Hotels in a number of cities in Israel, which normally cater to tourists and businesspeople, have quickly adapted to the needs of a different type of guest.
The current guests, most of whom are evacuees from Israel’s North and South, didn’t come for a planned, or short, stay. These hotels have now become the evacuees’ temporary homes.
The first pressing issue that had to be dealt with was food.
“Normally, when our hotels are catering to the needs of tourists, we provide breakfast, as well as dinner for guests who book half-pension stays,” explains Tali Keidar, marketing and digital VP at the Dan Hotel chain, which is hosting over 6,300 evacuees in 11 of its 17 hotels throughout the country. “When the evacuees arrived at our hotels, we of course knew that we would be providing them with three full meals, in addition to coffee and fresh fruit that is available all day long. We made adjustments, such as more types of foods that are kid-friendly.
“We also quickly realized that we had to change up the menu more often than before so that the guests wouldn’t be eating the same food every day. We started offering pitot baked on a taboun on certain days, and a few times we’ve had celebrity chefs come and cook for the evacuees,” he says.
One of the essential needs of the evacuees who are living in hotels is how to get their laundry done.
“From the first day of the war, when evacuees started coming through our doors, we began putting together a plan that would cover all the families’ needs,” Keidar recalls. “It took a few days until laundry became one of the more pressing items on our list. For the first few days, residents living near the hotels were coming and taking bags of laundry home and washing them for the evacuees. But at some point it became clear that we needed to find a better solution, since there was just too much laundry to wash. So we installed washing machines in the hotel so the evacuees could wash their own laundry,” he recounts.
Common areas, including the lobby, have also been repurposed in the meantime.
“We’ve designated a number of large halls to be used for different age groups, and we’ve even begun operating makeshift kindergartens,” Keidar enthuses. “At some of the hotels, for example, such as Dan Panorama in Haifa, the municipality and the Education Ministry organized classrooms for the evacuees. We’ve also opened health clinics. For example, Beilinson Hospital opened a temporary clinic operating out of the Dan Panorama in Eilat in one of the large halls, and a number of doctors from various disciplines go to see patients there every morning.”
Another dramatic change that a number of hotels housing evacuees have made is their policy regarding pets, many of which arrived with the families fleeing Israel’s North and South. For many of the guests, their pets provide great emotional comfort and support during these difficult times, so it was very important that they be allowed to keep their pets with them.
“On the first day the evacuees arrived, the CEO of one of our hotels in Eilat told me that families were arriving with dogs, cats, parrots, and even an iguana,” Keidar continues. “Before the war, only a small number of our hotels allowed small dogs. Now, during the war, pets are allowed in all of our hotels. For the hotel staff, this entails organizing areas for the animals to move around in, plus food and water. It gets a little tricky, since some of the dogs are huge, others are aggressive and need to wear a muzzle, and they’re not always kept on a leash. Nonetheless, we haven’t turned away any of the dogs,” he states.
How have all these changes affected the staff?
At first, many of our staff people were going home feeling shattered and overwhelmed after a long day of listening to the horrific stories evacuees were telling about how they’d suffered during the Hamas massacre.
One employee told me she felt like she’d been a social worker all day long. We’ve all had to learn really quickly how to be sensitive, and listen, and take it all in. Sometimes the guests vent their frustrations on us, and there is really nothing we can do to help their situation except listen sympathetically.
We’ve also had a number of incidents in which fights broke out, since everyone is on edge, and we’re all stuck together inside this pressure cooker. When heated and loud arguments break out, we have to intervene and try to deescalate the situation. Each community has a leader, and we are in continuous contact with them, which has helped us deal with problematic situations when they arise. All the rules have changed, and it’s taking time for everyone involved to get used to this crazy new reality we’re living in.
What is one rule that you’ve decided must be strictly enforced?
Smoking in the guest rooms. People are having an extremely difficult time abiding by this rule, but this is the one rule for which we have zero tolerance and that is strictly enforced. We have been very clear that anyone who crosses this line will face sanctions, since it’s against the law. In the end, we’ve managed to get the message across to everyone.
Has the management begun planning for what physical improvements will be necessary to make before the hotels reopen to the public after the evacuees leave?
Yes, we are aware that it will be necessary to carry out renovations in order to get the hotels back up to a certain standard before we can welcome back vacationing guests. For example, after having all the pets here, we’ll have to replace all the wall-to-wall carpeting. Also, because there are so many children staying in the guest rooms, we will need to repair the walls. But we’re not focusing on those issues at the moment. Right now, our main focus is on helping the families who’ve suffered terrible trauma. All the hotels will receive financial compensation, which will enable them to carry out the renovations when the time comes.
Translated by Hannah Hochner.