An Essay on the Main Hospitality Management Strategies and Their Importance in Creating Memorable Guest Experiences
Innovation within the hotel industry is essential as it has the capability to renovate the hospitality industry positively. During the past years, inventions within the hospitality industry have advanced at a quick moving pace (Bowie et al., 2016). Besides, hospitality related service providers are attempting their best for keeping up with the rapid changes and hence new technological innovations have helped the hospitality industry to grow more (Nieves & Segarra Cipres, 2015). Hence, this paper has chosen two of such innovative hospitality factors as physical environment and people so as to explain the importance of the two areas while creating memorable as well as unique hospitality experiences.
Physical evidence is the surrounding environment where the service occurs, also known as the servicescape (Kotler et al., 2012). It can be buildings, furniture, decoration and all other tangible items that are around the service area. Physical environment of hospitality industry is a critical factor while creating memorable hospitality experiences for the guests. At the same time, it is an important factor while keeping employees satisfied in today’s hospitality business (Plangpramool et al., 2015). Thus, through keeping workforces satisfied with the help of great physical environment any hospitality firm can offer unique experiences for their guests. In this era, hospitality workplaces should be diverse, different by constantly changing and evolving for good. Besides, physical environment influences how staffs within a hospitality business firm perform tasks, interact, as well as be leading (Bitner, 2017). In addition, physical environment being an important aspect of the workplace environment own direct impact on the human sense of experience (Bowie et al., 2016). Hence, over the last decade, this factor has subtly evolved interpersonal interactions as well as productivity of the hospitality staff which ultimately helps in creating memorable experiences for the hospitality guests. For example, ambient features within office environments like proper lighting, the existence of windows, temperature, and free air movements always suggest that such elements of the physical environment majorly impact guests’ attitude, satisfaction, behaviors, performance and employees’ productivity (Bitner, 2017).
Bitner (2017) given the concept of ‘servicescape’ for examining the impact of physical environment over the behavior of customers within the hospitality service industry. Here, Bitner suggested that three different physical environmental dimensions include surroundings’ condition, spatial layout as well as functionality and signs are critically important to create a life-long good experience for the guests. Besides, surrounding conditions may include music and temperature, altitudinal layout whereas functionality can include layout features and furniture. Additionally, signs can include artefacts, symbols, signage as well as styles of decor. In this way, servicescape concept of physical environment including all of the dimensions mentioned above creates an overall alleged servicescape which triggers emotional, internal cognitive and physiological responses with the customers and employees. For instance, studies about the servicescapes of two stadiums include one of high quality and one of low quality determined that improved satisfaction was clearly associated with the servicescape of greater quality. Thus, sportspersons were more inclined towards going to that stadium (Woo Gon Kim & Hyun, 2008). Another example is about a study of facility aesthetics, like wall covering, wall color, seats, and total facility attractiveness (Nickson, 2013). The consideration of above ambient revealed that a customer’s views about seating comfort are the important components of ambient conditions. As follows, different studies provided important evidence of the impact of the physical environment on guests’ satisfaction and employees’ productivity within the hospitality industry which has the direct relationship with creating memorable experiences (Plangpramool et al., 2015).
The key of service is not only about the offered products or services but also about how people deliver and receive it (Kotler et al. 2012). People usually tend to notice and remember mistakes and negative experiences more and longer than positive ones. Therefore, taking care of people including staff and customers within the hospitality industry can assist in creating more memorable experiences for the guests. In this context, to manage workflow, management tools within the hospitality industry are being utilized for creating better hospitality experiences (Bowie et al., 2016). In this modern age of incessant innovation where people get excited over hi-tech as well as transformational innovations. Thus, technological innovations have introduced many incremental innovations within the hospitality industry which are highly useful for guests as well as hospitality staff (Nickson, 2013). For example, workflow management tool is an example of incremental innovations (Bhavani, 2013). In addition, both customers and staff of hospitality industry need attention and solution of their problems to have great, memorable and unique life-long experiences within this sector. For instance, a poor understanding of the guests’ habits by the staff can result in huge conflicts and dissatisfaction related problems for the customers. Hence the problem must be addressed through service innovation within this industry. Thus, CRM (referred as customer relationship management) Tool being an innovative solution to above problem offers a profile of each and every hotel guest, along with the insights to their behaviors and preferences in a way that it can help in following up with marketing campaigns and surveys post their stay (Service Skills Australia, 2011).
Furthermore, another supportive example can be quoted through a mobile messaging app in hospitality industry. Here, the problem is antiquated communication which can be addressed through an innovative solution of mobile messaging app. It is used to text, email modern guests who expect to communicate with hotel industry anytime, anywhere (Karunaratne & Jayawardena, 2010). This mobile messaging platform is necessary to be used by the hospitality staff and management to communicate with the guests so that they can have a unique experience for life-long. Another example is of a problem for guest’s viewpoint which is outdated rooms (Bowie et al., 2016), which an innovative solution in the form of better in-room hardware can be offered and used to create better experiences for the guests through offering them luxurious hardware services in order to make them feel special. By offering phone-activated hotel room keys or innovative devices used for controlling the temperature of the room, amazing new in-room technologies are creating great experiences for the guests (Karunaratne & Jayawardena, 2010).
In conclusion, the essay has utilized two major hospitality management strategies or factors include people and physical environment in order to demonstrate the importance of these strategies for creating memorable experiences for the guests. The physical environment like workspace, sound, lighting, color, temperature, design, layout of tools and equipment with guests as well as employees’ satisfaction. Additionally, with the use of examples like CRM tool, messaging app and technological in-room devices discussion has successfully illustrated the raised arguments. Finally, findings of this discussion revealed that physical environment and people including staff and customers play the most important role while creating great life-long experiences within hospitality industry.