More professional banquets

By: Julián Arcila

At the beginning of this decade, the Nikko hotel in Mexico City implemented the Delphi solution, designed as a methodology to organize and integrate the different transactions that occur in the banquet area of that entity. This investment meant a resounding modernization of the department and left aside the confusions and other incidents resulting from the obsolescence that was in the dependency.

Since the entry into operation of the system, transactions were simplified, and this allowed all officials in the banquet area to begin to handle the same information in common. With this particularity, confusions in the allocation of spaces or facts such as selling a previously committed room were eliminated. HOTEL & RESTAURANT MANAGEMENT spoke with Nathalie Ferrer, who is the event director at Hotel Nikko. The executive pronounces on the experience of having implemented this solution in her hotel and the benefits it has brought them.

The beginnings
The Hotel Nikko de México has 752 rooms and an occupancy rate of 60%, between high and low seasons. The banquet area accounts for about 30% of the hotel's revenue, ranking second only to rooms (50%) and above food and beverages.

When Mrs. Ferrer arrived at the hotel, everything was done manually. "We had the book that is known here in Mexico, which is actually a huge paper book for which we had only one person assigned to record all the events. Everything was done by hand, with pencil. When I started working with the hotel, twelve years ago, the only area that did not have a computer platform was banquets, because the previous director had certain reservations about the fact that they could be put in their spaces or control the information. Consequently, it was only handled by the banquet department," he explains.

When the executive assumed her new position she began to look for a system, but by then in Mexico there were not many and the offer in most cases was limited to spreadsheets. "At that time the one who had the Delphi system was the Four Seasons and I had a good relationship with the banquet director; He invited me to his office and I saw him operate. I then contacted the people of Delphi in the United States," Ferrer recalled.

He adds that the most difficult thing was to convince the directors that by that time a system was already needed, even though for the last 10 years the banquet area had operated manually. At first all the managers were against it and did not want to load the program, because of the resistance to change. "It had to be done, deadlines were set and finally it was achieved," he said.

Specific motivations
Taking into account that the operation of the area was done manually, what specifically made us think of a solution to systematize the area? It is important to start from the fact that the Nikko hotel has 11 lounges, which become 16. Its average is 300 events per month, distributed among all the rooms.

This dependency exchanges processes with the other areas of the hotel, because in many cases renting a lounge leads to blocking rooms and consumption for other areas. The business architecture is presented by Ferrer: "We have several modalities, but it all depends on what the client requests and who the client is. But usually we talk about what the income of the salons themselves is. I recently sold a convention for Petrochemicals and it generated 400 rooms over five nights, but this is not recognized as a banquet income. As we had the rooms to do the convention, because this resulted in income from rooms, drinks and other consumption centers. "

This becomes a critical aspect when one of the greatest fears of banquet directors is presented: the overdemand of the same space, which occurs mainly at certain times of the year. The last such case occurred at the end of last December; on the 11th, Friday, it became the best seller of the year, as many Mexican companies chose that day to make their corporate parties.

"I had to reject six applications because I only have one room whose capacity is 1200 people. Then the first one who paid because he kept the salon and the other five because they were offered alternate dates, but they all wanted the same day, "explains Ferrer.

Now, such situations are what justify the use of Delphi, because if requesting customers arrive, to different sales executives, because the first one who sells the space blocks it and no annoying episodes are generated for the same contractors.

A wise decision
As mentioned above, at that time there were not many solutions in Mexico, so Delphi was chosen, because beyond the shortage of supply the system is truly friendly.

"I had to think that I had a team of 17 people who had never touched a computer, so when we implemented the system we revolutionized the department, because we put computers, we changed the typewriters to computers and we also put a management software. It was a process that we lived successfully and today we are already very accustomed to it, "says Nathalie.

The friendliness of the system even facilitated the training process: at the hotel they had a two-week training process to be able to use the system. It was very simple for people to accept the training, because the system is very easy to use. "We recently bought the part of the system that allows us to take out plans and a Spanish-speaking person came and all the people got involved and got in, but I think we would need a little more training because I think you don't get all the juice out of the system. But I have to say that so far I have not had any incident for which the system has fallen as it happens in other hotels, "says Ferrer.

But beyond the ease of use is how practical the application is for the business, because according to the source with the system everything is facilitated; thanks to Delphi, if the data is loaded well, you have service orders, budgets, contracts and everything can be sent by mail. Additionally, the system helped optimize the plant of workers in the area, since previously there were more employees with the consequent increase in costs.

The solution has been installed since 2000 and since then has not required any investment. According to executive Ferrer, the experience has been satisfactory and without any difficulty or complication.

Since 2009 Consisho represents Delphi in Mexico, so there are expectations of great growth in the area of sales and banquets.

Nathalie Ferrer, director of the department, comments: "Some of the great conventions we have are the AMIS (Mexican Association of Insurance Institutions), which takes place between Friday and Tuesday in the month of May. This occupies all the rooms and offers a significant amount of income. In February, between Tuesday and Friday, the Banamex convention is held. It occupies all the rooms, in addition to 300 rooms every night. We also have IBM, who come more often at the rate of 3 or 4 times a year and they are two days and they also occupy all the rooms."