Last week I visited the International Hotel Investment Forum in Berlin where this year’s theme was "Charting the course for intelligent growth"… Splendid!

I attended sessions that discussed the value of the brand and process and offering standardization…(We do like processes when things are tough … “that’s why it’s all gone wrong. You didn’t stick to the processes”). I met with members of the finance community who thought that the “hotel industry just isn’t appealing enough for our money at the moment.” (their money?).

In the hope of seeing for myself the course for intelligent growth, I attended the session entitled “Best practice to survive the downturn and take advantage of the upturn” which I must say, I thoroughly enjoyed. One of the panellists had some wise words. He stated that the Hotel industry has never been a three to five-year cycle in which to make returns, it has always been a long-term business in which you need to hold over two cycles lasting about 15 years and the industry needs to find lenders who will stick around! Very true, I thought, but good luck with that one!

It was in this session that it struck me that any current successes lie in process improvement, refinancing, cutting costs, outsourcing, etc. But there was not one mention of PEOPLE.
When we are all growing at a zillion miles per hour, it’s because we have the best people. Here is what you hear: “It’s our people that make the difference“. ”We put people first”. “You buy our products, you buy our people”. But when it all goes belly up, it’s the market, the recession, the bankers, the last thing we are going to do is spend a penny on those costly employees.

“It’s only about people in the good times”. That must change, it must always be about the people in the good times or bad times.