By wanting to preserve a certain tradition, the luxury hotel industry has not always been able to adapt to the changing needs of its customers. The minimum of services is certainly provided around great know-how, but as the years go by, the hotel industry finds it difficult to project itself into the decades to come. Worse, for more than twenty years it has been robbed of developments in its business model that it could have implemented itself. Here are some examples: corporate concierge services, sharing customer reviews, online reservation sites, offering services outside your establishment... It is time to reinvent the hotel in order to offer a new business model.
This long period of confinement allowed us to find ourselves with ourselves and immerse ourselves in the essentials of our existence. The environmental, climatic and societal challenges that our societies face invite us to reconsider the way we work, consume and live on a daily basis. How many alerts do we need to achieve this? Going back to business as usual without changing our habits, starting with ourselves, will lead us straight into the wall, it seems to me.
Finance should not constrain us in the quest for a virtuous model
Each year, in business, management prepares the following annual budget with the aim of doing more and more with as little expenditure as possible. As soon as there is a decline that appears the following year, it always seems like a disaster for some managers who work under the control of investors. Not fully achieving its objective of 20% more results, for example, is not necessarily an economic disaster if it has already reached 10%. This still means that the company is making a profit. And if in addition it has been three years since the result has been constantly evolving, it does not seem to be a real catastrophe, as we can hear here and there.
I still remember a terrible conversation with a manager who told me that his year was bad because he had a result of only €800,000 instead of the €1.2 million initially planned and that he would not be able to organize an end-of-year event worth €15,000 for his employees. This manager at the heart of a financial organization found himself in a delicate position. And yet, I had to correct him by telling him that his company was not in a “critical” situation and that there were companies whose results were negative. In addition, it paid 80 salaries and thus supported many families, which made sense. Leaders are so called upon to always do more, to produce more without really questioning the consequences that they sometimes lose their common sense. In this example that I have just given, it is also important to measure the impact of this decision not to reward or encourage the employees who worked towards this result. Every business growth always has an impact on the company's teams, partners, and the environment in general.
This example shows the limits of a way of running businesses. We feel that we are at the end of this way of thinking. “All-out” growth has reached its limits on all levels.
Bring common sense into all our decisions, in line with our environment
The question is not to reduce growth but to know how to make it compatible with a fairer world that takes into account environmental constraints. We cannot develop luxury hotels all over the world while knowing that this is no longer in tune with the planet. We need to be courageous and determined to design a different world. We must redefine our values with the future of our planet constantly in mind. Why not imagine evaluating the results of a company on its financial profits and add another evaluation such as its contribution to the planet? As soon as our behavior and words are in accordance with our deep values, we will succeed in developing energy and acting coherently! The ideas, the opportunities, the coincidences will then come by themselves. We must have the courage to dare to have the life we want and firmly root ourselves in our deep convictions. We all have the opportunity to make our contribution to making the world a better place. All ideas need to mature and above all to come down to the material plane.
The development of luxury hotels in certain regions of the world has shown its limits. The exploitation of rare goods must be possible while preserving their development. Hotels should find an alternative model with a significant positive impact on the environment where they are located. The luxury hotel industry generates enough diverse income to find a model that shares its results in order to ensure its sustainability. If we destroy our environment by extracting all its resources without any respect, then we will not be able to ensure the sustainability of our industry. We will create our own collapse or that of our children. We know it, we hear it, we must act here, now.
We must learn to live with nature and not try to control it as if we could give it orders. Covid-19 interrupted almost the entire global economy and hotel activity in particular in just a few weeks, starting with the shutdown of transport. The implementation of confinement and the situations that resulted from it have placed us face to face with the just need to demonstrate our humility in the management of our personal and professional lives.
Towards a new way of acting... and awareness
It is simply necessary to create a virtuous model, bringing the best for everyone without any conditions in return. There have been viruses and there will be others. It is part of nature and it is up to us to understand it well. We are in the learning phase. We must learn from the past and what we are experiencing right now. We will feel more confident. Where we encounter the greatest difficulties are our areas of learning. This is our starting point. Whenever we succeed easily and things work well, it will be precisely because we have assimilated the lessons before us. The success of our actions will help make our lives extraordinary.
We are intelligent enough to create the conditions for a virtuous model. Common sense must govern all operational matters of the hotel and every investment. Whenever you don't want to do something or think that what you are doing is not in line with your values, question yourself. Is this obligatory? Should this action, contrary to common sense, really be done and for what reason? It’s a mental gymnastics that you will do more and more regularly, then daily. You will find new solutions to these problems more in tune with you. Your new state of mind will become your ally!
Time and a real desire to succeed give you the desired result.
Culturally, we tend to follow our mind, which we consider to be our intelligence. However, we draw certain limits from this. Sometimes it leads us to make bad choices and this makes us dissatisfied with what is happening. We have to know how to leave our head and dive into our heart! It is often here that our common sense resides, our deep intuition which can lead us to make good decisions. Ask yourself the right questions: what do I really want? What pushes me to take deep action?
There will be no immediate future without cultivating our ethics, without relying on new human relationships and committed behaviors, without integrating an ecological and responsible dynamic, whatever the sector and the size of the company. There is a new generation of eco-entrepreneurs in the hotel industry who are demonstrating that an alternative is possible. It is a source of well-being for those who invest in it and of perceived added value for their customers.
Let us never forget that nature does not need us, but that we, men and women, need it!
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