Strategy
The Bergman family
The Bergman family never had a specific vision or mission for running their hotel, which is one of their weaknesses. They just took the events and happenings day-by-day and year-by-year. Up until now, this hasn’t been an issue. However, in today’s rapidly evolving landscape, having a clear vision and mission—or at the very least, a strategic plan—is becoming increasingly essential.
Strategy; What can you do?
In the Game you have a number of possibilities to influence your hotel. You will have a personalized, not public document: a so-called Team File per team. This is the most important file in the Game. In this file you will keep track of everything your team does.
- Your team's decision on prices, costs etc.
- Even more important, explain why you made these decisions.
- Try to make your arguments specific, calculate, give KPI's, benchmarks, predict results etc.
- Explain how you handled the assignments or tasks.
- Links to your social media, maybe website or other things required by your tasks
- Other live actions of your team: sometimes required, like the Trade Fair but maybe also at your own initiative.
The coach's remarks and your results will also be in this same file.
Your new strategy
The very first thing you have to do is think of a new strategy and describe it; therefore it is good to have a look at the hotel's history. One of the most important things in a strategy is to be consistent and to make things SMART (= Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant and Timely). This consistency and clearness are important to:
- Your customers
- Your board of directors
- And don't forget to your staff
- But in fact to all stakeholders!
Photo By: Courtesy graphic Joint base Charleston, S.C. - S.M.A.R.T. Goals
Strategic choices
Your team will already make a number of basic strategic choices at the start of the Game.
- A new hotel name, new logo and slogan
- New strategy: a basic strategy choosing target markets and target groups
- Setting all the goals to be reached financially as well as other goals.
Please inform yourself well before making these strategic choices, as changing them afterwards is not easy and can be very costly. Consistency in your strategy and choices is key. One of the most important decisions you will have to take soon, is what will be the new name of the hotel?
Stay consistent
Stick to your strategy: maybe bend it a bit during the Game, but do not change it radically. If you were a "real" hotel you could not change your image overnight: You would lose all credibility. And why should you? If you incur losses, try to cope with it and try to lower your costs, get higher occupancy rates or charge higher prices. Do not try just turning things around for the sake of having a higher profit. Indeed, it is a competition and you will probably aim for more profit, but your strategy is the most important thing in your evaluation and so in the marks given to you. This heavily influences your occupancy rate and thus your results and profit.
Each year
As with any strategy, once set, it allows for only limited adjustments. However, your annual business decisions - particularly around pricing and cost management - offer greater flexibility to respond to market dynamics. The creativity assignments provide a valuable opportunity to differentiate yourself by focusing on specific, high-impact topics outlined each year.
→ Go! Following the Introduction to Game play? Step 5/10 is the Occupancy rate page.
