Hotels get creative to increase efficiency and profitability

NEW YORK — On the last day of the 2019 NYU International Hospitality Industry Investment Conference, executives gathered for a workshop to discuss operational efficiency and improving profitability. The expansive conversation provided key tips for hoteliers looking to save money, from engaging directly with lower-level employees to using data to reduce expenses.

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The then CEO of consulting firm SIB Fixed Cost Reduction, Dan Schneider, also identified talking to hourly employees as “easy, low-hanging fruit.” Just having people from the corporate office come onto the property and speak with lower-level employees definitely helps with retention, he said.

Schneider also advised hoteliers to ask questions that can result in reduced expenses. “So if you ask them, ‘How do you think we could do this more efficiently or less expensive,’ they’re just going to sit there and tell you nothing because they’re used to it,” he said. “But if you were to say, ‘What parts of your job do you think don’t make any sense or are just the biggest pain points for you,’ a lot of times that’s the biggest inefficiency.”

Schneider also highlighted the importance of consistent general ledger codes. If hotels across a portfolio are inconsistent about how they tag different expenses, the organization will be unable to effectively read the data and see what hotels are really spending too much on and in which categories. “It also gives people a false sense of security, too, and it’s because there’s $250,000 of expenses in a different GL code,” he said.