Critique of a Hotels Perceived Performance in the Context of Facilities Management - Literature review Example

A REPORT ON A CRITIQUE OF A HOTEL’S PERCIEVED PERFOMANCE IN THE CONTEXT OF FACILITIES MANAGEMENT Name: Introduction Facility management is a field characterised by different aspects such as people, infrastructure, space, and so on. Which co-ordinate together in the facilitation of attains targeted objectives? According to International Facilities Management Association (2004), “facility management is simply the practise of organizing the physical workplace with the people and duties of the system. In most cases, it is affiliated to institutions within the administration of schools, hospitals, convention centres, hotels (in our case) and many others. The hotel is a building or an establishment where visitors can access meal, lodging and other services on payment on a short-term basis. Facilities offered include; bed, storage for clothes, conference centres and many others. However, large hotels have the capabilities of offering expensive services such as en suite bathrooms, business centres, childcare facilities and many others. The main objective of a hotel is to provide service(s) in the quest for money or in accomplishing social responsibilities. The hotel industry has been a fundamental sector in the development of other industries especially the tourism sector. This industry is very essential to the economy of a nation since it provides employment opportunities thus improving standards of livings of citizens. It is very indispensable for the provision of services to tourists who reach their destination. To analyse hotel’s performance in terms of facility management economic factors need to be considered. This report will clearly depict the integration of facility management and performance to the satisfaction of customers in the context of the new Esplanade Hotel and The Hive Hostel by reviewing the customers remarked on the services offered. According Barret (2014) facility management involves management of the requirements and services provided by buildings in our case the hotel. Mutalib (2015), explains that facility management does not only consider and cover building and plant maintenance but also it entails provision of services such as security and computer facilities. Facilities management (FM) contributes to value addition in different perspectives. It provides approaches to maintenance, adaption and improvements necessary for value addition of the hotel. Ransley (2015) observed that Facility Management was a very important business function influencing the amount of revenues obtained and also the cost incurred. It was also observed to impact the health and safety, work environment and also the standards of the staff. According to Connors (2003), the application of Facility Management in a decent way had many gains. First, it enables the organization to plan and control expenditures accordingly. This helps the organization to avoid unnecessary expenditures. Secondly, it assists the enterprise in minimising the cost incurred or even averts the costs completely. Thirdly it also helps organizations to attaining their objectives by assisting in planning of strategies. Nature of Hospitality Facilities Features of a hotel entail the nature of hospitality facilities offered. They impact the application of facilities management in the hotel. Hotels are peculiar properties since they have all basic facilities, utilities and services inside. It integrates different properties and features for it to work accordingly. According to Watkins and Harris (1998) hotels need to have key characteristics for them to operate efficiently and effectively. First, they should have a maximum capacity of number of rooms required, and that can be rendered in a day. This will control congestions and also streamline activities in the hotel. Secondly, there is a need for a riveted Human Resource (HR) management. This will coordinate the labour operations within the hotel. Thirdly, location factor needs to be considered before situating a hotel. This will contribute to demand thus increase the market of the hotel. Fourthly, the hotel requires noise control policies to avoid disturbance of the customers during activities such as night partying. Fifthly, it also should provide a wide range of products and services in-order to satisfy the customers’ needs and wants. Finally, a hotel should limit its expenditures. This will cut costs incurred, but there is a need for balance when managing facilities. Typically, a hotel offers wide ranges of services. They include accommodation and room services, sports and fitness facilities, e.g., gym, catering services, environment for business deals and finally special functions. This report will analyse the hospitality facilities offered one by one. Accommodation and Room services are the major service offered in hotels. Guest rooms provide accommodation and relaxation of guests in a hotel. Quietness, safety, comfort, durability, facelift, façade and storage are key considerations when design guest rooms for customers in a hotel. Nowadays business personnel has the tendency to work in the guest rooms, so there have been raised the need for a quiet working environment that is very comfortable for them. Sports and fitness facilities are also offered in the hospitality sector. They comprise of health and fitness clubs with pro gym and spa facilities. They also have swimming pools. Hotels with broader space and floors also offer sports facilities like a tennis court. Catering services are almost a necessity in a hotel. Recently, most of the hotels especially the bigger and modern ones, provide exceptional, classy restaurants that provide dining and entertainment locales. The hospitality facilities also offer International conventions and business centres. With economic growth and globalization business movements across different countries have expanded. Advanced hotels have also included technological facilities such as free Wi-Fi to attract more business visitors. Hotels provided a nice environment for special functions especially weddings. Function rooms, dance halls, junket venues and conference venues are also provided by hotels for hosting the important functions. Recently, modern technology has been incorporated into the rooms to make the customers more comfortable especially in the modern hotels. Management of a Hotel The wide range of functions offered by hotels makes Facilities Management a big challenge in its execution. Management thus is viewed as a key component in execution of facility management. According to Ransley and Ingram (2015) decisions in the execution of Facility Management in a hotel majorly involve the top management levels. The hotel manager has the duty to get all information of all issues regarding the hotel. He or she is expected to be a very intimate person. According to Ransley and Ingram (2015) there is a strong correlation between facilities management and hotels. Thus, he defined facilities management as “the management of built facilities and organizational assets in order to meliorate their efficiency and value addition to services and performances for maximum profits.” International Facilities Management Association (2004) defined facilities as something constructed, installed or even established to provide a service. Facilities management majorly involve repairing and maintaining the facilities offered by a hotel. It majorly comprises of the following aspects: asset, strategic, service, people, information and change managements. Ransley and Ingram (2015) speculate that there are core areas which require concern for facilities management to prosper namely: property, organizational, financial, innovation and human resource managements. There are objectives of Facilities Management as observed by Lai & (2011) which directly and indirectly affects the performance of a hotel. First, it is improving the reaction and responses to changes affecting hotel development. This improves service delivery to customers of the hotel. Secondly, facilities management aims at improving and enhancing the productivity of a hotel. This target at improving revenues collected. Thirdly, it aims at minimizing the cost incurred to installing or improving facilities. It entails mostly on reducing the hotel’s expenditures on facilities. Fourthly, it aims at reducing facility development processes to streamline activities of the hotel. Finally, it aims at converting a facility to a dynamic function for maximum service delivery. Facility Evaluation Customer comments were reviewed to evaluate the performance of the two hotels i.e. The New Esplanade Hotel and the Hive Hostel hotels. This part will evaluate the performance of the two hotels basing on the reviews given by the customers. Location The situation of the two hotels ranked high in both reviews. For instance, The New Esplanade Hotel had a rating of 7.6 in location. Jenny, a customer, says, “I like the location because I needed to be close to convention centre.” The Hive Hotel also had a high rating in location of 7.4 depicting the suitability of the hotel. Alina customer quotes ,”…….as good as the possible location is so close to the city look, and concept from the outside is nice …..”. Thus in terms of location both hotels where perfectly situated. Façades of the Rooms The facades of the two hotels were very poor. This is evident since The New Esplanade Hotel had a rating of 4.8 while The Hive Hostel had a rating of 4.6. Most of the facilities according to the customers were malfunctioning or totally damaged. For instance, Joel a customer comments on The New Esplanade Hotel says, “….walls were the dirty shower was dirty, hair dryer broken but attached to the wall…..kettle also damaged.” Comfort In terms of comfort of the two hotels rating was below the par. For instance, The Hive Hostel had a rating of 4.5 which is raising an alarm. The New Esplanade Hotel also had a below par rating of 5.2 although it ranked higher than the Hive. Comfort was deprived because of issues like noises of parties, lack of cleanliness, the poor conditions and many others. A furious customer Jessica commented that,”… everything, the noise of the parties, the lack of cleanliness, the attitude of the awful staff…….cost of rooms were filthy…making me uncomfortable…” she even mocks the hotel by saying, “shame on you Hive Hostel for a below par and disgusting place of accommodation.” This raises an alarm especially to the Hive Hostel Management. It shouldn’t be taken lightly. Value for Money Both hotels rated average on the cost of the services rendered. The New Esplanade Hotel rated high with a rating of 5.5 compared to Hive’s 5.3 thus implying there was a good room for improvement. Tomas comments on Hive Hostel;” ……very expensive and terrible quality...” Ways on how to improve performance of the hotels The hotels management have a duty in enhancing and improving the performance of the hotels for smooth service delivery. They have to undertake the following: Renovations According to Jayawardena et al. (2013) renovation is a kind of maintenance that involves work done in order to restore by repairing a structure, equipment or even a service by overhauling or improving the original design. Booty (2015) defined renovation from a hospitality perspective. They defined it as a process of renewal and updating or upgrading a hospitality facility to compensate the depredations of use and alter spaces to meet the changing requirements of the market. Renovations are essential in face-lifting facilities thus attracting more customers. Successful renovations should concentrate on the aims set by the hotel. There are vast reasons for renovations of the hotel. First, is to continue the useful life of the hotel for revenue generation for longer periods. Secondly, it fulfils the competition in the competitive hospitality sector. This will help improve its operational activities in the efficiency of the enterprise. Third, renovations improve the reputation of the hotel. This is advantageous in that it helps to retain the existing customers and also attract more new customers for increased revenue. Thus, the managements of the two hotels need to put measures across to renovate their hotels to improve the facades of the hotel for customer satisfaction. Improve Technology With the rapid technological advances, the management should try and improve and incorporate technological facilities in their hotels. They should increase the access of Wi-Fi use and also computers to be assessed by the customers. Training staff The management needs to put policies on training their staff in order to deliver improved efficient quality services to their customers. Therefore, Training of the staff needs to be done immediately. Challenges of application of facilities management There exist obstacles that hinder the application of facilities management in hotels. This part will clearly depict some challenges faced in the articulation of Facilities Management. Jones (2010) explained that it is necessary for management to consider the possible barriers to applying facilities management. Some of the possible challenges that affect facilities management include; lack of money, insufficient experience, unskilled manpower and the owner’s awareness. Lack of Money This can be viewed as a major challenge since funds are usually required in performing reforms and renovation in the hotels. This may be perceived as the main reason both The New Esplanade Hotel and Hive Hostel hotels had poor facilities. Insufficient Experience New management especially for a brand new hotel always has less experience on the issues affecting hospitality sector. Thus, this may affect the way they make decisions on major issues affecting facilities management. Owner’s Awareness If the owner is aware of the conditions of the hotel, he or she can assume reforms and renovations proposed since they involve risk taking and incurring a cost. Unskilled man power Finally, unskilled manpower remains a big challenge to service delivery of hotels to its customers. This is evident in both hotels since their where comments on workers who were unprofessional in their conduct thus driving away customers from the hotel. However, as explained by Jones et al. (2014) cultural or even regional difference can also present challenges in the application of facilities management in hotels. Differences may be vast like in the case of the inheritance between industry and hospitality sector. Owners of hotels are the major and ultimate decision makers on policies affecting facilities management. Their financial status, knowledge and even attitude towards the policies formulated to execute facilities influences majorly each decision. Changing responsibilities involving facility management Apart from managing facilities in the hotel, the facility management nowadays, have a duty of performing other responsibilities that do not directly influence services rendered in the hotels. They have the responsibility to manage emerging issues such as environmental and waste management or even consumers’ decision-making issues to ensure sustainability of the hospitality sector. Sustainability attempts to provide a balance of social, environmental and financial aspects in order to facilitate the growth of the hospitality sector. Currently, through facility management in hotels operation efficiency need to be considered majorly for the provision of services. Costs incurred from energy, water and even waste need to minimize as a way of reducing expenditure. Energy The facilities management should focus on the consumption of energy for operations in the hotel. Operations that consume energy include lighting, cooking, and other miscellaneous power needs. There is a need to focus on minimizing energy consumptions. This can be made possible by using technical engineering approaches that aim at reducing energy consumption but maintaining the quality of the output. Measures need to be taken to control the increasing cost incurred from the consumption of energy for improvement of performance of the hotel. The measures may include: maintenance of proper ventilation, use of renewable sources of energy (wind, solar etc.) avoiding simultaneous heating and cooling. Wastes Waste management is an essential component of Facilities Management. From the reviews of the two hotels, the waste matter was impacting the cleanliness of the hotels negatively. They lead to blockages especially in the latrines thus driving away the customers. The waste generally flows result from streams generated from consumables, renovations and many other activities. The hotel management needs to employ different techniques to reduce, re-use, and recycle waste products as expected by the environment regulations. This will in turn minimise costs incurred from processing and trucking the wastes to the expected destinations. Due to the rapid technological advances there has been an innovation of techniques of converting waste to energy thus saving not only the environment from pollution but also the hotel from incurring unnecessary costs on energy. Waste products can nowadays be processed into alternate energy sources like biodiesel fuels or even the natural gas. The hotel management can thus acquire the energy sources at low prices thus reducing expenditure cost. Water From the vast consumption of water by hotels on a domestic basis like laundry and bathrooms and even for processing activities such as cleaning and maintenance the, facilities management should consider putting in measures to control the use of water. They can adopt processes like treating sewerage water generated hotel activities and guest. This will be a good way of conserving the environment. The measures include use of recycled water, improving plumbing systems to avoid leakages, retreating sewerages and many more. , there has been a growing trend with environmental certification programs in the hospitality sector. They comprise of the environmental programs targeted towards hospitality and others towards green building designs of hotel constructions. The main objective of these programs is to conserve the environment. Thus, the facility management of both hotels need to put in place measures which will conserve the environment from the perspective of the hospitality industry. Outsourcing According to Penny (2007), outsourcing is simply a service accredited from an outside supply enterprise, on the basis of an agreement based upon terms and conditions of a service level agreement. Outsourcing is essential in Facilities Management Execution in various ways. Lee (2010) Explained that outsourcing had strategic and operational benefits to a hotel. Lai, (2011) observes that decision to outsourcing enables organizations to minimize the cost incurred, improve services, and improve service delivery by staff and even morale. This improves the general performance of a hotel thus attracting a vast population of customers. Xu (2012) explains that outsourcing provides a better opportunity to hotels to select the best service provider basing on quality speed and also experience. Thus, Facility management should consider outsourcing so as to achieve better results. Conclusion The report aimed at identification of value adding Facilities Management of both The New Esplanade Hotel and Hive hostel. From the comments of the guest of the two hotels, there is a good room for improvement. The management should take action to impose value-addition methods in facility management in order to improve service delivery to the guest. This recommends renovation of the lodging rooms since many comments view them as disgusting. For an improved generation of revenue, there is a need to improve facilities management of the hotels. References Barret, P., & Baldry, D. (2014). Facilities Management – Towards best practice (4thed.). Oxford, UK. Blackwell Publishing. Booty, F. (2015). Facilities Management Handbook. Oxon, UK. Butterworth-Heinemann.HOS3320 Hospitality Facilities Management 2 Duarte Alonso, A., & Ogle, A. (2008). Exploring design among small hospitality and tourism operations. Journal of Retail and Leisure Property, 7(4), 325-337. http://dx.doi.org/10.1057/rlp.2008.23 Jayawardena, C., Lawlor, F., Grieco, J.C., Savard, M., & Tarnowski, M. (2013). Challenges and innovations in hotel operations in Canada. 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