The Westin St. France Hotel - Research Paper Example

Management Research Paper ID Management Research Paper Westin St. France Hotel located in San Francisco is a hotel that ispopular for the provision of hotel services in the San Francisco region. The hotel accommodates both locals and those from other communities around the region including foreign customers. The data collected on the hotel represents the feelings and feedback based on reviews from the customers that visited the hotel over the time registered. The reviews also originate from the customers that have visited the hotel and the class within which they belong. The different classes of the customers include the family, couples, solo and business that do support the business in all sides. The family customers and the couples have provided the largest number of support to the business and remain the most targeted market that the hotel targets. The hotel has developed incentives to motivate and attract more of the family and couples to the business. The system used for gathering information used the feedback system that has customers fill in their thoughts to the business and the nature of service attained. These channeled through the analysis provides a picture of the business and the feelings of the customers in relation to the nature of service, the staff, the cleanliness of the environment and the appealing nature that makes customers want to come back for more. Through this system, the results provided prove reliable and realistic in explaining the position of the business in the market in relation to the competition. The level of performance of the Westin Hotel is good based on the ratings that the customers provide and the reviews collected on line. The performance is rated high by the location of the business and sleep quality. The other areas rated include the service aspects, value and cleanliness. The hotel needs to improve their service delivery and the value aspect that has come rated worst. The rating shows that the services provided by the company need improvement. The relationship with Marriott Hotel shows that the competitor is well developed in these tow week areas of the Westin Hotel. The weakest point identifiable through the reviews is the value which Westin hotel is also poor at. The level of performance is therefore rated well with these rating aspects considered. The hotel has much strength with the major strength being its location. Located at the southwest coats with a property spreading over 47 acres, the hotel has location to its advantage (St. John Hotel, n.d). Location in business is a major strength since the better the location the easier the customers identify or reach the hotel hence a simpler marketing approach. The location also provides the business with an advantage in the competition since the customers find the place easily accessible and hence more appealing to them. The other strengths that the company has include their correlation of their services with the customer needs. The ability to ensure that each room is clean and all areas of the business is clean enough to attract customers makes the business stronger competition wise. Well-developed service delivery and the culture developed through careful selection of staff and training them has helped maintain a service standard. With families and couples as part of their target market, ensuring that each room is clean and facilitated to support the customer’s needs makes the business have an upper hand in the competition. The business needs to improve on the value aspect and ensure that the customers obtain value for their money. The value aspect developed through the feedback mechanism provides the customers with grounds to have their ideas implemented into the business to provide a feeling of satisfaction the next time they came. These help in encouraging loyalty in the customers and making them attached to the business more. The service levels have an impact on the business since they contribute to the satisfaction aspect that each consumer earns. The hotel business is a service sector in business. Provision of services to the customers is rather the core business and therefore the need to protect the service is warranted. Services provided depend on the staff employed for the service, the level of training employed and the organization culture. The improvement of the services provided will ensure an improved performance and the ability to match the competition. The other aspect that requires consideration in improvement is the value aspect. Value for money is becoming a common phenomenon that even customers apply in determining their satisfaction levels in a service or product purchased. Improvement of the value provided ensures an improved appreciation aspect from the customers, improved ratings and an attraction to the other market available. Couples and families have specific needs that require satisfying if to provide value for money. The needs may vary but the same reason boils down to ensuring that value is attained for the money paid to the hotel. With the competition so stiff in this field of business, the need to have better results is a requirement that is only achievable if the company concentrates on the services provided and the value for money derived from the service obtained. The travelers rated the hotel with many of them rating it as very good, followed by those that rated it excellent, average, poor then terrible as the last. A total of the 592 from the family category reviews, 215 voted for excellent, 222voted for very good, 72 going for average, 46 for poor and 37 for terrible. The pie chart below pictures the review results. In percentage terms, 36.3 represent the excellent aspect, 37.5 represent those that say the hotel offers very good services. The average customers represent 12.2% while customers that rated it poor fall within 7.7 and 6.25 for terrible (Westin St. John Resprt & Villas, Cruz Bay, n.d). In relation to the study at hand, the poor aspect and terrible aspect provide a task to the management to take care of the areas that have weaknesses and improve. The customers that rated them found something not satisfying in the service provision and hence voting poor and terrible. The ratings could have come due to the poor service delivered, the value obtained for the service purchased and the different levels of satisfaction obtainable. Considering the general population reviewed, the table appears as follows: Relating these with 100 customers, the following results as per represented by the graph below. This considers all classes of customers ranging from the family customers, the couples, the business people and those that come in solo. Considering these gives the true picture of the services offered by the company and the considerations made by customers about them. the customers still rated the performance in general as very good followed by excellent, average, poor then terrible respectively. The results show that the customers feel the hotel is performing well but still not to an excellent position meaning that, the hotel management needs to act to have the hotel get to excellent. In relation to the reviews collected, one easily finds that the services part and the value aspect that remain low as per feedback would help boost the effect is worked on. Competition Among the many hotels available for comparison, the most competitive hotel to the Westin St. France Hotel is the Marriott Frenchman’s Reef and Morning Star Beach Resort. The hotel with nearly the same number of reviews as that of the Westin hotel provides a better competitive option for rating. The hotel has many advantages too as the Westin Hotel with location as its major weapon (Frenchman’s Reef & Moring star Marriott Beach Resort, n.d). The data collected on it from the trip advisor. The collection of data on the hotel was possible through the online sources. Competition on the international hotel business has grown with many using prices as the best weapon others aiming at the quality of their service (Mathews, 2000). Considering the reviews provided by the customers and the summary of the ratings that the level of performance is good. The most rated of all the location is appealing to many customers. Other aspects rated that make the business more attractive are aspects of services provided, the cleanliness, value, rooms and sleep quality. These rating parameters make up the business’s marketing plan that involves helping the business identify the areas that require improvement and having them improved upon. Among all the aspects of rating, the aspect of value weighed in last with the other aspects weighing in well too. The business is well structured and planned for in the sense that it provides value for their customers. The business ensures that each customer obtains value for his or her money while at the hotel. The location of the business is attractive with good sleep quality, cleanliness and rooms for accommodation. The rating factors relate to the aspects that support families and couples more hence making these their primary target. The aspects of rating have a positive outlook due to the efficiency of the staff. Each staff member is committed to ensuring that the business is served well and his or her contribution to the company registers. The employees contribute through excellent services, ensuring that each rating aspect is utilized to their advantage to give the hotel an upper hand in the market. These provide satisfying efforts to the customers hence making the business successful. Numerous strengths that the Marriott Hotel has have made it a competitor worth considering. These include the location aspect that gives it an upper hand on the competition. The location makes it easily identifiable making the business attracts more customers. As one of the core advantages of Westin hotel, the competitor needs to have a good location advantage to beat the competition. The competitor for this case is well located and in position to tap into the market freely to help gain an advantage. Among other strengths that Marriott has include the sleep quality, rooms, services and cleanliness. With these strengths and the advantage in the service part, the hotel has an advantage over the Westin hotel. The better services will affect the competitive advantage in the favor of Marriott making it more successful businesswise. Among the strengths, the weakest point of the hotel is the value aspect that requires improvement. The aspect of value plays a huge role in managing customer loyalty to the business. Value provides the customer with the satisfaction they need to keep them loyal to the hotel. Value relates in many aspects with it considering the service obtained by the customer, the price labeled at it and the satisfaction attained. The customer considers all these aspects and reviews their effect in relation to how satisfied they are about the hotel’s services. It is vital to ensure that each part of the service that the customers pay for is matched with their value. A good example is that of an accommodation service purchased by two people with different prices. The person that pays a higher price expects to obtain a higher standards and value compared to the person that pays less. Relating these two makes the heavy payer to feel unsatisfied with the service hence an unsatisfied customer. These relations make the customers lose confidence in the hotel hence affecting their loyalty aspect making them try out new competition and hotels. Considering the reviews from the website, the 1963 people considered raised their responses with excellent having the most support followed by very good average, poor and terrible in that order. The excellent matched with 714 customers, 689 for very good, 329 for average, 152 for poor and 79 for terrible (Marriott Frenchman’s Reef & Morning Star Beach Resort, n.d). Considering these in percentages, 36.4% for excellent, 35.1% for very good, 16.8% average, 7.74% poor and 4.02% terrible. The rating shows that the largest number of customers is confident with the hotel with a 36.4% excellent rating showing that the hotel has built a good reputation and the customers are willing to remain loyal to it. Very good also rates second with a total of over 70% of the customers feeling the hotel is serving them well makes the hotel a tough competitor to beat in the market. A small number of people consider the hotel to have poor or terrible services. These remain less than 15%, which does not affect their ability to remain a threat to the market. These obtained through the general classes available. Considering the family being one of the major targets in the market that the competitor aims for, the table below shows the effect it has on the business. Relatign for 100 reviews for Marriotte Hotel The table shows that many families think the performance of the Hotel is very good compared to the results from the general population considered that consider the hotel’s performance as excellent. The performance of this hotel is good and worries any competitor making them need to work harder to keep this competitor from winning customers from them. Considering the general populations for both the Westin Hotel and the competitor Marriott, the competition is very stiff between the two. The hotels all need to prove more innovative and able to maintain their customers in ways that keep the competitor from stealing their customers. An improvement in the services offered by Westin would provide the customers with more reason to remain loyal to the hotel. The value aspect too requires improvement if the business is to remain performing. Considering the family class, 502 reviews considered, the following were the results. Comparing the two hotels, the competition is tight and the fact that they all target the same market of couples and families makes it stiffer. The hotels all have good services, a good reputation tagged with each, and they both have strategic locations that work in their advantage. Through these, the hotels competition is difficult to judge and the results that each registers makes it difficult for any easy judgments. The competition also provides each hotel with an opportunity to improve. The opportunity to keep the customers attached to the hotel makes services demand more attention as a way of keeping them tailored to the customer needs. References Frenchmans Reef & Morning Star Marriott Beach Resort. (n.d.). Marriott. Retrieved October 6, 2014, from http://www.marriott.com/hotels/hotel-information/travel/sttfr-frenchmans-reef-and-morning-star-marriott-beach-resort/ Marriott Frenchmans Reef & Morning Star Beach Resort, St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands. (n.d.). Marriott Frenchmans Reef & Morning Star Beach Resort (St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands). Retrieved October 6, 2014, from http://www.tripadvisor.com/Hotel_Review-g147405-d148175-Reviews-Marriott_Frenchman_s_Reef_Morning_Star_Beach_Resort-Charlotte_Amalie_St_Thomas_U_S_Virg.html#REVIEWS St. John Hotel | St. John Resort | The Westin St. John Resort. (n.d.). The Westin St John Resort. Retrieved October 6, 2014, from http://www.westinresortstjohn.com/ Mathews, V. E. (2000) "Competition in the international hotel industry", International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, Vol. 12 Iss: 2, pp.114 - 118 Westin St. John Resort & Villas, Cruz Bay. (n.d.). Westin St. John Resort & Villas (Cruz Bay). Retrieved October 6, 2014, from http://www.tripadvisor.com/Hotel_Review-g147410-d147568-Reviews-Westin_St_John_Resort_Villas-Cruz_Bay_St_John_U_S_Virgin_Islands.html Read More