Opening Hotels Well: Top Lessons Learned From Kimpton, Two Roads & Hyatt - Jorge Treviño

Josiah: A new opening sets the tone for a hotel's success for years to come. So what does it take to do it right? I can't think of someone better to answer this question than Jorge Trevino, who, in his first role dedicated to new hotel openings, opened up 44 hotels for Kimpton before opening countless others as an Executive Vice President at Two Roads Hospitality and his most recent role as Senior Vice President of Openings and Operations for Hyatt. In this episode, we cover everything from what's at stake during the opening, to what he learned opening hotels for Bill Kimpton, to best practices anyone can use when going through this process. Even if you're not opening a new property now, there's a ton I learned from providing hospitality well in this episode that I think you're going to enjoy. 

Jorge: I hate to sound cliche-ish, but whether it's a hotel, a restaurant, a spa, or whatever business it is, when you open the doors for the first time to your guest, no matter what it is, that experience needs to be the best it has to be from that day going back. A lot of people don't give you second chances. So, you know, I think first impressions are super important. Incredibly important. That's why hotels and restaurants go through days, if not weeks, of mock training, of simulation training, of drive runs in the restaurants, because you only have one chance. So I think the time spent in the pre-opening, from the moment the deal is done by development, To picking the brand that's going to go there, that's where it all starts. Delivering on the brand promise at every touch point is super important. And if there's a misstep anywhere in there, that's where people are going to concentrate. They always remember the things that don't do so well, because at a certain point in luxury and lifestyle, the expectation is already there. You are spending this much money. You chose this place to go to for your honeymoon or your wedding or for your special occasion or just for vacation, using your own money to have this experience. And if something goes wrong, it just hurts differently than when you're on a business trip. So I think setting up the hotels, restaurants, and spas from the pre-opening is super crucial to the success of the hotel, restaurants, or spas from that point going forward.

Josiah: That's great context. You know, many of our listeners have experienced through that pre-opening process. Maybe for those who haven't been part of that process yet, what are the core elements of things that you look at or are thinking about through that pre-opening process?

Jorge: I think the first thing is the hiring of the correct individuals for the correct positions, wherever this place might be. Whether it's culturally knowledgeable, whether it's knowledge of the space or place where it's at. I think having the right team in place to set up the opening, and you're talking everything from sales and marketing to general manager, to human resources, to engineering, to rooms, I mean, every position has to be looked at as an expert in what they're doing. In an opening, there's very little time for learning at that level because you're concentrating on teaching and teaching and teaching. Once you're in that level, in an incredible output of production that has to go in, if you can only imagine from budgets, pre-opening budgets, to sales and marketing, to hiring the entire staff, to the moving parts kind of exponentially get exposed during an opening. And you have to be quick on your feet. You have to be knowledgeable of your brand of the hotel or of the location you're at. So I think to me, That's very, very important, the selection of the team.

Josiah: Makes a lot of sense. What are the common traits of successful hotel openings? You've been a lot of these, so it's people are really important. Are there any other kind of best practices you've observed on any of the stakeholders in the ecosystem?

Jorge: Yeah, I think we really need to divide the opening on, let's start with the guests, the employees first. We don't have guests yet, right? Making sure, like I said earlier, that we are hiring the right people for the right roles. And a lot of times it's people that have no experience in hospitality, but they have the right attitude. And if you talk to, I would say eight out of 10 people, they rather have the great attitude than the great technical skills. People just want that, especially nowadays. I think if you go from an owner experience, you can imagine the anxiety of an owner that's opening this hotel or restaurant or group and the importance that is the pre-opening budget for them. It's like, there's going to be overruns in constructions. So if you can prevent from having overruns in the operational set, I think your owners are going to be super happy with you. As a matter of fact, they will. And if there's going to be unexpected expenses that you have the right explanation because communication with the owners during these 18 months to 24 months, it's super important. If you're not keeping the owner or the asset manager for the owner in complete information of what's going on, things can go sideways very easy. So now you have taken care of your employees, you're taking care of your owners. Now, what are you doing to attract guests? We want to book business. We know it's very hard for meetings and conventions and weddings to book rooms and hotels that are not open because they've been burned before.

Josiah: We've all heard of the bride… How did you write well in… Yeah.

Jorge: I mean, it's like, how many brides have we heard that it's like, oh, we're going to have to relocate a wedding because we're not going to be ready. So you start damaging that reputation before you're even open, right? So it's super important for construction, operations, sales, and marketing to be in such the same page that if most likely, if an opening is going to slip, because they will, that everybody's on the same page of when that's going to happen and how it's going to happen, because Like we were saying earlier, you've hired your employees, you're trying to keep your owners happy. And now the opening slips. Now you have extra payroll, a lot of extra payroll because you're really hired your staff. So now you're compounding. Now that is going to cause anxiety to any owner or any asset manager that you've hired all this staff. We're supposed to open two weeks ago. Now I have two more weeks of payroll to carry. So I think keeping those three. players in mind, your employees, your owners, and your guests. And again, going back to what do we do to turn on that faucet once the hotel is open? To attract people, to get trial by error, to have people come and stay with us and not stay where they were staying before.

Josiah: What does that look like? I want to get into how we can attract guests to a new opening, but I am very curious on the information sharing because a lot of people talk about, oh, we have to be on the same page or that. And I'm curious, I think you mentioned, you know, construction, you know, sales and marketing, and then there's the asset managers and the investors. But was there any format of communication or any practical things you did to make all of those stakeholders in work in harmony that you found to be very effective?

Jorge: God, if I had found that out, I would be probably the king of the world because it's such a hard thing to wrangle, to wrangle the construction team, which wants the ownership or something to say, hey, no, we're on time. Everything's going fine. So now you have operations thinking, okay, you're telling me that everything's fine, right? So I'm going to start my process. And they do understand what the consequences, but they're not really worried about what the operator's doing. We were having this conversation a few weeks ago in an Island somewhere. And I think when you have an incredible. engineering team, not only on the property, but also as a support engineering team, that they have a great relationship with the construction team. That minimizes a lot of problems because the construction guy, usually from the hotel company, understands operation because they usually grew up through properties or whatever. So having that incredible engineering support or facility support, different companies call it different things, that is in constant communication with construction, that they have an open communication that when something falls out of schedule, they can look forward. If this doesn't happen, this is what's going to happen in the next two or three months. So how can we correct this? So when you have a great engineering or facilities leader coordinating with construction that I think has minimizes challenges and opportunities in the future.

Josiah: Yeah, it seems very challenging, but I appreciate you walking through that a little bit. But I want to go back to something you mentioned is critical, is getting people to the property as soon as possible. And I guess one question I would have, there's how early do you begin some of these sales and marketing efforts before the property's scheduled to open?

Jorge: The director of sales is usually one of the first employees that comes into the executive team. Sometimes even a head of the general manager, because they understand the importance that is to be out in the community, especially if it's a new community that they don't know the brand or the hotel. And also to see what's going on in the city. So what can, you know, conventions built three to four years ahead of time. So how can I get that convention X to stay with me in two years when we're just starting construction right now? And nowadays. With social media, the way it is that if you're not on top of that from pre-opening, if you're not teasing your audience from pre-opening of what is to come, you are going to lose that opportunity. You're going to squander that time because we're all looking at what X, Y, and Z are doing when they're coming, even pre-opening photos and campaigns that I've seen some companies do. want you to be there before the hotel even opens. They know how to visually present the location or the space or wherever they are without even showing you a hotel room. So I think that's very, very important nowadays. And of course, along with that comes the influencers and whether it's restaurant hotels or spas and who are those influencers for that market and how do you get them to come?

Josiah: Do you get them there before the hotel officially opens because you're thinking about kind of creating all this media and this buzz or at what point in the process is best to bring those people in?

Jorge: I think, and we go back to, if you want your property to show up beautifully, let's wait until you're completely open and make sure that you, you got it, you know, you dust it a little bit before you bring anybody on property that is going to do whatever they want with their phone. I mean, if you're inviting them, you're exposing yourself, right? However, you do have pre-events in different markets to introduce a hotel that you invite these people to attend. So they can start learning about the hotel before they even get there. And they understand that. They understand that they they can start teasing the hotel or and then once they get there, they can really blow it up.

Josiah: Got it. I also want to talk about the sales side a little bit more as well, because I'm professionally interested and personally interested about how do you get integrated into a community? What does that look like to start building those relationships?

Jorge: Oh my God. I mean, and you have to divide, is this a city hotel? Is this a resort hotel? Is this a hotel that's out in the middle of nowhere in the mountains? So that integration with that community looks so many different ways. And I'm just going to go a city hotel in a a market, it's of course, who is your convention and tourism bureau? Who are these people that support the industry? Your American Hotel and Lodging Association chapter, who is in there? Who are the hotels that are being so successful and how are they being successful? So I think the integration to Whether it was with Kimpton, with Communo, with Two Roads, because all of them were lifestyle companies that really had roots in where they started. It was quintessential for us and our general managers in our restaurants, director of sales, to really, really be a part of the fabric of that community.

Josiah: I love it. Is there anything else you want to talk about on the opening process?

Jorge: I think like, it's funny that we have a joke that it's not a hotel until it floods, especially if it's right before an opening. Unexpected things are going to happen and you just have to be able to shake it off and pick it up and change is going to happen every day during a hotel opening.

Josiah: Be ready for anything, right?