Adam Mogelonski and Hans-Peter Veit will take to the stage at the 16th Forum Hotel & Spa to be held at the Four Seasons Hotel George V in Paris on May 30, 2024, and Adam will discuss how hotels are embracing the latest longevity trends. I will give a presentation on how it works. This was followed by an interview with Hans Peter about his esteemed career in luxury hotel spa management and development, and his current role as Director of Spa & Recreation at Appenzeller Haus Gonten. . Click here to view the day’s entire program.
The word “optimization” in today’s world refers to the use of data and metrics for continuous business improvement, but it also means making trade-offs and focusing limited resources on certain goals ahead of other goals. It also means investing in a goal. Today’s hospitality industry faces so many data points, so many partners, so many siled interests, and so many different activities competing for attention and capital. To make informed strategic decisions that integrate various operations toward a common goal, hoteliers and owners carefully select key performance indicators (KPIs) to optimize and prioritize. is needed.
What KPIs should hotels focus on improving? This pursuit of optimization only becomes more complex the more operations you add. Profit centers such as wellness centers are often much needed to move away from the exclusive bed model and increase occupancy, enabling business intelligence (BI). ) and machine learning (ML) can help you make sense of it all.
I will be attending a keynote speech at the Forum Hotel & Spa in Paris on May 30th, and I will have the opportunity to speak with Hans-Peter Veit, Director of Spa & Recreation at Appenzeller Haus Gonten in Switzerland. , where we discussed the reasons for length of stay (LOS). It should be a top KPI for hotel leaders and brands to optimize when considering significant capital investment requirements for new wellness assets at their properties.
Focus on outstanding career at spa
To frame the legitimacy of LOS based on the many other metrics that hotels can track, we first look back at Mr. Veit’s career in the luxury hospitality industry and how he uses this KPI as an overall indicator of real estate growth. It is important to check that you have reached the
Mr. Fite began his hotel career in 1999 as a personal trainer at Brenner’s Park Hotel & Spa. Brenner’s Park Hotel & Spa is his five-star property in Baden-Baden’s historic wellness center dating back to 1834 and also the first property in the famous Oetker Collection. Two years later, he moved into spa management, where he remained at Brenner’s Park for more than 17 years. (As a side note for those not familiar with the area, Baden-Baden has been famous for its hot springs since Roman times, and there are records of Emperor Kalkara visiting the baths in the early 3rd century to cure his arthritis.)
In mid-2009, Veit took on a larger role at the Oetker Collection, serving as director of spa development for seven years, helping manage the construction of new resort spas, multi-night wellness packages and various on-site designs. A program that responds to the needs of our guests. In January of this year, he was appointed Spa Director at the Victoria Jungfrau Grand Hotel & Spa in Interlaken for more than four years, and Spa & Wellbeing Director at the Grand Resort Bad Ragaz for more than three years. He joined the Appenzeller House in Gonten.
A luxury hotelier’s view
Taken together, these facilities represent the pinnacle of the destination spa world, and through careful attention to the programs available and regular renovations to ensure the enduring quality worthy of their reputation, they have maintained their heritage. You need to maintain a certain wellness brand. These hotels often host the same guests, couples, families, and groups year after year, and guests return year after year because they receive special treatment and have their detailed preferences remembered.
This level of proactive service is only possible when your team remains healthy, giving you clear incentives to prioritize your employees. But the knock-on effect of great service is that a significant percentage of your guests will return and book directly, reducing your customer acquisition costs. Additionally, these returning guests have longer LOS on average and spend more on accessories to increase total revenue per guest (TRevPAR). Given the high relative costs of operating check-in and check-out, increasing his LOS in this way is both a cost-saving measure while reflecting an increase in overall sales.
From his experience working for these luxury brands, Mr. Fite understands the challenges of operating a five-star hotel spa that others may miss, especially the human side of wellness service delivery and the caring dedication. He makes many other astute observations about the challenges associated with the personal touch. and an energetic spa practitioner.
When it comes to delivering a five-star wellness experience, everyone at the hotel, from the general manager to the receptionist to the masseuse, is just as important as second.
said Veit. All spa team members need time to recharge in order to perform at their best, not just average service. For example, allowing more bookings in the evening may cause practitioners to become tired at that point and unable to provide treatments that reflect true luxury quality. So, even if there is demand for late reservations, availability must be limited to maintain both the guest experience and team morale.
This example highlights a trade-off that only true wellness veterans can navigate. By optimizing the highest quality spa services, efforts to maximize short-term revenue may be sacrificed, but the long-term benefits will be that guests will remember your staff’s treatment and stay with you for years to come. Becoming a loyal customer and providing service for many years to come. LOS-driven goals.
After all, where else but at a spa do guests and hotel teams spend so much time interacting? This is reflected in other facilities such as front desks and restaurants that are often overlooked and difficult to directly quantify. A unique quality of the wellness facility compared to the touchpoints within. This emotional, human connection leads to more repeat visits, more word of mouth, and ultimately improvements in all other metrics, leading to full-service real estate resiliency, including ADR, TRevPAR, LOS, direct This results in a positive change in booking rates. Lead time and pace by room type.
Guiding large-scale resort development
Appenzell cheese is world-famous, but Appenzell-Innerhoden, like many other places in Switzerland’s vast mountain greenery, has quietly developed a cult following as a wellness destination. I am. The growth of wellness tourism to this country and this particular region, as well as recent success stories such as Chedi Andermatt, which opened for the first time in December 2013, has contributed to the low nine-figure Appenzeller House Gonten. was the driving force behind Veidt’s current role in assisting the director of The expansion project will transform the current 25-room hotel into a typical Swiss alpine spa village.
The development includes the construction of 80 hotel keys and 42 branded residences spread across a campus of low-rise buildings. Each building has its own spa facilities and is connected by underground tunnels for access to the main medi-spa facilities. Hotel units will be divided into 3-star, 4-star and 5-star services with specific amenities and facilities exclusive to luxury clients, while residences will be operated as serviced apartments, most of which are already pre-sold. Importantly, as certain buildings and units are certified for occupancy, trees will block construction lines of sight throughout this process.
The vision for the spa facility, designed by GOCO Hospitality, was to design a pure Swiss experience, integrating nature as much as possible and using only original wood from nearby cabins dating back to 1602. Understanding the importance of keeping the team happy in order to generate return visits and increase LOS, the budget budgeted for this construction is Wohngemeinschaft, which means “shared apartment” in German. However, this literal translation doesn’t really capture the sense of community inferred from the word. Compound word.
As this prospect concerns Appenzeller Haus Gonten, staffing facilities will not be an afterthought in this development, but will be central to the plan to attract top talent to this rural destination. These employee buildings represent a huge initial cost on top of building a world-class medspa, so other developers choose to minimize this item as it has no direct bearing on their bottom line. You may have done so. Still, its construction is entirely necessary to reflect long-term asset health through metrics such as low employee turnover and above-baseline losses. This is the end result of the preemptive service, as we have shown.
What is Medispa?
When it comes to these shared apartments and many other intangible hospitality capital investments, Veit and his team say the professional staff needed to manage a medi-spa’s high-touch, high-tech experience all have families and are unprepared. I always knew it was a possibility. We will soon move to Appenzell. Therefore, a staff building with a communal kitchen and dedicated high-end amenities can foster team bonding, retain employees long-term to enable smooth, efficient operations, and ensure that guests return to the same practitioner year after year. This is essential for maintaining loyalty by repeating visits. .
But what makes modern wellness centers so professional? Guests of course want great service when driving around Los Angeles, but they also need a strong “reason to visit.”
Why visit Appenzeller Haus Gonten? It’s a renowned three-story wellness facility with the latest contrast treatments, including an infrared sauna, hyperbaric oxygen tanks, and cryochambers, as well as a host of clinicians and physicists who administer these treatments. Therapists and other movement specialists. Part of the design was to provide these experiences in an inviting, non-sterile environment, incorporating natural elements befitting the Swiss countryside, and a rooftop that offered an awe-inspiring panorama of the mountains. It’s all about providing a bucket list pool with a pool.
Our clinical staff, state-of-the-art machinery, luxurious equipment, supplies, and furniture don’t come cheap. As Mr. Fite said, he is willing to show losses on the spa ledger in order to promote his LOS, which is the hotel ledger with the highest margins for room reservations. After all, wellness facilities are the biggest draw for guests to book in the first place, stay longer, and pay a premium for amenities. In other words, hotel occupancy is optimized ahead of positive spa cash flow, recognizing that the latter entity is driving the former’s business.
Full-service hotels can no longer think in terms of silos.
added Veit. Spas should not only think about maximizing profitability within their operations. This is because it may not be in the best long-term interests of high-paying, loyal hotel guests. Similarly, hotel managers need to think about what kind of experience they are providing to build loyalty and keep guests staying longer with each visit. Although this program and reason for visiting comes at a cost, there is no better way to ensure long-term business longevity and improve LOS than wellness.
To conclude our chat, Mr. Veit introduced another German word. This is a phrase that famous Swiss hotelier Cesar Ritz also used to guide his service approach. It is “ehrlichkeit” or “honesty.” All senior executives and leaders must be honest and transparent about their vision and plans so they can act in harmony to achieve high goals and build a lasting brand. Unifying her LOS as a KPI is paramount to ensuring that everyone from the owner to the front desk clerk is doing their part to best serve the business. That’s one way.
Join us at the 16th Forum Hotel & Spa on May 30, 2024 at the Four Seasons Hotel George V in Paris. Watch Hans Peter on stage talk about his own career and his work in the Appenzeller House His Gonten.click here To view the entire program for the day, click
