"We see a trend of the evacuees leaving, and we are preparing for the matter."
Crowne Plaza Hotel Tel Aviv/Ayia Ben Azri
Some of the hotels across the country where evacuees were staying, have already begun to gradually empty of the guests they have become accustomed to since the beginning of the war.
Now these hotels are preparing to receive guests who come to rest - a process that requires rehabilitation, as Yaron Lipman, VP of Headquarters and Strategy of the Atlas Hotels chain defines it. The
chain has 16 hotels throughout the country, most of them in Tel Aviv. Of the 1,100 hotel rooms of the chain, at the height of the fighting period - 700-800 of them were occupied by evacuees. "Today there are about 300 rooms with evacuees, while the rest of the rooms are vacated for regular guests," says Lipman.
"When the evacuees were given the alternative of a living allowance, a gradual process of evacuating the hotels began, because It is not easy for a family to live in a hotel for a long time.
By the way, one of the most complicated things for us today is the uncertainty, because in fact the evacuees can from one day to the next leave of their own accord for alternative housing, the hotel can suddenly become empty, and we have no reservations because the rooms were occupied.
In addition, the rooms also need to be rehabilitated, and the operation of the hotel and its service have changed in recent months because the evacuees actually came to live in the hotel as opposed to people who come to rest in the hotel
.
" I don't blame them in any way, I understand them one hundred percent.
These are families who are often in a room with children, which is not easy.
For example, you see children drawing with markers on walls or furniture, plasticine stuck on carpets.
You have to thoroughly paint each and every room, sometimes you also have to replace some tools and other, and especially bed linens that are already out of use.
Even in the public spaces, you should take care of thorough and deep cleaning of furniture and upholstery.
We had a lot of animals during this time.
Even in the routine we receive animals, I myself also come to work with my dog, but the amount of animals we experienced during this period - there was nothing like that.
We had dogs, cats, parrots, fish.
Dogs and cats defecated in the rooms, on upholstery, there were dogs that bit all kinds of furniture.
I am again careful not to sound like a complaint, everything is understandable and everything is done with love, but it needs to be fixed."
How do you even begin this rehabilitation, when in some hotels, next to rooms that have been emptied, there are still rooms where evacuees live
?
"We are in a crisis from a business point of view, so we must as soon as possible manage to host
We made a decision that as soon as you start to see the departure of evacuees, you start clearing floors: work floor by floor, and then you actually know that there is a floor available for guests coming for vacation.
Also, because currently, unfortunately, guests only come to vacation on weekends, so in the middle of the week we deal with restoration and on weekends we host."
Cinema Hotel in Tel Aviv, from the Atlas/Sarit Gofen chain of hotels
Between vacation and recovery
Yaron Lipman, Vice President of Headquarters and Strategy of the Atlas/Ynai Yehiel hotel chain
In addition to that, Lipman says, the hospitality concept also needs to be thought about these days.
"We have hotels that have been completely emptied of evacuees, such as Center Chic in Tel Aviv; hotels that combine both evacuees and guests who come to rest, such as the Cinema Hotel in Tel Aviv which was completely full of evacuees, and now 3/4 of them have already left; and there is also one hotel that is entirely evacuees
. Where we hosted evacuees, we served three meals a day, while on normal days we would only serve breakfast. On the other hand, in terms of maids and maintenance workers, since the beginning of the war we needed less, because they cleaned the rooms only one day a week. Now this means reintegrating the staff in the hotels that were emptied completely from evacuees.
But the most complex part is to be able to accommodate the combination of hotels where you have to return to the hospitality protocol of a vacation, alongside the fact that there are still evacuees living in the hotel. Suddenly, for example, a situation arises where you have to explain why some people receive three meals, while vacationers only receive breakfast On the other hand, there is a 'Happy Hour' for vacationers, and then you have to explain why the evacuees don't deserve it. There are quite a few challenges."
Is there time to think ahead while doing these tasks?
"We are constantly thinking ahead, because we have no choice but to be optimistic. It is clear to us that during the holidays inbound tourism will not return significantly, but on the other hand we understand that destinations around us that were popular, such as Sinai and Turkey - probably less Israelis went to them. Therefore we believe that if and there will be no surprises There are more fronts, so at least in the aspect of domestic tourism there will be work. But I am also saying this in a state of much uncertainty. I can think about Pesach, but not all hotels can sell Pesach yet, because there are hotels with evacuees, and we don't know until when They will stay."
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Michael Givani, Vice President and Director of the Rooms Department at the Crowne Plaza Tel Aviv Hotel, from the Africa Israel Hotels chain/Aloni Shimoni
Damage Control
"We see a trend of the evacuees leaving, and we are preparing for the matter," says Michael Givani, director of the rooms department, VP, at the Crowne Plaza Tel Aviv hotel from the Africa Israel Hotels chain, whose hotels were approximately 100% occupied by the evacuees from the north and the south. As of the end of November, some A large number of them began working with a mix of evacuees and vacationers alike.
"We clean the rooms that the evacuees leave in favor of regular bookings, and also take care of the public areas, the lobby, restaurants, spa, pool," says Givani. "For three months, our hotel had more than 450 evacuees, of which more than 100 are children, and it is only natural that there will also be damages.
The cleanliness is also no longer 'fine' and not elegant enough as it used to be, because there were, for example, 15 dogs that roamed the hotel and there could be stains on carpets.
For a long time, the hotel became people's residences, it was like their home, and these residences need to be brought back to the level of a hotel."
How do you approach this matter?
"We do damage control, go room by room.
All damages are documented with us, there is a whole team around it, there are professionals.
Many times children rattled on bedding and walls.
It's to paint the rooms, sometimes there is furniture that needs to be replaced, towels and sheets that due to wear already have to be thrown away, sometimes a TV breaks, a table breaks.
It happens that the lighting is also damaged, they also check air conditioning systems, filters."
A room at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Tel Aviv/official website, official website
"Sometimes there are also things that need to be ordered from contractors," Giboni adds, "like, for example, a window in a room that was broken due to children's play. All of these things are used to living in a house, but now we are using it back to the standards of a high-class hotel, to the standards of the Crowne Plaza. This is a cost not canceled, but we believe that the state will participate in this matter. Therefore, everything is documented with photos and reported in a very orderly manner, as we were asked to submit to the state."
At the moment, Giboni points out, of the hotel's 263 rooms, about 60 are for sale to guests who want to vacation.
"In the beginning, we were almost 100% occupied by evacuees, mainly from the south," he says.
"A month and a half ago, evacuees started leaving for rented apartments, and there was also an option to move between hotels from city to city.
That's how we actually freed up rooms and started using them for guests who will arrive. I'm happy to say that the rooms we've already booked - they're all full. Now we're headed to Pesach. We have no idea what our Pesach will look like , because we don't know what will happen tomorrow, but we already have to prepare ourselves for the most complex holiday in hotels, which this year is even twice as complex."
Amit Bhatt, Chief Operating Officer of the Isrotel Network/Isrotel Network
Have a good Passover
"I believe it will be a good Passover, Israelis want to go on vacation, vacation and family gatherings. Probably at the end of February-beginning of March the hotels will be vacated by the residents of the south. These are the messages we are receiving, and from our point of view we are making full preparations for Passover," says optimistically Amit Bhat, Chief Operating Officer of Reshet Yisrotel, which during its peak hosted 15,000 evacuees in 22 of its 23 hotels.
"As soon as we realized that there was a thought about evacuees leaving, we started a process that was divided into two," notes Bhatt. "At the network level, we had to take care of human capital.
The managers and employees went through a difficult time.
They have done an amazing job since the beginning of the war, and all this time they had to emotionally take care of their families as well as the evacuees.
We understood that it is necessary to take care of employees and managers on an emotional level, go from hotel to hotel, talk to the staff, hear what they are going through.
We have also built a plan for getting back to normal, that is, how to move the employees back from evacuee jobs to exclusive service for guests who come to rest.
We have already started a process of internal trainings, we are returning with them to the original procedures of the high level of service to the guest, treatment of club members of the Isrotel network.
We even go down to the smallest level, how to serve coffee upside down in the dining room, and what a perfect room looks like in Israel."
Eilat Red Sea Hotel from the Isrotel chain.
Hosted by evacuees from Kerem Shalom and Nir Oz/Lior Grundman
The hybrid hotel
The second part in terms of preparing for hosting vacationers, notes Bhat, "It's really Excel tables regarding the condition of every room that is vacated in every hotel. Every hotel CEO received an organized plan from me.
I want to reach a situation where, as soon as the hotels are returned to normal, then the guests who pay money and come on vacation will receive the perfect room as they were used to before the war."
Recently, the Red Sea Hotel in Eilat, where the communities of Nir Oz and Kerem Shalom stayed, was completely vacated. "After the two communities left, we closed the hotel to give it a refresh and open it perfectly," says Bhatt. "The hotel has had hundreds of people, day after day, the rooms need to be painted, all the curtains should be taken down and washed, all the carpets cleaned and any natural damage repaired.
It is important to understand that in the rooms that usually sleep two guests, there are also three and four people and a dog.
All in all there was a feeling that the guests did their best to maintain the rooms, but naturally there is wear and tear.
There were also dogs in hotel lobbies, many people sat for hours in the lobby with food and drink, so it is also necessary to renew upholstery.
Minister of Tourism, Haim Katz, is doing an excellent job with the hoteliers.
We understood that he would take care of the money for us to take care of the hotels the next day.
Since we already want to host vacationers, we started taking care of the hotels and ordering all kinds of things for millions of shekels with the understanding that the state will support us."
In addition to the Yam Red hotel which, as mentioned, has already been evacuated, "all the other hotels are currently in the process of being evacuated," notes Bhat. "For example, at the Eilat Sport Club Hotel from 320 rooms, about 200 rooms became vacant.
We have currently closed 150 rooms there for a massive renovation, which was supposed to take place even before the war but was postponed.
The Royal Beach Hotel in Eilat has become a kind of hybrid hotel: 150 rooms are allocated to evacuees, and another 150 rooms for vacationing guests.
At the Laguna Hotel in Eilat, which is entirely occupied by evacuees from Kissuf, Sderot and Kiryat Shmona, the Kissuf community has vacated, and now there are 130 rooms that can be sold.
We took care of these rooms for a week, we brought them back to normal."
On normal days, the Laguna Hotel has an 'all inclusive' concept. "There is alcohol in the lobby for free, ice cream, popsicles.
Now, when we went back to selling rooms in it, we also brought back the alcohol, ice creams, etc., and the evacuees are also enjoying it," says Bhat and emphasizes that "as soon as we started selling to individuals, we are giving the level of service that Shrotel used to give.
We see demand, some hotels are even full of people on weekends.
Our responsibility as hoteliers is also to return the hotel to the discipline of a hotel.
For example, if you see a child riding a scooter in the lobby, ask him nicely to ride outside.
The managers know the evacuees personally, we initiated personal conversations, we explained to them that the manner of conduct at the hotel needs to change a little, and everyone accepted it with great understanding."
More on the same topic:
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Gaza war
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Plaza