10 lessons for hoteliers to learn from the pandemic

I believe that there is  'Good in every evil' and one learns sometimes more through these difficult periods. We have heard a famous saying 'Necessity is the mother of all inventions' and one sees that great leaders are born during these periods (as per Hindu mythology, even the Avatars take birth during such perils to overcome them)and therefore, I suggest my fellow Hoteliers to see the good side and take note of the 10 Lessons in my view as below:

1. ISOLATION: has taught us a lot as one has started introspecting our lives and looking at ourselves inwardly.  One used to hear a famous saying if 'speech is silver then silence is gold' and to many of us Hoteliers who are extroverts this has shaken us and made us look at things differently.
2. FAMILY IS PRIME: most of us spent extremely limited time with our families and do not practice 'work life balance.'  One should realize the importance of caring, respecting and listening to our family members, may be our parents, our spouse, or our children and this has been one of our important lessons for us to take note of and surely practice it going forward.
3. PERSONAL HEALTH: may be mental peace or physical health, a great lesson for all of us has been that one has to practice meditation, yoga and have regular physical activities to ensure our well being as it is this that will help us to strengthen our immune system and fight the various viruses during these times.  The famous saying is 'prevention is better than cure' is really understood now.
4. DEVELOP HOBBIES: Hobbies, reading and developing other interests so that one does not get bored during these isolation times as I clearly remember one of my bosses telling me that once a Hotelier retires, he just does not know what to do as he has spent all his time working in the Hotel only and not been multi-faceted.
5. RE-STRATEGIZE: this word has been used very often but this is the right time to re-strategize our vision, action plans, and the methods that we have been accepting since many years in our Industry.   Relook at benchmarks and challenge them.
6. TECHNOLOGY AND WEB: The present situation has taught us to 'work from homes.' Having good technology for video conferencing, telecommunications, etc., a lot of work could easily be done and therefore, one must spend more time in innovating and learning these technologies in supporting our Hotel guests, staff and complimenting in cutting costs and improving the standards of services.
7. CLEANLINESS IS NEXT TO GODLINESS: hygiene and housekeeping now play a crucial role as was earlier played by 'Safety and Security' post, the terrorist attacks.  We must encourage our Housekeepers to not only maintain the Hotel guest areas in best conditions, but also look at back-of-the-house and staff areas with a magnifying glass and don’t 'leave any stone unturned' as this is the first thing which will be seen by the guests and will give them comfort for coming back to our Hotels.
8. MULTISKILLING: the work force is going through a shock as many of them have lost their jobs and are getting restricted salaries, they need to be comforted by constantly interacting with them by having town halls, Quality circle meetings, Gemba kaizen and one to one interactions. However, all staff members should be multiskilled and they should be encouraged by certain recognition and reward schemes as one sees that the Hotel Industry will have new reduced staff to room ratio in days to come.  I wish to share an example of Taj Mahal Hotel, New Delhi where the then boss took a bold decision to inter transfer the Lobby Managers and Restaurant Managers overnight.  It created a lot of shock and initial reservations; however, they improved their departments extremely well and later proved great successful Hoteliers.
9. LARGER CUSTOMER SEGMENTATION: the Industry took a setback as many States, regions, and Hotels were only concentrating to inbound customers from foreign countries.  With the travel ban they had no customers in their Hotels and had to suddenly start looking for domestic market.  My advice is to have a larger number of customer segmentation so that we do not rely on certain segments ONLY and face such dire situation in the future.  
10. BE FRUGAL: lot has been said on several discussions and articles about  'cost saving' and surely one must look at ones spending and cut down expenditure wherever not necessary.  It is not advisable that the Hotels curtail costs and bring down the standards but we must be judicious in our approach and frugal in our ways till this 'TSUNAMI' goes away.

I have always been a strong advocate of being positive and look at the half glass full as many Hotels, Airlines and Restaurants have seen the rock-bottom pit - the going could only be better.  Good leaders will fight the difficult times with great spirit and motivation and this is the time to see the emergence of such Hoteliers.

As India and the world are seeing a major drive of vaccinations program and slowly but steadily the number of people being affected by Corona is declining, 'Sun will surely rise for the Hotel and Travel Industry worldwide-soon.'