Unit 12 Hospitality Provision in the Travel Tourism Assignment

Introduction

Hospitality and travel & tourism are the two most growing industries in today’s time. In order to ensure their success and make the customers happy, it is very important for them to work together. It is seen that the travel and tourism industries which work in partnership with reputed and good hospitality industries are more successful in comparison to others. In this essay there will be detailed discussion on various parameters of the relationship between the hospitality and travel and tourism sector (Baum, 2006). Later in the essay the importance of integration between and within the hospitality and travel and tourism sector would be discussed.
In order to make the things easy to understand, there are some examples used in the essay. One of the example is from hospitality industry. It is a hotel known as Egerton House Hotel in London. It is an AA five star rated hotel. It is one of the top hotels in London and rated among the top hotels for its excellent services to the guests.It is a luxurious hotel with all the amenities which are designed exclusively for families, individuals, and couples. They have also received many of the prestigious awards. The latest one was The AA Hospitality Awards - Awarded 5 RED stars for the year 2014-2015.

Task 1

A. Discuss the scope and scale of the hospitality industry within the travel and tourism sector with a global perspective and examine the role of hospitality function using your experience in your chosen organization

Hospitality is defined as the way in which the service provider takes care of their customers. Hospitality is one of the most important factor which differentiates between the different service suppliers. The hospitality industry is a big umbrella under which there are a lot of small sub-sectors like hotels, transportations, restaurants etc. All these sub-sectors provide their services like accommodation, travelling, food etc. to the consumers and try their level best to satisfy all the needs of the consumers (Buhalis & Crotts, 2013). A consumer will choose the hotel or the airlines which will provide the best service in terms of hospitality because it is the one thing which makes the journey comfortable for the consumer.
                A travel and tourism industry is one which comprises of all the above services. If a customer plans his journey then he will have to decide on the airlines, then the hotels and then the restaurants. Hence it will not be wrong to say that hospitality industry has got a lot of scope and scale within the travel and tourism sector. Usually these travel and tourism industries have tie-ups with these sub-sectors of hospitality industry and in order to give the best services to their customers they will get in contract with the best service providers. The best service providers will be the one who will have the best hospitality and other services for the customers (Crotts et al, 2009).
                       Hospitality has now turned into and industry and is run at both small and large scale. Small families run BnB inns at the tourist destinations and the big companies run hotels. The goal of both is to provide comfort to the travellers and make them feel good.  Hospitality industry ranges from localised and regionalised industry to multinational companies and affects the travel and tourism in a major way.
It is very important for both the hospitality as well as the travel and tourism industry to make sure that both the tangible as well as intangible services are taken care of. The tangible services are the one for which the customers pay the money like a hotel room in the hotel whereas the intangible is one for which there are no separate payments done but have got a lot of importance. The staff plays a significant role in providing a good intangible hospitality like friendly atmosphere, respect to the customers, modesty etc.
             Let me explain this best with the help of my personal experience at Egerton House Hotel in London. I went there for a holiday trip with my family. As soon as we arrived from the airport, the staff was courteous enough to take our bags and help us with all the check-in formalities (Cho et al, 2006). Usually their job ends there but here in this hotel, the person escorted us till the room and also enquired if I need anything else. This was really very friendly on his part and made us very comfortable. He also made sure that all the equipment provided were functioning properly. Then later in the day, we were made friendly with all the amenities at the hotel like gymnasium, swimming pool, and play area for the kids etc. Even at the restaurant in the hotel, we were treated very well and the staff took an extra effort to arrange some food especially for the kids as they were not interested in having the usual stuff provided by them. So with the help of this experience I can say it without any doubt that hospitality functions and sector has got a significant role to play in travel and tourism sector.     
B. Examine the role of hospitality provisions within the travel and tourism operations and discuss the interrelationship between hospitality and travel and tourism
The role of hospitality in travel and tourism is best explained by the Leiper System. The basic Leiper system could be best explained by the figure below:

The figure shows the ‘Tourism system” in which the Traveller generating region depends on the factors which motivate people to travel, the destination refers to the place they visit and the transit route is the route used for onwards and return journey. Leiper suggested that there are many factors which influence each of these building blocks of the system. These factors may be human, social, legal, financial, political or technological. Among these factors hospitality plays a very important part and is a big factor for the system. Hospitality is one factor which could motivate people to travel to other places as tourists and moreover it can also become a factor which would make the tourists to travel back. So, we can say that the travel and tourism business is affected a lot by the type of hospitality provided. Hospitality is one factor which works as both Push and Pull factor in the Leiper System
          From the above discussion, it is very clear that hospitality industry is one of the integral part of travel and tourism industry. It will not be wrong to say that the hospitality and travel and tourism industries are inter-related to each. In order to make the customers happy and satisfied, it is very important that both of them work with co-operation and collaboration. A proper hospitality will ensure the success of travel and tourism industry (Litvin et al, 2008). A travel tourism industry mainly provides comfort and relaxation to its customer during vacation and holiday trips, hence a good hospitality is the integral part to ensure a relaxing trip for the customers.
Many a times it is seen than customers repeat the service providers just because of good hospitality provided by them. No one can ignore the fact that all the hotels or the restaurants provide good rooms and the food but it is the hospitality based on which the customers decide to go them again. Similarly the business of sectors of hospitality industry increases when they are tied up with some of the travel and tourism sector. Hence it will not be wrong to say that the hospitality and the travel and tourism sector have direct impact on each other’s business (Lockwood, 2007).A good hospitality helps to get good recommendations and helps to generate publicity with the word of mouth. This is the best way to get recognition for both the hotels and restaurants as well as the companies in the travel and tourism business.

Task 2

A. Explain integration in hospitality and travel and tourism businesses and discuss with example drawn from your organization how horizontal and vertical integration in the industry affects the hospitality organizations.

Integration: Integration is defined as the combination of one or more units in such a way that it could create a single large entity. Both in hospitality as well as travel and tourism sector integration plays a very important and a significant role. Both the industries comprises of many sub-sectors and hence it is very important that all the sub-sectors get integrated and work as a single entity in order to provide better services to the customers. There are broadly two types of integrations – vertical integration and the horizontal integration. Both the categories of integration have got their own importance (Navickas & Malakauskaite, 2009).
Vertical Integration: The integration is known as vertical integration when two or more phases of production are combined together. This helps in decreasing the production cost for the company and hence increasing the efficiency of the company.
Horizontal integration: The integration is known as horizontal integration when the two completely different entities come together under the same management in order to serve the customers.
          For both the hospitality as well as the travel and tourism sector it is very important to maintain a good mix of horizontal as well as vertical integration for the success.The example of horizontal integration is the integration between an airline industry and the hotel. Both the airline and the hotels are two completely different entities but they come together and work under the common management of any travel and tourism industry. A customer will be happy and satisfied only if he gets a good service at all the stages, hence in order to maintain the reputation of the travel and tourism company, it is very important that both the airlines as well as the hotels work in best possible way and provide their best services to the customers (Watson, 2008). Incase if there will be issue in the services at any level, the overall impression of the Travel and Tourism Company will be in trouble. There are a number of hospitality as well as travel and tourism companies in the market hence it is very important for both companies to do a proper research before getting into any kind of integration. The hospitality industries must try to get integrated with the reputed travel and tourism industries and vice-versa. In the sectors like travel and tourism, an intelligent integration with the successful players in the market is the key to the success.
              An example for vertical integration is supply chain management. It is one of the best method to deliver the best quality products to the customers. A proper vertical integration helps in cost reduction for the company. There are several factors which needs to be taken care while delivering the products to the customers. The first and most important is availability i.e. the products must be available at the time of demand. The second thing is quality i.e. the freshness of the products. For example, in hotels usually the guests demands different time of items at different times. Broadly there are two categories of goods – the perishable items and the non-perishable items (West et al, 2008). The non-perishable items are the one which can be stored and consumed later or it also consists of items like soaps, shampoos etc. In order to make sure that these items are available at the time demand, there should be proper storage where these items can be stored properly. The perishable items are mostly food items which need to be consumed immediately or within the given time, this means that these items should reach to the hotel in time so that it could be served to the guests within the time. Incase if these items are not served fresh, then these items get decomposed and hence wasted. A proper supply chain management will ensure that the items are delivered on time. 
         The other example of perishable item is from airlines industry, the seats in the airlines are perishable in nature. If the seats will not be booked on time then those seats will remain vacant during the journey and hence those are wasted for that trip. Even in that a proper supply chain management could help to avoid such situation. Hence it will not be wrong to say that an efficient and effective supply chain management will be helpful in avoiding the wastage of products in case of hotels and of seats in case of airlines. 

B. Discuss the impacts of integration and how the organization decides to respond to the consequences of integration. Consider both vertical and horizontal integrations.

Integration had a great impact on the functioning of hospitality as well as travel and tourism sector. Integration has made the things very easy and convenient for the customers. Now if customer had to plan for some vacation trip, he need not worry about making the bookings for airlines, hotels etc. separately because travel and tour operator will do all the needful. He will take care of all the bookings starting from transport till the stay and even about other recreational things (William, 2006). This has been only possible due to integration as all the separate entities come together and work under one management. With the advanced level of integration, even the tickets and all the other related documents are sent to the customers with the help of an email or even posted to the customers. With the help of integration, the customers are stress-free and this is the reason why they are even ready to pay some extra amount for the services. A happy and satisfied customer is the most important factor for the company’s success which it gets with the help of good mix of vertical as well as horizontal integration.
            The introduction of IT integration has brought a great change in the field of travel and tourism. The customers can book all the tickets on the internet and even the payments could be made with the help of internet. This is possible only with the help of integration between the travel and tour operator and various banks. Due to this option, the customers now do not carry cash along with them to make the payments and hence can feel safe during their journey (William, 2006). With the help of internet now customers can even get all the information about the destination and the hotels. They can also give their reviews about their experiences. There are several websites which are specifically designed to get the feedbacks from the customers so that the hotels and other industries can bring in improvements in their services if required.
                    In order to match up with the changing environment, it is important for the industries to make sure that they are up to date. They need to put all the important information on the website so that the customers can go through it. It is very important that all the information should be correct and authentic otherwise the customers will cheated which will ultimately have a bad impact on the reputation of the company. In today’s world of competition there is no way that a company could ignore the importance and usage of integration and hence they should try their best to get integrated vertically as well horizontally to get the success in their field.
To summarize, it would not be wrong to say that any industry needs integration to make sure that the resources are utilised in an optimum manner. Hospitality, travel and tourism industry is no exception. We need integration in this industry too to make sure that there is minimum wastage of time and money and the customer gets an overall experience of Hospitality, travel and tourism. This would help to increase the customer base as the customers no long would need to worry about individual things and with integration all their needs would be taken care at once.

Task 3

A. Produce a project proposal for a new hospitality business outlining the product-service concept, target market, location, operating model (including staffing), and design based on a thorough market potential analysis with suitability and acceptability criteria in mind.

The project proposal here for a new hospitality business is of a luxurious hotel which will take care of the entire domestic as well as the international guests.
Product Service Concept:The concept of the luxurious hotel is to provide the customers with the most comfortable and royal stay.Our motto of the hotel will be to make sure that customers get all the luxuries along with the comfort. Our aim will be to make sure that guests are satisfied and happy with our services. We will give all the amenities to the customers so that their stay could be pleasurable at our hotel.We have also planned to keep an information as well as feedback desk. The information desk will help the guests to plan their excursions whereas the customer’s feedback at feedback desk will help us to know strengths as wells as the areas of improvement.
Target Customers:The target customers for this hotel would be the one who looks out for a relaxing and luxurious vacation trips with their families.We would also target customers who would be on business trips.
Location:The hotel will be centrally located so that there are no difficulties in reaching to the venue. We will try to get the location which will be easily accessible from all the parts of the city (Buhalis & Crotts, 2013).
Operating Model:The most important section of the proposal would be about the operations. The important points to be kept in mind are as following:

• There will be no compromise on the quality of the staff. All the staff members would be hired according to their educational as well as professional qualification.

• Only the specialist will be hired for the special requirements (Lockwood, 2007). For example, in restaurants of the hotel for cake baking there will be person who had got mastery in baking cakes.
• We will try to keep a good mix of full time as well as the part time workers so that the guests could be handled easily during the off-seasons and the peak time seasons. The workers will also be from different backgrounds and cultures as same will be the case with the guests. The staff will be trained to respect all the cultures and value the difference in the cultures.
• There will be no compromise in the recruitment and selection procedures. Strict rules and guidelines will be followed. All the rules will be in adherence to the legal laws and guidelines.

Design of the hotel:

• The ambience of the hotel will be luxurious, we will try to give a royal look to the place. Since the hotel will be a luxurious hotel, the atmosphere will be like a palace so that when a customer enters the hotel he would get a royal feel. This could be done with the help of antique furniture, huge chandeliers, fountains etc.
• The hotel will also have a lavish exterior. There will be large garden where some light music will be played so that they can enjoy their evenings in the garden. There will be a multilevel parking so that guests who would drive on their own to the hotel do not face any problem (Litvin et al, 2008).
• We will try to keep a welcoming and approachable atmosphere in the hotel the staff will be given a special training about it.
• All the amenities provided would have special attendants to make sure that all the equipment are functioning properly and also they will help the guests to get friendly with the equipment. They will also tell about the guidelines to use the amenities so that they can make best use of them.
• There will be a system which will keep the track of guests in the hotel, this will help to avoid any kind over or under bookings.

We will also take care of all the promotional activities and will do it by following a suitable promotional strategy (Watson, 2008). All the important points like services in the hotel, price, location etc. will be taken care in the promotional campaigns.The prices of the hotel will be best as per the company standards.

B. Briefly outline and assess the financial feasibility of the proposed project based on the expected cash-flow analysis.

The most important and crucial issue in any project is with respect to the finance. In a hotel business the money needs to be distributed very precisely within all the phases of the project. In order to distribute the amount it is very to know about the total amount and the sources from where the amount would come (West et al, 2008). In this project, the source of income is mainly from three parameters. The major amount is from the self-investment, then from the investors and a small amount is from the bank as a loan.  The distribution is as following:

The next important phase is about distribution of the available amount into various requirements. The major investment would be in the construction of the building and then the remaining amount could be distributed among the other requirements like land, furniture, initial operations and other works (Navickas & Malakauskaite, 2009). Since a hotel project is a very large project it is very important to distribute the money very judiciously and ensure that the required amount is being given to the particular sector. A rough idea about the distribution of money towards various sectors is as following:

References

Baum, T. (2006). Human resource management for tourism hospitality and leisure. Thomson

Buhalis, D., & Crotts, J. (2013). Global alliances in tourism and hospitality management. Routledge.

Cho, S., Woods, R. H., Jang, S., & Erdem, M. (2006). Measuring the impact of human resource management practices on hospitality firms’ performances.International Journal of Hospitality Management, 25(2), 262-277

Crotts, J. C., Mason, P. R., & Davis, B. (2009). Measuring Guest Satisfaction and Competitive Position in the Hospitality and Tourism Industry An Application of Stance-Shift Analysis to Travel Blog Narratives. Journal of Travel Research,48(2), 139-151

Litvin, S. W., Goldsmith, R. E., & Pan, B. (2008). Electronic word-of-mouth in hospitality and tourism management. Tourism management, 29(3), 458-468