For three consecutive months, the numbers from the Aurelia Hotel had been moving in the wrong direction.
Occupancy was down. Restaurant revenue was down.
Repeat bookings were falling.
Online reviews, which had once described the hotel as warm, elegant, and attentive, now used different words.
Cold.
Pretentious.
Unwelcoming.
One review from a traveling nurse said the lobby staff had stared at her sneakers before answering her question.
Another came from an elderly couple who claimed they had waited nearly twenty minutes at the front desk while employees continued helping guests who arrived after them.
A father traveling with two children wrote that his family had been treated politely until a clerk discovered he was using a discounted corporate rate.
The numbers bothered Margaret Whitfield.
The reviews frightened her.
At seventy-two, Margaret no longer handled the daily operations of the Whitfield hospitality company she had spent most of her adult life building. She still owned a controlling interest, still chaired the family holding company, and still reviewed every major property report, but the days of inspecting linens and arguing with kitchen managers over breakfast service had supposedly ended years ago.
Supposedly.
Some habits survive retirement better than others.
Margaret sat at the end of a long walnut conference table on a rainy Thursday afternoon while Daniel Mercer, the chief executive overseeing the hotel group, moved through a presentation on the wall screen.
“Sales are down again,” Daniel said.
Margaret leaned back.
“Again?”
“Third month.”
“And guest satisfaction?”
“Worse.”
He clicked to another slide.
A graph sloped downward.
“Complaints about rooms?”
“Some.”
“Food?”
“Not much.”
“Cleanliness?”
“Actually still good.”
Margaret looked toward him.
“Then what are they complaining about?”
Daniel hesitated.
“The staff.”
Margaret's eyes narrowed.
“Incompetence?”
“Not exactly.”
“What, then?”