Improving the Services of Ibis Hotel - Case Study Example

Running Head: Tutorial Report Tutorial Report: Ibis Hotel in Brisbane Name Number Lecturer Date Table of Contents Table of Contents 2 Executive summary 3 Introduction 4 Event 4 Hospitality 5 Tourism 6 Convergence 7 Customer service 7 Moment of truth 8 Zone of tolerance 9 Environmental sustainability 9 Recommendations 10 Conclusion 10 References 11 Checklist 13 Executive summary Ibis Hotel is located in Brisbane city nearby tourist places and event centres like Queen Street Shopping Mall precinct, South Bank Parklands, Treasury Casino, Brisbane Exhibition and Convention Centre, Queensland Theatre and the Transit Centre at Roma Street. It has 218 rooms with some of the rooms catering for disabled people. The event features of Ibis are facilities for meeting, congress and seminars. Its hospitality features are hotel rooms, bar and restaurant while the tourism features are show tickets. The three sectors converge in several aspects and their services are typified by inseparability and intangibility. The report will also discuss about customer service, moment of truth, zone of tolerance and environmental sustainability of Ibis Hotel. Suggestions will also be given on how to improve the services of Ibis Hotel. Ibis Hotel Introduction According to Issenberg (2005, p.1), Ibis Hotel in Brisbane is expediently situated at the city centre, a walking distance to the Queen Street Shopping Mall precinct, South Bank Parklands, Treasury Casino, Brisbane Exhibition and Convention Centre, Queensland Theatre and the Transit Centre at Roma Street. The establishment is ideal for weekends or even longer. Its services and products are charged at an affordable price and thus, people visiting the place can be assured of having fun and receiving high quality services without a lot of spending. The hotel has a room capacity of 218 rooms, a bar as well as a restaurant. In addition, visitors can access food and beverage joints as well as conference facilities (Frommer, 2006, p.88). This report will identify the event, hospitality and tourism characteristics of Ibis Hotel along with how these sectors converge. It will also talk about customer services, moment of truth, zone of tolerance and environmental sustainability. Recommendations will then be given in relation to how the services of the hotel can be improved. Event Barton (2011, p.17) claims that, Ibis Hotel offers booking services for meeting rooms, congress and seminars. It has two conference rooms with different accommodation capacities. The first meeting room is Avenir which has a capacity of 80 people. The other room is Mercure Grand Chelsea Ballroom with a capacity of 900. Therefore, people planning to hold an event at the hotel, are free to choose the room they prefer depending on the number of people expected to attend the event. Ibis has standard equipment in its meeting rooms and there are professionals who are readily available to converse on the availability of conference services and facilities. Conference equipment at Ibis includes video and audio equipment, internet access to WIFI Wireless as well as a high speed broadcast line (Accorhotels.com, 2012). Australian Hotels Association (2007, p.98) further says that, there are so many event centres and organizers near Ibis Hotel which include; Education House, Reserve Bank, MLC Centre, AXA Centre, Brisbane Convention Centre, Customs House and Energex Headquarters. In other words, guests residing from Ibis Hotel have a wide range of event centres and companies to choose from. Therefore, they can choose to use Ibis’ facilities or use facilities from other centres then return to the hotel for accommodation. They also have an opportunity to compare conference facilities from different event centres and companies in terms of equipment, price and quality. Hospitality There are several features of Ibis Hotel which matches the hospitality industry. In the first place, it offers accommodation facilities. The hotel has very good, spacious rooms with Queen-size beds for a comfortable sleep. It also has special rooms that are designed to accommodate people with physical disabilities and thus it caters for the accommodation needs for all types of people. There rooms are also air-conditioned, have internet access and in-room movies among other features. Visitors are therefore kept busy and are able to contact their business or social activities through the internet. In addition, rooms are fitted with security features like key card controlled door locks, smoke alarms and emergency info; hence the security of guests is guaranteed (Lockyer, 2007, p.13). According to Wilkinson (2011, p.24), Ibis has a restaurant where guests can access food stuffs. Catering services form part of the hospitality industry where visitors looking for food joints can get such services. More so, guests in the rooms can get access to breakfast, lunch or dinner from Ibis Hotel. The restaurant provides guests with buffet breakfast starting from 6 to 9.30 am during the weekdays and 6.30 to 10 am during weekends. A delicious a la carte menu for dinner is provided on a daily basis from 6 to 9pm.The hotel also serves cold and hot beverages such as cappuccino, coffee, fruit juices and soft drinks. On top of the restaurant, there is a bar which retails alcoholic drinks for visitors who take alcohol. Snacks are also sold in the bar (O'Connor, 2007, p.32). Tourism Llewellyn (2010, p.101) maintains that, Ibis Hotel offers accommodation services to people from different places that come for tours in the city of Brisbane. In addition, Ibis gives show tickets to its guests to attend to entertainment and leisure activities. It collaborates with the joints holding such activities and gets tickets for its guests. In addition, Ibis’ location is very appropriate for tourists since they have access to shopping malls and theatres. For those tourists who want to go for some shopping, the Queens Street shopping mall is easily accessible from the Hotel. O'Connor (2001, p.2) further says that, Treasury Casino is near the hotel and tourists can go for gambling and other gaming activities. Queensland theatre is also nearby and tourists can go and watch live performances and plays. Thus, though Ibis does not offer a lot of tourism activities, its location makes it a perfect destination for tourists (Atkinson, 2012, p.47). Convergence Drawing from Travel Magazine (2002, p.3), the event, hospitality and tourism sectors converge in a number of areas and have similar features. In the first place, in terms of accommodation, though this is a feature that relates more to the hospitality industry, it is a common feature in the three sectors. This is because; people attending seminars, conferences and congresses especially those going on for more than a day, will need accommodation services. Therefore, the hospitality and event sectors converge when it comes to accommodation services. Moreover, tourists need accommodation services. Ibis Hotel receives guests from all over the world and thus such guests will need a place to stay during their visit to Brisbane (Cummins, 2009, p.110). The three industries also converge when it comes to food and beverage services. The hospitality industry operates restaurants and bars in order for guests to get access to food, beverages and drinks. The event and tourism sectors also require food and beverages (Antonova, 2010, p.16). The services in the three sectors are characterised by inseparability between the guest and the provider of the service. Both parties must be present in order for a transaction in the event, hospitality and tourism sectors to happen. Furthermore, the services and products that are offered in the three industries are intangible. This means that, the products and services cannot be seen, felt, tasted or heard before a guest purchases them. For instance, in a hotel, a guest cannot be allowed to taste food before he or she purchases it (Crittall, 2002, p.112). Customer service Ellis (2008, p.21) asserts that, Ibis Hotel offers high quality customer service to all of its guests. The reception area of the hotel is strategically located in order for the reception personnel to be able to see every visitor who comes in. There are employees who receive guests and welcome them to the hotel. After receiving them, they direct them to the available places for sitting either at the restaurant or at the bar depending on the choice of guests. After the guests sit down, the waiters request for their orders. After receiving orders, waiters do not take a long time before getting back to the guests with food, beverage or drinks together with invoices. In that case, guests do not have to wait for long before they are served. Once they are through, waiters thank guests for coming and welcome them back on another day (Cummins, 2004, p.70). During my visit to the hotel, my experience was bad. This is because; I had to wait for sometime before anybody attended to me. It is only when I was about to leave that a waitress came to attend to me. Customers, guests and clients might discontinue contacting business with Ibis because of delays in their services. For instance, in my case, I was ready to leave without being attended to since there was no waiter or waitress to attend to me. Such delays may cause customers or guests to stop coming to the hotel especially those who are time conscious. Ibis’ relationship marketing is good. They have a website, where customers and guests get to post their feedback on the hotel’s services. Moreover, customers propose the kind of changes they would expect the hotel to make in order to improve their services (Waikato Times, 2012, p.7). Moment of truth During my visit to Ibis Hotel, I had several moments of truth. First, the food that is served by the hotel is very delicious and of very high quality. This implies that, the hotel has highly qualified chefs and kitchen staff. Second, the hotel’s food prices are affordable and very well match the food quality. A customer who goes to Ibis for food and beverages get a value for their money since they get quality food. Another moment of truth for me relates to the quality of service. My impression from the kind of service I got from the waiters and waitresses is that, their services are very poor. This is because; they take so long to attend to a customer. Zone of tolerance My zone of tolerance was violated. It was my first time to go to the Ibis Hotel after seeing a lot of adverts in the media about its food, services and facilities. As a result, I expected a very high quality service as well as food. My expectation about the hotel’s food was met, however there service was very poor. Generally, the kind of service I got was not satisfactory and it did not meet my expectations. Ibis is a very large and classy establishment and thus, any guest expects to receive the best service as well as high quality products. Environmental sustainability According to Ibis Hotels (2012), Ibis Hotel is very committed to environmental sustainability in all its activities. Ibis turned out to be the first worldwide chain to be committed to the environmental certification process of ISO 14001 in 2004. That certification is a very demanding global commitment which requires very careful pioneering from the management team of the hotel. It involves continuous conformity with the latest rules and constant improvement. According to the certification, Ibis is audited on a customary basis in order for it to set new objectives. Ibis is devoted to carrying out procedures and initiatives every day so as to reduce consumptions of water, energy consumption and promoting the use of renewable sources of energy such as solar panels. Moreover, it executes waste sorting, trains new staff, creates awareness among all employees every year and engages customers and suppliers in their environmental sustainability efforts (Sustainability Victoria, 2006, p.33). Recommendations From the above analysis of Ibis Hotel services and products, a number of recommendations are suggested. To start with, Ibis should improve its tourism features in order to make the hotel an all round establishment. It should introduce things like swimming pool and a casino in order for guests to avoid going to other places like the Treasury Casino for gaming services. In addition, on the kids club, it should purchase and install playground for children with swings and bouncing castles for parents to be able to come with their kids during their visit in the hotel. Moreover, Ibis should work on its service quality by ensuring that customers and guests are attended to immediately. This will help prevent losing customers to delays in offering services. Conclusion Ibis Hotel is strategically situated for easy access to nearby tourist sites, entertainment joints and event centres and it charges affordable prices. The hotel offers conference facilities for seminars, congress and meetings. Its hospitality features are accommodation facilities on very spacious rooms, a bar and a restaurant. Ibis’ tourism feature is show tickets but guests can access other services in nearby places. The hotel’s event, hospitality and tourism sectors converge in terms of accommodation and food and beverage services. Ibis’ customer service is good but there are some delays in attending to customers. It is also committed to environmental sustainability. The recommendations for Ibis relate to its tourism features, kids club and customer service. References Accorhotels.com. (2012). Brisbane meeting room booking, seminar & congress. Retrieved from http://www.accorhotels.com/gb/hotel-2062-ibis-brisbane/meeting.shtml Antonova, M. (2010). Travel notes. Russian Life, 53(4), 16-17. Atkinson, L. (2012). Brisbane. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons. Australian Hotels Association. (2007). Australian Hotelier: Official National Magazine of the Australian Hotels Association. Victoria: Australian Hotels Association. Barton, W. (2011, April 10). City highlights; Highlights from Brisbane. Dominion, p. 17. Crittall, R. (2002). Hospitality Foodservice. Moscow: P. Isaacson Publications. Cummins, C. (2004, July 24). Latest Ibis hotel goes to the Gong. Sydney Morning Herald , p. 70. Cummins, C. (2009, April 15). Budget hotels steal the spotlight. Sydney Morning Herald, p. 110. Ellis, G. (2008, February 26). Hotel Ibis defies weather; What I am hearing. Illawarra Mercury‎, p. 21. Frommer, A. (2006). 40 Best. Budget Travel, 9(10), 88-96. Ibis Hotels. (2012). Our Actions for Sustainable Development. Retrieved from http://www.ibishotel.com/gb/discovering-ibis-hotel/environment.shtml Issenberg, M. (2005, January 26). Accor takes on hotel franchising. AAP Bulletin Wire , p. 1. Llewellyn, M. (2010). Frommer's Australia 2011. Victoria: Wiley. Lockyer, T. (2007). The International Hotel Industry: Sustainable Management. Victoria: Routledge. O'Connor, M. (2001, January 1). Tourism growing. The Courier, p. 2. O'Connor, M. (2007, January 20). Briefs. The Courier , p. 32. Sustainability Victoria. ( 2006). Commercial Office Building Energy Innovation Initiative: A Partnership Initiative for Commercial Developers, Property Owners and Tenants. Victoria: Sustainability Victoria. Travel Magazine. (2002, January 1). Travel holiday. Travel Magazine, pp. 3-9. WaikatoTimes. (2012, July 23). Ibis leads red-zone hotel race. Waikato Times, p. 7. Wilkinson, J. (2011). Accommodations Excellence. Hotel & Accommodation Management, 15(4), 20-25. Checklist Establishment name: Ibis Hotel Location: Brisbane Date and time of visit: 25 August 2012 at 1230 Hrs Size: 3.5 Star Hotel Occupancy level: 250 people Service aspects Good Average Poor Customer service Moment of truth Zone of tolerance Environmental sustainability Attendance to customers Reception Read More