International Hospitality Industry

Bob Brotherton

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2012
• eBook ISBN: 9781136394089
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Hospitality, Travel & Tourism Industry
• Index: Business

With contributions from leading figures in the field The International Hospitality Industry looks at both specific sectors of the industry, such as restaurants, cruises, hotels and contract foodservice.

The book moves on to highlight the key issues that will be encountered within every sector of the industry - operations, IT, marketing and HR among others - thereby providing the reader with an all-encompassing and comparative overview of the field.

1

Structure and characteristics

Overview

The three chapters contained in Part One are designed to provide you with an analysis of the key sectors of the international hospitality industry, namely Hotels, Restaurants and Contract Foodservice. Unlike other texts that seek to provide a similar analysis of the hospitality industry within one country, the range of sectors dealt with here is narrower in some respects. The reason for this being that, although there are other forms of hospitality provision that can be identified as discrete sectors within given national parameters, this diversity becomes more difficult to sustain within the international environment. For example, many countries can identify pubs, clubs and bars as a discrete sector within their indigenous hospitality industries. However, at an international level this is not possible as the number/size of any international operators in this field is extremely limited. There are major international, if not global, brewing/drinks companies, but these are essentially manufacturers and/or distributors. They do not really own international estates of pubs, bars or clubs, and certainly not on any appreciable scale.

There are also sectors identifiable within national contexts, such as self-catering accommodation, that cannot be mirrored in the international arena as these types of businesses tend to be small, fragmented, and operate under local/national ownership. Conversely, other hospitality activities often identified as discrete sectors in particular national contexts, such as Welfare or Educational Catering, are represented here as they occur in the context of the Contract Foodservice sector of the international hospitality industry.

It may be argued that chapters concerned with activities such as Timeshare/Holiday Ownership, Resort Complex and Cruise Line operations should be present as identifiable sectors of the international hospitality industry in this part of the book and this may be a reasonable argument. On the other hand, all these activities are essentially engaged in accommodation provision and face many of the same strategic and operational issues as international hotel companies, some of whom are involved in one or more of these activities. Therefore, in the interests of producing an affordable student text focusing on the key sectors of the industry and a range of pertinent issues it was decided not to include any of these as discrete chapters.

Each of the three chapters follows a similar format beginning with a brief Historical overview of the sector. This is designed to give you an awareness of the key historical developments and influences associated with the evolution of the sector to assist your understanding of its contemporary nature. A major part of each chapter is then devoted to providing you with an understanding of the Structural characteristics of the sector. Here you will find information, analysis and discussion on the size distribution, ownership types and patterns, and the main companies operating within it. However, given the pace of change and consolidation evident in the international sphere, you should review this material carefully as the situation described by the author/s may have changed by the time you read this material. Although correct at the time of writing the extent of merger, takeover and collaborative venture activity in the international hospitality industry is such that it is highly likely the detail of this material will have changed in the time between writing and publishing the chapters!

Following the historical overview and the structural characteristics you will then find material on the nature of the sector's Products and operations. This is designed to provide you with a critical understanding of the types of product/s and operational formats existing in each sector. To complete the analysis, each of the chapters also contains material relating to the sector's Market dimensions and conditions. This material will enable you to develop an appreciation of the scale and value of the sector's output, and contemporary trends and competitive conditions prevailing in the market/s served by the sector in question.

How you choose to use the material in the three chapters will of course be largely determined by the reasons you are accessing it in the first place. If your interest is in a particular sector, or perhaps a particular type of product/operation, you are likely to focus on the relevant chapter. On the other hand, you may wish to consider the extent to which the structural characteristics, strategic directions, product and operational formats/practices across the sectors are similar or quite different. The common format adopted for the chapters facilitates this type of comparative analysis. Therefore, if you wish to analyse whether the structures of the sectors are essentially the same, or not, this can be done. Similarly, if you want to take a particular perspective to compare the operational nature of the sectors this can also be achieved. For example, you may wish to ask; to what extent are the operational systems similar in hotels, restaurants and contract foodservice? Alternatively, are the issues associated with logistics, capacity utilization, market reach, customer relationship management etc. the same in each sector? Indeed, if you are interested in identifying some recurrent, or over-arching, themes you will find that I provide some thoughts in this respect in the concluding chapter of the book.

1

Hotels

David Litteljohn

Introduction

This chapter sets out a broad context for discussing the nature of the hotel sector of the international hospitality industry. Fuelled by increases in personal incomes and, in particular, the availability of mass short- and long-distance travel, international hotel suppliers have responded vigorously in a number of ways. These changes bring up important issues for hotel organizations and managers as they meet new challenges.

When you have studied this chapter you will be able to:

• Recognize the nature and size of the international hotel sector of the international hospitality industry.

• Assess differences in regional distribution of international hotel demand and supply.

• Discuss the underlying factors affecting the supply of hotels in the international hospitality industry, in particular those relating to capital funding and affiliation.

• Analyse the nature of growth and of integration forces in and across the hospitality and tourism sectors.

• Provide evidence from a selection of international hotel operators on the nature of products and operations.

• Explain possible structural developments in the hotel sector of the international hospitality industry.

Problems in commonality of definitions and types of measures for hotels in different countries must be acknowledged when gaining an international perspective of hotels. While this chapter does use internationally gathered and collated figures, no attempt should be made to use figures in this context as precise and comparative measures, they must always be used carefully and with the appropriate caveats. The chapter uses the Western (European/USA) conventional view of hotels. These are establishments that offer meals and drink together with accommodation to travellers and local markets, in return for financial exchange. They vary from those offering only basic levels of comfort, security and service to luxury hotels. Establishments at any service level may also provide a range of additional amenities and services – such as swimming pools, gyms and other recreational facilities.

Overview: hospitality and hotels in an international context

When tracking a phenomenon as varied as hospitality it is difficult to agree the size of the industry and its role in different communities. Indeed the term ‘industry’, conventionally seen in economic literature as being ‘the set of all firms making the same product’, could be called into question, though utilization of the term underlines the perspective of commercial, rather than personal/domestic hospitality. Even given the focus on hotels in this chapter, it will be realized that analysis covers different types of businesses, e.g. from large resort hotels catering for beach and leisure customers to small city centre low-spend business travel hotels.

Hotel provision falls within the general context of hospitality, an aspect of human activity which has important social dimensions, as well as meeting physiological requirements of shelter and body comforts. The actual term hotel is originally French and was commonly applied to commercial hospitality establishments in the mid- to late eighteenth century. By 1780, for example, the concept had crossed from France with the founding of Nero's Hotel in London (Taylor and Bush, 1974). This and other similar establishments catered for the affluent sectors of the population who were becoming increasingly mobile in their personal and work lives.

From an international perspective it is important to understand that hotel may be considered as a culturally bound phenomenon. This is because customs that govern hospitality provision and the ways that hospitality providers operate have an in-built set of assumptions. For example, in the case of hotels, locations are often chosen carefully to appeal to certain types of user; establishments offer particular combinations of meal and drink services to accompany a range of private and public accommodation facilities; hotel customers and staff operate to given social codes (e.g. certain behaviours are considered acceptable while others are discouraged). Many of these factors centre around notions of hospitality and hotel keeping current in Europe and latterly the USA during the main epochs of their develop...

Table of contents

• Front Cover
• Half Title
• Dedication
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of contributors
• Editor's Preface
• Part One Structure and Characteristics
• Part Two Issues
• Index