With proper updates to hotel operations and smart marketing tactics, a hotel can possibly succeed in the post-COVID hospitality landscape if they are able to implement new SOPs to reassure their guests.

• Make sure that housekeeping and public area cleaning SOPs are state of the art, as this is one area where sharing-economy locations may not be able to match you.
• Promote these new SOPs consistently and repeatedly through all marketing channels so that guests understand you are addressing this issue with the utmost seriousness.
• Embrace the concept of “cleanliness theatre” whereby it’s no longer just about having your flawless but ordinarily invisible cleaning practices visible to guests (for example, having your front desk associates clean the front desk during peak check-in and check-out times as well as in the middle of the night)
• Deploying many “people-free” technologies like a self-check-in station dilutes the perception of great service inferred by a smiling front desk associate, but now we need to see this from a new perspective post the Covid-19 situation, and hence consider this as a good distancing tool.
• See what changes, if any, you can make to the furniture in your public areas so that visitors are more socially distanced from each other
• Relook at traffic flow within your restaurants and meeting spaces to attain fewer instances of mass groupings through the staggering out of dining covers and conference break periods or by removing corridor-narrowing obstacles.
• Implement new technologies to enable more work-from-home situations so you can maintain service delivery on a leaner team or so you don’t have to scramble once more if another lockdown occurs in the near future.
• Again, be prepared to start advertising any new protocols and SOPs directly to customers who nowadays will be keenly receptive to this type of messaging.