Review of W Fort Lauderdale Hotel - Assignment Example

Review of W Fort Lauderdale Hotel al Affiliation Review of W Fort Lauderdale Hotel Summary Review and feedback areimportant factors in enhancing services delivery. Revinate is an online program that helps to companies in hospitality industry control their online reputation. Most hospitality companies have established their presence online so that international travelers can view their products and services. This paper will analyze online reviews of W Fort Lauderdale from Revinate. To develop a white paper of W Fort Lauderdale hotel, the study will analyze its online review against its competitors. The first section will analyze W Fort Lauderdale as luxury hotel of Starwood Hotels and Resorts and finally analyze its competitiveness across the globe. The paper will also give recommendation on how the hotel can improve its service delivery. Introduction Online reviews help to improve generally performance of an organization since it helps managers in decision making and resources allocation. It also helps the organization analyze its strengths, weakness, opportunities and threats to improve its goods and services. The benefits of organizational analysis is to help improve organizational performance in relation to is competitors through its mission, vision, resources allocation, product and services, governance, organizational culture and ethics, competitive advantages, employee and customer satisfaction (Bekefi, 2008). Hospitality industry plays an important economic role in United States of America (Zacks, 2012). Hotel industry across the globe is affected by fluctuations in demand of their goods and services depending with the prevailing season. A specific hotel needs to develop a products and services that will ensure constant income throughout the year despite the existing competitors. Their services should be unique and competitive compared to the products and services of their real competitors. Customer satisfaction is a key factor to the success of any hospitality organization. Hospitality industry offers home like services to unique customers away from home. Therefore the customer expectations for quality goods and services are higher in hospitality industry than in any other industry (Taylor, 2012). To improve services delivery and maintain customer royalty, an organization must seek to obtain the customers feed back in regard to their services. In the current information age most customers seek their products and services online. Customers also give negative and positive feedback online in Social Medias as well as the company’s website. Renivate software is an online platform specifically tailor made for hospitality industry. Revinate allows the company to manage their online reputation by connecting with their customers through online reviews and social Medias. The company W Fort Lauderdale hotel (Fl) is a W brand of Starwood Hotels & Resorts locater on Florida sand coastline. W brand comprise of luxury and classy residences, full service hotels and retreats centers (Starwood Hotels & Resorts, n.d.). Figure 1 below is a photo from the inside of W Fort Lauderdale Source: W Fort Lauderdale n.d. Starwood Hotels & Resorts Starwood Hotels & Resorts is among the leading international company in hospitality industry. It operates more than 1,200 establishments in more than 100 countries. Its employees are more than 181, 400 people. Starwood owns, operates and franchise hotels, residences as well as resorts. Their brands include St. Regis, W, The Luxury Collection, Westin, Aloft, Sheraton, Le Meridien, Four Points and Element (Starwood Hotels & Resorts, n.d.). History of the Starwood Hotels & Resorts The history of Starwood Hotels & Resorts dates back to the year 1991 when Starwood Capital partners was formed as a family business (Starwood Hotels & Resorts, n.d.). By the year 1993, the company bought its several hotels. In the year 1998 the Starwood Capital partners changed to Starwood Hotels & Resorts after the purchase of Westin Hotels & Resorts to the tune of 1.8 billion in US dollars. In February 1998 ITT Sheraton Corporation was also purchased for 14.3 billion US dollars. These acquisitions raised its total assets with about 57.48 pe3rcent to about 650 establishments in about 70 countries across the globe. In December the same year the first W brand hotel was opened in New York City with the aim of offering personalized services to the travelers. It offers luxurious and reliable service. Other brands were also purchased and introduced in the year 1999 (Starwood Hotels & Resorts, n.d.). In the year 2001 the Starwood Hotels & Resorts received recognition as the leading group of hotel across the globe in the annual Eighth World Travel Awards and its Preferred Guest Program named as the travel program of the Year for six successive years by the prestigious Frequent Traveler Awards from the year 2000 to the year 2005 (Starwood Hotels & Resorts, n.d.). The company has been acquiring properties, hotels and resort that offer unique services to their guest. Current they manages, owns and franchise more than 8 brands in more than 100 countries. W brand The W brand comprise of luxurious and prestigious full services hotels and resorts, retreats as well as residences that have unique designs to offer extra ordinary guest experience. Every hotel’s design is different depending on its location and tourism destination. The design is in line with the local surrounding creating a unique experience that allows the guest to enjoy their days as well as nights depending on their nature of travel. Each W hotel has a unique feature, design as well as music and other services. There are combinations of W Hotels worldwide and the signature Whatever/Whenever that offer guests as well as local community unique hospitality services (Starwood Hotels & Resorts, n.d.). Each establishment has a restaurant and bar that serves the guest as well as local merry makers. There are currently about 45 establishments operating on this brad across the globe. They have exclusive entertainment, lounges, guest rooms, cuisines and cocktails. The history of W hotels date back to December the year 1998 in the New York City 49th Street and Lexington Avenue when the first establishment was opened and then the second hotel that is Earth & Ocean at W Seattle. The brand was inspired by the fact that some guest requires personalized services away from home when on either business or leisure travel. W hotels offer personalized, exclusive, refreshing and comfortable services to their guests. The emphasis is on exceptional and personalized services. The success of the first hotel led to development of other hotels in exclusive destinations in Los Angeles, Florida, Chicago, Seoul and Seattle (Starwood Hotels & Resorts, n.d.). It is expected that the brand will have 60 hotels, resorts and residences by the year 2017. Its target expansion areas are Abu Dhabi, Beijing, Bogota, Changsha, Dubai, Goa, Jakarta, Kuala Lumpur, Mexico, Milan, Mumbai, Muscat, New Delhi, Panama, Santa Fe, Shanghai and Suzhou among others. W Fort Lauderdale Fort Lauderdale is a luxurious and reliable hotel located along the sugar-sand coastline in Florida south beach. It operates under the Starwood Hotels & Resorts’ signature Whatever/Whenever brand. It has about 517 rooms and masters suites that offer unique oceanic view to the guests in all the rooms (W Fort Lauderdale n.d.). The travel activities include world class shopping experience and beach tourism destination. It has a unique structure with two towers that are similar to a sailing boat that is about to dock thus offering the oceanic view from all the rooms. The design was inspired by its location in the beach. They have wide range of rooms from luxurious rooms to masters’ suites to two bed roomed residences. The figure 2 below shows the exterior of Fort Lauderdale hotel. The services offered include different cuisines at the restaurants, cocktails at the Gerber Groups Whiskey Blue as well as Living Room. Beauty and body services are offered by Ted Gibson Salon and bliss spa Fort Lauderdale. There are various tourism activities such as surfing, skiing, dive, gambling at the casinos, golf courses and professional sports watching. In case of business travelers, the hotel is located near many blue chip and leading companies. It is also with close vicinity of three main airports that are Palm Beach International Airport (PBI) that is about 46 miles from the hotel, Miami International Airport (MIA) that is about 32 miles and Fort Lauderdale Hollywood International Airport (FTL) that is 7 miles from the hotel (W Fort Lauderdale n.d.). It therefore offers a combination of leisure and business travel services and activities. Source: http://www.wfortlauderdalehotel.com/ Starwood Hotels & Resorts core values are: The day to day activities of Starwood Hotels & Resorts are guided by their desire to provide unique experience to their customers. The core values are Going the Extra Step to ensure customer satisfaction and retention, team work across all the companies and doing the Right Thing in respect to the surrounding communities, employees, shareholders, allies and the environment (Starwood Hotels & Resorts, n.d.). Starwood Hotels & Resorts management The 11 directors are drawn from different sectors. Diversity among directors, top leaders, supervisors and employees is key factor for the success of any organization. Diversity helps to create a viable team since the team members have different talents, skills and experiences. Free movement of labor and accessibility of hotel through International Airport are necessary factors that promote employees and management diversity (Prokkola, 2010). However like any other hospitality company across the globe, Starwood Hotels & Resorts has high staff turnover. Employees in hospitality industry are under paid and work in poor working conditions. Employees are the most important asset in hospitality industry since they interact directly with the guest. Most guests complained that the hotel is either under staffed, the employees are not friendly or they do not respond to customers queries as fast as possible. Jody D, customer Relations Manager is very quick to respond to customers query and complains online (Trip advisor, 2014). The senior managers Starwood Hotels & Resorts that are related to this study are: Frits Van Paasschen: The President and Chief Executive officer Vasant M. Prabhu: Chief financial officer and vice Chairman Roger Berry: Chief information officer and senior vice president Jeff Cava:Chief human resources officer and executive vice president Phil Mcaveety: Chief brand officer and executive vice president John Peyton: Global initiatives senior vice president, Kenneth S. Siegel: Administrative officer and counsel Simon Turner: Global development Mark R. Vondrasek Distribution and marketing Osvaldo V. Librizzi and Sergio Rivera: President of the Americas Paul James: Brand Leader of St. Regis Hotels and Resorts, W Hotels Worldwide and the Luxury Collection. Helen Horsham-Bertels: Customer Service Competitive analysis The major competitors of W Fort Lauderdale (FL) are other luxurious hotels such as The Ritz-Carlton Fort Lauderdale, Harbor Beach Marriott Resort and Spa, Westin Fort Lauderdale, FL, Sheraton Fort Lauderdale Beach Hotel, Westin Beach Resort Lauderdale (Revinate, 2004). In the bid to increase its competitiveness and sales W Fort Lauderdale (FL), appointed new sales and marketing manager Cesar Wurm in August the year 2013 (Hotel Online, 2013). Sales and marketing environment have been changing over time due to change in customer preferences. Most customers are seeking goods and services that offer personalized and exclusive experience. The company in hospitality industry should therefore seek to provide services that homely away from home (Finn, 2009). In United States of America the consumers are seeking to purchase services from companies that offer tangible values for money rather that companies that spend Millions in Marketing and promotions (Schultz, 2003). Pricing strategy Competitive companies offer quality products and services at an appropriate price (Ehmke, Fulton, and Lusk, 2005). Price affects the profitability of the company and is determined by production cost, competitor’s prices, government taxes, profit margin of the company and the target market. W Fort Lauderdale (FL) target middle and high end customers who their main concern is quality services rather than their price (Schultz, 2003). Service and products W Fort Lauderdale (FL) is a luxurious hotel offering exclusive and personalized services to its customer. Its location and design allows the customer to have oceanic view from their rooms. It offers full services rooms, residences, cuisines, cocktails, shopping experiences, sport tourism, attractive scenic views and beauty services. According to online feedback from the customers their services are highly rated but in some cases they do not meet their customers’ expectation especially the room services. Its services are rated at 78 percent (Trip advisor, 2014). According to their website as well as revinate their services are rated 4 out of 5. It is rated third after The Ritz-Carlton Fort Lauderdale and Harbor Beach Marriott Resort and Spa (Revinate, 2004). It also ranked as the 17th hotel out of more than 133 hotels in Fort Lauderdale. The hotel also received a Certificate of Excellence 2013 (Trip advisor, 2014). Convenience Convenience and location are major consideration for guest. W Fort Lauderdale (FL) is location can attract both business and leisure travelers. The hotel is located near major international airport that are Palm Beach International Airport (PBI), Miami International Airport (MIA) and Fort Lauderdale Hollywood International Airport (FTL) (W Fort Lauderdale n.d.). Leisure travelers are attracted to the hotel due to its location in the sand beach and various tourism activities such as sightseeing, surfing, golfing, skiing and diving. The hotel is also located near major to international and blue chip companies therefore convenient for business travelers. Promotion Promotion methods include sales promotions, personal selling, rewards, public relations and advertising on media. It helps a company create awareness of their products and services to their target customers as well as retains its existing customer (Owomoyela, Olasunkanmi and Oyeniyi 2013). In order to select specific methods of promotion the company must conduct sufficient research to understand their target customers. W Fort Lauderdale (FL) is a luxurious hotel that target high and middle level business and leisure travelers as well as local merry makers (W Fort Lauderdale n.d.). These groups of people spend most of their time at work. They have access to internet, digital news paper and magazines, travel guide websites, social Medias and company’s website. W Fort Lauderdale (FL) has established their presence online where customers can view their products and services online and also order for this services. Starwood Hotels & Resorts which is the parent company for W Fort Lauderdale (FL) also have a website. W Fort Lauderdale (FL) is also presence on social Medias such as facebook. The customer relations manager, Jody D is keen to respond to customers query and complains online (Trip advisor, 2014) and (Revinate, 2004). Strengths and Weaknesses Strengths and weakness include internal factors of the company (Downey, 2007). Strengths increase the competitive advantages of the company. The management team must also seek to improve on the company weakness to increase customer satisfaction and loyalty. W Fort Lauderdale is ranked among the top twenty hotels in Fort Lauderdale (Trip advisor, 2014) and third among top six competing luxury hotels (Revinate, 2004). Its main objective should be to overcome its competitors. According to Renner (2010), Starwood Hotels and Resorts is ranked 4th globally with a market share of 3.4 percent after Hilton Hotels Corporation that has a market share of 7.2 percent, Marriot with a market share of 5.6 percent and Wyndham Worldwide Corporation with a market share of 3.4 percent. The strengths of W Fort Lauderdale are: first it is fairly ranked among the competitors. Its parent company has large market share, its strategic location near the beach and international companies, it can be accessed through three major international airports, employees and directors diversity, have an excellent reward program that has won several prestigious awards, unique features and offer tailor made products and services to its customers (W Fort Lauderdale n.d.). The weaknesses are high staff turnover, poor room services, its target customers are value oriented and product diversification. Its major threats include poor economic conditions in United States of America and across the globe. Recommendation Hospitality industry is an important economic sector in United States of America and across the globe. Hotels and resorts offers essential services to leisure and business travelers away from their home and therefore excellent and exclusive services are key success factors for any hospitality industry. The target customers of W Fort Lauderdale are upper and middle class and therefore the need for further research to understand the needs of the target market. W Fort Lauderdale is highly rated but there is need for following improvement. The management should increase its investment in their employees in terms of salary review, enhance the working condition and offer proper training and development to increase its staff retention rate. Employees interact directly with the customers and therefore satisfied employees will offer excellent services to their customers. Customer feedback provides important information on the hotel. Online Customer feedback can make or destroy company’s reputation online. W Fort Lauderdale should be careful to respond to any online complain to protect its reputation. In the current economic times customers are seeking value added services. W Fort Lauderdale should provide excellent services beyond customers expectation. Their current website provides sufficient information to the potential customers. W Fort Lauderdale can improve their website by adding other features such as live chat. The company should also increase their presence online through various social Medias and advertising on other corporate website with higher traffic. Conclusion W Fort Lauderdale is a luxurious and exclusive hotel and resort that operates under W brand of Starwood Hotels and Resorts. It is strategically located on the sand beach and accessible to international and local communities who visit the area for business or leisure travel. Its high ranked among its real competitors but there is need for improvement. This improvement can be achieved by developing quality staffs that offer excellent and exclusive services to the customer. Excellent services helps to create customer royalty. W Fort Lauderdale also need to develop a new marketing strategy that focus on four Ps of marketing mix that are products, price, promotion and place( distribution). This will help bridge the gap between the companies products and services and the needs of their target customers. References Bekefi T. (2008). Making sustainability work: Best practices in managing and measuring corporate social, environmental and economic impact. Study Guide. Retrieved on February 27, 2014 from: https://www.google.co.ke/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=9&cad=rja&ved=0CG8QFjAI&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.bkconnection.com%2Fstatic%2FMaking_Sustainability_Work_DISCUSSION.doc&ei=9K6GUtW6OIOe0QWshYGICg&usg=AFQjCNEumaj1DrvzehJjhe-RHJTdXKsEEw&bvm=bv.56643336,d.d2k Downey J. (2007). Strategic analysis tools. Topic Gateway Series No. 34. The Chartered Institute of Management Accountants. Retrieved on February 26, 2014 from: Ehmke C., Fulton J., and Lusk J. (2005). Marketing’s Four P’s: First steps for new entrepreneurs. Agricultural innovation and commercialization centre. Purdue Extension Finn G. (2009). A dimensional view of experiential marketing. Brand channel .com Hotel Online. (2013). Florida’s 517-room W Fort Lauderdale welcomes Cesar Wurm as director of sales and marketing. Retrieved on February 27, 2014 from: https://www.hotel-online.com/press_releases/release/floridas-517-room-w-fort-lauderdale-welcomes-cesar-wurm-as-director-of-sale http://www.wfortlauderdalehotel.com/ Owomoyela, S. K., Olasunkanmi, S. and Oyeniyi, K. O. (2013). Investigating the impact of marketing mix elements on consumer loyalty: an empirical study on Nigerian breweries plc.Interdisciplinary Journal of Contemporary Research In Business, 4(11), 485-496. Prokkola E.(2010). Borders in tourism: the transformation of the Swedish-Finnish border landscape. Current Issues in Tourism, 13, 3, pp. 223-238, Hospitality & Tourism Complete, EBSCOhost Renner L. (2010). “Strategic Analysis of Marriott International, Inc.” Honors Capstone Revinate (2004). New review: Starwood. Retrieved on February 28, 2014 from: https://app.revinate.com/activity/872/filtered Schultz R. (2003). The consumer wants more (and less). Direct Newsline Starwood Hotels & Resorts (n.d.). News: history. Retrieved on February 25, 2014 from: http://www.starwoodhotels.com/corporate/press/history.html last update 2014 Taylor I. (2012). Customer satisfaction strategies for the hospitality industry. Question pro. Retrieved on February 27, 2014 from: http://blog.questionpro.com/2012/11/14/customer-satisfaction-strategies-for-the-hospitality-industry/ Trip advisor (2014). W Fort Lauderdale:W Fort Lauderdale Hotel Reviews. Retrieved on February 28, 2014 from: http://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Hotel_Review-g34227-d658123-Reviews-W_Fort_Lauderdale-Fort_Lauderdale_Florida.html W Fort Lauderdale.(n.d.) Fort Lauderdale: the residences. W Fort Lauderdale (n.d.). Overview. Retrieved on February 28, 2014 from: http://www.wfortlauderdalehotel.com/ last update 2014 Zack. (2012). Hotels and lodging stock outlook 2012: Zack’s equity research, January 3rd, 2012.” Retrieved on February 28, 2014 from < http://www.zacks.com/stock/news/88404/Hotel-amp-Lodging-Stock-Update-Dec-2012> Read More

 

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