Attention to detail is the only way a hotel can provide top notch service consistently.  With proper training employees can offer guests the finest level of hospitality regardless of how many stars a hotel wears proudly on its lapel.

The other day a client of ours was staying at a hotel in Bali.   She told us that in all of her worldly travelers she had never experienced the degree of attention to detail that she received while staying in this country.

She was traveling alone and went to the hotel’s dining room nightly.  The first night she was a guest there the hostess knew she was on her own and offered her a selection of current magazines as her dinner companion.  She thought this was such an incredible and unobtrusive touch that she asked me to blog about it.  From the moment she stepped foot off the airplane the hotel staff that met her at the airport immediately rushed to carry all of her bags and belongings and told her “from now until you depart we’re here to make your journey easier and memorable”, and they did.

It’s interesting how one finds varying levels of hospitality throughout the world; sometimes expected yet undelivered and other times without expectations we are flooded with attention and genuine caring.  What makes one a natural caregiver and others, no matter how much training, never seem to exude a natural way of down to earth warmth and concern for others?  Are we just born that way or not?

From someone like me in the hospitality industry I notice everything when I travel from the doorman who opens the taxi door to the front desk clerk when I am checking in.  Immediately I know if I’m in for a thrill or have to start taking notes about the disappointments I’m about to receive.  Somehow the arrival moment sets the tone for the rest of the stay and I’m either ready to leave on departure day or wishing I had one more day to enjoy my surroundings and comforts.

Perhaps Bali should become a Mecca for hotel industry training in customer service.  They just get it.