Hospitality Management in Australia - Case Study Example

Hospitality Management Introduction Australia is experiencing a boom in its hospitality industry. This is a phenomenon that obtains all over the world. As such, the travel and tourism industry, constitutes the largest global employer. In Australia, tourism constitutes a major component of its economy. The tourists in Australia are domestic, as well as international. This makes it imperative for hotel managers to be capable of catering to the needs of not only the domestic tourist, but also the international tourist[blu11]. In addition to hotels, the term hospitality encompasses bars, restaurants, airlines, theme parks and tourist attractions. Consequently, a boom in tourism translates into a huge up swell in many other businesses. It is essential to realise that domestic tourism in Australia constitutes around 70% of the total tourism leisure expenditure. The main driver, in this context, is the overnight leisure market. Hence, hotels and restaurants are in great demand for such travellers[blu11]. As such, some of the chief areas of the hospitality industry are; accommodation; café and restaurants, take-away food services; catering services; pubs, taverns and bars; and clubs. In Australia, the hospitality industry is the seventh largest. As of the year 2012, it had employed around 750,000 individuals. These people had been employed in different positions, such as, bar attendants, baristas, waiters, and chefs[Res14]. Broad Categories of Areas in the Hospitality Industry Moreover, among the service sectors of the global economy, the hospital industry occupies a prominent place. It covers a wide array of service industries, such as food service, hotels, and tourism. However, this industry is influenced by fluctuation in the economy[Eco10]. Furthermore, it is possible to bifurcate the hospitality industry into accommodation and entertainment areas. Accommodation assumes the form of campgrounds, hostels, hotels, inns, motels, public houses, resorts, and serviced apartments. On the other hand, the entertainment category includes fast food joints, night clubs, and restaurants[Eco10]. Airline cabin staff and travel agents are some of the tourism support commercial activities encompassed by the hospitality industry. Travel technology is deemed to be an integral component of the hospitality industry. Moreover, corporate entertainment has emerged as a flourishing activity amongst corporations[Eco10]. In addition, a hotel can be described as an establishment that provides lodging upon obtaining a specific payment. Such lodging is, in general, provided in exchange for some specific amount of money. The contemporary hotel rooms have climate control and attached bathrooms. The better quality hotels provide their guests with Internet connectivity in their rooms and in the hotel premises[Eco10]. However, in the majority of the hospitality establishments, a combination of accommodation and meals is provided as a package. These establishments are generally managed by professionally qualified managers. The cooking is undertaken by professionally trained chefs, whilst the hotel is maintained by junior staff. The fast-food restaurants have emerged as a major component of the hospitality industry. Customer service in these restaurants is provided by an optimal number of personnel. On occasion, companies host private events for the entertainment of their clients, the stakeholders or the staff. Such events are termed as corporate entertainment. It can assume the form of conventions or conferences; or constitute a small and private function, such as an annual party[Eco10]. In general, travellers have limited direct experience regarding the place they intend to visit, prior to their actual visit to that place. Consequently, travellers are not in a position to test or try the hospitality products or services earlier to procurement. Hospitality involves the purchase of the intangible, and this is accompanied by diversity and the blending of production and consumption[Wal14]. As such, hotel accommodation and transportation constitute purchased tangible components of experiences. Nevertheless, there is no actual purchase of the tangible component. In reality, it is merely the right to use the product for a period of time that is purchased. Such interaction between the tangible place and the travellers, and the interaction between local inhabitants and travellers form the core of hospitality and tourism experiences[Wal14]. Provision of Food In addition, tourism is critically dependent upon food provision. As shown by Hall and Sharpies for the year 2003, it constituted 28% of the total revenue related to tourism. With regard to hospitality, it constituted half of the total revenue, as portrayed by the Australian Bureau of Statistics in the year 2004. Thus, food provision forms a major component of tourism and hospitality[Rod05]. For instance, during the Sydney Olympics of 2000, around 14 million meals had been served. This included 3.5 million meals for athletes, 0.5 million for the media, 2.5 million for the event staff, and half a million for the corporate sponsors and the non-paying patrons. When it comes to production involving such high volumes, it becomes essential to resort to state-of-the-art food service technologies and distribution logistics[Rod05]. Moreover, food service packaging and equipment have undergone tremendous improvement, and this has led to a variety of choices for a production line approach. It has been the tradition to use cook-hot-hold, cook-freeze, and short shelf-life and long shelf-life cook-chill systems for improving profitability; via bulk purchasing power, higher productivity, improved process control, and better utilisation of equipment[Rod05]. In general, a system is comprised of a central production unit and several satellite kitchens located at the same venue. This is the case with stadiums, convention centres, and casinos. However, the satellite kitchens could be located at physically distant places. This transpires in restaurant chains, resorts, hotels, schools, retirement villages, and hospitals[Rod05]. For example, the Australian Conrad Jupiter’s on the Gold Coast had invested $9.25 million for developing an on-site production kitchen with a 149 strong staff and production capacity of 16,000 meals a day. This kitchen provides food items for the cafés and restaurants of the casino, as well as the nearby Gold Coast Convention & Exhibition Centres. The production design of this kitchen entails a combination of food service systems, such as the long shelf-life or cooked-in-a-bag and hot fill, and short shelf-life or open tray cook-chill[Rod05]. Several pieces of the equipment had been custom built. Moreover, the applicable software had been specifically designed to control cooking, chilling and reheating. This establishment had stated that there were plans on the anvil to produce a commercial range of hotel quality liquid food items. Some examples of the food items envisaged, in this context, being stocks, soups, and mayonnaise for external customers[Rod05]. A central production unit has been established at Celestijnenlaan (Heverlee). This remote central production unit supplies the Catholic University’s ALMA Restaurants located in Leuven, Belgium, with ready-to-eat products and serves around 6,000 meals a day[Rod05] Menu Making It has been contended by Wansink that making alterations to menus, in order to stress more upon healthier, lower-calorie food items with higher profit margins would improve the financial health of the food industry, as well as the health of their patrons. Wansink’s argument was founded upon previous studies conducted in caféterias and restaurants[Bro14]. Moreover, the artifice to be employed was to induce customers to undertake healthier options by causing their attention to be drawn to a specific region of the menu. Such enticement had to portray the healthier food as being of better taste, and by enhancing the perceived worth of such items. Several such ploys tend to be routinely employed by restaurants. For instance, a costly food item could be shown without the accompanying dollar symbol, so as to divert attention from its high price[Bro14]. Another strategy would be to display prices on a menu in a staggered manner. This would prevent the customers from going through a single column to determine the least costly menu item. Moreover, a restaurant could place the highest margin earning food items at the corners of the menu, as the patrons would be more likely to see them. This could help the restaurant to maximize profits. However, by making suitable alterations, these procedures could be employed for emphasising, to a greater extent, the benefit of exercising healthy food choices. Such food, usually lends itself to easier preparation and provides a greater profit margin than the higher caloric choices on the menu[Bro14]. For instance, although a Caesar Salad and a cheeseburger tend to be sold for the same price, the former involves a lower preparation cost. Therefore, if restaurants were to prominently display healthier food items on their menu, then they would make greater profits and they would also be encouraging their customers to consume healthier food[Bro14]. Restaurants, in a milieu of increasing obesity, have become a regulatory target. A profitable solution that tends to be neglected requires restaurants to focus upon menu altering strategies. These strategies have to be aimed at enhancing sales of the comparatively healthier, high margin appetisers and hors d'oeuvres. Several contemporary lab and field research studies have been conducted in the areas of consumer psychology and behavioural economics[Wan14]. These studies have provided useful solutions that could be employed to guide customers to take healthier decisions. Such decision making would be based upon the menu engineering process of first, shifting attention; second, improving taste expectations; and third, improving perception of value. These interventions have the capacity to improve the wholesomeness of the food items selected by customers, in addition to improving the profits made by the restaurant[Wan14]. Some of the more important purposes of a menu are to convey information regarding the products available for sale, selling and the provision of palpable evidence. At the time of preparing a new menu, these aspects have to be taken into consideration by the managers. Menus constitute sales tools in full-service restaurants[Bow95]. In addition, several of the restaurants have adopted menu psychology, in order to increase their profits. This consists of understanding the manner in which people discern, comprehend, and react to various menu items. An improved utilisation of menu psychology, so as to promote healthy menu items with high margin, necessitates the determination of the healthy menu items to be targeted[Wan14]. Moreover, Nessel suggested that menu items should be classified into the following categories, namely, high-margin stars, high-margin puzzles, low-margin favourites, and forgotten foods. After completing this classification exercise, restaurants have to promote healthy menu items that belong to the high-margin star category, change high-martin puzzles into high-margin stars, induce customer to discard low-margin favourites for high-margin stars, and discard forgotten foods[Wan14]. In order to determine the correlation between the menu and the successful management of a restaurant, it is essential to accord primary attention to the development and monitoring of menus. Food, beverage and restaurant management become efficient, when there is acceptance that constant monitoring of the menu and its performance is indispensable. This permits alterations to be made to the menu that will improve profits, through enhanced sales volumes or an overall decrease in the cost of food[Cur13]. Nevertheless, several types of documented models are available for developing new menus. The superior models convey the necessity for menu development to be a cyclic process. Moreover, these models encourage realism regarding the intricacies that arise during implementation; and encourage realism regarding the complexities related to implementation. Finally, these models stress upon the necessity for continual monitoring of the performance of a menu, so as to procure the best results[Cur13]. Human Resource Management It had, in general, been conceded that human resources constituted the most valuable capital for the hospitality industry. Several organisations, rapidly discerned that true competitive advantage was derived from the aptitudes, knowledge and skills of their employees. These features of employees had a profound influence upon the quality of services provided to customers[Pop12]. In order to induce members of the well-trained workforce to join their organisation, human resource managers of the hospitality industry have to provide a quality work environment, attractive benefits and career advancement choices. In addition, these managers will be required to motivate the labour force by employing different motivational devices, to ensure high performance[Pop12]. Moreover, human resource managers will be required to adopt measures that serve to improve the skills of employees that are required by their jobs. This has to be achieved by evaluating training needs and identifying the most effective training methods and means. Furthermore, these managers have to monitor the provision of continuous training to employees. Finally, they have to adopt measures that prevent talented employees from leaving the organisation[Pop12]. To this end, suitable retention policies have to be framed and implemented. Conclusion The changes in the hospitality industry, during the past few year have been unrestrained. Some of the changes noticed in the business environment are; consolidation, competitive pressures, consumption patterns, varying consumer preferences, new distribution channels, and technological advances[Enz08]. Innovation has been projected as the most effective device to be utilised against these changes. The hospitality industry has to make adequate changes to its system, depending on the global environment. Customer choices and expectations will vary with the passage of time. Managers have to strive hard, to implement innovative methods to cope up with the global trends. Human resource managers also have to take measures to enhance technological skills among the employees of their company. As a whole, the hospitality industry has to adopt novel procedures that address the competitive forces and customer preferences in the contemporary global environment. References blu11: , (bluemountains, 2011), Res14: , (Restaurant & Catering, n.d.), Eco10: , (Economy Watch, 2010), Wal14: , (Walls, 2014, p. 11), Rod05: , (Rodgers, 2005, p. 157), Rod05: , (Rodgers, 2005, p. 158), Bro14: , (Brownlee, n.d.), Wan14: , (Wansink & Love, 2014, p. 137), Bow95: , (Bowen & Morris, 1995, p. 4), Wan14: , (Wansink & Love, 2014, p. 138), Cur13: , (Currie, 2013, p. 33), Pop12: , (Popescu, et al., 2012, p. 186), Pop12: , (Popescu, et al., 2012, p. 189), Enz08: , (Enz & Harrison, 2008, p. 213), Read More