An Interview with Hilton Hotels' Jim Vonderheide

A brand is a powerful tool, especially in the hotel industry where services are intangible. Many hotels of the 21st century have made branding one of their top most priority with the realisation that hotel branding helps to set them apart from their competitors and create a firm customer base. Branding creates brand recognition, brand preference, increase customer satisfaction and most importantly, customer loyalty.

Conrad Hilton (Figure 1.1), the man who started Hilton hotels. He was born on December 25, 1887 in San Antonio, New Mexico and died on January 3, 1979 in Santa Monica, California. Conrad Hilton was famous as American hotelier and businessman. For instance, he was also the founder of Hilton hotel chain (Figure 1.2A - Figure 1.2C) and in 1925, he built his first hotel in Dallas Hilton and it costs $1million. Conrad Hilton was deep faith in God and country. Not only that, he belief in hard work and has the ability to dream big. Thus, he was influenced by his mum’s Catholic beliefs and told by his mum prayer was the best investment ever. Furthermore, “digging for gold” and “esprit de corps” are his golden principles of being successful. He published his autobiography,”Be My Guest” in 1957.

John Becker believes in enfranchisement. He believes in going beyond and above our means to all guests and that each guest manages equally. This process was a success at his prior hotels that John decided to implement this process here at the regency grand hotel. He met with the management team and introduced his expectations to them. He made them aware that they are to take care of the minor issues and to contact him with significant problems in the hotel between the guest

Marriott’s flagship brand continues to target customers needing fine restaurants, meeting rooms, athletic facilities, and other upscale amenities. But Marriott added seven additional brands according to its view on market segments — Courtyard by Marriott, Fairfield Inn, Residence Inn, TownePlace Suites, SpringHill Suites,

For instance, in the hospitality industry, the Hilton brand symbolises high-end properties, elevated quality of service and a unique guest experience. Brand name and brand image are essentially two factors that differentiate companies which operate in the same industry and market. Therefore, the brand name must be unique. Hotel companies like the Hilton have established strong national brands and seek to use them globally with an intention of increasing profits. Once its established as a global brand, the company has successfully created an international image that can lead to increased efficiency through branded marketing efforts and cost savings on a much larger scale. Nowadays with an increase in international travel, the competition among international hotel corporations is becoming a lot more competetive. Those tourists that travel to foreign countries tend to stay in one of the known hotel brands and their standardised quality of service. Hotel chains are motivated to maintain a high rate of global expansion as a key marketing strategy of creating brand loyalty (King,

InterContinental Hotel Group is a hotel company with over 350,000 employees working in 100 countries. It has over 5,000 hotels globally. One of IHG’s brand is the Holiday Inn, the Holiday Inn’s international headquarters are in Americas, Europe and Australasia. In London, UK, there are 72 hotels with the Holiday Inn or Holiday express brand. The InterContinental Hotel Groups structures their business into sections depending on what the hotel’s aims are. For example, the Holiday Inn Resort is abroad with outdoor swimming pools, it’s a very holiday place when you can spend 1-2 weeks there where the Holiday Inn is a place to stay over for one night or even the weekend. These two hotels have the same brand but different aims.

Amber Inn & Suite, Inc. was built in 1979 and is composed of 250 hotels chain empire of which each consisting an average of 120 exquisite guest rooms or suite units. The profits are $422.6 million and deficits of $15.7 million. The Amber Inns & Suite have total of 30,000 rooms. The Company’s objective is to cater mainly to professional clienteles that are traveling with fabulous guest rooms at an economical price. Amber Inn & Suites, Inc. is located in areas amid ten western and Rocky Mountain States with two hundred fifty numerous property hotel chains. In most cases, each property is made up of one hundred twenty single guest rooms or suite units. Amber Inn & Suites Inc. positions its properties on prime areas such as major

In my paper I intend on explaining a brief history of the Hilton Clearwater Beach, explain the type of lodging facility it is, discuss its market orientation, what services are available, and finally discuss the career opportunities available. I have compiled my information via a series of face to face interviews with current employees as well as some email communications with members of the hotels Executive Committee. I have also used the corporate website augment the information gathered in my interviews.

As a growing American hotel company, establishing a permanent place in local and national markets is our primary goal, and we wish to become nationally and internationally renowned as a business and tourist destination within the next 5 years. Our main mission is to provide high quality accommodations, and associated amenities and services at competitive prices to our targeted markets. Our basic business objectives are reflected in everything that we do, which is to contribute to the enrichment of the quality of lives for

The main objective of the company is not only to attract but also to retain staff who are interested to work in the hotel business for the five-star level of high service, taking into account the wishes of clients, and which offers an innovative, dynamic environment and reflects the culture of the local country. To achieve this, Hyatt strives to be a company listening to well-informed and concerned people. Hyatt provides plenty of opportunities at all levels for their employees, which are accompanied by numerous development

Hilton Hotels is one of the biggest players in the hospitality industry with over 2900 (as of September 2007) hotels worldwide consisting of numerous brands and products. The hospitality industry is service centered and highly competitive. The challenge for Hilton is to create and deliver value better than its competitors. Hilton understand that it is important to improve customer experience and build strong relationships with the customers. Hilton Hotels adopted a Customer Really Matter (CRM) strategy out of necessity to cater for

Hospitality Management is a difficult and competitive market, and any lack in customer service can result in defecting customers or the termination of a relationship between a customer and a service provider. In this paper we will look at Hilton a company that has continually ranked amongst the top ranking hotels and continues to improve. Hilton’s customer service ranks as one of the top hospitality providers in the United States. We will look at the history of how Hilton came to be the name brand it is today and some of their process the used to narrow the customer service gaps such as Hilton Honors, the Hiltons Reservation Customer Care, and RESMAX. We will look at how they look at how Hilton manages the customer expectations through the use of employee training and their decreased the customer service gap through employee retention. We will also look as how Hilton co-partnered with Citibank in order to offer its Hilton Honors member additional benefits in order to keep in line with the customer service that the customers have come to expect.

To be the first choice of hotel guests, team members, and owners alike, building on the heritage and history by:

Chan, ESW & Wong, SCK 2006, ‘Hotel selection: when price is not the issue’, Journal of Vacation Marketing, vol. 12, no. 2, pp. 142-159, (Online Sage).

The critique of the article has been done to identify some assumptions that are being made by the authors, further challenging them and proving the point to be valid or not.