Relating to Hospitality Experience - Assignment Example

Hospitality assignment 3 Name Institution Qn. 1 Creating an enjoyable experience’ for the guest/customer in a hospitality setting In the hospitality industry, creating an enjoyable experience for the guest or customer entails offering a quality of service that the client will never forget (Rafaeli & Sutton 1989, p. 4; Erickson 2004, p. 76). However, quality servitude may prove not be enough in this case. When a customer walks into a dining, he or she expects a number of things. Firstly, he expects to be welcomed into the hotel. Welcoming does not always entail an exchange of words. Even actions from the waiters as well as the servers will make the client know whether he is welcomed into the hotel. He then expects to be served with quality food and promptly. Here is where the concept of creating an enjoyable experience for the guest/customer comes in. creating an enjoyable experience is very different from giving a service. One may be able to offer a service but fail to create an enjoyable experience despite the quality of the food served or room slept in. Creating an enjoyable experience therefore implies the move from offering of services and facilities to the creation of a meaningful event or activity that the guest will undergo, revere and remember (Erickson 2004, p. 77). To create an enjoyable experience, the waiter/waitress must feel in him/her the urge to serve the client in such a manner that will leave the client in a ‘wow’ situation. In other words, he/ she should go beyond the normal formalities of servitude to ensure that the client feels welcomed and treasured. A number of things could make a guest in a hotel feel welcomed. Firstly, there should be the presence of meaningful host-guest relationships. If the guest had booked into the hotel earlier, measures should be taken to make the guest feel welcome when he or she arrives. For instance, the hotel can arrange to have the guest transported from the airport to the hotel. The staff of the hotel carries the bags of the guests. There are smiles and polite welcomes from the staff. In addition, to personalize it more, remembering and calling the client by his/her name makes them feel as if they have a sense of belonging already. Ensuring and guaranteeing the security of the guests also makes them feel comfortable in the hotel. Some hotels also go to an extent of ‘surprising’ their visitors through small gifts such as carvings and in some instances, holding dances in their honor. After all this, they feel that they have had a wonderful experience from the hotel. An example can be taken here of a case of a couple who have gone for their honeymoon. To the couple, their wish is to have a time of their lives. They want to have a wonderful and a memorable moment. It is up to the hotel staff to make this moment happen through offering them an enjoyable experience. As stated above, they welcome them warmly into the hotel. They might even surprise them with gifts or dances, other theatrics, and the best of service given to them with smiles and gratitude in the faces of the waiters and the servers. At the end of their stay, they will not only have had a great and enjoyable experience, but they will also market the hotel to other people out of goodwill because their perception of the hotel will be positive. Qn.2 'Sexualized labour' and its prevalent in the contemporary hospitality industry By definition, sexualized labor is the act of hospitality organizations employing the sex appeal of their workers for commercial gain (Hoecklin 1994, p. 26). In other words, it involves having the employees portray a certain level of sex appeal to be able to attract more customers. In the hospitality industry today, this trend seems to be gaining root. This is more so in countries that have a high number of tourist visits. Hotels ensure that they employ people who have a certain degree of appeal sexually for the purpose of attracting their clients. This sex appeal is achieved through several ways as the following sentences dictate. For instance, some hotels and other hospitality spots across the world dictate how their workers are to be dressed. Most of these workers are females and they dress in mini- skirts that show off their legs heightening their sexuality and subsequently, their sex appeal (Pomeroy 1975, p. 4). Another way is through the recruitment process. Only the young and attractive men and women are hired to serve in majority of these hotels because of their attractiveness as a major qualifying factor. In addition, they filter people who have a certain enthusiasm and character that would enable them to ‘flirt’ with the customers. These young people bring about a sense of youth and liveliness that is so appealing particularly to older people. Most of these clients will find themselves going repeatedly to the hotel just so that they can catch a glimpse of these employees. In the contemporary hospitality industry, the act of dressing up waiters and waitresses in a suggestive way is becoming a common feature. More and more hotels are embracing the sexualized labor as a selling point of the businesses (Hoecklin 1994, p. 28). This has been epitomized in several ways by the following example. Assume that there is a couple who are in their prime ages. The couple decides to take a holiday together. As they relax in their hotel in the evening, they would feel very much better, younger and livelier if they were served by smiling and charming waiters and waitresses. The lesser the dressing by these servers (observing decency levels), the more appealing they would seem. Contemporary hospitality industry is adapting to suit and meet the needs of their dynamic contemporary clients. In the cities and in high social circles, well-dressed waiters and waitresses in clothes that accentuate their body features are in high demand. Their youthfulness and agility makes them become sought after by many clients. For this reason, they increase the business of the hospitality facility non –consciously through sexualized labor. Qn. 3 Consumption trends in contemporary Australian society and market opportunities these trends present to the hospitality industry. Every society has several consumption trends that distinguish the way they consume certain products in another market. In Australia, consumption trends are very dynamic. People in this country are very conscious of what they eat and how they eat. For example, people in the nation have become very conscious of the chemicals that are used to grow the food products that they use in the farm (Kearney 2012, p. 2796). Because of this trend, people want to shift from the consumption of those products grown in the farm and sprayed with chemicals. Hospitality facilities have noted a market gap here and they have come up with organic foods. People believe that organic foods are healthier and less toxic because they have not been sprayed with any chemicals. The market for these organic foods is enormous and will continue to be like so until people believe that there is no harm in eating other foods. Barclay & Brand-Miller (2011, p. 491) show that the level of obesity and concentration in numbers of the obese people in Australia has increased three-fold. This raises a lot of health concerns especially among those who do not want to become obese. Those who are already obese are in pursuant of activities and foods that would assist them take care of their condition. A consumption trend here is linked with the consumption of healthy foods and healthy products. The market potential for the hospitality sector here is monumental. The hospitality industry could capitalize on this through offering ‘health’ foods and health facilities and activities such as spas and massage. In deed, many hotels have opened up massage parlors that are designed to take care of people who feel that they are unfit health wise. Foods that contain no cholesterol have been advertised for people who are overweight and who are looking to eat healthily. In addition, on the same ground, hospitality facilities have set up gyms where people come to exercise and lose some weight or just keep fit. This market is raking in a lot of revenue. Another consumption trend in the country is the tendency for people especially the youngsters to move away from the traditional delicacies and adopt new foods and snacks. This trend has led to many players in the hospitality industry setting up shops that serve fast foods and that are designed in a way to attract young people. For instance, noting the love for internet and digital technology that has been embraced wholeheartedly by these people, the facilities are offering them free internet within the business premises so as to keep them entertained. The facilities in which these foods are served in are also painted and designed in a colorful manner to depict youthfulness and resonate with its youthful clientele. Qn. 4 Ways in which the expectations of hospitality services, products and/or procedures might differ between a group of Australian guests and Japanese guests drawing on Hofstede’s values of cultural variability. Every cultural setup is distinct from the other one. If the personnel in the hospitality industry understand this, they are in a better position to offer wholesome services to their clientele irrespective of their cultural inclinations (Hofstede 1980, p. 13). Using Hofstede’s values of cultural variability, Japanese and Australian guests differ in their expectations of hospitality and products/ services. On the power distance, Japanese have a lot of respect in their hierarchy and social status. When servicing them, this should be put into consideration if the hospitality facility wishes to give them an enjoyable experience. The Australians do not care about power distance that much hence it is easier to offer them a wholesome standardized service. On individualism, Japanese people have more collectivity and are likely to stay longer than their Australian counterparts who keep hopping from one place to another in pursuit of enjoyable experience. On masculinity, the Japanese are very motivated and hardworking people. They like to win and work with the best. As hospitality establishment, noticing this urge and taking care of it is vital for growth. Australians on the other hand are also hardworking but they are not as aggressive as the Japanese neither do they seek recognition for their hard work as the Japanese do. Japanese are very good in uncertainty avoidance because of many natural calamities in the country. As such, they also need a hospitality establishment that has taken care of all their fears and needs accordingly. Australians are not much uncertainty avoiders and they like to experiment here and there and with different products and services. Japanese are very long term oriented. The Australians are not as long term oriented as the Japanese. Due to this, the Japanese take time to do their activities and choose well their courses. The Australians live for the moment. As such, even the service quality differs. The Japanese like perfection in the services delivered and the Australians like speed. Qn.5 Innovations that would offer greater guest satisfaction in the hospitality industry in 2020 The first innovation is in technology. A huge number of people have positively embraced the use of technology in the world today. An innovative technological idea would be to provide Wi-Fi hotspots for these technological savvy clients. It has been observed that clients frequent places where they can access internet for free as they are served. Another innovation would be on demography. Demography is the composition of a place in terms of gender, race, and occupation among other factors. An innovation here would be the creation of a hospitality facility that takes care of only one gender, say female. There are quite a number of female clients who would embrace this idea as it would give them exclusiveness and a chance to catch up with other member of their gender. Investment on social platform would be ideal. More and more people become marketers for a hospitality facility if they are social. An innovative idea here would be the creation of a website to open up the hospitality facility or a link to the social networking media. People would appreciate this move as it would bring them closer and the facility would be more marketed. References Barclay, A & Brand-Miller, J 2011, ‘The Australian Paradox: A Substantial Decline in Sugars Intake over the Same Timeframe that Overweight and Obesity Have Increased’, Nutrients, vol.3, pp. 491-504. DOI:10.3390/nu3040491 Erickson, K 2004, ‘Bodies at work: Performing service in American restaurants’, Space and Culture, vol.7, no. 1, pp. 76-89. Hoecklin, L 1994, Culture: what it is, what it is not and how it directs organizational behaviour. Managing cultural differences: strategies for competitive advantage, Addison- Wesley Publishing, Sydney. Hofstede, G 1980, Culture's consequence: international differences in work-related values Sage, Newbury. Kearney, J 2012, ‘Food consumption trends and drivers,’ Philosophical transactions of royal society journal, vol. 365, no. 1554, pp. 2793-2807. Pomeroy, S, B 1975, Goddesses, whores, wives and slaves: women in classical antiquity, Schocken Books, New York Rafaeli, A & Sutton, R 1989, ‘The expression of emotion in organizational life’, Research in Organizational Behaviour, vol. 11, pp.1-42. Read More