Liz at Sochi Winter Olympics in Russia

What’s a Housekeeping Consultant doing working at the Winter Olympics?

Even though Housekeeping Management training is our core business at L&A, I took some time out of the training schedule at the end of 2013 and start of 2014 to get involved in another passion – The Olympics.

The Sochi Russia Winter Olympics is my 5^th Olympics and I love it.

I took up my role as Silver Programme Manager for Megafon at the Sochi Winter Olympic Games in London late November 2013.

I spent 2 weeks in London at the iLuka offices coming to grips with the programme while I waited for my Russian visa. Our client Megafon, is one of the largest mobile phone providers in Russia; this was their 2^nd sponsorship of the Olympic Games having first done the summer London Olympics in 2012.

Hospitality programmes for big sporting events are a way for sponsors to offer large groups of their VIPs an exciting hospitality event which includes transfers, flights, staying in a luxury hotel with all F&B along with tickets to Olympic events.

The Megafon Silver Programme involved the full hospitality for over 3700 guests at 2 hotels over the 3 week period of the Winter Olympic Games in February 2014. One of the huge challenges was the fact the 106 rooms designated to the programme at the Yuzhney 2 Hotel in Sochi were opened the day before all the guests arrived. In fact the whole hotel only became fully operational as the first guests stepped through the front door on February 7^th 2014. The programme included all transport, hotel, F&B and hosted Olympic experiences for a 2-3 day period for each of the 200 VIP Megafon guests. Each group (called a “wave” in Olympic speak)  arrived on a charter flight from Moscow early morning with the previous group departing on the same plane, leaving only a 2 hour window between departures and arrivals for all 106 rooms over the 7 wave period of the Winter Games.

I began my role in Sochi in early December 2013 and as the team was very small at that time we were involved in all aspects of planning and preparation for the programme. This included diverse duties such as inspecting rooms at the hotel prior to the opening, preparing PowerPoints in English and Russian for training and inputting running orders into Excel.

The final whole team was over 100 strong, with the majority of hosts coming on board only 4 days before the first guests arrived.

So with our team of Managers including Team and Operations, Hotel and Rooming Manager, Guest Services Manager and Day Programme Manager over 2 hotels, we were basically operating a hotel within a hotel. We had our own software system for the Hotel, we coordinated the F&B operations for the lounges and coordinated the rest of F&B.

Our staff made up mainly of young university students and graduates, were mainly working as Hosts. They were divided into Hotel hosts and Events hosts. The Hotel hosts were responsible for all guest check ins and checkouts, manning of the desks and lounges along with taking care of all guest enquiries during their stay.  Event hosts were responsible for escorting all guests to their ticketed events including bringing them on coaches, passing through Security and into the venues right into their seats and then the full escort back to the Hotel.

This was all coordinated with the Transport team and Ticketing for the whole event.

Developing the relationship with the Hotel and ensuring all operations of the lounge and lobby functioned well.

What we did

• Coordinating with airport and transport on the guests smooth arrival at the Hotel.
• Extending a warm welcome on arrival at the hotel including efficient hotel room check in, quick programme registration, fast ticket distribution and effective delivery of gifts to the guests.
• Offer of first class hospitality lounge experiences including 5 star F&B service with tasty, well presented food appropriate to the needs and wishes of the guests.
• Quick and efficient dispatch by the Team & Ops team along with great hosts delivering our goal of “To blow the minds of the Megafon guests”. Speedy transfer back to the Hotel with offer of a warm welcome on arrival.
• During events, best seats available with warm, friendly hosts offering professional service with knowledge of events and athletes, taking a personal interest in their guests welfare.
• A fond farewell on departure with smooth transfer onto their next destination.

In doing all this, we managed a very complex arrival and processing of 200 guests in a 1 hour period including handling all guest communications and check in and check out procedures.

The Hotel team was responsible for preparing all the documentation for arriving guests including programme registration, hotel check in and assistance with Olympic ticket distribution.

The challenges…

Of course it was really hard not being able to speak the language and dealing with cultural differences. The full on security requirements both at the hotel and at the events was extremely tough and the short training time for the staff – they needed to know all the venues, the operating procedures along with what made the client tick and how to do their job – all in the space of 4 days.

The high points included…

Teaching the Housekeeping team at the Hotel how to be “Las Vegas Strippers” and turn all 100 + rooms in 2 hours. Seeing the semi final of the women’s figure skating (though I did nod off half way through) and the fun wrap party at the end where we had our own version of mini winter Olympics.

Roll on next Olympics….