIONA Service for its auxiliary services before it opened the doors to its first clients. Manager Rafael Ramirez highlights the reasons for the success of our collaboration: “For outsourcing to work well, as it does here, both parties need to integrate with one another, since the satisfaction of the traveller depends on our good relationship with ACCIONA and the quality of ACCIONA’s service.

This benefited from us establishing the operational rules for the hotel together — as one team.” Working in this way rubbed off immediately in terms of increased customer satisfaction, for example by changing breakfast hours. ACCIONA employees suggested this after noticing guests wanted earlier service than the hotel had foreseen.

A #hotel where windows shine brighter than the sun https://t.co/TaAMuW9GUp pic.twitter.com/RhEAKPUWAF

— ACCIONA (English) (@ACCIONA_EN) enero 26, 2016

Mr Ramirez says the services supplied by ACCIONA are constantly receiving improved ratings on online travel portals and in hotel quality surveys from when the hotel first opened. “In the last guest survey, ACCIONA’s services obtained 98 out of 100 points.” David Pradillo, ACCIONA Service manager for hotels in the Madrid area, said this data was “due to the hard work of the employees, who feel they are part of a team, they are listened to and their opinions taken on board”. “The good ratings motivate us to keep improving the services we offer,” he enthuses.