Housekeeper
When the magic of timeshare maintenance fees is combined with the skills of an experienced management company or department, a timeshare resort can maintain exceptionally high levels of quality for many years. Many older, well-managed properties look and feel as good today as they did when they were originally built. This is due to years of finely tuned management proficiencies and meticulous budget planning.
In today’s era of increased costs for everything – as well as acute labor shortages –keeping a close eye on individual line items in a resort’s operating budget is key to preserving maintenance fees at acceptable levels. The challenge is in controlling expenses while simultaneously maintaining high customer service. Here are a few ways this can occur.
Resort staffing, housekeeping, and outside cleaning services are generally the largest operational expenses for a timeshare resort, but savings solutions in these departments require creative thought and careful balancing.
Employee turnover is famously high in the hospitality industry. It costs an estimated 33 percent of a worker’s salary to find, hire and train a replacement. Standardize your onboarding with a process that helps employees feel welcome, understand expectations, and quickly get up to speed. Assign a mentor who can explain work tasks and introduce them to your team.
With just about every hospitality property short staffed today, cross-training your staff and using team members in different departments enhances their value to your resort and company, while providing them with greater opportunities for advancement. Equipping your staff with the necessary skills to perform tasks outside of their day-to-day job function enables them to help other departments during any downtime they may have and provide coverage for another staff member’s vacation or sudden sick day. If you have a smaller property, consider using a night auditor to take care of laundry.
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Labor may be the highest operating cost for most resorts, but utilities are the fastest growing. Tracking energy performance can be done with energy audits offered by your state or region. You may want to consider swapping old thermostats for new ones with occupancy sensors to help decrease electric costs. LED lighting is one of today’s most energy-efficient and rapidly developing lighting technologies. Energy.gov states that LED bulbs use at least 75% less energy and last 25 times longer than incandescent bulbs. Have your resort’s washers and dryers calibrated often to help lower electrical/gas costs. When investing in new appliances, consider purchasing energy-efficient equipment, which may offer rebates. Demonstrating climate stewardship makes good business sense and builds customer goodwill.
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The use of intelligent housekeeping and resort management software from a company like SPI Software Solutions can provide cost-cutting efficiencies as well as the data you need to make smart resort management decisions.
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In most timeshare resorts, bed and bath linens are replaced at the end of each week. Owners often turn in soiled towels and request new ones during their stay. By encouraging guests to reuse their towels, this initiative increases the lifespan of the linens and reduces replacement costs. It also reduces the number of laundry loads ¬and the cost of soap, water, and energy. If you’ve implemented a towel reuse program but are not noticing much participation, consider a variation of the following message: “Join your fellow guests in helping to save the environment! Almost 75% of our owners participate in our resource savings initiative by reusing their towels during their stay.”
Many items in an operating budget are often purchased from an outside vendor. This could include things like guest supplies, linens, building maintenance supplies such as garbage disposals, or other items that have unexpectantly broken. It is always wise to contact these vendors in advance of preparing the budget to determine if there will be any increases from the previous year. Carefully negotiating with these vendors about their expected costs can greatly impact the bottom line.
Most savvy resort GMs agree that preventative maintenance should be done more than once a year. Clogged HVAC filters can increase energy consumption by 15 percent and dramatically reduce efficiency. Stretching preventative maintenance projects to longer timeframes can cost more in the long run. Be sure your engineers stay in sync with scheduled tasks and take advantage of new technology that will enable them to automate several processes.
Most resorts must determine adequate reserves to cover future replacements for roofs, buildings, painting, pavement, and interior furnishing and equipment. While reserves must always be maintained, when emergency funds are needed, some items can be pushed out for additional years, adding to their life expectancy and freeing funds for the emergency need.
Remember that a closer collaboration between management and housekeeping will have significant benefits for your resort and its guests. Implementing any one of the simple tactics suggested above will surely reduce your operating expenses to some degree. Where you’ll notice the real savings is when you apply a few or all of them – they all add up.
Marge Lennon has been a publicist for the timeshare industry forever. Contact her at Marge@lennoncommunications.com for a story about your company.
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