Michel Montant, Vice President Grupo Posadas Mexico.

Grupo Posadas is the largest Latin American hotel operator in the region; it is formed by over 111 hotels and 19.800 rooms in 50 beach and city destinations, sited in Mexico, Brazil, Argentina and Chile. Its Vice President in Mexico, Michel Montant, will participate in the parallel session focused on “Opportunities in the Latin American market”, within the second track of the HIWC.

What are the parallelisms between the Spanish and the Latin American markets in the hotel industry?

In particular, Mexico and some other countries from Central America and the Caribbean, the most significant parallelism is that, as the Spanish coast has become one of the main relaxing holiday destinations for those in the European market seeking sun and beaches, these countries are the main sun and beach destinations for the North American market. Although this is at its youngest stage of the process, due to the distrust among North American tourists to venture out of their country into these areas considered less safe. So, the potential is huge.

Also, the Latin American hotel markets are much less developed than those in the advanced countries, especially in Spain. In general terms, the level of quality hotel offer is still low, mainly because the demand hasn’t been there. However, the demand is growing quickly due to the economic development, the increase of middle class, decentralization of economy in different countries into the different regions. I reckon that today, there is a quality hotel offer (those affiliated to a chain or that have international standards) that equals one fifth of what is in Spain.

Undoubtedly, the country on the top of the development in hotel offer is Mexico, due to its closeness to the North American market, which provides it with a bigger tourist vocation (4 to 5 times more visitors than Brazil and Argentina).

Another similarity is that the type of hotel industry in the region is closer to the one in Spain (in Europe, in general) in terms of size and type of hotels (more efficient, reduced areas and more vertical), versus what can be found in North America.

What are the prospects for the future of the hotel industry in the area?

As I mentioned earlier, the future is very promising by looking at the development of the economy in the area, as well as a boost of internal demand from local travellers, both for business and leisure, as a consequence of that. Latin America is nowadays the region with best growth and stability prospects after Asia, and if we analyze the current hotel offer, we can estimate the existing potential to grow. There are many new poles of investment where there isn’t a quality hotel infrastructure.

What are the most interesting traits of the Latin American market for the hotel operators, especially for the Spanish ones?

Undoubtedly the affinity in language and culture, as well as the specialization of hotel operators in working efficiently and productively. There are already many Spanish operators, especially in Mexico and the Caribbean, although they have specialized in certain positioned leisure markets (Cancun, Mayan Riviera, Cuba, Dominican Republic, etc.). Some of them already have an important presence in urban destinations too (NH, Melià, RIU), and this is because of the comfort in being involved in an environment where language and culture is more accessible.

Álvaro Carrillo de Albornoz, General Director of the Instituto Tecnológico Hotelero (ITH)

The Instituto Tecnológico Hotelero (ITH) is an innovation centre for the hotel and tourist industry whose mission is to improve the sector’s competence by means of innovation and technology. Its General Director, Álvaro Carrillo de Albornoz, will be at the HIWC’s first round table within the track “The new paths to hotel efficiency and profitability”. He will also moderate the Parallel Session IV of this track, titled “Financing sustainability by saving”.

What traits in hotel management are more susceptible to be improved in terms of their repercussion in the businesses’ efficiency?

Tourism, and specially the hotel industry, uses energy intensively; in fact, a very important part of the energy expenses in a hotel includes the consumption associated to air conditioned and air coolers, sanitary hot water and lighting. The key is to know what the first steps are that a hotel must take in order to reduce these costs (the second most important after staffing): to be more efficient we need to know how much we consume and how we do it, in order to take the right measures.

Sustainability is one of the main challenges of the industry. How can a hotel establishment be more sustainable?

Spanish hotels can do different things in order to improve their energy efficiency and sustainability levels. In this sense, from the ITH we are working on a global action plan, the Sustainable Hotel Program, which we have started in our Sustainability and Energetic Efficiency Area. This program wants to integrate a series of technologies and equipments, which applied to a hotel, will achieve better levels in energetic efficiency and will reduce its impact to the environment.

This integral project involves developing pilot projects in different and complementary areas, such as external and internal lighting; thermal enveloping; efficient air conditioning with coolers, micro-cogeneration and heat pump (conventional and geothermal); efficient circulation pumps; bio-mass produced energy to sell; and intelligent glazing, amongst many others; and its right promotion in the hotel and tourist industry, which is vital in order to understand not only its practical reach, but also its value as a sales pitch, brand differentiation factor and as a base to build a reputation that will result in more clients and more revenues.

Where is Spain in terms of hotel efficiency? In your opinion, what are the main challenges for the industry?

The Spanish hotel sector has improved a lot in terms of energetic efficiency, but there is still a lot of work to do. Another step towards sustainability needs to be taken, as well as to introduce standardized procedures and to measure the advances in energetic efficiency and incorporate best practices that help to reduce the environmental impact associated with tourist activities.

The objective is to be ready for a short term future where sustainability will not be an option but an obligation. And, in this process, to serve a tourist that demands sustainable and environmentally friendly lodgings. To this end, we need to make the hoteliers aware of the positive effects of sustainability, as well as of its return on investment, especially in areas like Marketing and Branding. The truth is that being sustainable is not enough, you also have to communicate it; that’s why the biggest challenge is to make sustainability policies more visible, to identify them clearly for the demand, explaining not only the factors that make them efficient lodgings, but also that sustainability does not mean higher rates nor lower comfort levels.

Luis Marcó, founder and CEO of Marcó & Asociados

Marcó & Asociados is a leading firm in the hotel consulting service, born from the experience and long career of Luis Marcó, who has worked in  several luxury companies, such as Princess Hotel, Ritz-Carlton LLC and Mandarin Oriental in Barcelona. Marcó will be the moderator of the parallel session focused on luxury, within the III track of the HIWC (“People and change: The new intelligence of success”).

What is the strategic factor in human resources management within the hotel industry?

In my opinion, there isn’t just one factor, but three: the first one is to appoint a HR Director that understands and assimilates the philosophy of the company; the second is totally dependent on good personnel selection. In fact, there are companies with a specialised methodology to do this; and the third one is intensive and continuous training of employees to attain the expected level of service.

What are the keys to get to excellence in the service?

First of all, the global mission of the company has to be clear, as well as the type of services that they want to offer to their customers. After all, efforts must focus on getting all our employees to feel part of the company, which will guarantee the good service.

What position does Spain hold in terms of quality of service?

In five star hotels there is a noticeable improvement in customer service. Compared to the rest of the most visited tourist countries, ie. USA, France, Mexico, China… we would be, on a 1-10 scale, in 6^th position. This means that, except from the students from tourism schools who want to develop their careers in this industry, the rest of the people working in this sector do it for work, not because it’s their vocation.

Ronald J. Friedlander, President of ReviewPro

ReviewPro was started in early 2008 with the idea that if hotels could listen and respond to what customers are saying about them online, they could improve guest experience and drive revenue growth. Today, ReviewPro offers a web-based, analytical tool that allows hotels to efficiently aggregate, organize and manage their online reputation and presence in leading social media sites.

What are the key aspects in obtaining a good online reputation (and keeping it)?

In principle, offering a quality service should guarantee good customers’ reviews to any hotel and, thus, a good online reputation. However, how to determine the standard quality of a hotel as well as the quality it can aim for? Traditionally, satisfaction surveys and mystery shoppers have fulfilled this function. However today, since the Internet has provided unprecedented power to users -that have moved from being mere prescribers to their closer circle of friends and relatives, to being able to communicate worldwide through specialized websites like Tripadvisor, online agencies like Booking or Expedia, or social media -, the hotel industry has an unlimited source of business intelligence at hand to improve its quality ratios.

The platform developed by ReviewPro not only makes the access to this huge volume of information affordable  -millions of opinions split in more than 100 webs and 21 languages-, but it generates tasks assigning managers and timings, with benchmarking between competitors or hotels of the same chain, and indexes like the Global Review Index ™, a synthesis in a single indicator of all the scoring received by a hotel on the Internet over a specific period of time, made from our own algorithm, and that is becoming the reference standard in the industry. All these features turn us practically into a quality department that works by clicks and, thus, is a key element in identifying areas of improvement, act upon them and develop a hotel’s quality and, so, its competence.

Why is it important for a hotel to have a presence in social media?

Independently of how much a hotel or a chain uses social media in their marketing strategy, it is very important to carry out a deeper analysis of what is being said about them on Facebook, Twitter or Foursquare –to mention but a few- through platforms like ours, in conjunction.

In fact, a research made by the Bank of America Merrill Lynch shows that 55% of Facebook users use this social network to consult before travelling, and according to Market Metrix, users’ opinions are today more decisive in the choice of a hotel (51%) than its location (48%) or its price (42%).

Where is the Spanish hotel industry in terms of its presence in social media and online reputation? What are the challenges for our industry on this?

Spanish hotels show a growing interest and concern in regards of their online reputation, as it shows the fact that we work for 17 out of the 25 biggest national chains and for more than 1,300 hotels all over the peninsula.

Today’s challenge for hotels is not therefore, to decide whether they need or don’t need to measure their online reputation, but to determine in which areas of their usual management that information can lead to a competitive advantage.

By our experience with over 3,000 clients in more than 70 countries, the business intelligence generated by our platform is useful for all the departments in a hotel or hotel chain: it is a marketing and communication tool, obviously, but it is also a basic input in order to set up a price policy, to determine the executives’ bonuses, to improve the quality department, and so on.

Hospitality Industry World Congress is the world’s leading event for the Hospitality Industry, born with the aim of bringing together the knowledge and understanding of the sector and providing global solutions.

During its first edition, next 17^th & 18^th October 2012, Hospitality Industry World Congress will gather in Barcelona the world’s major leaders, who will also be the main contributors to this blog. 

With them, we will discover upcoming trends around the Hotel Sector, and the most qualified opinions on the four thematic areas that Hospitality Industry World Congress is structured around.

• New ways to efficiency and profitability in Hotel sector
• Expansion and internationalization. Where to go?
• People and change: the new intelligence success
• Commercialization and marketing, the total change

Besides all the information about the Hospitality Industry Congress World Congress, with this blog you will be able to follow first hand all the news and innovation in the Hospitality world.

Welcome!