[Q8]Quality Hotel & Suites

Running a hotel is a very busy job on even a quiet day. So anything you can do to make your life easier and to take one level of worry off of your mind and off of the minds of your managers is a great step forward to letting them worry about what is important in hotel operations and that is the needs and happiness of the guests who will be staying with you. A great place to start eliminating worry from the minds of hotel managers is by investing in good quality hotel furniture up front and by having more of an eye for the future of your hotel than on short term budget concerns.

To be fair, starting a new hotel is a very expensive operation. As is true of any new business, the costs of construction, furniture, staff, insurance and the dozens of other areas of cost can really drive the budget over the edge and that before you take in your first paying customer. The hotel business is a competitive one so it takes a great businessperson to balance the constant temptation to cut costs on important elements of hotel operations and to hold the line on buying quality early even if it means a higher up front cost.

Like opening any new business, you will have investors or backers who will want you to squeeze every ounce of value out of each dollar they invest. The pressure to cut costs can be enormous. So to justify putting the kind of money you want to spend on high quality furniture, you have to show that the value will come back once the hotel is up and running so the investors see that this is one area you don't want to skimp on quality.

Truthfully, other than the building itself, the furniture you buy will be the largest cost item you will face in starting up your new hotel. But the furniture you provide to your guests has more contact with each and every one of your guests than any staff member or any other part of the hotel physical space. Your guests will sit on the chairs, sleep in the beds, write at the tables and watch the TVs in their rooms for hours on end and you will not be there to make sure that furniture is being a good host to your guests. But when you think about the work being done in those rooms, that furniture has a much bigger job of hosting than even the front desk crew of the staff of your restaurant.

As such, the majority of the service calls any hotel will get from guests will have to do with the furniture. If you cut corners on the chairs or other furniture in the guest rooms, the chore of running from room to room trying to perform maintenance or replacing furniture that has failed can drastically run up your maintenance costs. But if you buy top quality furniture up front that is well made and looks good too, it will perform well day after day and week after week without putting a big stress on your hotel staff.

Probably one of the biggest stresses of dealing with the public as you do in the hotel business is trying to figure out how to please them to get their return business. In the very competitive hotel business, repeat customers are solid gold for keeping your hotel profitable over a long period of time. Market studies have shown that next to the courtesy of the staff and the proximity of the hotel to attractions, it is the comfort of the room and how well the beds and chairs accommodate the guests needs that most drives their decision to return to your hotel.

In that way, your hotel furniture are your ambassadors and the chief salesmen to the customers you have to convince them to recommend your hotel to others or to return for another stay next time they are in town. By buying high quality furniture, you eliminate the headache of constant maintenance. You give yourself the peace of mind that your guests are being well cared for in their rooms by good quality furniture. And you eliminate probably the biggest worry of any hotel manager or owner and that is how to get more business. When your furniture can help make more sales, it will be paying you back over and over because you invested well in quality furniture in the first place.