Your competitors are spending too much time in their offices. That creates an opportunity for you.
Craig Poole, AHLA’s General Manager of the Year and a three-time Hilton Connie Award winner, built his career as a hospitality leader by doing something that seems obvious but has become increasingly rare: he spent his days on the floor with his guests and team members rather than behind a closed door.
When he recently reflected on what made the difference in his career in a recent Hospitality Daily podcast episode, his advice was simple: Return to the basics of hospitality by being present where it matters most.
“I have met so many people that are diamond members, hardcore travelers that say I’ve never met a hotel manager or I’ve never met an owner before,” Poole told me. “And I think how sad is that, that they never meet people anymore.”
We used to be called innkeepers, and we treated our work like innkeepers.
The problem he’s describing has become worse in recent years. Hotel managers have retreated into their offices, consumed by administrative tasks, reports, and email. Meanwhile, their guests check in and out without ever meeting anyone in leadership, and housekeepers work entire shifts without seeing their general manager.
Poole took a different approach throughout his career. He lived on property early in his career, and even when he didn’t, his commitment to being present meant he was there anyway. “I have no idea what hotel managers do all day in an office with the door closed,” he said. “It baffles me. I did very well in my life and I didn’t sit in an office. I delegated that stuff out to people that were good at it. And I did what I was good at, which was schmoozing with the guests and trying to figure out the concept and building a greater team.”
His focus was clear: what did you learn today and how do you improve it tomorrow? But that requires actually learning something, which only happens when you leave your office.
What you learn on the floor
The value of being present reveals itself immediately when you start paying attention. Poole’s approach was to commit to being there at breakfast every morning. “If you show up for breakfast and walk the floor, even if it’s only for 15 minutes, you’re going to find out who the guest is.”
The conversations that happen during breakfast service provide intelligence you just cannot get any other way. A guest mentions they’re buying a piece of land to build another hotel. That casual conversation becomes your biggest corporate account. Someone shares they’re opening a new plant in town. You just learned about Amazon coming to your market before most of your competitors, positioning you to capture all their training room business.
“They’re going to tell you why they’re here,” Poole explained. “And they’re going to tell you what’s going on in your hotel.”
He shared an example from a recent visit to a hotel. The property was full and getting $600 to $700 per night. While walking through breakfast, a guest asked if he was the manager. When he said no, just someone helping out, she insisted on speaking to the manager. The problem: sewage was coming up through her bathtub on the eighth floor.
This guest was traveling with a global travel agent from Mississippi. “You don’t know who’s in the room, right?” Poole said. Shortly after, another guest on the same plumbing stack came down reporting a smell in her room. He immediately told the front desk to call a plumber because they were about to issue massive refunds on $600 per night rooms with three-day stays.
The manager followed up, got the problem fixed, and avoided what could have been thousands of dollars in refunds and damaged relationships with important guests. But none of that happens if nobody is on the floor listening.
The multiplier effect of being present
The breakfast shift provides the most concentrated opportunity to connect with guests, but Poole’s approach extended throughout the day. During lunch service or banquet events, he made a point to thank people for being there. Every person at a wedding or corporate event represents a potential future booking. “Every wedding, you get three weddings out of it,” he said. “There’s so many bridesmaids and people getting married. That’s where you harvest the business.”
When guests check in, they want to be welcomed. Poole estimated this routine of being present at breakfast, checking in during events, and being visible during check-in took an hour and a half out of an eight-hour day. “If you only work eight hours a day, that’s the least amount of time you should spend with people and your help,” he said.
The rest of the time on the floor matters too. Walking by to say hello to the housekeepers takes almost no time but creates connection and shows respect.
Show up not as a tyrant, but as a fellow hotel worker.
These small interactions compound over time into a culture where people feel seen and valued.
Making the commitment
The challenge most managers face is not understanding the value of being on the floor. The challenge is making the commitment to actually do it. Poole was direct about this: “They have to make a commitment and be accountable to themselves that they’re going to go out there and meet the guests in the morning.”
His advice is to start with breakfast. Block time on your calendar every morning for the next month to be on the floor during breakfast service. Walk through the dining area, say good morning to guests, ask how their stay has been. Listen to what they tell you about their plans, their experience at your property, and what’s happening in your market.
The information you gather during these conversations becomes the foundation for continuous improvement. Problems surface early when you’re present to hear about them. A cold shower gets reported before it becomes a scathing online review. A noise complaint gets addressed before it ruins someone’s entire stay. Equipment issues get caught before they cascade into expensive failures.
Opportunities emerge just as quickly. The corporate traveler mentions their company is expanding. The wedding planner shares they have three more events to book this year. The regular guest tells you about a conference coming to town that you didn’t know about. All of this intelligence flows to you naturally when you’re present and paying attention.
Learning today, improving tomorrow
The real power of being on the floor comes from what you do with what you learn. Poole’s framework was simple but effective: what did you learn today and how will you improve tomorrow?
That sewage problem on the eighth floor taught him something about the property’s plumbing stack. The next time guests checked into rooms on that stack, he would know to be more attentive to potential issues. The conversation with the land buyer taught him about development activity in his market. That information informed his sales strategy and rate decisions.
Each day on the floor provides dozens of these small lessons. Your breakfast service is slow because the coffee station setup is inefficient. Your check-in process creates a bottleneck during group arrivals. Your housekeepers are frustrated because they’re running out of supplies by mid-shift. These problems can be fixed, but you only discover them by being present.
The improvement cycle works because you’re gathering real-time feedback from the people who matter most: your guests and your team. You’re not working from reports or secondhand information. You’re seeing, hearing, and experiencing what’s actually happening in your operation.
The competitive advantage of presence
Most of your competitors have convinced themselves they’re too busy to spend time on the floor. They have reports to review, budgets to prepare, emails to answer. Meanwhile, they’re missing the opportunities right in front of them and letting small problems grow into expensive failures.
That creates an opening for you. By committing just 90 minutes a day to being present, you gain an information advantage your competitors lack. You know your guests better. You catch problems earlier. You see opportunities sooner. You build relationships that turn single transactions into long-term accounts.
Your team notices too. When your general manager takes the time to walk through the property and say hello, it signals that people matter more than paperwork. When housekeepers see leadership on the floor with them rather than hidden away in an office, they feel valued. That translates into better service, lower turnover, and a culture where people actually care about the guest experience.
Start being present now
Block an hour every morning this month to be on the floor during breakfast. Walk through the dining area, introduce yourself to guests, and ask about their stay. Listen to what they tell you. Pay attention to what’s working and what’s not.
After breakfast, walk through the property. Say hello to your housekeepers. Check in with your front desk team. Observe your operation from the perspective of someone who’s present rather than someone reviewing reports.
At the end of each day, ask yourself what you learned and how you’ll improve tomorrow. Write it down if that helps, but the key is to actually apply what you’ve learned. That problem you noticed at breakfast? Fix it before tomorrow’s service. That opportunity you discovered from talking to a guest? Follow up on it today.
The basics of hospitality haven’t changed. People want to feel welcome. They want their problems solved quickly. They want someone to notice when something goes wrong and care enough to fix it. Your guests want to know that real people are running your property, not just automated systems and policies.
Your team wants the same thing. They want to work for someone who understands what they do and appreciates the effort they put in every day. They want leadership that’s present and engaged rather than distant and distracted.
Going back to the basics means showing up. It means being present where it matters. It means knowing your people and your guests better than your competition does. It means learning something new every day and using that knowledge to improve.
Poole demonstrated throughout his career that this approach works. While others were sitting in their offices, he was building relationships, solving problems, and creating opportunities. His success came from doing something simple that most people overlook: being there.
Your office will always have work waiting for you. The reports will never stop coming. The email will keep piling up. But none of that work creates the kind of value that comes from spending time on the floor with your guests and your team.
If you don’t go out, you don’t learn anything.
Start now. Block the time. Show up. Listen. Learn. Improve. Go back to the basics of what made you want to work in hospitality in the first place: connecting with people and creating experiences that matter.
Your competitors won’t. That’s their loss and your opportunity.
