Why the Hospitality Service Industry Is among the Fastest-growing Industries in the World - Assignment Example

Hospitality Service Industry Name Institution Professor Course Date Question One Introduction This mini-essay discusses why the hospitality service industry is among the fastest-growing industries in the world. The purpose of essay is to highlight the factors that make the hospitality service industry the most recognised leading industry in the world. Hospitality means offering services to others besides showing consistence quality and excellence. The hospitality industry is a segment of large group of firms referred to as tourism and travel industry that offer the required desirable services to its clients. It is the fastest growing industry in the world because of the aspect of globalization (Clarke, 2009). Globalisation allows people to move freely around the world an aspect that increases the need for hospitality services. To absorb the people travelling in different nations, there must be international hotels such Marriot, Four seasons and Hilton to mention but a few, and local hotels to cater for needs of the visiting people. Another factor that makes hospitality industry the fastest-growing industry is security and safety that has been put in place following several terrorist attacks (Clarke, 2009). Most nations that receive foreign visitors have put into place strict safety measures that have in turn attracted more tourists in their countries. Security and safety measures are essential in the hospitality service industry Another factor that makes the hospitality service industry the fastest-growing industry includes diversity. Particularly, cultural diversity is a prominent issue in the hospitality service industry. The hospitality industry is among the industries that embrace diversity with respect to employee populace (Clarke, 2009). As such, people from all works of life visit different hotels around the world without fear of discrimination given that the employees in these industries are diverse. The relationship quality holds a positive effect on guest thereby making more people to visit these hotels. Conclusion Hospitality industry is a crucial element of the service industry in any nation’s national economy. The hospitality industry entails catering firms, food and beverage departments and tourism lodgings. The industry is a significant source of wealth, employment and income. When a domestic hospitality firm expands its operations into foreign nations through globalisation, its overseas growth is acknowledged as international business. As such the tourism and hospitality industries are the fastest and largest growing industry in the world. Globalisation, strict safety and security and diversity are the key factors that have made the hospitality service industry the leading industry in the world. Question Two Introduction This mini-essay highlights the differences between external customers and internal customers in hospitality service industry. The essay explains how customer service affects the quality of external customer services, and it offers examples of how a hotel manager can serve services to his/her internal customers. In the hospitality service industry, internal customers are defined as the staff while the external customers are the guests. Internal customers include anybody working in a service industry and are treated like customers to enable them offer better customer service to external customers (Clarke, 2009). External customers, on the other hand, are visiting quests who use the services of the hospitality industry. The hospitality industry must emphasize on result-oriented customer service quality to augment market share besides retaining both internal and external customers. Internal customers are as important as external customers. If internal customers are not satisfied, chances are that they may affect the quality of service offered to external customers. Internal customers hold a major effect on overall customer satisfaction. As such, a firm’s devotion to internal customer service must match its external focus on customer care. Internal customers translate to good external customer care (Clarke, 2009). In firms where internal clients are ignored, productivity and good service to external clients is compromised. Internal customers rely on the support they get from their firm to serve their external clients. When this support in insufficient, the internal customers impact external customers retention and the firm’s revenue. Given the significance of internal customers in a hospitality company, a hotel manager can serve internal customers through the support their need to offer quality services to external customers (Clarke, 2009). Managers should provide a conducive work environment, understanding, fair treatment, team building, rewards, involving them in planning activities that affect them, besides encouraging them to utilize their personal authority to own situations with external customers. Conclusion Excellent customer service is essential in hospitality service industry. This is because customers often turn their backs to firms that do not offer excellent and valuable customer service. A customer is any person affected by a product, service or the procedure that creates a service or a product. In this perspective, a customer can be either internal or external. Internal customers are as important as external customers and hotel managers should treat them fairly, understand and reward them in order for them to offer excellent and valuable customer service to external customers. Question Three Introduction Service vision and service strategy are essential in the hospitality industry. This mini-essay establishes the relationship between a service organisation’s service vision and service strategy. Focusing on a Melbourne CBD Hotel, the essay highlights an example of a service vision. A vision entails the dream of a firm, what a firm want to achieve while a strategy entails what a firm does to attain its vision. A vision is an over-ridding conception of what a firm want to achieve and it mirrors on a founder’s dream. For instance, the dream of most hospitality firms is to be the biggest and greatest hospitality firms in the industry. Strategy entails the plans of what a firm utilizes to attain its vision. The foundation of a service strategy is market segmentation (Clarke, 2009). Service strategy entails picking a unique segment and crafting services to match the expectations of customers. The service strategy is informed by a firm’s service vision given that a service strategy in created based on a firm’s service vision. A service vision leads to development of a service strategy and best practice plans. For a Melbourne CBD hotel that is focused on business traveller, an example of a service vision is to become the greatest and largest modern business traveller agency in the country. Such a service vision will form the basis for the firm’s service strategy, in the sense that the firm will look for strategies to achieve its vision. Conclusion The challenging aspect in the hospitality industry is the mere reality that service value and service quality are not defined by managers. Service value and service quality are defined totally in the guest’s mind. What mangers and firm’s need to do is to establish their vision and strategies to ensure that service quality and service value are upheld. Service vision entails the dream of a firm while service strategy entails the plans that facilitate the achievement of service vision. Both service vision and service strategy lead to increased productivity, quality services and achievement of service value. Question Four Introduction A service is described as an intangible thing sold or bought in a market place while a product is a substance refined or manufactured for sale. A product is tangible and visible while a service is invisible and intangible. This mini-essay highlights the differences between service products and manufactured products that render the 4P’s model inappropriate for services marketing. Through considering the definitions of services and their extent of tangibility, there are unique disparities between physical products and service products. Marketing managers must consider these differences when creating marketing plans for service products. Inseparability, ownership, heterogeneity, intangibility and perishability are a key aspect that distinguishes service products and manufactured products (Clarke, 2009). A service product cannot be stored like a manufactured product, while the service production takes place as the client consumes it. In this regard, the client is an integral part of a service product. Moreover, a service product changes as opposed to a manufactured product. For instance, a service offered on Tuesday must be different from a service provided on Wednesday. When one buys manufactured products, one takes ownership of the product, but one can not take ownership of a service product (Clarke, 2009). These distinctive disparities thereby render the 4P’s model improper for marketing service-products. Instead the 7P’s model is applicable in service-product marketing that besides the 4P’s include physical evidence, people and process. Conclusion Marketing in the hospitality industry is essential as it helps in customer’s attraction. To attain success in marketing a hospitality operation, marketers must assess and understand all the elements of a marketing mix. However, given the distinct disparities between service products and manufactured products, the conventional 4P’s model is irrelevant in the hospitality industry. Instead the hospitality marketing mix, comprises of product-service mix, presentation mix, communication mix, pricing-mix and distribution mix. Question Five Introduction Services are categorised under four distinctive elements. These elements must be considered by marketing managers when creating marketing programs for services within the service industry. In this regard, this mini-essay draws attention to the elements that categorize services within the service industry. In particular, the four elements that categorises services within the service industry include, intangibility, perishability, inseparability and heterogeneity. With respect to intangibility, a customer cannot touch, smell, taste, see or test the service before purchasing it (Clarke, 2009). However, the proof of service must be provided to the client before purchasing it. Inseparability entails the complexity in separating the service conveyer and the service. The production of a service goes hand in hand with its deliverance and consumption. In this perspective, internal customers and external customers are an important part of service production. Perishability entails the fact that services cannot be stored prior to consumption. Services subsist only during their production and cannot be stored like a tangible product. A service must be produced and used when needed. For instance, an empty airline seat cannot be carried over to the next available flight. As regard heterogeneity, services vary and they are not consistent. Heterogeneity is a basic aspect of services that leads in variation of services. The actuality that human beings are involved in service delivery instigates variation in service delivered to individual customers (Clarke, 2009). Each customer might get a different service depending on several influences, such as the mood of the person delivering the service, and the time of the day. Conclusion Services are an integral part of the service industry. There are four major characteristics that distinguish services. These elements include intangibility, perishability, heterogeneity and inseparability’s. All these elements are essential in service production and service delivery. These elements must be considered by marketers when developing a service marketing plans within the service industry. Question Six Introduction Service empowerment contributes to service recovery and service quality while good service quality lowers the demand for service recovery. The purpose of this mini-essay identifies the challenges and benefits of the services strategies of empowerment, guarantee and recovery. Service recovery entails the element in offering customer service that retain and attract customers, lowers a firm’ advertising cost and holds a positive effect on business activities. Service recovery develops customer loyalty (Clarke, 2009). Service recovery should produce reliable and effective solutions that match the customer’s expectations and needs. Service should be timely, convenient and one-stop. Managers should manage expectations at all times given that the customer is an important and active participant in the process of service. Empowerment is the bloodstream of service recovery. Service empowerment offers employees the power to meet the expectations of client and ensuring customer’s satisfaction. Service empowerment ensures employee involvement, participation and commitment. Service empowerment promotes service performance to a firm (Clarke, 2009). Service guarantee on the other hand, refers to the service promise made by a firm to offer the service at its standard and recompense clients for any failure linked to the service. It entails a firm commitment on the outcome of the service. Service guarantee lowers the perceived danger in buying a service, acts as a firm internal marketing plan and promotes quality improvement. While service empowerment, guarantee and recovery are significant for customer satisfaction, a firm’ competitive advantage and productivity of a firm, the challenge in managing empowered actions of recovery requires setting of practical boundaries (Clarke, 2009). Boundary setting amounts to introducing the disparity amid bad and good heroic empowerment acts. Conclusion Service empowerment, service guarantee and service recovery are integral part of the service industry. They help in increasing employee efficiency, customer’s satisfaction, employee and customer loyally and overall productivity of a firm. Service empowerment helps in achievement of competitive advantage, service guarantee offers prospects to determine the fail point in services besides improving services while service recovery lowers operational cost and increases customer’s loyalty. Reference Clarke, A. (2009). International hospitality management. New York: Routledge. Read More