The Hospitality Mentor: The Power of a Concierge, Yipy Service Shops, Passion Fruit Liqueur and More

In our July edition of The Hospitality Mentor newsletter, we’re talking about the importance of a concierge team at any hotel or vacation rental property, the debut of Threads and what it means for the hospitality community, and how a new app is making it easier to conduct hotel shops and make sure your staff is up to standards.

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Monsieur Gustave H., famed concierge of The Grand Budapest Hotel

🛎 What's Hot in Hospitality

While we’ve seen hotels cut costs by reducing their concierge staff, doubling down on the personalized service offered by an experienced concierge team will make a huge difference in your property’s overall guest experience. An in-the-know concierge can help with everything from snagging the hottest restaurant reservations, skipping long waits at attractions, or simply sharing some personal recommendations on the best hidden gems. The good news is that hotels are rebounding from pandemic layoffs. Les Clefs d’Or, an association of hotel concierges, saw membership applications increase by more than 50 percent from 2021 to 2022, according to Travel + Leisure, and the upward trend is continuing this year.

Roberto Cerina is the longest-serving concierge of 27 years at the Grand Hyatt Cannes Hotel Martinez a 5 star hotel.

The best brands are using the power of a top-notch concierge team to create loyal guests for life. For example, the W Hotels brand has a dedicated team of W Insiders, whose role is to use their insider expertise to connect guests with experiences at local hot-spots like trendy boutiques, hip restaurants, art galleries and more. They focus entirely on providing guests insider tips and information on the city they’re in and creating WOW moments to make everyone feel like a VIP (think, snagging a guest tickets to a sold-out concert for their favorite music artist who’s in town).

And it’s not only hotels who can benefit from having a dedicated concierge. Vacation rentals should have someone designated to answer messages, share recommendations in the area, or even put together a custom welcome guidebook for guests with personal tips. On the flip side, for guests traveling this summer, don’t forget to take advantage of your hotel concierge’s local connections when you’re planning your itinerary. And if you reach out in advance to let them know your preferences or what kind of experiences you’re interested in – that’s when the real magic happens.

🍸 What I'm Sipping

This month, I’m back with another refreshing summer cocktail suggestion; Chinola’s artisanal passion fruit liqueur (named for the Dominican passion fruit locally referred to as “chinola”). It’s handcrafted from distilled spirits and real passion fruit that’s estate-grown on Chinola’s dedicated farms in the Dominican Republic. A team of hospitality experts, spirit industry professionals, and a master blender collaborated to develop the old-world style liqueur, and the beverage brand is headquartered here in Miami.

With its rich natural passion fruit flavor, balanced sweetness and tanginess, and tropical aroma, Chinola makes a delicious addition to any cocktail menu, whether enjoyed on its own or mixed with other spirits to deliver a vibrant craft cocktail. Infuse it into sangrias, martinis, daiquiris and more, or sip it straight poured over ice to enjoy the pure sweet and tart flavor of passionfruit. Your guests will savor the taste of the tropics with every sip.

📝 What I'm Working On

Hotel shops are an essential way to know if your hotel staff is measuring up to standards and find out about any areas that need improvement – in fact, I recommend properties have a shop conducted 4 to 6 times a year. But your hotel doesn’t have to be part of a big brand to have a consistent shop program in place. I recently visited the beautiful boutique Colony Hotel in Palm Beach to do a hotel shop using a new brand standard auditing tool from Yipy. While esteemed standards programs from Leading Hotels of the World, Fine Hotels and Resorts, or Forbes Travel Guide can be costly to enroll in, Yipy is an all-in-one app that makes it easy for hoteliers to shop themselves using pre-installed standards, or even by customizing it with certain standards that are unique to your property.

“As a hotelier, I've dealt with constant pain and frustration around standards testing—it's a crucial part of any operation, but difficult to manage,” notes Yipy Co-founder and CEO Adam Tuttle. “We built Yipy to revolutionize the way we inspect our expectations by providing customizable, world-class standards, user-friendly audits, and action-focused reports. Our mission is to simplify and enhance the inspection process while increasing access to excellence within the industry.”

I recommend Yipy for independent and boutique hotels or even restaurant groups that want to get shopped but are not a part of these larger programs. From my personal experience with conducting the shop through the Yipy app, if your property scores well with Yipy, you could very well achieve high scores with the established award programs as well.

💭 What I'm Inspired By

With the debut of Meta’s new social media platform Threads, I’m excited to have another avenue to engage with the hospitality community and see how hospitality brands use it to have conversations with their guests (Four Seaons and St. Regis are already on there, leading the pack). I signed up for Threads on the first day and it’s been fun watching as everyone figures out what to post and how to leverage the platform since we're all in uncharted territory.

A big part of what I think will make Threads successful is how seamless the signup process is, since it links to your Instagram account, so users and brands don’t have to invest in building a brand new following from scratch. In fact, within four hours of its unveiling, the app already had 5 million signups. I’ve been on Twitter for 12 years and only have 200 followers and already had that many within my first few hours on Threads. I love that my audience is already built in from Instagram, and I’m looking forward to bringing in other followers from LinkedIn to have a new place to chat in a more casual environment. 

Threads’ text-based format makes it easier to have a conversation, which is hard to do in the comments section of Instagram. It can be a great place to brainstorm, get feedback, or have a whole discussion with your community. For example, a hotel could post a photo on Instagram of a guest-favorite spot on property and tell guests to hop over to Threads to join in on a conversation about what they’d want to do on their next stay, while the hotel responds to help them plan it. If you’re not sure where to begin, keep building off of what you’ve already been doing on Instagram or Twitter because there’s a reason they originally followed you there in the first place. You can connect with me at https://www.threads.net/@stevelturk Hope to see you there.

🎙 Listen: The Podcast

Tune into our new Advice from the C-Suite compilation episode for tips and leadership strategies from the hospitality industry’s top corporate executives. Raul Leal, Chief Executive Officer at SH Hotels & Resorts, describes the importance of sustainability in hospitality and what he's excited about for the future. Thatcher Brown, Chief Commercial Officer of Four Seasons Yachts, shares what he’s learned from working around the world about how different cultures approach hospitality. Euan McGlashan, Co-Founder and CEO of Valor Hospitality Partners, talks about growing up in Scotland and learning to build 5 star luxury hotels in his twenties. Dawn Gallagher, Chief Commercial Officer at Crescent Hotels & Resorts, discusses her career journey and how she developed her leadership skills.

Out this week, you’ll meet Mychal Milian, General Manager of the dual-branded complex Marriott and AC Hotel Fort Lauderdale Airport at Dania Pointe. Next week you’ll hear from Kirk Pederson, President of Sightline Hospitality, a San Francisco-based hybrid third-party management company.

🎥 Watch: On YouTube

Our 10-minute feature episode on El Secreto Omakase at Faena Miami Beach Hotel is here! Come with us inside El Secreto’s kitchen, where each seasonal ingredient is meticulously selected and prepared, and meet Sushi Chef Erik Melendez, who curates a personalized dining experience for only 6 guests per seating. The freshest fish of the season are flown in from the markets of Hokkaidō island in Japan. Watch as the team transforms each quality ingredient into a masterful dish that’s a testament to the skill and passion of the chefs.

Reply and let me know what you think of El Secreto after you’ve watched the episode, and where else we should visit next. We’re looking forward to producing more documentary-style video tours of the world's most awe-inspiring hospitality experiences.

If you’re looking for cinematic-quality content creation for your hospitality business, The Hospitality Mentor can help tell your story.

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Cheers,

Steve Turk, Founder and Host
The Hospitality Mentor