Did you take steps to save minibar cost??

Most of the hotelier know what is mini bar, we are going to discuss in this small article about how Mini bar has become trendy in hospitality and some point how we can reduce a bit cost of it. For most of the hotels mini bar is not profitable department and has been ignored. So, let’s review some points that can be consider in future and put in operations to get some benefit out of it. 

·     Is it the department??

·     Who is responsible of it? 

·     How the procedure works?

·     Do you find in every hotels or residencies?

·     Does it impact on P&L?

·     How many staff do we need to handle?

·     How can we control cost?

·     Tracking of products?

I am sure we have lot other questions comes in our mind when we talked about mini bar but let me tell you we should consider mini bar very important showcase platform of our hotel as its placed in guest room and it could be judging factor. 

Introduction 

Small cabinet/corner with some drawers including refrigerator, where food &beverage placed with price menu in guest room called MINI BAR. Guest might consume or not but as its part of room amenities so it needs to be placed for every single arrival guest, except those who requested to remove, for long staying guest it needs to be replenish every single day and charge consumptions on daily basic into system. 

Some hotels consider as department some hotels might not, mostly its part of food & beverage section that will be overlook by room service management with separate staffing of mini bar but in financial figures it would be consider separately by finance department. 

                        BUT in some hotel its replenish by housekeeping attendant while cleaning a room but there is another procedure which is complicated to understand but it’s happening in some properties that mini bar attendant’s salary expenses will be cut from housekeeping payroll but it’s still managed by room service management and do the all financial figures. It’s still depends how management has decided to operate property to property. 

Procedures 

There is always leading standard operating procedures (LSOP) by every brand that decided what procedure to follow like:

1.    How & where to place products 

2.    Selection of products 

3.    Menu design 

4.    Number of items  

5.    Pricing after comparing with competitors 

6.    Timing of refilling or checking mini bar of arrival rooms

7.    Knocking while refilling or checking

All LSOP made at the time of opening a property it may change due to operation or regions needs that decision should come from who has setup the standard and there is always someone at the property who is connected with the decision team to advise the challenges. 

As of now there is no hotels who provide mini bar in residencies, hotel room and residencies have two different concepts. 

Staffing

What you think how many staff do we need to handle the operation of mini bar? Is it depend on hotel room inventory? YES, it’s really depended on room inventory let’s say if hotel have rooms between 250 to 300 and average occupancy is 60% for a month then you might assign two staff but if hotel average occupancy remains lower than 40% than one staff might work with the extra support if might need in busy periods so that is how you may consider staffing according to average room inventory. 

Is staffing depend on number of products that you placed in mini bar? I would say no its not depend on this as mini bar attend still take approximately same time. 

You may assign staffing at general shift which is 9am to 6pm because mostly hotels check-in and check-out timing are 2/3pm & 12noon so attendant can check arrival if room is empty, departure as per LSOP, attendant may do guest in house at last. 

CostControl 

This is very challenging phrase for most of the hotels as it’s not an easy task of controlling things. Some hotel has cost control in finance department who is responsible of notifying any discrepancy as well as unwanted cost to the department head & responsible person. 

By property assigning a cost control does not solve your problem as it is you and your mini bar operational team who needs to do tuff efforts to see figures in plus at the end of month. 

I am sure you know few things of controlling cost and you might be implemented at your operations but you may look at my view we never know where it can bring you!!

Let’s discuss some points and how to implement into your operation to save some cost of your mini bar:

Products

Let’s assume you may have 30 food and beverage products at your mini bar and your property have 250 rooms, where mini needs to be placed. How many each item you will plan to order? 250 to 270 I think some property or management do that ignoring every single item have different expire period & different scale of sale. 

Let’s assume again out of that 30 items you have coke and lays and dark chocolate which you consume 40 in a month, so now as you don’t have enough in par stock you will buy new stock which have different expiry date and that will get mixed into different room that you won’t be able to track (due to mini bar remove or getting done by different person at night etc.)

Why tracking is important? If you can track expiry date of products you have few options that can be done.

·     Ask supplier to replace stock (Some supplier can do)

·     Utilize item in different f&b operations 

·     Use it as giveaways

Now I am sure Questioncomes in your min how it that possible to track date of each item?

It can only happen when you have most consuming item in a bigger estimated stock so you will have only 1 expiry date for all and you will know how you can utilize unsold item. It might look bigger in expenses but believe me we had tried and run operation with it.

Inventory 

How usually do you do mini bar inventory daily, weekly or monthly? And who review it? Did you record it? How do you justify the difference? 

We need to assure that mini bar attendants are aware of doing daily inventory and record hard copy if he does than he may find any difference as well. If you have cost controller at the property he needs to get weekly inventory to make sure what comes in and sold out there is no variance if there is any variance & rebate of refusing of charges operation managers needs to have daily reports to make sure attendant record it and sit with cost controller to settle in every week. 

If you may follow this process it may take 2 to 3 months to aligns your inventory but am sure you will get there and save some cost by controlling inventory at hand. 

Chasing Money

We need to accept this there is always some guest who just does not want to pay and being hotelier, we face every time, in this technology world guest may checked out through mobile app and walk away without any information to Front office team. This is just one example I am sure you may have more. 

Who is responsible of chasing money? 

Is it mini bar attendant?

Is it operation manger?

Is it Front office?

In this chase I would say mini bar attendant needs to inform manager in charge and manager needs to coordinate with front office as they are the first point of contact who deal with money because sometimes guest might pay and front office attendant added in system manually but did not inform operational team. Manager in charge might check opera reports as well to know what being charge and what transferred to lost interface. 

If situation comes guest checked out and did not pay than manager will coordinate with FO and FO will reach out the guest to make sure payment been collected and posted if in case guest declined any kind of consumption than it needs to be documented and settle as complementary to get the cost of it, NOT rebate.

Most of the managers do mistake not checking if item is rebate it by FO and does mini bar get the cost value. Please do check as its your responsibility.

Right Products

You may choose the right products I would suggest do not choose all the products which needs to be imported from different country, you will be facing challenge to keeping a par stock as well as delay in orders. 

Don’t use all the products which have short expiry.

As mini bar has become trendy you may have retails local products which can attract country tourist as well as cost you less. 

Do you think branding make a difference? Yes, or maybe I would say No because some guest doesn’t really trust your product and they think that it’s become expensive due to hotel branding, keeping products as it’s does not make much difference and you can save the branding money. 

There is lot other factor if you do branding as you needs to buy stock in bulk as well as we can’t assume the sale of any particular products. You will have limited product selection that you can do branding.

Number of products should not be reach more than 40 including all food & beverage and retails items.

Menu

What kind of menu do you use at your property? 

As we are all aware menu have certain cost if you need to printed from outside supplier. Advised, Menu should be design in a way that can be printed in house or should be design in a way if any products in not available you can just change the page not the entire menu. 

Mini bar menu placed in room with mini bar so guest is aware about price of the item he consumed and should not think it is part of room amenities. 

Menu pricing should be some % higher than the hotel restaurant & bar prices as guest get the benefit of having in the room. 

Note available item should be remove from the menu, and products and pricing should be aligned to avoid and confusion. 

Surely you know mini bar menu consumption is higher & above-mentioned statements can save some cost. 

Every leader follows different work ethics and reach to the mountain of success, my above words does not force anyone to use its just my own and personal experience plus observation. 

I will love to hear from you about above words if you found useful & if you do please do share it might helpful to other leaders. 

Thank you,

VIKAS KAPOOR