We do it their way… why groups love the Hotel

Hatem Matar is a man with a mission. As manager of the village hotel, he is determined to provide superior service on a modest budget to all kinds of visiting groups, and these days he can chalk up a lot of successes. It’s all about attention to detail, and working smarter.

The Hadassah Medical Organization, for example, conducts twice-yearly oral examinations for board certification in gynecology at our guest house. Between sessions, the examiners are given ample refreshments in a convivial atmosphere in the White Dove room. The young doctors awaiting their turn, meanwhile, congregate under a cloud of anxiety in the hotel lobby, where the reception desk staff can keep an eye on them and presumably administer smelling salts if anyone faints.

Pass with distinction

A few ordinary hotel bedrooms, minus the beds, become certification testing rooms with the addition of tables and chairs. The aspiring gynecologists enter their designated room one at a time and are grilled in real time by a panel of examiners for about 45 minutes, after which they are told immediately whether they have passed or failed. "When I first came here, I inherited this client," Hatem confided recently, "but they were considering abandoning us for a different venue. I sat down with them and asked them to tell me exactly what they needed, and we provided it, and they’re very satisfied." (Pass with distinction!)

Some time ago Dr. Coby Sonnenschein, physicist and veteran resident of NSWAS, initiated a regular series of discussions for physicists from Tel Aviv University, who meet at the hotel once a week to hear a guest lecturer and eat lunch together. Combine Coby’s initiative with Hatem’s service ethos and you get a winning equation: Originally scheduled for twice a month, this forum so pleased the group that they expanded the arrangement and now meet every week – at the hotel, of course. Coby was also behind the visit to NSWAS by physics superstar Prof. Stephen Hawking, who delivered a lecture to an international audience in the village not long ago. That one is hard to top, but neither Hatem nor Coby are the type to rest on their laurels, so stay tuned.

The variety of group customers these days is vast. Our hotel also hosts workshops convened by the PsychoDharma Institute of Israel, twice a year, for two or three days each time; this is the sort of customer that boosts occupancy rates during the slower mid-week time slot. Twenty to thirty participants attend these gatherings. The Jerusalem Open House, one of the country’s primary networks serving the GLBT public, holds its national conferences at our hotel because we are committed to providing a welcoming, safe space for all. Two or three times a year, an Israeli arts organization convenes three days of writing and visual arts workshops in the village hotel. This last client was poached from a nearby four-star establishment, attracted by our staff’s outstanding attention to detail, insuring comprehensive coverage of all the organization’s needs at their working sessions for painters and writers.

Strategic marketing

As part of a comprehensive quality control upgrade undertaken last spring, the hotel has been refining its marketing strategy. Geographically, our oasis on a hill sits between two major regional hotel associations affiliated with the Ministry of Tourism and the Israel Hotel Association – Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. To create more of a marketing presence, the hotel has now joined with five other guest houses in the immediate area to create the Judean Hills Hotels Association (in Hebrew, the Yoav-Yehuda Tourism Association). Joint marketing leverages a much greater media presence for the same investment.

Since last spring, the hotel staffers have participated in two formal study tours that take them through the neighboring guest houses to observe and learn. Three times a year, all six hotels run joint get-acquainted tours for local and incoming (foreign) travel agents, tour guides, travel writers, and clergy who guide pilgrimage groups from abroad.

Local marketing is proactive. Reservations manager Naief Abbas and front desk manager Rabia Barhoum go out about once every ten days, together, visiting with travel agents and acquainting them with our facilities. "Sending a team of two has more than twice the impact of sending one representative, even twice as often, alone," Hatem notes; it’s another aspect of working smarter.

The equipment provided for seminars, workshops and conferences is continually updated to retain that hard-won marketing edge. Computer, AV and projection equipment upgrades are handled internally by reservations manager Naief, wearing his other hat as in-house chief of information technology.

Occupancy is up again

Two years ago, occupancy was at a tepid 34 percent (on an annual basis). Last year, it jumped to 44 percent. This year’s target was 46 percent and the hotel expects to achieve it; that computes to a very respectable 4.5 percent increase over last year’s figure.

Hatem sees investment in the staff as fundamental to the hotel’s future. Temporary (manpower agency) workers have all been replaced now with permanent staff. The employment of agency people, Hatem says, was a short-term necessity that gave him time to find, evaluate, and train a stable cadre of reliable people with the requisite skills. Meanwhile, as part of quality enhancement efforts, all staff have begun wearing name tags and a uniform, giving a bit more formality to their appearance. Routine staff meetings are held monthly, with ad hoc meetings once a week to deal with special situations as they arise. "We want our staff to care about how the customers are doing," says Hatem, "but we don’t teach them any sort of set speeches to recite by rote, as is all the rage lately in some industries abroad. Instead, we try to encourage authentic communication with the customer. When one of our staff says ’How are you?’ or ’Do you have everything you need?’ to a guest, we would like it to be a genuine question, not some prepackaged statement imposed by management."

All these efforts are having a discernible impact. The hotel has just been awarded Five Flowers (the highest attainable) by the Council for a Beautiful Israel in conjunction with the Israel Hotel Association, and there’s a flowery plaque hanging in the lobby to prove it. The judging for this award encompassed the landscaping and physical plant, the interiors, and even the appearance and conduct of the staff. Hatem Matar and everyone working with him are to be congratulated for having brought the hotel so far in such a relatively short time. You, dear reader, are encouraged to contact the hotel about group visits as well as individual travel plans. Suggestions and referrals, and of course reservations, are always welcome.