Coronavírus

3/12/2020
Prepare your hotel for Coronavirus: how Newhotel solutions can back you up during this challenging time

Prepare your hotel for Coronavirus: how Newhotel solutions can back you up during this challenging time


Hoteliers are facing major challenges due to the coronavirus outbreak.  After tradeshows, event and meetings cancellations alongside with corporate travel restrictions, hospitality industry is facing an unsettling scenario as thousands of travelers are cancelling or reconsidering their travel plans. 
 
Developing and communicating a prevention plan will be one the first steps to deal with the Covid-19 outbreak, followed by training all staff on how to pass the right message across all your property channels.  
Here are some tips and tools available on Newhotel solutions that will help not only mitigate the impact of Covid-19 but also leverage your hotel recovery.  

ONLINE CHECK-IN: Avoid long queues in the lobby and long check-ins and encourage your guests to do the online check-in.  

AUTOMATED EMAIL TEMPLATES: Make the most out of your hotel email templates.  
Create or modify your e-mail templates for confirmation, pre check-in and check-out by including an area with some notes regarding corona virus and informing them about your prevention plan. Don’t forget to include your specific policies regarding reservation cancellations or modifications.  
Too much information for one e-mail? Sure. Create a FAQ’s webpage on our site and redirect your guest to the page.    
 
 
KEEP YOUR GUEST PROFILES UPDATED: more than ever is important to register as much information as you can about your guest’s: contact information (address, email and phone numbers) are important to be updated.  
 
guest-profile-updated-newhotel-cloud

The Cloud PMS even offers you the possibility to register information about where your guests are arriving from (country and region), what their next destination will be (country and region), travel purpose, how they are arriving and the border point (in and out) – go to the guest registration option and choose tab Custom.   
 





ROOM ALLOCATION - Use automatic room allocation selecting “oldest date of occupancy feature”: This option is used to assign rooms in bulk, easily and rapidly, before guest check-in. It also prevents a room from being a large period without being occupied. In case you are facing extremely low occupancy levels do not forget to open the room windows regularly to renew the air of the non-occupied rooms.  

housekeepingHOUSEKEEPING: There are many actions and considerations that the Housekeeping should put in place, according to the World Health Organization and each country health department. Read the World Health Organization Guidelines and your own country guides on Covid-19. On the Cloud PMS consider creating additional cleaning zones to help your housekeeping team to control and verify the daily work plan. These additional zones can be later deactivated.  
 


CANCELATION AND PAYMENTS

Guests might be forced to postpone or cancel their stay. Consider make temporary modifications to your booking policies, specially to the cancellation policy. Apply the new rules during the travel ban and only for guests travelling from restricted areas, for example.  
You should as well update the cancellations options on the PMS and associate them to each reservation that is cancel due to the corona outbreak. This will be important for your future analysis, when you are checking the cancellations reasons (more details on the report Cancelled Reservations) or specially if you are already using our Revenue Management and Business Intelligence tools.  politica-cancelamento-newhotel

DEPOSITS & ADVANCE PAYMENTS: one of the good news about this outbreak is that will pass. For most city hotels guests can cancel between 72H and 24H before arrival date, while for resorts and short rentals the cancellation period is much higher, probably more than 7 days. 

If your guests booked a Non-refundable rate or are outside of the allowed cancellation window, suggest them to move their reservation for other dates and keep any existing deposits for the future. Newhotel Cloud PMS supports deposits and advance payments in individual, company, event and group bookings.  
 

REVENUE MANAGEMENT  
 
It’s time to readjust your strategy. We are all facing a wild card, with the hotel industry reporting breaks in several indicators, however, we can take actions in order to minimize this situation and planning the future months. 

 - Review forecast: adjust demand levels for the upcoming months on the yearly calendar; 
 - Review prices: maybe you will see some competitors drop their prices to a very low level, but do not rush to lower prices without check the price suggestions that the Revenue Management system will suggest; 
 - Check your competitors’ prices, using the rate shopper and comparative analysis tools to avoid being overpriced and better decide on your pricing strategy; 
 - Don’t forget to mark this period as a “special event”, as it is affecting significantly your demand; 
 - Keep monitoring and make the necessary adjustments.  
 
BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE
 
A holistic approach will help you to keep focus and take better decisions to maintain the overall profit of your hotel.  The Business Intelligence tool will allow you to readjust your future strategy and enhance your actions.  

Some analysis you might want to take into consideration:  

- Macro segments behavior;  
- How ADR and RevPar are being impacted and how your pickup scenario is for the following months;  
- If you are a multi-property brand, how does your business behaves in different markets? 
- Also take in consideration what are the other sources of revenue you can optimize in these tough times by analyzing your average daily guest consumption, including your guest extras detailed consumption.  


With all the possible trends detected on these and other topics you should now focus on your online strategy.   
 

ONLINE STRATEGY
 
Your website, booking engine and mobile apps are more than ever fundamental tools: these are your most cost-effective booking channels.  

 - Services and extras upselling: Guarantee that your perks are displayed throughout your website and that they can be booked on your Booking Engine.  
 - Use your pre-arrival e-mails to encourage your guests to book these services and redirect them to each product on the booking engine.  
If you are using Dynamic Booking Engine you can sell all these items separately from accommodation, so will be very easy for your guests to book them after an accommodation reservation.  
 - Personalize your booking engine messages: encourage your guests to proceed with their booking by offering complimentary services such as parking or a F&B credit;  
 - Promotional codes: Offer a promotional code for the next reservation. Don’t forget to highlight the promotional codes for future reservations on the booking engine and in the post stay email for your guests;  
 - Review your rates on the Cloud PMS and associate all the relevant items that you wish to upsell to the rate plan. This way the front desk team will have easily access to all the necessary information regarding the item to upsell and can rapidly associate it to the guest incidental charges.  
 - Offers: consider launching minimum stay offers or advance booking offers. You will find an extensive option of rate rules and restrictions on the Cloud PMS that will allow to execute your strategy smoothly.  
 - Chatbot: already using our chatbot feature on the booking engine? Don’t forget to consider answers for your guest’s questions regarding Covid-19.  
 
Finally, our most important recommendation to you is to remain calm and be prepared. These are a little bit messy times, but they will pass. With preparation and the necessary adjustments, we will overcome these challenging times.  

For any questions on how to use the Newhotel Solutions features during these special times, our support team is available 24/7.

Tel: (+351) 218 440 020
Mobile: (+351) 933 000 000
Email: [email protected]
Skype: helpdesk.newhotel


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