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In recent years, Vietnam has taken great steps in the development of tourism. Tourism is promoted widely by the government because it provides the potential for job opportunities, thus producing income for the country and became a source of revenue for the government. However, the tourism industry can also be seen as a critical force, causing negative outcomes such as congestion, the loss of natural environmental and landscapes and the cultural degradation (Bui, 2009). These problems are becoming an issue towards tourism industry of Vietnam due to the lack of effective planning and proper planning of tourism development. Tourism is claimed to be one of the key elements towards the country’ economy development with particular attention being placed on infrastructure development, human resources, environmental issues, product development and marketing strategies by the Tourism Master Plan 2001 -2010 (Vietnam Embassy, 2011). Yet, evidence demonstrates a critical need for identifying sustainable ways of using the tourism resources by avoiding a voracious exploitation of the country’s patrimony as well as to ensure the beneficial trade exchange in the international marketplace and substantial long-term socio-economic benefits. This report seeks to explore how the sustainable tourism development in Vietnam affects its economic, social and environmental with an emphasis placed on the challenges that appear along this process.

2.0 Overview of sustainable tourism in Vietnam

Vietnam has a high market potential in the tourism industry with foreign investors showing interest in the country (Mok and Lam, 2000). The introduction of an economic reform policy, doi moi encouraged the establishment of normal political with other countries by lifting the restrictions on investment by the private sector. As a result, Vietnam has experienced a massive growth in the service industry since the Asian financial crisis in 1998. The improving visa policy, the limited transportation networks and the restricted marketing (i.e. tourism promotion budget around S$1m about a tenth the size of the budgets of Singapore) are the three main considerations of accessibility to Vietnam (Suntikul, Butler and Airney, 2008).

According to the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism (2010), international visitors to Vietnam reached 449,570 arrivals in 2010, increasing by 19% over the same period last year. The total international arrivals in 2010 reached 5,049,855 representing a 34.8% growth. In terms of market share, China was ranked top, with the largest influx of visitors into Vietnam in 2010, while the South Korea and Japan, at second and third, also dominated the market. Such a number exceeds the carrying capacity in Vietnam, including both its tourist infrastructure and environment and risks serious overcrowding in some cities of attraction e.g. Hue, environmental pollution, degradation of monuments and the collapse of the tourist industry as the result of unsustainable tourism development (Bui, 2009).

Since 1995, Vietnam National Administration of Tourism (VNAT) urged the tourism industry to focus on the development of facilities and infrastructure to encourage more investment, while developing a unique tourism product (Vietnam Embassy, 2008). It is also stated that the unsustainable nature of the sector both in terms of use of local resources and tourists’ arrivals (limited repeat visitors) , which is also reflected by tourism destination being exploited carelessly and by traditional cultures being affected and changed by tourist arrivals. In other words, there is a need to address the Vietnamese tourism sites that have been exploited without proper planning, caring and investing take place in tourism facilities, the conservation and restoration of values of culture, history and landscapes.

The ever-increasing annual number of international and domestic tourists coming to Vietnam has been a significant encourage to the industry in its efforts to promote tourism business development in a sustainable manner. (Luong, 2005b)

3.0 Issues faced in sustaining tourism development in Vietnam

3.1 Weak institutional practices

Vietnam tourism development is dominated by small-medium enterprise (SMEs) that facing weak institutional practice, low financial capacity and lack of attention about environmental conservation and protection (Bui, 2009). These firms are a distinct group with diverse of needs and associated impacts. The problem in infrastructure and improper solid waste practices and sewage produced from the hundreds of tourism enterprises and the mass market of visitors has caused a serious environment pollution and degradation of cultural heritage. Also, there is a lack of clear stands and procedures to examine its strategies in the development of tourism and policies planning. As a result, the VNAT had to reconsider many of its development targets segments for Vietnam tourism industry in the 21st century.

The urge to earn foreign exchange and the lack of a strong institutional fundamental to effectively manage environmental resources had led to many example of unsustainable development (Thang, 2004). The domestic private and international sectors have been supported the development of sustainable tourism in Vietnam because it believed that this new market-oriented mechanism brings with it economic benefits. It can be showed as the participation of the local and international stakeholders in sustainable tourism development is only concentrated in the some popular tourist attraction for e.g. SAPA which believed to generate extra revenue by ensuring a clean, green and attractive tourism destination image. Meanwhile, Vietnam government tried to devote its attention to the management of the environment because the fears a loss of political control over the tourism industry due to its rapid development. Yet, the capacity at district government is very low to cater to need in the huge market of sustainable tourism development.

Despite that, each group of stakeholders has different views and concern on their responsibility towards the future of tourism depending on the amount of investment that they spend in each tourism destination. SMEs are often seemed to be more concerned towards their return in investment than the overall impact of their operations on the environment and socio-economic sphere (Cooper, 1997; Briassoulis, 2002; Thang 2004). The participation of SMEs are crucial in creating the modalities in strengthen institutional practice and management that enable sustainable tourism development to success. Adoption of sustainable tourism project requires strong institutional frameworks that can overcome shortage in the potential of the market to ease tourism enterprises especially the SMEs towards more sustainable business practices

Other than that, one of the challenges is that the policies and law system are inadequate, inconsistent and not in accordance with the reality of tourism development; there is also a lack of understanding and acknowledgement of international rules and principles (Lloyd, 2003). The weak institutional framework for the tourism industry in Vietnam has characterized by a fairly complex system of policies, laws, ordinances and regulation, issued by line ministries, agencies and provincial governments (Lloyd, 2003; Nhan Dan, 2006). It is stated that many existing laws and ordinances are incomplete, not only in terms of coverage but also in terms of lacking documents to guide for implementation (VNAT, 2005; Sam et al., 2001; Nhan Dan, 2006).

Thus, it is crucial to strengthen the need for sustainable tourism planning and management by emphasizing its structure and processes, that has not yet been fully explored and understood in many developing countries e.g. Vietnam. The strategies for sustainable tourism development made by developing countries often tend to be encumbered by the lack of understanding of the complexity of the tourism industry by stakeholders and a lack of strong institutional frameworks needed for their implementation (Bui, 2000). Thus, the corporation of an incorporated tourism development approach for a region emphasized that sustainable tourism development needs a well established institutional practice that enables the participation and co-ordination of stakeholders.

3.2 Threats to the local community in terms of social-economy factor

3.2.1 Employment for locality

The Vietnam tourism industry can also have less positive impacts in providing job opportunities for local communities. The tourism industry might reduce of jobs when national parks, forest, rivers or even rice fields become part of the tourism product/experience whereby local government have set buffer zones in many tourist resorts such as national parks, natural reserves and monuments in order to protect them. As a result, local people are forced to move out of, and thus restricted their living practices in these areas. When tourism development displaces and affects local villagers in this way, it can destroy their traditional employment practices (De, 2002; Ha, 2005). It is worthless to reduce labor costs in some tourism-related services since the private sector has made considerable effort to increase the efficiency of tourism business operation.

Another important feature of Vietnam’s tourism industry is that it is differentiated by small- and medium-scale tourism enterprise. Even though the country has taken actions to decentralize its diversity products and management system, yet the increased involvement of privately owned small enterprises in the tourism industry has resulted in slow employment growth. As most of these enterprises are in family based, thus their overall contribution to national employment has been small.

3.2.2 Arise of income equality in rural areas

From the social issues perspective, rapid population growth, inadequate basis services of education and health care and social stratification have emerged widely in Vietnam even though the country has made much effort to use its economic success for social improvements (Bui, 2009). According to Kokko and Tingvall (2005), Vietnam has faced the rising of income inequality over the past decade because some regions are improving and growing tremendously faster than others: average income is rising faster in the cities that have higher concentration of tourists than in rural areas whereby there are significant differences between incomes in lowland areas compared with the remote and mountainous areas which has less concentration of tourist.

Another example to look into this issue is through a popular tourism destination in Vietnam, Kim Bong Village is capable to attract the attention of tourist because of its scenic riverside landscape and traditional carpentry workshops. Yet, visitors only tend to stop by in Kim Bong village and undertake a short trip. Despite the tourism potential of the village, Kim Bong does not benefit from the development of tourism and is hindered by the underdeveloped infrastructure. As a result, a high incidence of poverty and a lack of decent employment opportunities are direct consequences of these drawbacks.

3.2.3 Lack of skilled human resources

The Asian-Tour project ToR highlighted that there is a lack of professional and skilled staff working in tourism sector. While it is easy to start working in the tourism sector, the long term success depends on the satisfaction of the tourist as client. The problem is especially arising when working with poor local communities, who show a lot of hospitality but do not really know how to serve international visitors. The cultural and language differences are constraining the tourism development in Vietnam.

Despite, Vietnam having more than 60 tourism training centers that offer university, vocational and postgraduate training, and many graduates from these centers fail to satisfy their employers’ requirements (Canh 2002; Luong, 2005b). The quality of tour operators, tour guides and hotels operating staff are at bare minimum of acceptable service levels for foreign tourist which reflected the poor quality standard of tourism training programmes offered in Vietnam. Due to the teaching standard and training programmes vary in each training institution has resulted a considerable of inconsistency in the used of textbooks and curricula. Tour companies claimed that tourism graduates are often poorly equipped with the skills and knowledge they needed in working in the sector, whereby there are insufficient historical and cultural understanding, lack of hospitality skills and poor language proficiency (Vietnam Cultural Profile, 2005). It is stated that the lack of qualified local tour guides who speak Asian languages such as Japanese, Chinese and Korean is of particular concern to the VNAT, given their current focus on this area because tourist from China, South Korean and Japan are the top three countries that have visited Vietnam in 2010. For this reason, the industry has to recruit skillful tour guides from outside the sector and trained in post.

3.2.4 Lack of participation of local communities

Despite that, the local communities and their leader are rarely included in the strategy, practices and policy making processes relating to sustainable tourism development project which affects their access and business activities to tourism resources. The level of participation of tourism enterprises and the local communities in the control of operation in tourism activities is constrain (De, 2002; Ha, 2005; Dinh et al., 2006). Despite that, however, from the local community’ point of view, a development and institutional practices might result in a loss of access to tourism resources and unfavorable social activities in the local economy. (Lipscombe & Thwaites, 2003). It can be seen that the major constraints to sustainable tourism development in Vietnam is due to the insufficient of communication and co-operation between various authorities, especially with central government developing policies for tourism planning, marketing and promotion of tourism.

3.3 Week awareness of planning and development of tourism facilities

It is undeniable that the tourism industry has contributed massively to the economic growth of Vietnam, but in return it has also caused environmental degradation, biodiversity deterioration and the other adverse impacts (Canh, 2002; Lam, 2002). The exploit of natural resources in the supply of tourists’ facilities can lead to conflicts over resources between the locality and the tourism industry. For example, the Tam Dao tourism site in Vinh Phuc province has become degraded; areas of Trang Tien, opera house or Bac Co in inner of the capital city should have planned into flower gardens rather building of Hilton hotel; beaches in Ha Long Bay of Quang Ninh province has been imposed by Hoang Gia hotel project; Van Phong gulf in Khanh Hoa province is about to become an uncultivated bay because of a shipbuilding plant (Le Minh, 2010)

Deforestation and intensified use of the resources can also result in environmental pollution and erosion. Pressures on the environment and tourism resources generated by the development of tourism in Vietnam are excessive. Often, those impacts are due to improper planning, negligent behavior by tourism-related services and tourists, and a lack of education and awareness towards the impacts by many localities.

In Vietnam, there have been many national parks cater to both conserve biodiversity as well as tourism attraction. It is risky for mass tourism participates in national parks with fragile forest ecosystems. In addition to the stresses put on the local environment through accommodating the needs and comforts of these tourists: communication routes, provision fuel wood and waste disposal services all put a large stress on the ecology (De, 2002; Luong, 2005a).

3.3.1 Poor infrastructure

The poor public infrastructure in Vietnam is a major issue to hotel and tourism. Roads are poor with many potholes and the adequate transport links between the north and south parts of the country. Floods in roads after downpours can be easily seen in tourist destination sites, causing a great deal of inconvenience and bad tourism image to tourists. The railway system is weak and substandard. Trains, still using steam engines, are slow of poor quality. Poor transportation networks and facilities have impeded travel by international tourist within the country (Connie and Terry, 1998). The system infrastructure is poorly developed whereby the transportation, tourism services, information system, telecommunication development are limited in terms of quality.

It is important to note that, because of a lack of proper national tourism promotion strategy and its poor infrastructure Vietnam struggles to compete as a tourism destination with some of its more developed neighbors such as Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia and Malaysia (VNAT, 2005).

3.4 Lack of diversified and sustainable tourism product

There are many articles appearing on the national newspaper Viet Nam News, emphasizing on tourism potential, development and target markets that became an important source of income to the country which resulted the efforts in advertising and promoting the image of Vietnamese tourism in international networks, and at the same time improving the quality of the current tourism products and services. Yet, minimum attentions have been placed towards the requirement of fundamental diversification in identifying and packaging of a tourism product to cater the different needs and expectations by the domestic, the short-haul Asian and the long-haul European and other international markets. It seems that tourism development in Vietnam can be seen through the construction of more high-rise hotel buildings as well as the emerged of international hotel chain to cope with increasing numbers of visitors, with the lack of attention towards the planning and management of those natural resources that attracted tourists in the first place.

3.5 Weak destination image

Those working in the tourism sector argue that the VNAT must implement more promotion towards the country in overseas than just presenting itself at selected international travel trade shows. Currently, the Vietnamese tourism industry has a ratio of 15 percent in repeated international arrivals, which is rather low compared with Singapore, Thailand or Indonesia (Thanh, 2007). The increasing conjunction of the industry into the regional and international tourism market has imposed a strong pressure for Vietnamese tourism enterprises (Bui, 2009). The standards in terms of marketing, branding and promotion have not met the demand and compete in Vietnam’s neighboring countries.

In responding its relative weakness in competitiveness, the Vietnam tourism industry has increasingly over-exploited natural and human tourism resources – cutting development costs in areas such as environmental management and providing poor worker conditions (Thanh, 2007). The deprivation of environmental resources has appeared widely in many tourist destinations such as Cat Ba, Ha Long, Da Nang and Vung Tau.

Introduction to event

The 2015 Southeast Asian Games, officially known as the 28^th Southeast Asian Games or 28^th Sea Games is a multi-sport event hosted by the city-state of Singapore. Sea games is held once in two years since 1959 and the first time is held in Thailand, Bangkok. The games are under regulation of the Southeast Asian Games Federation with supervision by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the Olympic Council of Asia. The games are participated by 11 countries which are Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore, Indonesia, Philippines, Vietnam, Myanmar, Cambodia, Timor-Leste, Brunei and Laos (28^th SEA Games, 2015).

Singapore is the fourth time has hosted Southeast Asian Games since 1993, after a 22-year long hiatus. The 28th Southeast Asian Games was held from 5^th June 2015 until 16^th June 2015 at the Singapore Sports Hub as main sporting location. The SEA Games was conceived as an expedient to avail forge vigorous regional cooperation, understanding and unity within the South East Asian community. It was established to be a bi-annual multi-sports event to take place between the years when the Olympic Games and the Asian Games were held. In addition to that, about 7000 athletes from 11 participating nations with 36 sports and 402 events will feature in the 28^th Southeast Asian Games Singapore 2015.

In 2011 during the 26th Southeast Asian Games, held in Indonesian cities Palembang and Jakarta, as the host of the 28th Southeast Asian Games of 2015, Singapore has been nominated to host the event in 2007 and 2013 before, but turned down both opportunities referring to costs connected with the construction of the new Singapore Sports Hub.

The 28^th SEA Games will show the people of the Southeast Asia that success ultimately comes to ordinary people with extraordinary dreams. It’s not about having a champion, but inspiring the champion that is inside each of us.

Stakeholder of the event

People and organisations with a legitimate interest in the outcomes of an event are known as stakeholders. The successful event manager must be able to identify the range of stakeholders in an event and manage their individual needs, which will sometimes overlap and conflict (Johnny et al, 2007). As with event impacts, the event will be judged by its success in balancing the competing needs, expectations and interests of a diverse range of stakeholders. When asked the question ‘what makes an event successful’, there are now numerous shareholders that are key components of modern major events that are looking at a whole range of different measures of success. Thus, the stakeholders that I have chosen for discussion of the event impacts are the government and the sponsorship.

The first stakeholders that I have chosen is the organizer of the 28^th Southeast Asian Games, which is the Singapore Sports Council (SSC) as it relates to stakeholders of government of Singapore. The Singapore Sports Council (SSC) is the national sports agency responsible for engendering access, opportunities and capabilities for individuals to live better through sports. Through Vision 2030, Singapore Sports Council seeks to employ sports as a national strategy to stimulate positive, deeply embedded values for Singaporeans and Singapore. Singapore Sports Council was founded in 1973, through the merger of the National Sports Promotion Board (NSPB) and the National Stadium Corporation (NSC). It engenders opportunities for people to excel in sports; opportunities for people to be engaged in sports as, coaches, officials, volunteers or fans and opportunities for people to do business in sports as sponsors and investors.

Singapore is a sovereign republic, with a legal system based on the English common law. The Constitution lays down the fundamental principles and basic framework for the three organs of state, namely, the Executive, the Legislative and the Judiciary. The Executive comprises the Cabinet, which is responsible for the general direction of the Government and accountable to Parliament. The Legislature comprises the Parliament and is the legislative authority responsible for enacting legislation. More information on the history of Parliament, Parliament House and activities of the House can be obtained from its website. The Judiciary’s function is to independently administer justice. The Judiciary is safeguarded by the Constitution.

The Prime Minister of Singapore is appointed by the President of Singapore under Article 25 of the Constitution. The President, acting on the advice of the Prime Minister, also appoints other Ministers from among the Members of Parliament. The Prime Minister is the effective head of the executive branch of government. He chairs the Cabinet, which is the central decision-making body of the executive government. It is an organ of state and central to Singapore’s system of government. Click for more information on the Cabinet appointments.

In order to attract sponsorships, event managers must offer tangible benefits to sponsors, and effective programs to deliver them. Large corporations such as Coca-Cola, 100 Plus and Telstra receive hundreds of sponsorship applications each week, and only consider those events that have a close fit with corporate objectives and a demonstrable ability to deliver benefits. For the event, sponsorship is therefore much more than a means of boosting revenues, but must also meet the needs and objectives of its sponsors (William et al, 2007).

Therefore, the second stakeholders that I have chosen is the main sponsor of 28^th Southeast Asian Games, which is the NTUC FairPrice and NTUC FairPrice Foundation. NTUC Fairprice Co-operative Ltd was founded by the labour movement in 1973, with a social mission to moderate the cost of living in Singapore. From one supermarket, it has grown to become Singapore’s largest retailer serving about 430,000 shoppers daily, with a network of over 120 outlets, comprising FairPrice supermarkets, FairPrice Finest and FairPriceXtra. Its convenience stores, FairPrice Xpress and Cheers, has a network spanning over 160 convenience stores island wide and serves over 100,000 customers daily. NTUC FairPrice also owns a Fresh Food Distribution Centre and a centralised warehousing and distribution company.

Today, with its multiple retail formats serving the varied needs and interests of people from all walks of life, NTUC FairPrice has kept pace with the changing needs of its customers while remaining committed to its social mission and its aspiration to be Singapore’s leading world-class retailer with a heart.

Guided by the philosophy to do well in order to do good for the community, NTUC FairPrice set up the FairPrice Foundation in 2008 to focus its giving efforts to provide a better life for the community. FairPrice Foundation focuses its giving on three strategic thrusts – the poor and needy, nation building and community bonding, and advancing workers’ welfare. FairPrice has since donated $76 million to the Foundation to further these three areas of focus.

Political benefits of the event towards chosen stakeholder

Based on the details above, political benefits towards NTUC FairPrice and NTUC FairPrice Foundation is increase international prestige. In Singapore, NTUC FairPrice’s sponsorship of 28^th Sea Games gave it the benefits of getting its brand name quickly recognised in the Singapore market. It is important for event managers to identify exactly what NTUC FairPrice want from 28^th Sea Games and what the 28^th Sea Games can deliver for them. They may be seeking mechanisms to drive sales, or want to strengthen client relationships through 28^th Sea Games to increase their international prestige and to attract more new customer.

Besides, political benefits towards NTUC FairPrice and NTUC FairPrice Foundation and the government of Singapore is promoting social cohesion. The sponsorship will include SGD $2 million cash from FairPrice Foundation and SGD $3 million value in kind from NTUC FairPrice to the 28th Sea Games in support of the region’s most prestigious multisport event. This is the largest donation FairPrice and FairPrice Foundation have made to a sporting event to date. This is an ideal partnership for the organizer of 28^th SEA Games which are Singapore Sports Council (SSC) as NTUC FairPrice has a strong relationship with the community. As part of FairPrice Foundation’s aim to create a better life for the community, the Foundation supports major activities and social community projects that cater to Singaporeans at large, to foster closer relationships among the community.

Economic benefits of the event towards chosen stakeholder

A primary concern of an event entrepreneur or host organisation is whether an event is within budget and, hopefully, results in a surplus or profit. This is a simple matter of whether the income from sponsorship, merchandise and ticket sales exceeds the costs of conducting and marketing the event. However, from the perspectives of the host communities and governments, a wider range of economic impacts is often of equal or greater significance. Therefore, economic benefits towards government are business opportunities and employment creation.

Events can provide their host communities with a strong platform for showcasing their expertise, hosting potential investors and promoting new business opportunities. During the 28^th SEA Games, the government of Singapore spent

Environmental benefits of the event towards chosen stakeholder

A major event may require an environmental impact assessment before council permission is granted for it to proceed. Even if a formal study is not required, the event manager should carefully consider the likely impact of the event on the environment. This impact will be fairly contained if the event is to be held in a suitable purpose-built venue, for example, a stadium, sportsground, showground or entertainment centre, but may be much greater if the event is to be held in a public space not ordinarily reserved for events such as a park, town square or street. Crowd movement and control, noise levels, access and parking will often be important considerations. Therefore, environmental benefits towards government is increased environmental awareness and urban transformation and renewal.

Firstly, environmental benefits towards government is increased environmental awareness. Governments of Singapore in 28^th Sea Games, are increasingly using public education and legislation to promote the recycling of waste materials and reduce the amount of waste going to landfill. 28^th Sea Games are targeted as opportunities to demonstrate best practice models in waste management and to change public attitudes and habits. Incorporating a waste management plan into the overall event plan has become increasingly good policy. Audience of the 28^th Sea Games expectations and the health of the environment require that events demonstrate good waste management principles and provide models for recycling. The waste-wise event manager (government) will reap not only economic benefits, but also the approval of an increasing environmentally aware public.

Secondly, environmental benefits towards government is urban transformation and renewal. In the staging of large events in Singapore such as this 28^th Sea Games, the provision of infrastructure is often a costly budget component, but this expenditure usually results in an improved environment and facilities for Singapore, and provides a strong incentive for Singapore to act as host. The government of Singapore has been constructed the original stadium to a new sport complex, which is the Singapore Sports Hub and it will be Singapore’s premier land and sea sports, entertainment and lifestyle destination. The Singapore Sports Hub is a state-of-the-art, fully integrated sports, entertainment and lifestyle hub that will allow everyone in Singapore to watch, play and support sports and entertainment. Featuring a unique cluster development of integrated world-class sports facilities within the city, it will not only spur the development of the sports industry, excellence and participation, but also take sports to the next level in Singapore.

Other Related Information

Reference List

28^th SEA Games. Available from: < https://www.seagames2015.com >

NTUC FairPrice. Available from: < www.fairprice.com.sg >

Government Singapore. Available from: < www.fairprice.com.sg >

Johnny Allen, William O’Toole, Robert Harris, Ian McDonnell, 2007. Festival & Special Event Management, Irwin, Sydney.

Jonathan Wong, 2015. Singapore SEA Games Budget. Available from:

Event Introduction & Background

We would like to do a detailed report that based on our findings on event planning and event evaluation process of an event. The event we have chosen is Chingay Parade. The Chingay Parade was firstly introduced in Johor Bahru in 2006 and it is a street parade event also a part of the celebration of Chinese New Year. The parade stretches go as far as 15km throughout the city of Johor Bahru, about 145 groups usually lasts from mid-afternoon to after midnight with an organized row of lion dances, interesting performances including dancing, singing, decorated parade floats and so on.

First, we would like to explain why the event is called ‘chingay’. Chingay has two characters; Chin and Gay is the Min Nan dialect (including Teochew) for the Art of Decorating. The deities as Chingay Parade have rarely reffered to Johor Bahru residents as annual parade. This name is mostly used by the non-Chinese speaking public; probably due to the non-religious fancy parades in Penang and later in Singapore. Although the decorated floats and painted Chinese folk-characters are part and parcel of this annual parade, the main theme actually is the procession of the Five Deities from the five main dialect-groups of Johor Bahru. Thus for a Johor Bahru resident, especially the Chinese-educated, this annual parade is always pronounced ‘You-Shen’, which meaning the Parade of the Gods in Mandarin, rather than Chingay.

As the historical of Chingay Johor Bahru, the Chingay Parade has been held for more than 100 years. It is celebrated on the 21^st day in the first month of the Chinese Moon-related calendar and the event attracts thousands of people every year also as part of the Moon-related New Year celebration and as a predictor of peace and richness for the coming year for the town. Besides, Chingay started as a birthday celebration of Chinese gods, whose statues were taken out of temples and paraded around the city. In the belief that they will then provide plenty blessings to the people. Johor’s Chingay has heavy religious importance, where all parades begin at the Old Chinese Temple in Jalan Trus (Johor Bahru). Chingay procession was held in celebration with the birthdays of the Chinese deities or the procession of the Goddess of Mercy (Guanyin). It was held to worship and enjoy with the deity.

Today, the JB Old Temple has five main deities for the five main dialect-groups: ‘Yuan Tian Shang Di’ or ‘Tua Lau Ya’ for the Teochews, ‘Hong Xian Da Di’ for the Hokkiens, ‘Gan Tian Da Di’ for the Hakkas, ‘Hua Guang Da Di’ for the Cantonese and ‘Zhao Da Yuan Shuai’ for the Hainanese.

On the 21^st day at about 7 in the evening is the grand parade, all the devotees and those with designated tee-shirts of the respective associations will then enter the Deities’ Depot to lift their respective deities for the night parade. This will be accompanied by troupes of opera characters, musical bands, lion-dancers, dragon dancers, decorated floats, stilt-walkers, big-headed dolls, giant flags and many other groups to entertain the town-folks who by then will line along the entire route eagerly awaiting the deities to pass.

The order of the procession is always predetermined. The first deity to lead the parade will be Zhao Da Yuan Shuai of the Hainanese clan, followed by Hua Guang Da Di of the Cantonese clan, then Gan Tian Da Di of the Hakka clan, Hong Xian Da Di of the Hokkien clan nd the last to round up the back is the main deity Yuan Tian Shang Di of the Teochew clan.

Event Planning (Definition)

In general, event planning is the process of managing a project such as a meeting, convention, birthday party, exhibition, conference and so on. Event planning includes money-planning, beginning and building on timelines, selecting and reserving the event sites, buying permits, planning food, coordinating transportation, developing a theme, arranging for activities, selecting speakers and keynotes, arranging for equipment and facilities, managing risk, and developing backup plans.

As event planner, event planning means consists of coordinating every detail of meetings and conventions, from the speakers and meeting location to arranging for printed materials and visual equipment. Besides, Event planning begins with figuring out the goal that the sponsoring organization wants to accomplish. Planners choose speakers, entertainment, and content, and arrange the program to present the organization’s information in the most effective way.

In addition to that, event planning is the energizing art of planning people and activities in order to create a show that creates memories of a lifetime. Designing and producing an event, whether it’s a meeting, related to big business event, fund-raiser, tradeshow or any other event, is in many ways almost the same as directing a live stage performance.

Event Planning (Important)

Event planning can help event planner to know what is the contribution should be and how to achieve event purpose. It is an important point to make sure that the event will be successful. It also can help planner to identify their event goals clearly and make planner decide clearly and concretely what the event need to do and can affect the social that organization wants.

Event planning also can help planner make sure that understand their goal and what they need to do to reach event goal by involving target consumer in the event planning process. It can make planners all work in a goal-oriented way more than in a loose way where planner just respond to issues and cries with not clear event goals as well.

Besides, event planning can helps planner to accountable for what they do. It is a consequential point, event planning can help planner or organization decide what is the best to use resources including hired people, equipment, time and other, so that will help planner and organization most significant contribution to achieving their purpose.

Last but not least, event planning important in lays the basis for event organization to asses and evaluate their achievements effectively.

Event Evaluation (Definition)

In general, event evaluation is analysis of the efficiency and efficacy of such events using a range of empirical methods. Event evaluation measures investigate impact at all levels. In apart from that, event evaluation is the process of critically observing, measuring and monitoring the implementation of an event in order to evaluate its results (Bowdin, 2008).

Event Evaluation (Important)

Event evaluation, as well as event planning cycle, it can help event organization and event planner to identify how they can improve and correct what they are achieving, event organization and planners also can take action to build on successes event and repeating failures in next time event.

Besides, effective event evaluation process enables event organization and event planner to use what they learned from their experience to improve what they are achieving in the event.

In addition to that, event evaluation is necessary to make event planner and team-mate more efficiency and effectively before the next time you organize an event. It is all about finding the mistakes and learning from them.

In apart from that, evaluating help event planner gets feedback from attendees and participants, discovering the best and worst bits of an event to know if the event achieved its original aims, or how it could be improved for the next event.

Moreover, evaluating shows volunteers and staff the value of their work and the impact of the event on the community. Some funders may require evaluations to be conducted, to show value for money as well.

Event Planning Process

Objective, visitor, place

Chingay is a cultural Chinese New Year festival, so that the visitor of the event will be Chinese. Location of the Chingay Event held in Johor. Through history, after World War II, this activity spread to the south of Peninsular Malaysia unconsciously, that is Johor Bahru. Johor Bahru Chingay is commonly known as “Chinese New Year celebration part 2”. There are a folk saying on Johor Bahru people that “Chinese New Year never come to end if no celebrate Johor Bahru Chingay”. In addition, since the Chinese living in Johor majority. This annual event is inextricably linked to the Old Temple at Jalan Trus.to organizes Johor Bahru Chingay Celebration with five Chinese dialect groups also called as Parade of Deities. Based on the size of the number, this event plan in outdoor so that can accommodate more participants.

Time, date, content

The Chingay is conducted in the first lunar month from 18th to 22nd (5days). And which consecutive 3 days from 19th to 21st are running with the main activities. In the morning, when the gong decorated with sacred flag bearer of the team will be deemed to walk and jingle of the gong in the entire parade route, this represents to “wash the way” before the festivities begin. On the first day on 17 February 2014, here is a light up ceremony at Xing Gong. It is a provisional places that deities choose. It can provide more spacious place to believers to pray. For the second and the third day, there is a street cleansing and mounting of deities on holy sedans followed by a small drum music parade and deities leaving the Old Temple carried on holy sedans. The location is from Johor Old Temple to palace. Thereby completing the centuries Chingay for three consecutive days of Overture. On the fourth day, activity held in the evening at 7pm. It is a busy streets walk of Johor Bahru from Xing Gong and walk around the Xing Gong. The distance of the line is about 8 kilometer. The town-folks are accompanied by decorated floats, lion-dancers, troupes of opera characters and so on. Lastly, 22nd February is the day of deities return to their Divine abodes, after this Johor Bahru resident will feel that they had finished their New Year.

Promotion+ Sponsorship

All the source of communication have been use. The organizer, Tiong Hua associations started to promote Chingay. As Chingay is an on-going parade, it has its own website. Besides this they also create a Facebook page welcoming for people to join. In the page, they listed out all details and the history of Chingay. For those who have questions, they also willing to give answers and the information will be update on time. In the other hand, the organizer promote the event through newspaper. Meanwhile, there will be banners and posters at anywhere in Johor. In addition, There also have media conference helped them publicise. For people who may not be able to see any information on others way, TV stations are another alternative for people to get Chingay information. Chingay is a recurrent activities, so not too much publicity, people will get to know about it. Based on the relationship between people, word of mouth also became a tool of mass media. In this event, people who participating were dressed in several different styles and different signs of T-shirt which are provided by the supplier that are Carlsberg, Tiger and Country Garden Danga Bay. Thus, the vendors can use this event to advertise their products.

Accessibility

Due to the wide range of activities involved, the number of participants more, even at night parade, it is easily lead to the accidents. In order to avoid the occurrence of such outside bruised and protect the safety of participants, the organizer had invite the medical staff to assist. The organizer also prepared a resting place for the participants.

Event Evaluation

Chingay parade event is a successful event in Johor Bahru, Malaysia due to it has a lot of foreign and Chinese people will join in this festival event every year. In this festival event, it affect a lot of benefits impacts as well as the cost.

In benefits, social and cultural impacts in this event including broaden people’s horizons because it has the festive atmosphere with stilt walkers, lion and dragon dances, acrobats, and dozens of decorated floats taking to the streets amidst the clashing of cymbals and beating of gongs and drums in this event. In this current issue, planner also try advantage a lot of new technology element inside this event so it will attract teenager joining this event.

Another benefits in social and cultural impacts are revitalising traditions. Due to this event is a traditional festival event, it can promote our traditional culture inheritance to next generation as well.

In addition to that, this event can increase Malaysian pride as well because have a lot of foreign know this event and it can let foreign know about our traditional culture.

The positive political impacts in this festival event are this event can let our social cohesion. This event purpose is unity ‘Teochew’, ‘Hokkien’, ‘Cantonese’, ‘Hakka’ and ‘Hainan’ all of these Chinese people during 19th century. In this current, also can let other race people know about Chinese religion so it will increase Malaysian cohesion in the country, because everyone will respect different race religion.

This event also will attract foreign tourists come to join in. It can increases tourists visit or travel in Malaysia so that we can earn and increase a lot of foreign money.

On the contrary, this festival event also bring negative impacts in environmental which make a lot of environmental damage and pollution in Johor Bahru, Malaysia. Due to the reason which people are going for a 15km around Johor Bahru, the participants will throw rubbish at the street and make noise. Besides, it will disturb residents around the city until midnight and this event increase traffic jam as well.

In the political negative impacts, event organizer cannot calculate their budget in this event. Their budget come from donation and find a lot of sponsorship. If the year has financial crisis, they will get the donation less than last year and let the event lead to failure because they need a lot of money to be the cash float.

Last but not least, it has a political negative impacts which are lack of accountability. Event organizer cannot predict the accountable of the amount of people who will join in the event and will make event organizer easily loss control of the event.

Recommendation

Evaluations often make recommendations about how a program can be improved, how the risk of program failure can be reduced or whether a program should continue. Based on the environmental negative impacts as environmental damage and noise disturbance, we can increase participant awareness about the knowledge of 3Rs which including reduce, reuse and recycle and everyone has responsibility to make sure the environment is clean. As traffic jam problem, we can encourage participant to achieve a sharing car plan with others or taking the public bus instead of taking private car. Chingay Johor Bahru can solve the noise disturbance problem by considering to plan the event not ended until mid-night for next year.

Furthermore, due to the political negative impacts which are lack of accountability, the event organizer can do a survey form on social media first, understanding total how many people will participate the event before organizing and planning the event.

Last but not least, the event organizer should planning the financial report first before finding a sponsorship to record how much they need to spent to control their budget.

REFERENCE LIST

What is event planning? Available from:

Event planning. Available from:

Johor Bahru Chingay. Available from:

Johor Bahru Chingay. Available from:

Introduction:

The event selected in order to complete this piece of work is the Rio Carnival. This is one of the famous festivals and it is held before Lent and it is known as one of the biggest festival where the participant public is more than two million in numbers each day. The festival is one of the oldest one as well. Before going in to further detail of the event and covering the topic as of different required angles the researcher will give a brief account about event management and the advances which has taken place with the passage of time and introduction of latest technologies. (Getz, 2007)

Life is full events that are not only interesting but full of attractions and adventure for the public. There has been a lot said and discussed and mostly one might find destinations under tremendous pressure as they are not sure how to deal by means of these events and save them as of becoming a touristic product. In the past, major events have been victim of different unwanted actions which has not only spoiled the image of the destination but in addition the fame of the event has been affected to a great extent. In the present world where technology through media has covered all the entertainment aspects for public and public can enjoy the event as of the confinement of their home just by sitting in front of their television sets, still the real joy is for live entertainment as public want to participate and be part of the colourful environment which cannot be captured or experienced through television no matter how good they are captured.

A superior repeatable Event Management method offers an organization with the aptitude to sense Events, recognize them, and then choose on a suitable control commotion or action to avoid an occurrence and/or service disruption. Suitable activities or behaviours can comprise of an action to release an event or to trace an event. Well-organized service procedures base on the well-timed handling of the several activities essential to avoid confrontations and service outages. (Reisinger, 2009)

As Event Management offers the capability to sense incidents before time, an association can configure technology to sustain an Event Management procedure to activate an event after it has been mechanically noticed and be automatically allocated to the suitable resolver faction for action before any definite service disruption or outage happens. Employing technology to sustain an Event Management procedure makes it probable for a few activities to be observed by exemption which can assist eradicate the requirement for costly and supply concentrated “real time monitoring”, whereas at the similar time, dropping unavailability or down time. Inside Event Management there are some altered kinds of events to handle which include:

Normal Operation Events:

These kinds of events can comprise an automatic announcement that a planned workload job has ended as usual or a consumer has logged into an appliance that they had the right point of admission to, or an email has attained an anticipated receiver. Standard process events are significant to observe since they might stand for a breach of policy or non observance to a development. (Richards et al., 2010)

Exception Events:

These kinds of events might comprise user endeavours to access an application with an wrong password too many times or, a device’s CPU is above an acceptable utilization rate or a PC scan reveals the installation of unlawful software. (Reisinger, 2009)

Unusual Events:

These kinds of events typically represent something unexpected and require immediate notice such as server memory utilization within 5% of the highest expected performance level, or the conclusion time of a transaction 10% longer than normal. The key point with any of these event kinds is that instant action should occur in order to either raise an incident record or a “dismiss and log” of the event for further monitoring and trending.

The Benefits of Event Management:

By officially applying these key activities of an Event Management course, organizations are able to augment effective efficiencies by becoming more practical at managing operations that knowledge faults and service outages. In today’s multifaceted IT environments, the degree of data being produced on a daily basis can be irresistible plus uncontrollable devoid of controlled and repeatable processes and the technology to support those processes. Millions of trade’s deals that rely on IT prop up are conducted every day. Devoid of an accepting of critical business processes, managing events turns out to be an unproductive best guess endeavour. (Getz, 2007)

An outline of what the festival/event is:

The carnival held once a year in Rio de Janeiro in Brazil is the for the most part well-known party in the world, growing year-on-year and attracting hundreds of thousands of foreign as well as national tourists. In the week about festival 80% of the yearly consumption of beer is drunk plus 70% of the yearly tourist profits are composed, undoubtedly showing the significance of the event inexpensively? To Brazilians festival and dancing are as significant as football, which is really saying something!

The roots of festival:

The name “carnival” comes as of the Latin word carnelevare meaning abstinence as of the eating of meat and poultry. Carnival week is held to agree by means of the start of the Roman Catholic period of Lent, 40 days prior to Easter. Lent is conventionally a period of abstinence, prayer and self-evaluation for Christians and represents the 40 days that the Bible tells us Jesus spent in the desert resisting the temptations of Satan. As the dates for Easter vary each year so do those for the main carnival weekend. There are several parades and parties by plus following the main labelled events in the Sambodromo, some of which are free plus held in the street in various districts about the city or as practice weekends in the central site itself. (Dunne L et al., 2002)

Carnival as a festivity of music, dancing, misbehaviour as well as extremes plus dates back to the ancient Roman carnival of Saturnalia which was introduced in 217 BC to lift the confidence of battle-weary Romans next overcomes by the Carthaginians. It was classically a week of eating, drinking as well as the deride turnaround of the communal order, slaves being given several further liberties for instance Several Roman Emperors such as Augustus and Caligula tried to shorten the festivities to 3 days but were met by means of such chaos plus were forced to depart the occupants to their social gathering. (Getz, 2007)

Rio Carnival today:

Even though Rio Carnival may not be the lone party in Brazil, is still expensive well-known. As far as the participants are considered, biggest carnival in terms of member is held in Recife in the North where in 2006 1.5 million people took part. The Rio event has developed repeatedly since its occurring back in the 17th Century furthermore every year it grows in size and more area and samba schools turn out to be mixed up in the spectacle. Blocos (Blocks) are tiny or middle sized congregation of musicians and dancers drawn as of neighbourhoods who parade with a challenging topic, motto and point. They could be clothed in matching T shirts or in extra excessive outfit and there are now over 100 Blocos, numerous of whom do not even go away as of their street or neighbourhood while displaying. Hundreds of local people congregate and escort them in their hard work. (Richards et al., 2010)

Over deeply financed samba schools are huge groups of performers which participate in parade competitions in a particularly built Sambodromo. These schools procession held on the 4 major nights of the carnival, along with the title parade person held on the Saturday night. The official opposition can be alienated into 10 categories and a winner picked as of each distribution after being reconsidered on each of the following; drumming band, Samba song, Harmony, Flow and spirit, subject of the year, Overall impression, Floats and props, Costumes, Vanguard group and Flag bearer. There are 4 judges in each group and these people sit in booths along the parade route in the Sambodromo. Great standing is awarded to the winners and the rivalry is taken very critically with massive amounts of attempts, exercise and money invested. (Reisinger, 2009)

Entrance tickets for the Sambodromo parades are awarded and as such are costly even in the low-priced bleacher seats which cost some hundred dollars. Places in the VIP boxes run to thousands of dollars as they offer the spectator much more ease and availability of facilities, open bar, 3 course dinner etc. for what is a lengthy of viewing. Tickets and some hotels frequently sell out month’s in advance so if you want to go ensure a longer way in advance.

The stakeholders:

Keeping in mind the nature of the event it turns out to be clear that the stakeholders are basically the tourists and local audiences that come as of everywhere to enjoy this event, its colour and the different parade and dances which are the very major part of this festival. (Bichou et al., 2007)

Social-cultural benefits and issues linked with festival:

The modern world is facing threats like terrorism and target killing and there are many parts of the world where the criminals wait for such mega events so that they can get a chance to cause damage on high scales. The damage can be anything like robbing, killing and even bomb blasts which are normally the key focus for terrorists in today’s world. The community may always feel itself at risk during such programs and events as the ratio of crime is higher and it’s difficult to trace and control due to the size of event.

Talking about benefits, festival like Rio brings business to the country and enables the foreigner to understand the culture of the native people. Not only does it attract people for long time but even in the four (Getz, 2007)

What tourists might perceive as an attempt to get closer to the authentic and to break through to the back region, hosts will often perceive as a violation, an infringement on private and personal space, and these differing perceptions shape the power relations flanked by hosts and tourists.

Just as objects are altered as they are placed in the front and false back regions, the hosts are alienated through their roles in the business: they become “anders,” someone other than what they once were. This view of how hosts and their culture are changed allows me to locate the central notion of authenticity in the critique of the tourism business in the works in my learning. The three authors portray tourism as making those who live and work in the business “anders.” Returning to the notion of front and back regions, then, I argue that the artists portray the genuine back region as a space that has been lost or is threatened by tourism, as it is gradually becomes “anders” and is turned into a false, staged back region. The learning depicts tourism and its impacts as a threat, implicitly noting a failure to protect the authenticity of the back region as of tourism.

Discussion on how the festival event can help to foster cultural understanding

There are many possible ways in the carnival may help in order to foster cultural understandings. The world has turns out to be small village and as a result people have turns out to be closer to each other with the help of Information technology. That is the main cause behind the fact that people want to know about each other’s culture values and beliefs as they find knowing about these cultural values very interesting. In order to get the cultural understandings events like The Rio Carnival plays a key role as not only the fact that its is very attractive but at the same time it’s one of the famous and big festival that automatically attracts the attention of people as of all over the world and they want to know about it, how it started and the other linked cultures with it. (Bichou et al., 2007)

People as of all over the world as mentioned earlier fly to Brazil to enjoy this festival. This gives them opportunity to know about the local cultures and the different interesting facts that may be associated with these cultures which may vary after every hundred miles depending on the locals of the country and different cultural beliefs which they may possess.

Recommendations for mitigating negative social and cultural impacts of the event festival

Contemporary world faces some serious threats. These threats can be terrorism, robberies, killings and other issues. Terrorists are always in search of such festivals and social gatherings where the number of participants irrespective of the fact that they are performer or audience. This simply for the reason that the more big the gathering is the bigger will be the level of destruction which may be caused by these terrorists.

Therefore, it turns out to be the responsibility of the event management team and the concerned authorities to make sure that all the available latest tools and other facilities like information technology and managements and security techniques are adopted in order to make sure that the event management is successful at the same time is safe as of any kind terrorist activity which may cause the loss of precious lives. (Getz, 2007)

Conclusions:

Considering the intricacies of IT organizations at present, there is a strong need of fine Event management practice and the requirement for technology enabled procedures is vital for best possible operational effectiveness. The purpose of an Event Management course is to perceive events of significant service factors and react instantly to direct those events. At present we want data gathered, concurrent, processed and then analyzed as much swiftly and correctly as possible. Effectiveness commence with prior preparation to get an idea that which services are essential and entail supervision along with usual reassess sessions to keep these rules clear, precise and applicable. (Reisinger, 2009)

Technology contributes a great deal in enhancing the Event Management process by computerizing the real process actions themselves (for example event recognition, event announcement and automatic incident formation), and through analyzing the results as of some other associated procedures (such as Configuration Management). Incorporation with other practices (particularly Incident Management, crisis Management, Accessibility Management, Configuration Management and Service rank Management) is crucially significant to guarantee that events are handled efficiently and that the maximum levels of accessibility and service are kept. (Getz, 2007)

The National Tourism Office for Portugal describes the country as one of the world’s oldest nations whose boundaries have remained unchanged since the thirteenth century. It encompasses the Azores and Madeira within its region and offers rapid access to other countries in Europe as well as the American continent and Africa. It has mild winters and ‘agreeable’ summers. It has a population of over 10 million, with the highest demographic in Lisbon. It boasts strong and historical and cultural ties with the rest of the world. (Sourced from: http://www.portugal.org/index.shtml, Date accessed, 12/01/09)

Located in South West Europe Portugal has been an economic and politically powerful country and played a key role in early maritime exploration during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.

It is clear that tourist brochures key objectives are to sell a positive and appealing destination to travelers; what is not quite so apparent are the disguised messages that are frequently conveyed by the way in which certain pictures are produced and by way of cleverly composed coded text throughout.

Two official brochures issued by the Portuguese Tourism Office will be analysed for their content within this paper. This will mostly focus on visual images as well as some textual interpretation. One represents a traditional travel brochure depicting the country generically, while the other is their most up to date promotional campaign brochure which has only recently been launched.

In Eric Laws’ Embracing and Managing Change in Tourism he talks about using content analysis to make ‘replicable and valued inferences from data to their context’. His model seeks to decode messages according to categories including location, activities, transport and travel parties etc whilst breaking down the analysis in sections; the front page, photographs and text. (Laws, 1998) It is this approach that will be applied to this paper.

Assessing first the more traditional brochure for the country, immediately the front cover conveys a sense of isolation, with what appears to be a digitally enhanced image of a rock in the middle of the sea. Whether this is meant to represent Portugal is unclear and although a little uninspiring it will appeal to a certain type of audience that will want to discover more. This audience target becomes more apparent the further into the brochure you read. The first page into the literature provides a mixture of emotive, nationalistic and evocative images. A local Portuguese poet is quoted as a means of engaging the reader immediately with the prospect of a country which is inspired by the arts, as well as characterising it as a country not to be confused as a seaside resort, but rather for its lesser known rugged mountains and lakes which are illustrated romantically on the front cover. The accompanying text continues to relay all of the diverse things that Portugal has in terms of appealing to a broad audience. These include nightclubs, hiking or deserted coves. However whilst it may seem to want to appeal to all people it is at the same time obviously trying to attract the type of middle class, sensitive and emotional visitor who will be inspired by beauty and poetry. The second page continues with this theme but elaborates on the architecture, museums and heritage to be discovered. Now the reader begins to imagine Portugal as more of an ‘old world’ country, which of course is what it is and it is clear that the brochure wants to emphasise this age old association with Portugal, not so much the seaside resort, but more of a cultural haven. Once again this romantic element continues across the following pages where the quaint old images are elaborated further with the introduction of the idea of romance. It’s as if the brochure has succeeded in coming across as a charming, welcoming country which is most suitable as a destination for lovers and couples to embrace. The reader is told that for the Portuguese ‘romance is as important as the air they breath’ It even goes so far as to say ‘one-night stands are out’ which automatically assumes that the young, single man or woman perhaps coming to the country in a group of similar young and single people would not feel comfortable or at ease. This is not the market that they want to encourage. It is a clever message and not so much cryptic, more overt in its presence. Already there have been four images all of which contain no people in them. This is particularly interesting as it suggests the sender of the message is trying to convey Portugal as a form of tourism which suits escapism.

Pictures of food and restaurants feature across the next two pages with a list of the ten things you should not leave Portugal before tasting. Portugal thrives on its high-level services like drinking, eating and shopping and it seems uncharacteristic then that for a thirty six page brochure only around three or four pages have any images of food, bars or restaurants.

Already this assumes in many ways that the country has defined its tourist and is utilising different methods of trying to attract them. In Finn et al’s Tourism and Leisure Research Methods: Data Collection, Analysis, and Interpretation the authors write about a research study which took place over three years on a remote Scottish Island with the intention of understanding better the relationship between islanders and tourists. Life on the island changed significantly over the summer months when visitors arrived and the study was able to determine that all visitors could be clearly categorized. The categories included day-trippers, summer residents, tourists, returning island-born visitors etc. (Finn et al, 2000) The tourists were defined, known and responded to accordingly.

Each country has an understanding of who their visitors are and will attempt to appeal to them as categories, such as those listed above. In order to do that they apply a number of techniques that will be designed to capture the imagination of any given category. This particular brochure omits any indication of hedonism, instead it depicts couples walking or lone back-packers. There are no crowd scenes, no shots of happy groups of participatory people. The focus remains on large rural landscapes, with urban representations limited to the city architecture, rather than on nightlife or entertainment. The word romance appears seven times in the first four pages, which immediately indicates that the oweness is on this type of visitor; a couple or perhaps two friends looking for meaningful encounters rather than drink-fuelled, party antics. This isn’t isolated to one section of the brochure either, it is prevalent throughout even in the pages selling Lisbon, Portugal’s adventurous capital city. In fact the word Lisbon only features once in some contact details at the end of the literature. Portugal’s capital is referred throughout by its old traditional Portuguese name, Lisboa. This in itself suggests that the tourist office is appealing to more sophisticated and knowledgeable travelers who will know that Lisboa is Lisbon. Some readers may understandably pick up a brochure of Portugal looking for Lisbon, but it is clearly this type of prospective visitor that the country is not necessarily interested in appealing to here. Page 19 goes into tremendous detail about the historical background of the region. For many standard holiday makers looking for a cheap and cheerful get away this will automatically leave them cold and disinterested. The text reads like a detailed guide book in the style of Lonely Planet or Time Out.

The Mosteiro dos Jeronimos in the district of Belem is a hymn in stone to Portugal’s maritime heritage, while the Torre de Belem is a potent symbol of Portugal’s great age of expansion. Even contemporary architecture takes on a maritime theme

– the amazing new Vasco da Gama bridge is in the shape of a giant sail.

After the devastating earthquake of 1755, Baixa Pombalina (the centre of Lisboa) was rebuilt in a classical style, but many of the winding mediaeval bairros remain, crammed with fascinating shops, restaurants and cafes. At night they come into their own, offering everything from African to Latin American music – and of course the bluesy melancholy of fado.

This is not the language traditionally associated with grabbing the attention of hard marketing, fast promoting tourist attractions and once again only seeks to reiterate the type of audience they are trying to capture.

The second brochure for analysis is very different in its approach. It has been designed in a deliberately stylized way to grab the attention of the potential tourist. The reader is informed immediately that this has been created specifically for Portugal by the world renowned photographer Nick Knight. A photographer who is British, which immediately eradicates any thoughts of patriotism or national pride which comes across so clearly in the opening pages of the other brochure. And on the cover the reader is presented with a juxtaposing photograph of the Portuguese football manager Jose Mourinho resting above the caption ‘My country has 220 days of sunshine every year’. Jose Mourinho is the face of Portugal, literally. Not only that but the accompanying statement makes it personalized somehow, as if Mourinho was talking to the reader as a friend or confident. This is a very clever way of engaging readers. In addition it is almost as if the writers of the brochure have decided that they need to associate the country more with a well known image. It signifies pride whilst boasting that it is a country blessed with sun and celebrities. National celebrities as well as the ability to attract other celebrities such as Nick Knight. It is a very bold, confident style.

The most noticeable next technique to be analysed is the selected font that the brochure is written in. This looks like old computer style icons, which conjures up images of both the future in terms of technology and of nostalgia for old fashioned computer text. As a consequence the reader becomes drawn in by a familiar yet inspirational attitude towards the literature being presented. Is this the way in which Portugal is trying to be imagined? As an inspiring, forward-thinking country which is also reassuring some how.

As if carrying on with this theme the brochure then informs us that Portugal is essentially trying to re-define and re-brand itself, telling us on page 4, that its many and varied assets deserve to be ‘promoted and exploited….with a proper stage so that they can be seen, appreciated and valued as they are not enough at the moment’. This self-depreciating and yet overly confident message will appeal to readers on a number of levels.

The information which the reader is communicated on page 6 is particularly interesting. It seeks to plead with prospective tourists on the basis of beginning to disassociate itself away from its old Mediterranean identity. Despite none of Portugal’s coast being on the Mediterranean Sea, it has often promoted itself as a ‘Mediterranean area’. For the first time in this brochure it is realigning itself with the ‘Atlantic…and our home’. This signifies a complete change of image and identity for the country and one that it wants to relay to other potential visitors from around the world. After approximately seven extremely short paragraphs along this same theme and a biography of Nick Knight; what emerges is a series of robust images, first of rugged seascapes and rough coastal scenes which invoke feelings of drama, excitement and energy which is clearly what this ‘new’ Portugal is attempting to portray. Probably the most powerful messages are however the next set of portraits which illustrate well known Portuguese people including the architect Miguel Cancio Martins, the artist Joana Vasconcelos, the footballer Cristiano Ronaldo and of course Jose Mourinho. It is a brochure which is very stylised and reads more like a power point presentation than a piece of promotional tourist information. It is particularly visual and leaves behind any romantic, idealised, historical textual information so associated with the hard sell of ‘old world country’s’. Instead it is making a very brave and bold move into re-branding itself as a country to be viewed as a modern contender even going to the extreme of repositioning itself geographically within the Atlantic Ocean, rather than the Mediterranean. Perhaps this has been done in a move towards getting people to start associating it with an entirely new type of holiday which does not necessarily reflect the beaches, clubs and excitement connected to the Mediterranean, but more in line with the sophistication of the brochure discussed earlier. To be considered more like Mexico and Guyana rather than Cyprus and Greece; the more popular and media driven destinations which are more and more prone to be associated with package tours, groups of young people and stag and hen parties. The other rationale for its provocative move might relate to the Middle East; so firmly entrenched as it is in the Mediterranean, in particular Israel and Libya. Recent political unrest and continued problems in this area might have prompted Portugal to consider disassociating itself from its previous identity.

In Pritchard and Morgan’s study, Evaluating vacation destination brochure images: the case of local authorities in Wales, they identified the power and influence of images appearing in brochures into six groups all of which assist with establishing identity; scenery, activities, people, heritage, urban and rural and iconic destinations. (Pritchard and Morgan, 1995). This contemporary brochure proves no different in many ways. It still succeeds in Portugal establishing itself as a vacation destination in that it projects large bold images of Portugal’s natural scenery, not its heritage, castles or monuments, but the wildlife that exists around its coast, the people of course are also iconic representations and exemplify the country as a modern forward thinking and inspirational place to go. No activities are demonstrated but the photographs of well known people listed by occupation craftily suggests that it is possible to do anything in Portugal, whether that be a scientist, artists, architect or even an Olympic champion. Portugal has it all.

The juxtaposition of both brochures; traditional and contemporary have been interesting to analyse in relation to their differences as well as their very obvious similarities. From this angle it is determinable that messages may often be similar or indeed the same but that they can be delivered in very conflicting ways in the context of differing perspectives. Many of the messages relayed in both brochures advertising Portugal predominantly appeal to more broad minded, sophisticated audiences who appreciate and know a little more about life and the world around them. By doing so it sometimes actually serves to discourage anything other than that type of tourist, which may on some levels seem risky, whilst on others is understandable if the country has faced economic, public or political issues due to the nature of their tourism or media associated tourism.

References

Finn, M, Elliott-White, M, Walton, M (2000) Tourism and Leisure Research Methods: Data Collection, Analysis, and Interpretation: Pearson Education

Laws, E, Faulkner, W, Moscardo, G, Faulkner, B (1998) Embracing and Managing Change in Tourism: International Case Studies: Routledge

Pritchard, A and Morgan, N. (1995) Evaluating destination brochure images: the case of local authorities in Wales, Journal of Vacation Marketing, Vol 2, pp 23-38

Ringer, G.D (1998) Destinations: Cultural Landscapes of Tourism: Routledge

Official Portugal Tourism Office (Sourced from: http://www.portugal.org/index.shtml, Date accessed, 12/01/09)

To lead and become the international benchmark in the hospitality industry, not only in India but also in the Key regions of the world and To dazzle and delight our customers with utmost quality, food and beverage experience and exceptional service standards.

The Taj Mahal hotel, Mumbai(india ) was opened on December 16,1903 under the taj group by Jamsetji Nusserwanji Tata, the founder of the Tata Group. htis hotel was incorporated with IHCL. Now currently Rs. 678 millions can be operated bythe taj hotels. t his is growing day by day and become th elargest hotel chain in the india. The Taj Mahal Palace & Tower is one of the famous five star hotels in india and it is regarded as the most prestigious luxury five star hotel. This hotel is 105 years old hotel having the heritage building under the group of taj hotel resorts and palaces. The hotel taj mahal contains 565 rooms.this hotel was opened in 1903 commisioned in Indo-saracenic style by Tata. the hotel taj made unique history from his service sand and give best service sto their customers and supportive fro every need.it has marvellous artitecure which brings together Moorish , Florentine and oriental styles. It is a gracious landmark of Mumbai as it provides panoramic views of the Arabian Sea and the Gateway of India.

On novemeber 2008 , during the series of terroroist attacks in mumbai , the hotel taj marriot was under attack of the terrorists there is a big damage in the hotel including destruction of roof and about 167 hostages were therehe. After this attack the management of hotel annouced thathe hotel will be repared and the expenditure to repair it will be INR 5 billions and it will take 12 months to repair. In july ,209 , Hilary Clinton visit the Mumbai taj hotel and stayed there

as the patway to improvement the hotel taj mahal,in October 12, 2006, the Company approved the Scheme, under Sections 391 to 394 of the Companies and this scheme was approved by the High Courts.

In July 2002, the hotel has won several international awards. The Taj hotel Group also obtained licenses to manage and operate two leisure hotels; the Rawal-Kot, Jaisalmer and Usha Kiran Palace, Gwalior in October 2002.

Taj Group access to the midtown and North Mumbai market. The hotel has since been renamed as the Taj Lands End, Mumbai. An din tear 2003 the hotel taj celebrated its centenary of the opening of its flagship hotel.

In 2004 it opened its first luxury service apartment Wellington Mews.

The Taj Mahal Intercontinental Hotel in Mumbai consist of 582 rooms which are fully air condodtione dwith 49 suits.each room is equipped with data port , speaker phones , with IDD ,fax available , sea cty fcing rooms TV and satellite rooms , 24 service fro laundary service with eminent club rooms. This hotel in the Mumbai provide the top most services in the luxury hotels and majestic accommodation.

During the recession period

After the terrorist attack in 2008 taj has to face the financial problems and to rasise up from it this affects the occupancy rate of the hotel and to improve the occupancy rate the hotel offered the suite of $6750 per offer to attract te tourist . the torist in hotel taj came from the worldwide.after the attack the hoyel made a a mable memorialin the lobby for 131 guests and staff who died in terrorist attack. Now they have improved their security system by putting xray machines ansd metal detectors on the screen guessts at the entrance of the vechicals.

According to business weekly news there is decline of 5.8 %in Mumbai for shares in Indian hotelsltd. Operator of taj brand .

Beside of all these taj is one of the original grand hotel in the world. With the passing of time its reputation spread and grew constantly.

LITERATURE REVIEW

Literature review:

Two major reasons exist for reviewing the literature. The first, the preliminary search that helps you to generate and refine your research ideas. The second, often referred to as critical review, is part of research project proper. (Sharp and Howard, 1996)

Most research books argue that this critical review of literature is necessary.

After through studies of different Export and import books and literature, I have found that only a small portion is dedicated to the buyers’ and sellers’ behavior and most of the focus is given to, how to export and import.

No doubt these were not adequate information to compete my research that’s why I decided to search more and more information on topic and now hopefully I have gathered adequate information to deal with my Research methodology and to support my arguments. And this information, gathered from journal and articles will focus on the British and Pakistani textiles buyers’ and sellers’ perspective.

The literature used in this research will also help in analyzing the issues and results critically either by comparing different point of views of different authors or by quoting statements in the favor of results. To gain product’s knowledge I will use my observations and company documents.

Deductive approach:

“A theory/hypothesis is applied/tested by the collection of data.”

I shall use the literature to help me to identify theories and ideas that I shall test using data. I shall also develop a theoretical or conceptual framework which I subsequently test using data.

Inductive approach:

“Theory is developed after the data have been collected.”

I will be planning to explore my data and to develop theories from them that I shall subsequently relate to the literature.

Review purposes:

The literature review has a number of purposes. Many of these have been highlighted by Gall et al. (1996). These are

To help you to refine further your research question(s) and objectives;

To highlight research possibilities that have been overlooked implicitly in research to date;

To help you to avoid simply repeating work that has been done already;

To sample current opinions in newspapers, professional and trade journals thereby gaining insight into the aspects of your research question(s) and objectives that are considered newsworthy;

To discover and provide an insight into research strategies and methodologies that may be appropriate to your own research question(s) and objectives;

To discover explicit recommendations for further research. These can provide you with superb justification for your own research question(s) and objectives;

Literature sources available:

The literature sources available to help researcher to develop a good understanding of and insight into previous research can be divided into three categories:

Primary (published and unpublished)

Secondary

Tertiary

Primary literature sources (also known as grey literature) are the first occurrence of a piece of work. They include published sources such as reports and some central and local government publications such as white papers and planning documents. They also include unpublished manuscripts sources such as letters, memos.

There are so many published sources available from where I can get enough information about my research topic. Pakistani government published so much material on the export of Pakistan Textile industry. I read that publications and I got a good idea about the behavior of the Pakistani sellers’ and also about the buyers’ of the Pakistani Textile products.

I also reviewed the reports, which are published by the British government about the import of the textile products from different countries. This is also helpful for my research topic.

Secondary literature sources such as books and journals are the subsequent publications of primary literature. These publications are aimed at a wider audience. They are easier to locate than primary literature as they are better covered by the tertiary literature.

There is book by Nasim Yousaf with the title Export & Import Apparel and Textiles from Pakistan will be quite helpful for my research. In this book there is so much information about the Pakistani textile industry and there is also some information about the buyers’ and sellers’ behavior.

There is also enough information about the topic in so many articles and journals, which are written, by the Pakistani authors and British authors. From these articles and journals I got so much information about my topic. This will be helpful for me in the future.

Tertiary literature sources also called search tools, are designed either to help to locate primary and secondary literature or to introduce a topic. They therefore include indexes and abstract as well as encyclopedias and bibliographies.

Export Promotion Bureau of Pakistan has a uploaded a website and on that website I found so much relevant material about my research topic. In that website there is so much information about the, share of Pakistani textile products in the international market, the information about the main buyers and sellers of textiles products, about the quality of the Pakistani textile products, in that website they also discussed the buyers’ expectation from the Pakistani seller. So this website of Export Promotion Bureau Pakistan is also a good source or information for my research topic.

http://www.epb.gov.pk/epb/index.jsp

Evaluating the literature:

For evaluating the literature two questions frequently asked ‘how do I know what I am reading is relevant?’ and ‘how do I know when I have read enough?’ both of questions are concerned with the process of evaluation.

You should, of course, read all the literature that is closely related to your research question(s) and objectives. The literature that is most likely to cause problems is that which is less related (Gall et al.; 1996).

After collecting all the information from all of the sources then I will evaluate my literature that what is much important for my research and which is less important for my research topic. I will evaluate the literature by keeping some important in my mind like how recent the item is, do it have enough references, does the item support my research topic etc.

Research Design and Methodology:
The research philosophy:

The research philosophy refers to the fundamental approach that research should be conducted. There are three views about the research process dominating the literature: positivism, interpretivism, and realism.

The mixed approach will be applied in my research work, primarily because the subject matter is largely intangible, open to subjective interpretation and based upon social interaction. As Saunders et al (2003, p99) point that: ‘there are two major advantages to applying multi-methods in the same study. First, different methods can be used for different purposes in a study. Secondly, it enables triangulation to take place’.

Qualitative Approach:

Secondary Research:

Published data that is

Books about the export of Pakistan textiles and also about the buyers’ and sellers’ behavior of the Pakistan textile.

Articles and Journals on Pakistan textile export for UK

Chamber of Commerce Documents

Internet Websites

Past conducted research

Print and electronic media

Primary Research:

Personal experience and observations:

As I have worked in this industry that’s why I know the trends in textile and the rules against conducting this business. I also have the idea of Britain buyers’ behaviors and about their needs and expectations.

Pure Research:
The research conducted for the topic will be pure and it will discuss the core issue for the sake of improving knowledge. It will directly discuss about the buyers’ and sellers’ behavior for the Pakistan textile industry in a theoretical way.

Inductive Approach:

My approach towards data gathering will be inductive, as it is a flexible structure to utilize all the data in your research findings and also based on qualitative data with a slight involvement of quantitative data.

JUSTIFICATION

HYPOTHESIS

METHODOLOGY

RESEARCH REPORT

2. SECONDARY RESEARCH

PRIMARY RESEARCH

QUALITATAIVE QUANTITATIVE

SCOPE

LIMITATION

ETHICS

Azerbaijan, as a country situated in the Caucasus has a very advantageous location for tourism, but tourism is not a leading sector in Azerbaijan. The most important industry here is oil sector as Azerbaijan has very rich oil reserves and economy depends and develops on the oil industry. Over 90% of annual income comes from our oil industry and the difference between oil industry and the others is huge. So that’s why Azerbaijani government wants to cover this difference and the best way is to improve tourism sector because we have the potential. Even in the world tourism is the second biggest industry after the oil sector.

Most of the tourists coming to Azerbaijan are business travellers and the reason is oil industry again. That is why the hotels are mostly specialized in business tourism. There are some hotels that I would like to mention: The Landmark Hotel, Hyatt, Ramada Baku, Radisson SAS and Park Inn. As a best practice in sustainable hospitality experience I would like talk about Hyatt. In comparison with above mentioned hotels, Hyatt Hotels Baku has a real professional background and prosperous experience in hospitality industry.

Contribution to the Body of Knowledge

Actually there have been done no studies and researches on sustainability of the hotels in the market in Azerbaijan that made it a challenge to discuss the topic with extremely lack of information given. Therefore, this thesis can be accepted as one of the first researches on the sustainability of the hotels in the market, but not in respect to the environment and nature.

Research Questions

While working on this topic I am going to find answers to the following questions:

What is the current situation in hospitality industry?

What are the barriers for sustainability of hotels?

Which are the ways of breaking the barriers of hotel’s sustainability?

SWOT analyze

What are the recommendations and suggestions for sustainability?

Methodology

This thesis will be done by hermeneutical kind of research as I am going to search existing literature, statistical reports, articles, etc. While reviewing these materials I will analyze and gather all necessary information and give a final report on sustainability of hotels.

In order to get intended information about the hotel I have contacted the sales & marketing manager of Hyatt Baku Mrs. Bahar Dadashova. So far we had only one conference call to inform her about my intention, however in the run of the thesis we will keep in touch.

Definitions

This chapter gives an overview of the different definitions of sustainable tourism. On the other hand, some studies done concerning kinds of sustainable tourism itself. So far, these definitions give an idea about sustainable tourism and its main factors.

Sustainable Tourism

Sustainable tourism development is defined by the Word Tourism Organisation (WTO), as a development that “meets the needs of present tourists and host regions while protecting and enhancing opportunity for the future. It is envisaged as leading to management of all resources in such a way that economic, social, and aesthetic needs can be fulfilled while maintaining cultural integrity, essential ecological processes, and biological diversity, and life support systems” (World Tourism Organisation (WTO), 2003). Based on the Rio de Janeiro Declaration on Environment and Development, 12 guiding principles of sustainable tourism are set in the Agenda 21 for the travel and tourism industry (United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), 2002). In the tourism context, sustainable tourism is often associated with nature orientated tourism or eco-tourism (Eagles et al., 2002) and has become central in the debate on environmentally integrated tourism development (Gossling et al., 2002).

Tourism in Azerbaijan

Sustainability of the hotels in Azerbaijan is very young as the tourism industry itself. The Republic of Azerbaijan was established in the early 1990s. Since the establishment economy of the country was depending on oil industry. 95% of the budget was contributed by the country’s oil industry.

The best alternative to cut down this dependency on oil in the budget is to develop tourism industry. Azerbaijan has very good potential for tourism; high mountains, beautiful forests, ancient history, different historical sites and monuments, lots of artists, poets etc.

The Ministry of Tourism and Culture of the Republic of Azerbaijan was established in 2005. One year later Azerbaijan Tourism Institute (ATI) under the Ministry of Tourism and Culture of Azerbaijan was opened. ATI is established in order to cover the lack of qualified staff in tourism sector which is a global issue in world tourism industry as well.

Sustainable Tourism in Azerbaijan

As it was mentioned above tourism sector in Azerbaijan is young compared to the other industries. Talking about sustainability of the hotels in Azerbaijan we can only mention very few hotels e.g., Hyatt Hotels Baku, Radisson SAS Baku.

The names mentioned above are one of the first hotels in Azerbaijan. They are still operating successfully and still very strong in the market.

To go back to the Soviet Union period then we can talk about the Hotel Azerbaijan and Absheron Hotel. Those hotels had a big market share as well and were very popular at that time. They had been operating for a long time. The sustainability factors were;

Good location

Contribution by the government

Best service for that time

Best staff

Since 2005 these both of the hotels were destroyed one after another and now there are 2 big constructions going on; Hilton and JW Marriott.

The JW Marriott is replacing Baku’s famous Absheron Hotel, which has been demolished, and will be part of a mixed use development designed by ReardonSmith to include 16 floors of private residences, serviced apartments, retail and offices as well as the 20-storey hotel. The architects had a number of key considerations to balance in their concept: location, the high water table, local conventions and successful hotel operations and of course, the client’s aspirations for this important building. The result is a unique design that makes a virtue out of addressing these potentially competing dictums.

The Hotel “Hilton Baku”, which is being built in Baku on Azadlig Avenue (instead the hotel “Azerbaijan”), will be commissioned in August 2011. The total area of five-star hotel “Hilton Baku” is 42,160 square meters. The hotel will consist of 25 floors and 308 rooms. There will be elevators with panoramic views, different restaurants, concert and exhibition halls, recreation centre at the 670 square meters, sports and fitness centres and swimming pools in the hotel. A bar, which rotates 360 degrees and covers the entire panorama of Baku, will be located on the top floor of the hotel.

Hyatt Hotels

Global Hyatt

I guess this is the only hotel that actually stopped growth of the company related to its policy: Global Hyatt has concentrated on high-end segment, but nevertheless it is among the ten largest. In 2007, the chain launched an innovative hotel brand Hyatt Place, where everything is created based on the results of surveys carried out among the discerning tourists. The hotel is not only providing exclusive services but also tries to make emphasize on its buildings and design.

History

Hyatt Hotels Corporations well-established reputation as an industry innovator provides a wealth of inspiration as the company looks forward to its next era of creative hospitality. Known around the world for its brands – Hyatt Regency , Grand Hyatt , Park Hyatt , Hyatt Place , Hyatt Summerfield Suites and Andaz – the entire collection of Hyatt hotels and resorts weaves together authentic service with leading technology to offer its guests unique restaurants, luxury accommodations and distinctive spas. With its new initiatives and design elements continuing to evolve, the next half-century of Hyatt innovation will continue to provide its guests a world of uncommon travel experiences. Hyatt Hotels & Resorts opened its first property, a small motor hotel at the Los Angeles International Airport, in 1957 and its portfolio quickly grew to include several other modest hotels along the West Coast and in Chicago over the next ten years. In 1967, Hyatt opened its first major John Portman designed hotel, Hyatt Regency Atlanta, in Georgia, which featured a space-age design with a dramatic, 21-story atrium lobby. The revolutionary architecture spawned scores of atrium lobbies around the world, effectively changing the course of the lodging industry and reshaping the Hyatt brand as an innovative and significant global hospitality leader.

Hyatt successfully distinguishes itself within the competitive hospitality marketplace with six different brands, each designed to deliver experiences attuned to the lifestyles, attitudes, values, and aspirations of the guests for whom it is designed. The 2007-launched Andaz brand is sophistication made simple delivered with a genuine warmth; Hyatt Regency enables productivity and revitalization within a responsive, convenient and contemporary environment; Park Hyatt , a discreet and refined collection located in fashionable cities around the world, epitomizes modern luxury; Grand Hyatt properties are some of the most architecturally dramatic hotels in the world, offering stunning design and a myriad of innovative food and beverage concepts; Hyatt Place is designed for the 24/7 lifestyle of today’s multi-tasking business traveller, and Hyatt Summerfield Suites , a reinvention of the all-suites, extended-stay hotel, features timely amenities and inviting, residential design.

As a unified portfolio, Hyatt’s properties share core values across the Hyatt brand: exceptional guest service, upscale amenities, popular food and beverage programs, and innovative interior designs that incorporate local art and style. Currently offering travellers a choice of more than 365 hotels and resorts in over 45 countries, Hyatt Hotels Corporation continues to build on its commitment to clients, staff, partners and the environment as it grows its dynamic vision for the future of hospitality.

International chain

Hyatt Corporation is one of the leading hotel companies in North America. Owned by the Pritzker family of Chicago, Hyatt manages or licenses the management of 87 hotels and 16 resorts (with a total of 55,000 rooms) in 83 cities in the United States, Canada, and the Caribbean. In addition to its resorts, Hyatt has also developed other special hotel concepts–the Grand Hyatt, the Park Hyatt, and Classic Residence by Hyatt. Grand Hyatts are large-scale, higher priced hotels located in culturally rich cities, with three in the United States (New York, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C.). Park Hyatts are modelled after small European hotels and are located in Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C. The Classic Residence by Hyatt properties offers luxury retirement apartments for rental. Starting in the mid-1990s, the company has also sought growth opportunities in franchising, time-share properties, free-standing golf courses, and casinos.

Hyatt Hotels Baku

Hyatt Hotels Baku consists of 2 hotels -Hyatt Regency Baku and Park Hyatt Baku Hyatt Regency Baku was reconstructed and opened in 1995; second renovation was implemented in 2005; Park Hyatt Baku was open in 1999 and most of the rooms were refurbished with new facilities in 2008

Best Sustainable Hotel Chains

InterContinental Hotel Group

Since 2004, this hotel’s chain became the largest in the world. To date, it owns more than 600 thousand hotel rooms, scattered across the globe. Each year their number is being increased by 5,9%, mainly due to the expansion of Holiday Inn Express, but also because of the increasing number of hotels Crowne Plaza and the emergence in Europe, Staybridge Suites and Indigo boutique hotel.

Marriott International

The company claims that every year, growing by 4,7% and in the near future has plans to build 800 hotel and add to the existing 500 thousand rooms 125 thousand more. The Group also promises to invest a lot in pre-existing ones, including the Marriott floor, numerous brands, covering all niches of the hotel business from budget options for poor tourists to luxury hotels for the discerning VIP-persons.

Hilton Hotels

Ranking as the fourth largest chain, this brand is popular not only with luxury hotels, but also because of the scandalous Paris Hilton’s escapades, the former heir to the empire hotel room. The company is known propensity for innovations: the first one of its owners have introduced a system of “star” ratings, equipped hotel with Wi-Fi. However, the chain began to suffer losses, and in 2007 the former owners were forced to sell the hotel business group Blackstone. In 2008 net increased with 300 new sites, and the growth of the company was mainly due to expanses of the United States. But the emergence of the company’s portfolio of brands Doubletree, Homewood Suites, and especially the Hilton Garden Inn and Hampton Inn, as well as the construction of Hilton Hotel in provincial Russia say the desire to start taking over the world.

ANALYZING THE general statement

Hyatt Hotels in Azerbaijan

Hyatt Hotels Group is focused on enhancing the brand preference by continuously improving the performance of their existing hotels and successfully expanding the presence of their brands in select markets worldwide. Smart growth and development is fundamental to achieving these aims. As a company, they add hotels in locations throughout the world where their loyal guests and customers want them to be. Hyatt team works closely with the development partners to ensure their success through innovative and efficient design, operational excellence and effective sales and marketing strategies. Hyatt Hotels are focused on the role of development within the organization and have formed a dedicated and experienced global development team. Hyatt Hotels Baku is committed to establishing a reputation as the leading hotel complex in Azerbaijan and the Caucasus region. Their service is known to anticipate, meet and exceed the guest expectations.

In order to retain the established position as the market leader in Baku, they focus on the quality of the operation, the physical aspects of both of the hotels, safety and security as well as creating exciting, innovative and trend setting products throughout.

Management

Widely recognized and industry leading brands of Hyatt Hotels have consistently received top rankings, awards and accolades for service and guest experience from independent publications and surveys, including Travel and Leisure, Mobil and AAA. The mission of Hyatt is to provide authentic hospitality by making a difference in the lives of the people. They focus on this mission in pursuit of the goal of becoming the most preferred brand in each segment that they serve for the associates, guests, and owners. Hyatt Hotels support their mission and goal by adhering to a set of core values that characterizes their culture. Globally, they manage, franchise, own and develop Hyatt branded hotels, resorts and residential and vacation ownership properties around the world. As of March 31, 2010, the company’s worldwide portfolio consisted of 434 properties.

Sales & marketing department of Hyatt Hotels Baku

Sales and Marketing department in Hyatt Hotels Baku consists of 8 employees which are-Director of Sales, Catering Manager, 2 Banquet Sales Managers, 2 Rooms Sales Managers, Sales Executive and Revenue Analyst. Besides, there can be Sales Admin Assistant, Sales Coordinator, Regional Director of Marketing, Marketing Communications Manager. Hyatt’s worldwide Sales and Marketing teams strive to build brand preference and drive revenue to our hotels. Our sales and marketing strategies are rooted in a comprehensive understanding of our customer segments, the current dynamics of the marketplace and the most effective use of new technology and media platforms. Hyatt’s marketing strategy is designed to secure and build brand value and awareness while meeting the specific business needs of hotel operations. Building and differentiating the brand position of Hyatt and our sub-brands is fundamental to increasing Hyatt’s brand preference and demand, rate premium and related business imperatives. Hyatt is focused on targeting the distinct customer segments that each of our brands serves and supporting the needs of the hotels by thorough analysis and application of data and analytics. There is a coordinated and integrated communication strategy for the Hyatt master brand and each of the sub-brands across every distribution channel.

Promotion of Hyatt Hotels Baku in the World

Hyatt’s Central Reservation System is an important contributor to the performance of the hotels system wide. The system booked 11.8 million room-nights in 2008, representing approximately $2.3 billion in rooms department revenue. Reservation centres are located in the United States, Australia, India, UAE, Germany, Japan and China to provide 24/7 access to prospective guests. Hyatt Hotels work closely with the distribution partners to ensure that they maximize market share across all channels. These include traditional travel agencies (e.g., American Express, Carlson Wagonlit), online travel agencies (e.g., Expedia, Travelocity and multiple regional agencies, etc.), opaque agencies (e.g., Priceline, Hotwire) and multiple user-generated sites that link back to Hyatt.com (e.g., Trip Advisor). Hyatt also has extensive marketing partnerships with all global and regional airlines.

Product knowhow

Hyatt Baku Hotels offers unmatched variety of facilities and services within one complex, including business and communication technology, vast fitness and relaxation facilities, an array of dining and entertainment opportunities, shops and offices. The USP of Hyatt Hotels Baku is: favourable location and convenient access to select business centres and government offices; the only complete lifestyle complex in the city, featuring 2 hotels, office and residential facilities, wide variety of F&B Outlets, multifunctional meeting and conference facilities and state-of-the-art Health and Fitness Centre; largest global distribution / reservation system; largest inventory of suites present in the city suitable for large VIP government groups.

Contribution from the Hyatt Hotels International

Hyatt’s properties and preopening sales offices are supported by a network of salespeople in key markets around the world. Sales professionals represent all Hyatt destinations and focus on all relevant market segments e.g., corporate accounts, M.I.C.E. accounts, key wholesalers, travel agencies and luxury travel specialists. Additional support is provided to hotels with dedicated resources managing programs such as Virtuoso American Express Fine Hotels & Resorts. The network includes offices in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Washington D.C., Mexico City, London, Mainz, Sydney, Melbourne, Riyadh, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Singapore, Beijing, Shanghai, Bangalore, New Delhi and Mumbai, as well as additional coverage throughout Continental Europe. Each office is responsible for ongoing support of the Hyatt portfolio. Additionally, each office coordinates the presentation of Hyatt and Hyatt’s sub-brands at important industry events and shows such as ITB, World Travel Market and Asia Luxury Travel Market. Hotels also have the opportunity to participate in annual Hyatt fairs and sales calls coordinated by each worldwide sales office. These events provide the hotels with face-to-face access to Hyatt’s best existing and potential clients.

Competitiveness of Hyatt Hotels

Currently eight five-star international hotels are under construction in Baku. This is not just about attracting well-heeled tourists, as Baku still has a relatively small demand for luxury hotels. It is about making Baku competitive as a mega-event Mecca. Baku will be promoted as a site for “conference tourism,” Gurbatov, the tourism official, said. “Each year, Baku hosts more government-sponsored conferences and other events. But the creation of the appropriate infrastructure — luxury hotels, large expo-centres, convention centres, conference halls and stadiums — will allow the government to bid on hosting large-scale international events.” One 33,800-square-meter exposition centre opened in Baku in May; the government has also begun construction of a 60,000-seat soccer stadium. The sprawling 90,071-square-meter Heydar Aliyev Cultural Centre, designed to look like rippling waves, will open in 2013. Attracting sporting events and conferences to these venues “is a matter of both the country’s prestige and commercial profit from foreign visitors,” Gurbatov added. For now, expectations run high that the owners of the new hotel under construction will benefit from their investments – assuming that the government succeeds with its “conference tourism” strategy. Commented Kenan Aslanly, an analyst at Baku’s Public Finance Monitoring Centre: “If this strategy is successfully implemented, the country will win both economically and politically.”

Jumeirah will be the first new hotel to open in 2011. Jumeirah will have reasonably strong brand awareness in Baku, since a) Dubai is a very familiar weekend / holiday retreat for Azerbaijanis and b) Middle-Eastern and Persian business is growing in Baku due to the development in the city with Dubai as an “ideal”. Jumeirah is located close to the President’s Dacha, approx 15 minutes outside the airport (45 minutes from city centre).

The President will use this hotel to host visiting diplomatic delegations and Ministry conferences due to the close proximity to the airport, Buta Palace conference centre and to his summer residence / Dacha, where he resides between April – October every year. This will affect Park Hyatt, as we currently get the majority of this business. It will also affect Hyatt Regency when it comes to groups and associations (e.g. sport groups) which look for a secluded place with spaces for outdoor activities (pools, golf course, tennis etc), and groups looking for a location outside the city centre to avoid late party nights.

The Marriott (80 room inventory) is located close to Jumeirah. Due to a small inventory and inconvenient location, it will not impact Hyatt much, despite being a well known, international brand with an aggressive opening-strategy to drive occupancy. JW Marriott (228 room inventory)will open Q1 2012.Located at Baku’s Freedom Square – a national symbol and location of military parades – as well as the seafront boulevard with the Caspian Sea beyond. This hotel will also have to compete in the corporate market to achieve occupancy. Hilton will open in June 2011 and is located right next to Park Inn, sea side in the centre of the city. The two hotels have the same owner, something which is of great concern for Park Inn. Park Inn opened in 2005, but is still worried about getting a new, international brand as competitor- and has great concerns about losing corporate agreements for companies located around the hotel and group business. Landmark is also very concerned about this new entry on the hotel scene. We think the Hilton will also affect Hyatt Regency, – both for groups and transient business. Fairmont is the largest of the new hotels; the hotel will also have to compete in the corporate market to achieve occupancy. They will be able to offer moderate corporate rates due to the size of the property, and due to the location we can expect companies and individuals visiting for meetings with ministries etc to perhaps choose this location. Hyatt used to be a good location as we are only a 5-10 minutes drive from the parliament and several ministries. Four Seasons hotel is scheduled to open late 2011. Park Hyatt is currently the only official protocol hotel in Baku, but it will mainly lose this status once Four Seasons is opening. The hotel will be more or less purpose built to host high-ranking government officials, diplomatic visits, VIPs etc., with a 3-bedroom Presidential suite and several 3-bedroom and 2-bedroom suites and a room type called “Deluxe deluxe” with two king beds in the same room (suited for the American- and Asian market). Four Seasons will also have a 330 m2 ballroom. Sheraton is still a project to rebrand the Airport hotel (ex Holiday Inn)

Sustainability of Hyatt Baku Hotels

Hyatt Hotels Baku has started operating in Azerbaijan since 1995. First, Hyatt Regency was opened in 1995 after the aˆzContract of Century” (Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline). Then in 1999 due to the high demand Park Hyatt was opened next to the Hyatt Regency. Till 2004 both of the hotels were very strong and almost alone in the market. The only competitor was Radisson SAS. In 2004 another brand Park Inn penetrated into the market. Since then the market share of Hyatt Hotels in Baku is decreased slightly. Because still the demand is high and accommodation facilities are not enough to meet the need. Currently, Baku features only a few luxury hotels run by international chains — the Hyatt Regency, Park Hyatt and Radisson SAS, Park Inn and Airport Hotel. If Azerbaijan’s Eurovision contestant, Safura, had triumphed at the annual pop extravaganza this year, Baku would not have had the facilities to host the event in 2011, noted Faig Gurbatov, national coordinator of the government’s Tourism Development Project, an initiative run jointly with the United Nations Development Programme.

Since the 1995 to nowadays both of the Hyatt Hotels in Baku were operating very successfully. This is a main factor showing its sustainability.

Demand

Demand for Hyatt Regency and Hyatt Park (Baku) is quite high. The average occupancy rate (annually) is around 69%. In high seasons this figure increases up to 90-95%.

Target Market

One of the components needed to apply hotel revenue management is market segmentation. It allows you to target and market to a variety of consumer groups with different behaviour with an offer that matches their needs and budget level.

Your hotel market segmentation shall help to identify the purpose of the trip: either business or leisure. The price does not decide of the market segmentation. Clear distinction must also be achieved between individual and group business .The market segmentation shall help you identify the trends of your business:

Length of Stay

Day of Weeks stays

Total Revenue per room, Total Revenue per client

Lead Time

Cancellation

No Show ratio

Due to the last trends in Azerbaijan 3 industries are increasing rapidly e.g., oil business, pharmaceutical industry and information & telecommunications sector. Guests from the above mentioned industries are coming to stay at Hyatt very often. Also, the number of governmental officials and walk-in tourists is high enough.

Maritz guest satisfaction survey (Benchmarking)

Since the competitor hotels give wrong information, Hyatt International has decided to change their strategy. Now, Hyatt Hotels are not doing benchmarking. Hyatt Hotels Baku uses the services of Maritz.

Maritz is a guest satisfaction survey. Maritz protects the data about the companies by the world-class policies and procedures. Maritz has developed a security program which includes:

Physical Security and Controls

Network Architecture and Security

System and Remote Access Controls

Application Security

Database Security

Call Centre Security

Security Administration

Intrusion Detection

Change Management

Data Back-up and Retention

Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery

Guest Satisfaction Surveys

As many hotel chains Hyatt hotels International check the guest satisfaction level. In order to obtain the information about the service quality and better to understand the needs and wants of the guests.

Hyatt Hotels Baku is also conducting such kind of surveys in order to get the needed information. Mostly the comment cards are used in hospitality sector. Either the cards are put on the table in the rooms or reception provides with comment cards at the check – out.

As I have mentioned already, I had a meeting with the sales & marketing manager of Hyatt Hotels Baku. She showed me a guest comment card.

How would you rate the quality of the food?

How would you rate the service quality?

Please rate the cleanliness of the facilities.

Please rate the friendliness of the staff.

Please rate your overall experience.

How likely are you to refer us to a friend?

Each question can get minimum 1, maximum 5 points from each respondent. The points from each respondent per question are added together. Then they calculate the percentage out of the maximum e.g., 3 respondents answered the 1st question and the results were 5, 4 and 3 points.

5+4+3=12

12*100/15=80%

(15) is the maximum number of points for 3 respondents

With the results of this short survey conducted among the guests of Hyatt Baku Hotels you can get to know in the chart below:

Figure 1: Guest satisfaction survey chart

Guest portfolio of Hyatt Hotels Baku by the regions

The guest of Hyatt Regency and Park Hyatt are very multi-national. All around the world guests come to stay at Hyatt. Mainly the guests of Hyatt Hotels Baku are Europeans, from GCC and North America.

SWOT Analysis

Figure 3:

Strength

Weaknesses

Internationally recognized brand

Global reservation system with the link to all GDS distributors

Quality service and facilities

Excellent F&B choices

Known Health & Fitness facilities

Extensive room & suite inventory with two hotels

Increased sales presence

NFPA – standard life safety

Multi – lingual/ international staff

WWSO’s

Some companies perceive Hyatt as expensive Hotel considering it only for the management

Location away from the city business district is a barrier to some companies

All hotels offer complimentary Internet facilities, unlike Hyatt, where the service is perceived too expensive by corporate travellers

Opportunities

Threats

Brand awareness for potential acquisition.

To be in line with modest technologies and systems

Constantly work on improvements

Active promotion on local market

Upscale fitness facilities is a very strong decision making point for hotel choice on the market

Luxury room inventory and good balance between suites and standard rooms is a strong asset to target any business opportunities in the market

Continue building necessary networking and be aware of latest market trends

Additional distribution channels

Brand restrictions do not allow to compete with lower brand rate offers

Create inconveniences in acquisition of leisure business

Internet is still very expensive, thus it affects in decision making process for most of organizations

The London Marriott Hotel Grosvenor Square is a 5 star hotel that is located in the Central London near to the Oxford Street and Park Lane. It is one of the classic hotels in England. The hotel has 236 luxurious bedrooms and 45 Club Level bedrooms with many facilities like Club Lounge, Wi-Fi Internet access, versatile meeting and event space, Maze Restaurant, Maze Grill, Complimentary, fitness centre, 24-hour room service. (MARRIOTT, 2010)

The hotel is located in Central London which has many tourist spots and centre of attractions around the locality. Some of the tourist spots nearby the hotel are: The London Eye, Buckingham Palace, Theatre district, Madame Tussaud, Covent Garden, Big Ben and the Palace of Westminster, Oxford Street/Bond Street shopping, The Tate Modern, The British Museum, Big Bus London Tours, The Tower of London. These tourist spots are within walk able distance from this hotel which attracts more of tourists. This saves them a lot of money from spending on transportation. Thus, tourists choose this hotel for their stay so that they have much more time to explore these tourist spots.

As mentioned above Central London is not only a tourist spot but also a place full of Information Technology corridor and some of the main industry’s head quarters are located here as well. The business customers and corporate choose this hotel because it saves a lot of time and money. Marriott also provides good banqueting and boardroom facilities that are used to organise meetings and the banquets are also put to good use. The hotel provides lots of facilities and services to the corporate such as group check in, bill to the company etc. which provides good hospitality.

The hotel also includes ‘The Maze’, which is a restaurant created by the world famous celebrity Chef Gordon Ramsay. It’s one of the famous French and Asian blend restaurants in London. Thus this is one of the key reasons that there are many celebrities who choose to dine in this restaurant often. Few family customers also visit this restaurant during the weekends to experience one of the fine dining restaurants in London. Due to its locality, Marriott attracts worldwide celebrities who come to London for world premiers. The hotel is also frequented by sports personalities who have their after win celebrations.

CUSTOMER CARE POLICIES:

Marriott has many customer care policies which they are very keen on following to attract people from all corners.

Marriott has a very unique method of marketing and also takes utmost care in making the customer’s stay a pleasure hence increasing the chances for them to come back. In this Marriott, the personal information of the residents is stored in the database. This database is securely stored to prevent non-breaching. This database is shared by all the Marriott across the world. This enables them to send a greeting card or a gift for their customer on the occasion of birthdays and anniversaries no matter where they are in the world. Because of the inter relationships between the chains, this is achievable. According to surveys this method has been really beneficial in bringing back the customers, hence ensuring excellent customer care.

When it comes to corporate/business customers, Marriott follows mutual profit dealing. Marriott often maintains a relationship with regular customers from corporate companies. For a certain number of customers, Marriott provides discounts and additional services if the company for which the customer works has a tie up with Marriott. Under the package, even banqueting and board rooms can be provided for free based on the particular organisation. This includes accommodation in reduced price. The company ensures that the connection with the hotel is beneficial by using the services and hence increase the times of usage of the hotel. In the other hand, the hotel confirms a constant flow of customers. This can be considered as a profitable circle and hence it’s unique way of standing out from the crowd.

As mentioned before, Gordon Ramsay’s restaurant, The Maze, always has the capacity to attract people. People who want to taste the authentic French cuisine blended with Asian from the kitchen of a world famous chef always makes The Maze the centre of attraction. Due to the world premier of movies in theatres nearby, Marriott has seen an array of celebrities. And celebrities always attract crowd because of which Marriott increases its growth. Marriott ensures special attention, security and privacy for high profile people who need them the most. Privacy for these people is even provided in restaurants by providing special separate seating arrangements and hence keeping them away from the watchful eyes. These qualities make Marriot one of the most desired places to stay for the celebrities and hence ensuring a perfect service for different type of customers.

IMPORTANCE OF ESTABLISHING EFFECTIVE CUSTOMER CARE:

“A customer is an individual or group of individuals to whom you supply one or more products or services.” (Smith, 2004:6). “Customer care involves putting systems in place to maximise your customers’ satisfaction with your business. It should be a prime consideration for every business – your sales and profitability depends on keeping your customers happy.” (Business Link, 2010). The success of any business is hugely depended upon providing effective customer care.

Customer care is all about customer satisfaction. If an organisation can make an experience as a memorable moment, then there will be more return customers. Establishing effective customer care gives the organisation a high return and also the profit. Loyal customers are the one who are to be given extra care as they are worthy.

In this competitive world, the competition in the market is also very high. Customers are demanding for good service, good response to the complaints, and are demanding for extra bit of attention. Thus it is necessary for the organisation to prove a point to the customer that they really care for their customers.

The expectations of the customers have been constantly rising. To meet these expectations, the organisation must consistently analyse the level of service. If the requirement is not fulfilled by the organisation, then it will become a hurdle for the progression of the sector. Guests who are not satisfied will spread the news which will also create many obstacles to the business.

Effective customer care is important in order to get repeated guests and also the guest tends to refer their friends also. This improves the sales and also the profit of the organisation. The reputation and the image of the organisation are improved if the customer care is good. This in turn brings more shares in the market. Especially the internal customers i.e. the employees get more of job satisfaction by caring the customers.

The main goal of establishing effective customer care is satisfying or delighting the customers. It also helps to exchange more information, maintain a good relationship, trust and also to decrease the workloads and costs. In hospitality industry, customers are the king. Effective customer care will benefit the customers in many ways. It is one of the important parts of marketing mix. Quality in service will give more loyal guests. It also ensures that the services and products delivered to the customers will be of good quality. Thus, establishing effective customer care in hospitality industry is very much important for improving the growth of the organisation.

EVALUATING THE EFFECTIVENESS OF CUSTOMER SERVICE POLICIES:

The evaluation of the effectiveness of customer service policies is an important factor to increase the growth of any organisation. The evaluation shows how the policy implemented influences the organisation. Even though most policies are practically followed only after careful considerations, there are always chances for misleading factors which might give more cons then pros for the policy. A simple example can be the usage of man power for the different sections of a hotel. Using more people for work which takes more time to be done can be a simple and effective solution.

An effective customer service strategy has to be followed with considerable modifications based on the customer and their needs. Each customer is unique, so are their needs. In a customer service based roles, the colleagues will develop the capacity to differentiate the types of customers. If the situation permits, more importance can be given to customers with a higher value and who are more prone to be a regular customer. This just ensures that the specific customer goes through a different level of service hence providing equal service to all the customers.

Excellent customer service is achieved when the customer is provided with what he/she wants even before they use it. The needs of the customer and how these needs are to be met with are meant to be determined. Exceeding the customer’s expectation always frames a name for the organisation. These needs are to be met with great care and also with consideration for other factors like cost and profit. Creating a name in the market is one challenge and maintaining it for years is a more challenging feat. The colleagues should have a good knowledge about the service the hotel can provide and also the capacity with which it has to be provided.

Training for the employees should be focused and taken care of. The organisation must meet the needs of the employees and respect their decisions and ideas must be considered. Quality control is often achieved not by intensive supervision, but by building a sense of pride and the ability to work as a team. A proven method to increase the customer service skills of the employees is by sheer encouragement. This can be in any forms, as in increasing the bonus, the status in the organisation or even organising a special event. In a nut shell, happy employees provide excellent service, thus making the customers happy and make them come back again. This increases the profit and also the bonus for the employees, which makes them happy. This cycle is very crucial for any customer based organisation to stand out from the crowd.

Background and motivation:

The concept of service quality has been gaining importance since the 1970s; the basic concept behind premium service quality is delivering and meeting more than the expected from the customer. “Service quality is son intangible that objective measurement is impossible, it is largely believed that the main challenge lies mostly in managing appearances and perceptions (Harvey, 1998). Majority of the study in on service quality started during the 1970s and 19780s and the reason for this study gaining such rapid importance and becoming a matter of research and development is because of the attributes of complete intangibility associated with it. The four main attributes associated with measuring service quality and the views of a few major researchers and scholars in the related feel are as follows:

Intangibility: “Customers cannot evaluate a service prior to consumption, during consumption and cannot store the service after consumption” (Zeithaml, 1981; Shostack, 1984).

Heterogeneity: “Heterogeneity relates to the potential variability in the actual performance of services” and is supported by Booms and Bitner (1981) and Looy et al. (1998).

Perishability: The element of intangibility adds to the services being completely perishable that is the customer or consumer can neither save nor inventories it for consumption in the near future.

Inseparability: One of the key aspects associated with service is that the acts of production and consumption are simultaneous, this act is inseparable.

Service quality and business performance:

Although the performance of business is measured by more quantitative financial methods like profitability, market share, comparative growth rate, image of the business as perceived by the customers and the reoccurring business generated by consumer loyalty. These statically or financially calculated results definitely reflect a clear image of the health of the business, but factors like service quality have a deep impact on the performance of the business, as mentioned by Heskett et al. (1994) “Service quality is directly associated with customer satisfaction and customer loyalty”, and the factor that a satisfied customer would be a loyal customer and both these behaviours impact increase the profitability and growth of the business. “A satisfied customer will be loyal to the company and this loyalty is measured through customer retention which eventually is a measure for business performance”. (Jiju Antony Frenie Jiju Antony and Sid Ghosh, “Evaluating service quality in a UK hotel chain: a case study”; International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management Volume 16 · Number 6 · 2004; Emerald Group Publishing Limited).

Motivation:

Cases like the case of the Scandinavian Airlines System (SAS) are landmark examples of relationship between service quality and business performance, in this particular case the CEO of Scandinavian Airlines System (SAS) Jan Carlson in the early 1980s turned a $ 8 billion a year loss making business into a $ 71 million profit making business, he states he achieved this only by treating service quality as a key driver to achieve commercial success, this example reflects the impact delivering quality service can bring to the performance of an organisation.

With the exponentially growing importance of service quality arose the issues of having a system that would control and measure the quality of the service rendered and the flag areas of concern and commitment. Since the 1970s organisations have been using methods simple inspection which were then replaced by quality assurance and quality control organisations since the last decade organisations are adopting and implementing the culture of Total Quality Management (TQM) (Dale, 1999). Research results over the last decades very confidently claim that TQM has affected the financial performance of the firm in a very positive manner (Shetty (1993), Hendricks and Singhal (1997), Easton and Jarrell (1998), Handsfield et al. (1998), Samson and Terziovski (1999), Reed et al. (2000), Allen and Kilmann (2001) and Tena et al. (2001).

Organisations have been using TQM as a tool to measure service quality and it has been gaining importance and both in the areas of management theory and practice, this rapid expansion of the service industry and the importance of service quality in regards to business performance has really motivated me investigate in to service quality measurement and issues, the dynamics of TQM and evidential proof that over the years it has positively affected the financial performance of an organisation has directed me towards evaluating it as a service quality management tool, taking the hotel industry as an area of concern and development.

Research Problem and central research problem:

There has a been a lot of research and plenty of literature available on the implementation and the accountability of the Total Quality Management, but that mostly concerns with the manufacturing industry, which does not has fight the forces of intangibility and the product attributes associated with it. There is a very limited resource of literature and the implications that TQM would have in a completely service oriented industry. The developing literature on quality management includes: quality planning (Papic, 2007); quality assurance (Blackmur, 2004); quality auditing (Goodwin- Stewart and Kent, 2006), quality control (Tang et al, 2007); (Hoyle, 2007), and quality improvement (Maiga and Jacobs, 2005). Keeping in view the limited research and literature available in the area of service driven industry there are many questions and concerns regarding the success of quality management systems like TQM, hence it is a growing concern to investigate the implementation, factors involved in adapting to a TQM culture and most importantly the achieving the desired output, this has formed the basis of my research problem further leading me to the following research questions:

Is having quality in service a competitive advantage? And can TQM be the ideal tool to capitalise on this advantage?
How a service based business approach and adopts TQM in there area of business?
What are the critical factors that can enable the introduction of TQM culture in hotel operations?

These questions have been a concern among many in the service industry, specially the hospitality industry.

Significance of the research:

With the help of my research I feel I would be able to address the above mentioned questions and build a base which would act as a platform for further academic and professional research. With this paper I aim to establish the importance of quality and quality management for the service industry sector with focus on the hospitality industry, to better understand the implication I have further divided my researched and restricted it to the UK hotel industry as It is generally understood that these hotels benefit from improved quality levels and more experienced management (Hayes and Ninemeier, 2007; Stutts and Wortman, 2006).My research on TQM and the principles and significance of the different factors those are necessary to establish successful functionality of TQM culture within an organisation would definitely be significant.

Aims and Objectives:

The aim of this research is to explore and evaluate Total Quality Management system as a toll to measure and support the performance of the hospitality sector, with a specific interest in the UK hotel industry, the aim definitely reflects the importance of introducing TQM in the hospitality industry. Keeping in mind the aim, the research following objectives have developed:

Evaluate and analyse previous literature pertaining to quality and quality management.

Introducing Total Quality Management system to a service industry.

Exploring hospitality and hotel industry and applying TQM to the UK hotel industry.

Evaluate the critical success factors relating to the introduction of TQM through various case studies.

I believe these objectives would like milestones in my journey towards achieving the aim of my research eventually answering my central research question.

Structure of study:

In order to successfully convey my research hypothesis and make my research a platform for academicians and students for further research and development, I have divided my study on the topic into five different chapters, where with each chapter I intend to clarify and support my research question by means of facts, historic performance and realistic forecasts. The structure can be studied with help of the illustration below:

Chapter 1

Background, introduction, problem discussion and aim of the study

Chapter 6

Bibliography

Chapter 4

Methodology and Analysis

Secondary Data

Primary Data

Analysis

Chapter 5

Conclusion and recommendation

Chapter 2

Literature Review: Quality measurement in service industry

Chapter 3

Introduction to TQM, theory and models, TQM in the UK hotel Industry

Chapter 7

For any business to perform well, it must acquire and optimize the deployment of people with talent. Identifying the right talent to fill particular positions and roles is critical to an organization’s effective functioning. All, too often, though, businesses fail to devote sufficient attention to this issue. Organizations and jobs will never be the same eternally. Changes are based on the global economy, on changing technology, on our changing work force, on cultural and demographic changes, and on the changing nature of work itself.

We need to learn new skills and develop new abilities, to respond to these changes in our lives, our careers, and our organizations. HR planning is a decision making process that combines three important activities which are: identifying and acquiring the right number of people with the proper skills, motivating them to achieve high performance and creating interactive links between business objectives and people planning activities.

The purpose of this assignment is to document on the human resource planning at Shandrani Hotel as HR planning is based on the belief that people are an organization’s most important strategic resource. We will try to show how far theory can be put into practice as it is difficult to predict the future and also the policies and strategies within the organization can shift suddenly from one priority to the other. Moreover there is lack of evidence that Human Resource Planning really works as there has been little research evidence of increased use or of its success.

To assess future requirement of new staff both in terms of numbers and of levels of skills and competences, formulating and implementing plans to meet those requirements through proper recruitment and training.

Due to huge competition and globalisation around the world, managers have, to train and develop their employees to make them more efficient in the workplace. Human resource planning refers to the process of employing the right person for the right job. In all industry, organisation have now realised the importance of human resource planning, and all organisation may have different approach to HRP, however, this assignment lays focus in one particular sector, that is the tourism sector. Tourism sector which is labour intensive compared to other industries, for instance, sugar industry which is machine intensive. Therefore the application of human resource planning shall differ and be applied according to the need of the organisation.

Chapter 1 gives an idea about what is the position of tourism in Mauritius, we can therefore deduce from past figures that tourism industry is growing, thus very profitable for Mauritian economy

Chapter 2 defines the Human Resource planning since its year of introduction to its actual use in the market. We have compiled the views of various theorists on HRP.

Chapter 3 shows the procedures followed to gather information for the assignment, with particular reference to Shandrani Resort and Spa.

Chapter 4 gives an overview about Beachcomber group and presents Shandrani Resorts and Spa.

Chapter 5 will focus on the process of Human Resource Planning at Shandrani Resort and Spa.

CHAPTER 1: OVERVIEW OF TOURISM SECTOR IN MAURITIUS

The tourism sector, besides facing cut-throat competition knew an excellent performance for the first semester of 2010. Figures from the Central Statistical Office (CSO) of Mauritius has revealed that tourists’ arrivals for the period January-June 2010, has attained its 439,150 compared to 413,504 in the corresponding year of 2009, thus representing an increase of 6.2%. The tourism industry is of such paramount importance for the Mauritian economy, that the figures indicating the importance for the Mauritian economy towards GDP is expected to rise from 26.5% (MUR 77.8bn) to 32.4% (MUR216.4bn) in 2010.

The credits of the massive increases go to a combination of factors, such as aggressive advertising campaigns abroad, the opening up of air access to the country coupled with the increased capacity of airlines already serving the route and the greater consensus amongst all the industry stakeholders.

At the end of June 2010, there were 104 registered hotels in Mauritius, with a total room capacity of 11,362 and 23,168 bed places.

For the first semester of 2010, the room occupancy rate for all hotels averaged to 64% compared to 59% in the corresponding semester of 2009 while the bed occupancy rate was 56% against 52%.

Data from Bank of Mauritius indicates that gross tourism receipts for the first semester of 2010 were MUR 19,869m that is an increase of 8.5% compared to MUR18.249m for the same period of 2009. Based on data available on tourist arrivals for the first six months of the year 2010 and information gathered from various stakeholders, the Central Statistical Office (CSO) and the Mauritius Tourism Promotion Authority (MTPA) forecast of receiving nearly 1 million tourists this year, representing 5% year on year.

According to Bank of Mauritius, tourism receipts for this year will be around MUR 935 millions, representing an increase of 6.3% over last year figures.

Moreover, in order to tap the hospitality industry in Mauritius, major Indian hotel chains’ are aggressively setting up hotels in the country. According to Vijaye Haulder, Deputy Director, Mauritius Tourism Promotion Authority (MTPA), about 5 major hospitality chains in India are in talks with the Mauritian government for getting land to build hotels. All these hotels are expected to add about 1500 rooms in the next three-four years. The Sagar Hotel Group which is already running two luxury hotels in Mauritius is planning another hotel spread over 20 acres in the country.

The tourism industry is a colossal pillar for the Mauritian economy because we have a lot to give, sell and share with the world.

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW
2.0 Introducing HRP

Organizations are presently operating in a rapidly changing and competitive environment. Managers have to optimize the use of the available employees in order to be competitive. HRP therefore attempts to reconcile organisation’s needs for resources with available supply of labour.

HRP therefore results in matching people to the job, that is, the right people doing the right thing. HRP needs to be adjusted from time to time because the goals and objectives of an organization are not stable due to various uncertainties.

2.1 Defining HRP

Walker (1980) defines it as “aˆ¦a management process of analyzing an organisation’s human resource needs under changing conditions and developing the activities necessary to satisfy these needs.” Similarly, Vetter (1967), Burrack and Mathys (1985) define it as a process aimed at assisting management to determine how the organization should move from its current staffing position to its desired position.

Nel et al (2008:216) maintains that HR planning “ensures that a predetermined amount of employees with appropriate skills, knowledge and abilities are available at a specified time in the future aˆ¦ Hr planning therefore systematically identifies what is needed to be able to guarantee their availability.”

As defined by Bulla and Scott (1994), it is “the process for ensuring that the human resource requirements of an organization are identified and plans are made for satisfying those requirements.”

From the definitions of Human Resource planning proposed by the various researchers and practitioners, it is possible to attempt to define what HRP is in today’s circumstances. It is in our terms a management process designed to translate strategic objectives into targeted quantitative and qualitative skill requirements, to identify the human resource strategies and objectives necessary to fulfill these requirements over both the shorter and the longer terms,

As Quinn Mills indicates, human resource planning is “a decision-making process that combines three important activities:

1) Identifying and acquiring the right number of people with the proper skills,

2) Motivating them to achieve high performance, and

3) Creating interactive links between business objectives and people-planning activities.”

However, it must be recognized that although the notion of human resource planning is well established in the HRM vocabulary it does not seem to be established as a key HR activity.

As Rothwell (1995) suggests: ‘Apart from isolated examples, there has been little research evidence of increased use or of its success.’ She explains the gap between theory and practice as arising from:

The impact of change and the difficulty of predicting the future – ‘the need for planning may be the inverse proportion of its feasibility’;

The ‘shifting kaleidoscope’ of policy priorities and strategies within organizations;

The distrust displayed by many managers of theory or planning- they often prefer pragmatic adaptation to conceptualization;

The lack of evidence that human resource planning really works.and to provide necessary feedback mechanism to assess progress. Overall the purpose of the planning is to invoke an institutional learning process and to generate information which can be utilized to support management decision-making in all staffing areas.

2.2 The process of Human Resource Planning (HRP)

Organizations engage in the process of HRP to identify HR needs and the ways of meeting those needs.

Business strategic plan; Defining future activity levels and initiatives demanding new skills.

Resourcing strategy; Contributes to the formulation and implementation of business strategies. It refers to planning in order to achieve competitive advantage by developing intellectual capital – employing more people than rivals; these people will have a wider and deeper range of skills and behave in ways that maximize their contribution-The organisation attracts such people by being an ’employer of choice’.

Scenario planning; assessing in broad terms where the organisation is going in its environment and the implications for human resource requirement. Scenario planning has been fairly described “as a formal process but it can also be regarded as an informal approach to thinking about the future in broad terms, based upon an analysis of likely changes in the external and internal environment.”(Armstrong 2001)

The next stage in the process involves predicting how the need for and the availability of Human resource is likely to change in the future.

Demand forecasting; estimating the future quantity and quality of people required. The ideal basis of the forecast is an annual budget and longer term business plan, translated into activity levels for each function and department or decisions on downsizing.

Various demand forecasting methods are available and they will be analyzed below:

managerial or expert judgment

This is the most common method and it simply requires management to sit down and estimate the human resources necessary to achieve corporate goals.

ratio-trend analysis

It is carried out by identifying past trends, using statistical and mathematical techniques and project these into the future to determine requirements.

work-study techniques

This is effective when individual components of jobs can be measured. This job is broken down into discrete tasks, measure the time taken to complete each component and calculating the amount of labour required.

modeling

Mathematical modeling techniques using computers help to prepare demand forecast.

Supply forecasting; measuring the number of people likely to be available from within and outside the organization having allowed for absenteeism, internal movements, and promotions among others.

The forecast will be based on:

1) An analysis of the existing human resources in terms of skills, occupations

2) Forecast losses to existing resources through attrition/labour wastage.

3) Forecast changes to existing resources through internal promotions

4) Effects of changing condition of work and absenteeism

5) Source of supply from within the organization

6) Source of supply from outside the organization in national and local labour market

Analysing internal human resources

The review of current resources needs to cut organizational and occupational boundaries to provide inventories of skills and potential. It may be important

1) To know how many people with potential promotion exist and where they can be found

2) To know how many people have special skills and abilities in the organization

3) To identify the problems that may arise from retirement

In fact the above can help to ensure that the organization is making the most efficient use of its existing resources and can help to identify any potential problem areas.

Analysing external supply

External supply of potential employees needs to be indentifies- some factors which can have important impacts on the supply of manpower at local and national market are:

Population densities within reach of company

The attractiveness of the company as a place to work in

The effect of changing educational patterns, students staying longer in schools

Analysing demand and supply forecasts

The demand and supply forecast can then be analyzed to determine whether there are any deficits or surpluses in human resource. This provides the basis for recruitment, retention and if unavoidable, downsizing plans.

It refers to the analysis of the number of people leaving the organisation. It provides data for use in supply forecasting, so that calculations can be made on the number of people lost who may have to be replaced.

Moreover, an analysis of the number of leavers and the reasons behind their leaving the company will indicate whether actions are needed to improve retention rates. The most common method of measuring labour turnover is expressed as follows:

Number of leavers in a specific period x 100
Average number of employees during same period

This measure is used most effectively on a comparative basis and frequently provides the basis for internal and external benchmarking.

Investigations into reasons for turnover are undertaken via exit interviews and leaver questionnaires or even through attitude surveys.

Reasons for leaving are:

More pay

Better career prospects

More security

Poor relationships with manager or team leader

Bullying, harassment

Labour turnover can be very costly since it represents an opportunity cost of time spent by HR and Line Manager in recruitment, loss arising from reduce input from new starters until they are fully-trained, direct costs of introducing induction course.

Work-environment analysis

It refers to the analysis of the environment in which the people work in terms of scope it provides for them to use and develop their skills and achieve satisfaction.

Operational effectiveness analysis

Analysing productivity, the utilisation of people and the scope for increasing flexibility to respond to new and changing demand.

Human Resource Plans

The HR plans are derived from the resourcing strategy and takes into account data from a combination of scenario planning, demand and supply and forecasting and labour turnover analysis. Again there is a lack of certainty and predictability.

“The plans often have to be short term and flexible because of the difficulty of making firm predictions about HR requirement in times of rapid change.” (Armstrong 2001: 375)

Plans need to be prepared in the areas of resourcing, flexibility, retention, downsizing and productivity

Resource planning

This is primarily concerned with preparing plans for finding people from within the organisation, recruiting externally and attracting high quality candidates as the “employer choice”

Internal resourcing is the first step to analyse the availability of suitable people from within the organisation, by referring t assessments of potential and a skill database- decisions can be made to promote, redeploy and provide extra training to eligible staffs.

The recruitment plan would include the number and type of employees required to make up any deficits and when they are needed. The likely sources of recruits are colleges, advertising.

Plan for trapping alternative sources such as part timers

How recruitment programme will be conducted

Employer of choice plan

Recruitment plans should include plan for attracting good candidates by ensuring that the organization will become an employer of choice. Initiatives to become an ’employer of choice’ might include

Providing opportunities for development and career progression

Addressing work life balance issue

Better remuneration packages

Retention Plan

Man Fred De Vries (cited in Williams 2000:28) stated that ‘today’s high performers are like frogs in a wheelbarrow: they can jump anytime”

Various organizations recognize this and are turning their attention to key staff. Retention measures can include the following:

Pay and benefit – competitive rates of pay, flexible benefits

Recruitment and selection – set appropriate standards, match people to posts, provide an accurate picture of the job

Training and development – good induction processes, provision of development opportunities to meet the needs of the individual and the organizations.

Job design, provision of interesting work as much autonomy and ream working as possible.

Management ensures that managers and supervisors have the skills to manage efficiently.

Flexibility Plan

Planning for increased flexibility in the use of Human Resource to enable the organization to make the best of its people and adapt swiftly to changing circumstances.

Armstrong suggests that the aim of the flexibility plan should be to

Provide for greater operational flexibility

Improve the utilization of employees skills and capabilities

Reduce employment costs

Help to achieve downsizing smoothly and avoid the need for compulsory redundancies

Increase productivity

Thus strategies like job sharing, home working, tele working, subcontracting and employing part time workers should be implemented.

Productivity Plan

It sets out programmes for improving productivity and reducing employment costs in such areas as:

Improving methods, systems and processes

Mechanization, automation and computerization

The use of financial and non financial incentives

Downsizing plan

The downsizing plan is implemented as last resort ‘if all else fails’ It may be necessary to deal with unacceptable employment costs/surplus number of employees by downsizing. The downsizing plan should be based on timing of reductions and the process itself.

The plan should set out the following:

The number of people who have to go and when and where this need to take place

A forecast of the likely numbers who will be volunteer to leave

Arrangement for informing and consulting with employees and their trade unions

2.3 Aims of HRP

Planning of human resource is extremely important as it enables the optimum use of the most valuable asset of an organization in the attainment of its objectives and goals.

To find gaps and devise solutions. As we say, nobody plans to fail; they just fail to plan.

To attract and retain the number of people with the appropriate skills, expertise and competencies

To anticipate the problems of potential surplus and deficits of people

To develop a well trained and flexible workforce, thus contributing to the organization’s ability to adapt to an uncertain and changing environment

To reduce dependence on external recruitment when key skills are in short supply by formulating retention as well as employee development strategies.

2.4 Factors affecting HRP
Employment

HRP is affected by the employment situation in the country i.e. in countries where there is greater unemployment; there may be more pressure on the company, from government to appoint more people. Similarly some company may force shortage of skilled labour and they may have to appoint people from other countries.

Technical changes in the society

Technology changes at a very fast speed and new people having the required knowledge are required for the company. In some cases, company may retain existing employees and teach them the new technology and in some cases, the company has to remove existing people and appoint new.

Organizational changes

Changes take place within the organization from time to time i.e. the company diversify into new products or close down business in some areas etc. in such cases the HRP process i.e. appointing or removing people will change according to situation.

Demographic changes

Demographic changes refer to things referring to age, population, composition of work force etc. A number of people retire every year. A new batch of graduates with specialization turns out every year. This can change the appointment or the removal in the company.

Shortage of skill due to labour turnover

Industries having high labour turnover rate, the HRP will change constantly i.e. many new appointments will take place. This also affects the way HRP is implemented.

Multicultural workforce

Workers from different countries travel to other countries in search of job. When a company plans its HRP it needs to take into account this factor also.

Pressure groups

Company has to keep in mind certain pleasure. Groups like human rights activist, woman activist, media etc. as they are very capable for creating problems for the company, when issues concerning these groups arise, appointment or

2.5 Human resource activities

Human Resource (HR) planning is imperative to an organization’s success. It serves as an analysis of the current and future needs of the organization. This process helps guide an organization in several areas, such as staffing, development, training, and benefits and compensation designs.

Staffing

Staff, or personnel, planning is one of the most common activities conducted by HR departments, according to an article on AllBusiness.com. It typically is comprised of using the current staff size and design to predict staffing levels for the upcoming year. HR departments may utilize a company’s strategic plan as a resource for information. For example, if an organization intends to launch a new interactive website in the following year, the HR department will budget for additional staff to build and maintain the website.

Training and Development

HR departments create training and employee development plans as well. This type of planning must be conducted in advance of the company’s needs in order to prepare for them, both from financial and resource perspectives. Training for new employees and product rollouts may be included. Teaching current employees new skills is considered an aspect of development. Organizations benefit from having streamlined and consistent training programs

Career Development

Career development is imperative in order to prepare an organization for upcoming retirements, as well as to retain long-term employees. Companies need to have a strategic plan on how they intend to replace their management with qualified leaders. This means that current employees should have career road maps and plans that incorporate both short-term and long-term goals. For example, if an organization is grooming a top, young salesperson for the management track in five years, training should begin now. This may include time management courses, classes on how to coach others and a mentor program.

Downsizings

When companies foresee an upcoming need to downsize, it’s in their best interest to have their HR departments plan for it in advance to ensure that the process is smooth and orderly, and complies with all legal requirements. This type of planning also may prevent loss of knowledge and resources. Some companies begin the downsizing process by eliminating non-essential personnel. Others lay off administrative staff, but keep money-generating positions. Organizations may be hit by lawsuits and high unemployment costs if downsizing is not strategically planned.

2.6 Advantages and disadvantages of HRP

HRP, in both its traditional and more contemporary forms, can be perceived to have a number of distinct advantages. Firstly, it is argued that planning can help to reduce uncertainty as long as plans are adaptable. Although unpredictable events do occur, the majority of organizational change does not happen overnight so the planning process can provide an element of control, even if it is relatively short term.

Taylor (2002 : 73-74) suggests that in the HR field there is potentially more scope for change and adaptation in six months than there is in relation to capital investment in new plant and machinery. Thus he argues that many of the assumptions about the difficulties of planning generally are less relevant to HR.

Other advantages relate to the contribution of planning to organizational performance, for ex, the planning process can make a significant contribution to the integration of HR policies and practices with each other and with the business strategy, i.e. horizontal and vertical integration.

Marchington and Wilkinson (2002: 280) suggest that HR plans can be developed to ‘fit’ with strategic goals or they can contribute to the development of the business strategy, but conclude that ‘either way, HRP is perceived as a major facilitator of competitive advantage’.

Another way that HRP can contribute is by helping to build flexibility into the organization, either through the use of more flexible forms of work or through identification of the skills and qualities required in employees.

IRS (2002c) report that a number of organizations have predicted that jobs are likely to change radically over the next few years and so are using selection techniques to assess core values rather than job-specific skills.

2.7 Difficulties in implementing HRP

Planners face significant barriers while formulating a Human Resource Planning. The major ones are the following:

People question the importance of making human resource practices future oriented and the role assigned to the practitioners in formulation of the organisational strategies. Their argument is simple- there are people when needed offer attractive package of benefits to quit when you find them in surplus.

HR practitioners are perceived as experts in handling personnel matter, but are not experts in managing business. The personnel plan conceived and formulated by the HR practitioners when enmeshed with organisational plan, might make the overall strategic plan itself defective.

HR information often is incompatible with the information used in strategy formulation. Strategic planning efforts have long been oriented towards financial forecasting often to the exclusion of other types of information.

Conflicting may exist between short-term and long-term HR needs. For example, there arises a conflict between the pressure of getting work done on time and the long term needs, such as preparing people assuming greater responsibilities. Many mangers are of the belief that HR needs can be met immediately because skills are available on the market as long as wages and salaries are competitive. These managers fail to recognise that by resorting to hiring or promoting depending on short term needs alone, long term issues are neglected.

There is conflict between quantitative and qualitative approach to HRP. Some people view HRP as a number game designed to track flow of people across the departments. These people are strictly quantitative approach to planning. Others take a qualitative approach and focus on individual employee concerns such as promotability and career development. Best results are accrued if there is a balance between the qualitative and quantitative approaches.

Non involvement of operating managers renders HRP ineffective. HRP is not strictly an HR department function. Successful planning needs a coordinated effort on the part of operating managers and HR personnel.

CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH AND METHODOLOGY

This chapter examines the methodology used to carry out the research survey so as to collect data for the topic under consideration that is ”the process of Human Resource Planning with particular reference to Shandrani Resorts and Spa, member of the Beachcomber Hotels. It involves the examination of the whole research process from beginning to end.

3.1 Problem definition

”A problem well defined is half-solved.”Kotter.

Human resource planning is assumed to consist of 4 clear steps: 1)forecasting future needs, 2)analyzing the availability and supply of labour, 3)drawing up plans to meet supply to demand, 4) monitoring the implementation of the plan.

The main issue of this assignment is to analyse the process of human resource planning and the focus of the research is on the hotel industry.

3.2 Research objectives

The survey was most specifically carried out at Shandrani Resort and Spa and its objective is

To assess future people requirements both in terms of numbers and level of skills and competences, formulating and implementing plans to meet those requirements in terms of recruitment and training.

3.3 Research design

For the purpose of this assignment, the most appropriate strategies used were exploratory and descriptive as the research is analysing the process of HRP.

On a first instance, an exploratory research was made to reach a better understanding of the research of the research problem. It took the form of an in-depth interview with professionals working at Shandrani, and for the Beachcomber hotels as well. The in-depth interview took the form of a question list with open-ended questions.

3.4 Data collection methods
Secondary data

Secondary data were collected from books, journals, articles, and appropriate websites. Information about the hotel has been collected from Shandrani Resorts and Spa documents, namely the Beachcomber group manual and Shandrani’s Livret D’accueil.

Primary data

An interview was carried out with top management to gather primary data. A questionnaire was therefore designed for this purpose. (See Appendix)

Other primary researches

Interview with the Director of Shandrani .

Face to face interview with Director of Human Resource.

Interview with Director of Beachcomber Training Academy for 3 hours.

Interview with the Quality assurance manager.

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