Challenges for boutique properties during the recovery
Willem Niemeijer, CEO of YAANA Ventures and Director in The Orient & Occident Company, shares his insights on the challenges faced by eco-lodges and boutique hotels in the fast-paced recovery after years of border closures due to the Covid-19 pandemic. In this blog, he outlines some of the major obstacles that these properties face, including increased flight tariffs, inflation, changing travel habits, and human resource shortages, and offers potential solutions for overcoming them.
Thinking like a small hotel
In the age of digital marketing, it could be argued that the small independent hotel has a growing ‘niche’ given it applies the lessons of managing the digital space by using the age-old theme of researching what its customers want and communicating this. The experience has been that greatness is created by visionary leaders in all countries, businesses and families. Small hotels that cannot afford the mega systems, operations fees and other related overheads are well advised to invest in digital marketing education – as there is no question in my mind that small owners/operators can still compete favourably with the very best in all segments of the market and to be leaders and trendsetters in their own right.