TFH: The Filipino Hotelier hospitality blog, and its readers
of hotel and restaurant management and tourism students, aspiring hoteliers,
and professionals who want continued growth, is truly blessed and honored to be
able to learn from an established professional, and expert/consultant and
trainer on guest experience and Experiential Hospitality, Mr. Osvaldo Torres
Cruz (OTC).
TFH: Osvaldo, thank you for granting our request to touch
base.
OTC: Thank you for giving me this unparalleled opportunity to
be in touch with colleagues of our fascinating industry. It is a real pleasure
to share my experiences and insights about the art of assisting others.
TFH: Currently, you are a Hotel Butler, and an author of a
hospitality blog called Guest Experience Design. May we ask your
career development, how did you develop into who you are right now, as well as
why you came up with this valuable resource on the hotel guest experience?
OTC: You are right. I started as a Butler almost 11 years
ago and ever since I have been working on turning the guests’ hotel stays into
positive holistic experiences. The Hotel
Butler position has given me the possibility of finding answers to questions
like:
1-Why does the guests need to be assisted?
2-How would they like to be assisted?
3-Who is the person which is requesting to be assisted?
4-What is an experience and how it is created in the guests´
mind?
5-What should I do when offering hotel services to get into
the guest mind and to make him feel understood?
Along with my daily interaction with the guests and the theoretical
knowledge obtained by studying by myself some useful sciences like Behavioral
and Cognitive Psychology, Cultural Anthropology, Sociology, Neuroscience,
Marketing, Neuro-Linguistic Programming, etc., I was able to create the concepts of
what I named Experiential Hospitality.
All my learning and insights have been written in several
articles since 2008, all of them published in different websites, magazines and
blogs of the Hospitality Industry, which represents a huge achievement in my
professional career.
TFH: Not a lot of people have the same passion and heart for
the guest such as you. In looking at the Hotel Guest Experience, if you were to
highlight the elements, which one do you think is the most critical for
hoteliers, especially front liners, to focus on?
OTC: That is a good
question and a critical topic to be discussed in our Industry nowadays. I have
a personal motto: If I treat others the
way they would like to be treated and if I assist others the way they would
like to be assisted, then they will treat me the way I would like to be
treated.
It means that all Hoteliers must consider that the guests are
human and emotional beings like we are, so they should be respectfully treated and
moreover, as each of them is different and unique, we must get to know them individually in order to discern how
they would like to be assisted.
The hoteliers should have high Intelligence quotation levels
like: Emotional, Cultural and Social ones.
When I deliver my training courses and lectures I always ask
the audience to think about how important is for them the others’ happiness, because our main goal is taking
care of the others. We cannot forget that Hospitality word starts
with H, which stands for Human being.
In general, hoteliers should focus on how to get to know deeper
the assisted guests in order to be able to offer them something different to
elicit positive emotions and feelings and when this happens, will be kept in
the guests’ minds as unforgettable memories.
This is all what Experiential
Hospitality is about.
TFH: In learning more about the Guest Experience Design and
the customer journey, what kind of training/practice would you recommend to
industry professionals?
OTC:
As I mentioned earlier, hoteliers must learn about
Behavioral and Cognitive Psychology since it will help them to understand and
predict the guest’s behavior in the hotels. Cultural Anthropology will give us
valuable tools to understand how culture influences on the way the guests’
perception of reality and how much all this will have an effect on their
behavior and our relationship with them.
Last but not least is Neurosciences. It provides to us a lot
of tools to understand the guests’ minds and also get a better position in the
hotel market.
TFH: For aspiring hoteliers, what should they expect in the
industry? What skill sets should they learn in order to prepare them for the
hospitality trade?
OTC:
To respond this question I would like you to read an article
I wrote:
The best I have got from all my working years in this industry
is that I have become a definitely better human being and this fact is priceless.
TFH: As a consultant/trainer, what services do you offer and
how may interested parties contact you for further information?
OTC:
I offer Consultancy in Experiential Hospitality. This means
how to design positive and holistic guests’ experiences. This training must be
taken by people covering any position in the Hotel, since each of us is
important. No matter if you are in the front line or not. We cannot forget that
if I am a receptionist I cannot make the guest feeling happy if I am not happy myself.
Also my daily interaction with all my peers will influence my emotional level.
I do as well, Hotel Butler Training, which is considered in
the Experiential Hospitality, the manager of the guests’ experiences by
excellence.
I have my website in www.hotelguestexperience.blogspot
where any interested parties can visit it and will have further information
about my services.
TFH: Thank you for your valued time, in giving words of
advice and guidance on Guest Experience Design, the customer experience and
Experiential Hospitality, Mr. Cruz. We hope to learn more from such an astound
professional, such as yourself, next time.
OTC:
Thank you very much. It was a real pleasure to share words
with you. I wish all of you a lot of success in your work, studies and lives.
Anytime you will need my support do not hesitate to contact me. I really
appreciate your time. Best wishes.
For valuable information and further details on Guest
Experience Design and the customer experience, you may visit http://hotelguestexperience.blogspot.com/.
