Why a fixation on one businessmodel will no longer work
Hotels have to redesign operations to keep up with times
To recover, weneed toadapt. And to adapt, we need to embrace change with all our capacity. Covid- 19 has had a heavy toll on every economy, with the services sector hit hardest by the extended restraints on mobility.
In the hospitality sector, travel agencies and airlines saw a halt of operations, restaurants were forced to close down, and hotels were stricken with the lowest occupancy levels ever seen. Nearly 80 per cent of hotels in theMiddle East andNorth Africa had to close down due to lowoccupancy in the first quarter, and up to 400,000 tourismrelated jobs in the GCC countries are at risk.
As Saudi hotel operators and owners, we couldn’t sit still and set off exploring solutions.
Tourism stimulus
The Saudi government administered an $ 18 billion stimulus package for heavily impacted sectors and a $ 4 billion tourism development fund, and allocated an amount of $ 2.4 billion to cover part of private sector salaries for three months. Still, in order to make the most out of the rescue packages, hospitality businesses need to take proactive steps and build an
internal shield revamping their operational strategy in line with the new normal.
As a Saudi company, we have been committed to a capacity building plan that aims to foster national talent across the industry in line with Saudi Vision 2030. During the lockdown, we
were preparing our staff through intensive training and upskilling sessions. We redesigned operations to ensure touchless interactions and upgraded our disinfection protocols by partnering with consultancies and hygiene solutions providers like Ecolab and Diversey. We optimised labour costs depending less on on- call workforce and redistributing responsibilities among our in- house staff.
Saudi hoteliers are migrating to a task- based work model, training their staff to be more multitasked and serve in various positions across several divisions. We learnt that the more agile the staff, the better and promptly began re- creating a teamof versatile skilled employees and enacting a rotation system within each property to fill a range of positions. We focused on decentralisation and created a front- line of empowered managers who can take engage in proactive decision- making. We also realised that better optimisation sometimes requires that certain job titles be merged without affecting productivity.
At the same time, incorporating more innovation such as cloud- based AI technologies was vital to reduce the administrative workload — this complemented the rotation and relocation strategies. All these measures were united under an upgraded HR policy focused on promoting open communications, transparency and creating a reassuring work environment.
The bottom- line is that the journey to recovery is flexible. It does not matter which plan you follow, what matters is tha ta new operational model is due for sustaining successful operations.