Below are the questions we sent out to Jonathan.
Check http://www.VacantReady.com on Wednesday May 23 for Jonathan Tisch’s responses.
One
Jonathan, the book maintains that brand loyalty is shrinking and customer skepticism towards traditional marketing are at an all time high. The hospitality industry has been somewhat slow to embrace the potential of online social media such as blogs and social networks to create legions of brand-champions. Do you believe there is an opportunity for organizations to leverage social media to connect with and inspire customers in new ways?
Two
Connecting with individual guests and visitors on a personal level is such an important component of the guest experience in any hospitality organization or tourism destination. In your book you mentioned that the Loews organization has successfully implemented a new people skills training program called “Living Loews”. What strategies can an organization use to ensure that they are recruiting talent that has a higher propensity to “fit in” and succeed within the culture of the organization in the first place?
Three
Vancouver & Whistler are preparing to welcome the world for the 2010 Olympic Winter and Paralympic Games. One of the many challenges that we have to overcome is a general decline in positive attitudes towards service, in particular the retail sector. Since training is so critical to every organization’s ability to deliver consistent, memorable customer experiences, what “organic”, or grass-roots initiatives can a destination or even a nation employ to improve their overall attitude about service delivery?
Four – from James Sherrett, http://www.iworkindustries.com
With the Olympics looming in the fast-approaching future we’re faced with a serious labour crunch in all industries, notably the hospitality industry. The proposed solution I have heard so far from our provincial government is to import labour from southeast asia to staff positions. A specific visa type has been created.
The questions this raises for me:
Is this just a case of capitalists seeking out cheap labour to fill positions?
Does this provide a snapshot of what staffing means in a global economy?
Have you ever been in such a situation—where you had to import people to staff positions?
If so, how did you deal with it? What were the net results for the people and the society they became part of?
