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Hans Kennedie, the President and CEO of the Golden Tulip Group was present at the Ecôle Hôtelière de Lausanne for the official launch of INTEHL in May 2008. Cleverdis editor-in-chief Richard Barnes asked why he was there supporting the event…
The event is all about entrepreneurship and what the school is doing in order to coach the young talents how to make it into the working world. I think this is what every hotel company should be part of and should have a willing and listening ear to see what we can do to work together. Obviously you are getting involved with the Ecole hôtelière and the type of people that are coming out of the school. How important is it to have this sort of spawning ground? Everything relates back to the company’s objective. Our objective is to work with the best professionals in the industry who are currently students at this school but also from the Cornell School of Hotel Administration and others. What is important is that we, as a professional company, have excellent relationships with these schools and the people in these schools. This is why we build on those relationships. Technology is becoming increasingly important in hotels and increasingly important in the business model in general. How does Golden Tulip look at this? Traditionally in hotels they have looked at technology as an important means of distribution of hotel products so there is our standard. From the 1980s it has evolved into a global distribution system and reservations systems. Of course, now there are management systems that are fully integrated along with accounting systems, filing systems, and the web. Everything is an integrated part of our business. We work with limited service products where 95% of the business is coming through the web. So everything in those hotels is ultimately integrated in order to save on revenues, to maximize the profits while minimizing the expenses. It is an extremely important part. Obviously you also have the guest entertainment in sight such as the Internet, in room entertainment, new distribution technologies for entertainment systems. Is this becoming an important part of the business model? It’s true there are many systems that will supply that. It is very important to recognize that most of the time the guests themselves usually have their own entertainment systems with them. They have their MP3 players with everything recorded on them. So of course the company needs to have equipment that the guests can take advantage of. Having said all of that, Golden Tulip sets itself apart because we also bring live entertainment and our new restaurant concepts. So automation is extremely important but there is also life after ITC. Now you are the head… the summit of a huge numbers of hotels. Getting the message to the managers must be extremely difficult sometimes. How do you manage getting the technology news down or the general philosophy down? One thing I wrote down during this seminar is that Paul Deville made the comparison between the hotel industry and the automobile industry. This is something that I do all the time because my brother and brother-in-law are in that business. So since I know what car manufacturers are doing to launch new models and that is how I look at my hoteliers. I look at them like dealers and I copy from the auto world. For example, what they do when introducing new models is they invite the clients to have a test drive and spoil them. Then the clients are highly motivated. We do the same thing with our auxiliary products. Looking at the future, what will be the biggest challenges in the next 10-15 years in terms of technology and hotel management? You hear people say many times human resources is a challenge, ITC is a challenge because we don’t know what to buy, where to buy, and how to buy it. I think these are all given so they can’t be challenges. What is a challenge? I think a challenge is continuing to stay focused on the core element of the business. The core element is making profit and the rest is development in time. If you are telling me that you do not know how to use the web we do not have time for those people. And if you don’t know how to use a laptop we do not have time for you. And if you say “the world is changing so fast! I can’t keep up!” It means that you have dropped out and that is it. If you go into the average hotel today, they are not keeping up at all. Well, they will see that in their financial figures. How would you rate the Golden Tulip in terms of keeping up with technology today? You have to be straight, honest, and transparent. We have a lot to learn as well. The fact that we wanted to coach our hoteliers as dealers doesn’t mean that we are always successful. I mean there is a continuous effort that it is not easy. If we have one challenge that is our challenge. Obviously when you travel, when possible you stay in Golden Tulip hotels. When you can’t, what bothers you the most about hotels today? Everything service related. I think the name of our game is to anticipate expectations. For example, if Mr. Johnson arrives tonight in a taxi there is a 90% chance that he will depart in a taxi tomorrow. Why don’t we anticipate that and make sure he has a taxi tomorrow before he thinks of asking for one? That is what bothers me. |
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 © photo: Golden Tulip Electra Palace Hotel Athens  © photo: Golden Tulip Altis Park Hotel Lisbon  © photo: Golden Tulip Diplomat Hotel Prague  © photo: Golden Tulip Jagershorst Leende |
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