7 Reasons Why Hotel Business Fails in Nigeria

Hotel Business will hardly run out of market so long people are increasingly travelling, and occasions and programs and parties and ceremonies are still holding.

The challenge though is, while Hotel business is a good business to venture into, not all hotels thrive. And this is due to several reasons such as the location of the hotel, the popularity of the destination, the hotel facilities, the staff that works at a hotel, the leadership of the hotel manager amongst others.

This article will show you why hotel business in Nigeria fails by dealing with salient mistakes in the hotel business. Not only that, it will guide you on the path of prosperity in hotel business. The steps will show you how to successfully make great and consistent sales in the hotel business, especially in Nigeria.

Why Hotel Business Fails in Nigeria

1. HOTEL MANAGEMENT

Hotel businesses suffer often times as a result of wrong management. Most hotel managers are so revenue conscious that they fail to understand what actually drives the business, and what kills the business. The bulk of the work lies on the efficiency and managerial skills of the hotel manager. Before a hotel manager can manage the various departments, s/he must know the roles of each person in the every department.

As a hotel manager, don't just focus on meetings and meetings; work around to observe the task everyone is taking: see how long and tasking or how short and easy each task is. Work with the front desk to understand how many customer complaints and issues are handled by your staff that you never hear about. This will help you to have hands-on knowledge, which allows you to put employees' concerns and complaints in perspective, and the staff respects you more because they know you have that knowledge.

Most hotel managers are found to be strict, that all the staff fear them. To some, the fear of the manager will make them more productive. But emotional intelligence has found out that a sound healthy relationship between employer/manager/CEO/boss and their employees creates an environment for better productivity. This has constituted a major failure in the hotel business.

Some of the ways to correct this is to understand your staff, care for them, support them, make them feel important. Possibly, create a reward system where each department vote on a top performer of the week, or provide a small financial reward to any staff member who spots a maintenance issue before you do. The rewards don't have to be big; even small rewards go a long way toward making your staff content with their jobs and motivated to work hard.

2. TECHNOLOGY

It is true, factually and obvious that a tech sophisticated hotel attracts more customers in hotel business. Apart from online bookings, and free WiFi, there are other services that can be rendered with the help of other forms of technology.

Everyone wants to be associated with classy hotels. There is nothing that makes a hotel feel classy like tech and the smartness of the hotel. Now there are quite a number of tech-related stuffs and apps that creates more comfort in the hospitality industry or the hotel business.

a. Digital Conference Facilities: Besides being able to offer high density Wi-Fi for conferences and meetings, your hotel also should provide access to audio-visual (AV) and digital facilities for conferences. In other cases, the hotel should have a ready projector and projector screen, a marker board and marker. And other conference/business meeting facilities. These greatly attract companies and businesses to hold their business meetings and business retreat in your hotel.

b. Mobile Apps and automation:

Guests want to be able to do everything from checking in at a venue’s automated kiosk to ordering room service with a digital device instead of standing in queues and moving around the hotel premises to order food.

Thanks to digital innovation, guests also expect digital interactions with the hotel to be personalised. When investing in digital apps for check-ins, room service and other customer-oriented digital interactions, hotel operators are investing in systems and technologies that can personalise the experience for guests, including a guest’s name being displayed on the welcome desk at a digital check-in station; their food preferences or past purchases being displayed in a digital room-service order system; and similar.

c. Social media and faadbacks

Every guest that steps into the hotel has a smartphone in the pocket. For those on holidays, honey moon, business meetings, or for ladies who were brought by their man on some romantic break or date, the tendencies are high that they would take pictures or do videos, and share their experiences with their friends on social media. Apart from the picture that shows the place, the location will also be tagged. This further spreads the gospel of your hotel brand.

Not only that. People who wish to use a hotel for any of the purposes listed above don't choose hotel in vacuum. Chances are high that they'd research on the hotel to see the features of the hotel, AND ALSO THE FEEDBACK OF THOSE WHO HAD USED THE HOTEL BEFORE. The comments, videos, photos, and sometimes personality of those who had patronized the hotel has a way of influencing their decision of using the hotel.

d. Online Reputation Management Technologys

A hotel’s online ratings is helpful in two ways. First can help predict future bookings, and second, they let you know how well your hotel reached your guest expectations.

Therefore, your hotel's online manager will continue to invest in platforms that help them monitor online reviews, manage their online reputation and use that feedback to improve both their operational and guest experience standards. Online reviews is a direct feedback from guests.

Hence the power of feedback and social media is inevitably powerful and advantageous to the growth of the hotel.


3. HOTEL BRANDING

How well does your hotel stand out in the crowd? What is/are the things that differentiate your hotel from others? The lack of these are often the reasons behind the failure of a hotel business.
A hotel brand for instance can be simply ''home away from home''.
 Understand your hotel brand and communicate that message throughout every aspect of your service and marketing. Give food services that covers for the cultural meals of the major ethnic groups in the country or locale. Make dishes that give your customers a home experience.

Make the environment even friendlier by training your staff to be homely with their smiles, services and responses. Let them have the privacy and serenity that influenced their choice hotel over their homes. You can even go as far as providing a shuttle services for them that will drive them from wherever they are to the hotel, and from the hotel to wherever they wish to go within the city. In a nutshell, give your guests a certain experience.

Also communicate your brand through online platforms when marketing, and when you are not. Always.

4. MARKETING AND PLANNING

Marketing is like the other side of a coin of hotel business. Yet, it is the most misunderstood. Most hoteliers fail at this point due to low marketing skills and knowledge. And due to low observation of competitors. Marketing your hotel is more than creating an online booking system, fliers, running promo and all sorts. One of the best ways to market your product is to let your value speak for you. Besides, never print fliers and invest in other traditional marketing forms at the expense of your hotel website. Your hotel website comes first any time of the day. It not only presents you as serious and classy, it also helps you to reach a wider audience, and draws you closer to your guests.

Secondly, many hospitality businesses, even larger ones, are yet to employ skilled marketing person, or outsource their marketing arm to an experienced inbound marketing professional or brand. Instead, businesses rely on random staff members to take on marketing tasks without thinking about whether they have the knowhow to get the job done. If you are not ready to add an online professional to your staff, it is best to outsource the marketing and online arm of your hotel to professionals. If you ask me, I'd recommend Manicleworld, a business and marketing strategy brand. They have helped a lot of businesses with their marketing in the past years across Nigeria. You can call, text or chat them up +2348137884995.

Being able to pass across the message of the brand well and delivering good customer satisfaction will in itself make the customers to consistently use the facilities and recommend it to others.

Your media arm must be able to plan several months in advance for upcoming promotions and events.  You should develop a relationship with wedding planners and nearby venues, and offer an attractive package for wedding guests that includes amenities not available at other hotels, such as shuttle service to and from the wedding.

Also, promoting the hotel via Facebook and Instagram, getting more followers, and managing the reputations of the hotel online will boost sales.

5. LOCATION

The many problems associated with a poor location cannot be ignored. There is the difficulties finding the hotel, lack of transport system at some particular hours of the day. Traffic or no parking, especially in places like Lagos Nigeria. Just before you conclude on the location, If you think you’ve found a good location, research well on what the area is like, its reputation, businesses around it, attractive places around it, the landmarks close to it, supermarket, beach, airport, institutions, industries, etc.

Location ultimately determines the success or failure of a hotel business.

6. FLEXIBILITY

Actually one of the reasons why only 2 out of 10 hotel businesses make it through the first 5years is lack of understanding if the business, and lack of flexibility. Whatever you know about running a hotel today will not be the same in 10years time. Hence the need for flexibility, to adapt to new ways of improving hotel satisfaction. In other words, there must be consistent effort in improving with the latest trend around.

7. PRICING

After location and outlook, the price of the rooms and foods are often the first things guests look at to decide what hotel to check in. Now it is a bit complicated because some won't want go bring down their price because of the hotel's value. At the same time they are compelled to because they are careful not to scare potential guests away.

In my years of practicing business strategy, I have learnt that there is a way you can actually give a service or product of a high value, and yet at a reduced price without incurring loss. And many have benefited from this. If you can't hold a strategy session with your staff to brainstorm how to achieve such, I'd advise you employ the services of a business strategist. I'll gladly handle handle that for you while you face other matters of your hotel business


If you ever need my services on strategies to start or improve a hotel business anywhere in Nigeria, or you what me to manage your online arm, kindly contact me via call/text/ or WhatsApp: +2348137884995

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