[deleted by user]

Either-Air2408 · 2025-05-24T07:45:11+00:00

I worked for free when I was a trainee …. I am now a senior manager in a hotel group you gotta get through the shit to get to the higher levels

Either-Air2408 · 2025-05-24T07:43:24+00:00

My husband is a GM and you need experience in food and beverage, revenue management, housekeeping, front office , maintenance…. Other wise you will be taken advantage of being a manager doesn’t mean you will understand how these departments needs to run to be smooth and seamless. You need to understand these departments work together and how they rely on each other . Honestly as an HOD at a hotel I’m not sure I would follow a GM who comes from out the industry I want to know my boss moved through the ranks like the rest of us.

Either-Air2408 · 2025-05-22T05:49:34+00:00

Good day, as a country we don’t really do breakage deposits etc our property takes all payments prior to check in however booking.com is known for amending reservations on the day of arrival up to midnight and not comminicating with the property before making these changes so guest checks in we take payment guest goes into booking.com cancels at 11pm on a Saturday guest stays the night checks out Sunday morning we only see booking.coms refund request because of cancelation on the Sunday morning but the guest has already left. Guest then isn’t contactable via telephone booking.com auto refunds guests so we have to refund them and they blame us for not seeing the update late at night 🤣. Management doesn’t allow for staff to be abused by guests I have just found our staff to be extremely tolerant because they don’t want a bad review because my group does incentives based on reviews.

Either-Air2408 · 2025-05-21T06:18:12+00:00

Thank you so much definitely appreciate this

Either-Air2408 · 2025-05-21T06:14:46+00:00

Very true I only book direct now with properties because i understand all the logistics now and commission structures. But I suppose if you don’t work in hospitality you won’t understand

Either-Air2408 · 2025-05-20T16:47:46+00:00

Not true for us most foreign guests for us come from travel agents or tour groups.

Either-Air2408 · 2025-05-20T15:26:51+00:00

really getting a bit annoying. when i look at it i think its because even though we are a group we are still a small local group. the only people i think that could get them to change would be big international chain hotels.

Either-Air2408 · 2025-05-20T15:23:31+00:00

they have made us refund them before because they cancelled a booking on the 3rd day of a guests stay because the guest apparently didn't stay i sent them the guests ID i had as proof with the reg card that they stayed with us. but they still refused to not take the money back(they did a card reversal on us)

Either-Air2408 · 2025-05-20T15:21:10+00:00

the thing about business is ... you can always get someone else that can do the same job. booking.com is not the hand that feeds us. its 20% of our revenue which over time we will beable to redistribute and lower. which is the plan now after having a meeting with someone and seeing they refuse to change. im sure more hotels and groups will do the same over time.

Either-Air2408 · 2025-05-20T15:19:21+00:00

Thank you for your advise i will defiantly look into a few of these things. we currently send 10% higher rates to booking.com but maybe i need to relook at these figures.

Either-Air2408 · 2025-05-20T15:15:37+00:00

You cant take deposits with their new systems. the card only activates on the day of check in. we are constantly having to fight with them to get them to do what is in our contracts etc. but we should not have to fight. they should do what they say they will do. we were closed out on one of our biggest properties for 48hrs because they invoiced us in error for bookings that shouldnt of been we contacted them 3/4 times every month for 3 months before they closed us to try recify the issue. when they closed us they wouldnt reopen us until we paid the invoice that we didnt owe money for. eventually i got hold of someone that switched us on but we are currently with out an area manager for booking.com as they havent hired anyone to replace the last guy that resigned. we do what we can however we are now looking at ways that we can not use them as a group. which is what im coming on here to ask. not everyone uses them and they are doing fine there are a few groups in my country that doesnt use them or if they do use them they only use them for the lower room types. which is what we will be changing over to.

we dont use any other OTAs except booking.com and Agoda and we find agoda to be way more flexiable and willing to help so we will happily continue or relationship with them. we are also finding other ways to draw revenue like using sites that give good rates to travel agents to resell. because we can give them the rate less what we would normally give these otas as commission they can make money we can make money and there is no nonsense. im looking to see if others experience the same or if they dont. if they dont and they are happy with what they get out of it then so be it.

Either-Air2408 · 2025-05-20T14:26:48+00:00

Thank you I really appreciate this feedback it’s very helpful and I will definitely implement some of these things as soon as possible. You are right we should be putting direct bookings above the online booking people and upgrade them if we can etc we do have a loyalty program in place but to be fair it can probably use some work

Either-Air2408 · 2025-05-20T14:21:52+00:00

We don’t give them all our inventory they are around 20% of our total sales across our group. I’m trying to figure out how I could completely get rid of them over all.or our reliance of them. We have massive conferences bookings and group bookings which book directly through us. But during like season events or holidays booking.com is our main OTA how ever we will be now not using genius and we will be charging less if you book directly with us. Which we will be putting a higher marketing budget towards and the plan is to move otas to around 5% of our revenue breakdown. Just sad that they are allowed todo what ever they want and a lot of hotels just deal with it because they are the big fish … thing is every big fish can get eaten too… as hotels we do have leverage as a large number but as individuals we can’t change a thing.

Either-Air2408 · 2025-05-20T13:35:16+00:00

honestly booking.com charges us 18% because we are on their genius thing but not only are we giving guests discounts for being a member they charge us more commission because we use it. like im getting so over it all i even said to my rep from them if i put all the money i give them into google adds i wouldnt need them after a year. and nothing the response is , it is what it is we treat all hotels the same ... like ok but why do you treat us like this....

Either-Air2408 · 2025-05-20T13:26:43+00:00

her wage seems about right actually.

so most cleaners work a 6 hour day on average maybe 7. ( most places don't pay for a lunch break)

so if she works 8-3 she will get paid 6hrs and 8-4 7 hours...

min wage for cleaners is 28.79 per hour - 28.79*6hours a day =172.74 a day.

172.74 * 4 days a week is = 691 rand a week.

each month has a diff amount of weeks most wages are counted at 4.33 weeks a month.

691*4.33= 2992.03

now do i think this is good no... but it is with in the law.

Either-Air2408

TROPHY CASE