Owning a luxury hotel is a good but challenging business. There are a lot of big things that can ruin your business. The pandemic has made paupers out of many resort owners over the past couple of years. It’s a tough pivot because it is difficult to imagine how your establishment will make money without a healthy dose of luxury travel. If you can survive that, you also need a plan for surviving natural disasters. Have you noticed how many luxury resorts there are in places near volcanoes, or with a history of devastating storms? The only thing that can save you in those instances are strong investments that will pay you when customers can’t.
It is not just the big things of which you need to be aware. You also need to have the right accessories for the type of clientele you are hoping to attract. You don’t have to be a golf resort to get a lot of guests that are in town for golfing. In such towns, every hotel needs a golf bag storage rack for the guests that will be hitting the greens. This type of accessory is a must. While not every guest will be there to golf, every guest will have an assortment of personal tech. Here are the accessories you will need for them:
Photo Services
Every luxury traveler will also have a luxury camera in addition to the camera on the expensive smartphone they carry. Every one of those travelers will happily pay for some kind of photo printing service. It doesn’t have to be free. You can charge an extravagant amount because you are not selling photos, but memories. People will gladly pay to preserve good memories.
Believe it or not, print shops are still going strong. People are having everything printed from business cards to calendars. Pharmacy photo printing services are still busy. If you offer people a way to print their photos on site, they will take you up on it. They can bring in an SD card and come out with a commemorative calendar, coffee mug, t-shirt, and more gifts than can be stuffed in a single bag. When your guests ask about the nearest place they can have photos printed, you don’t want to direct them to the nearest Walgreens. You want to direct them to one of your many, highly lucrative gift shops.
Ubiquitous Charging
The only thing your guests will need more than a never-ending flow of good food and drink is ubiquitous charging for all their devices. It should go without saying that every guest room needs plenty of wall sockets. What is often overlooked are sockets that are easily accessible. No one wants to have to move a piece of furniture to get to a socket. Also, people in wheelchairs have a hard time reaching sockets near the floor.
Don’t stop there, Every table at your restaurant should have a wireless charging puck because everyone will be tweeting and eating. Those high-res food pics have a cost in battery life. Your table-side chargers will get a lot of use and be much appreciated by your guests. Those charging stations need to continue all the way into the lobby. Some guests will arrive early and have to wait for their room to be prepared. Other guests will have to wait on a ride to the airport. No one wants to scramble for wall sockets at an airport. So make sure they have a place to top off while they wait on their Uber.
Work Surfaces
It doesn’t matter if it is a family vacation. At some point, someone is going to need to take out a laptop and work. It will be rather off-putting to your guests if they need to do a few minutes of work and can’t find a place to set their laptop. The most important laptop accessory is a literal desktop. The room will have a desk or table. But your guest will not want to be stuck in the room all the time. So make sure your public areas have more than lounge chairs. Leave a few work surfaces for the people who can’t avoid work altogether.
Besides a secure place to keep all those golf bags, make sure your luxury hotel has a place to process photos, a way to charge all the things all the time, and a few work surfaces. These are the kinds of accessories that complete the luxury travel experience.
