What Do You Do in the Winter? A Hospitality To-Do List

As the Midwest and Northeast are gripped by “Snowmageddon”, it brings to mind the most common question asked of me this time of year: “What do you do in the winter?”

Westfield Country Club includes a 36-hole private country club, a conference center and a 64-room inn.  Golf and weddings drive a large amount of our business, making our busy time from April to October.  We continue to have guests at our Inn and provide meeting and banquet opportunities throughout the winter.  As an indicator of true seasonality, our variable revenue, which does not include dues for November through March, only accounts for 12.5% of our annual revenue during 41.6% of the year. 

Unlike our golf operations friends in the south and west, we have the opportunity to reflect, assess and plan for the following year while our operations are either slower or closed completely.  Our year can be broken into three parts; November-March we review and plan, April-mid-May- we ramp up, and mid-May to October we make hay, so to speak.

Winter is a crucial time for us to prepare for the thousands of guests that we will have during the summer and the hundreds of seasonal employees who will create an outstanding experience for those guests. 

Our full time employees spend the winter as busy beavers making sure our house is in order when April 1 rolls around.

 Here is a sample of the work that has to be done:

1. Safety checks and annual maintenance for our golf course equipment fleet and our cart fleet.
2. Creation of our catering and a la carte menus for the next year.  This process includes tasting, testing, reciping, and creating training materials for the culinary staff.
3. Deep cleaning and annual repair and maintenance of our facilities, including each hotel room.
4. Assessment of our standard operating procedures and our training programs including safety, job knowledge, etc.  Any changes to training materials and programs need to be ready for the first of our seasonal staff to arrive in March.
5. The purchasing plan for the golf shop merchandise is created, and a majority of the orders are placed with our vendors so that we get periodic deliveries of new product.
6. Creation of our member events, leagues and other activities for the upcoming year, which includes planning the event and creating the marketing materials necessary to communicate with our members.
7. Our tee sheets and event bookings are created and confirmed in our point of sale system.
8. Menu tastings for each wedding that is booked for the year.

This is not an exhaustive list but I think you get the idea.  Most importantly it is a chance for us to be ready for our guests when they start showing up full force in May.  Our full and part time staff makes up about 15% of our total staff, so it is a lot to do in a short time. Since Punxsutawney Phil says it is going to be an early spring, it is time to get back to work.

Think spring, Autumn

Autumn Keller is the hospitality operations revenue center’s leader for Westfield Group. Autumn has general management responsibility for the Westfield Group Country Club, the Blair Conference Center and Westfield Inn. 

Photo: Westfield Inn in the snow

Comments

[Summer]

A lot to do and a new perspective on the behind the scene operations. Thank you for the insight.