Editor,

RE: "Auctioneer’s block: It’s important that some businesses fail” (The New Times, September 9).

After spending a significant amount of time dealing with budget hotel owners in the field of training and soft skills service education, I can honestly tell you that many of these owners are clueless as to why their businesses fail.

The idea that putting up a building that has a long laundry list of issues that rarely get repaired on time, resulting, for instance, in constantly leaking faucets and pipes, AC units not working, Wi-Fi that is on and off hence never reliable and 3-4 story building with no elevators and poor lighting.

In this day and age, your typical hotel guest has a thousand options. The old style of expecting "walk-in” guests to make you that profit is no longer the case. Even a 10-bedroom guest house has to market itself appropriately with clear and appropriate photography on tourism/booking portals that have potential guests scanning these sites for a good rate.

Today’s guest is looking for value for money – dependability (working equipment); consistency (if the menu says chicken, then make sure that chicken is available all the time and not being purchased when the order is made, plus a one hour wait); attention to detail (spelling a guest’s name wrong is wrong); and, lastly, staff members who know what they are doing and can do it better than the hotel across the street from you.

This I just have to say: hiring your relatives to work as managers, procurement officials and financial controllers is like shooting yourself in both feet and expecting to walk.

None of the above has anything to do with government failing the owners; when you fail to plan, you plan to fail.

Nshuti