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The purpose of this paper is to explore the importance of home stay accommodation to Thai tourism. The first concern of this paper is to identify the definition of home stay, identify the group of customers who like to use home stay accommodation in Thailand and also discover the activities that prove to be attractive to them. The second concern of this paper is that the development and expansion of a home stay destination should lead to advantages such as an increase in local income and employment opportunities. On the other hand, when too many tourists come to an unspoilt area it can have an adverse effect on the balance of natural ecology. For example, two places, namely “Pai in Mae Hong Son province”, one of the most popular home stay destinations in the North which is over developed , and “Chiang Khan in Loei province”, a developing home stay destination in the northeast of Thailand. Some people said that Chiang Khan is Pai of the past. Within Pai itself, there is a movement to resist against the excesses that has spoilt Pai and destroyed its peaceful rural character that had drawn people to it in the first place.

Thailand is a developing country that attempts to grow and tourism is an industry that can significantly help stimulate economic growth. Consequently, when home stay tourism improves, it will expand the power of supply and help draw more tourists. Therefore, sustainable development is the better way to balance the development and maintain the original character. Logically, the more travel destinations developed, the more tourists will come and the more money the country will earn.

Keywords: Home stay, Thailand, Sustainable development

Introduction

Tourism makes a major contribution to Thailand’s economy. Most tourists come to Thailand for various reasons — mostly for the beaches and relaxation. The friendly, easy-going ways of the Thai people also proves a draw to most tourists, as well as the rich Thai culture, customs and history. The new marketing slogan which was adopted in mid 2009, “Amazing Thailand, Amazing Value”, and the government’s stimulation package also seemed to have helped reverse the downward trend for the latter half of 2009 and for the present year.

Moreover, nowadays, most people are concerned about the effect of global warming and are returning to nature; in another word “Green” has become a new catchword for tourists. Not only “Green” but also “Sustainable” are the popular words more and more tourists are fanning out into the countryside to be closer to nature. Consequently, rural tourism makes use of the countryside as a destination. It is a significant sector of overall tourism market in many countries. It will affect not only the environment but also the economy and social structure of the countryside. The number of activities that tourists participate in has grown. For example, agri-tourism (agricultural, festivals and other cultural events), green tourism (considered to be more environmentally friendly) and ecotourism (nature tourism). Home stay is a part of rural tourism. In addition, sustainable tourism development is synonymous with rural tourism. Nowadays, home stay tourism in Thailand has become very popular for both domestic and foreign tourists. Part of the reason may be due to the effect of the world economic crisis, with most tourists worrying about their budget and travelling in this kind of home stay tourism costs less. So, the Thai Government rapidly develop Thai home stay to meet this new demand for economical packages. But it can be a two-edged sword with both positive and negative sides. Therefore, we must find the right balance.

Definition of Home stay

Home stay is a form of tourism that allows the visitor to rent a room from a local family to stay and better learn the local lifestyle and share their culture. It is comparable to the western concept of bed and breakfasts. A home stay property is a non-commercialized, private residence that accommodates paying guest(s) who enjoy staying in the comfort and security of a family home. In Thailand, the history of home stay began with students who were volunteers for rural development camps and who stayed with the local people during the course of their camp. Then, National Economic and Social plan 8th emphasized the development of communities and decentralization to local areas and home stay had its first formal recognition. The attraction of home stay is the way of life of the local people and natural attractions are not always considered an essential part. There are two types of home stay in Thailand which are the “original” and “practical”. In the original home stay concept, tourists stay with the host and live under the same conditions as the owner. In the practical home stay, conditions are improved for more physical comfort but the concept of an easy way of life and unique culture is not abandoned.

However, the significance of home stay is participation in community life in which local people manage activities together. The activities vary from place to place and according to seasonal variations. They may include Thai culinary, Thai massage, farm life etc. Moreover, OTOP (One tambon one product) is a concept whereby local people are encouraged to make local products for sale to boost their income. The owners are encouraged to think that each visitor is “a guest, not just a tourist” (tourismthailand.org). They are a part of the family. Home stay is just another job for the home owner. When tourists come he will extend them his welcome but he still retains his main job such as fisherman or farmer. The advantages of home stay are the local knowledge that will be gained from the host, understanding the easy way of life and experience the natural kindness of the local people. Moreover, the local people receive more income but they do not abandon their main job. In addition, they share the experience with the tourists, get more friends and the community can become strong. In the age of globalization, many people live in a competitive world so many people now want to explore the easy life and a life of simple sufficiency as an alternative way of life.

An additional benefit of home stay accommodation is that most of the money earned goes to the grassroot local people, rather into a large conglomerate? The local home owners get most of the money paid by the tourists. This has a more substantial benefit to a community, rather that if a large hotel chain was to open a large hotel and merely employ local people as hotel staff. Most of the earnings will then go to the hotel chain, with most of it likely sent out of the country.

The owner and accommodation should meet the standard of home stay in Thailand. The Tourism Authority of Thailand has set 10 standards and 31 indicators.

Demand for home stay in Thailand

The majority of income in Thailand comes from agriculture and tourism. Income from tourism is significant for the Thai economy in terms of expanding and stability of the economy. Tourism in Thailand caters both to domestic and foreign travelers. Nowadays, Thailand in faced with negative situations which decreased the confidence of tourists from 2008 until now. “TAT expects the number of international tourists will grow at around 7 to 10% to approximately 15.0 to 15.5 million in 2010” (Tourism Authority of Thailand.com). The Bank of Thailand stated that “there are 1.6 million foreign tourists who traveled to Thailand in February 2010” which represented a drop from last year. “Domestic tourists were not particularly affected by the political situation. It was more influenced by the economic slowdown and fluctuating oil prices in the first and second quarters of 2009. Local travelers have changed their travelling habits, are more conscious of travel expenses, and are tending to visit tourist destinations closer to home” (Tourism Authority of Thailand.com). The Office of the National Economic and Social Development Board predicted the economy would grow at 3 to 4% due to the global economic recovery and the government’s Thai Khem Khaeng (‘Stronger Thailand’) economic stimulus programme. New tourist attractions and activities that reflect the culture and style of a particular region will also be introduced. Therefore, the government supports and aims at the recovery of the Thai tourism market through marketing campaigns namely road shows to restore the image of Thailand and promotional advertisements under the Amazing Thailand, Amazing Value concept.

Home stay is one of the better destinations which has proved attractive to both international and domestic tourists. It is a part of tourism in Thailand which continues to grow and earn income because it is set in rural areas far from the negative effects of political disturbances, is not expensive and brings visitors into close contact with nature. The tourists can relax among friendly local people. Therefore, the measurement and understanding of the demand and supply for tourism is important to overall tourism planning and management. We will know overall picture of the development, growth and value of tourism. All tourist behavior or activity results from motivation. Motivation is the context of the demand for tourism.

Motivations have both push and pull factors together. The push factors are socio-psychological motives (person-specific factors). The pull factors are motives aroused by the destination (destination-specific factors). Tourists who go to home stay destinations usually have both push and pull factors. They want to relax, be close to nature and share knowledge, which are push factors. The pull factors are from the easy way of life of the people, unique culture and eco-friendliness. For example, a mini-farm is a magnet for tourists who travel with children. Mostly, domestic tourists usually go to home stay by car because some places are not far from urban centers such as Bangkok. It does not take too much time to immerse oneself in relaxation, fresh air and escape from the complicated city life. In contrast, international tourists mostly are backpackers usually stay a long time in home stays because of cheap prices but also because of the calmness, relaxed life style and the ability to explore new experience.

Supply of the Home stay in Thailand

On the supply side, the development of home stay is happening in Thailand. It is stimulated by the demand which comes from tourist needs. Some people want more comfort, some want plain, simple facilities, others demand higher standards. So, the local people work together toward the development of standards for home stay facilities in Thailand.

Sometime, the popularity of a destination can lead to mass tourism. Mass tourism is a situation where a large number of tourists go to one place, sometime leading to an overload of local facilities. This can lead to further development of transport and other utilities until the easy way of life disappears. Moreover, it will adversely affect to the environment.

Pai in Mae Hong Son province and Chiang Khan in Loei province are examples of popular home stay destinations in Thailand that have been developed to different degrees. One has already been spoilt and the other is resisting against a tendency toward over development. Pai is a small district in Mae Hong Son which was an ideal destination, being nestled in a small valley surrounded by mountains with cool weather. It was a romantic spot with friendly people can rich culture. Some people have referred to the village as called Uto-Pai, mimicking the name Utopia of Sir Thomas More. All this has made Pai very well known as hoards of tourists are drawn to it. Material development followed and soon the small village of Pai had its own air strip where tourists can arrive after a mere 25 minutes from Chiang Mai. Hotels and resorts also sprang up in its wake. All these development had a negative effect on the local inhabitant; while they used to be wont to retiring to bed early after a hard day’s work, they are now disturbed by loud music at entertainment places late at night. “Music festivals” became weekly events in the winter months. Some local people sold their land to capitalists and move to the foothills for the sake of peace and quiet. These changes reflect the fact that Pai is changing rapidly in both positive and negative ways. In addition, local children are falling to temptations from the western ways of tourists. Some local people said these development are more like deterioration.

Not only Pai but Chiang Khan (a district on the bank of the Mekong river in Loei province), a relatively recent home stay destination, is facing similar problems. The conflict between local people and government is looming. The government wants to develop the town to cater to more and more tourists, but many local people want to see a steady growth of Chiang Khan. They want Chiang Khan to be strong, to retain its rural qualities and control itself. They do not want more bright lights in Chiang Khan, do not want to follow the modern trend because tourists come and go rapidly and do not stay a long time. Nowadays, some of the local people in Chiang Khan are already closing rank in a fight against rapidly over development. They have formed a tourism association within which they discussed the problems of westernization and over development which has plagued Pai. They have started a website where every one is welcomed to add comments. They are fighting against bright lights, loud music and weekend concerts that have combined to destroyed Pai’s rural character. They want tourism in Chiang Khan to be sustainable. They do not want Chiang Khan to have luxury “boutique hotels”, modern pubs or franchise coffee shop chains. They want Chiang Khan to retain its rural character with an easy way of life, home stays based on original houses without elaborate decoration, so when tourists come they will feel like they are the part of the family and coffee is still hand-brewed traditional coffee. Some people said that Chiang Khan is Pai of the past. Therefore, before Chiang Khan changes like Pai we must to help each other.

Sustainable development of Home stay in Thailand

Tourism, if developed locally, can help to ease the poverty problem, reduce income disparity and achieve a friendly environment as well as common prosperity. Tourism brings not only benefits but also costs and if not well managed may undermine its sustainability in the long run. In Thailand, tourism has a positive income generating effect but potentially worsening income distribution (Mingsan Kaosa-ard 2006). The best way to balance the development is through sustainable development in which every part must work together.

Sustainable Development is development that satisfies the customer needs now but does not destroy tomorrow’s resources. The Pareto Optimum states that no one can be made better off by making someone worse off (businessdictionary.com).

Customer demands lead to marketing research and material development. That is the marketing process. After that, planning and management are essential for achieving successful tourism development.

Sustainable Tourism Development emphasizes the management of tourism industry must adapt itself according to the changing face of the world in term of sustainable pattern. There are three parameters of sustainability which are economic (well being), environment (ecological balance) and socio-cultural considerations (Sense of community and security). For example, the development should makes more money while at the same time have a minimum effect on the environment and social-cultural framework.

The key to sustainable tourism development is to educate communities so that they understand the negative impacts of mass tourism and the limit to the ecosystem’s carrying capacity, and to develop diversified tourist products that can minimize the negative impact of mass tourism.

For instance, in France they have standard and label for accommodation which confirm the standard and evaluate the standard and quality every five years. The label is one of marketing strategy which make good picture of the product. Moreover, they separate the demand equal in every areas and every part works together. Those are the good example for the development of home stay which Thailand should adapt for the development of home stay in Thailand.

Amphawa floating market (Plai Pong Pag community) is a good example of home stay in Thailand which supports many tourists every year. It affects the quality of life of the local people, while the rapidly rising number of tourists has unavoidably led to a deterioration in the environment. Most of the home stay places have not attained the standard of home stay in Thailand even though this is the first community to launch the concept of home stay, but they have failed to meet the home stay standards. Because some home stay have transformed their homes so much that they became more like resorts and they do not match the qualifications of the home stay standard. Home stay will get the standard when they do not add more building and tourists must stay with the owner. According to that problem, National economic and social plan 9th stated that sustainable tourism in Thailand which wants to be a quality destination and ready in supply of tourism for support many tourists.

We can transmit knowledge of France to Thailand; not in its entirety but we can adapt it. The government should have an effective and systemic plan such as setting policies or laws for the community and provide for penalties for culprits. It is hard for the government in Thailand to extend proper care to the home stay business in some communities because the local people worry about taxation and are not always forthcoming with information for the government. So, the government should establish an institute which can win the confidence of the local people and demonstrate the significance of the standard and effective management to the local people.

The negative impacts on Pai and Chiang Khan happened because of civilization, but the impact on Amphawa was due to the ignorance of the local people. Therefore, the development is a two-edged sword that can have both advantages and disadvantages if we are ineffective. The best solution is the cooperation of everybody, beginning with community participation and the support of the government. The government decentralizes budgets to the community but continue to give technical advices to the local people. After that, policies such as the limit on the number of tourists will happen not only to care for the environment but for the sake of tourists who do not want to be in a place crowded with other tourists; they can relax and be closer to nature. Moreover, the local people can take care of all tourists like a part of the family. Do not forget that sustainable development is the better way of development and sustainable concern three things which are economy, environment and also socio-cultural parts.

Conclusion

In conclusion, tourism constitutes a major part of the Thai economy, encompassing both domestic and international tourists. Home stay is an alternative form of tourism which is based in the rural area that tourists stay and live with the local people. They can share the experience and culture. In Thailand, home stay began with the student volunteer for rural development camps and after National economic and social plan 8th home stay was developed until now. The motivations for travel home stay have both push and pull factors. The push factors usually are for relaxation. Mostly, domestic tourists go to home stay by car and relax for two or three days, but international tourists often stay much longer. The pull factors usually are the easy way of life, close contact with nature and fresh air. Material development is significant for home stay because it has both positive and negative sides. Material development can help attract tourists, although consideration must be given to suitable forms of development that should not destroy the original attraction of the place. It is a good marketing strategy to improve the quality of home stay accommodation. The home stay standards have been laid down in Thailand, but most of the home stays in Thailand still do not meet them, such as in Amphawa. Moreover, some places such as Pai is overloaded with tourists while Chiang Khan is still trying to resist this trend toward over-development. Pai and Chiang Khan demonstrate both advantages and disadvantages of material development. The solution for a balance is sustainability which centers on economic, environmental and socio-cultural considerations. France can be a good example for sustainable development. Thai home stay should adapt it and adopt it right now. The government should start by educating the local people and then carry out research on customer needs, marketing strategy, planning and management. In addition, strong policies are significant, with a need for penalties for those who break the rules. The importance is the cooperation of everybody in the country, because everybody is part of the progression of Thailand.

In an era that is faced with the perceived consequences of economic, social and cultural shifts variously labeled ‘post-modernity’, ‘globalization’ and ‘the post-industrial revolution’, an increasing number of urban authorities in the UK and beyond have adopted strategies of ‘re-imaging’ their cities as ‘creative cities’ and/or attractive locations for footloose capital. The production of spectacular urban events has frequently played a central role in such strategies (Harcup, 2000:p.215). Therefore this essay evaluates how and why an event can be used to promote a destination image with Birmingham serving as a case study. It also focuses on the strategies deployed by Birmingham and how the city has used a combination of ‘mega sport events’, and event bids to further its reputation as tourist destinations (Smith, 2006:p.77).

The transformation, enhancement and promotion of urban image have emerged as central planks of the entrepreneurial governance of western cities. Both the number of cities engaged in place promotion and the variety of media used has grown in recent years (Barke & Harrop, 1994:p.93-114).The economic rationale behind these efforts is to attract jobs, tourists and residents to replace declining former manufacturing economies (Harvey, 1989:p.3-17, Dicken and Tickell, 1992; Haughton and Lawless, 1992; Decker and Crompton, 1993). Consequently, place promotion has been widely posited as a tangible part of the urban development process. Place marketing has thus become much more than merely selling the area to attract mobile companies and tourists. It can now be viewed as a fundamental part of planning, a fundamental part of guiding the development of places in a desired fashion (Fretter, 1993:p.165).

Images play a fundamental role in determining the success of tourist destinations (Smith, 2006:p.77). Destination image is defined as not only the perceptions of individual destination attributes but also the holistic impression made by the destination. Destination image consists of functional characteristics, concerning the more tangible aspects of the destination, and psychological characteristics, concerning the more intangible aspects (Echtner & Brent Ritchie, 2003:p.43). Within destination image research the concept of branding is used in two different ways. The first involves analyzing the relationship between cities and established consumer brands. In recent years the distinction between cities and such brands has been eroded due to various initiatives which aim to use brands to boost city images and vice versa (Smith,2006:p,79). The second way branding is used in destination image literature is as a broader concept, imported from marketing theory. In such analysis the focus is not the relationship between destinations and established brands, but on creating a destination brand using various conceptual models and schema. This type of brand building can also be linked to sport events. Indeed, several cities have deployed sport as the main theme of their branding (Smith,2006:p.80). Many types of attractions are identified and promoted as potential lures for tourists but traditionally tourist destinations have been categorized into natural or man-made attractions. Ritchie identified another attraction category which can enhance destination image and therefore tourist appeal. The category to which Ritchie refers is that of ‘hallmark events’ which are defined as, ‘Major one-time or recurring events of limited duration developed to primarily enhance the awareness, appeal and profitability of a destination in the short and/or long term. These events rely for their success on uniqueness, status, or timely significance to create interest and attract attention'(Ritchie, 1984:p.2-11)The examples of typical ‘hallmark events’ illustrated by Ritchie are international trade fairs, culturally unique events and sporting events which capture a market interest larger than those of local enthusiasts (Riley & Van Doren, 1992:p.268).

One such city that benefits from ‘hallmark events’ as a reimaging theme is Birmingham. The term ”reimaging” refers to attempts by urban destinations to purposefully reconfigure these ideas and conceptions (Smith,2005:p.219).Whitelegg (2000:p.83) identifies, sport has been used as a central component in this restructuring of the urban image. In the UK, Birmingham has adopted an economic strategy based on attracting major sports events to their area as a catalyst to stimulate economic regeneration (Gratton & Henry, 2001:p.39). Birmingham was the host city in Euro 96 and has been designated as the ‘National Cities of Sport’. Birmingham’s sport-led regeneration strategies were motivated by destination image considerations (Smith, 2002) and thus provide illustrative examples of sport reimaging (Gratton & Henry, 2001:p.35).There is significant evidence that the city has deliberately used sports events to enhance its image (Loftman & Navin, 1996;Smith,2005a).

Over the past 20 years, Birmingham has aimed to become a city capable of attracting and entertaining visitors. This ambition has been supported by several major sport initiatives, including the city’s bid to host the 1992 Olympic Games, an annual ‘Super Prix’ motor race around the city’s streets, and the construction of the National Indoor Arena (NIA). This Arena has enabled the city to stage a number of high-profile sport events, including Davis Cup tennis and international indoor athletics. According to several commentators, Birmingham’s image changed markedly because of the implementation of these and various other initiatives introduced during the 1980s (Lister, 1991). Smyth, (1994:p.180) observes that during this period Birmingham used a ‘tripartite thrust’ of business tourism, arts, and sports to promote the city. The city asserts in its Strategic Plan 2005-2010 that ‘developments in the arts, sport and leisure have been a key part of Birmingham’s renaissance over the last twenty years, helping to establish and sustain Birmingham’s image as a modern and creative city’ (Smith,2005:p.12). Thus it seems Birmingham sees modernity and creativity as two connotations that sport event initiatives may have helped to cultivate. According to the city’s Principal Officer-Sport (now Chief Executive of UK Sport) Richard Callicott, the mere association of sport with the city can generate positive feelings, such as excitement (personal communication, 1999). Callicott also feels that sport initiatives can become effective agents of image change, provoking associations with ‘dynamism, excitement, internationalism, athleticism’, and a ‘warm welcome’ (Smith, 2006).

A research was conducted to evaluate the value of sport reimaging by establishing if and how sport initiatives affect city images. This research attempted to establish what effects strategies adopted by Birmingham have had on city images held by potential tourists. To ascertain these effects, three main research areas were addressed. First, it was important to evaluate the extent to which potential tourists were aware of the initiatives that had been implemented, as it was assumed that initiatives could have little effect if tourists were not conscious of their existence. Second, the research evaluated if specific sport initiatives adopted in the city had affected the city image Third, more general information was sought from participants regarding their interpretation of urban sport initiatives. This information was required to identify some of the characteristics of sport reimaging that facilitate, or obstruct positive image change (Smith, 2005:p.222).

A semi structured interview was conducted which explored more detailed images of the city and the attitudes and meanings generated by associating sport with a city (Smith, 2005:p.223).Interviews were conducted with ‘potential tourists’, rather than tourists who had already decided to visit a particular destination (Smith,2006:p.85). The findings of the present study suggest that recent sport initiatives have not been a significant agent of Birmingham’s recent image change. None of the interviewees cited recent sport events when justifying why their image of Birmingham had changed over recent years, whilst only two interviewees specifically mentioned sport events when detailing their holistic images of Birmingham. No interviewees cited the city’s bid for the 1992 Olympic Games in the unprompted section of the interviews, suggesting that this bid has had little influence on Birmingham’s contemporary holistic image. Only one interviewee suggested that events had affected their image of the city. In a question relating to another city, this person indicated that they recognized Birmingham’s general efforts to attract sport events and felt that they had contributed to the enhancement of the city’s image. Other recollections of recent sporting events in Birmingham were not always as positive. Therefore, although events can provide important synecdochical images, these representations are not necessarily positive (Smith, 2006:p.85-86).

In general, the synecdochical effects of Birmingham’s event re-imaging are unremarkable. Birmingham’s sport initiatives do appear to be widely acknowledged by potential tourists. However, the actual impact of the National Indoor Arena and the Olympic bid on the city’s image, though evident, is unspectacular. More encouragingly, the National Indoor Arena has stimulated positive synecdochical images of Birmingham for some potential tourists. This effect has been facilitated by positive perceptions of the NIA’s immediate surroundings and its exposure via the popular television programme, Gladiators (Smith, 2006:p.87). Birmingham has also revealed its long-term commitment to hosting sport events through its stated intention to bid for the 2022 Commonwealth Games.

For destinations ranging in size from small towns to countries, event tourism is increasingly becoming a key aspect of their overall tourism development efforts. Sport initiatives appear particularly proficient as tools for connoting that a city is more ‘interesting’ (Smith, 2006:p.94). These positive readings of sport event re-imaging have been enabled by the positive meanings attached to the concept of sport in contemporary culture. Despite diverse individual attitudes to sport, this shared interpretation allows sport event imagery to generate consistently positive meanings amongst potential tourists, generating the capacity to enhance holistic city images. Sport has the potential and the capacity to influence holistic images, both directly, through the development of new synecdochical images, and indirectly, via the meanings generated by city-sport event associations. Therefore, it is useful to revisit these key ideas to explore whether they help to explain if and how sport initiatives affect city images (Smith, 2006:p.94).

The economic effect of tourism on a country

Spending holidays abroad with family, is trendy these days. People around the world visit different places during summers and winters. I and my family too visit different places during vacations. When in a foreign country, I have always wondered, “How does the country benefit from attracting tourists?” I roughly knew the answer that the money that tourists spend in that particular country is the income of the tourism industry. But after this research, I have now understood that tourism is an important part of an economy and the money it earns is helpful to everyone.

GENERAL IMPACTS:
General Positive effects of tourism:

It creates employment for people of the country.
It promotes cultural awareness and also helps to preserve local culture and traditions.
Money gained from tourism can be used to develop the infrastructure and services e.g. new roads and airports.
In LEDCs money can be invested on developing education, clean water and sanitation.
The foreign money can become aid to local people.
Natural attractions can be protected using income from tourism.
GOOD ECONOMIC IMPACTS:

It generates foreign exchange.
It creates new job and employment opportunities.
It stimulates trade, income and entrepreneurship – especially in small business sectors.
The provision of new infrastructure which is available for non-tourism uses.
It increases regional development – particularly in isolated areas.
It generates greater collection of taxes and revenues.
General Negative impacts:

It can have a negative impact on the environment. It increases air travel and thereby contributes towards air pollution.
Mostly local people are employed in low skill, poorly paid work in unhygienic working conditions.
Travel agents, airline companies and hoteliers benefit more than local companies when holidays are booked to destinations in LEDCs.
Destroys local culture and traditions.
Locally run accommodation companies face competition with foreign companies which build hotels in this new tourist destination.
BAD ECONOMIC IMPACTS:

1) Necessity to import goods increase.

This is especially with small economies which often do not produce what the tourists demand, and therefore import to meet the demands of the tourist.

2) Displacement effects.

When a new tourism project takes customers away from an existing industry or facility, the economy is said to be shifted.

3) Over-dependence on tourism.

When initially developing, the tourism industry is in vigour. The people start investing their money in this industry, resulting in downfall of other industries that were initially present. But soon tourists begin to dislike the particular tourist location and the economy falls.

4) Over-reliance on labour.

As the tourists would increase, the labour required to fulfil their requirements would increase. The industry would extensively rely on labour; therefore these companies would highly exploit labour to meet the tourist demands.

5) Higher land values.

Higher number of tourists would require more accommodation. Therefore hotels, lodges and rest houses are built. These results in shortage of land and the prices shoot up, which affect the locals.

6) Prices of goods increases.

More tourists’ means more needs of supplies example: food, water, electricity, gas supply, etc. Also maintenance and repair would increase. These would make the market more expensive, making difficult for local people.

UNITED KINGDOM:

According to World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC), the industry grew by 1.3% in 2012. This rate of growth means that Tourism industry directly contributed ?35.6 billion to the British economy. The number of jobs that tourism supported was forecasted to increase by 250,000 between 2010 and 2020, from 2.645 million to 2.899 million. One in twelve jobs is currently supported by tourism.

The UK has the fifth largest tourism industry in the world. It comprises of 200,000 enterprises. 70,000 establishments include major world-class hotels, country house hotels, guest houses, holiday parks, 110,000 restaurants, bars and pubs are surviving on Tourism. Moreover 7,000 businesses including theme parks, museums, heritage sites, parks, gardens, zoos; 25,000 businesses staging conferences, festivals, exhibitions and concerts are also dependent on Tourism.

It has low barriers to entry making it able to respond quickly to changes in demand, and highly efficient in rapidly creating employment. Recently increased visa and Air Passenger Duty charges worsened the situation, as the UK’s VAT rates for accommodation and restaurants, have become twice of the main tourism industries in Europe. If these VAT rates are reduced, the Tourism industry might not suffer much.

FUTURE SCENARIOS: Tourism is forecasted to contribute over ?100 billion to the UK economy.

INDIA:

The demand tourism in India is expected to grow by 8.2 percent between 2010 and 2019 and will place India at the third position in the world. India’s tourism sector is expected to be the second largest employer in the world, employing 40,037,000 by 2019. The report forecasts India to get capital investment worth US$ 275.5 billion in 2018.

Positive Impacts:

It has generated income, resulted in poverty alleviation and has generated great number of jobs.
The tourism industry in India generated about US$100 billion in 2008 and that is expected to increase to US$275.5 billion by 2018 at a 9.4% annual growth rate.
It helps in preservation of heritage sites like old monuments (ex. Taj Mahal and Qutab Minar) and saving the biodiversity; therefore attracting more tourists and resulting in more income.
It encourages infrastructure development, health care facilities, recreation areas, hotels and restaurants; which again increases the number of tourist’s attractions.
Problem in India:

The major problem in the development of tourism in India is inadequate infrastructure including less air seat capacity, accessibility to tourist destinations, accommodation and trained manpower in sufficient number. Poor visitor experience and poor hygienic conditions are also some of the problems.

It sometimes leads to the destruction of social fabric of country. When too many tourists visit a place, the chances of development of crime and human trafficking may happen at a great extent. And therefore India has to spend money on crime control. It may lead to suspicion, tension and hostility between locals and the tourists, as they share different cultural backgrounds and lifestyles. This may lead to disputes and violence, overall reducing the tourist count.

AUSTRALIA:

In Australia, tourism directly and indirectly employed 907,100 persons.
In 2010-11, Australia nearly earned $73.3 billion from tourism industry.
The total output multiplier is 1.92, which means every $1 tourism industry earns, adds 92 cents extra indirectly to other parts of country’s economy.

State Tourism Satellite Accounts (2011) show that out of $65.4 billion, which were contributed by the states mostly were:

New South Walesaˆ”$21.3 billion (33 per cent)

Queenslandaˆ”$16.3 billion (25 per cent)

Victoria – $13.4 billion (21 per cent).

The number of tourists by 2021-2022 is forecasted to increase by 0.8 %, which means around 308 million tourists would visit in Australia.

SPAIN:

The tourist boom that began in the mid-1950s was based on the recreational assets of the Mediterranean seashore areas. In 1970s and 1980s, when the tourist boom was playing its role, tourism development lead to the loss of traditional jobs, when workers moved from industries such as : Farming, forestry, mining and Shing into service jobs in tourism and made a serious impact on the overall economy.

Tourists had spent around 49 billion Euros in Spain in 2010. The real foreign tourism has increased by 8.65 %. The income was about 159.9 billion Euros in 2011 according to world tourism and travel council. The industry is predicted to gain 180 billion Euros by 2022.

Tourism also contributed to 12.7% of total employment and 2,304,500 jobs were created. The employment number is predicted to rise to 2,369,000 by 2022. But if the country experiences major drawback in tourism industry in the future, it would for 12.7 % of the people to lose their jobs.

CHAPTER 1 – HOUSEKEEPING (INTRODUCTION)

1-1: An unfortunate truth-

It is unfortunately true that housekeeping department being the largest department is the least admired and appreciated department in a hotel, which is maybe because of its ‘back of the house’ identity, its limited contact with guests and its only job of cleaning and maintaining the hotel. Housekeepers are the unsung heroes of the hotel.
But today housekeeping department is no more a back of the house department, rather it is an important and integral department in a hotel. In accordance with the modernization and advancement in technology, housekeeping department has changed itself in a better way according to the present day scenario in the hotel industry.

1-2: What does Housekeeping department ensure?

An effective and efficient housekeeping department essentially ensures the cleanliness, secures the safeguard, maintains an aesthetic upkeep in the hotel and deals with all the ancillary services provided by the hotel.
The functions performed by hotel housekeeping department determines all the day to day operations of the hotel. Its main significance is to ensure cleanliness, comfort and safeguard in the hotel and to professionally upkeep a higher level of quality service at all times.
In today’s tough and competitive scenario, maintaining exquisiteness in the hotel is hard and satisfying guest with that exquisiteness is even harder.

1-3: Changes in the job of Housekeeping department-

In past times, the job of Housekeeping department was limited to the only responsibility of ensuring cleanliness and maintenance of the hotel on a timely basis, but today various and enormous changes have been made to the job of Housekeeping department ranging from the dealing with diverse cleaning chemicals, managing ‘lost and found’ and avoiding theft in the hotel.

CHAPTER 2 – HOUSEKEEPING MANAGERS AND HOUSEKEEPING

2-1: Latest trends going on in Housekeeping-

As the hotel industry is focusing more on recycling inventory, waste composition and environment conservation, housekeeping department needs to make some habitual changes and in order to meet the primary challenges it necessarily needs to follow the latest trends going on in the hotel industry, some of which are given down below:

2-1-1: Recycling and utilizing inventory – Using old linens as towels and aprons, purchasing cleaning and guest supplies in bulk to save money, exchanging old furniture and equipment’s with scrap dealer for money or donating them to institutions or charities are some of the emerging inventory trends going on in hotel housekeeping scenario.

2-1-2: Technology savvy – Nowadays hotels are largely depended upon the use of technology to save time, bring personalization in service and ensure quality service. The use of i-pads and i-pad minis in in-room service as an e-butler which allows the guest to access the options like remote control lighting and door locking system, entertainment services like music and camera and other options. This use of technology also helps the hotel to work efficiently in day to day jobs as it enables the optimal utilization of time at one click.

2-1-3: Housekeeping software – Hotel housekeeping software is a web based system that helps to cut the cost, save the time and reduce the human effort for efficient and effective management of housekeeping jobs. It enables the hotel management system to link with all the departments through web, it makes online reservations and booking features in order for hotel to increase the occupancy, it keeps the expense and usage records of the inventory and generates the reports within seconds.2-1-4: Eco-friendly practices – Hotel industry is increasingly focusing towards environmental awareness, becoming eco-friendly and moving towards reliable tourism. Hotel housekeepers emphasize eco-friendly policies in their daily briefings, creatively use local crafts in guestroom amenities and turn down services to promote and profit local trade, ensure that all the guestroom amenities are eco-friendly and no plastic and chemicals are used, encourage guests to participate in linen and towel re-use programs.

2-2: General challenges and problems in Housekeeping-

Some of the general challenges and problems faced by Housekeeping managers includes managing back to back situations, mismanagement of jobs, pest controlling, cleaning linen and towels and laundry, replenishing guestroom amenities and bathroom toiletries, bed making challenges, seasonal challenges, dealing with cleaning chemicals and equipment’s, security of guest’s belongings, etc., some of which are detailed down below:

2-2-1: Pest Controlling – The challenge of Housekeeping managers in pest controlling service is to deal with different kind of pests such as mosquitoes, cockroaches, insects and flies, lizards and rats. Save the hotel building from birds and their doing feces is also a difficult task. Housekeeping managers should coordinate with pest control vendor to ensure measures taken regarding all the pest control tasks and treatments such as timely spraying, fogging, fumigation, gel treatment, keeping gum boards for lizards and rats, using lemon grass oil spread to resist mosquitoes, birds gel and spikes and netting to resist the hotel building from birds.

2-2-2: Seasonal Challenges – Housekeeping managers encounter cleaning challenges mostly during rainy season. Cleanliness and maintenance of guest areas during rainy season becomes challenging because rainwater as flows down in guest areas along with soil leads to the algae growth and other issues in guest areas. Rainy season can also cause infestation in the hotel premises as it brings insects and flies along with it, so Housekeeping managers should ensure that there is no water logging and there is no possibility of insect infestation throughout the hotel premises. Keeping foot prints off the floor during rainy season is also a difficult challenge for housekeeping managers.

2-2-3: Security of guest’s belongings – There is always a certain extent of fear in guest’s mind when leaving their valuable items in hotel’s room. As this is a genuine fear of items getting lost or stolen. Housekeeping managers should always take some serious measures regarding guest’s valuables. Housekeeping managers need to create and circulate some strict rules to safeguard the guest’s valuable items being lost or stolen by the housekeepers. Nothing other than missing of guest’s valuables weakens the guest’s trust.

CHAPTER 3 – LINEN CHALLENGES IN REGARD TO CURRENT TRENDS

3-1: Change in linen trends –

There has been a scenario in hotel industry a few years ago wherein every hotel housekeeping used to repeat the same linens every year. This scenario was same for both bed and bath linens as well. Every guest could probably find the same white, plain and striped linens and same plain terry towels across every hotel they would visit. Despite this scenario has been changed as the trends has been changed as well.
Previously, hotel housekeeping used to have a maximum thread count of 400 but presently it has been lengthened to 1500 which ranges from 550 GSM to 700 GSM. Whereas, previously linens were made from 100% cotton but presently hotel housekeeping use linen made from the mixture of cotton and polyester and sometimes even 100% polyester made linen is also used. Mixing polyester and several other fabrics like organic cotton, Egyptian cotton, microfiber, nylon, etc., in linen increases the strength and durability of linen.
Housekeeping managers of many hotels even provide their guest with a linen menu which consists of a choice of pillows ranging from microfiber, cervical, soya, horse hair, memory foam, bamboo pillows and even a pillow concierge for assistance to ensure guests a happy sleep.
Housekeeping managers of many hotels are adopting the technique of RFID or Radio Frequency Identification that acts as a linen management system which enables the housekeeping managers to tackle the challenges and problems faced by them regarding the management of the linen and linen related issues.
Another upcoming trend in hotel housekeeping is the use linens made from organic products like bamboo, coir, jute, paper, wool, etc., and the use of linens which take less time in drying.
Ranging from energy saver lighting and water saver bathroom amenities to eco-friendly linens, hotel housekeeping are adopting various techniques to cut linen cost and long term operational cost to initiate more efficient and effective practices.

3-2: Linen challenges and problems –

The use of RFID technique by the hotel housekeeping for linen management like linen inventory control, linen purchase, etc., cannot be adopted by many hotels because it is a costly system that requires a high cost involvement.
The adaptation of energy efficient, environment friendly and organic products like eco-friendly linen, eco-friendly chemicals such as Eco booster, Eco soft, Eco tide, etc., by the hotel housekeeping is also reducing because it also requires a high cost involvement.
Cross contamination of clean linens is one of the major challenge faced by housekeeping managers. They face major problems in keeping clean linens fresh and keeping them away from dirty and contaminated linens.
Selecting appropriate and proper materials from which the linens are made up of is also a major challenge faced by housekeeping managers. They face major problem when selecting the materials like cotton, polyester, microfiber, nylon, wool, etc.
Linen is mostly damaged due to excess of chemicals during washing and excess of heat during drying. Regulating chemicals during washing linens and reducing heat during drying, can increase the life of linen. Increasing the life of linen for budgeting costs and managing linen inventory is an adequate and crucial factor in hotel housekeeping. Changing and replacement of linen can be a costly operation.

CHAPTER 4 – LAUNDRY CHALLENGES IN REGARD TO CURRENT TRENDS

4-1: Current laundry trends –

Housekeeping managers are adopting RFID or Radio Frequency Identification technique for laundry management as it oversees it by increasing productivity, preventing loss during linen exchange, budgeting costs, tracking and recording laundry activities, monitoring laundry functions, reducing labor costs and lowering operating expenses.
Housekeeping managers are adopting Ozone laundry system to reduce costs and implement environment efficient practices. The major advantage of Ozone laundry system is that it has an on premise installation and does not disrupt any other housekeeping operations. Ozone laundry system evaluates hotel laundry operations and enables the housekeeping managers for cost and energy savings.
Housekeeping managers are adopting the use of special detergents with color protection technology formulated to keep dark fabric dark and the original color retained, use of bleach pens for effective upkeep of fabrics with a fine point applier technology, use of fabric softeners and whiteners, spa like treatment with laundry detergents that care fabrics with aromatic therapeutic scents and wrinkle free sprays that softens and crisps the fabric without using an iron.
Housekeeping managers are adopting waterless laundry system with polymer bead technology which provides a solution to the problem of water, detergent and electricity usage and wastage. This system replaces 80% of water, uses 50% less detergent and electricity in contrast to the traditional used methods. This technology has outperformed the traditional laundry methods with today’s laundry methods used by the hotels.
Another trend followed by housekeeping managers is the transformation of in-house laundry operations into polymer bead laundry system which helps to cut laundry operational costs by 50% and enables efficiency in usage of water, detergent and electricity. This technology allows the tough stains on linen to remove and linen gets cleaned in betterment for extending the life of linen, so as to provide the guests with cleaner linens and keep the linen inventory in use for a long time.

4-2: Laundry challenges and problems –

A challenge faced by housekeeping managers is to wash anything and everything ranging from shoes, microfiber cloths, garments and mop heads. Washing all the laundry fabrics all together causes problems, damages the fabrics and even the machines. But at the same time, it can be expensive and excessive to wash them separately or wash them by hands.
In hotels, the stains of coffee, tea and chocolates can be washed, but washing the stains of blood and some permanent stains is a challenge for housekeeping managers. Nothing can be resolved other than discarding the linens with such stains, and replacing them can involve high cost.
A major challenge faced by housekeeping managers is that the removal of stains from fabrics takes time and needs patience, that housekeeping managers during laundry operations don’t have. The challenge housekeeping manager’s face is to identify and treat the stain based on the type of stain it is. Is it an oil based stain, an organic stain or a nonorganic water based stain.
Another challenge which housekeeping managers face is the smelly and dirty washing machines. After washing hundreds or thousands of fabrics in laundry in a week, washing machines needs to be washed once in a week too.
Housekeeping managers face a major challenge of labor intensiveness, which is the most expensive component in laundry operations. It is a cost factor which requires a high cost of involvement. The challenge is to cut labor costs by utilizing the laundry standards with efficiency and effectiveness.

CHAPTER 5 – GUEST SUPPLIES CHALLENGES IN REGARD TO CURRENT TRENDS

5-1: Change in guest supplies trends –

Other than providing friendly and personalized services, what interests and fantasizes the guests are the in-room guest supplies and amenities. Ranging from grooming products to cosmetic products or techno savvy products, in-room hotel guest supplies or amenities have been advanced as hotels all over the world are accepting and appreciating the latest guest’s trends.
The standard old trends in hotel guest supplies of keeping a chocolate on the pillow or other food amenities during turn down service, offering a welcome drink on check-in and providing complimentary Wi-Fi, no longer interests the guests now. In the world of high-end guests who expect high-end amenities look for extravagant facilities and services.
The new trends in in–room guest supplies that are emerging in hotel nowadays is providing whole minibar as complimentary amenity and offering the guests an amenity menu to choose the amenity of their choice.
The standard hotel bathroom with tiled floors and shower curtains no longer fantasize the guests now. Guests of today want the bathroom trending such as distinctive faucets and sinks, extravagant lighting systems, illuminated mirrors, glass paneled doors, which boosts the bathroom design.
Housekeeping managers have understood the change in trends of guest supplies and are shifting towards providing exclusive branded amenities to their guests. Accor’s luxury hotel segment Sofitel provides its guests an elegant refinement of products from exquisite brands such as Hermes, Lanvin, Cinq Mondes and Carita.

5-2: Guest supplies challenges and problems –

The major challenge faced by housekeeping managers in guest supplies is the cost-factor. Housekeeping managers face a cost-cutting problem which diversely affects the quality and quantity of the guest supplies and amenities provided to the guests.
Another challenge faced by housekeeping managers is the keeping minibar stocked or re-stocking of minibar amenities. Guests often complaint about the inflated price of the minibar amenities. So it is also a major challenge for the housekeeping managers.
The challenge which housekeeping managers face regarding minibar guest supplies is to use costly branded products and make it a complimentary amenity. Instead they can use local or less expensive products in minibar and make it complimentary.
Wi-Fi has been a standard amenity in the hotel guest’s supplies. Housekeeping managers regarding hotel Wi-Fi face cellular challenges of weak signal strength and network capacity issue.
Customizing and personalizing hotel guests supplies according to the specific preferences and demands of the guests and providing the best of quality services and facilities in guest’s supplies is another major challenge faced by housekeeping managers.

CHAPTER 6 – CONCLUSION

6-1: Critical Analysis –

All the hotels around the world are pursuing to look for efficient and effective ways of meeting the needs and demands of the guests and providing the best of quality services, in which hotel housekeeping department plays a vital and crucial role.

Hotel housekeeping department ensures to provide an all new element in the luxury to guests and guestrooms in the terms of linens, laundry, guest supplies and other ancillary amenities. The emerging trends of linens, laundry and guests supplies in hotel scenario directly collide with challenges faced by the housekeeping managers regarding these three aspects.

Changes in linen operations due to cost and other factors such as using single bed sheets instead of two bed sheets, mixing polyester and several other fabric materials with cotton to make linens, are some of the changes that are taking place.

Laundry operations where new washing techniques such as steam laundry, waterless laundry and ozone laundry are taking place because water is a perishable resource and need to be saved and for more environment efficient techniques.

In today’s hotel scenario of high-end guests who expect high-end amenities and look for extravagant facilities and services, demand for more due to the rise in their disposable income. And by providing exquisite guest supplies hotels can rise up to the expectation mark of the guests.

In the end I’d like to conclude that the housekeeping department is an important and initial part of the hotel which is not going to change anytime soon or later.

Anchit Garg

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The Regency Grand Hotel is one of the most prestigious and luxurious hotels in Bangkok, Thailand. Since its inception, it has earned a brand name in the industry owing to the exceptional salaries and benefits offered. The hotel staff and managers felt privileged being a member of the hotel, and perceived that they were being taken well care of under the leadership of the then General Manager.

The following case study illuminates the dilemma of the employees undergoing the management changeover following its acquisition by an international group.

In the earlier set-up, the employees were expected to follow the orders of their managers without questioning them. Initiatives to solve problems at personal level were discouraged and it led to lack of innovation and risk-averse behavior. Eventually, the hotel staff got accustomed to the style of management over the past fifteen years, and it made the work go smoothly with minimal number of conflicts.

However, the recent sale of the hotel to a new American group introduced an altogether new style of administration to the employees. The management style of the new GM was entirely opposite to what the staff was familiar to, and it caused problems bringing the hotel’s performance and reputation down the drain.

Problem symptoms and indications

The former style of management gave limited authority to the front line employees and did not permit them to take any action on the spot without referring to their superiors. On the contrary, the new General Manager (John Becker) encouraged them to perform beyond their routine duties to provide customized services and thus make them feel special. This is directly related to empowerment, which is a key aspect in the service industry especially the hotels (Hubrecht & Teare, 1993). Becker’s motive in employee empowerment was linked with his intention to achieve competitive advantage through upgrading the staff competencies. As stated by Wall, et.al (2002, p.147) employee empowerment results in motivation, inventiveness, implied knowledge, participation, and enthusiasm necessary to survive in today’s cutthroat competition.

Although, Becker saw empowerment as a means to enthuse employees and “delight the customers” (Barbee & Bott, 1991, p. 27) the hotel’s current managers expressed their disappointment. They were discontented with the idea of giving bottom line employees more authority and decision powers. The disparity in management approach is attributed to the cultural differences in these countries, for instance power distance, and uncertainty avoidance (Hofstede, 1980, p.45-55).

Thailand and USA fall in the extreme ends of the cultural continuum presented by Hofstede (1980). Efforts are generally focused towards equal distribution of power in USA, while only a few people are given authority in Thailand given the larger power distance in the latter. Also, there is strong uncertainty avoidance in Thailand, calling for more written rules & regulations, whereas uncertainty is easily accepted in USA and emphasis is laid on minimal formal rules (Hofstede, 1980, p.51).

Becker failed to recognize these cultural differences while implementing his theories into practice. Joining a new organization and country demands awareness about the various social and cultural issues involved before transforming the existing practices (Lane & Beamish, 1990, p.88). What worsened the situation further was his previous experience in places with poor performance and low employee morale. It is noticeable that his new assignment was doing sound business; therefore, his approach ought to be different in this case.

Becker spent a great deal of time with the employees in an effort to elucidate his expectations from them. The role theory (Bush and Busch, 1981; Teas et al., 1979) mentions that the frontline employees have a greater need for role precision to carry out their duties efficiently. Role clarity perceived by the customer-contact employees is not only advantageous for customer satisfaction, but is also associated with employee’s job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and performance (de Ruyter et al., 2001).

Yet, he did not succeed in putting a clear demarcation between complex and small issues. This kind of uncertainty was a continuous threat and led to higher anxiety and stress among the employees since strong uncertainty avoidance prevails in Thailand (McShane and Travaglione, 2007, p.47). The employees did not have a clear role perception due to role ambiguity. In this regard, Saks (1996, p.301-23) states that role perception is a result of role ambiguity, and with time this may result in stress specially when working under a new management.

In addition to that, the employees were not able to distinguish between a major and a minor problem because of the lack of training (assumption). They had never been assigned a decision-making role before, and unfortunately did not receive a proper guidance from their seniors in such difficult situations.

A further study into the Regency Grand Hotel shows that in quest of employee empowerment, power was transferred from the middle-line managers to the lower rank staff. Daft (1995) suggested that the recent trend of flatter organization structures have considerably altered the traditional role of supervisors. Consequently, the managers found their job meaningless and reversed employees’ decisions by terming them complex issues. They insisted that upper management’s approval is required to address such problems and thus, tried to regain their supremacy. The manager’s reactions are associated to their control needs, achievement needs, and recognition needs () that forced them to maintain their grip on routine decisions.

Furthermore, the employees did not receive any kind of support, feedback or appraisal for taking initiatives and going out of their way to enrich customers’ experience. As per Herzberg (1959) theory, motivation techniques such as superior’s support and a positive and timely feedback have enduring productive influence on the employee behavior and resulting performance.

In this context, experts have referred to the ABC’s of behavior modification theory (McShane and Travaglione, 2007, p. 85-86) which states that employee behavior can be modified by managing its antecedents (for example encouraging staff to take initiative) and its consequences (for instance approving their decisions and constructive feedback). The theory further states that people have a propensity to repeat behaviors and actions that are followed by pleasant consequences, and extinction occurs when no consequences follow at all. Since the managers did not provide any support to the employees engaged in the desired work behavior, their self-driven decision-making process disappeared.

The absence of motivation from the superiors eroded the employees’ self-confidence and they started to totally rely on their superiors to make decisions on their behalf. This is because of the high collectivism in Thailand (Hofstede, 1980, p. 45) where there is a strong need for consensus.

The overall problem with the Grand Regency Hotel is directly linked to the MARS model, which identifies four key factors that have a direct effect on employee behavior, viz. motivation, ability, role perception, and situational factors. The employee performance levels drop if any of these factors is absent from the organizational context (McShane and Travaglione, 2007, p. 36). It is apparent from the study that the employees were not motivated to continue the new task behaviors, and they lacked the ability to define the complexity of the decisions, which again led to ambiguous role perceptions.

Moreover, the dissatisfaction of the hotels’ staff affected their work behavior as evident by the increase in the number of turnovers and absenteeism. These are undoubtedly identifiable with the EVLN model of employee responses to dissatisfaction at work. It is found that exit is the most frequently used response of the four reactions in a notion that no better alternatives exist. (Withey & Cooper, 1989, p.533). As indicated by (Lau et al., 2003, p.77) role conflict and a low degree of job involvement leads to a higher absence rate. Low levels of supervisory support and immediate social control resulted in increased absenteeism. (Price, 1998, p.227-246).

The number of employees mistakes reported to upper management increased; this is because of the lack of training, feedback and motivation.

With passage of time, an organization wide culture emerged in the hotel where lower level employees throw their work over the wall to upper level employees indulging in counterproductive act (Lau, et al., 2003, p.75). As a result, the performance of the employees dragged the overall hotel performance down leading to an increase in the number of guest complaints.(Heskett, et al., in Koys, 2001, p.113) This was demonstrated in the heightened criticism in the newspaper and magazine reviews where the hotel was named as “one of the Asia’s nightmare hotels”.

The hotel General Manager and the employees experienced high levels of stress. Becker’s stress was clear from his statement “unless the hotel is on fire don’t let anyone disturb me”. He was annoyed by the increasing number of consultations from managers regarding minor issues, which otherwise were supposed to be sorted out by themselves. This reflects lack of training on the managers’ front as well. The role ambiguity was the main reason behind the employees stress as they misunderstood their roles. Role conflict and role ambiguity have been found to be the major causes of role stress (Boles & Babin in Siegall, 2000, p.427).

The ever-increasing stress levels experienced by the employees weakened all the good relationships that were existent under the older management. The employees were no longer united, and because of that, counterproductive behaviors surfaced in the form of backstabbing and employees not taking responsibility for their actions.

In brief, even though Becker introduced empowerment with kind intentions, his plan failed because of poor implementation. He acted too fast that the spontaneous empowerment in fact snatched power from everyone involved. He did not give sufficient time to the newly empowered to be trained or get mentally prepared for their new roles. The next blunder Becker made was of believing that the managers would readily pass on their powers to their subordinates the minute he declared empowerment program. In his zeal to initiate empowerment, he ignored all other factors to support his decision.

RECOMMENDATION

The recommendations for improving the performance of Regency Grand Hotel are presented for all the three hierarchal levels mentioned in the case study.

General Manager

The current managers of the hotel backlashed on the new General Manager’s decision of giving more decision powers to the front line employees. Those dissatisfactions were the consequences of cultural differences (low power distance in America, while high power distance in Thailand). Obviously, dealing with cultural clashes is difficult since cultural patterns change very slowly (Hofstede, 1980, p.53). Therefore, Becker should consider these issues and address them beforehand. We would recommend higher degree of compatibility in his leadership style. In this situation, he should conduct meetings with the managers in order to clarify their doubts, and communicate the same down the hierarchal levels. It would be logical to check on their performance on regular intervals of time.

Next, he should try to lessen the power distance between the managers and the front office staff by means of social events and gatherings. It would definitely ease out the managers’ egos and identify the hidden potential of their subordinates. In the end, this would help them to act like mentors to facilitate change rather than being directive in their approach. As said by Quang & William (1998, p.361) influence of multicultural leadership on flexibility, empathy, understanding problem solving, and communication leads to a successful organizational change.

Moreover, emphasizing on trust, communication and mutual objectives should be taken into account. Becker should train the managers in their new roles as coaches to assist the employees in taking independent decisions. Goal sharing for improving customer service and hotel’s overall performance should be implemented to bring them together as a team.

In order to have a successful implementation of empowerment we must have strong self-determination, meaning, competence and impact. If any of those four dimensions is weak then it reflects directly on the empowerment process. (Forrester, 2000) Though Becker’s idea of empowerment was positive in itself, yet his plan proved disastrous. One way to make the process more effective is selective empowerment, which limits delegating power to employees who display the appropriate competencies. Invest in enhancing their knowledge and skills through formal training, mentoring, and self-learning because rightful application of power depends on one’s capabilities. Employees should be given a chance to demonstrate expertise by employing simulations, case studies, mentors, and supervised trials. They should be assigned low-risk decisions first, and progressively work up to challenging judgments since achievement at the safer levels would boost confidence through expectancy of success. The employee performance could be improved due to the self fulfilling prophecy of the managers. (McShane and Travaglione, 2007, p.80)

Becker should influence the managers’ perceptions that better results are obtained through empowerment than not. This may be done by following a sequential approach. First, focus on empowerment that does not steal complete authority from the mid level managers. Instead, enhance employees’ power by widening their knowledge set and providing them with more training and development opportunities. Second, begin the process from the top levels of management and trail down the changes to the subsequent lower ranks. This would allow the seniors exercise greater power and, going through a successful empowerment experience would raise their expectations from the change. Finally, concentrate on specific materialistic results, for instance initiating a performance appraisal and reward system based on the level of power demonstrated by a manager’s subordinate and reward more generously to team work as compared to individual performance. For successful implementation of empowerment, managers need to believe that they are in control of their outcomes.

Middle Managers

The employees were confused in differentiating major and minor problems, which originated from their lack of role clarification. Role clarity implies the required information that is provided for employees in order to do their jobs efficiently (Kelly and Hise, 1980 cited in Mukherjee and Malhotra, 2006, p.446). In the given case study, it could be prevented by following the three key essentails of role clarity, i.e. feedback, participation and finally team support. The effectiveness of employees depends on their perception about wielded power by superiors. (Yukl, 1981).

Managers should focus on providing their employees with feedback, paying more attention to normative feedback as it positively affects the individuals’ performance by improving either perceived competence, competence valuation (Sansone 1989) performance pressure (Butler &. Nisan, 1986; Ryan, 1982) or a combination these factors. The effect of positive normative feedback on the performance would not be relevant unless employees were well trained in a way that their skills would match the tasks they were entailed to handle. This would enhance their perceived competence (Sansone 1988), which is handling customers minor problems without referring back to their supervisors.

The employees were uncomfortable in their newly assigned role and hesitated to accept the responsibilities. In addition, lack of motivation from the seniors wore down their confidence. Instead, the performances should be followed by adequate rewards to ensure staff that they are on the right track (Locke and Latham, 1990, p.241). Providing on the job training to employees should be one of the middle managers’ priorities, as it has been proven a good way to learn (Wood, 1994). Also, well-trained employees will be better prepared to face the organizational change (Lange, 2006) occurring at the Regency Grand Hotel, which will in return help them overcome the challenges involved with the process of empowerment.

Employees

Apart from General Manager and the managers, the front line employees should also share responsibilities for making the empowerment program successful. McShane & Tavaglione (2007, p.186-89) identifies four core necessities in employees’ behavior, namely competencies, self-monitoring and designing natural rewards. To participate in the empowerment process, employees should possess adequate capabilities to deal with the additional decision making roles.

Another suggestion for the employees proposes practicing self-leadership. Certainly, it was the managers’ duty to provide the employees with proper training and feedback, but we should not overlook the part of employees themselves. They should try to set goals for themselves to create self-direction and self-motivation required to execute the new tasks. Self-leadership incorporates five key elements that is personal goal setting, constructive thought pattern, designing natural rewards, self-monitoring, and self-reinforcement. Employees who indulge in all the above-mentioned practices would perform jobs better than the ones being supervised by others, and as Larkin asserts, high self-monitor generates more confident individuals to adapt to the empowerment approach.

In addition, “speaking up” of the employees should be regarded as an important solution (Premeaux & Bedeian, 2003, p.1537). They should express their point of views about work related issues, recommendations, or requirement of changes and alternative approaches. The problem rose in Grand Regency Hotel because employees were hesitant to speak out their positions due to the fear of punishment. McShane & Travaglione (2007) argue that the voice of employees should be established as a way to communicate dissatisfaction and to propose ideas to the manager to improve situations.

Finally, employees who possess self-awareness, as one of the four dimensions of emotional intelligence, would have better emotional responses. Higher level of working emotions and attitudes would help employees attain better performances and prevent the tensions among the hotel employees.

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Introduction

Syuen Corporation is company that started off as a small construction company and then invested in hotel line business and build Syuen Hotel. Syuen Hotel operates in service industry which gives customer service satisfaction in the hotel. This organization has been established for the past 19 years. Mr. Yan, the owner of the hotel use to be a tailor and most of his target market was big shots. Most of the customers of Mr. Yan were the politicians; business man and people link to royalty blood. As his business grew he started off a small construction business with the contact and influence of his network with the politicians and business people. Then he started to do housing project and development in a small scale and then developed to big construction development Company. Syuen Hotel was billed by his own construction company and that’s where he started his hotel line business.

As Mr. Yan’s business grew, he started to invest in other countries by buying lands and building hotels. Mr. Yan opened the second hotel in Laos and started to develop the country to a better and more civilized country. As times passed by Mr. Yan also invested in timber business and tea plantations. Mr .Yan left the management to Miss Maggie Ong to manage Syuen Hotel. Miss Maggie is the director of this hotel and she used all her expertise, network and skills to bring up the standard of the hotel. Now Syuen Hotel is also known as the best city hotel in Ipoh.

Laos is a single-party socialist republic. The capital city is Vientiane. Other large cities include LuangHYPERLINK “http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luang_Prabang” HYPERLINK “http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luang_Prabang”Prabang, Savannakhet, and Pakse. The official language is Lao. Laos is a multiethnic country with the politically and culturally dominant Lao people making up approximately sixty percent of the population, mostly in the lowlands. Various Mon-Khmer groups, the Hmong, and other indigenous hill tribes, accounting for forty percent of the population, live in the foothills and mountains. Laos’ “strategy for development is based on generating electricity from its rivers and selling the power to its neighbours”, namely Thailand, China, and Vietnam. Laos is practically a low cost country as is not that civilized and developed compare to other countries in this era. Their country development is way far behind then compare to other countries. Laos is the only landlocked country in Southeast Asia, and its thickly forested landscape consists mostly of rugged mountains. The highest of which is PhouHYPERLINK “http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phou_Bia” HYPERLINK “http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phou_Bia”Bia at 2,818 meters (9,245 ft), with some plains and plateaus. Local tradition holds that there are three seasons (rainy, cold and hot) as the latter two months of the climatologically defined dry season are noticeably hotter than the earlier four months. Laos has a very good quality soil that actually helps on agriculture activities. Subsistence agriculture still accounts for half of the GDP and provides 80% of employment. Only 4.01% of the country is arable land, and a mere 0.34% used as permanent crop land. The lowest percentage in the Greater Mekong Sub region and rice dominates agriculture, with about 80% of the arable land area used for growing rice. Subsistence agriculture is self-sufficiency farming in which the farmers focus on growing enough food to feed themselves and their families. The typical subsistence farm has a range of crops and animals needed by the family to feed and clothe themselves during the year. The labor cost at Laos is very cheap as most of the people don’t mind doing any hard job to earn money and survive there.

After observing all the pros and cons of Laos, Mr.Yan decided to invest at Laos and expend his hotel line business and utilize the advantages in Laos. Mr Yan practically used all the expertise and recourses that he have from Malaysia and import to Laos to develop the business in Laos. He focused on mainly on hotel line business and then he invested also invested on tea, herbs, bird nest and wood craft furniture. Syuen Corporation established another corporation name called Dansavanh hotel group representing Syuen Corporation in Malaysia. In 1997 the Malaysian Syuen Corporation started to develop Laos’s largest resort on more than 18000 hectar of national park land on island in the reservoir behind the Nam Ngum dam .One of the company’s first act is to set up a saw mill to process the timber logged from the development area (Dhirendra K., 2001). Then they build the first hotel called the Nam Ngum Resort and then followed by the Vientiane Hotel. Syuen Corporation signed master agreement with the Laos’s government on 6 January 2006 and open Nam Ngum Resort which is the first eco tourism resort. These hotels improved the tourism of Laos as it attracted people from other countries which eventually increased the currency exchange. Besides that, Syuen Corporation opened tea manufacturing company and timber manufacturing company over the years. The idea is to manufacture good quality tea and wood craft furniture with low labor cost and export to countries like Malaysia, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam with good price. This helped the company to earn good profit as they export quality material with a better price then other competitors.

Analysis
Gain

Grow opportunity

It may sound general, but it is undeniable as this is one of the main reasons for company to invest to another country. The Syuen Corporation owner senses the opportunities presented in the country, thus moved early to enter the market. Back in 1997, the company already started to develop the largest resort in Laos (Dhirendra K., 2001). Fast forward to today, the return are stunning, the corporation now own a resort with golf club and casino, a 4-star hotel and two more hotels in construction (Dansavanh Hotel, n.d.). The rise in number of tourist in Laos in recent years has boosted the tourism industry in the country, especially hospitality industry.

The hotel line business in Laos benefited greatly from the growth of tourism as the hotels are targeting upscale travellers, which are 12% from millions of traveller to Laos. Moreover, the hotel also offer tourism package at their hotel as addition to their growing revenue and capitalize on the tourism trend in Laos, where the government announced 2012 to be Visit Laos Year. Apart from that, the corporation hotel in Malaysia also provide tourism package that destination are going to Laos which include accommodation in their own hotel. The move to invest in another country gained the company diversity in their business and also growth in term of number market served.

Low labor cost

Laos remain as one of the country that the labor cost are relatively low. Syuen Corporation ventured into the country and enjoys low cost in term of wages, and allows them to have higher profit margin. The low cost condition not only benefited the hotel business line, but also the Corporation’s tea plantation and wood craft furniture business. despite the low cost of labor in the country, Syuen Corporation still face little competition as the threat of new entrance are very low , as Laos ranked 163 overall in “Ease of Doing Business” rank out of 185 economies(The World Bank, 2012). The company gain benefit of the first mover advantage as they are one of the most early company to set up sawmill and furniture manufacturing in the country. They also remain as few of the company from Malaysia to enjoy the low cost advantages.

Synergy from diverse business

The low labor cost also encouraged the company to venture into different industries, other than their main hotel line business, as mentioned in the introduction part of this assignment. Most of their business in other industries synergized well with their main business. For an instant, the Corporation involvements in tea plantation and wood craft furniture industry in the country also contribute to their hotel businesses. High quality tea are produced to be used in the hotel and also export, this reduce the cost of getting tea thus increases the profit margin of the Corporation. Similarly, the most of the furniture in the hotel are wood craft furniture of their own. This in turn saves the cost of setting up hotels in Laos, and the tea and furniture gain free exposure and advertising to tourist. Furthermore, the tea and furniture are also exported to Malaysia, and the Corporation hotel can get in a low price compared to the market price. The synergy created is beneficial to their businesses.

Shortcoming

Lao Government Forest Policy

According to J&C Expat Service, if want to start a business in Laos can be very challenging because Laos is considered one of the most difficult countries in the world in starting a business (J&C, 2012). Therefore, Syuen Corporation is facing few shortcomings when entering Laos to expand their business. First and foremost, the geographical location of Laos is covered by many mountains, plains and plateaus. There are over 70% of Laos consists of rainforests (Globalaware.org). Therefore, deforestation is the major impact on Laos which also indirectly affect Syuen Corporation business at Laos especially the timber and sawmill business. Syuen Corporation set up sawmills to process the timber logged from the development area (World Rainforest Movement and Forest Monitor 1998, 53). The environmental problems that encountered by Laos especially deforestation is getting more serious as expanding commercial exploitation of the forest and plans for additional hydroelectric facilities. Thus, in order to preserve valuable hardwoods for commercial extraction and to protect the forest environment, Lao government decided to set quota logging. Besides, the decision of setting the amount of quotas is complex and no transparency. Initially, the province will submit a figure to the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry (MAF). The figures will be passing through many ministries and the decision is made without any consultation with officials from the Division of Inventory and Planning in the Department of Forestry (Vajpeyi, 2001; Southavilay and Castren 1999). Then, MAF will share the quota between the provinces and most of the provinces will get quota far below the timber processing capacity in that province (Vajpeyi, 2001). Consequently, Syuen Corporation’s sawmills business will be affected the most due to the quota logging set by the Lao government.

Infrastructure low

Laos is an underdeveloped country, the poor access, short of infrastructure and many undeveloped destination are restricting the growth of the hotel and tourism industry in the city. There are only 5 airlines serve the Wattay International Airport, from regional cities such as Bangkok, Hanoi, Kuala Lumpur and Phnom Penh. (Horwathhtl.com, 2011)Therefore, to access to the city of Laos is very limited. Thus, the inconvenience of access ability in Laos will affect the hospitality business of Syuen Corporation. Moreover, Laos is facing the obstacles of establishing Internet connectivity due to the lack of skills and resources. The Internet connectivity in Laos is a slow process which indicated by the low levels of PC penetration and poor telecommunications network (Thongvilu and Houphanh, 1996). Although major towns are connected in Laos, placing a call between towns is often difficult. Such inconvenience and lack of infrastructure might affect the performance of Syuen Corporation business in Laos especially hotel business of Syuen. As the Internet connectivity service is low, the managerial department of Syuen Corporation at Laos will be affected and decrease the efficiency of the employees. In addition, customers might have bad experience with the WiFi service provided by the Syuen Corporation hotels in Laos.

Education level and health service low

The education level at Laos is not as high as other developed countries, the standard quality of the post-secondary school not high so they lack of professionalism and skill labor. This will affect employees’ performance of Syuen Corporation. Besides, the medical services at Laos very limited and low standard, causing the occurrence of morbidity is high and this will led to the reluctant of tourists come to Lao. According to Prof. Dr. Somboune Phomtavong, Prof. Dr. Kongsap Akkhavong and Dr. Somchanh Xaisida (2005) the lack of clean water, poor sanitation, inadequate nutrition and limited access health services are aggravating factors, which influence morbidity, particularly in rural areas. Moreover, low quality local mentors, educators and trainers in public health management programs. Furthermore, the acquiring science and technology skills are restricted due to the low level of the basic education and foreign language knowledge. Other than that, Lao Government requires that a company may have up to 10% of its employees as foreigners if those foreigners are unskilled, or up to 20% if they are skilled. In all cases, they must get approval from government in their employment. The company must obtain permission from government in order to increase the percentage of foreign workers it employs (Jclao.com, 2012).

Recommendations

Send for training and implement training programs

One of the shortcomings that operating business in Laos is the education level of this country is low. Most of the Laos people are not skillful and knowledgeable. They are lack of knowledge to handle the highly skill tasks. So Syuen Corporation can send the unskilled workers and workers who lack of experience to the Syuen Corporation hotel in Laos (Vientiane Hotel and Nam Ngum Resort) in order to learn how to perform all the tasks. For example, learn how to clean the guest rooms, how to communicate properly with guests, how to deal with the reservation and 1 on 1 business phone calls. After the Laos workers learnt how to perform the tasks, they can improve their performance. Besides that, the company also can provide some training programs for those unskilled Laos workers. One of the examples can be English Language training program. The Syuen Corporation can offer English language training program to make sure that all the workers can understand and speaking the English language fluently. This program is important for the workers because most of the hotel income gain is from the foreign tourists. So it is important for the workers to understand and speak English language fluently due to English language is the International Language. After their English skills improved, their performance also can be improved. The workers can improved in ability to respond to questions or requests and offer assistance in English or ability to participate in 1-on-1 business phone calls in English. Once the employees’ performance was improved, the customer satisfaction will follow to improve. And it will affect the company reputation and profits. Finally it can maintain and strengthen the company competitive advantages.

There has a successful case that an organization can improve its performance by implemented the English language training program. The organization is Hilton International Incorporate. With a largely English-speaking customer base that demands the highest level of quality and service, Hilton needed a global strategy for building the business English communication skills of its employees to help deliver on its brand promise. After careful evaluation, Hilton implemented the GlobalEnglish Corporate Learning Servicea„? (currently known as GlobalEnglish Edgea„?) on a worldwide basis and has realized significant productivity and performance improvements (GlobalEnglish, 2011). Furthermore, there also a successful case that the company sends the employee for training can improve the employee performance. SCA Company let the worker to attend a 2 week training program at one of SCA’s European offices in Gothenburg, Sweden. The program was filled up with meetings and facility tours with teams from product categories, R&D, sourcing and supplier development. The employee said that she was able to quickly learn about SCA’s businesses, products and markets around the world, and align itself with the global platforms and practices within a short time (Vivian B., 2009).

Joint venture with Airline Company

By having a hotel in an underdeveloped country with short of resources and infrastructure, it makes tourists having difficulties in locating the hotel itself, as mentioned before, there are only five airlines that serve the Wattay Airport, finding the way to the hotel from the airport itself can be tricky and inconvenient to most of the foreign tourists, not to say exploring the city without any assistance and guidance from a trusted source can be worrying. By having above problem, Syuen is suggested to consider an arrangement of joint venture with one of the airlines in order to satisfy customer more by providing a package of services to them, starts from the airlines, allow customers to fly to Laos, and picking up guests from the airports and into the hotel and return, it can be a joint ventures of the hotel itself or develop a whole new set or package of services and offer it to the tourists, providing all transportation and tour guiding services which they able to enjoy once they disembark from their planes and arrive Laos. With the helps from the airlines partner, this action able to further satisfy more visitors, ensuring they have a safer journey within the period they spent in Laos, letting them to have a more convenient and comfortable journey. On the other hand, by having this set of services, it able to convince and attract more potential customers, by introduce the services to them, as visiting an undeveloped country is always perceived as unsafe and risky by most of the foreigners, a safe and comfortable journey is always the main concern in travelling.

The scenario of a joint venture agreement between an airline and a hotel can be seen in the Shanghai International Airport Hotel, as it is a joint venture enterprise by Chinese Eastern Air, which they provides a free shuttle bus to and from Shanghai Pudong International Airport and the Shanghai International Airport hotel mentioned. While in the hotel lobby and all the guestrooms, the flight activity will be show through a monitor for every guest to keep track of their flight information. And the Shanghai International Airport hotel also provides air ticket booking services and multiple location flight check-in services in the lobby (Sinohotel, n.d.).

However, it is still suggested that Syuen Hotel should offer more services in terms of transportation, guiding, compared to Shanghai International Airport Hotel, and put customers safety at the first place as the hotel is located in Laos which commonly perceived as undeveloped and unsafe by the outsiders, to ensure all the guests have a pleasant journey, and securing Syuen’s competitive advantages. While the labor cost in Laos is relatively low as mentioned earlier, Syuen is expected to be able to conduct this plan with ease while enjoying low cost advantage.

Enhance Relationship with Laos Government

From previously discussed, Syuen Corporation’s sawmills business had been affected due to the quota logging set by the Laos Government. In order to deal with this threat, it is crucial for Syuen Corporation’s to maintain a good or positive relationship with the Laos Government senior officials such as personnel from “Kong kouat ka Sapha-nyakone Pa Mai” as known as Forest Inspection Department (FID) in order to have more quotas on logging the woods and advocate the senior officials to strike the illegal logging activities inside the country. However, it is difficult for Syuen Corporation’s to do so because Laos Government senior officials do not always trust on the logging companies due to the risk of losing important administrative positions for inappropriately to approving logging operations as has happened to some senior government officials in the past. Thus, Syuen Corporation’s can approach senior officials together with the other trusted government officials, ones who can act as guarantor or give assurance that nothing improper will occurred in order to gain confident and trust from the Laos Government senior officials. Moreover, Syuen Corporation’s can offer benefit sharing based on the patron client relation to the Laos Government may in term of monetary or others to show the sincerities and loyalties of the company toward the Laos Government.

Search for logging quota alternative

Besides of normal logging quota, Syuen Corporation’s can search for special logging quotas that offer by the Laos Government as alternative. One of the examples of the special logging quotas can be use by the Syuen Corporation’s is deadwood logging quotas (quota mai leep lem) which allow Syuen Corporation’s to collect trees which are already dead such as standing dead tree (Deadwood) from wherever area they can be found in forest without restriction (Baird, 2010). This will allow Syuen Corporation’s have more woods and material to support the company sawmill’s business besides of normal logging quota. In year 2007, a logging quota of “deadwood” was issued by the Champasak Province in southwestern Laos to Development of Agriculture and Forestry Industries Company (DAFI) for the rosewood and the quota did not specify the quantity to be cut and the logging site (Baird, 2010).

Conclusion

A few years back, Syuen Corporation main business is in Malaysia hotel industry, as they continue to grow, their venture into Laos have gained them market share in 2 different countries. Their first mover advantages in Laos are still firm, as the country remain a hard place to go for new venture. Furthermore, their investment in Laos including the tea plantation and sawmill business synergized well with their main business. However there remain some shortcomings in Laos, such as the government forest policy which limit the growth of sawmill business of Syuen Corporation, and also low infrastructure level, education level and medical service.

Therefore, we have come out with 4 recommendations to counter the shortcoming and improve the company competitive advantages. We recommended workers to be Send for training and implement training programs, joint venture with Airline Company, enhance relationship with Laos’s government, and lastly search for logging quota alternative. As the alternative are proven to be practical, as they are either applied by other company or support by journal articles, we hope that the recommendation will be implemented and help the company.

The Grand View Hotel is a traditional hotel built in the 1950s offering traditional facilities. It is sited on the seafront at a convenient location, which is close to its competition hotels and the main shopping center. Accessibility of the hotel is high. It is less than 30 minutes from the nearest airport and supported by good road, rail and bus linking to major cities.

The Grand View Hotel is a 250 rooms establishment in which 200 are double rooms and 50 are king bedded rooms, all includes private bathroom. The rooms are of a good size, comfortable and with different decorative styles.

At present, there is a large garden and a small swimming pool in the hotel, parking space with a capacity of 120 cars is also available. On top of that, there is a restaurant which serves buffet for breakfast and lunch as well as a la carte for dinner. The lobby lounge area is fairly large which is suited to a business type of hotel. There is also a pub; however it is in poor decorative order.

There were several refurbishment programs launched which included the signs replacement, renovation and redecoration of front desk, restaurant and bar. Generally speaking, the hotel is in good physical condition except the front desk. On top of that, the hotel used to redecorate 25 guest rooms each year.

Consistent Standard of Excellence: We will consistently provide our guests with a superior quality product and make a conscious daily effort to be better than our competition.

Personalized Guest Service: We will meet the specific meet of each guest with a professional, friendly, prompt, courteous, and enthusiastic, attitude from all staff all times.

Company Goals

The purpose and values of Grand Ford are to generate a multi-faceted success.

Maintaining the financial well-being of hotel by the strict control of all costs at all times without exception.

Gain reputation by providing high quality of products and services which beyond the guests’ expectation.

Increase the quality of the entire workforces and reduce the staff turnover rate by providing better staff training & benefit.

Provide a fantastic and comfortable environment to every valuable customer in order to satisfy their needs.

Company Objectives

In order to reach our goals, several objectives should firstly be achieved:

Reduce the total labor cost from 46% to below 35% within the first year.

Reduce the cost of sales in F&B department to 35% within the first year.

Reduce the annual staff turnover rate from 102% to 50% within the first year.

Increase the average room occupancy rate from 19% to 55% within 2 years and reach the standard of 70% within four years.

Human Resources
Human Resources Policy

The hotel is able to reduce labour costs and staff turnover by hiring the right person for the right position at the right time for the price, or salary in another word. Training programs will be provided to staff mambers in order to enhance their performance thus the guest satisfaction and finally increasing profitability.

Organizational Structure
Staffing

It is known that reduction of staff can be a de-motivator, however, there will be a huge over staffing if we do not reduce any workforce on such a low occupancy. It is planned to reduce serveral staff in some particular departments such as housekeeping and front office. With the growth of business and new coming construction projects, the hotel will certainly relocate and hire a certain munber of staff in order to maintain a smooth daily operation. Staffing level will be monitored on a monthly basis in the first year operation and quarterly in the rest of the operation with high level of flexibility.

Recruitment

With the aim of having the most suitable person to be crew members who are able to generate an overall experience beyond guests’ expectations, both internal and external recruiting methods will be applied in the Grand View Hotel. Positive attitude, enthusiasm, outstanding interpersonal relationship and high standard of qualification will be required for appliances. Aiming to reach the potential pool of appliances, recruiting advertisement will be placed in industry journals and in the hotel’s official website. For the internal preparation, the hotel will review the job analysis on a regular basis to ensure that the documents best describe the job and that they are properly prepared for effective recruitment and selection process. On top of that, laws and regulations will be taken under serious consideration during the process.

Selection

In order to be fair and to get the most suitable person to fill up vacancies, a multi-hurdle strategy will be applied meaning that elimination of candidates during selection process will be based on the job specification. Interviews will be the most commonly used tool to assess a candidate. Furthermore, for external appliances, job tests will be another method that the Grand View will use to select an operational staff while group assessments will be applied for the rest. For internal selection meaning promotion and relocation of staff, potential employees’ performance and past records will be taken under consideration.

Orientations

Orientation programs are designed to provide new employees a clear direction of their job and the hotel directions. The hotel can benefited from a good orientation program in terms of higher morale in the workplace thus improving the performance and the productivity and therefore a higher “bottom line”. Regarding the above factors, orientation programs will be provided to each staff member within their probation period in the Grand View Hotel with the following elements.

Aimed to improve the skills and performance of staff members, thus enhance the customers’ comfort and satisfaction therefore raise the reputation and influence the revenue of the hotel. Training for staff in all levels is considered as the main step to achieve goals.

On the job training is one of the training methods that will be applied in the Grand View focusing on operational and entry level staff. It is effective in both cost control and performance improvements as it is conducted during business operation in actual work settings. For managerial level staff, group discussion and workshops will be useful in order to share experience and keep track of the hotel’s operation generally. All training programs will be reviewed on an annual basic. Besides on-site training, off-site training is also encouraged. The hotel will support staff to take job relevant courses organized by recognized organizations.

Staff Payroll

We intend to maintain an annual staff payroll with a maximum of 35% of total revenue. Salary of level 1 will be offered to entry level employees and level 2 for department heads for the first half year in order to control costs. However, salary levels will be adjusted according to the performance which will be reflected by the bottom line in order to motivate the staff and ecourage better performances. Salary reduction will unusually be seen in the Grand View Hotel since this will de-motivate the employees and as a result, the staff turnover rate will increase.

Environmental Scan
Political

The political environment includes such areas as government policies, political trends and internal political issues. The political environment is very stable and beneficial for the hotel meaning that the political situation supports local businesses and establishments. This is extremely beneficial for the hotel’s future because this means it can concentrate on attracting more markets meaning more variety in customers. We can also concentrate on the customer satisfaction which involves their needs and expectations. September 11th had a huge impact in the tourism in the USA. The uncertainty of political situation because of the September 11th attracts, have led potential customers to think twice about travelling abroad or within the country itself. This has a huge effect on the hotel’s business which we will also have to contain in to the analysis.

Economic

Since the main industries of the area are Distribution/ Hospitality, Banking and Finance. We intend to meet the demand in these areas by offering various services especially in the area of conferences since our target market is business costumers during the weekdays. Unemployment levels also have a big effect on the economic situation. The employment level is high especially in the areas of management/professional and clerical/secretarial work. This in return aids our hotel in the way that the environment is safer due to the high employment rate and this attracts more travelers, giving us the opportunity to catch the attention of these customers, to maximize our revenue.

Social

The employment level is very high; it is currently half of the national average. A large proportion of the populations of that employment level are in management/professional and clerical/secretarial jobs. But also the employment levels for skilled non-manual, skilled and semi-skilled manual work is also high. But that is not the case for unskilled employment. A large proportion of the population is families with the average of 2 children per family. Since one of the main industries is Banking and Finance, we will be looking to attract business travelers whose aim is to locate a convenient and appropriate property that accommodate their needs for a professional working ambience.

Technological

The continuous changing world of technology can pose a lot of threats, but if the right actions are taken at the right time it can also be an opportunity. Technology can give us the competitive edge in terms of conference and meeting equipment. Equipment is expensive, but with a large variety of suppliers and different options like buying, renting and leasing, it can become a relatively in expense way of modernizing our facilities. The hotel technologies include fast wireless internet, security cameras which ensure the safety of the guests, conference equipment, transportation, and so on. We will also try to build up and maintain good relations with our technological and safety partners to ensure that when problems do occur, that they can be solved as fast as possible.

Legal

In the United States there are 3 different kinds of legal systems. The first being Local legislation, the second State legislation and the third being Federal Legislations. There three have a huge amount of impact on how the hotel is run. The legislations meaning the laws that are imposed on the hotel include and are related to the operators of the hotel, consumers and employees. These 3 legal systems enforce various laws and regulations which include the minimum wage, health and safety laws, anti-discrimination laws, employee rights and employer rights.

Environmental

The environmental aspect is a very critical issue since it encompasses a wide range of aspects. It ranges from ecological issues to staff attitude/morale to environmental regulations. This is where we split up the environmental issues into 2 sections. They are internal and external. Internal is everything that is within the hotel that has a moderate amount of affect on the hotel. External is everything that affects the hotel coming from outside the four walls. Internal environment includes staff attitude and morale which has been low since the poor performance of the hotel which can also be seen from the high staff turnover. These will decrease tremendously due to the new regulations, training and vision of the hotel. External Environment includes environment regulations which are set by local, state and federal legislations which the hotel has to abide by.

Marketing Plan

The marketing plan is a very important guide to lead a successful establishment. Our marketing plan will be based on the company’s target market, as well as the goals and objectives of the property.

Situation analysis:

Internal environment

The guest rooms, front desk, restaurant and bar, are all in poor condition. The restaurant and the front desk were last refurbished 7 years ago. Only 25 guestrooms were redecorated each year, which demonstrates that the guest rooms are potentially not in the most desirable standard and lack of modern amenities. As the hotel is located in a popular area for conferences during both on and off seasons, there will be a very high demand of business travelers. But when considering internally, there are no conference facilities or any sort of business services in the hotel. Moreover, the guestrooms are not suitable for holding conferences or meetings. Those problems have drawn the attention of the management team, and proper investments and constructions will be conducted in the very early stage of the operation in accordance with the aforementioned.

By reviewing the information and statistical facts which were provided by the previous owner, we found that the hotel occupancy was always below the average. On the other hand, the staff turnover rate was extremely high, which means that the morale of the employees was unacceptable. The customers were all disappointed by the food, the facilities and the service quality of the hotel. As the reputation of the hotel was bad, occupancy rate will inevitably be affected.

In regards to the financial situation, it was terrible to see that the net income was growing negatively. Furthermore, there were plenty of long term debts and accounts payable, which even worsened the financial situation of the hotel. Those liabilities should be of concern by the management team as they can potentially affect the upcoming operation of the property.

Customer environment

Referring to the marketing research and statistics, we found out that there are 2 main types of customers, them being business and leisure travellers. As the local area is becoming well known in terms of conferences, it is important for us to realize that many events will be held throughout the year. Therefore, we predict that the demand for accommodation of the business travelers will increase. Besides, we can see from the statistics that 80% of the customers came for business purposes in the first quarter and more than 50% for the entire year. In addition, around 154,000 of those travelled during the weekdays according to the research provided by local Chamber of Commerce and Tourist Board, which contributed the most to the customer base. These factors and numbers provided us with significant information about the importance of investing in business and in conference facilities. Also, the hotel is located along the seafront, just 30 minutes away from the airport, therefore the leisure travelers will also be our main customers as our property can easily be accessed by the customers due to the geographical reason. Tourists nowadays are expecting more they are willing to spend more in order to get better experiences for their stay. By this, we reckon that services and facilities rank the first when it comes to choosing hotels. Therefore our upcoming investments, constructions, and strategies would be tailored for our customers in order to satisfy or even to exceed their expectations.

SWOT analysis

Strengths

Convenient location for customers because of the nearby airport and excellent transport links.

Prefect venue for conferences.

Having the biggest capacity while comparing with the competitors within the same area.

Weakness

Lack of development in terms of facilities and services.

No clear guidelines and competent management team to operate the hotel.

High turnover rate.

Poor image and reputation.

Poor and inconsistent service.

Limited financial support.

Of poor condition including the front desk, restaurants, guest rooms.

Low liquidity and high liabilities.

Opportunities

Plenty of conventions and events will be held within the area.

New technologies to reduce the operation cost.

Fast market growth

Threats

The ever-changing market trends and needs.

Government regulations and laws which may restrict expansions and developments

Economic instability

New entrants

Target Market:

The main target markets of the Grand View Hotel are Business and Leisure travelers. Special packages and facilities will also be promoted to attract the customers.

Marketing Mix: 4Ps

Product

As Grand View Hotel will be a 3 diamonds hotel, we provide different facilities to fit with the needs of the market. We guarantee that the services will be delivered with high quality and all the employees will be trained for enhancing the skills and knowledge. .

The Grand View hotel has 200 Double rooms and 50 King rooms, a restaurant, a lounge and a bar. We also provide room services, conference facilities, fitness facilities including a fitness club and a swimming pool. Furthermore, parking spaces are also available. Some of the facilities will be constructed within one year and we plan to constantly refurbishing the guest rooms and to provide more amenities and entertainment. There will be also some modifications for the restaurant so as to provide better services.

Different packages will be provided to attract more guests, such as Honeymoon packages, conference packages as well as leisure traveler packages in order to diversify our customer base.

Price

As there is high elasticity of demand in the hospitality industry, it’s a big challenge to establish the most appropriate price. Therefore, the price should be flexible to handle and fit in different target markets.

The room rate will be modified seasonally according to the demand and from the surrounding competitors as well. Special price and discount will be offered for large group and business travelers. But, the groups have to discuss with the sales department for more details. The price for the regular guests will be consistent to keep their loyalty. The leisure travelers will be upgraded for free during the low seasons and also free use of the facilities depends on the demand and season. The discount will be offered for weekends.

The price will be differentiates at different times. But, the main idea for the price is to maximize the revenue but also to satisfy our guests.

Place

The location of the hotel is fixed. The hotel is sited along the seafront, close to other hotels and a short distance from the main shopping center, and also it is near the airport and with good transport links to major cities and other resorts. Moreover, the area of the resort has become a popular location for conferences, both in and out season. It’s also the best place for holding conferences which includes conference facilities, fitness club, good infrastructure and superstructure in the city, and a fantastic sea view. We will provide shuttle bus to take customers from the airport and to the airport every 30 minutes from 6a.m to 1a.m.

Promotion

We will promote through direct and indirect distribution channels. We will approach our potential customers who are already targeted through the direct sales call and mail, to communicate with them and find out what’s best suitable for them. And then, we will also advertise in local newspapers and business press to let people know about the hotel. Moreover, we will also put the hotel on the Local Visitor Guide to attract more transient guests and place posters throughout stations and airports. Furthermore, we will pay the Public Relation Agency to find more potential customers and transient customers from all over the world. We will use different advertising media depending on different conditions for different markets. Moreover, we will set up our own hotel website so that the potential guests can have access to the hotel easier.

Competitive advantages:

As we are going to be a 3 diamond hotel, we are going to provide quality services and comfortable ambience for our customers, and re-create customers’ satisfaction and professional image. The employees are the ones to deliver the quality service so they will be trained to be professional and efficient by effective training programs.

As the employees can learn by working and training, they will be motivated and the morale will increase in order to provide and give the best services to the guests. Furthermore, the guests can also keep their memorable and happy experiences with us. These factors will contribute to our uniqueness among our competitors and gain the reputation.

The Grand View hotel will provide many different business services and facilities such as photocopying, stationary preparing, direct dial phone, fax, etcaˆ¦ Moreover, we have a fitness club, including a swimming pool, stair climbing machines, treadmills, fitness walking, etcaˆ¦ Since our hotel focuses heavily on our guest rooms, we will provide a wide range of guest amenities and entertainments. We try our best to maintain a very competitive edge and we strive to be the best amongst our competitors with our comfortable guestrooms and quality services.

Action Plan

In order to turn around the worst situation that we are facing currently, we are going to do several revolutions, investments and constructions according to the marketing plan and try to improve and gain back the reputation within the first operating year.

The first action that we are going to do is to adjust the staff numbers of different departments since effective staffing schedule can save the hotel dozen of money. In order to schedule the staff effectively due to the low occupancy, the number of staff in food and beverage, hotel service and front desk will be cut down.

The main goal for the F&B department is to maximize revenue. For that to happen, the first action that will be taken is that employees are required to participate in numerous training sessions (training program 3), which include general training for example up selling, but also on the job training and coaching which will be carried out by the supervisors and/or the F&B manager. Targets will be set for each and every employee, which they will have to achieve. If these targets or requirements are not met then some corrective actions will have to be taken, and this will be done in the form of further training and coaching sessions but also severe employee evaluations. The menu types will be shortened (Menu type 1), to ensure that we can minimize our costs but also we will find a right supplier with the right quality for the right price (Supplier type 2) to ensure that we find the perfect equilibrium between the quality of our food and the production cost and the selling price. All these decision will be in affect as soon as we reopen the hotel. Revision of Standard operating procedures will be set in place to ensure speed, quality and to satisfy guests to the fullest.

Moreover, we will do the refurbishment (level 2) of the rooms and front desk upon we start the operation in order to create better working environment to our staff and more enjoyable lodging venue to our customers. The refurbishments will include the new decorative scheme. Replace carpets, curtains, linen, light fittings, deep clean other furnishings. Paint woodwork and ceilings, wallpaper walls. We are planning to refurbish 50 rooms every year. In order to provide a better lodging experience to our customers, the in room entertainments and amenities will be added into service. Since our first mission is to attract the guests to come to our hotel and gain reputation by our excellent services and facilities.

As advertising helps to promote our hotel, therefore we are going to do our advertising in accordance with the most profitable market timely. First of all, we will do our advertising through the local newspaper, business press and direct mail in the first three months. We will focus on advertise the weekday and weekend rooms, and also the meal. Since the above media are the most effectiveness in advertise the rooms and meal, therefore we will use those media for our first advertising.

Risk Assessments and Control

Risks are inevitable. We have to identify different risks to avoid and reduce the possibility of risks occurring. Investing in insurance is essential because if these risks occur, it will cost more and at the same time affect the reputation of our hotel. Here are some risk assessments identified:

Asset & Property risks

There are some risks, such as fire, explosion, crime or natural disasters such as hurricanes, floods and tsunamis which could possibly occur and destroy our assets and property.

Legal risks

Large amount of money are being won in consumer, individual lawsuits and in class action suits. Our hotel is liable to its employees, its guests and, in some instances, to the general public.

Bomb threat

After the 911 incident, the United States has the essential risk of more terrorist attacks.

Economic Crisis threat

A loss amount of money may be happened due to the economics crisis of country. For example: the great depression.

Leakage of private and confidential information of the hotel

There are a lot of private and confidential information of the hotel and there is a risk of employees leaking out the other information which can greatly affect the business of our hotel.

Budget
1st year

Assumptions:

Room Division

Totally 50 rooms under renovation

Contribution to revenue: 65%

Food and Beverage Department

Cost percentage: 35%

Contribution to revenue: 35%

Sales

Room

4,823,174

Food&Bev

2,597,094

7,420,268

Cost of Sales

Room

353,246

Food & Bev

908,983

908,983

Payroll & Related

Room

558,495

Food & Bev

506,584

1,065,079

Gross Profit less Wages

Room

3,911,433

Food & Bev

1,181,527

5,092,960

Central Admin Payroll

154,140

Other Direct Costs

256,250

Income before Fixed Charges

4,682,570

Total Fixed Costs

674,325

Income before Taxes

4,008,245

Business Tax Paid

1,202,473

Income after Business Taxes

2,805,771

2nd year

Assumptions:

Average room rate states the same

Average occupancy increased to 55%

New facilities: in room mini bar, second bar, data point, quick check in/out, shop

business service and additional parking area

Sales

Room

5,863,284

Food&Bev

3,420,249

Other

1,465,821

9,772,140

Cost of Sales

Room

353,246

Food & Bev

1,197,087

Other

879,493

2,076,580

Payroll & Related

Room

609,450

Food & Bev

506,584

Other

34,000

1,150,034

Gross Profit less Wages

Room

4,900,588

Food & Bev

1,716,578

Other

552,328

7,169,494

Central Admin Payroll

154,140

Other Direct Costs

678,250

Income before Fixed Charges

6,337,104

Total Fixed Costs

674,325

Income before Taxes

5,662,779

Business Tax Paid

1698834

Income after Business Taxes

3,963,945

3rd year

Assumptions

Average room rate states the same

Average occupancy increased to 62%

New facilities: health club, conference and function rooms

Sales

Room

6,570,348

Food&Bev

3,832,703

Other

1,642,587

10,950,580

Cost of Sales

Room

353,246

Food & Bev

1,341,446

Other

985,552

2,326,998

Payroll & Related

Room

738,899

Food & Bev

680,428

Other

85,000

1,504,327

Gross Profit less Wages

Room

5,478,203

Food & Bev

1,810,829

Other

572,035

7,861,067

Central Admin Payroll

154,140

Other Direct Costs

1,613,625

Income before Fixed Charges

6,093,302

Total Fixed Costs

674,325

Income before Taxes

5,418,977

Business Tax Paid

1625693

Income after Business Taxes

3,793,284

4th year

Assumptions

Average room rate states the same

Average occupancy increased to 70%

Sales

Room

7,394,419

Food&Bev

4,313,411

Other

1,848,605

12,324,032

Cost of Sales

Room

353,246

Food & Bev

1,509,694

Other

1,109,163

2,618,857

Payroll & Related

Room

834,449

Food & Bev

680,428

Other

85,000

1,599,877

Gross Profit less Wages

Room

6,206,724

Food & Bev

2,123,289

Other

654,442

8,984,455

Central Admin Payroll

154,140

Other Direct Costs

1,634,000

Income before Fixed Charges

7,196,315

Total Fixed Costs

674,325

Income before Taxes

6,521,990

Business Tax Paid

1,956,597

Income after Business Taxes

4,565,393

Introduction

A hotel and Restaurants are the place where providing products such as food, accommodation and services to the guests who willing to pay for whatever consumed or experienced by them.

Basically when the people like to stay or eat out of the home, first they expect the good services, quality products and satisfaction because of this the classification systems is introduced to in hotel and restaurant Industry. Once we search about why people using the classifications systems in hotel and restaurants;

The people can find the hotel and restaurant in easily according to their budgets, because every one can’t stay in five star hotels and they can’t eat in luxury restaurants, so they can find the hotels and restaurants in their capacity.
Most of the people they like to stay and eat at quality and luxury hotels and restaurants, because they like to keep their high range so this classification system is most useful to find the highest range of hotels and restaurants also.
Everyone has a expecting the different facilities, so according to some of classification systems they can find the facilities,

Eg; swimming pool, sports access, live music, Wi-Fi Internet access conference facilities,

specially disable people expecting the assistance or disable access in room and restaurants
The every traveller interest to visit to different kind of places so it’s very helpful to find the accommodations and quality restaurants in their interested places.
The people can make sure their own health and safty,via the classification system because the classification systems are have some of basic law and rules because of that they are checking the quality of food and products, after that only their register with them that industry, And as a same time this classification system is helping to the Hotel and restaurant industry also,
Every customers are checking the range of facilities and the quality of products, so their taking the classification guides in their hand before their leaving home so this is the best way to advertise the industry,
It’s the best way to publish their business, once the hotels or restaurants are registered with this systems their publishing their qualities of products, and their services, and they can show the range of their industry

Eg; one – five stars hotels, one – three roses’ restaurants

The classification system is reaching to all the customers as a tour guides, so when the Hotel and restaurants are register with this the industry don’t want to advertise their products and services as a result the industry promote the business automatically via the classification system.
In this guides their using lots of simple symbols to easy to identify the range or standards, qualities, services, prices and facilities of the hotel and restaurant industry.
The classification systems are having different structures;
Registration:

Every Form of licensing which may or may not demand a minimum standard. Eg; Safety and security, Cleanliness, Maintenance, Physical Quality, Hospitality, Reservations, Prices and Billing, Housekeeping Services, Food Quality, Menu and Pricing, Heating and Temperature Control, Lighting, Communication and Business Services and Alcoholic Drink Services/Licences

Classification:

Separation of different types and ranges of accommodation as one To five stars hotel this several categories based on a range of criteria according to these five aeries such as cleanliness, service, food, bedrooms and bathrooms.

And also we can divide the Hotel accommodations as five to seven categories to be applied. – Other forms of accommodation e.g. motels, guest-houses and self catering apartments seldom justify more than two or three classes.

Grading: Often combine with classification; this is a quality assessment awarding a symbol to denote an above average service to an accommodation facility.

Eg; Green globe classification systems for environment, product the global warming,

Popular classification systems in Great Britain:
Introduction;
The AA is offer quality-assured accommodation because the AA team of experts visited and rated for the all the accommodations.
In this AA classification system has offer over 6,500 places to stay in UK. Whether Travellers looking for B&Bs, farmhouses, inns, hotels, country houses hotels or town houses, they can find the perfect places via AA.
Every Accommodation uploaded with their available facilities, location, prices, services, and with the images and Details with the descriptions written by an AA inspector.
From short breaks and family holidays to business trips, everyone can book their accommodation with the AA for guaranteed peace via the secure online booking process
The AA is one of the UK’s most well-established and respected organizations and has been recommending hotels to travellers since 1908. With over 100 years of experience behind us, you can be confident in your hotel choice.
Get the most out of the details of trip with AA Travel. Easy to find the route and find places to stay at your destination with AA Route Planner, and find places to eat out at your destination with our Restaurants HYPERLINK “http://www.theaa.com/travel/basicsearch/preparepoisearchstage1.do?statusstage1=new&page=fooddrink”&HYPERLINK “http://www.theaa.com/travel/basicsearch/preparepoisearchstage1.do?statusstage1=new&page=fooddrink” Pubs search facility, and find things to do and places to see with the AA’s Events HYPERLINK “http://www.theaa.com/travel/basicsearch/preparepoisearchstage1.do?statusstage1=new&page=eventattraction”&HYPERLINK “http://www.theaa.com/travel/basicsearch/preparepoisearchstage1.do?statusstage1=new&page=eventattraction” Attractions listings.

The common standards make types of accommodation easy to understand and give you confidence that establishments can meet the standards you require.

The AA is categorised the accommodation such as Hotel, Guest accommodation and Budget Hotel.

Hotel and guest accommodation are divided into sub-categories or designators that provide more information about the type of establishment.

Hotel categories;
Hotel;
A formal accommodation offering full hotel services.
Country House Hotel;
A hotel with sample grounds or gardens set in a rural or semi-rural situation; the property has a focus on peace and quiet.
Small Hotel;
Smaller establishments having a maximum of 20 bedrooms, and personally run by the owner.
Town House Hotel;
A high-quality property of distinctive style with a maximum of 50 bedrooms, set in a town or city centre; possibly no dinner but room service is available instead.
Metro Hotel;
A town or city property providing full hotel services except dinner, with the easy walking distance of a range of places to eat.
Guest accommodation categories

B&B (Bed and Breakfast)
who they are providing the accommodation and breakfast only by owners for paying guests.

Guest House

who they are providing the accommodation, breakfast and more services by owners and staff for paying more than six guests.E.g. Dinner.

Farmhouse
Bed and Breakfast or Guest House accommodation provided on a working farm.

Restaurant with Rooms
A restaurant offering a maximum of 12 bedrooms.

Guest Accommodation
Any establishment that with the accommodation only in this general category.

Accommodation standards Star ratings

Star ratings, from one to five, show the standard of quality for hotels and guest accommodation.

Star rating
Hotel
Guest Accommodation
The most of the rooms are en suite standard,
Daily Breakfast and dinner most evenings at the designed restaurants.
Minimum quality requirements are; cleanliness, maintenance, hospitality, facilities and services.
Continental breakfast is served in a dining room or eating area, or bedroom only.
All rooms are en suite with the private facilities.
Daily breakfast and dinner serves at Designed restaurant or dining room.
Good quality beds and breakfast prepared with a good level of care.
Professional Staffs and quality services.Eg; Silver services.
All rooms are en suite,
The restaurant or dining room is open to residents and non-residents.
Standard services with Friendly welcome, and good-quality beds and furnished room
A Good quality choice of fresh cooked food for breakfast.
Professional, uniformed staffs respond to the guest request and needs,
Well-arranged public areas.
The restaurant or dining room is open to residents and non-residents,
Lunch is available in a designated eating area.
At least half of the bedrooms are en suite or have private bathrooms with Very good beds and high quality furniture.
A Good quality choice of fresh cooked food for breakfast
Luxurious accommodation and public areas, with a range of extra facilities available
High quality menu and wine list.
All bedrooms are en suite and with the private bathroom.
Excellent quality beds and furnishings.
Breakfast includes specials/home-made items, high quality ingredients, and fresh local produce.
Other accommodation symbols used on this website

AA Merit % Score
This is the additional Star rating system, this percentage is an AA Merit Score as a percentage. It shows the level of quality achieved within each Star rating, which helps you to compare hotels with the same number of Stars.

Accommodation prices

Prices are given for a single or double room per night this Prices include VAT, except in the Channel Islands where VAT does not apply.

But this all the prices are subject to change better to check the rates before making booking, and these prices for hotels and guest accommodation shown in Euros (EUR).

Pennant ratings for campsites and caravan parks Campsites and caravan parks are rated by AA inspectors on a five-point scale. The Pennant ratings increase with the quality and variety of facilities a park offers.

The AA Pennant rating is only based on the touring pitches and the facilities at campsites and caravan parks. AA inspectors do not visit or report on rented static caravans or chalets.

Holiday Centres

Holiday Centres cater for all holiday needs, including entertainment and catering facilities. They provide:

a wide range of on-site sports, leisure and recreational facilities
exceptional supervision and security
a choice of eating outlets
touring facilities of equal importance to statics
a maximum density of 25 pitches per acre
clubhouse with entertainment provided
automatic laundry
Rosette awards for restaurants

Available Facilities; – Bedrooms, with smart modern bathrooms, are very well equipped and feature a wealth of practical and thoughtful extras. Public areas, furnished in a minimalist style, retain many period features, including a Grade II listed conservatory. The Orchid Restaurant is an ideal setting for both casual and fine dining. A luxury spa is due to open in the autumn of 2009.

Direction
Bed Rooms
Extra Facilities

M53 junct 12 towards Chester. Hotel 500yds on left
Nearest station: Chester
Nearest motorway: M53 junct 12

The Doubletree By Hilton Chester Is Located In Chester, England.

Outside City Centre, Close To Chester Races, Near Chester Zoo

En-suite rooms:110

Direct dial from rooms. No dogs allowed except guide dogs

24-Hour Room Service,

Restaurant, Concierge Desk, Cable Television On Flat-screens, Complimentary High-speed Internet, Coffee And Tea Facilities

According to this AA guide they had given the enough information about the Doubletree Hilton Hotel. Such as the hotel star category, restaurant’s Rosette awards, Restaurant percentage Score, Hotel images, the room price, available facilities of this hotel also. So we can say this guide made for easy to find the accommodation where the traveller interested.

In 1900 the Michelin Guide started by Andre Michelin in France, The main product is Michelin tyres, the first Michelin Guide was created for who they are working with the company drivers only, because it’s easy locate garages and fuel suppliers during their journey in France and in future it was included the good places for food and lodging to overnight stay in France.
In future The Michelin Guide offers selection of the best hotels and restaurants in every category, at prices to suit all budgets. The choices are made by Michelin team of inspectors, who they are travelling across the country in all
Now it’s with 12 guides covering Austria, Benelux, France, Germany, Great Britain & Ireland, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Switzerland.
However the main goal is to make travelling easier and help readers.
The Scale of Michelin Guide;-
In 110 years, 30 million copies of the Michelin Guide for France have been sold, with an average of 400,000 copies sold in each of the past three years in a total of 97 countries.
45,000 letters are received every year for the Michelin Guides in Europe, of which more than 80 per cent agree with our recommendations.
Fewer than five per cent of establishments in the Guide have been awarded stars.
The Michelin Guide Great Britain & Ireland includes 5445 establishments.
The 12 Guides in the collection contain a total of more than 45,000 hotels and restaurants.
The Michelin guide has divided in country wise as Red Guide and Green Guide.

u Red Guide is shows the categorized accommodation and restaurant details in the country, but The Green Guide is showing the information on history and cultural heritage of the country.

The Restaurant which is registered with Michelin;

The goal of the Tourist board is to develop the tourism England. The tourist board guide is including over 27,000 quality assessed accommodation establishments for a place stay.

The Tourist Board is operating the Tourist Information Centres is all over the England,

TIC services are;

Find a place to stay
In TIC can find the quality accommodation to stay to the tourist where they are interested to visit.

Plan a Tour
The people have any ideas about their holidays, or day outs, the TIC make the tour plans and arrange the trip according to their ideas and where they are interested places and also they can search for attractions and events all over the country, the people can also purchase tickets forevents and attractions in TIC

Destination guides
In TIC issuing the Destination guide so, anyone can read the destination guides in theDestinationssection and learn about a wide range of towns, cities, villages and other holiday locations all over England.

Traveller’s tips
If Traveller’s like to visit anywhere in England, the TIC will give the important and use full information and instructions to them, it’s helpful for their safety and healthy travel.

The Tourist board is categorising the industry according to their minimum requirements, such as accommodation standard, cleanliness, ambience, hospitality, service and food. When the tourist board satisfied they are using the star rating system, (1 to 5 Stars)

Except the star awards the Tourist board is awarding the Silver & Gold awards for hotels and guest accommodation whose quality outperforms their star rating.

The tourist board is care about the green world; as a result they introduced the green award.

The tourist board expect the minimum requirement of establishment:

u Licensed to serve alcohol

u All bedrooms en-suite or with private bathroom

u Designated reception facility and proprietor or staff on the premises day and evening

u Access to hotel at all times for registered guests

u Dinner served at least five days a week

(Unless town house hotel/metro hotel)

The Tourist board categorised the accommodation;
Hotels

Any establishment have more than 20rooms it’s categorised under the Hotel category.

Small hotels

More than 6 rooms and a maximum of 20 and its run by owner

Country house hotels

Accommodation with grounds or gardens, in a rural or semi-rural location, with emphasis on peace and quiet.

Town house hotels

It’s established in city/town centre locations offering high quality with a distinctive style.

Metro hotels

It’s we can found in city/town centres, offering full hotel services, but no dinner. They will be within easy walking distance of a range of places to eat.

Budget hotels

Always part of a large ‘branded’ hotel group offering clean and comfortable en-suite facilities, 24-hour reservations and a consistent level of facilities.

Self catering

This accommodation provides the freedom to eat out or cook for yourself

Holiday villages

Holiday villages are a popular way of combining accommodation and on-site leisure facilitiesfor families and adults.

The Tourist board awards

This study aims at identifying the relationships between residents’ socio- cultural, economic and environmental aspect and their attitudes towards tourism by focusing on a small community where tourism is in the development stage. By conducting this research, the author hopes to come across the residents’ attitudes and capture their current perceptions about tourism development in their area. Moreover, this research is being done because most authors agree that initial community attitudes toward tourism are critical to community involvement in the industry (Murphy 1981), the formation of destination image (Echtner & Ritchie 1991).

Attitudes are defined as “a state of mind of the individual toward a value” (Allport 1966, p. 24) and as “an enduring predisposition towards a particular aspect of one’s environment” (McDougall & Munro 1987, p. 87). Attitude of host community to tourism based development can improve if there is a boost in the tangible and indescribable settlements the host community can receive by being in based development (Choi & Sirakaya, 2006). As Attitudes are based under this understanding, this is why some researchers came to a conclusion that residents’ attitudes toward tourism are not simply the reflections of residents’ perceptions of tourism impacts, but the results of interaction between residents’ perceptions and the factors affecting their attitudes (Lankford et al.1994). Some preceding researchs have proved that some most important impacts of tourism are identified along with its variables, however the theory is underdeveloped: “Currently there is limited understanding of why residents respond to the impacts of tourism as they do, and under what conditions residents react to those impacts” (Ap 1992, p. 666). Husband (1989) also addressed this issue by saying “There is, so far, no theoretical justification of why some people are, or are not, favorably disposed to tourism” (p. 239).

Various issues can persuade perceptions of the host community about positive outcomes of tourism development. Support will depend on the degree of benefits perceived. The participation of community will be discussed later on in the literature review. The acceptance of local values can also be an important factor that leads to the achievement of a tourism based development (Alexander, 2000). However over a certain period of time many findings detected that host community perceptions’ in the direction from tourism may have more positive attitudes. People who depend on tourism industry or having a better economic benefit may possibly have a higher degree of positivity than other inhabitants who do not benefit from a tourism development ( lankford and howard, 1994; Jurowski, Uysal, and willimas, 1997; Sirakaya , Teye and Sonmez,2002 ).

Lindberg and Johnson (1997) mentioned that people having higher economic impacts from tourism may have more positive attitudes. However Travis (1984) has stated that its not only an economic characteristics such as the opportunity for jobs creation or capital generation that needs to be considered by the host community. The socio-cultural and environmental aspects are also very important. For Choi and Sirakaya (2005), the most community should also have a better environment in term of infrastructures and improved amenities such as leisure and recreational activities. They describe tourism as consisting of various supports and any development in the tourism field should ensure the protection of the culture of host community, alongside the protection of the environment.

In order to clarify the relationship between the impacts of tourism and residents’ attitudes toward tourism, several models have been developed. One of the most influential models is Doxey’s Irridex model (1975) which suggests that residents’ attitudes toward tourism may pass through a series of stages from “euphoria,” through “apathy” and “irritation.” to “antagonism,” as perceived costs exceed the expected benefits. This model is supported by Long et al.’s (1990) research results, which indicate residents’ attitudes, are initially favorable but become negative after reaching a threshold.

To have a better comprehension about the relationship between the impacts of tourism and residents’ attitudes toward tourism, several models have been developed. One of the most dominant models is Doxey’s Irridex model (1975) which suggests that residents’ attitudes toward tourism may pass through a series of stages from “euphoria,” through “apathy” and “irritation.” to “antagonism,” as perceived costs exceed the expected benefits. This model was supported by Long et al.’s (1990) research results, which indicated that residents’ attitudes are initially favorable but become negative after reaching a threshold. The Irridex model indicates that residents’ attitudes toward tourism will change overtime. It suggests that residents’ attitudes and reactions toward tourism contain a sense of homogeneity (Mason et al. 2000). Conversely, this concept was challenged by some research findings that reported heterogeneous community responses and diverse residents’ attitudes simultaneously existing in a community (Brougham et al. 1981,Rothman 1978).

Critics about Doxey Irridex Model and Butler Tourism Area Life cycle

According to Butler (1975) when he has developed a more complex model, he suggested that both positive and negative attitudes could be held by residents in a community simultaneously and be expressed via active and passive support or opposition. Furthermore this model is supported by Murphy’s (1983) research results, which reveal the distinct attitude differences among residents, public officials, and business owners in three English tourist centers. Despite that the model addresses the difficulty of residents’ attitudes toward tourism, researchers still lacked theories explaining relationships between residents’ attitudes and tourism impacts until Ap (1992) applied social exchange theory to tourism.

According to the theory, exchange will start, only when there are irregular inaction forms. Ap (1992) suggests that “residents evaluate tourism in terms of social exchange, that is, evaluate it in terms of expected benefits or costs obtained in return for the services they supply” He also argued that when exchange of resources is high for the host actor in either the balanced or unbalanced exchange relation, tourism impacts are viewed positively, while tourism impacts are viewed negatively if exchange of resources is low. Social exchange theory has been examined as a theoretical framework by researchers to describe residents’ attitudes toward tourism impacts (Perdue et al. 1990, McGehee & Andereck 2004).

The Doxey irridex model gives a clear view of how host community attitude changes over a period of time. It mentions host community perceptions, reactions and attitudes in the direction of tourism (Manson et al.2000). This can be a conflicting principle because some research came to a conclusion that various host community attitudes and perceptions may exist in the community, (Brougham et al.1981, Rothman 1978). Akis, Peristanis & Warner (1996) disapprove the Irridex Model and The Tourism Life Cycle and view it as too simple, because both models give a few hint of changing host community perceptions and attitudes over time. Other researchers like Lankford and Howard (1994, P.135) opposed against the model of Doxey(1975) because positive and negative factors that affect the perceptions and attitudes of host community are not given much consideration.

As the tourism industry keeps on changing, this may be a reason why we must give this industry continuous support for its related development. Andereck & vogt( 2000) stated that it is considered that optimistic attitudes towards tourism may entail the encouragement for further tourism development.

If there is any delay in tourism project development can be due to frustration towards tourists. Mill and Morisson (1984) even mention that, ‘an acceptance of tourism cannot be built unless the benefits of tourism are made relevant to the community’. Attitudes and perceptions of host community at a destination is of utmost importance in the accomplishment of tourism development alongside the development of the industry at large also, (Hayword,1975), (Heenan, 1978), and Hiller (1976).

There is a broad belief perception and attitudes of host community in the direction of tourism outcomes are apt to become essential planning and policy concern for flourishing development and expansion of existing and potential tourism programs, (Ap,1992). Host community attitudes and perception is very important as it will influence their behavior towards tourism, (Andriotis and Vaughan, 2003).

Host community involvement and participation

Community participation has become a common element in many development initiatives, such as community-based programmes, which assume participatory methods and has been promoted by development organizations, notably the World Bank, to address the inefficiency of highly centralized development approaches particularly in the developing world (Baral and Heinen, 2007).

Today, many development initiatives solicit the participation of all concerned stakeholders, at the relevant level, not only for the sake of efficiency and equity of the programmes, leverage of donors and demands of local communities, but also for o for sustainability of these initiatives (Ribot, 2004). . Consequently, the real outcome for soliciting such community participation is to create and produce an enabling environment needed by these stakeholders, especially local communities who have been vulnerable to negative impacts of tourism attributed partly to the fact that many tourism resources occur in their areas, to have a real stake in development activities (Havel, 1996; Songorwa, 1999). This requires involving local communities in decision-making and strengthening their ability to act for themselves. One approach to achieve this is “through investments in human capital, such as education and health, investments in social capital such as local-level institutions and participatory processes, and support for community based development efforts planned and implemented from bottom up” (Havel, 1996, p.145). However, given the fact that the central point underlying people’s participation may be the degree of power distribution, these efforts are less likely to succeed unless responsive institutions and the legal and policy framework that facilitate and support local participation are in place (Havel, 1996; Tosun, 2004; Wang and Wall, 2005).

After reading the case study of the hotel one can easily find out what are the strength and weakness of the hotel. Some of the strength are that the hotel is situated in center of the city. The hotel is 3 star properties. Which is manly focusing on the business clients? Even though the hotel is situated at the center of the city, the hotel is struggling to maintain the profit margin. From the last few years Because of the 3 new hotel which maintain the national or international standard, opened near by the hotel, that way the courthouse hotel is not able to make profit. The standard of food and service of courthouse hotel is relatively lower than the other hotels. The hotel capacity is 150 bedrooms, a bar, and a carver style restaurant and a room in which marriage and business conferences are held. Some of the weakness of the hotel is, there is no banquet facility, no room service. In this way the hotel lack some of the newer property near by. Most of the people who are employees in the courthouse hotel are on full time or permanent contract, leaving few senior manager and night workers. The staff of the hotel works in to shift either early or late shift. The hotel need staff only a weekend in the month due to the business executive staying there in weekend.

3 month before a business tycoon bought this hotel and his planning to up grade the hotel to a four star properties, giving good services to clients. For upgrading the hotel his planning to make a a-la-carte restaurant, new banquet in the hotel, staffing should be improved. And hotel needs good skills employees. The employees need a good communication skills and coordination of staff is also need.

There is a opening of a new convention center is walking distance of the hotels, there will be a trade increase of 60% which is expected so the courthouse hotel standard are to be rise. And also now the hotel will be in the hands of German chancellor, so every world leader having the meeting with the German chancellor for this the hotel should improve the standard of service.

2. STAFFING ISSUES

The staff should be change or hotel should hire new employees because the present employees or not accustomed to four star grading needs and requirements and it may be possible that staff may not like this type off behavior fro the management the hotel should appoint new staff because new people work a bit more harder than the older staff.

In case of the curt house hotel needs to look after on the major issues of Staffing. It will take care by the upper management of the organization. Management need to looks after on the budget and the staff problems occurring in the middle, when the management planning for the next year summer objective to change hotel from 3 star to 4star property. It’s not easy job, they need to organize the training and development programs for the employees. Management needs to hire employees from internal and external source of recruitment. The main thing in this training and development programs the employees need to concentrate on the training so that they can put an effort for the future goals and objectives. Management need to look after on the budget what they are spending on the training and development programs so that they get a better outcome for an organization.

The hospitality industry is highly, influenced by the human labour starting right from chefs, to the servers, bartenders, dishwashers, front office personnel or room attendants.

(Supervision in the Hospitality Industry, by Miller, Walker & Drummond pg-5) It all depends on the employees to bring in guests or loose business.

Talking about the case study “The Courthouse”, a 3 Star hotel has certain drawbacks & issue, which the new owner would face while its up gradation. The staffing issues in the months to come, which the hotel will face are as follows (Case study-“the Courthouse Hotel”): –

2.1 Unskilled Staff: –

According to the author, the hotel up gradation would result in the increase in the profit of the hotel as the city is opening a new convention center, in the upcoming months. The Courthouse would be allotted to the German Delegates who are very particular about the services. The hotel staff though are good experience holders but is unaware of the standards of services to be given in a 4star categorized hotel. The current staff being unskilled & unaware of the techniques & procedures to be followed in the Courthouse Hotel is an issue that would worry the management.

2.2 Variation in the Shift Timings: –

The employees of the hotel are not aware of the actual shift timings that is followed in any property, this is a big drawback for the hotel. The introduction to the varied shifts i.e., morning, afternoon, evening, break & night shifts would create a chaos amongst the employees which might further lead to staff turnover. Not only this might the staff being used to its own ideologies might not agree to accept the new changes implemented in their working hours. Working only for one weekend out of 4 can again be a point of discussion.

2.3 Improvement in the Standard: –

With the up gradation of the star categorization of the Courthouse Hotel, the improvement in standard of the services & facilities is an important issue in regards to the up-market of 3-star categorized hotel to 4-star standard. The hotel needs to set up certain Standard Operating Principles about which the staff needs to be trained properly. From the case study the author has already mentioned about the maximum percentage of staff being permanent, hence they have been following their own ways of performing their job & they may not encourage new changes in their work culture & methods.

2.4 Sacking of Employees: –

According to the case study, maximum staff is employed on a fulltime basis in permanent contract, which suggest that most of the employees are experienced in this situation the sacking of such staff members would be absurd. In the stage of up gradation of the star- categorization of the property sacking of experienced employees & hiring of new employees would increase the financial burden on the management, as the new skilled would be required to be paid more.

3 PLAN OF ACTION

The new hotel owner should go through the following plans in practice to get the targeted goal of the organization.

Customer services / satisfaction

Training given to staff

Leadership quality

Interpersonal skills of staff

3.1 CUSTOMER SERVICES/SATISFACTION:-

Business comprises of a sole meaning of how much effort and the measure the company has to make in order to meet the demands of the customer. It is considered to be as one of the key performance indicator within the business. In today’s competition intensive market customer satisfaction plays a vital role in providing information about how much effort is being put and how much more is required, that is the sole big reason why it is becoming an increasingly important factor in Business strategy making.

This factor is considered to be an abstract concept because the level of satisfaction varies from person to person and between product and services. It also puts a psychological effect on the process and this makes a link with satisfaction behaviors such as return and proposed rates and expectations. A customer has its own factors on which it decides upon which to choose and which not to chouse he can compare the other product with the company product.

Customer satisfaction usually is measured with a set of survey measures records by using a scale or Likert technique. Customer is invited to evaluate each and every statements in terms of their own observation and expectations from the use of that product being measured.

LEADERSHIP QUALITY:-

Transformational leaders always make a strong vision amongst the employees and set examples of a good judgment of mission and strong hospitality organization. Transformational leadership has always been of a vital importance in today’s hard fought customer market of hotels where flexibility, determination, willingness to change and modernize are key factors of an organizational success.

The work, which is earlier done on leadership, has extracted distinction, transactional and transformational leadership. (Burns, 1978)

STAFF TRAINING:-

This is an important tool in succession planning, it is used to find suitable individuals for hiring and promotions. It can also be defined as a formal tool in which plans are developed to ensure that replacements can be successfully and gladly be filled with efficient individuals. Succession planning helps continue the pursuit of strategic goals an missions in a relatively competitive way so as to be there in the market place and compete with the rival companies at par. This is always maintained by the training and development staff.

3.4 INTERPERSONAL SKILL OF STAFF:-the employees should trytalk to the peoplethis is the interpersonal skill of a employees. Interpersonal skill can be told as the way of communication in a better way, to meet that standard. Communication helps to reduce theclashes between the employees and the managers in this way the motive can be achived. The person who is having good interpersonal skills can handle difficult situtation in a better way.

4 – CHANGE MANAGEMENT

Change can be negative or positive in any organization in courthouse hotel staff can it as in a positive way or can put it in a negative way. The mindset of the staff can make them to resist for change or also it can be possible if they like the change they can also welcome it and adopt it as new step to development. The reason for the resistance can be as follows.

Freedom- there might be thinking amongst the staff whether they will be under a boss who can resist their freedom to work.

Responsibility – their responsibility can be divided between the new staff. And their task can be reduced.

Authority – their position can be lost and power can be shared between others

Work condition – there work condition can be changed and they have to work under different condition which can further demotivated their moral.

Status – their responsibility can be reduced. As the management will be hiring more staff so this will be a thread for others staff whether their job title will be same or they have to change. It can be above the level or below the level.

There is also a reason amongst other the staffs “what the matter with the way the things are now?” typically any change in courthouse hotel can be beneficial and management will not face much problems while implicating these changes. Resistance to change can also make staff to go against the management. Management also will have to look the staff members who are welcoming the change and how to sustain them by motivation.

If the existing staff is resisting to change this amplifies that they don’t have knowledge and trust on the organization and also may be because of lack of understanding about the change. If the staffs doesn’t understand the reason for change they makes a distrust over the organization. This distrust can also make others positive staff to go behind the distrust.

With the change of standards in courthouse hotel the technology will be upgrading and this will be a main concern between the staffs how to match the standards. A very difficult situation will be there between the staffs is they fail to grab the standards. And this creates a resistance amongst the staffs.

Three 3 key elements of Kirkpatrick’s model for change management.

4.1 Empathy-: (Kirkpatrick, 2001), According to Kirkpatrick manager should put himself in the place of employee, which is, best way to realize the employees feeling. Managers should also refer to the doubts of the employees that they might have in their minds so that they might not resist the change process. . There are some steps by which a manager can know about the employees, first step is looking personal files, second step is asking questions from the employee and the next and last step is listening and observing. According to Robert Bacall empathy is “walking in other person shoes”. Thus by implying empathy in the courthouse hotel the managers should get to know the problems of the individual employees.

4.2 Communication-: Robert Bacall states that communication is a 2 way method and in this method the hotel management has to communicate the desired wants and new management policies to the hotel staff. In communication after giving instructions the management has to even look for the feedback from the employees. So that the barriers for communication can be over ridden.

4.3 Participation-: (Coch et al, 1948), states that participation is the major step. Participation is the change tends to reduce resistance build on the change and motive people to make the change to work. Kirkpatrick, (2007), states that Participation is technique for use in conducting instructional meetings. The participation has it’s two basic approached first one is which one is most common form is to have discussion among the participation without any hesitation and leaders gives questions and problems to entire group. Employers answer it to the leader. Second approach is that group is divided into buzz group of 4 or 5 people so that each employee can participate actively. Thus it is suggested that by implying participation the employs tend to feel better and favour the change rather than resisting it.

CONCLUSION: –

After reading the whole study of the courthouse hotel. We get to know the hotel is facing loss in the business through this we get to what are the staffing issues in the hotel. The hotel employees may to react to the change in a favorable point of view. Because they may not like the change due to lack of coronation between the employees. If the employees and the managers are not coordinating in proper way An organization cannot be run in a good way. If the worker are not skilled enough to do there job. Then there will be issues in the organization. Change management can manage staffing issues.

In the case study element of change management shows how the empathy, participation, and communication may help in handling the changes in a proper way.

The hotels new owner is transforming the hotel to a four star property. and he is trying to make changes in the hotel which favorable for both the organization and the employees working there. If the organization follow the element of the change management goals can be achieved in a much easer way working with the employees and manager.