OPUS Hotels' Blog

Written by Daniel Edward Craig

A recent story about a hotel housekeeper in Miami who found in $6,000 in cash in a guestroom got me to thinking about items guests leave behind. As travelers, we’ve all experienced that sensation upon arriving at the airport that our luggage feels pleasantly lighter – only to realize we left half our belongings in the closet of our hotel room.

Curious, I decided to pay a visit to OPUS hotel’s housekeeping department to see what was kicking around Lost and Found. There I found boxes and boxes of guest belongings. Most of it looked like junk abandoned by guests, but hotels undertake too many frantic dumpster dives to make assumptions about what guests may or may not deem as valuable.

While I was perusing the log book, a group of housekeeping staff filed in after their shift, and one of them deposited an item on the desk before me.

“A bra?” I asked, staring. It was one big bra.

“Happens all the time,” said Alejandro, one of the housemen.

“Usually it’s men’s underwear,” said Mila, making a face. (more…)

Friday, June 25, 2010 | Comments (11)

Written by Daniel Edward Craig

In a recent article about social media for hotels, I argued that it doesn’t make sense for most hotels to start a blog. Blogs are time-consuming and challenging to maintain, often starting in a flurry of enthusiasm and then fading over time. An abandoned blog is like frayed carpet in a hotel lobby: it speaks of apathy and neglect and can be off-putting when stumbled upon.

My comments prompted a minor outcry, though notably not from hotel managers but from third-party web marketers, who were quick to point out the benefits of blogs to search engine optimization. Last year, a Hubspot survey reported that small businesses with a blog receive 55% more website traffic and 97% more inbound links than small businesses without a blog.

If anyone understands the value of a hotel blog, I do. It was four years ago this month that I started this blog as the General Manager’s Blog, a first in the industry. Our then-director of marketing, Katrina, came up with the idea, and I’m still mad at her. Nevertheless, I tackled my first posts with zeal, writing in a breezy style that suggested I had banged them out between check-ins. In fact, a great deal of effort went into making them sound effortless. (more…)

Monday, May 31, 2010 | Comments (17)

Written by Daniel Edward Craig

This weekend the sales teams of Opus Hotels in Montreal and Vancouver convened in Vancouver for the first national sales meeting, which I had the privilege of facilitating. It was a formidable group, ranging from grizzled veterans like Vancouver-based sales manager Phil Renaud and general manager Nicholas Gandossi to fresh-faced newbies like Montreal-based sales managers Marc Barmash and Yves Pouliot. Also present were John deC. Evans, Tom Johnston, and Katherine Evans from the ownership group.

Topics included the evolution of the Opus brand, from the opening of Opus Hotel Vancouver in 2002, then considered a risky and audacious undertaking, to the property being named one of the World’s Best 100 Hotels by readers of Condé Nast Traveler in 2005, and on to the opening of Opus Hotel Montreal in 2007. We also discussed the importance of our vibrant restaurant and lounge scene as a key differentiator to other hotels, of our vision of providing the best boutique experience, and of our corporate values of respect, empowerment and innovation. (more…)

Wednesday, May 12, 2010 | Comments (2)

Written by Daniel Edward Craig

People often corner me at social functions to tell me about a problem they’ve had in a hotel. It doesn’t matter if I’ve never worked for the hotel or the incident occurred seventeen years ago; apparently, it’s my duty to listen. Sometimes I get the impression they think I’m somehow to blame.

I don’t mind, though. Bad service stories are fascinating. But often, as I hear the teller describe how the entire hotel staff conspired to ruin her stay, I see a different side. I see employees trying to help, and I see guests getting in the way. And I can’t help but think that if travelers had a bit more insight into how hotels worked, they’d have more time to enjoy their trips. And I’d have more fun at cocktail parties.

To that end, I thought I’d share a few insider tips on what to do when things go wrong in a hotel.  

Should you complain? Probably. Hotels need to know if you’re dissatisfied; it gives us a chance to turn things around for you and to fix things for future guests. But if you set expectations the hotel can’t meet, such as a harbor view in a prairie hotel, resist the temptation to shift the blame. The best way to avoid unpleasant surprises is to check out online reviews before you book. They’ll give you the real story, warts and all. (more…)

Wednesday, February 3, 2010 | Comments (7)

Written by Daniel Edward Craig

After a sleepy year, the hotel industry in Vancouver and Whistler is about to get a blaring wakeup call. From February 12 to 28, the 2010 Winter Olympics are expected to draw 250,000 spectators, plus top athletes, foreign dignitaries and international media. Hotels are now sold-out for sixteen consecutive nights.

Given the sheer volume and related security concerns, suppliers to the Games will face a number of logistical challenges. Hotels have the added stress of being a twenty-four-hour operation. That means long days and lots of overtime for staff, who may be reluctant to waste what little downtime they have battling traffic to get home and back again.

Typically, when employees work back-to-back shifts hotels put them up in a guestroom for the night to ensure they’re perky for guests in the morning. But with visitors now fighting over scraps of private homes, campgrounds and RV parks, that won’t be an option during the Olympics. Nor will crashing at a friend’s place. Spare rooms, sofas and inflatable mattresses will be taken by out-of-town friends and relatives. Or paying strangers. The demand for accommodation has brought new meaning to the term “Go for the gold!” Employees who do make it home might discover that their enterprising spouse has rented out their side of the bed to a small Norwegian family. (more…)

Thursday, December 31, 2009 | Comments (1)

Written by Daniel Edward Craig

In 2007, a traveler wrote the following review of Opus Hotel Vancouver on TripAdvisor: “The GM who thought he was Ian Fleming was a real detriment to a great trip. Shame – let’s hope the hotel sees sense and releases Daniel to make another movie.”

Ouch. The comment was a reference to my James Bond namesake and my secondary career as a mystery novelist, but nonetheless I was baffled by it, having no recollection of any guest encounter that would have provoked a public cry for my dismissal. Since the review was anonymous, we had no way of contacting the guest to find out what went wrong. Because it was a personal attack that offered little useful information, we asked TripAdvisor to remove it. But they refused, and it remains there today. Sometimes we hoteliers have to set aside our professionalism and say, “Whatever”.

In my last post I wrote about online travel reviews from a hotelier’s perspective. This time I take off my hotelier’s hat to poke some fun at online reviews from a traveler’s perspective. (more…)

Wednesday, November 4, 2009 | Comments (4)

Written by Daniel Edward Craig

A few years ago at Opus Hotel Vancouver we relocated a couple who had driven up from Washington state to celebrate the husband’s fiftieth birthday. It was a nasty thing to do, but it happens in the hotel business, more frequently than most travelers think. Like the airlines, hotels overbook when demand is high, banking on a few no-shows, and occasionally we get caught with our pants down. Unlike the airlines, however, we don’t broadcast an oversold situation to a holding lounge full of travelers. We handle relocate situations discreetly, one-on-one with travelers, and typically no one is the wiser.

Or so that used to be the case. Social media networking has brought issues that used to be handled quietly between hotel and guest out into the open for the scrutiny of all. In this case, the couple retaliated by posting a bitter review on TripAdvisor and two other travel review sites. Their account of the incident was mostly accurate, something we hoteliers appreciate, although they declined to mention our many efforts to make amends. We would have preferred they hadn’t taken their grievance public, but we screwed up, so fair game. (more…)

Tuesday, October 20, 2009 | Comments (6)

Written by Daniel Edward Craig

When I last wrote a post about how to get a job in the hotel industry, the economy was booming and hotels were so desperate for staff they were stopping just short of dragging passersby off the street and slapping uniforms on them. These days, occupancy rates have tanked, room attendants are dozing on beds rather than making them, and it seems the only place to find job vacancies is in the obituaries.

Are job prospects that bleak? Absolutely not. Hotels are always in need of great people, but competition is fiercer than ever. Taking the time to understand the unique culture of the hotel industry will give you a leg up on other candidates. Here are a few insider tips to help prepare you for that elusive hotel interview.

(more…)

Friday, August 14, 2009 | Comments (3)

Written by Daniel Edward Craig

Now that luxury is a bad word, hoteliers are scrambling for ways to reinvent their hotels without spending a whack of money. The quick fix? Simply delete all references to “luxury” in marketing materials and replace them with “lifestyle”. Magically, the hotel’s image transforms from visions of champagne baths and gold-plated toilet seats to a holistic experience involving discovery, connecting and environmental responsibility.

Travelers beware. A similar trend started about a decade ago, after word got out that boutique hotels were more profitable than other hotels. Suddenly hotels large and small were calling themselves boutique. But then a number of players tarnished the boutique reputation by emphasizing style over comfort and hiring mannequins for staff. When the big hotel chains got into the action, the boutique reputation suffered even further. Soon hotels couldn’t distance themselves quickly enough from the contemporary boutique moniker. A new buzzword was needed, and along came the next generation of boutique hotels: the lifestyle hotel. (more…)

Tuesday, July 7, 2009 | Comments (2)

Written by Daniel Edward Craig

For the residents, businesses and visitors to Yaletown who have endured construction of the Canada Line underground rapid transit station these past three years, there’s a light at the end of the tunnel. Unfortunately, it’s a speeding train—a Canada Line train. Whether it will flatten us with a railcar of problems—traffic, parking, security—or will transport our neighbourhood to a new level of cosmopolitanism remains to be seen.

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Wednesday, May 13, 2009 | Comments (1)