The Analytic Hospitality Executive

CHAPTER 1Building a Strategic Analytic Culture in Hospitality and Gaming

I believe in intuitions and inspirations.... I sometimes feel that I am right. I do not know that I am.

—Albert Einstein

Hospitality executives struggle to find the balance between delivering a guest experience that fosters loyalty and repeat business, and delivering on their revenue and profit responsibilities to stakeholders, shareholders, or franchisees. If you invest too much in the guest experience, you could impact profits, but if you focus on too many cost-cutting measures to drive profits, you can negatively impact the guest experience.

Decisions made in one department of a hotel can have impacts across the organization. For example, without a good understanding of food cost, a marketing program providing restaurant discounts could affect profitability. Without understanding check-in and checkout patterns, a labor-savings initiative might create long lines at the front desk, impacting the guest experience. Today, your service mistakes are broadcast through social channels and review sites as they happen. The competition is no longer just the hotel next door, but it is also third-party distribution channels and alternative lodging providers like AirBnB, all waiting in the wings to win your guests from you. On top of all that, recent merger and acquisition activity is creating scale never before seen in this industry, and global economic conditions continue to be unstable.

When the stakes are this high, ...