How hotels can prepare for summer tourism in New Zealand

This year’s holiday period is an exciting time for everyone who has earned their summer break. With no travel restrictions looming overhead, New Zealanders are completely free to celebrate Christmas or their respective holiday celebrations however and wherever they would like!

This is wonderful news for the tourism industry in New Zealand, as although many people can travel overseas too if they want to, the costs for international flights are still quite high. To be closer to family and make the most of the holidays, we anticipate our hotels will be kept busy!

So, how can hotels prepare for summer tourism this year? Here are our top tips:

Ensure team wellbeing

Our holiday season falls in summer so it’s important that our teams are keeping hydrated and well fed. You can’t pour from an empty cup! Balance is crucial and all employees deserve to maintain the same amount of energy input as they are expected to output.

Prioritise your customer service and people skills

Of all times, now is the most important to make sure you are bringing the best energy possible to guests. This can be as simple as always passing by and interacting with a smile, as well as being eager to help and accommodate your guests. Good customer service and personable interaction does not go unnoticed, especially now as customer service has changed so much in the past few years.

Engage and converse

Further to being friendly, it can be helpful to engage with guests such as asking them how they are and where they are from. Holiday goers will definitely appreciate any personal touch or friendly communication.

Team engagement and morning meetings

From an operations point of view morning meetings and team engagement overall are the keys to a successfully run holiday period. Morning meetings allow you to brief everyone and enhance transparent communication so there is little room for error and more space to collaborate and work together.

Keeping your team engaged is also vital, as the more engaged and happier your team is the more quality work they can provide. An engaged team are people who will want to do a great job for your organisation.

As an example, at ahs hospitality, we focus on employee engagement in several ways. We offer:

• Staff benefits such as My Discounts which is a portal that offers discount codes and offers for a range of widely known retail stores.
• Access to an Employee Assistant Program so that any employee has access to free counselling services to take care of their mental wellbeing. We believe self-care is super important in employee engagement.
• Frequent communication and positive encouragement.
• Opportunity for employees to provide the business feedback without judgement.
• We even have a specific email address direct to our social team so that ahs team members can share the festive team spirit at their respective hotels in order for us to post and share to our wider business community!