The Bohemia Suites & Spa Gran Canaria is beloved by its company, considerably outperforming different luxurious motels in Europe primarily based on on-line visitor satisfaction scores. To learn the way they’ve achieved these outcomes, we spoke with Papis Diouf, the property’s Meals and Beverage Supervisor, who was accountable for implementing working processes and know-how that permits their groups to ship the service that’s incomes their category-leading opinions. This case research covers the story of how they did this.
Papis Diouf: the maestro behind the F&B operations
Papis Diouf is the Meals and Beverage supervisor at Bohemia Suites & Spa Gran Canaria and appears to have been born with the hospitality gene. Sitting down with him, you’re immediately impressed by his heat and vitality. It’s one thing that comes naturally to him. “I grew up talking French, after which my dad taught me Spanish,” he informed me. “I discovered German and English as I used to be touring the world. A love of journey led to an curiosity in learning hospitality as a career, and he ended up learning on the college in Las Palmas, Spain.
It was throughout his college research that Papis’ profession in Meals and Beverage started. I began working as a waiter. One factor led to a different, and now I’m managing our whole meals and beverage operations! What I discovered working within the hospitality enterprise is that Meals and Beverage is among the most necessary departments in a lodge,
Papis mirrored. For us, it’s 40% of our income.
In regards to the Bohemia Suites & Spa Gran Canaria
The Bohemia Suites is a TripAdvisor Vacationers Alternative award winner, and that’s just the start of its accolades In an evaluation of opinions throughout greater than 100 evaluation websites utilizing Shiji ReviewPro’s International Assessment IndexTM (GRI) information, we discovered the property strongly outperformed its friends.
Their GRI of 93.8% exceeded the 89.3% for different five-star motels in Europe in 2023. Clearly, the workforce is doing one thing proper, and we needed to know what that was.
We similar to efficiency,
Papis mentioned with an enormous smile. We at all times need to do increasingly and extra.
One of many attention-grabbing methods this ardour for excellence manifests is how a lot the Bohemia Suites workforce spends on market analysis to make sure they’ve probably the most recent, modern choices and methods of working at their property. Once I spoke with Papis, he had simply returned from a analysis journey to the U.S. that began in Miami and led to San Francisco, studying from the perfect hospitality companies in America.
The visitor expertise Bohemian Suites goals to supply is like staying at a good friend’s place, Papis informed me. We’re at all times making an attempt to present our greatest and do our greatest and make our company really feel like they’re at house. It’s elegant hospitality, however not formal or stiff.
When folks go on vacation, they need to calm down,
Papis continued. We don’t need them to be in an atmosphere they really feel harassed in, so every thing from the garments our employees wears to the best way we offer service is designed to create a considerate, informal atmosphere. Our company take pleasure in that our workforce acts like they’re having fun with the atmosphere with them – as a result of they’re.
A technique this manifests is how the workforce communicates with their company, which is digital-first. We’re speaking with them on Fb,
Papis mentioned. Company ask us questions on Instagram, and we get proper again to them there. It’s very completely different from a standard luxurious lodge.
Challenged by legacy know-how
Regardless that they had been used to working in a mobile-first, always-on digital atmosphere on social media, Papis and his workforce had been encountering vital challenges with the legacy meals and beverage administration know-how they’d inherited.
“We had been working with a outstanding legacy vendor and located vital challenges with integrating our operations administration into the system – and managing our income general,” he recalled.
Papis had a background in know-how and was capable of finding workarounds to maintain the operation going, it wasn’t environment friendly and ended up being a major drag on his time. One of many large challenges he confronted was how the entire system was primarily based on a software program set up on their pc system as an alternative of the cloud.
It was time to make a change. Quite than persevering with to get by with subpar know-how, Papis and his groups wanted trendy methods that will enable them to seamlessly present the hospitality they’d grow to be recognized for.
They knew new alternatives would emerge and so they needed to be ready. We noticed synthetic intelligence was coming in to play an more and more massive position in hospitality and we needed to have the ability to take part in that,
Papis mentioned.
Evaluating applied sciences
The Bohemia Suites & Spa workforce developed the behavior of attending the Spanish tradeshow FITUR yearly to study what was new, what was good, and what may be a very good match for his or her enterprise. In 2019, Papis attended with their lodge supervisor and advertising and marketing supervisor to see what know-how suppliers had been providing.
In talking with Shiji Group, they discovered their workforce was probably the most useful. In comparison with the others, we discovered Shiji’s clarification of what they had been constructing, how they constructed it, and the way we may benefit from it clear and compelling,
Papis informed me.
Some of the compelling parts of what they discovered was how Shiji’s POS, Infrasys, would adapt to their workflows as an alternative of the opposite means round – which is all too frequent in hospitality know-how.
Satisfied that they had been the best companion for his or her lodge, they determined to maneuver ahead.
Designing an expertise from their best state
As a result of Infrasys supplied the skill to adapt its know-how to any workflow, Papis took benefit of beginning with a clean slate and drafting his best workflow and reporting methods.
I informed their workforce I needed it to be like this and that, and if I ordered within the restaurant, the chef would get it on this type of means.
Pulling from his expertise working at a excessive degree on the property and his personal market analysis of high-performing hospitality companies, he developed a workflow that will delight employees and company alike.
That is the place the partnership with Shiji Group shined. Their assist of Papis and his workforce by means of your entire course of got here up time and again in our dialog. It’s not simply sufficient to have the best know-how,
Papis informed me. You want the best folks who can configure and enable you use that know-how as effectively. We discovered that in Shiji Group.
What they constructed
With the brand new system in place, Papis observed workforce members instantly being impressed by the implementation.
Now we have lots of younger folks engaged on our groups and so they had by no means used true cellular know-how as a part of their work – however needed to have it.
Now, they’ll use their cellular gadgets to ship orders instantly from the desk into the kitchen, which makes the entire course of simpler and extra environment friendly for everybody concerned.
The influence of contemporary working know-how
Earlier than the brand new know-how, every thing was a lot slower. We get 200 company every morning for breakfast, and our groups had been working round writing down orders on paper, then they needed to take them to the kitchen. This complete course of usually took at the least 5 minutes per order.
At the moment, every thing is way quicker. The time to course of every order has dropped from 5 minutes per order to only 30 seconds.
Even higher, the order goes on to the kitchen. Typically, we are able to convey out the eggs practically as rapidly as we are able to convey them espresso,
Papis mentioned.
Company are loving the consequence. Studying by means of the opinions visitor after visitor says how environment friendly and quick the method is. Quick for workers, quick for visitor. Everyone seems to be profitable.
Advantages of digitizing F&B operations
Past the clear effectivity positive aspects, transferring to a contemporary cloud-based digital operation offers helpful intelligence in some ways, together with a couple of surprising ones.
Papis shared an instance of this the place a visitor known as him and thought they bought meals poisoning from the dish on the restaurant. However I used to be in a position to pull up what they ordered and noticed that 100 different folks additionally ordered it and didn’t get sick, Papis mentioned. With the ability to troubleshoot issues like that is actually necessary for us.
Papis can be in a position to have a look at gross sales stories and finds it useful in some ways for producing new menus.
“Once we do menu engineering, Infrasys helps me rapidly establish issues that don’t value a lot, however company are blissful to pay a premium for. These kinds of things which have wholesome earnings for us and make our company blissful are what we need to be specializing in.”
It’s additionally proved very useful for making adjustments. We’re at all times trying to see the place we would change a few of our dishes that will not be working in that season, Papis mentioned. It helps us keep recent and related and fascinating with our company.
Extra money. Extra earnings. Extra time.
Every thing strikes so rapidly that you want to be utilizing the best know-how that will help you be extra environment friendly and supply the perfect luxurious hospitality
, he informed us. When requested if on the finish of the day, Infrasys has made them more cash, Papis’ response was immediate. In fact. No doubt.
“We not solely make more cash, however we make extra revenue. On high of all of that we’re saving time. And time is cash.”
A mannequin in trendy F&B operations
Each hospitality skilled can study from Papis and the workforce at Bohemia Suites & Spa Gran Canaria about what it takes to reach hospitality as we speak. By continuously in search of inspiration and dealing with a know-how companion that would assist them implement a contemporary, operationally environment friendly workflow, they’ve delighted their employees and company alike.
And so they’re making some huge cash now doing it – the holy grail for any hospitality enterprise.
About Shiji Group
Shiji Group is a multinational know-how firm that gives software program options and companies for enterprise corporations within the hospitality, meals service, retail, and leisure industries, starting from hospitality know-how platforms, lodge administration options, meals and beverage, and retail methods, fee gateways, information administration, on-line distribution and extra. Based in 1998 as a community options supplier for motels, Shiji Group as we speak contains over 5,000 staff in 80+ subsidiaries and types in over 31 nations, serving greater than 91,000 motels, 200,000 eating places, and 600,000 stores.
About Bohemia Suites & Spa
Bohemia Suites & Spa is a 5-star adults-only boutique lodge positioned within the south of Gran Canaria, subsequent to the lengthy sandy seashore of Playa del Inglés and a brief walkfrom the sand dunes of Maspalomas. The lodge combines luxurious and multifaceted areas the place company can take pleasure in complete peace and privateness. The institution promotes the Bohemian spirit, stuffed with constructive vitality and happiness.
Along with its 80 trendy and comfortable rooms, together with 12 with kitchenettes, the lodge has a wellness and health space with an outside swimming pool, fitness center and full spa, in addition to a gathering room for enterprise company. Eating choices embody the Sapphire Pool Bar, Atelier Cocktail Bar and 360º Restaurant for a culinary expertise with panoramic views. The motto “Visitor at a good friend’s place” suggests a heat and welcoming ambiance that makes company really feel at house with good associates.