Managing the Hospitality Experience - Assignment Example

Running header: Hospitality Student’s name: Instructor’s name: Subject code: Date of submission 1. Why hospitality is about providing an ‘experience’ rather than a ‘service’ Simply put, Hospitality involves the reception and entertainment of guests or strangers by the host and includes being hospitable as well as catering for their personal security. As such, it can be argued that hospitality is about creation of memorable experiences in the mind of the guest and is host driven. The nature of experience therefore determines whether the guest returns or not or even recommends the host to his friends. However, as hospitality has continued to evolve and has been commercialized in the contemporary society, the focus has shifted from generosity to being economic in nature thus focusing more on the service quality rather than creation of memorable experiences which are instrumental to influencing repeat purchases. In other words, the host has become the manager while the guest has become the customer and the relationship is totally economic in nature. That not withstanding, hospitality is about providing experience rather than a service (Nigel, 2007). This is because although hospitality institutions may be providing services such as accommodation, food etc to the customer, customers do not buy the food or the accommodation but rather the emotional experiences that result from their encounter in the hotel or restaurant. In other words, the experience dimension of the service or meal is much more important than the quality of the service. Although hospitality institutions may concentrate on tangible aspects of their offerings e.g. food, accommodation and drinks quality, it is the quality of emotional experience of the guest which creates long-term customer satisfaction and loyalty. Hospitality therefore involves the creation of experiences. For instance, the Hotel Boulevard in a bid to make waking up a memorable experience for its guests sets its alarm clock in a way such that when the alarm rings, nice music from renowned celebrities is put on (Campbell, 1967). Hotels also make meals to be memorable experiences by incorporating little surprises in between meals and playing cool music thus making it a memorable experience. 2. How modern hospitality has common attributes with past hospitality Hospitality in the modern world greatly differs from hospitality in the past. This has resulted from commercialization of hospitality with the sole aim of making profits. As such, most aspects of past hospitality have been greatly altered. As such, the past host-guest relationship has been replaced by a customer manager relationship. The generosity aspect of hospitality is hard to practice today owing to the need to make profits. While hospitality in the past was host driven, today it is guest driven while the host today is more concerned with the security of his/her property today rather than the guest’s personal security like it was the case in the past. However, despite these changes, modern hospitality compares very well with past hospitality in very many respects including; In both eras, a form of payment is involved for the services provided by the host. In the contemporary world, the payment is usually in monetary terms where the guest is required to pay for food, entertainment, accommodation and other services that the host offers (Erdly and Kesterson, 2002). Although no monetary payments were involved in the past, some form of payment by the guest to the host was involved. It was expected that the guest would appreciate the host’s generosity through gifts. The stories given by the guest were also deemed a form of payment to the host. In both eras, the health and welfare of the guest is of great concern to the host. However, this was seen more in the past where the host was more concerned with the guest’s health and welfare including his security. As such, the safety of the guest rather than health and welfare is a common issue in both eras (Jayawardena, 2000). However, it should be noted that the modern host is more concerned with the safety of food and his property rather than the personal security of guest. In both eras, some form of transformation and incorporation is involved such that hostility is transformed to hospitality giving way to acceptance, trust, goodwill and friendship at least for a specified period. After performance of hospitality strangers are converted into familiars, outsiders to insiders, enemies to friends etc. In both cases, it is the role of the host to receive the guest graciously and generously. This is of great importance in establishing a memorable experience which influences whether the guest makes a return visit or not. 3. Lashley observes that �hospitality requires the guest to feel that the host is being hospitable through feelings of generosity, a desire to please and a genuine regard for the guest as an individual� (2000:15 as cited in Hemmington, 2007:8). With the move towards profit, the spontaneity of the act of hospitality has been somewhat lost, giving way to economic rationalization, regulation and performative behavior. To a great extent commercialization of hospitality has made hospitality loose value and meaning from what it was traditionally known for in pursuit of profits or economic gains. However, the spontaneity of the act of hospitality has not been entirely lost since hospitality organizations still endeavor to appear generous and hospitable and have desire to please and showing genuine regard for the guest in an attempt to create favorable and memorable experience to the guest in a bid to encourage repeat purchases and even word of mouth marketing of their businesses by customers who get impressed by their services. There is an obvious tension between the act of generosity and the economic relationship in commercial hospitality environment. While organizations may want to be generous to their guests, the extent to which they can practice generosity is greatly undermined by their need to generate profits. In other words, customers have to pay for the services rendered by the host which puts in doubt whether there is any form of generosity in modern hospitality (Choi and Chu, 2000). The need for business to control costs in order to generate profits leads to tension in their attempts to provide a true sense of hospitality. For instance, constantly requiring guests to sign for products only serves to remind the guest of the economic relationship existing between him and the host. In addition, charging customers for small products for instance butter that ought to be treated as part of the whole product also portrays meanness of the host rather than generosity. In other words, if organizations are to practice true hospitality, then financial controls should not dominate the guest’s experience to the extent of appearing parsimonious and unfriendly. Though business have to make profits, the guest experience should be distanced from necessary internal financial controls while unnecessary controls should be removed or redesigned (Hemmington, 2004). For instance, hospitality institutions should adopt an all inclusive format where the financial aspect of hospitality is dealt with once for instance when the guest arrives in order to allow hospitality experience to develop without constant reminders of the financial relationship. Security of strangers or guests has also been compromised in the modern setting. While in the past hospitality was seen as a sanctuary, this has been overlooked with hosts appearing more concerned about the security of their property and goods. Although the guest in an unfamiliar environment may deem a restaurant an important sanctuary, the dominant security concerns for the modern host has been that of goods and procedures hence leading to a focus on control procedures and financial controls dominating the hospitality experience which is not an aspect of true hospitality (Moir, J2005). True hospitality should entail a focus on the security of the stranger while other controls should not be seen to dominate the hospitality experience (Slattery, 2002). This implies that although true hospitality is hard to practice in the contemporary society due to its commercialization and hence drive for economic gains, hospitality organizations could make deliberate effort to delink the financial controls as well as control for procedures and goods from the guest’s experience. This way, the guest will feel appreciated while the whole experience will have a generosity touch without compromising the need to generate profits. Culture and traveler expectations Guests and customers from different cultures would often bring with them different expectations and ideals of what constitutes good customer service. Travelers from different cultures have differing preferences and expectations which hospitality workers ought to understand and satisfy. For example, guests coming from a power distance society expect the server to communicate respect and take a subordinate role. A guest’s culture also determines the extent of greetings. For example Japanese expect a service provider to take time to greet them properly when they enter the hotel and to thank them and bid them farewell as they depart. Role expectations and the extent to which friendliness may be expressed also vary greatly across cultures (Harris and Baron, 2003). For example, while some cultures interpret friendly act as an act of welcome, others may interpret it as a sign of naivety or even promiscuity. A guest’s culture also determines how a server (host) is to welcome him or her. For example, different cultures have different interpretation for smiles despite smiling being universal. For example, while smiling may be interpreted as a welcoming act in the western world, it may mean sexual interest in a Muslim world and hence a receptionist would avoid smiling at a Muslim guest. 5. Different debates about the impact of globalization on patterns of food consumption - Globalization is leading to differentiation of food consumption patterns. People travel with an aim to experience change from what they do at home including what they consume. As they travel, they come across different consumption habits which they import to their home countries. For example, some western eating habits have been adopted in other areas of the world which they learn during travel. -differentiation in food consumption patterns spring from the travelers need to have their dreams made real. As they travel, guests already have certain expectations regarding the kind of food to consume (Hansen, Jensen and Gustafsson, 2004). Owing to globalization, the media greatly influences the expectations of travelers through advertisements. As a result, the industry has to strive to meet these expectations. -differentiation also results from the need for consumers to feel a sense of connection with other patrons and servers in service encounters. They need to feel at home and as a result leading to differentiated food consumption patterns. References: Nigel, H2007, From service to experience: Understanding and defining the hospitality business, Service industries journal, vol.27, no.6, pp. 1-19. Choi, T&, Chu, R2000, Levels of satisfaction among Asian and Western Travelers, International Journal of quality and reliability management, vol.17,no.2, pp116-132. Campbell, S1967, Marketing the meal experience, University of Surrey, Guildford. Erdly, M&, Kesterson, L2002, Experience rules, Vision for the hospitality and leisure industry, IBM consulting services, Circa. Harris, R, Harris, K&, Baron, S2003, Theatrical service experiences, International journal of service industry management, vol.14, no.2, pp.184-199. Hansen, K, Jensen, O&, Gustafsson, I2004, Payment- an undervalued part of the meal experience? Food service technology, vol.4, no.2, pp. 85-91. Hemmington, N2004, Concepts of hospitality – From service to experience, Proceedings I- CHRIE conference, Philadelphia. Jayawardena, C2000, International hotel manager, International journal of contemporary hospitality management, vol.9, no. 4, pp, 305-317. Moir, J2005, “Are you ready to order? Telegraph Weekend, December 31, P20. Slattery, P2002, Finding the hospitality industry, Journal of hospitality, leisure, Sport& tourism education, vol.1, no.1 Read More