I have stayed in more hotels with Сasino Games in the last decade than I could keep count of and most years it is fair to say that I spend more time in hotels than in my own home. Naturally with traveling to so many hotels, you start to get pretty high standards when you find a new hotel. Last week I was in the Bicycle Casino Hotel, staying for 6 days and it suddenly became clear to me that this is exactly how a hotel should be run.
This hotel really had it all and this is what it does so well that many other hotels could learn from.
Cleanliness
I am always, always stunned when I go to a hotel, budget or otherwise, and it is not clean, in fact there are few things worse than going to a hotel and finding a dirty room. Cleanliness should not be something that you need to talk about but unfortunately; many owners didn’t get that memo. The Bicycle hotel in California was clean from ceiling to floor throughout every rooms, the amenities, the restaurant and the bar. Very basic, but very important.
Service
Hotels have a problem now in terms of their competition against the vacation rental market and the one thing which they have that vacation rentals do not, is staff on hand to help. For this reason when I walk into hotel , I expect to be greeted with a smile and be made welcome from the time that I enter, to the time that I leave. Once again however, you’d be surprised at just how many hotels there are out there who do not understand just how important service really is. The Bicycle hotel absolutely nailed it in terms of service and they treated me like royalty.
Entertainment
Hotels must have different strings to their bows and the Bicycle hotel shows the world exactly how you can use entertainment to further push the bottom line. Not only does the hotel have the largest casino floor in the West Coast, it also has regular entertainment such as shows and comedy nights, as well as private parties and themed nights in their bar. What this does is that it brings in more people from outside the hotel, to spend money inside it. When you have a bar that is bouncing, it attracts everyone around it to come inside and helps you to make even more money. Try not to be a Jack of all trades, pick one form of entertainment and be excellent at it before moving on to something else.
Promotions
This hotel gets almost 90% of all of its bookings online and it uses the likes of booking.com to offer promotions on empty rooms to ensure that they have a guest in them. It is far better to part with a room for a low price than leave it empty. As a hotel owner you must do all that you can to keep the business coming in.
