Evualiating strategies of Inter Continental Hotel groups

Tourism is one of the most international industries. Globalisation is the gradual forging of links between groups and societies until they finally reach around the globe in several directions (Smith, D,2006). Globalization is one of the serious challenges facing managers today. It is critical to develop services that are able to satisfy a highly diverse customer base (Ueltschy et al., 2007) Now to keep up with the rising levels of globalization in the hotel industry, there’s a need to understand not only the positive, but also the negative impacts of globalisation. I’ll also talk about the growth and rise of one of the most respected brands in the hospitality industry - the Hilton Hotels. Throughout the evolution of this famous organization, the Hilton has

Before we discuss about the effects brought by globalization, we should first understand its meaning. Globalization refers to the worldwide movement of capital, goods and services, people, values or ideas across national borders in the form of trade, economic, financial and communications integration. It has brought plenty of far-reaching impacts to different aspects of people’s life in the modern world. As an emerging industry with a high level of fluidity, what impacts the hotel industry has come over so far? In this essay I will discuss about both the positive and negative effects brought by globalization to the hotel industry.

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.

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

Nations Hotel Corporation is one of the reputed USA based hotel company, with an international presence in 15 countries worldwide. Hospitality industries are quiet competitive in nature and today’s success rule of hospitality includes knowledge, customer satisfaction and operational efficiency which provides pleasure of stay and departure to their guests. Any addition or subtraction in these components can increase or decrease the rating of any organization. Nations Hotel with 98% brand awareness and 72% as customer satisfaction ratio were still far from the race of preferred choice amongst the customers. Hence there, arose a need to

The hotel industry is a very hard industry to enter into, due to one of the biggest obstacles, which is brand recognition. Right now there are a few large hotel chains that make a large footprint in the market. It is hard for a new entrant to come into the industry and compete with these large hotel chains without bringing something new to the table. Many large chains in the industry dominate the industry due to economies of scale due to franchising.

This team will support all of HHC's core businesses and work closely with hotel ownership and management groups to achieve its stated goals.

Intercontinental Hotels Group – It is British company and the most profitable among the four industry leaders. It owns, manages, leases and franchises approximately 3,741 hotels in approximately 100 countries as of 2006. It ranks number one in gross margins (54%), operating margins (24.7%) and earnings per share ($2.10) even if it’s smallest in the strategic group. It appears to be the cost leader among the big four companies in the industry.

A lot of business travellers want to stay in well known hotels like Mariott or Hilton. Only 16% want to stay in individual hotels. So for the industry it is important to have a very good reputation. Of course the people try to get the best price for a room and most hotels have company rates which are below the normal rack rate. Also important for a booking is the location of the hotel and the bonus programs. For 26% of the guests Airline milage is important. So the hotels have to work with airline companies and they want special conditons as well.

Within the luxury tier, many of the players do not actually own the hotels themselves, but instead manage the operation of the business, similar to that of FSH. In the luxury segment, competition for acquiring new management agreements becomes very high as hotel owners make their choices based on the quality and value of a company's management service and most importantly, its brand name. Moreover, guests who choose to stay in luxury hotels are commonly not very price sensitive, and thus it is essential that a hotel distinguish itself amongst its competition by providing value added services as well as maintaining an untarnished, reputable brand name and image.

InterContinental Hotel Group (IHG) is among the largest hotels of the world and contain large of number of rooms in comparison to other hotels. IHG has transformed itself from a small hotel to large one with the help of expanding its operations and functions. It is noticed that the hotel focuses on the aspect that great hotels gain guests love, which can

As mentioned earlier in Chapter 1, China Lodging Group is a multi-brand hotel group which as per now manages seven hotels with each having a specific target of customers. These Hotels are Hi Inn, Han Ting Hotel, Elan Hotel, Star-way Hotel, JI Hotel, Manxin Hotel, and Joya Hotel. Its mission statement is to create great brands of hotels that guests love. The group predicts to be owning over a quarter of the hotel market share in the next five years to come. The two major objectives that the company has set for the next five years to ensure that they attain their goal is to build one large five-star hotel in the heart of China Capital’s serene outskirts and to ensure that they hire enough

The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company operates within the upscale & luxury hotel industry. While it could be argued that Ritz-Carlton operates in the more broad and inclusive lodging industry, they offer a highly differentiated product and service and therefore find themselves operating in an exclusive industry alongside very few direct competitors, such as Four Seasons Hotels, HongKong and Shanghai Hotels, and Starwood Hotels & Resorts. Therefore when analyzing this industry I will not be including cheap hotels, motels, lodges, or inns, unless to offer potential substitutes to luxury hotels. In order to assess the attractiveness of the upscale & luxury hotel industry, an analysis of the general environment surrounding the industry must be

1 The tourism school, Zhejiang Gongshang University, Hangzhou, China; 2School of Business Administration, Zhejiang Gongshang University, Hangzhou, China. Email: chenjue8@yahoo.com

This research has shown that there are differences in perceptions and expectations of Chinese Mainland tourists compared to other foreign tourists and this impacts upon satisfaction levels. Chinese Mainland tourists spend less on hotel accommodation than other foreign tourists, however have high expectations and expect value for money, making price a major factor in the consideration process for hotel selection and an aspect that the Hong Kong hotel market must consider when marketing their hotels and services, to the Chinese Mainland tourist.