External Business Environment Assignment Help
Introduction
With the proper analysis and interpretation, the content of the report is being developed so as to fulfil the aim which is in concern with the British economy. This report will have the discussion in regards with the hospitality industry. As the hospitality industry have a great impact on the economy of the country and have an important role in the development of the economy. The report will also have the discussion regarding various legislation regarding the hospitality industry and the discussion will also include various rights of tourist that are being set by the government and legislation authorities of UK
Task 1
A. Dscuss the market structure as it exists in England and identify its impact on the hospitality industry at both national and local levels.
Market Structure: Market is structure is one of the most important aspects for every industry whether it is a hospitality industry or any other industry; it is like a pillar for the hospitality industry. It is of various kinds and has certain authorities available in the market. It’s a fact that service sector have a very important role in British economy and one of the major contributor in it is the hospitality sector. Various market structures have a direct impact on the British economy at national level.
Free Economy, Perfect/Imperfect Competitors: There are ample of opportunities available in the free market economy that are being provided to the hospitality sector as it helps in the development of the economy of the country. Perfect competition also provide a set platform to the hospitality sector as it provides good share of hope to the sector via which the sector could refine its management of work in an effective and efficient manner. Imperfect competition doesn’t provide an effective market as it does not contain stability in the process.
Monopoly, Duopoly Structures: There are numerous of options available in the oligopoly marker for the hospitality sector and helps in developing their personalities. In duopoly there are only two players in the market who set their own rules in the market.
England Market Structure: In England the market structure is comprise of monopolistic market. The hospitality industry have covered a vast area of market of England therefore the market is being dominated by Hospitality industry, and have an effective approach to maximise the profit. Some of the organization that is dominating the market are Inter Continental Hotels, Costa Coffee and Starbucks.
Impact of England Market Structure:
National level: Market structures that are available in England have a great impact on various aspects of the British Economy at national level. All the facilities are being provided by the big houses like wine bars, restaurants, hotels, etc. These clubs of big houses are available across UK which are domination the market and are making their own benefits. For example, Radisson Blu is the hotel which has its chain across UK which is dominating the market so as to earn profit.
Local Levels: These big hotel chains are dominating the small businesses available in the local market and they are being affected with the process of the big firms. These big firms are directly affecting the costs of the small units.
Sectors of the Hospitality Industry in England
There are over 180,000 leisure and hospitality establishments which employ over 2 million people all over England. It is about 7 % of the total workforce in the UK.
(b) Analysis of the effect that the initiative is likely to have on the development of hospitality related businesses in the area.
Amble is a small town, seaport and a civil-parish on the North-sea coast of the Northumberland in England.
There were several proposals for developing the small-business-village on the harbour side at Amble. Finally in 2014, the UK-Government’s Coastal Communities Fund granted £ 1.8 million in funding for the development of the Amble Harbour Village.
Some of the proposals which were put forth were enhancing and opening-up the waterfront and the harbour and also working with the local businesses such as the food retail-outlets, fishing-community and other town-centre businesses, to create a totally distinctive local-seafood offer.
The project for the development of the town was mainly centred on its seafood-industry and was drawn up by the by Northumberland County Council in a partnership with the Amble Development Trust of the Amble Town Council. The main aim of the project was to completely transform Amble into a tourist-destination that excelled in sea-food, thereby creating more employment and thus helping the wide economy to sustain in that area.
The Amble Harbour-Village Development Team.
Finally, the Harbour-Village project was set to motion led by the Amble Development Trust. Keeping the Amble’s industrial, maritime and social history in mind and at the same time meeting the requirements of the growing tourism-industry, the Harbour-Village provides its visitors and the locals with fifteen individual retail-pods selling gifts crafts, art, food, drinks and accessories and also a sea-food centre for the preparation as well as distribution of the locally caught sea-food to the various local-businesses and the individuals.
This is a perfect example of how a town can develop its hospitality related-businesses in their area with the help of a proper Government economic-policy.
Government Economic Policies: There are certain plans and policies that are being set by every government of the country. It is a duty of the government to manage its economy of the country and it can be done with the help of the business activities. The ways via which the activities of the government can be influenced are known as economic policies.
There are some economic policies they are:
Fiscal Policy: Various taxes and the spending made by the public falls under fiscal policies. In this government set the tax rates according to the economy of the country and set the tax rates according to the performance of the various businesses.
Monetary Policy: The amount of money in the economy is being controlled by setting the interest rates on the credits.
Supply Side Policy: It is the policy which is being used to increase the productivity to increase the efficiency.
(c) Discuss the variety of ways that income/ wealth / the demand for labour / the types of jobs available might affect the development of the hospitality sector in Hoxton.
There are various economic conditions that can affect the hospitality industry as the industry is totally dependent of the various economic conditions of the country. Any fluctuation in the economy can directly affect the industry, some of the factors due to which the hospitality employment of Hoxton gets affected.
Income: Income is the factor that can affect the employment sector of Hoxton; it is a known thing that Hoxton is not a place where more of the people come to visit as it is not a tourist attraction place therefore less number of tourists will affect the income and due to less income the employment sector of Hoxton will be affected.
Wealth: As discussed above the source of income for Hoxton is very less due to which the wealth of Hoxton also gets affected due to which the employment sector of Hoxton also gets affected as if the wealth is not effective than it is not possible to generate effective employment for Hoxton.
Demand of Labour: The demand of labour ion Hoxton is very less as it is not a tourist attraction place and there are very less number of people who comes to Hoxton for the purpose of tourism therefore the requirement of the labour also decreases and which increases the chances of unemployment.
Types Of Job: As the scope of hospitality is very less in Hoxton therefore people of Hoxton do not prefer to do jobs in the hospitality sector and they do jobs in the areas where their profile could enhance and they could earn money in an effective manner. This is another factor that affects the employment sector of hospitality in Hoxton.
(d) Make an assessment of the ways in which the change, in this country from a heavy/ manufacturing industry base to a service industry base has influenced employment patterns in the hospitality industry in the Docklands area of London.
Docklands is the name given to the area in the east and the south-east London. Formerly, the docks were a part of Port of London and at one point of time it was well known as the largest port in the world. There are basically 3 kinds of docks that existed, they are the Wet-Docks, Dry-Docks and the Dockyards where the ships were finally built. In the 20th century, the docks were built and also managed by several competing private firms. However, from 1909, they used to be managed by the PLA (Port of London Authority). (Likorish & Jenkins, 2012)
Night skyline from Royal Victoria Dock
Types of businesses in Dockland which provide the jobs over there:
(e) Analyse the different types of people likely to be employed in the hospitality and catering industry in relation to labour turnover / levels of pay / demographic background in:
i) An up market restaurant which offers apprenticeships in a geographical area where there are few jobs
Demographic Background:
Moreover the youths would be attracted towards the job as it is being mentioned that the there is a up market restaurant that will offer an apprenticeship in the geographical areas. The reason behind it is that there are limited availability of jobs and youths gets attracted towards this kind of offers very easily.
Labour Turnover:
The labour would be availed at the high scale and it will not leave the job as they are getting a good opportunity and there are limited numbers of jobs available on those areas therefore the people who are unemployed will get employment and will not leave the job offered to them.
Levels of Pay:
The pay which would be provided to them would be low due to fewer jobs and the people over there are in the need of the job and have less skill in regards with the work which is being offered to them therefore the pay which would be provided to them would be according to their skills and experiences which is very low.
ii) A highly seasonal outdoor theme park
Demographic Background:
It is an outdoor theme park in which the people who will get attracted would also be youth like boys of about 25-30 years.
Labour Turnover:
The availability of labour would be easy as it’s a seasonal theme park and people would like to work in it and would like to get employed in such a place.
Levels of Pay:
The pay would be high as it is a theme park whose earnings are very high at peak season due to which it won’t be having any issue in providing the high pay to the people working over there.
Thorpe Park
iii)A budget hotel in London
Demographic Background:
The people of age between 25-34 years will get attracted towards the hotel which will include both male and female who would be less experienced and less educated.
Labour Turnover:
The people would be less available for the labour in the hotel as in the main areas of London it is hard to find the people who would want to work as a labour in the hotels.
Levels of Pay:
The pay which would be provided to the people working in the budgeted hotel would be high as it is available in the main areas of the London where the pay are being set accordingly.
Task 2
(a) Discuss the structure and operation of local government as it is likely to influence the development of hospitality business at local level in England.
The structure of the local-government in England is really complex with distribution of the functions that vary as per the local arrangements. The legislation concerning the local-government in England is totally decided by Parliament and the Government of UK. The local-government operates under either a 1-tier system of unitary-authorities or a 2-tier system of county & district councils. There are basically 5 types of local-authority in England; they are unitary authorities, district councils, county councils, London boroughs and metropolitan districts. The local-government in England has always been the subject of constant restructuring-process over several-centuries and even today continues to be the same.
The responsibility for the local and the regional government in England lies with UK-government and specifically with Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (also known as ODPM). The useful sources of information on the local-government are the LGIU (Local Government Information Unit) and the LGA (Local Government Association). In London, the Mayor & his GLA (Greater London Authority) take the responsibility for the strategic issues including the development of hospitality business over the entire city. The Government-Minister retains most of the power over the policies.
The local authorities of the LGA in England and Wales put together employ more than 2.1 million staff and also spend £ 70 billion in a year that accounts if approximately 25% of the total public-spending. These resources are mainly used to provide several services which affect our day-to-day lives. The responsibility for provision of the services actually varies depending totally on the local-authority type.
Influence on Hospitality Sector:
Government have a great impact on the hospitality sector as Hospitality sectors have a great impact on the economy of the country due to which the government focuses more upon hospitality sector.
(b)Evaluate the role and influence of the EU as it affects the hospitality industry in England:
i) Consumer Protection Legislation:
Fair Treatment:
There are various legislation that re being made by the European government in which the visitors who come to Europe should be treated fairly, they should not be cheated as it will affect the reputation of the country. Who so ever will be caught to be treating the tourists unfairly will be punished and strict actions will be taken against that person.
Products which meet the acceptable standards:
The products which are to be sold to tourists must meet their standards. They should not be fooled with the quality of the product. They should be provided what they want no unfair practice should be done.
Right of redress if something goes wrong:
Every tourist or customer have right to redress if they assume that any false activities are being done to them. They have right to inform the government as there are various laws that are being made by the legislation of Europe so as to protect the consumers from false activities.
Consumer protection in England is effected by the multiplicity of the statutory instruments, government departments, agencies and citizens’ lobby-groups and also aims to ensure that the market-economy produces fairness and quality in services and goods that people buy. The major areas of regulating consumer-affairs include fairer terms in the contracts for services and goods, financial-regulation so as to ensure credit-access is cheaper and stronger-competition in the private-sector.
The UK, through its membership of the EU, is a part of internal-market, it also works with other countries in Europe and EU-institutions so as to enforce and produce consumer-protection laws trans-nationally.
ii) The Working Time Directive:
The Working Time Directive is a directive of the EU that gives the EU-workers the legal right to a minimum-number of holidays every year, rest-breaks and also rest of a minimum of eleven hours in any given 24-hours. The directive restricts excessive night-work, provides for right-to-work no more than 48-hours per week and also a day-off after 1 week of working. There have been several updates year after year to protect the rights of the EU-workers. Since the excessive time of working is the main cause of illness, depression and stress, hence the stated-purpose of the Working-Time Directive is primarily to protect the safety and health of the people. (Poon, 1998)
The directive also sets-out special rules on the working-hours for the workers in a limited-number of sectors, including sea-fishing workers, off-shore workers, doctors in-training and workers in the urban passenger-transport. Also, there are totally separate directives on the working-hours for certain-workers in some specific transport-sectors).
(c) Make an assessment of the role and political influence of pressure groups by focusing on:
i) The activities of the British Hospitality Association at national level
The activities of the British Hotel Association at national level
Pressure groups help the hospitality sector as it provide a direction to them so as to help the hrm hotel industry in an effective manner, and help the industry to grow in a highly competitive market.
British Hotel Association are the associations that manage all the activities of the hotel industry so as to maintain the decorum of hotel industry in the market via which the hotel industry would be able to grow in an effective manner.
Role of Pressure Group:
A pressure-group is an organised-group which does not put-up the candidates for the elections, but still seeks to influence the government legislation or policy. They are sometimes also referred to as ‘lobby groups’, ‘protest groups’ or ‘interest groups’. Some people generally try to avoid using the term ‘pressure-group’ as it may in-advertently be interpreted wrongly as a group that uses actual and sheer pressure to achieve all their aims, which is not at all the way they function.
The British Hospitality Association is the national trade-association for the hospitality industry of UK. It is one of the most popular pressure groups in the UK. The BHA has more than forty thousand establishments and Five-hundred thousand employees all over UK. The role of the association is to promote the interests of the hospitality-industry to the government, ministers, the EU-commission, MEPs and MPs, the media, etc.
The BHA is a partner of the local government in England and is committed to create more employment and development in the hospitality industry. It works with the local and national government at all levels so as to develop targeted hospitality-blueprints to create employment, encourage the sustainable growth and development and improve the visitor-experience. It also encourages the local-authorities to continue funding for the catering-college courses. It holds annual-meetings for the Prime-Minister & the key-Cabinet Ministers with the leading-members of BHA. This paves way for a proper discussion at the highest-level of government with the key-challenges that face the hospitality industry. The BBA also establishes a cross cabinet committee for the hospitality & tourism. This helps to enhance cohesion and coordinate policy across government-departments.
ii) A local group determined to prevent the development of a giant leisure complex
Local pressure groups and sectional pressure groups generally represent the common-interests of a particular section of the society. The members are personally and directly concerned with the out-come of the campaign-fought by the local group because usually they stand so as to gain economically or/and professionally.
Local pressure groups keep an eye on the local market of the country and help the hotel industry to grow in an effective manner. These local pressure groups works in an effective manner so as to manage the market activities and have a check on various aspects that whether the customer is being provided effective and fair services or not.
Pressure groups keep the eye on various activities like:
Whether the food which is being served is hygienic or not
Whether the service provided to the tourists are according to the set requirements or not
Whether the prices that are being charged by the hotels meets are accurate or not.
Whether the hotels are using all the ethical practices in regards with th tourists or not.
(d) Legislation & regulations strongly influence the hospitality industry
i)Analyse the legal framework in England as it has directly affected the hospitality industry over the past 25 years
Legal Framework of England that Effected the Hospitality Industry Employment
There are many workers in England who have certain complaining working in the Hospitality sectors, about 6% of the workers have complained in regards with the workplace they have complained that they are being bullied at the workplace. And the employees are losing their trust in working in the hospitality sector.
Management Operating Agreement
It is the agreement in which various areas related to the roles and responsibilities of the business which are to be followed by every business with full dignity. Every business which is involved in the hospitality sector has to follow all the instructions that are being mentioned in the agreement. These rules are very rigid and are to be strictly followed and any mistake could lead in the closure of the business.
The hospitality industry has changed significantly over the period of the last 25-years. The EU has made several stringent rules and a legal-framework that concern safety and health, working hours and food hygiene. The UK government has changed the laws regarding smoking and also premises licensing has been over-hauled. The Health and Safety at Work Act of 1974, made it actually possible for all the employees in any sector to know the fact that if any of them breaks any rules that are set in the 1974 act, then they would be liable on criminal-basis. Over time, several other legislations have also come in from the European Union that has further added to the 1974-Act.
The act guarantees workers to have a legal right of protection against work-related risks. The law imposes several duties of the employees, self-employed and the employers as well as suppliers, manufacturers, designers, etc. for use at the time of work. Most of the modern safety and health law applies ‘across the board’, there are also several other additional-regulations that cover the industry-sectors like mines, railways, quarries, agriculture, construction and major hazard and nuclear-installations.
The law also gives the HSE (or the Health and Safety Executive) and Local-authority inspectors, wide-ranging powers to issue notices to halt dangerous work as well as to prosecute.
ii)Identify the main differences between the English and Scottish Systems over the same period highlighting the influence of the Scottish parliament.
Scottish law is basically a mixed legal-system i.e. a mixture of the strong civil-law base over-laid with influence of the English law. Scottish law is civilian in nature whereas the English law is not. Scottish law shares a civil-law foundation with several member-states of the EU. After the union in 1707 with England, there has been an influence of the English law. The mixed-nature of the Scottish law is clearly visible in the field of contract-law.
(e) Evaluate the changes in the legislative process in England as they have affected the hospitality industry at both national and local level.
i)Health & Safety Legislation and Regulations
The hospitality industry has changed significantly over the period of the last 25-years. The EU has made several stringent rules that concern safety and health, working hours and food hygiene. The UK government has changed the laws regarding smoking and also premises licensing has been over-hauled. The Health and Safety at Work Act of 1974, made it actually possible for all the employees in any sector to know the fact that if any of them breaks any rules that are set in the 1974 act, then they would be liable on criminal-basis. Over time, several other legislations have also come in from the European Union that has further added to the 1974-Act.
The act guarantees workers to have a legal right of protection against work-related risks. The law imposes several duties of the employees, self-employed and the employers as well as suppliers, manufacturers, designers, etc. for use at the time of work. These duties are basically expressed as broad-general duties in HSW (or Health and Safety at Work) Act. Most of the modern safety and health law applies ‘across the board’, there are also several other additional-regulations that cover the industry-sectors like mines, railways, quarries, agriculture, construction and major hazard and nuclear-installations.
Hence the Health and Safety legislation Act positively impacts the hospitality sector in the England as it guarantees the safety rights of the workers and also gives clear guidelines on their duties. This creates a healthy and safe work environment in the hospitality industry thereby helping the industry to grow more efficiently.
Analysis: It is important for every hospitality industry to focus upon the various aspects which are related to the health and safety of the people as by focusing on the health and safety of the people the business would be able to make better performance due to which more customers will get attracted towards the business and would help the business in generating more revenue.
ii)The Licensing Act 2003
The Licensing Act became operational from 24th of November 2005. It efficiently reduced around 6 licensing regimes into one single act. This act made several changes to licensing. The entertainment and drinking habits of the people have changed after the passing of this act in 2005. Since there were a lot of social-concerns around public-drunkenness and particularly binge-drinking, it was thus really important to bring out a new legislation of the UK.
The licensing activities are as follows:
1. Sale only by retail of alcohol.
2. Alcohol supply by or on behalf of some club to, or only to the order of, any member of the club.
3. Provision of late-night refreshment
4. Provision of regulated-entertainment.
The licensing act thereby helped to simplify the laws regarding refreshments, drinking and entertainment thus positively impacting the hospitality industry in England.
Task 3
(a) Assess the different characteristics of the three types of hospitality business listed below:
i)A small local B&B
For several people, running a bed & breakfast is a bunch of varying day-dreams rolled into one. Staying in a spectacular house off the beaten-path. Meeting interesting new people every day and also getting paid for it.
The primary requisite of a B&B is a beautiful house with several rooms to accommodate the guests. Since a B&B is generally a small-scale business, the business is totally depended on repeat visits by the customers. Thus hospitality becomes very important. The guests should enjoy their stay and the owner needs to create rapport with the guests. A proper website also helps in promotion. The Interests and preferences of the Guests needs to be properly recorded and they need to be treated with utmost care
ii)A chain of seven health clubs all located within the same city
Hospitality and customer service becomes the most important thing when it comes to a chain of seven health clubs in the same city. People visit health clubs for maintaining fitness, relaxing, spa, massage, or to access the gym. There are several other competitor health clubs running simultaneously in any city. So in order to ensure that the customers visit our health club chain in the city, a superb consumer service and hospitality needs to be in place. There needs to be a well maintained and updated website giving all details of the therapies and products. The consumers visiting any branch should be greeted very nicely. All their preferences and interests should be properly stored in a database and accordingly, they should be sent customized email giving information of the products and services that they specifically like. Proper booking facilities should also be present. Every customer visiting any of the seven health club should be made aware of the latest technologies in health and wellness and how they can keep themselves absolutely fit. (Richardson, 2010) There are various other characteristics also as like people who live their also provide the houses for rent which gives tough competition to the market as they provide their houses on les rates which affect the other businesses, the owners of those houses lives over there only due to which the market gets affected as the people prefer to live on those house which provide the services of hotel in cheaper rates. (Henderson, 2005)
iii)The UK operation of a chain of international hotels
In case of an UK operated chain of international hotels, massive promotion, and customer support needs to be taken care of. The notion of a brand and its quality needs to build by incorporating the best hotels and timeless customer service and elegant hospitality in place for the visiting customers.
A high-class website needs to be maintained that is capable of withstanding tremendous traffic from all parts of the world. The staff and the employees need to be trained on hospitality and customer service very effectively. Only after their successful training should they be allowed to work. Large scale promotion through online and offline media needs to be carried out. The website should have details of all the branches and the products and services offered by each of them should be clearly mentioned. Proper and secure online payment system needs to be incorporated.
UK Operations of a Chain of International Hotels
The international chain of hotels have defined strategies to develop itself in the market as it have effective plans on which these chain of hotels attain success in the competitive market, the international hotel chain have its fixed customers and these customers are loyal for these hotels due to which no matter in whichever state or country the hotel is located their set customers goes to those hotels only.
(b) Discuss the legal requirements involved first of all in setting up a registered company to build and run a 500 bedroom hotel and then in dissolving the same company at a later date.
Approval of Project
Before taking any step it is necessary that all the approvals should be taken in a positive manner, a hotel of 500 rooms required a proper set of approvals in regards with the building, location, society, approval for water supplies, and for electricity.
The name of the hotel should be proposed which should not be patent or used by any other business or hotel chain
Promoter’s name must be there
The status should be provided by the owner that whether the owner is opening a public company or private company.
The area of location should be provided and the place where the hotel is to be manufactured should be provided.
The document of business must contain proper details of the site.
(c) Analysis of the structure and internal processes which would determine responsibility and control in the hotel.
Hotels not only vary in size, but also in type of clientele, character, and scope of activities. Each of the function exists, but however the priorities vary from one hotel to another. The management of each hotel have to determine the number of departments and the employees in each department needed for its self-operation (Wheelan & Hunger, 2010)
Generally the General Manager has the main responsibility for running the hotel and is normally held accountable for the success or failure of the business in the hotel. He is responsible for defining and interpreting all the policies that are established by the top management.
After the General Manager, Executive Assistant Manager comes in line. He has to supervise all the activities in case the General Manager is absent. His task is to keep informed of all that is running in the different departments and report it to the General Manager. After that the employees come into the picture. Employees and staffs belong to different departments like the Rooms Division, Personnel, Accounting, Marketing and Sales, Engineering, Purchasing and Food and beverages.
Analysis: The internal process of the hotel include the general manager under which executive assistant manger would be their who will manage the personal, accounting, marketing and sales, engineering and purchasing department, under marketing department there will be two departments who will work and under room division there would be 5 different process which will work with their fullest efforts and under food and beverages again there would be 5 processes which will work in providing effective services to the customers.
Conclusion
With the in depth discussion in regards with the report it could be concluded that hospitality industry have a great scope in the market, it could help the industry to make some positive changes and will be able to help the country in the growth of the economy. The legislations are necessary for every industry as it provides a set framework and help in maintaining the decorum of the market. Legislation helps the customers in enjoying the services in an effective manner as they are being treated with the fair practices and they can get relaxed due to those legislations. Hospitality industries have a great future in the market and have various aspects to grow in a better way which will help the external business industry to sustain in the market.
Biblography
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