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Solutions Center: Be Our Guest
1 Nov, 2006 By: Leigh Gangemi Landscape Management"Thinking like a guest and not a service provider is the key to high-end resort work," says James Boynton, president and owner of Tampa-based SCAPES Environmental Group, Inc., a full-service landscape management, pest control, irrigation and renovation company.
 SCAPES employees try to disappear before hotel staffers begin to set up for the day's events. |
Boynton should know; his ability to think like a hospitality manager has landed him many large resort and vacation community accounts in three Florida cities in just three years.
When he was working on his business plan in 2003, Boynton decided to focus on what he did best — landscape management of high-end resorts, homeowners associations and vacation communities. Focusing on this niche has paid off. He launched SCAPES with just six employees and a couple of accounts, and now runs a 7-figure, multi-branch operation with 53 employees. But the challenges are great, even for someone with Boynton's almost-20 years of experience.
"Resort work is extremely demanding and it's certainly not for everyone," says Boynton. "But I enjoy the uniqueness and challenges of each job. Plus, I enjoy educating and motivating staff to exceed our customer expectations."
Hospitality pays
SCAPES' high-profile accounts include Tampa's Grand Hyatt Resort, the Plantation Palms resort community, the Bayport Plaza office park and the Coconut Point Ownership Resort & Spa in Bonita Springs. Boynton has worked to understand the psychology of hospitality management. A particularly helpful mentor was the former general manager of the Hyatt Regency Grand Cypress Resort and Spa in Orlando. Boynton often accompanied him as he "walked the property," learning to look at the grounds as a general manager and guest, not a lawn care operator.
 At the Coconut Plantation Resort in Bonita Springs, FL, SCAPES employees find a way to beautifully maintain complex water features and hard-to-reach foliage. |
"He was a photographer, and he taught me to look at properties from that perspective," explains Boynton. "He had me ask myself, 'Where would guests want to pose for pictures?,' 'How can I make this vista more appealing?' and 'How can we hide that service area?'" In addition, he learned how vacationers and conventioneers behave — what they like to see, hear and smell, where they congregate and, most importantly, what bothers them.
Boynton and his team make suggestions to managers to improve the overall guest experience as well as hotel operations. "For example, if the hotel wanted to build an outdoor coffee stand, we would work on how to landscape the area to lure guests to that spot," explains Boynton. "By becoming more than just a maintenance company, we became indispensable to the client."
Customizing each program to each site is also important. "You must be ready to mold and adjust your service philosophies for individual properties," adds Boynton. "You simply cannot boilerplate a 'mow-and-go' program on a high-end property."
But customization also means being flexible enough to adjust to each site's daily schedule. At some jobs that require SCAPES employees on-site every day, employees will "pull a daily" for each property. Dailies are hotel/resort reports that detail guest occupancy, the type and timing of events, what groups are on-site and more. For crews like Boynton's, this information is vital to providing efficient service.
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