Damage Repair: The Hospitality Industry

Hotel Room

A good contractor will be able to juggle the needs of the guests, the operations staff, and the facilities staff all at once.

It’s easy to lump “disaster restoration” into a single category.  To someone unfamiliar with the inner workings of the industry, repairing damage caused by a natural disaster may seem to be a blanket set of skills that can be used regardless of the type of structure.  Approaching disaster recovery with this mindset, however, is a major mistake.

Every job is different and repairing damage caused to a hospitality centered building is much different than say a residential or even other type of commercial job.  Here are a few ways you can ensure your hotel repair project runs as smoothly as possible.

See it From All Sides

An easy mistake to make on the job is failing to view the project from the perspectives of everyone involved.  As a contractor, you must be able to see the viewpoints of both the facilities staff and the operations staff.  Everyone has a different goal and it’s important to understand what these are.  In general terms, operations is concerned with making sure the hotel’s guests (paying customers) are happy, comfortable, and receiving the level of service the hotel brand most likely prides itself on providing.  Facilities on the other hand is usually feverishly working on getting everything up and running as quickly and safely as possible.  As a contractor, your goal is to complete the repairs and the best way to do this is to pick out the common causes between operations and facilities.  This will allow both parties to work together to succeed and will reduce friction.

The name of the game is getting the hotel operating at full capacity and an effective contractor will be able to get all parties to unite under that banner.

Treat Guests like Guest, Not Obstacles

The other perspective that must be taken into account by an experienced contractor is that of the hotel guests.  It’s easy to forget that they are why the hotel exists in the first place and they are the number one reason to restore the facility to working capacity.  Guests pay the bills and happy customers tend to be repeat customers.  Hotels who have happy customers even in the face of disaster damage, will be more satisfied with their contractors.  Go out of your way to make sure guests are as comfortable as they can be given the circumstances.  This will make them much more understanding of the situation and much less likely to complain or write negative reviews about the hotel brand.

These are just a few of the steps an effective contractor should take to provide the best possible disaster damage repair service for a building in the hospitality service.