GX Guest Experience Spotlight

Mandarin Oriental’s COVID-19 Strategy: How to Be Agile and Prepared in Uncertain Times

By Anja Luthje, Group Director of Rooms and Quality, Mandarin Oriental.

The objective was to figure out how we would reopen, what would be different, and what would be the same.

To answer these questions, we needed a framework that would investigate the nature of COVID-19 and its impact on colleagues and guests and what we could do to not only manage the situation but also make a meaningful difference. The framework had to be flexible because every hotel would be at a different stage with different government guidelines, yet we needed to maintain a universal approach in protecting colleagues and guests.

“When we closed some Mandarin Oriental hotels in response to COVID-19, the management team created a task force, including myself as Group Director of Rooms and Quality, and eleven hotel managers.” – Anja Luthje

Guest Profiles during COVID-19

Our first step in this framework was to understand how guests would react. Based on our research we found three main guest types. Most guests would fall into a category of COVID-conscious. This type is sensitive to COVID and wants the right precautions to be taken, but are confident enough to travel. The second group, which is a very small percentage, is made up of the COVID supersensitive guests. They are very concerned about COVID-19, have underlying health conditions, or fall into a higher risk category. The third group is those with COVID fatigue, who do not want to be reminded of COVID-19 and the necessary precautions and in some cases may not even want to adhere to COVID related measures.

Once we had these profiles we needed to train our colleagues to understand the nuances of each profile and address their needs accordingly. This would enable us to handle each situation so that it would result in a personalized solution.

Source: https://www.gxspotlight.com/mandarin-oriental-covid-strategy-hospitality/