Soft Openings Are Harmful for the Hotel Companies - Research Proposal Example

A soft opening means that the business is opened for customers even though it is not fully functional yet. Soft openings have become common with malls, theatres, retail counters, banks, and hotels. This practice has been observed greatly in the hotel service industry where hotels are opened before they are completely furnished, to see the response and feedback of the customers. This may be done for many reasons including, catering to the demand of the customers, to give the employees training, to find out bottlenecks in the processes, and so on.

The management could then collect the important data and use it to tailor their services to better fulfill the needs of the customer. Even though soft openings for hotels can have many benefits for the company, as well for customers, they can have a negative effect on the quality of service as perceived by the customers. This proposal will shed light on the popular procedure, practiced by hotel chains for launching a new hotel service. It will weigh out the benefits of soft openings for hotels against its drawbacks, concluding that that practice is more harmful to companies in the long run as it affects the overall quality of the service and leaves a negative first impression in the minds of the customers.

 There are several benefits of soft openings for the hotel companies, as well as the travelers and regular customers visiting the hotels. However, there can be a severe long-term effect on the customer’s perception of the hotel’s brand name when he or she uses the hotel services during a soft opening. Even though in the short run, the company can use the strategy for removing kinks and improving its processes to cater to the needs of the customers better, it has negative long-term effects the company must consider.