• Kevin Osterhaus   

Excerpt from Hotel Operations

Kevin Osterhaus is an operator’s operator. After serving in operations leadership roles at Bunkhouse, Sixty Hotels, Standard, and Ennismore, he became President of Graduate Hotels in November 2021.

I recently spoke with him about what he’s learned throughout his career and how that shapes the way he leads the company today.

The role of operations in brand experience

The line between marketing and operations in strong hospitality brands is blurry. Operations is so important because of the coordination required between product development and service delivery to ensure a differentiated guest experience.

Excellence in hospitality requires attention to detail. It’s designing an experience and operating the product to interpret those details. There are companies out there that miss this frequently because excellence requires combining brand and marketing with the operating reality.

Kevin Osterhaus

“The best hospitality brands recruit the right people to deliver their brand story, and then inspire those people through their communication, storytelling, and training to bridge the marketing-operations gap seamlessly so the guests can experience the brand as intended.”

For the brands that do this well, the payoff is significant. “I’ve learned that if we can consistently deliver a well-thought-out experience we grow market share and can drive rate growth. Demand increases as people seek out the experiences we provide.”

What is excellence in operations?

For Kevin, excellence in operations depends on the type of hotel.

“You can deliver excellence in operations at every level of the hospitality spectrum – whether it’s a limited service property or a luxury hotel. Great brands define their experience and then deliver that consistently to guests. But excellence in operations depends on the expectations we set for our guests.”

He shared the Graduate Hotels brand as an example of this. “Graduate is not a luxury brand, but we place just as much value on the details and executing those details as a luxury brand would.”

Becoming better storytellers to support recruiting

For Kevin, building great brands and achieving operational excellence starts with the recruiting process. He believes it’s an area that needs some innovation. 

“We need to think more as an industry about how we can recruit effectively. We need to reimagine what it will take to get more people excited about working in hospitality. We need to be good storytellers and share the excitement that exists in this industry.”

Click here to read complete article at Hotel Operations.