On a recent consulting project, my company was appointed to assist a hotel open for just over a year, redefining the F&B offering and delivering a more substantial bottom line. During this period, I noticed the minimal strategic approach in developing the concept in the preliminary stages. So, I needed to write the below to help other hoteliers or restaurateurs in strategic planning.
For the property that we are consulting for, the F&B layout, design and functionality have come purely from the interior designers that were appointed for the project, who have put together concepts and techniques with an approach as to what will possibly look lovely in a hotel and not what the market would need or what would be functional for the space. The concept idea has come from the property investor, from the inspiration of a venue he frequents in London often. However, there has yet to be any level of involvement from someone with operational hospitality experience or advice from someone in the industry, which, in my experience, is typical in many hotel F&B concept development phases. This then leads to the evident need for more planning and strategy.
I have posted many articles on concept development and how a restaurant idea can come to fruition. In my experience, one point I make over and over is that a concept must begin from a menu. The menu defines the décor, ambience, pricing, service style, etc. If, for example, you decide on creating an Italian concept. The question I ask is: what type of Italian? Is it a Gelataria, Pizzeria, Osteria, Enoteca, Ristorante or a café? The differences in the kind of offering will change the décor. You won’t see a Gelataria with table cloths and candles set, and you won’t see a Ristorante with counter service alone. I know these may be slightly exaggerated; however, I am trying to make the point that an operational hospitality professional should dictate the menu and concept direction before a designer is even involved. Considering some of my previous posts on concept development, the next critical piece of information I would like to share is the need for strategic planning, which leads me to write this post.
Strategic planning provides the roadmap for your hotel to achieve the goals and objectives and, ultimately, the mission and vision you should have developed (see the post ‘A Restaurants Business Plan’ December 29, 2015, Pavlos Sarlas). To be effective, strategic planning must encompass all levels of your hotel with involvement from as many as possible and practicable. In addition, coordinating plans between departments, divisions and the hotel is a best practice in achieving success.
How it’s defined
Strategic planning is the process of developing a plan, guideline or roadmap for your hotel based on its mission, vision, values and stated goals and objectives, which indicates the specific strategies and tactics or actions that will be taken to achieve these goals.
Strategic planning should guide the efforts of the entire hotel; however, it is not unusual for more than one strategic plan to be in place; an overall hotel plan, for instance, drives the development and implementation of other related plans that might include marketing plans, HR plans, finance plans or department-specific plan.
The importance of planning
The importance of strategic planning at all levels is twofold. First, it puts a stake in the ground in terms of what the hotel is hoping to achieve, and second, it serves as a guide for employees to direct their activities and resources (time and money) toward goals and objectives that have been considered and adopted by the organisation as a whole.
The challenges to strategic planning
The greatest challenge of strategic planning is the actual execution of the plan. So often, ideas are put down on paper, yet the deliverables still need to be achieved. In the instance of the hotel I previously mentioned, the challenge comes from having many people with great ideas but limited people to execute, delegate, document and follow up.
Much time is spent creating the plan, often with numerous meetings and sometimes with the help of external resources, such as consultants or facilitators. But, once the project is completed, hotels often need help moving forward with the plan’s elements. This can occur for several reasons: employees at all levels were not sufficiently involved or engaged in the plan’s development, clear accountability was not established, or no regular follow-up on plan progress.
Implementing best practices
Hotels can increase their ability to execute their strategic plan by following several best practices. These include identifying an individual responsible for ensuring the plan’s implementation, conducting regular updates on plan progress and identifying accountability for each element of the plan’s action plans. In addition, many hotels are part of a bigger group that can utilise other sister hotels’ best practices. For the more boutique hotels, such as the one mentioned in my post, best practices can be seen from the competitor hotels or other successful global properties you can learn from.
The measure of success
Measures of plan success ultimately reflect accomplishing the goals and objectives identified in the plan. Importantly, these goals and objectives must be meaningful and measurable. For instance, an “increase sales” goal is not specific enough to determine whether it has been effectively met. On the other hand, “increase sales by 10 per cent in the next six months” is a goal that two individuals can review and evaluate. This should be relevant to the whole strategy, both the overall hotel strategy and the more micro strategies in each department.
From an F&B side, the strategy should be broken down to an outlet level. Then, an individual front-of-house and back-of-house plan, where the measures would include payroll costs, food costs, beverage costs, and average check increases through upselling or cover count per hour increases through marketing.
The importance of strategic planning at an early stage is critical to the success of any hotel.
