How Hoteliers Can Make It Through the Holiday Season – ehotelier’s Weekly Review

Nov 16, 12 | 12:08 am

By Anne Edwards, Editor in Chief, ehotelier

Something in Larry Mogelonsky’s article this week Bathroom Make or Break caught my attention and got me thinking about what it takes to make it through the holiday season and still be standing at the end of it. In this article about attention to detail in bathroom presentation, he referred to the bathroom as “a private, personal space, and therefore, its design can evince a highly emotional response.” A highly emotional response – yes, it is true, I have been both delighted by clever or sensual features and enraged by uncomfortable or confusing design in hotel bathrooms. Emotions that appear quite over the top when one looks at what elicited them, yet this is how we experience the world – primarily through our emotions, and the more important something is to us, the more our emotions are going to play a role in the way we perceive what is happening around us and the way in which we respond to that.

This train of thought led me to the questions ‘What is most important to hoteliers right now?’ and ‘How might that play out emotionally?’ Coming up to Christmas and the holiday season, I can imagine that after a big year, hoteliers are either looking forward to a financially productive time or bracing themselves for the final onslaught of the year, depending on how they are feeling. The holiday season can bring us together to celebrate our relationships and achievements and can also leave us feeling drained and unwell. How are you planning to manage the end of the year? How have you managed in the past? What are your options?

Moving Away from Threat, Moving Toward Reward

At the most basic level, we are driven by one of two things – threat or reward. We move toward reward and away from threat.  The important thing to note here is the ‘or’. We cannot actually experience both states simultaneously (think about it – if there’s a picnic table laden with delicious food and a bear prowling nearby, we are not going to approach the food no matter how hungry we may be). If we find ourselves spending most of our time moving away from threat, there will be little time left for pursuing reward. So the question is – how can we reduce the perceived threats in our lives coming up to this busy season so that we can enjoy the rewards?

Don’t hate me, but I am writing this article from a deckchair overlooking a rugged coastline in a caravan park on the south coast of New South Wales, Australia. For the last couple of years I have taken a week out at this busy time to relocate myself to my parents’ caravan and though I keep working, I can enjoy the peace and space this place affords me. The positive effect of this change of scene on the end of my year has been well worth the effort in organising it. I’m not saying that the solution for everyone to decrease threat is to take a holiday but it has given me a valuable insight – that there are ways we can all ‘get away’ from that pressure cooker feeling of the countdown to the new year

Creating Space

Here are three ways to ‘get away’- to make some ‘space’ in your head and keep your emotional world from capsizing at this busy time:

1. Take a few minutes multiple times a day to sit quietly, close your eyes, steady your breathing, and take yourself back to the best holiday you’ve ever had. Concentrate on the sensations – what are you hearing, smelling, feeling, seeing, tasting? Research shows that if you engage your brain in this type of exercise, it will release the same ‘reward’ chemicals as it released when you were actually there.
2. Do things to make you laugh. Again, it’s about releasing the chemicals that make you feel good. If you haven’t discovered them yet, have a look at Steve Cokkinias’s stories - It's Story Time: Blizzards and Blankets, It's Story Time: A Monster of a Guest - Wife-Zilla and It’s Story Time: A Ploy in the Presidential Suite. These stories have me laughing out loud
3. See yourself from another person’s perspective or from the perspective of a future time. How does this moment look to another person, or how will it look 5 years into the future? Is it as threatening as it appears to be to you right now? Have a look at Alan Campbell’s latest article in Thursday’s edition Viewing the Hotel Business from the Other Side, in which he describes how guests see hotel staff.

To sum up, whether it be a real holiday or a virtual one, taking time to read a funny article or enjoy a nice meal, or getting a different perspective on a situation, set yourself up for a rewarding end of year this year.

About Anne Edwards

Anne Edwards combines her love of language, travel, and different cultures as Editor in Chief of ehotelier.com. Prior to this position, Anne lectured in Cross Cultural Studies at the Blue Mountains International Hotel Management School in Australia and currently consults to the Australian Federal Government on subjects such as Leadership and Building Productive Partnerships. Anne has travelled and worked internationally for twelve years, holding various positions in the field of education, most notably as linguistic advisor to the Crown Princess of Thailand for two years where she sampled some of the best hotels in the world. Her love for travel spans the freedom of wandering on a shoe-string budget to the finest standards of service in world-class properties. As Editor in Chief of one of the largest hotel news sites in the world, Anne has a birds-eye view of what is happening in the industry internationally.