Alison Guillot
The current global crisis has forced many hoteliers to make the painful decision to temporarily close their doors, ensuring the safety of employees and guests. Once this happens, the next question frequently becomes, “How do I manage my technology?” Since hotels are not typically closed for extended periods of time, it is common and understandable to feel unprepared or overwhelmed by the situation. However, with a few key adjustments to your current processes, you can feel confident your business is protected and your data will be preserved until re-opening.
For users of Amadeus Sales & Event Management and Amadeus Service Optimization, our training and learning services experts have the following recommendations for you in the event of a hotel shutdown.
Managing sales and catering software
- Restrict user access – For staff planning to return when the property reopens, freeze their access during the closure period instead of deleting their user account. Deactivate user accounts entirely only if those users are no longer employed by your organization.
- Booking management – Before the property suspends its operations, be sure to update all existing bookings and cancellations. Mark items done, enter guestroom pickup, and change the status on any postponed or lost bookings due to COVID-19.
- Database cleanup – Take advantage of the slow period to get organized. Update your merge documents, clean up menus, and write custom reports.
- Online lead reassignment – If your property receives online RFPs, identify who will monitor those while the property is closed. Review any default escalation rules or deactivate them entirely depending on your resources. If you do leave escalation enabled, make sure your location’s hours of operation accurately reflect office coverage hours.
- Update capacity charts – Depending on when and how you manage events during or post COVID-19, you may want to update room layouts to incorporate social distancing guidelines and capacities as an additional safety measure.
For more details on recommended steps you should take to manage your group business while temporarily suspending service, visit our training and help portal for the Delphi, Delphi Select, as well as Diagramming and MeetingBroker.
You can also access great tips in our “Best Practices to Manage Group Business in Challenging Times” blog.
Managing operations software
- Restrict user access – If a user has been temporarily furloughed, set their user access to ‘’Suspend’’. This is also a good time to review and delete any users who have left the company. Deleting users will not affect historical data or reports.
- Preventative maintenance schedules – If you are operating with limited staff, you may want to postpone preventative maintenance activities automated by your software to keep it from generating work orders or tasks. Ongoing maintenance checks should be limited to electricity, plumbing, backup power generators, and pest control if needed.
- Implement deep cleaning – Choosing to operate during a global pandemic requires careful and thorough sanitizing. Your guests and staff expect and deserve nothing less. Create a manual checklist or even better, build a custom one within your software to keep teams up to date and aware of changes.
Visit our training and help portal for Amadeus Service Optimization for specific steps to complete these tasks and other recommended activities.
For more tips on managing your operations while suspending services, read our blog “5 Steps to Enhancing Hotel Housekeeping & Guest Satisfaction in a Downturn”.
We sincerely hope these tips will be useful and will help you to navigate this crisis. In the meantime, Amadeus team members are here for you – let us know what questions you have and how we can help you.
For more best practices during a crisis, visit our dedicated crisis management library here.
