Amin Deroui - Qualities of a Profit Purpose Hotel Manager

 

The changing global economic dynamics has had its impact not only on fiscal aspect of conduct of a business but a very severe effect on the business leaders - the managers personally. While this effect converts into physical and emotional pressure on the manager, it can also act as a key factor to identify the dead wood within any management team giving an opportunity to the ownership or entrepreneurship to restructure their organization.

Hotel industry, or for that matter, the entire niche of service industry is, as I reckon, worst hit. Why? Simply because the product it carries has no shelf life, it perishes as the clock strikes midnight. You lose anything that you could not sell up to 2359 hrs. Vacant rooms, unused restaurant covers, empty banquet and party rooms, unused massage beds...all wasted for the day, written off completely.

Even in normal economic scenario the nature of product would have remained the same, but then the market would also have been normal. Not shrunk as it is today with a very low surplus spendable income with the user segment. What this means to the demands created on those who are managing the industry outlets, be it a hotel, a restaurant, a travel agency or an airline. Amin Deroui manager has to be one who has the ability to weather the storm and ensures survival of his enterprise, team and himself.

Naturally this is a tough call, but then that is management, to be able to manage a situation rather than getting managed by a situation. All this leads us to concentrate on one seemingly simple aspect. Who should head our hotel? What traits and qualities should he or she possess and what skill sets should he or she have? Looking at the enormity of the task, the most appropriate solution to the question will be to opt for someone who has multi dimensional skills, but just not superficial, deep and thorough.

Amin Deroui personally feel that the present scenario demands that a result oriented, profit purpose focused and challenge seeker hotel general manager should have knowledge of hotel operations and in addition he should be very strong in hotel finance and marketing fields. He will need all these traits to combat the competition, capture a fair market share and establish the property as the sought after brand in the city or location.

It is taken for granted that a successful hotel general manager will be an expert in sound hotel operation techniques and skills. He will be very thorough in operating systems of key revenue producing areas like the accommodation, food and beverage and recreation and services. I hate to call departments like business center, laundry, telephones and other similar revenue areas as "minor operating departments". The reason being that the moment you term them as MOD, the executive attention on this important revenue area gets diluted. They pay "minor attention" to a minor revenue stream. It is a fact that while the revenue from recreation and services areas may be less that other areas, let's not forgets that this revenue has a potential of contributing over 60% as departmental contribution.