MANAGERIAL CHALLENGES WITHING HOSPITALITY

Managerial challenges within hospitality

Managerial challenges within hospitality

Introduction

The travel and hospitality business is booming in World, but there's a huge shortfall in qualified managers to drive that growth. Success in this business is about delivering guest experiences that are out-of-the-world, while keeping a keen eye on the bottom-line. It takes special talent backed with education to achieve that success. (Snowden,1991)

Discussion

The global travel and hospitality industry is BIG business. It is expected to account for 10.6% of global GDP by the end of 2005. By the end of the year, the industry will have provided employment for 74.2 million people, or 2.8% of total world employment.

And Asia is by far and away the most exciting place for the industry to be at the moment. We're talking about unprecedented growth, never seen before anywhere else in the world. The North American and European hospitality business are relatively mature industries, and are already very saturated. Asia, on the other hand, can look forward to anywhere between 45% to 100% growth, in both in-bound and out bound travel. (Taborda, 2000)

The biggest growth engine will be China. The newly affluent middle class in China is beginning to travel out of the country for the first time. This phenomenon is going to change the face of all travel. Cities all over the world are gearing up to welcome this huge wave of visitors. People who can speak Mandarin are being put into place; signage in languages other than English is being put up. (Snowden,1991)

Not enough managers

The players in the hospitality business are massive multinational companies that employ thousands of people world-wide. The hospitality business is not just hotel operations! It includes restaurant chains, casinos, cruise liners, clubs, airlines and online distribution companies. As these organisations scramble to set up operations in Asia, one pervasive problem is appearing everywhere in the region - there is just not enough qualified staff to drive growth in these new markets. Everyone is drawing from the same small pool.

“How are we going to increase service levels if we don't have enough qualified people working in these organisations? ” (Taborda, 2000)

“I've been told by a key person in a luxury hotel chain that they are hiring people that they would never have hired before. And they are having to promote them faster than they would like to. That's a big issue for the brand. What kind of reputation will the brand earn, if the service level is not up to standard?” (Olian, 1991)

Delivering on promises

It's important to understand why there is so much emphasis on brand reputation. Hospitality is a service. It's a service that is wrapped around the guest's experience. From the standpoint of the guest, travel should be fun, glamorous, exciting and enriching. These are all intangible qualities.

On top of that, the hospitality business has to deal with another unique challenge. “As we offer experiences to the guests, they seem to expect more and more. So what are you going to do next time, to top ...