Takeaways

In this class, I learned a lot that’ll help me in my career in hospitality industry. I will talk about my top three takeaways in this post. The first one is on Customer Relationship Management. CRM is a vital part of service management. When used effectively, I’ve learned that it adds value for guests and can be very influential in guest satisfaction. HGRM case gave examples of the benefits they gained from their CRM system such as greeting guests by name and giving guests the opportunity for personalization. Even little details like those made a big difference and got positive reviews from guests. The second takeaway is about Search Engine Marketing. I’ve learned that Pay-Per-Click is easy to create but it’s costly and therefore companies should aim for using Search Engine Optimization effectively to improve their content. Our activity in class showed how important it is to use the correct keywords. SEO takes time and it’s hard to implement but done correctly, it drives more traffic to your website. My third takeaway is on crisis management. I’ve learned that it’s important for hotels to be prepared and have certain procedures ready to follow in crisis situations. However, you cannot plan for everything. When a crisis hits, hotels should be truthful and apologetic in the way they communicate with the press and the public because any wrong comment(s) has a potential to damage the brand’s image, which was evident in the videos we saw of Atlanta hotels.