How To Maintain Guest Experience While Refurbishing Hotels

Praful Gupta shares invaluable tips to consider while renovating a hotel without hampering the guest's comfort level

- Praful Gupta

In an increasingly competitive landscape, more and more hotels are opting to refurbish or retrofit their facility in order to attract guests. These days, hotel renovation is not only limited to replacing old, worn out furniture and mattresses. It has a lot to do with the increasing level of competition in the hotel industry. Today, it is a basic requirement for hotels to be up to standard, fresh and technologically aligned.

Some hotels prefer to renovate, while some opt to reinvent themselves. Some go for rebranding while holding on to their USPs. Yet, all the changes are most often to improve guest experience. In India, there are several iconic hotels and properties that have existed for several years, decades and even centuries. A few of these hotels are located in historic buildings that often possess distinctive elements which set them apart from modern construction. Besides, hotels are also now keen to integrate sustainability and energy efficiency into their structures.

However, renovating or retrofitting a hotel property is not an easy task. Most importantly, the privacy and comfort of guests is top priority while managing a hotel renovation project. There is an erroneous notion that if guests don’t know about the hotel renovation, it can’t hurt bookings. This is not true because if unsuspecting guests find themselves in the midst of construction, it will leave a very bad impression on them and could affect the image of the hotel negatively. In order to minimise surprises, smart planning and preparation is the key.

Bringing the multiple pieces of the project, from managing the furniture to installing plumbing together is a mammoth task where each piece must happen at exactly the right time to ensure a harmonious whole.

Additionally, the entire process has to remain “invisible” to guests.