Wholesale hotel supplies: How to choose suppliers

Jul. 29, 2024

Wholesale hotel supplies: How to choose suppliers

With competitive price and timely delivery, yumeya sincerely hope to be your supplier and partner.

What are wholesale hotel supplies?

Wholesale hotel supplies are the bulk purchase of essential items that keep a hotel running smoothly, from toiletries and linens to kitchenware and cleaning products. Unlike retail buying, where items are purchased in smaller quantities, wholesale allows hoteliers to secure large volumes at discounted rates. This not only ensures a consistent guest experience but also significantly cuts down operational costs.

By partnering with reliable suppliers, hotels can maintain a high standard of service, offering guests everything they need for a comfortable stay, while also streamlining inventory management. In short? While hotel supplies may not be the &#;sexy&#; part of effective hotel operations, they are absolutely fundamental to success in practically every other arena.

Table of contents

Why are wholesale hotel supplies important?

Wholesale hotel supplies serve as the backbone of a hotel&#;s day-to-day operations, enabling a seamless transition from behind-the-scenes management to front-of-house guest satisfaction.

The importance lies in the strategic advantage it offers: by procuring supplies in bulk, hotels can better forecast budgets, manage cash flow, and negotiate favourable terms with suppliers.

This level of operational efficiency not only strengthens the hotel&#;s competitive edge but also allows for quick adaptation to market trends and guest preferences.

Types of wholesale hotel supplies

Wholesale hotel supplies are more than just a cost-saving strategy; they&#;re the cornerstone of your guest&#;s comfort and your hotel&#;s success. Let&#;s break down the essential categories that can elevate your hotel&#;s reputation and guest satisfaction.

Hotel cleaning supplies wholesale

Quality cleaning supplies are crucial for maintaining a pristine environment. They not only ensure a clean and inviting space for guests but also reinforce your hotel&#;s commitment to hygiene and safety.

Hotel linens wholesale

High-quality linens can transform a room, adding a layer of luxury that guests will remember. Sourcing these linens wholesale allows you to offer this elevated experience consistently across all rooms without straining your budget.

Hotel towels wholesale

A plush, absorbent towel can make a world of difference to a guest&#;s comfort. Buying towels wholesale ensures you can provide this simple yet impactful luxury in every room, while also benefiting from cost savings.

Hotel toiletries wholesale

The toiletries you offer are often the little details that guests appreciate the most. Wholesale toiletries allow you to customise these small touches, showcasing your hotel&#;s focus on individual care and quality.

Hotel bedding wholesale

The quality of sleep your guests get can be a defining factor in their overall experience. Wholesale bedding enables you to offer cloud-like comfort without the sky-high costs, turning first-time visitors into repeat customers.

Wholesale hotel food supplies

A well-stocked kitchen is the backbone of your hotel&#;s dining services. Wholesale food supplies ensure you can offer a diverse and delicious menu, maintaining consistency in both taste and presentation.

How to choose wholesale hotel suppliers

The right supplier is your silent partner in delivering an unforgettable guest experience. Here&#;s a roadmap to guide you through the critical factors you should consider when making your choice.

Quality of product

Don&#;t compromise on quality; it&#;s the bedrock of your guest&#;s comfort and satisfaction. Look for suppliers who adhere to industry standards and offer products that are durable, aesthetically pleasing, and functional. Remember, quality supplies not only elevate the guest experience but also reduce the frequency of replacements, saving you money in the long run.

Variety of options

A one-size-fits-all approach rarely works in the hospitality industry. Seek suppliers who offer a diverse range of products, from toiletries to linens and beyond. A wide array of options allows you to tailor your inventory to meet the unique needs and tastes of your guests, making their stay truly personalised. It also reduces the number of different suppliers you have to work with, reducing organisational complexity.

Customisation

Sometimes, off-the-shelf just won&#;t cut it. Whether it&#;s custom-branded toiletries or specially designed furniture, the ability to customise products can set your hotel apart from the competition. Suppliers who offer customisation services demonstrate not just flexibility but also a commitment to helping you realise your vision.

Minimum order quantities

While buying in bulk is cost-effective, being saddled with excess inventory can be a logistical nightmare. Assess the minimum order quantities set by the supplier to ensure they align with your hotel&#;s needs and storage capabilities. This balance is crucial for effective inventory management. Otherwise, you may risk bloating your back supply.

Delivery and time lead

In the fast-paced world of hospitality, time is of the essence. Evaluate the supplier&#;s delivery schedules and lead times to ensure they can meet your operational demands. A reliable supplier will have contingencies in place to handle emergency orders, ensuring you&#;re never caught off guard.

Sample availability

Before taking the plunge, it&#;s wise to test the waters. Reputable suppliers will offer samples of their products for you to evaluate. This step is crucial for assessing quality, compatibility, and the overall fit for your hotel&#;s aesthetic and functional needs.

Optimise your hotel&#;s operational efficiency and unlock your full revenue potential with SiteMinder

So much administrative work goes into running a hotel, including dealing with wholesalers, both on the supplies front and for room distribution.

Using a smart platform like SiteMinder lets you automate manual tasks so you can eliminate errors, gain better access to data and insights, save time, and make better revenue management decisions.

Here&#;s just a few ways SiteMinder&#;s platform will help your hotel; big, small, or enterprise.

Improve cash flow management
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Streamline inventory management
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How to Sell you Product or Service to the Hotel Industry

The hotel industry is part of the larger travel and tourism industry. It is also considered part of the hospitality industry, which includes food and beverage, and other leisure segments.

To give some perspective, the value of the global travel and tourism industry is $5.3 trillion, roughly 7% of the entire global economy. 1 in 10 of all workers, globally, work in the travel and tourism industry, of which the hotel industry is a key part. So, this is a, shall we say, large industry. Definitely worth knowing more about if your product or service could be a fit.

Overview

And hotels are part of this larger travel and tourism industry. The size of the global hotel industry is $550 billion. And the size of the U.S. hotel industry is $218 billion. That&#;s almost double from just 15 years ago.

Since the recession, as the economy recovered, the hotel industry has grown tremendously. As business activity resumed, business travel increased and consumer travel rebounded quickly as well.

So, this is a very large and attractive market for many supporting and supplier industries. This ranges from everything from real estate and finance, to room design and furnishings, to payroll software, to food and beverages and many other related industries.

How the Hotel Industry is Structured

There are 3 main aspects of hotels; brands, owners, operators. Read more about the hotel industry structure here.

Hotel Brands

Hotel brands are the names we all know; Marriott, Hilton, Wyndham, Comfort Inn, Holiday Inn and the like. These brand companies usually don&#;t operate their own hotels, but franchise their brand to hotel owners. Brands set the standards of the hotel chain and control the consistency and quality of the guest experience. They also offer booking platforms, and loyalty programs and the like, to encourage brand loyalty.

The top global hotel brands by economic size are Marriott, Hilton, Best Western, Hyatt, Accor, Intercontinental, Wyndham and Choice hotels.

Owners

Owners are often a different entity from the brand or operator of a hotel. Real estate investment groups or real estate investment trusts (REITS) pool investor money to buy hotel real estate assets; namely the land and buildings. These owners usually then franchise a hotel brand, sometimes known as flags, to operate the hotel under. And while they may operate the hotel themselves, many owners hire a third-party management company to operate the hotel.

Operators

Operators, although sometimes the same organization as the owners, are more often hotel management companies. Owners of hotel real estate, hire these hotel management companies, that operate a number of hotels, often under different hotel brand names. These operators, or management companies exist to optimize profits, through operational expertise. And because they run many hotels, they offer better buying power for various operating systems.

Selling to the Hotel Industry

There are many types of business products and services that support the 3 aspects of the hotel industry structure; brands, owners and operators. Just one example, is the fact that on average, hotels re-decorate their hotel interiors and rooms every seven years. So just the interior design and furnishings supplier industry for hotels is huge. But for a variety of business goods and services, the hotel industry is a large and growing market.

Trade Associations

Two key hotel industry associations are the American Hotel & Lodging Association (AHLA) and the

Asian American Hotel Owners Association (AAHOA). As of , AAHOA has approximately 18,000 members who own about half the hotels in the United States.

Tradeshows & Conferences

Here are some of the key hotel tradeshows and conferences, most of them in the U.S. As the hotel industry is global, there are many additional hotel-related conferences and trade-shows around the world, focusing on different regions, like Asia. But these are the main U.S. events, most of which happen annually.

Hotel Experience (HX)
Boutique Design (BD) This event has a New York show and a separate West Coast show, every year.
AAHOA Annual Conference
AHLA Conference
IMEX America
The Lodging Conference
The Hospitality Industry Technology Exposition and Conference (HITEC)
Hunter Hotel Investment Conference
The Americas Lodging and Investment Summit (ALIS)

See a more complete list of hotel industry events here.

Hotel Industry Media

These are the main hotel industry publications:

Hotelier Magazine &#; this is produced by the AAHOA
Lodging magazine &#; produced by the American Hotel & Lodging Association
Hotel Business magazine
Hotels magazine
Hotel Management

Food and Beverage

The food and beverage (F & B) aspect of the hotel industry is enormous. Hotels are increasingly competing by offering improved food and beverage products and experiences. Just about all hotels offer either a paid or complimentary breakfast. More upscale hotels offer room service. And most medium to upper tier hotels have a restaurant and bar on premise.

The more upscale the hotel, the more important providing a quality food and beverage experience to guests is, as guests are staying there for the experience. More upscale hotels, with the possible exception of those located in areas where there is a large concentration of restaurants, will offer high quality food and beverage options. As well as room service.

If you have a food and beverage product or other hospitality product or service, most hotel management companies will have a director of food and beverages, so these are the key people to reach. And hotel brands will also have food and beverage decision-makers who are responsible to maintain the food standards of their franchisees. Other players involved are

Group Procurement Organizations (GPO&#;s), such as Avendra, were created to aggregate purchasing power for multiple hotel groups and negotiate with suppliers on behalf of hotel groups. Avendra was actually founded by the Marriott hotel group in and was co-owned by other hotel brands like Hyatt and Intercontinental before being sold to Aramark in .

Foodservice Distributors

If you are selling a F & B product to hotels, you will most likely need to also work through a foodservice distributor. Large, national foodservice distributors like U.S. Foods and Sysco and also smaller, regional ones, are the businesses that hotels buy from. Your product will likely need to be &#;in-distribution&#; for hotels to purchase them. This means that in most cases, you will also need to sell to these foodservice distributors that hotels use, in order for you to sell to hotels.

To learn more about foodservice distribution, read our e-book &#;Let&#;s Do Lunch&#;.

Hotel Retail

Retail is an important aspect of many hotels, especially resort hotels and mid to upper tier hotels. These range from a simple food pantry with snacks and beverages, to a larger gift shop with a wider range of products. As in food and beverages, selling to these shops will also require understanding and selling to the distributors of your product category.

Design and Furnishings

Hotels are in the experience business, not merely the lodging business. The more upscale the hotel, the more this is true. And a large component of delivering a pleasurable and memorable experience to their guests is the interior design, furnishings and lighting of the hotel. Hotels on average, re-furbish and redecorate their interiors roughly every 7 years. Hotels have to stay current and have the latest styling, décor, lighting and finishes, to maintain their brand and their ability to charge optimal room rates. Therefore, there is a very large supplier industry to hotels, covering all aspects of interior design and furnishings.

The main U.S. tradeshows covering this aspect are the Boutique Design New York show and the Boutique Design West shows.

A key international show for this aspect is the Shanghai International Hospitality Design & Supplies Expo.

Conclusion

There you have it; I hope this blog was an interesting and useful primer on the hotel industry. This is a large and growing market and is an attractive candidate for many products and services. And by the way, we help companies like yours reach this market by providing consulting and marketing services, so, if you&#;d like to have a free introductory to explore how we could help, call us.

Thanks for reading.

Wholesale hotel supplies: How to choose suppliers