Managing Quality in Hilton Hotels - Essay Example

Managing Quality, s and Performance (The case of Hotel Hilton, Dublin Executive Summary In the world we live today, it must be amply clear that quality has no substitute and a company must consider improvement in quality as a means of bringing in product differentiation. This becomes of prime importance in case of hospitality business, where the company is supposed to understand the needs of a customer well and prepare his services accordingly. For a hotel customers can be on vacation tours, business tours, sporting tours, pleasure trips, casual trips etc. A hotel has to take care of all such customers, with different degree of value addition. John Ruskin, an English Critic of 19th Century, said, "Quality is never an accident; it is always the result of intelligent effort". This statement sums up the kind of efforts required to deliver value to the customer and for producing a quality product. An individual's beliefs or conceptions about what is desirable, good or bad - forms the value system (Kotler, 1974). For Hotel Hilton, Optimus Ireland's Best award in December 2006 will go a long way towards encouraging it to perform still better. Innovation, excellence and value addition go hand in hand in today's competitive environment. Customers and the target segments are crucial stakeholders for hotel Hilton. Different types of value addition strategies are adopted by businesses to grow. These could involve trying out different types of market-product combinations, carrying out the business according to certain sets of principles, segmenting the market in their own way, or relying on the feedback of customers for shaping the final service. All this is possible only with the coordination and management of employees of the hotel, service processes, technology and other resources in order to produce better services for the customer. 2. Introductions Hilton Hotels Corporation is recognized all over the world as a well known hospitality company1, offering guests and customers the finest accommodations, services, amenities and value for business or leisure. The group has been serving its customers for more than 80 years now. Conrad Hilton purchased his first hotel, The Mobley, in 1919, in Cisco, Texas. The first hotel to carry the "Hilton" name was built in 1925 in Dallas. There's no looking back since then. Today Hilton Hotels Corporation develops, owns, manages and franchises over 2,900 hotels, resorts and vacation ownership properties worldwide, with brand names like Hilton, Hilton Garden Inn, Doubletree, Embassy Suites Hotels, Homewood Suites by Hilton, Hampton, Hilton Grand Vacations and Conrad (Datamonitor, 2006). In recent years, Hilton has been able to boost its leading position in the corporate travel and conference markets while making significant inroads into the growing leisure sector. The hospitality sector has become very much competitive with more and more companies entering the hospitality business with innovative ideas and newer technology. In order to maintain brand advantage, Hilton is constantly developing products and services designed to meet guests' changing demands and offer an enhanced experience. In order to create more opportunities for growth the shareholder of Hilton Group approved the sale of its hotels operation to Hilton Hotels Corporation for $5,900 million in January 2006. With the present operations in more than 80 countries, the hotel chain promises much more as the awards like the Optimus Ireland's Best award encourages it to do more. 3. Role of Quality The final service/ product and quality are to be valued by the customers. Quality is a function of value addition or vice-versa. The value that has been added to the product has to be seen in relation to the customer's needs and expectations. In general, for an organisation there are both external and internal customers. The external customers are those who use the services of the hotel while the internal customers are the employees and other internal stakeholders. Once the service is delivered to the intended customer, both types of customers must appear to be satisfied. Building an emotional bond with the customer will increase their perception of the quality the company is delivering to them. World class organizations are supposed to implement the value proposition and TQM strategies in order to continually seek better performance. 3.1 Management of Quality in a Hotel For a hotel business, the main ingredients of quality include; i. How spacious the hotel is. ii. How many rooms does the hotel have Because in general, more the number of rooms, the hotel requires more elaborate arrangement for room services etc. iii. Are the rooms having all modern facilities for the comfort of individual as well as corporate clients iv. What type of Conference and banquet facilities are there in the hotel v. How many workers are there in the hotel And what are their levels of qualification/ experience vi. How committed is the managerial team towards the quality goals and how supportive is the board of directors towards the initiatives undertaken by the managerial team. vii. What sort of relations are there amongst the workers and managers. Are the managers attentive towards the suggestions from ground level workers and middle level executives viii. What sort of parking space is available with/ around the hotel. ix. Does the hotel chain has a tie up with some other agencies like tour and travel, airlines, golfing etc. x. What sort of communication facilities are being provided by the hotel to its guests, corporate customers, business travelers, meetings, conferences etc. xi. In this era of IT led revolution in the communication field, facilities like Wi-fi, Wi-max have become a cornerstone of providing faster and better internet and communication facilities to the customers. Provisioning of such technologies are done by the hotels to make way for implementation of product differentiation strategy. xii. How does the hotel take feedback from customers, employees and other stakeholders and, xiii. What mechanism is in place in the hotel to take into account the feedback and to work upon the feedback 3.2 Quality Initiatives Hilton hotel has also undergone the downturn in business owing to the 9/11 incident. After about three difficult years of the hospitality industry, the hotel chain has now stabilized in its business. Some of the quality initiatives that the Hilton hotel chain has taken during the recent years are; i. Enhancing the customers' ability to book rooms through the hotels' own distribution channels, working effectively on the Internet, and managing the challenges from third party Internet sources ii. Completed the installation of innovative OnQ system at all of its Hilton Family of Brands properties. OnQ is the Hilton Family of Hotels' proprietary technology platform which integrates multiple capabilities onto one system to support hotel reservations & sales, guest service, operations and business intelligence-gathering activities. OnQ also provides guest information to team members on demand - prompting them to act "on cue" to guest preferences and service recovery alerts - delighting customers2. This way the hotel is able to establish a bond of loyalty with the customers. OnQ is one comprehensive system which integrates the technological components to provide an edge over the competitors in the market. This technique provides a 'cue' to hotel operators with a comprehensive database. iii. Hilton group has provided the HHonors reward program. This is a unique program which allows the members of this program to earn double points. A hotel customer enrolled with such a program can earn both hotel points for free nights and airline miles for free flights - for the same stay at more than 2,700 hotels worldwide. iv. The Hilton group also has a marketing and Sales Support. This includes national sales and marketing efforts, meeting referrals through Hilton Direct, national and regional advertising, public relations, special marketing programs and access to a range of support materials, such as camera-ready ad slicks, logos, rack brochures and more. v. Hilton group is one of the leading sponsors of the Olympics to be held on Beijing in 2008. This will help in establishing still better brand equity for the hotel chain. vi. The Hilton group has ventured on the "Customer Really Matters" program which provides a still better focus towards the customer satisfaction. vii. Hilton has also undertaken the corporate and property training initiatives, including The Hilton Management Development Program, which provides management training for women and minority team members. viii. In December 2006, Hilton Dublin City Centre Hotel has been awarded the Optimus Ireland's Best award. This award is conferred on a services oriented company depending upon its adherence on strict criteria. Hilton hotel chain was awarded with this honour for; Its Focus on exceeding customer expectations through service excellence Developing and empowering every employee to deliver the service promise Establishing and maintaining service standards Impacts on customers, employees and business performance 3.3 Measuring Quality Quality can be best measured by the satisfaction level of the customers in general. This level can be assessed by truthfully analyzing the feedback received from the customers and the number of return customers that the hotel is able to gain. There are though scientific methods of measuring quality. The Quality assurance triangle is one such tool for measuring quality. This consists of quantifying the current level of performance according to expected standards. Fig.1 QA triangle The QA approach to measuring quality is involves; Quality Assessment: Quality is assessed against some existing criteria set by the hospitality industry Quality Monitoring: There are methods available to regularly monitor the quality of hospitality. A core set of hospitality indicators are analyzed by the QA team with regular data and information gathering from different points of quality implementation. In order to develop trust and involve staff, quality monitoring emphasizes measuring and analyzing processes rather than individuals. This is a continuous process involving a chain of monitoring processes. External Evaluation of Quality: External evaluation involves taking assistance from outside agencies. Such agencies assess the quality implementation within the hotel over a randomly selected time period. For example the Optimus award is one such form of external evaluation. 3.4 Maintaining Standards: Maintaining certain quality standards within the industry helps in sustaining the competitive edge for the hotel. Hilton has indeed tried to come upto the expectations of its customers. With a strong cross-selling among the brands and the success of the Hilton Honors loyalty program which is contributing to gains in market share across all company brands, the hotel chain is poised for a better growth in the near future. 4. Conclusions and Recommendations Hilton group of hotels has indeed been maintaining high standards of quality while providing international class services to its customers. As the tagline goes for the hospitality industry, "One simple philosophy: be hospitable" says the essence of following quality principles within the industry. The group needs to continuously upgrade its quality standards with the evolving demands of the customers and the changes in technologies. References: 1. Philip Kotler, (1974), Marketing Management, 2nd Ed., Prentice Hall, NY. 2. The Hilton family (2006). A family of distinct hotels. One simple philosophy: be hospitable http://www.hiltongardeninnfranchise.com/SF/overview/HH_2817_Bro_MultiBrand.pdf (Accessed March 29, 2007) 3. Measuring Quality: Methods and Tools. Available online at http://www.qaproject.org/methods/resmeasure.html (Accessed March 29, 2007) 4. Optimus: Achieving Business Excellence (2007) http://www.optimus.ie/opt/index.php (Accessed March 30, 2007) 5. Datamonitor (2006). Hilton Hotel Corporation: Company profile. Datamonitor Europe, London. Read More