General Managers — do you need help in opening your hotel?
One of the most challenging but rewarding experience for a Hotel General Manger is going through the process of pre-opening a hotel.
And yet, we have seen many GM’s failing at this most creative of opportunities a person can get in his/her career. There have been numerous projects that have failed to open on time causing great stress to the investor, brand and the GM and directly impacting the financial viability of the hotel.
There are many reasons that can be attributed to this — it could be a funding issue, change in facilities or design mid-way through the project, supply chain issues, etc., etc. However, once the project is handed over to the brand, it is the responsibility of the GM to set things in motion and work towards ensuring the hotel is opened within a set time-frame.
What is critical here is that if there are any tasks that are likely to delay the opening, the GM MUST be able to escalate this to all concerned in advance so that corrective actions can be taken, rather than use it as an excuse when the hotel opening is delayed.
My experience has taught me that there are tools available to help the GM in this very complicated task. I have experimented with a few, both online and off line but personally feel that MS Project offers a very useful tool to track a project (the Office 365 Cloud has an even better advantage for collaboration)
Of course, one has to spend a little time learning the software (and there are enough tutorials on YouTube) but the returns are rewarding. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5v_42_4Vl2o
I have prepared a template using MS Project, which will guide a user on how to open a hotel in 180 days. This period can be changed within the software itself and will also identify tasks that may require to be expedited based on any new timelines.
While this is by no means a complete template, it will require modification based on your own project.
If you are interested in getting a free copy of this template, do click on this link https://forms.gle/SbwSPBgxCQmed2D6A and fill in your details. (Note — this is only for hotel GM’s and not project managers, as this checklist starts only once the project is handed over to the hotel team.) Included in the template is also a few tips and tricks to use it effectively.
