Managing Hospitality Experiences

Alexandra Kenyon, Peter Robinson, James Musgrave, Alexandra J Kenyon, Peter Robinson, James Musgrave

• Publisher: CAB International
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN:
  9781789242034
• eBook ISBN:
  9781789242058
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Hospitality, Travel & Tourism Industry
• Index: Business

Managing hospitality experiences is a crucial part of the hospitality business and industry alike. While many textbooks cover the management of hospitality services, this text focuses specifically on experiences, while also providing a full and detailed insight into the ways in which experiences are designed and delivered. Using examples from the gamut of hospitality, this book explores issues around people, services and spaces. It covers management issues such as marketing, human resources, operations, quality management, facilities management, project management and strategy, while considering hospitality operations within their wider geo-social and geo-environmental settings. This book includes a range of important contemporary topics, such as sustainability, resilience and ethics; supported throughout by learning objectives, case studies, review questions, links to videos and further reading suggestions.This book: Emphasises experiences within hospitality, providing students with a focused and applicable text.Includes numerous international industry case studies to illustrate how hospitality organisations manage experiences; these real-life scenarios provide key teaching points. Provides wider theoretical principles to develop the field of hospitality and place it within an industry context. An invaluable read for undergraduate students of hospitality and event management, this textbook also provides an overview for postgraduate students and those studying further education courses in hospitality and related areas.

1 Introduction

JAMES MUSGRAVE*

School of Events, Tourism and Hospitality Management, Leeds Beckett University, Leeds, UK

*[email protected]

This book explores the growing demand on hospitality managers to incorporate consumer experiences at the forefront of service. It acknowledges and builds on research from within the hospitality subject area and from related disciplines to provide a full and detailed insight into the various ways experiences are designed and delivered.

Cultivating experience is nothing new; indeed, the hospitality manager has been curating experiences for centuries. However, the consumption of the hospitality experience is changing as consumers change. First, consumers are more informed about the service they want and expect to encounter. Even before they step into the establishment, customers read solicited and unsolicited reviews online. Second, consumer choice is immeasurable, culminating in shifting loyalties. Therefore, creating a loyal customer base becomes ever more onerous. Third, consumers seek new experiences; the challenge for hospitality managers, therefore, is to innovate and enhance the experiences at every encounter. Finally, the key part of the experience remains the relationships between host and guest along the customer journey.

Since 2009, a seismic shift has hit many hospitality organizations. The growth of ‘real-time’ reviews, online quality ratings, global discount/voucher schemes, decline in own-brand loyalty schemes and the aftermath of a global recession have resulted in fluctuating market share, declining average spends/room rates and reduction in footfall and occupancy levels. The difficulties in distribution to market have forced many hospitality organizations to use online travel agents and ‘Uber’-style online F&B order platforms. The high commission rate has resulted in declining revenue in what has traditionally been a high-yield area. Consequently, there has been limited capital investment in some sectors, resulting in lower unit values, lower average spends, damaged reputation and higher operating costs.

The lack of talent entering the industry remains a concern for many. The perception of a lack of formal qualifications, so called ‘low skills’ entry points and fragmented training perpetuates a sense of ‘unprofessionalism’. Yet those with a career in hospitality are required to use complex skills such as interpersonal intelligence (dealing with others), intrapersonal intelligence (dealing with self) and cultural intelligence (appreciation of values, behaviour and quality of communication) in most service encounters. Pressure to reduce labour and recruitment costs has meant a further burden on existing staff. Unfortunately, labour shortage has fuelled a high staff turnover rate, resulting in a shortage of professional and career-orientated managers.

Setting and maintaining expectations is a multifaceted challenge. For example, hospitality-based organizations deliver service at various ‘touch’ points, with many variables outside their immediate control. So from the travel experience of guests arriving at a city hotel to the availability of nearby parking facilities, the ‘experience’ encounter is often marred by other ‘touch’ points, but rolled into one expectation/satisfaction dynamic. This is compounded by a transgenerational customer base, often with competing expectations.

Notwithstanding these challenges, the industry is colossal, with an estimated global worth in excess of US$550 billion. The removal of trade and travel barriers has driven economic progress the world over, with Europe maintaining a dominant market in hospitality, and Asia Pacific a major growth region for the industry at large. This expansion has been stimulated by equity- and non-equity-based growth strategies such as franchised, leasing, management contracts and consortia. So there remain opportunities and growth.

The importance of experience is an integral part of any future growth and a basic function of hospitality management. To move from hedonistic experiences to self-indulgent returns has captivated innovation. For example, embracing the hospitality experience through ‘software as a service’ (SAAS) is becoming the norm for millennials and a great utility in higher revenue creation. At the core of SAAS is an integrated, multicultural and self-indulgent experience, one that moves from a product-focused intensive business to a co-created, experience-centric one. By utilizing SAAS, consumers can have a creative and emotional connection to their service experience rather than merely a functional one.

As this book looks to overcome current challenges facing the hospitality industry via experiential methods, we should also consider future consumer behaviour.

It is probable that the ‘green tourist’ will dominate the market, and these values should be reflected in the service encounter. A balance of economy and ecology will be at the forefront of clients’ minds. ‘Home hotels’ will be the norm, not the exception, with travellers mixing leisure, pleasure and learning. Older generations will maintain mobility and continue to spend on a blend of education and luxury retreat experiences; and cheaper hotels will flourish around city centre infrastructures. SAAS will bring about automation to many service encounters. This will be acceptable to most customers in many areas of service. However, employees will remain the most important asset of service when interpersonal, intrapersonal and cultural sensitivities are required. Therefore, education and training of staff in emotional intelligence will dominate continuous professional development. While customers of the future will be more experienced in travelling, an overt approach to security and safety will enhance their satisfaction.

Of course, these future insights are predictions, but clearly evidence the need for hospitality managers to think about experiences as part of their strategic business decisions. Given this, this book considers a range of subjects including marketing, human resource management, operations management, quality management, facilities management, project management and strategy. Using case studies to exemplify chapter content, the book provides up-to-date international examples from industry to illustrate the ways in which hospitality organizations operate and respond to changing environments. Drawing on a range of case studies, from fast food to fine dining, ‘overtourism’, resilience and ethics, the book is framed around people, services and places. This structure promotes a wider consideration of hospitality within a geosocial and geo-environmental setting.

Part 1: People

In Chapter 2, ‘Corporate Social Responsibilities, Society and Hospitality Experiences’, stakeholders are positioned at the core of corporate social responsibilities (CSR) and within hospitality organizations. Here, stakeholders are seen as the producers and consumers of CSR via active encouragement in CSR activities. These experiences shape the proposition of CSR from within and outside each hospitality organization. The chapter provides further insights into CSR and relates these to the current business environment. It concludes by suggesting CSR will be a business imperative with many stakeholder groups.

Following on from definitions of CSR within hospitality organizations, Chapter 3 draws on responsible consumption and choice architecture, and applies this to experiences of people and their sustainable behaviours. This chapter proposes that physical place can facilitate cognisance and action towards responsible behaviours in customers (people). In accepting that responsible behaviour is a symbiotic relationship of people and place, it reviews the physical design (environments) of hospitality organizations (place) and the way in which people (customers) interact with their physical context.

Chapter 4, Hospitality Businesses and Social Media Marketing, discusses several seismic shifts. It discusses humans and how they love to communicate, socialize and form relationships. Marketing managers have, for centuries, tried to form relationships between their brand and the consumer through communication messages. The chapter, therefore, explores the theory of communication messages and how that has changed since the introduction of the internet, and how marketing managers create experiences online through social media marketing communications.

Managing people across hospitality experiences is the essence of Chapter 5. Hospitality workers are at the forefront of the service encounter and their interactions with guests impact on loyalty, ratings and experiences. The chapter explores aspects of employee attitudes and satisfaction, staff turnover, skills shortages, training and occupational culture, and applies these to the service encounter. It draws on a range of organizations to highlight the shared industry culture but also more nuanced subcultures. In examining how approaches here differ to the wider hospitality context, it illustrates the importance of people in creating the hospitality experience.

Chapter 6 seeks to explore the concept of personal resilience, its relevance to the hospitality experience and the strategic decisions required to successfully manage personal resilience currently and in the future. Drawing on theories of personal resilience, the chapter puts forward a framework of practical strategies to encourage organizational resilience using association-based examples, coaching practices and food-and-beverage case studies. This triadic relationship consists of Leadership, Training and Development, and Support.

Part 2: Service

In Chapter 7, a critical analysis of supply chain management principles reaffirms the need for effective planning and management of processes, facilities, information and produce to deliver an outstanding hospitality experience. Additionally, the chapter appraises quality and inventory management in an increasingly uncertain yet ‘information-rich’ competitive environment and assesses the impact on supply chain management decisions.

Creating and developing a hospitality brand is at the forefront in Chapter 8. Using the four steps to successful hospitality brands, the authors outline best practice and apply this to regional and national case studies. The application of a conceptual customer-based brand equity model brings together elements of experience and management to craft emotional attachment to a range of hospitality situations.

Chapter 9 defines experiences and discusses their application to service quality theory in casual dining brands. External variables are explored and applied to service concept, service quality and managing service processes to provide practical solutions for a demanding sector. It explores the importance of the customer experience and how these are influenced through the ‘servicescape’. The role of technology furthers the relationship between the servicescape, quality management and the changing consumer. Case studies highlight successful techniques used in casual dining brands, underlying the importance of simplicity and convenience in producing differentiation and consumer experience.

Part 3: Places and Spaces

The traditional elements of emergent and planned strategies are brought together in Chapter 10. The chapter offers a critical reflection of existing strategic models and their failure to respond to the social evolution in the external environment. Case studies are used to exemplify the dynamic nature of the hospitality sector and reflect the social evolution of customer experiences. A strategic model is prescribed and offers a different perspective on strategic decisions that consistently deliver meaningful hospitality experiences.

The design and branding of physical spaces is seen as one of the fundamental principles of effective hospitality experiences in Chapter 11. The chapter outlines how design attracts and retains consumers through inspiring and ever more engaging spaces. Case studies are used throughout to exemplify how establishments strive to create self-indulgent and self-orientated experiences. Using principles of ergonomics and environmental psychology, the chapter seeks to explain how effective design of spaces fosters differentiation and value, contemporaneously supporting service and celebrating the physical product such as the food or space we occupy.

Finally, in Chapter 12, the nature of quality is explored and applied to service, and how experience will dominate the service encounter. The move from consumer to prosumer is testimony to this, and explores how service quality experience can elicit memoralia – long-lost delight, engagement and loyalty. These facets are applied to a range of case studies to enable hospitality managers to evaluate techniques that can be used in a variety of situations.

2 Corporate Social Responsibilities, Society and Hospitality Experiences

ALEXANDRA J. KENYON* AND LUCY HACK

School of Events, Tourism and Hospitality Management, Leeds Beckett University, Leeds, UK

*Corresponding author: [email protected]

Learning Objectives

1. To critically review the formulation of corporate social responsibility

2. To present key developments of corporate social responsibilities within the hospitality industry

3. To assess why transparency of corporate social responsibilities is important within society

Introduction

The variety of hospitality companies that come under the umbrella of hospitality is vast. Hospitality companies can be anything from international hotel chains to pop-up coffee bars at festivals. What is interesting to note is that the word ‘company’ comes from the Latin companion – a word originating from the 4th century ad and means ‘one who eats bread with you’. For hospitality companies this is particularly significant as it suggests that hospitality is a conduit of sharing experiences, being together and giving something to others. The metaphor of breaking bread symbolizes companies and others (stakeholders) working together and giving something to others in society. Ostensibly, all hospitality businesses operate together in society, for society through the business paradigm of corporate social responsibilities (CSR). Therefore, hospitality businesses do not act independently of society; they have a role in society that is guided by rules and regulations set by society that actively encourage stakeholders such as non-governmental organizations (NGOs), national governments, society and consumers, to work together and improve the human environment.

To understand why hospitality businesses are engaging more with CSR, to improve the human environment, this chapter begins with an historical review of CSR and then moves on to discuss how CSR are understood now. It will then examine how stakeholders are further pushing hospitality businesses not only to consider their role in society but also to become leaders through...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Contributors
• 1 Introduction
• Part 1: People
• Part 2: Service
• Part 3: Places and Spaces
• Index
• Backcover