Now ye're talking - to a Hotelier

Loughc wrote: »

What was the strangest thing you found left in a hotel room after the guest checked out?

No contest here - a 5ft Iguana !!!

xieann wrote: »

What are your expectation for an Hotel to be a four star venue?

For instance, would it include a reception desk armed with the information about Bus Éireann, Irish Rail and other private operators?

How do you deal with tired customers, arriving emotional from a long journey?

In your own professional capacity, as Hotel staff how did you handle the Volcanic Ash event in 2011, which ground all flights in Europe.

I was stranded in Amsterdam. I got Hotel accomodation, but there was the very real risk that I would have to where to stay except the Airport. (went by ferry in the end from Almueden to Harwich)

Without going into a long winded answer about 4* criteria - answers as follows:

Reception Desk - I think any reception team, regardless of the star rating of the hotel, should be armed with a vast array of local knowledge. To supplement this, any decent hotel should have a large literature stand located next to reception to direct guests to

Tired customers - deal with them as you would any guest really. If you can see that they have had a particularly long day and arrive absolutely shattered - then you might like to do something nice for them such as giving them a free bedroom upgrade or complimentary drink in the bar or comp breakfast if they havent already booked it, etc .. Nice touches like that go a long way towards guest satisfaction and its things out of the ordinary that guests will remember and will tell their friends about and will maybe convince them to give you a 5* tripadvisor rating

Volcanic Ash - was one of the worst incidents hotels have had to deal with over the years. You need to take a pragmatic approach to things like this. Is it the guests fault that their flight was cancelled and that they couldnt get to you ? No it wasnt. However - was it the hotel's fault that your flight was cancelled ? no it wasnt. Also bear in mind that hotels could have sold your room 10 times over since you booked it, and have held the room for you in good faith and at the end of the day, hotels are a business and costs are incurred and staff need to be paid so its not simply a black and white issue. We dealt with it by being as sympathetic as possible to the guests while at the same time trying to minimise our losses. Hotels offered a combination of refunds and / or discounted stays if the guests re-booked the hotels for a later date. Its the fairest way possible. How you book a hotel is normally crucial - always book direct with the hotel as they will give you the maximum cancellation time possible, whereas if you book with certain OTA ( online travel agencies ) they may give you 24 / 48hrs beforehand to cancel which limits you

Rang the guest and politely asked them to come back to collect. They had somehow "forgotten to bring him" when they checked out ....... the mind boggles !!

CIARAN_BOYLE wrote: »

Are you based in a city or rural area.

Only asking as it makes a difference to the type of questions people would ask later on.

Both. We have numerous hotels both in large cities such as Dublin and also regional hotels as well as foreign properties too. I have floated around various properties over the years

mikemac2 wrote: »

Stephen McNally of the Irish Hotels Federation is often in the news complaining about staff turnover and inability to recruit and retain staff

He never mentions paying better money which may be minimum wage anyway or even skilled positions like chefs will not be highly paid either. In France a waiter is a job for life and attractive while here it’s low paid and casual

The industry has a negative image for low pay and terrible hours so have you any ideas how to attract staff? Are hoteliers playing the poor mouth they cannot pay staff more?

Stephen was IHF president for 2yrs between 2014 - 2016. He doesnt comment a lot publicly these days however to address the points you mentioned:

Hotels are a business at the end of the day. We cant pay large wages to staff or indeed managers. Thats just the way things are. We have huge cost bases that never get reported in the media so there is always a conception that hotels charge high prices but pay staff pittance and pocket the difference but thats not the case. We have had to deal with a few minimum wage increases in the last few years, as well as having to deal with the VAT rate being increased back up 4.5% which has a huge impact on hotels and i have no doubt you will see hotels closing this year as a result of this factor alone

Chefs are paid decent money, even in hotels. This is a skilled job as you say

Re the hours - years ago hotels used to offer split shifts to staff in restaurants for example: ie: come in for breakfast 7am - 11am and then back for dinner 6pm - 10pm but we dont do that anymore. No hotel worker can exceed the maximum working hours in a fortnight, the same as any other industry in Ireland. We are bound by the same labour laws so the working hours is a bit of a myth these days. I dont think its fair to compare France with Ireland as we have 2 completely different ways of life and its not a fair comparison

Attracting staff into the industry is a tough one and is a problem for us so i dont have any magic answer as to how to attract more people into the industry im afraid. A lot of staff are casual and they see it as a part time way of making money while in school or college until they move on. Being a hotelier is a way of life and its either in your blood or its not. If you have a flair for being a people person and dont mind hard work then hotels may suit.

Gloomtastic! wrote: »

What's the most number of hours you've worked in a week?

Do you get any perks if you're hotel manager?

Do you eat alone or with the rest of the staff?

What was the worst day for you as a hotel manager?

What was your best?

Your fellow students at Cathal Brugha. Still keep in touch? Are many still in the business?

Probably different for me as im a General Manager so i would regularly work about 50hrs a week, depending on what i had on

Loads of perks - for example if you are part of a chain or hotel group you can get cheap / free accommodation when you travel

I dont have any airs or graces so i would have no problems eating with my staff ( having said that, i rarely even get to have lunch LOL )

Worst day was losing a guest after trying to resuscitate them in a bedroom

Best day - god thats a tough question. You get to meet a fair amount of famous people in hotels. Over the years i have looked after loads, Bill Clinton was probably one of the most famous as he was president at the time so that was pretty cool.

College - Yes i still keep in touch with about 10 or 12 of the guys. To be honest, i think only 3 of us are still in the industry so that says a lot i think

tayto lover wrote: »

Are the sheets on the beds really changed after guests leave? I was told they weren’t, just turned.

yes - all hotels will use linen hire companies such as Celtic Linen, national Linen or Kings Laundry for example and linen hire is a huge cost to hotels. Once a guest departs, this room is cleaned as a departure and all linen is changed with crisp clean linen. If a guest stays more than one night, say for example 2 nights - then we would not change the linen until they leave. If a guest checked in for 5 days, we would probably change the linen for them on day 3 just to freshen it up for them