Contemporary Issues Of Hotel Industry Essay

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.

Marriott decided to enhance travelers’ value by segmenting the market and then targeting selected segments, each with a different brand. Then as now, Marriott was the flagship brand. Each new brand would support Marriott’s overall brand identity — a commitment to superior customer service — and train employees to have a passion for service.

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,

Is Rationalisation a desirable strategy for managing and organising Junction hotel in the current economic climate?

Steve sees that the profit maximization strategy is questionable of the hotel offerings and services. This is apparent in many of the aspects of the hotel operations.

Luxury hotel segment is getting more competitive. Rosewood Hotels & Resorts have been competing in this segment more than 25 years with its distinctive individual hotel brands. On the contrary, guests want to see one unique brand, same quality and service at every hotel that they stay under one corporate brand name.

As we discussed in class, every business is faced with these issues and they are important to managers making strategic decisions. One of the first things learned about business is that if there is no demand for a good or service, the firm that provides it will not continue to exist. Over time the hotel industry has continued to change with market conditions and make itself attractive to business

Each year the objective was to increase and attract more occupants which she did for the company. Also, the introduction of internet communications is a big plus for the business traveller using the hotel. We now know how important the internet is to every type of guest these days. Furthermore, location positioning is important and with hotels located on major highways, office complexes, airports and surrounding large shopping centres it is fighting other competitive hotels.

The corporate branding strategy will create a sort of umbrella under which all the properties of the company will fall, thus sharing the same quality level in the customer’s perception. Moreover a strong corporate brand will ease the company identification and potentially increase the number of new guests through word of mouth, thus enabling the company to gain a bigger market share. Nevertheless the implementation of such a strategy will necessarily involve big costs and a structural change in the organization. Its culture, the way in which advertising is done, the facilities and supplies in each resorts, the way in which management operates will have to be adapted to the new branding strategy. Furthermore undertaking this action may let down some valuable customers who are particularly affectionate to a resort and may be afraid that it will lose its unique and individual features. Plus it might also disappoint some skilled hotel managers which may feel threatened in their autonomy and potentially leave the company. Retraining the whole body of employees to adapt to the new strategy may be expensive and time consuming as well.

Rosewood Hotels & Resorts (Rosewood), known for managing distinctive luxury hotels is considering a new brand strategy. Rosewood’s concept for each property has always been “Sense of Place”, emphasizing the individual character of each

The Economic conditions challenge the hotel to achieve business and profit margins. Due to the economic crisis, it is becoming difficult for the hotel to maintain Ionian Hotel Enterprises S.A. brand as a lesser amount of capital given to run the operation.

Essentially, the marketing manager will seek to understand how a competitive advantage may be gained over other competitors (Lemon et al 2002). Figure 1 shows that Hilton Hotel Corporation is one of the leading hotels in the world. Nevertheless, as a newer hotel in Melbourne, Hilton is facing some serious challenges from competitors such as Grand Hyatt Melbourne and Sheraton Melbourne. Grand Hyatt Melbourne has completed its four year refurbishment project. Meanwhile, Sheraton Melbourne Hotel will launch a new full service as part of a 2013 development, combining hotel services with up-market residences and boutique retail (Melbourne Planner’s Guide 2011-2012, 2011). It is critical for Melbourne Hilton Hotel to understand visitors’ wants in order to satisfy visitors. In addition, Melbourne Hilton Hotel needs to have a good understanding of the competition in

The organization has explicitly kept this advantageous environment over other organizations by improving its service capacity. Additionally, the organization ensures that it stays ahead of its rivals by engaging in research and development that focuses on luxury products and markets analysis. The Ritz-Carlton hotel uses data from its research to predict the future of the industry; therefore able to dictate what and how the market will trend in the foreseeable future. Another factor that keeps the organization’s advantage over its rivals is that while rivals tend to become a hotel brand in the industry, Ritz-Carlton has rather position itself to be a leader and lifestyle brand that constantly develop new properties and ensure that customers live the culture of the hotel. The final factor that has kept the advantage of the organization intact is the culture of trust that exists between the management and employees. The leadership of the hotel lives and communicates the organization’s value to its employees who in turn satisfy customers in a way that they often anticipate a return visit. These are some of the reasons that the Ritz-Carlton hotel continued advantageous environment over its rivals has persisted in the hotel and resort industry (Reiss,

Porter defines cost leadership, differentiation and focus, as the basic business strategies for an organization to gain competitive advantages. An effective competitive strategy should be based on the organization’s goals and objectives as well as the market situation (Allen & Helms, 2006). Hotel ICON is an independent teaching hotel focusing on creative and innovative design and services. As the slogan ‘Unlike Any Other’ illustrates, Hotel ICON strives to create a unique hotel experience for customers instead of a stereotype one that they can gain in most chain hotels. This indicates that the hotel is following a differentiation strategy to gain competitive advantages in the Hong Kong hotel market by providing stylish design supplemented by the revolutionary technology trend (Hotel ICON, 2011).

With the interference of globalization in the hotel industry, it is inevitable for the hotel companies to meet with different environmental conditions and forced them to study about different management approaches in order to sustain with competing environmental circumstances which would enable them to realize, both negative and positive effects. Since the international trade and business has expanded, there is no doubt that the international linkage is a must. (ZhenJia) Globalization is a procedure that is drawing individuals together from all countries of the world into a solitary group connected by the tremendous system of correspondence innovations. This part of globalization has likewise influenced the HRM in the business universe of today. HR directors today not have to depend in a little restricted business sector to locate the right workers expected to meet the worldwide test, yet today they can enlist the representatives from around the globe. Other than that the viable information based which is being utilized all around today likewise has made HRM a straightforward yet successful undertaking. Along these lines because of globalization to some degree HRM has turned out to be more proficient and powerful, however moderately a basic errand. The most imperative component that these associations are comprised of People, and since HRM is the arrangement of exercises which manages the general population variable present in any association, this change has