s0ssos

I recall something about how Alila Ventana was waiving mandatory valet parking these days. Another sign of the difference between Marriott and Hyatt?

myperks

don’t need to manage a hotel to apply these concepts.

s0ssos

Which is harder, schooling the management or schooling other people on some internet forum?
I am going to say the former actually has a higher chance of success.
But I guess it is your job to school other posters, and that is why you do it.

cmd320

Ignoring reasonable safety requests from guests at a luxury property isn't going to be of much benefit. If you'd like to brush up on the RC mission statement, it's available here.

myperks

just like what you are doing now. Got it.

s0ssos

You understood I was pointing out how hypocritical you were? Wow! You got it!

gengar

Unfortunately, this a viewpoint that demonstrates little understanding of management or even basic customer service concepts. The guest experience begins long before the guest ever sets foot on property. It's even before the guest makes a reservation - what about visiting the property website for the first time, e-mailing the general property e-mail address, or giving the property a phone call? Those are the actual first impressions fully controllable by the property, and there are potentially so many of them that occur before the guest reaches the property.

And the guest's perception can be formed even before that, just from word of mouth such as on a forum like FT. That's why a guest's negative experience that goes unrectified can be so damning.

Again, as someone who's worked in hospitality for many years, I can't emphasize enough the importance of communicating negative interactions to management. To a manager that cares, nothing is more irritating than not getting the chance to fix a bad customer interaction. Ideally, management will know about it; especially at luxury properties, management spends huge amounts of time and effort and resources training front-line staff to be cognizant of when the guest might be dissatisfied with an interaction, and in many cases, empowering front-line staff to fix it immediately. It's still an imperfect system and management can't fix what they don't know is broken.

Even now, I avoid posting truly negative reviews on FT until and unless I have given management a chance.

Often1

There is a facility for self-park nearby. It apparently does not suit OP's needs. But, it is entirely possible that it is the property's valet parking location too. We simply don't know.

So, without facts, facts, and facts, it's not worth debating whether the property is properly managed.

cmd320

The facility for self parking is a city/county beach parking garage. It is not open 24 hours which would likely result in fines for parking overnight.

The property’s valet parking location is the lot just to the southeast of the hotel.

SoFlaGuy

Just an update on this after our stay, despite what I was told in emails by the hotel, both the front desk and the valets were VERY accommodating, and did not blink an eye at doing a "self park." I still had to pay for the valet parking charges, (which was fine) but they permitted me to park in the valet lot, and leave my key with the valets.
Apparently, self parking is not uncommon in these times and they were willing to accommodate without blinking an eye. There were also accommodating to make sure that my car was plugged in at the shared charger.

Too bad the email responses from the hotel were not in sync with the reality of the front line workers, it would have made this a "non-issue" with no post required for thoughts on this issue.

BTW, the adjacent lot seen in the maps is an employee lot, and not available to guests. The nearby public parking nearby is for beach use, and not open in the evenings.

A very nice stay!

MSPeconomist

Why did you leave the key with valets? Doing so seems to contradict your concerns about valet parking and COVID-19. When you keep the keys, you know that no one entered your car.

cmd320

Thank you for coming back and updating us with the result. I'm glad it ended up working out favorably.

BearX220

Loss analysis is a much neglected part of CRM as I'm sure you know. Service providers of all sorts pour huge effort into customer acquisition but comparatively little into retention. A little proactive inquiry into what went wrong usually yields huge dividends. It's silly to suggest customers shouldn't bother volunteering their pain points.

I'm glad the parking situation worked out on scene for OP.

SoFlaGuy

Because they needed the key to unlock my car to remove the charger to move it to another car. Thats all.

threecap

Again, most people travelling right now are in essential businesses don't have that choice.