Spending a week in the Philippines at one of Manila’s fancier hotels reminded me how far hotel business centers have to go to catch up with the rest of the leisure industry. A weekly column I recorded for the BBC World Service Business Daily (the Business Daily podcast is here.)
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I agree completely with your analysis!
FYI: My family owns a small 21-room hotel in Tegucigalpa, Honduras (www.ministersuites.com). We are in the process of opening a new hotel… The M Business Hotel.
Yes, we will have a “Business Center” but with a whole new concept. Each room has their own office space, WiFi everywhere, lobby area will be designed for people to have small informal meetings in different lounge seatings, the business center will have a room equipped for formal meetings for up to 12 people, smaller offices will be available for guests to rent from an hour up to a month or whatever they need, a larger room will be available for other events like trainings, conferences, etc for up to 50 people.
Business Center staff will help guests in whatever they need… from copies, in-room printers, shipping, restaurant reservations, and transportation arrangements, up to hooking you up with the best lawyers and contractors, researching for your business or needs, and basically anything else we can do for your business while in the hotel, before, and after you leave.
But I think opne of the biggest pluses we will offer our guests, is the communication convenices. If guests need or want their own private phone number, we will get it for them, with their owm personalized answering machine, follow me service, messages left will be emailed to you, and if you want to keep your number after you leave the hotel, no problem, we’ll keep emailing you your voice messages or transfering all your calls to wherever you are.
Plus, if you need something we don’t offer or have, we promise to do anything we can to either get for you, or find someone who can.