About a year ago, my team and I travelled across Southwest Nigeria for a project in Ekiti. We explored travelling by air to Akure or Ilorin – the cities with the two closest airports to Ado, the capital city – but we decided on a road trip to experience the travel from an adventurer’s perspective.
It was a 5-hour road trip as we crisscrossed the bustling traffic of Lagos, past the ancient towns of Ibadan and Ilesa and into Ekiti. I vividly recall the journey across the Ekiti-Osun countryside along the newly constructed road in Efon Alaaye which was the most satisfying part of the trip – the winding roads which compliment the green forests, hills and undulating landscapes, and what’s more, if you listen very carefully, you just might hear the faint sounds of the cascading Erin Ijesha/Arinta Waterfalls in the distance.
We got to our hotel in Ado Ekiti by midday – one of the best-rated hotels in the city – only to discover that our rooms had not been prepared. Despite our fatigue, our hospitality consultancy instincts kicked into gear and we asked to see all the unoccupied rooms for us to choose from. Well, it turned out that while some of the rooms were in a mess and still had sufficient visual evidence of the previous guests – leftover food, drink cans and butts of cigarettes littered over an ashtray – other rooms smelt like they hadn’t been aired in a while. Did I mention that we had booked and paid for these rooms well in advance, about 2 weeks before our trip? And that we had contacted them two days before our trip to remind them of our reservations.
It wasn’t until we requested a refund to move to another hotel that the manager came running rather apologetically and promised to have the rooms ready for us in no time. As we sat in the lobby with our luggage, we watched the scenes unfold as the janitorial staff ran around to clean the rooms. I also heard the hotel manager call the technician to fix some of the hotel’s faulty air-conditioners.
After this incident, we were treated like VIPs throughout our 4-day stay in the hotel. We may not have travelled because of them, but I believe our presence and attention to detail kept them on their toes and ensured we got the service we deserved; what is the point of this story, you may ask?
Park Inn by Radisson, Abeokuta (Credit: Hotel Website)
There are inherent gaps in hospitality service and the quality of hotel facilities in West Africa, many of which are hinged upon the people’s side of things. One way to arrest these gaps is by conducting period reviews of your hospitality establishments. Just as institutions periodically audit their accounts to pinpoint loopholes in the organization’s finances and improve their internal processes, hotel reviews are essential for hoteliers and investors to know where there are gaps in their establishment’s practices.
There are inherent gaps in hospitality service and the quality of hotel facilities in West Africa, many of which are hinged upon the people’s side of things.
Are your staff well-trained through regular training and certification programmes in tourism, hospitality and customer service? Is your hotel spending more on energy running costs rather than adopting energy-saving solutions and integrating smart and eco-friendly designs and practices? Does your establishment have environmental and social governance (ESG) framework and plan to manage social and environmental risks and impact?
All over the world, there is a growing number of more discerning and demanding hotel guests. Service that falls below their expectations will be criticized, which could influence hotels’ ratings on social media platforms, continued patronage and inability to generate sufficient revenue to sustain operations. Therefore, it is important that hoteliers and hospitality investors consistently review their establishments to ensure they are in trend with global best practices.
If you are a hotel owner or investor and would like your establishment to remain at optimal performance, you should consider any of the following strategies:
- Sending in a mystery shopper periodically to your hotel to study your team’s performance on the job while unsupervised;
- Requesting honest feedback and reviews from guests before they leave – this can be online on the hotel website or other review platforms, a suggestion box in the hotel lobby, or through customer feedback forms via email a couple of days after checking out;
- Most importantly, engage the services of a trusted tourism and hospitality consultant to conduct a periodic comprehensive review of your hotel and team, including the overall building design, facilities, services and operational practices – this can be quarterly, bi-annually or annually.
How have period reviews of your hotels helped your operations and improved the quality of service?