As soon as a hotel asset is in trouble, hoteliers are advised to engage a turnaround consultant to protect the property and conserve cash.

More often than not, owners wait until it’s too late, said Cynthia Olcott, president and co-owner of hospitality management company Horizon Hotels, during a Distressed Hotels Virtual Forum panel discussion about improving operations and cash management.

“Frequently we’re brought in by special servicers or institutions after the asset is in trouble and we have to do damage control,” she said.

Mike Marshall, president and CEO of full-service hotel management company Marshall Hotels & Resorts, said whether “it’s somebody’s ego or other reasons” a lot wait until it’s far too late to get professional advice. “You’ve got to check that at the door and when you start to see things slipping, that’s the time to ask for help.”

Afshin Kateb, chief financial officer of Nimes Real Estate, which invests in multifamily, student housing and hotels, said his company asset manages its own assets but what his team lacks is market data on how commercial mortgage-backed security loans are being negotiated, for example.

He noted a turnaround consultant doesn’t necessarily need to “be heavily operational."

Additionally, Kateb said his company has strengthened its relationship with third-party management companies.

Olcott said her team has temporarily closed some properties due to COVID-19 and others are being considered for repositioning. For the ones that remain open, they’ve had to pare down the services and control payroll.

She noted there’s a couple properties that are performing “almost as well now as they were in 2019,” and maintaining the service levels at those hotels hasn’t been as challenging.

“For the most part, our key executive staff has been learning and working more shifts than they have wanted to; we’ve had to layoff staff,” she said, adding the issue with this downturn compared to previous ones is bringing staff back.

Luckily, the brands have been helpful in working with her company’s vendors and relaxing some standards.

Kateb said his team immediately worked with its management companies to figure out what can be done to make the guest experience more pleasant under the current health conditions, such as investing in thermal technology to read temperatures as guests enter the door.

Payroll was an area that needed trimmed, however. He said he worked with the management companies to ensure that those employees that remained were ones that could perform multiple roles. For example, a director of sales at one of its hotels learned to check guests in.

Marshall said his company laid off staff, reduced in-room amenities and cut back on food and beverage offerings.

At some point, those will need to resume. He said corporate travelers will demand those services once they return. For the ramp-up, his team is treating it as if they are opening new hotels.

Robert Naso, managing director at BentallGreenOak, a global investment platform, said he’s taking a measured pace for staffing and meeting demand as it returns. For the time being, to keep guests happy, he said it's about “doing more with less."

Roman Pedan, founder and CEO of Kasa Living, a company that offers short-term rentals inside hotels and multifamily properties, and who has partnered with hotels to provide turnaround services, said his team increases costs at the corporate level to reduce costs at the local level.

His company has taken the approach of leaning into the systems that create more efficiency and are less hands-on, such as contactless check-in.

“We need to make sure that, and we do make sure that, no check-in requires a human. Ahead of the stay, we do verification of their ID and selfies to make sure there’s no fraud. We have a system that upsells folks to increase up to 5% in revenue for early check-ins or parking requests or room upgrades,” he said.

The most important part of that system is the digital feedback, he said. Guests are immediately asked how the check-in process was. For the units that did not receive positive feedback, his company is able to retrieve information to better improve the next stay.

He said using technology has helped the hotels Kasa works with to increase GOP margins, reduce fixed costs and obtain higher occupancies.

While paring down costs is essential, operators must also ensure service isn’t being sacrificed. Olcott said Horizon Hotels is still dependent on online reviews and rankings on online travel agencies. But that one-on-one customer contact is still useful.

In the hotels where services have been trimmed, having the executive staff work the front desk has “increased our guest feedback,” she said. Some guest service associates in the past might have been reluctant to ask guests how their stays were whereas the general manager will request that feedback.

Kateb agreed online and digital reputation and guest interaction while at the hotel are equally crucial. And while the guest profile may have changed after the onset of the pandemic, people still want just as good of service despite paying a lower rate.

“I look at a metric called positive-negative ratio. We look at our hotels and say, ‘What is your positive to negative comments,’” he said, adding his team is forbidding its hotels from putting canned responses to reviews.

Each response must be specific to the guest and address their concerns because guests today are looking for authenticity.

Pedan said if you don’t know how well you’re doing, you can’t improve on it. In many cases, hotels get too few pieces of feedback from guests as a percentage of all communication. Increasing that percentage allows a hotel to better recover.

“The most important thing for us is connecting that feedback with the department and individuals that can affect it in the future,” he said. “When we get feedback on cleanliness, we give that feedback instantly to the housekeeper who cleaned the room.”