Back in 2017, I took over a busy city centre Boutique hotel in Bangkok, Thailand as General Manager. 100% of my colleagues were local Thais.
With the goal being to improve Gross Operating Profit, the team and I took several steps to increase Revenue and streamline costs. In a nutshell, Revenues improved in the first year by 8% with Rooms showing a 6% growth and Food & Beverage a 16% growth. The flow through into operating profit was above 95% due to effective cost management and improved productivity.
With increasing footfalls in Rooms and F&B alongside a streamlined/downsized team, we realized that we were not being able to focus on training. Without this, we were destined for mid to long term failure. We realized that classroom style learning was not possible as we could not pull people away from the shift.
We subscribed to a digital learning platform focusing on the key areas of improvement that were required. Based on Guest feedback, this was primarily fluency in English. Knowing that digital learning log ins would fail otherwise, we decided to make learning mandatory and a Key Performance Indicator for staff. The platform allowed us to track every colleague’s log in, passing of digital tests and progress. We rewarded colleague’s success with shopping vouchers, in-house stays and most importantly recognition at Town Halls and internal Newsletters. Those not logging in were fairly performance managed at the one-on-one sessions with managers.
Below are a few short success statements and case studies. Do keep in mind that colleagues were learning on their own time, during breaks, at home and in the subway. We subsequently enhanced the Digital learning to Upsell training and Food & Beverage as well. The increase in upsell revenue, during and post training ended up paying for all learning subscriptions
English language:
· At a busy city Centre hotel in Bangkok 8 front of house staff improved their English language Skills by 31% after learning Voice English an hour per week for 16 weeks
· At another resort, a team of 30 staff across various departments improved their English language scores from 40% to 60% by learning an average of 2.2 hours per week over 24 weeks
· Being an AI driven Voice Recognition tool, the listening skills and accents of team members also automatically improved.
Upsell:
At a lifestyle city hotel in Bangkok, upsell revenue increased by 30% year on year. Front Desk and Sales staff spent an average of 45 minutes per week on learning and upsell skill tests improved by 16% points
The increase in upsell essentially ended up paying for the subscription costs of digital learning.
Food and Beverage Vocation Skills:
At a city center hotel in Bangkok, 18 F& B Staff improved their vocational skills by 71% over a 6 month period. An average of 20 minutes per week and staff were spent on learning.

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