How To Screw Up: Hotels

Here's a case study for you. Assume it's still last year, you own a hotel, a fairly small hotel popular for years with British families and firmly "British" in reputation. You get a bit edgy about the way things are, not just with the British tourism market but also with the competition from all-inclusives (you are, at present, a mix of self-catering and board). What do you do? Do you carry on in the same way or do you change completely?

I'm naming neither the hotel nor the resort, but the case study has panned out as follows. The hotel has switched to being primarily German and primarily all-inclusive. It is still possible for British tourists, of which many have been loyal and regular visitors, to book, but the Britishness has gone. The entertainment has changed. It was never grand, but it was homely, constrained by its budget and the domain of someone who was, in many ways, the "face" of the hotel.

British visitors have faced something of a surprise. In addition to the switch in emphasis to being German, which includes a different emphasis when it comes to the food, if they have booked all-inclusive, this hasn't turned quite as they might have expected.

The hotel, remember, is fairly small. It has a restaurant, but it doesn't have the facility for providing the sort of food, out of set dining hours, that is commonly associated with all-inclusives: pizzas, chips, burgers from a snack bar. Drink there is, on demand, but the guest is obliged to pay a deposit for his or her glass; a deposit for a plastic glass.

Because there are only set dining-times, if guests arrive after ten in the evening, there is nothing for them. The kitchen can't be opened. There is no flexibility, despite the guests being all-inclusive.

Not all guests have booked all-inclusive. Those who have come on a self-catering basis are greeted with the possibility of their upgrading, at a daily rate, to all-inclusive. It's what the hotel wants; it's what it almost expects. The rooms for those who insist on remaining self-catering have to then have equipment re-installed that had been taken away on the expectation that it wouldn't be required. The microwave, for instance, has to be put back.

Though primarily German, other nationalities are booked in. In addition to the British, there are the Russians. They are on their way. If the British and Germans don't always see eye-to-eye, then the Germans and Russians positively detest each other. In a large complex, nationalities are diluted, but in a fairly small hotel, they are not. And they are all-inclusive. Likely to be there, all together, all getting on each other's nerves.

The hotel, and the season has barely started, seems to realise that it has made an error. It is already considering going back to the board and self-catering mix, abandoning all-inclusive and getting the British back. So why did it take the route it has for this summer?

It panicked. It saw that the British market was struggling, and so looked for more secure markets, the German one mainly. But it leapt too quickly. As things have turned out, the British market has recovered. Not totally, certainly not, but sufficiently, and aided by events in north Africa. It also miscalculated. As a smallish hotel, but with a loyal British following and a good reputation, the British market would probably still have been viable, even if Egypt and Tunisia hadn't come along.

This case study is informative in many ways, one being a lesson for hotels which, believing they have to jump to the all-inclusive tune, have to be sure they can deliver. This one can't, not in the way the guest expects it to. It's too small. Even larger hotels in Mallorca have problems, because they were not designed with all-inclusive in mind.

But more than this, it is informative in acting as a cautionary tale for hotels that would ignore their loyal markets. Apart from the nationality mix, many British guests don't want all-inclusive. Not everyone does. The worst aspect for the hotel is that the internet will be alive with the sound of its being criticised. It acted in a supremely short-term manner. It didn't think through the consequences, and now it faces a challenge of recovering a reputation, one that is likely to be damaged more, as we are still only in May.

And more than all this, for guests who have been dissatisfied, it is not just the hotel but also the resort and the island which suffer. "Never again," said one guest. And never again might mean Turkey in the future. The greatest lesson should be that everyone in tourism is in it together, but they are not. They are in it for themselves, and the rest can go hang.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.