Feild Trip (October 27th)

Today we took a class field trip to two different hotels. The hotels were The Century house, which is family owned and The Holiday Inn Express & Suites. Our mentor for the day was Samuel Perkins who is a General Manager. In other words he runs a couple hotels. We first went to the Century House and found out a little about the place and him. An interesting fact about him that i found out is that he is only 30years old and has worked in 28 different hotels in 48 different states. He makes $100,000 a year and seems quite happy with his life. The Century House was built in 1946 as a small restaurant that only the family worked in. They then expanded the restaurant and made it into a family owned hotel. They now have 68rooms and do about 115 weddings in a year. They have a nice restaurant in the banquet house. The largest banquet room can hold up to 400 guests. The family has made the hotel stay feel like you are at home, and the customers are really enjoying that. They had their beds made by Sealy for higher quality and a goods night sleep. That did so good that they sold a lot of those beds to their customers. Another thing that the guests like is the 1/2 mile nature trail they have. While being there we learned that the hotel is planning on expanding the rooms by making the executive suites have Jacuzzis and putting flat screen TVs in all the rooms. While we were there we got introduced to Laura who works the front desk, Jenn who is the executive house keeper, and en who is another house keeper that came from Jamaica for more experience. I liked this privately owned hotel because they show their guests that they care by going all out and satisfying them. Also, they give there guests a complimentary breakfast. The staff throughout the hotel has a lot of responsibilities. Some manage which at all times isn't the greatest, some staff has to work nights, weekends and holidays, which is never fun for anyone but you have to love and enjoy what you do and have the whole hotel set up neatly and clean, and also making sure that there is enough staff for different events. I think that the hardest challenges for this hotel is satisfying the guests, always having a positive attitude, and having a marvelous day because you are going to have people around you all day and you don't want to set their moods off. At the Holiday Inn Express we didn't get to see much. We just walked around and got shown the pool and spa and a couple of rooms. Also, the gym and a church room. In the small meeting rooms, for example the church room, they have different pictures set up by different artists to personalize the room. To where in the Century House, they just have all different pictures. This hotel is not a family owned hotel, so the way things are run is a bit different. This hotel has 127 rooms and is expanding so that all together they will have 161 rooms. This hotel does have a huge room for weddings and banquets just like The Century House, but this hotel is not technically set up for them, so they call it the lobby room. In the lobby room they have gorgeous chandeliers. We found out that Jimmy Morrel owns The Holiday Inn Express, The Ramada, and radio stations 92.3 and 96.3, so you know that there is a lot of money into this hotel. Through out observing both hotels i learned that experience as a team helps you grow, and you have to love people. You also need to have patience and always put the customers first.