Penang Mutiara Hotel - Areas for Growth - Essay Example

Through planning, anticipation and flexible employment of resources, the management has succeeded in retaining at least 50 percent of its clientele as return guests. Speed and fast response are other strengths of the Penang Mutiara. Flexibility in exploiting opportunities and employment of staff through multi-skill training has created unique strengths. This has resulted in the dependability factor, which a customer in the service industry cherishes and has improved occupancy rates leading to corresponding economies of scale. (www.booksites.net). The hotel can leverage its strengths as there is adequate potential for growth with continuous improvement with reference to organizational quality and performance, focusing on customer satisfaction, through constant incremental improvements to processes including removal of unnecessary activities. (www.managementhelp.com).

Loyalty Bonus Scheme

The service industry has to balance between strategy and operations before it can consider growth options. Since Penang Mutiara is operating as an international destination, it has to see operational management from an international perspective. (Slack: 2003). International guests in the luxury segment whether these are businesses or tourists seek the comfort of familiarity. Thus if they have been looked after well by a particular hotel once, they would like to continue to stay in the same hotel and also recommend this to their friends and associates. Word of mouth is a powerful communication tool for luxury clientele with a strong network. This aspect can be exploited by the Penang Mutiara.

Thus a customer loyalty program is the first growth area recommended for the hotel, exploiting its customer relationship, familiarity with the loyal customers and service orientation. At present, the 50 percent returnee guests show that there is adequate potential for growth in this segment may be 70-75 percent with schemes involving loyalty bonus and also loyalty recommendations which entail that any recommendation made by a customer will gain him loyalty points for him as well as his recommended guest. This is envisaged to enable the hotel to gain a growth of 25-40 percent in its bottom line as this can be achieved through existing resources and infrastructure. Thus a loyalty bonus scheme and visitor scheme with discounts of 5 to 10 percent could considerably benefit Penang without having to deploy additional resources.

This scheme can be put in place within a period of three to six months after running simulation exercises based on existing data and feedback from existing customers.

Restaurant Business

The second growth area identified from a review of the case study was in restaurant operations. There is obviously some slack in the restaurants, from where the staff was being deployed for taking on the additional load of room service. Restaurants attract local as well as in-house customers whose demands can be met with ease through proper coordination of the services to include guest relations, catering and so on. These are common functions in the hotel business which if properly coordinated can enhance profitability. (www.cambridgecollege.co.uk). Penang Mutiara should develop its restaurant business to benefit from the flexibility of its operations and staff coordination. This will considerably enhance its business without affecting present services. The hotel sector has been identified as having the adequate potential to distribute its services efficiently through unique product creation and effective service management; hence this aspect can be exploited with ease. (www.managementhelp.com)

The infrastructure existing in the restaurants in terms of table space is considered adequate, though exact data is not available. Some skilled manpower may have to be trained and deployed. Popularizing the restaurants will need a detailed campaign of concessions, benefits and so on being proposed, which will take a period of three months to establish in the minds of the client population. Thus this area of growth can be undertaken in a period of three months or so.