In all his years of hotel-keeping, Marcus Hanna never imagined he’d be running a “Hotel California” type operation where guests “can never leave” their rooms but so it has been for the past months with his hotels, Swissotel Stamford (1,252 rooms) and now one tower of the Fairmont Singapore (total 778 rooms), being used for government-related Covid-19 purposes.
But these are strange times and the Australian-born Hanna, who’s been general manager of the two Raffles City hotels for the past five years, is learning to take things in stride while leading his team through the most challenging times ever to hit hospitality.
Curious to find out what it has been like for a general manager at the coalface of operations of Covid-19 hotels, as well as some of his staff (see related article on what it’s been like frontline workers in hospitality), I finally got a chance to catch up with Hanna face to face with the easing of Circuit Breaker restrictions and it felt good to be seeing each other, albeit through Covid-19 tinted glasses.
Allaying anxiety, comforting guests and deploying staff
“What has it been like?” I asked.
“It’s been different stages,” he said. “When the first case happened, we started seeing cancellations. We then looked at what happened during SARS, and we modelled our business on that and hoped that by late July we would recover.
“But come March, when we realised things were going to get worse, we had our meetings with the unions. And I have to say the Food and Drink Allied Workers Union has been great and supportive. They helped us redeploy 288 staff across eight other businesses in Singapore.”
The Singapore Tourism Board and the government then signed on hotels as Stay-Home-Notice (SHN) premises, and since the end of March Swissotel Stamford has been run as such.
What does it take to run a SHN hotel, I asked.
“On a daily basis we still have 1,600 guests we need to feed, so it’s a full operation. Guests are not allowed out of the rooms, we drop the food on the door handle, our staff knocks on the door and then runs away,” he smiles. “The same with fresh linen and towels.”
As you can imagine it’s a tedious and painstaking process, packed with safety and hygiene protocol. “Our teams are trained by the Ministry of Health, they are taught how viruses are contracted, how they need to wear PPE gear, how they clean rooms. Once a guest has checked out we leave the room vacant for a couple of days before they are cleaned.”
Operations and teams of the two hotels are kept separate, with separate entrances established. Hanna, for example, is not allowed in the Swissotel Stamford and “we speak to each other on a daily basis” through remote briefings.
“I never thought I’d be running a hotel like this but there have been some good stories that have come out – messages from guests to say how well looked after they’ve been. Halfway through their stay we send them something nice with a message like “stay strong”. We give them check-out certificates after the 14 days to say, congratulations you made it.
“We call the guests every night to check on their well-being and if there’s anything else they need. We help arrange deliveries from them.”
He recalled an incident in which a piano arrived at the door because the guest missed his piano. “We couldn’t allow that, so the piano had to go home.”
Key was also managing staff anxiety. “Of course, some were anxious about working in a SHN hotel and that’s why the briefings were a great help, basically reassuring them ‘if you do everything right you are not at risk’. That alleviated their anxiety and we are working great as a team.”
On July 2, the Fairmont South Tower became a SHN hotel while the North Tower is available for guests and has opened for staycations. On why it decided to become an SHN hotel, Hanna said, “Firstly, we want to assist the government to keep Singapore safe and secondly, it assists us with cash flow and gives us confidence for a few more times. It’s about buying time until borders open.”
Staff are tested for coronavirus every two weeks and “touch wood, there have been no infections,” said Hanna.
Digging into wine cellars and developing tech products made by hoteliers for hoteliers
During the months of Circuit Breaker, with restaurants and bars closed, the hotel moved to takeaways and delivery, with Prego, the Italian restaurant, doing well. To assist cash flow it dug into its wine cellar and sold wines through delivery and pick-up.
The hotel’s restaurants have opened – Prego and Anti:dote – and Skye and JAAN will open this week. “It’s good to see guests again,” said Hanna.
Its IT team, led by head of IT and innovation Ahmed Disokey, also used this period to develop tech products. First up is a contactless solution for check-in and check-out, and payment. “Twenty four hours before arrival we send guests a link, they fill in their details, can upgrade their room, get their key when they arrive and when they check out, pay.
“It was always going to be stage two of our automated check-in at Swissotel introduced in 2018 but we expedited it.”
Another product is an in-room solution that allows guests to order any service – dining, luggage pickup, towels, linen – as well as order and pay in restaurants. The third product is a MICE portal, which will allow meeting planners to order amenities and facilities.
It is selling these solutions to other hotels to create new revenue streams. “We are creating products made by hoteliers for hoteliers so they are extremely user-friendly,” said Hanna.
Making mooncakes, creating new revenue streams, marketing staycations
With the future still uncertain as to when inbound business can return, Hanna said it would have to get creative about creating new revenue streams. “We have to continue to look for new business, to look for non-traditional revenue streams, to reinvent ourselves,” said Hanna. “The tech platform business will do well – there’s a set-up fee as well as licence and service fee, depending on the size of the hotel.”
Then it’s about managing the costs “although we’re pretty much bare bones by now, no fat left,” said Hanna.
Typically its revenues are split 40% f&b and 60% rooms, with most of the f&b coming from events that will be the last piece of business to return. Its ballrooms have been converted into training spaces, and storage space. Its banquet kitchen produces food for SHN guests.
With restrictions around gatherings it’s hard to get creative with the spaces and while there is talk going on about how to convert some spaces into hybrid venues, “all require investment and we are cash poor”.
It had 1,243 staff members at the start and shed 120 due to natural attrition, said Hanna. “A lot of housekeeping and room attendants from China resigned and returned home when things were getting under control in China.”
More foreign staff will be lost through natural attrition as their work permits expire. Staff have been sent on training schemes under government subsidies which cover 90% of training costs.
“There are so many different courses. For example, we have mooncake season coming up and usually a lot of casual workers come in at this time but now we have staff going to baking courses and they are going to come out of this with new skills,” said Hanna.
The only source of room business for the foreseeable future will have to come from the domestic market and he admits the challenges of marketing staycations in a city hotel. “It is our job to show Singaporeans how much there is to do around City Hall, the amazing walks around the gardens and bay, the National Gallery and the museums, as well as the dining facilities.”
It has created a package of S$305++, which includes various goodies such as early check in, late checkout, ala carte breakfast, $100 f&b voucher, a Covid-19 pack and a $50 return voucher. It’s coming up with interesting ideas for example, it has an aquaponics farm on Level 5 and can offer farm-to-table dining experiences for those interested.
The creative process has been exciting but Hanna confesses to a degree of tiredness settling in, with the question that’s on everyone’s minds, “when is this going to end?”
“My job is to keep everyone motivated. We will travel again. So we got to be positive. We have people coming in now to eat and stay. When the first guest came in it made me feel like I’m running a hotel again. It made me feel alive again.”
See related story: Meet the unsung heroes of Raffles City hotels, Singapore
• Featured image (Swissotel Stamford Singapore): Swissotel Stamford Singapore