Marketing Analysis of Luxury Hotels - Case Study Example

TITLE: MANAGEMENT RESEARCH REPORT: LUXURY HOTEL ACCOMMODATION AUTHOR NAME: QUALIFICATION OF MANAGEMENT RESEARCH REPORT: NAME OF THE INSTITUTION: MONTH AND YEAR OF SUBMISSION: Management Research Report (luxury hotel accommodation) Acknowledgements I wish to acknowledge the assistance I got from my Lecturer and fellow students in various aspects relating to the research project. Various employees of the luxury hotels I contacted gave me sound responses and useful insights into the operations and challenges of the luxury hotel business. All the errors and omissions are mine and do not reflect at all on those who assisted me. Declarations I declare that this Management Research Report is the result of my own work, and has not been submitted anywhere else. Any assistance I have received is specifically acknowledged. I further reaffirm the confidentiality of information, data and materials shown to me during the course of this project. Executive summary The following report is concerned with luxury hotels and how a brand becomes luxury. It focuses on one hotel (The Dorchester in London), examining critically how it became a luxury brand, and how it developed the brand. The report also shows the level of satisfaction from both hotel and customer. In addition, the report discusses the various services that luxury brands provide and make them different from other hotels. It also points out the weaknesses and strengths of each hotel. This report also includes customer feedback and comments. It discusses the service excellence promise of the luxury hotels, and how this promise is fulfilled. It examines the human resource aspects of making sure the hotel staff are the competitive edge by which the hotel gains its competitive advantage through service delivery excellence. It evaluates the hypothesis that luxury brands are indeed providing value for money to their esteemed clients and not just over-pricing a commonly available service offered by ordinary hotels. It finally concludes by surmising that from the documentation examined and the literature availed, the luxury hotels represented by the Dorchester Hotel in London; do appear to offer value for money to their guests through exceptional values, tradition of excellence, service delivery, seamless operational fluidity, and delightful customer experiences. TABLE OF CONTENTS Title.......................................................................................................................1 Acknowledgements.............................................................................................. 2 Declarations..........................................................................................................2 Executive summary...............................................................................................3 Table of contents...................................................................................................4 Introduction...........................................................................................................5 Literature review....................................................................................................7 Research methodology..........................................................................................9 Findings, analysis and discussion..........................................................................11 Conclusions...........................................................................................................17 Recommendations and implementation plan........................................................18 References………………….................................................................................19 Word count........................................................................................................... 22 Introduction The luxury hotel niche market In deciding what kind of guest services a hotel wants to provide and to whom the services will appeal the decision by management must be guided by the generic strategy they have chosen to pursue, either differentiation or cost leadership. A luxury hotel obviously will have committed to a differentiation strategy aimed at excelling in a restricted niche segment of discerning guests who spare no cost to receive the pampering and luxuriant services at the disposal of those who can afford to stay at these expensive deluxe 5-star hotels and resorts. Differentiation in the hotel industry obviously relies on using the talents of the hotel staff as a competitive advantage because the service delivery subsists in the staff members who cater to the guests. The best laid plans if not delivered as per promise will not bear the necessary results. Luxury hotels cater for the guests whose taste for supreme style, resplendent beauty, ostentatious surroundings, glamour, haute cuisine, impeccable service standards and personalized attention. In order to create this image a hotel cannot spare any expense to make it the most memorable and satisfactory visit for each of its guests. The celebrity guests get their privacy in a public setting and feel safe to be among high class ordinary people based on the price of the room. The ordinary guests get to share the company of celebrities and royalty and to get a rare glimpse of how the other half lives. The actual experience of staying in a luxury hotel can only be felt not explained in words to the guest. Any sign of dissatisfaction by the guests is swiftly dealt with and no staff member is spared rebuke if they are the cause of complaint by a guest. No ordinary hotel can imitate the luxury standards offered by such big brands as the Dorchester and the Ritz in London, the Legian in Bali and the Hotel Bel Air in Los Angeles. Other name brands such as the Claridges, the Fullerton, Radisson SAS, and the Savoy are familiar to many holiday makers. What makes a hotel a luxury brand? What makes a hotel a luxury brand is the totality of its superlative taste and service excellence, as well as its seamless team-work among the staff across the entire hierarchy, and perfect communication systems between staff and guests and among cross-functional teams to ensure that the guest remains delighted throughout their stay. The world's best providers of customer service are serious about customer service excellence and use it as a strategic measure to differentiate their brand from the brands of competitors. There are many approaches to creating the strategic image of service excellence, and most hotel brands that attain to the luxury image use a combination of these tactics, and also remain open to improvement as each guest experience is unique and tastes among guests differ. Excellence involves engaging the teams of staff members and involving these teams and individuals in continually improving the service offering of the hotel, which the Japanese call Kaizen. Without staff members fully participating and also buying in to the strategic differentiation efforts of the hotel there will be glaring instances of incompetence and glitches that the guest will not fail to notice. The hotel staff, as individuals and in their teams is the most important customer of the hotel, and as internal customer their concerns, comments, observations and indeed personal problems must occupy the resourceful efforts of the human resources management full time. Literature review The use of questionnaires and customer surveys, focus groups, management interviews and many other ways solicit information that can be statistically analyzed and used as information for decision making should be a continuous process by a luxury hotel so as to maintain a reality check on attitudes, image, and perceptions by guests, staff and management. It may be that the guests feel that some aspect of service is not meeting their expectations while the managers of the hotel are of the impression that everything is as well as planned. A survey of customer opinion will easily show that cognitive dissonance among guests and hence management will get an early opportunity to correct the situation and align the hotel's image back into the expectancy spectrum of the guests. The service provided to the guests is based on written and spoken communications to hotel staff as to the expected level of excellence to be maintained. However there is usually a difference in the way certain staff members interpret or choose to follow or obey these instructions and thereby deliver somewhat substandard to the guests, unbeknownst to the management (Insala, 2007). This is a function of supervision, and of acute observation by supervisors, as well as finding out independently from the guests whether what they are getting in terns o service delivery is what they expect and correcting any such service delivery anomalies as are discovered, in order to restore the luxury status of the hotel. The supervisor's observations then form a big part of the performance measurement of each staff and go towards recommendations for additional training and performance improvement. Total quality management becomes an essential aspect of the hotel's strategic differentiation and the views of the guests are paramount in keeping abreast of this very important aspect of the hotel's promise of customer satisfaction (Stanley, 1991). . The performance of staff teams and individual staff is continually monitored and staff training seminars, workshops, team discussions and forums, as well as tests and interviews are a continuous process to ensure that staff at all levels and in each team are staying up to date with expectations of service delivery. Guests at a luxury hotel cannot be hood-winked by shoddy service or inadequate attention to their high individual expectations. Staff members in all departments therefore need to always keep very clear lines of communication to avoid any hiccups that may annoy the very discerning guests (Kumar, R. (2005) . If a luxury hotel elects to develop its own brand of customer service standards and total quality management then it sets out to put in place all the parameters required to do it internally and improve on its own system. However, if they decide to outsource this important function to an external provider of customer promise delivery experts, they need to create a long term relationship with the provider for continuous assessment and retraining purposes. The internal standards developed by the hotel, or the outsourced customer promise delivery system can then be presented to internal and external customers for market-testing. Associated with service delivery is of course the organizational culture which sets a unique tone to the individual hotel and reflects on the guest experience. The culture of the hotel is communicated fully to all the staff and must have total buy-in from all members if it is to take root and reflect in service delivery. All the efforts, tactics and strategic directions taken by the hotel's management can only be effective if totally and effectively communicated to staff at all levels as individual, departmental teams, and cross-functional teams. Refresher courses form the basis of kaizen, and any new initiatives for ensuring a delightful customer experience must b integrated fully into already existing standards to avoid loss of seamless service delivery. These refresher courses are not limited to staff but also apply to management so as to improve their ability to impart and articulate service excellence standards to their subordinates. Research methodology My choice of research methodology underlines the validity and verifiability of my findings, so it was critical that I elected to use a method that could produce valid results within the time frame given. This is a qualitative research project based mostly on secondary data, from research reports in the very wide body of literature available as books, research journals, management reports from various institutions, questionnaire surveys and personnel interview reports in hotel archives. Very little primary data were gathered for the purposes of this project as it was felt that the case could be investigated critically, discussed and conclusions drawn based on data that are already in the literature and on record. The difficulty in defining the independent and dependent variables in the question of whether luxury hotels truly deliver on the service promise arises because there are too few documented cases of complaints coming to the surface about discriminatory treatment of guests (Ömer Torlak, Cevahir Uzkurt, Müjdat Özmen, 2010). In many cases any sign of dissatisfaction by guests is swiftly corrected and the matter is usually put to rest with no further reference to it outside the hotel. Nonetheless the report seeks to examine the efficacy of the claim that luxury hotels do indeed provide service excellence as a strategic differentiation from competitors to gain competitive advantage (Insala, 2007; Lawler, E. E. (2008 b); and Lawler, E. E, 2003). In other words the question is whether luxury hotels are real constructs with identifiable offerings; or are they just expensive alternatives catering to the gullible high spenders but offering no additional luxury than one would get at an ordinary clean hotel. If they are a truly luxury niche market with identifiable luxurious offerings not obtainable elsewhere there is also the additional question of whether the offerings of luxury are available to all guests or to celebrities only (Kumar, R. (2005). The Null Hypothesis is that Luxury Hotels provide differentiated service in the form of luxury to a niche market and offer this luxury to all their guests. The Alternative or Research hypothesis in this study is that the null hypothesis is not true, and that hotels in the luxury category are distinguished only by high prices offering no more than ordinary hotels already offer, and pampering only their celebrity guests with extra services not extended to the rest of the guests. Findings, analysis and discussion Case Examples 1. Hotel Heaven: Confessions of a Luxury Hotel Addict, Matthew Brace: According to Brace (2008), a celebrated journalist and travel writer and who has written a book about his life in over eighty luxury 5-star hotels, made very interesting observations and comments about his experiences. One such observation was that a luxury hotel cannot hide its brilliance, and this is because of the painstaking effort to deliver only the best service to its guests at all times, and such attention to the minutiae of customer needs and wants cannot escape the delighted guest. He found that guests from different nationalities often have varying perceptions of luxury, swimming pools for Australians, sum-bathing for Germans, and the list goes on. The hotel must therefore take note of these idiosyncrasies and accommodate them to the fullest for each of their guests, and sometimes even anticipate these needs and offer them before the guest expresses the wish and delight the guest (Brace, 2008). The luxury hotels deliver service excellence but within their own chosen areas of specialization. A pet-friendly hotel will go a long way to make the guest's pet very comfortable without detracting from the guest's experience or the comfort of the other guests. A romantically inclined hotel will provide the best honeymoon luxury and romantic setting fit for the love birds on a private holiday. A hotel known for its English and Chinese cuisine or its afternoon tea such as the Dorchester builds up its reputation based on these focal points and ensures service excellence in all other areas of guest experience to maintain its competitive advantage. While it is clear that the various celebrities who patronize such hotels as the Dorchester enjoy privileges and assured of their privacy during the entire stay, it is also evident from the guest feedback that any guest who needs similar facilities as celebrities simply needs to arrange for them with hotel management and they will be gladly obliged. There was no clear evidence that the privileges extended to celebrities were different from those extended to the rest of the guests (Stanley, 1991; Kumar, 2005). The reporter's experiences seemed not to differ from those of any other guest in any of the hotels he patronized, save for the individualized offerings as per guest request which could be arranged for any guest who wanted anything special or particular arranged. 2. The Dorchester: According to the website for this luxury hotel in London, The Dorchester is a 5-star luxury Mayfair hotel with a great reputation throughout the world extending over fifty years, and reputed for holding very high standards of service provision and a culture of exceptional organizational values. The room sizes are in keeping with the promise of opulence and grandeur with suites of great charm, delectable cuisine and excellent recreational and grooming facilities. The hotel's superb location in the heart of London places it near the exclusive London shopping district and close to such attractions as the Royal Albert Hall and the National Gallery (Stanley, 1991; The Dorchester, 2010). The Dorchester hotel opened its doors in 1931, and since then it has maintained extremely high standards of personal service and has become a frequent haven and favourite holiday destination for the rich, the fabulous and the celebrities, politicians, royalty and the wealthy from all over the world. It was used as strategic headquarters during WWII by General Eisenhower, while planning the Normandy invasion in 1944. It is a haven for artists and writers, including the famous novelist Somerset Maugham, the poet Cecil Day Lewis and a long list of guests from the entertainment world. Besides its glamorous patronage the hotel has also been celebrated for excellent cuisine prepared by such great chefs as Henry Brosi, the internationally famed Swiss Chef Anton Mosimann, Willi Elsener, Eugene Kaufeler and Jean Baptiste Virlogeux, with The Grill Room specializing in the best of British cooking, whilst China Tang at The Dorchester offers Cantonese cuisine making it the most sought after Chinese restaurant in London. These leading chefs have been responsible for The Dorchester's culinary renown (The Dorchester, 2010). The hotel prides in its outstanding decor and design by such designers as Oliver Messel who did the luxury apartments on the 7th and 8th floors, including the renowned architecturally 'listed' Oliver Messel Suite. The London Plane tree in the front garden was named one of the 'Great Trees of London' by The London Tree Forum and The Countryside Commission in 1997. It was deemed to be 'a memorable sight in London's Park Lane and a tree to give directions by'. In the year 2000, the BBC dedicated an entire programme to the tree, as part of its series Meetings with Remarkable Trees (The Dorchester, 2010). The Dorchester was named London's top 'Afternoon Tea Venue' by the Tea Council of Great Britain in August 2000 and 2003 serving afternoon tea to live piano music in the glittering setting of The Promenade. The Dorchester Bar is one of London's leading meeting points. It is said that when the bar was rebuilt in 1938, Harry Craddock, one of the most famous barmen at the time, produced three of the most popular cocktails of the day - the MartiUªUª The Dorchester also boasts exceptional sound proofing quality between rooms with bedroom floors and ceilings lined with compressed seaweed and outside walls with cork. The introduction of double glazing throughout and triple glazing on the Park Lane side has reduced external noise levels still further (The Dorchester, 2010). Performance Measurement of Service Delivery: The main thrust of this report is to find out whether the luxury hotels perform better than ordinary hotels to justify the price, or whether they are just overpriced ordinary hotels. World class institutions have in place performance management systems that take a well rounded approach to measuring performance. Such measurements include teamwork, long-term thinking, building human capital, developing and managing talent, and customer loyalty. This is compared to Average Companies which have performance management systems focusing on easily quantifiable measures that impact the bottom line: profits, growth and operational excellence. There are as many as nine levels at which the world class institution can manage and thereafter measure performance. It is not usual that any particular institution uses all the known measures and methods but the more the organization uses the better grip it has on its performance (Lawler, E. E, 2008 a). A plan that looks ahead several years into the future development of the organization needs to be put in place so that any changes in operational environment, business ethos, industry dynamics, ecological and environmental laws, business expansion or competitive forces will be met by a planned and deliberate response. The Dorchester has been in existence since the early 1930’s and has maintained its place among very competitive rivals of the modern world, by having a forward plan that continues to grow the hotel’s mission and vision and values over the years. It is essential that a those in management whose job it is to measure the performance of others need to be trained how to so first (Lawler, E. E. (2008 a). The training of managers and supervisors is a necessary first step towards ensuring that when they assess the performance of subordinates they have the necessary grasp of what to look for, how to intervene or correct the work of others and how to appraise their team members. The Dorchester as well many of the luxury hotels have in place a training programme aimed at their management to stress the important deliverables as far as staff member performance is concerned. Workshops and seminars are part of the staff development and feedback from trainers is used to develop managers further in their aptitude at performance appraisal and measurement. The idea of quality is as fluid as it is subjective, but there are recognized world-class notions of what excellent quality is, and what bad quality is. Training is also required to evaluate what level of quality offering is considered by the customer to be adequate and what is superlative (Lawler, E. E. (2008 a). To maintain a world-class brand the luxury hotels have to aim at the superlative and distinguish their offerings and service delivery from the competitor’s mediocre efforts. The Dorchester, The Ritz Carlton, The Savoy among other hotels in the luxury category enjoy great reviews in the literature, among critics, and from their guests for maintaining impeccable levels of superlative service delivery. The common denominator here being continuous improvement, communication among staff members and across teams, and sparing no expense to ensure that the best quality ingredients required by guests are provided. Whenever inadequate or shoddy delivery of service is noticed, the hotel has put in place a mechanism to remove the source of the problem and swiftly replace them with someone else while steps are taken to address the underlying reasons for the poor service delivery. This restores the seamless process flow expected by guests and restores the smooth operations of the affected teams, while at the same time addressing the problems and noting them for future use in staff development. There must be created a reference template for performance evaluation so as to equalize the playing field across all departments and standardize expectations of performance levels within the same hotel. Luxury hotels such as the Dorchester have clear guidelines for staff performance and these standards, high as they are, are specific, well articulated, communicated to all staff, explained fully in workshops and seminars, and used as incentives for internal team competition towards perfect records of performance. A reward system is usually also associated with a penal system to give incentives to the hard workers and to discourage poor delivery of service. During the appraisal staff performance it is imperative that managers do not rely only on correcting the mistakes that they observed during the period under review. There must be in front of the appraiser and the appraised a standard set of performance related areas in the form of a questionnaire or evaluation sheet to address all possible areas and grade the appraised based on the total expected performance criteria. The question of future recruitment of new staff arise from observations as to the best qualities required for personnel of each department or role, and new advertisements for job vacancies are designed with the foreknowledge of what quality of recruit to take in the first place. It is the standard practice of luxury hotels and The Dorchester included, to give feedback to the workers after appraisal about the status of their appraisal report and what observations need to be attended to, and this happens at least three times a year as required by management. The goals and objectives are constantly in perspective as the reviews are carried out. A quick SWOT analysis of the Luxury Hotels A quick look at the strengths and weaknesses, opportunities and threats of the luxury hotel brands will reveal a number of areas of concern. The Dorchester has many areas of strength in that it has very strong brand recognition internationally, built over many decades and proven as an excellent service delivery luxury hotel without question throughout its existence.. Brand recognition makes it easier for a guest to make a decision to choose The Dorchester as opposed to another lesser known 5-star establishment. The hotel also controls most of its sources of raw vegetables, spices, meat and sauces in the sense that the suppliers of all its foodstuffs and ingredients are directly controlled by it or are in a partnership with the hotel to ensure timely supplies, best quality vegetables and grains, and premium quality meat, poultry and seafood products. Where they do not directly control the distribution channels they are given priority status in getting whatever is available on there want list reserved for them before other competing buyers get to it. This control of the supply side of business is an aggressive strategy to mark out the competitors while maintaining their competitive advantage. The main weakness of a luxury hotel is that it depends on the continuation of good times in global financial matters. The global meltdown of 2009-2010 brought down to ashes giant institutions, most of them related to the banking and finance sectors, owned or run mostly by the people who frequent and patronize such luxury hotels as The Dorchester. With guests in the market segment that is targeted by luxury hotels beginning to be more wary of their spending patterns from the effects of the financial meltdown, The Dorchester was not the only victim. The opportunity for regaining lost ground as they never lost their network of loyal guests and partner institutions as the world economies recover. The biggest threat is the rising of modern mega-luxury 7-star super deluxe offerings such as the Burj Al Arab in Dubai and many other such wonders that challenge the Dorchester to really fight to keep their loyal hosts. With the global terror threats affecting London and visitors getting warnings from their governments to avoid terror hotspots, some guests would rather steer clear of central London and spend their holidays in Bali or in Dubai. These issues affect the bottom line for The Dorchester and many luxury hotels such as the Ritz and the Savoy. The financial meltdown also puts back into focus the lesser hotels of the world where fallen idols, deposed politicians and bankrupted tycoons are now gravitating towards. Strategic Recommendation on SWOT It seems the luxury hotels may need to adjust their strategies towards diversification of services so as to maintain an inward revenue flow to ensure that their opportunities align with their strengths by building on what they best at. One way is to create a chain of the same brand building new Dorchester hotels in places where there is perception of reasonable safety and security for their guests.. The Afternoon Tea could be an excellent place for many in high class London to patronize The Dorchester more, with live art and poetry renditions by celebrity guests. The Chinese Restaurant could be complemented by a Japanese Sushi bar of the best quality, then a French Restaurant and expand on areas where they are trusted to give great service promise. while they move to improve on their weak areas and address their threats. Customer feedback comments and level of satisfaction of both hotel and customer Many attitude and perception surveys carried out by The Dorchester and by other luxury brands show that the guests always give their best compliments and very rarely do you get a negative, a scathing or a sarcastic response from a guest who patronizes the luxury brands. This may strangely be linked to the guest’s own ego and self esteem. A guest who expresses a negative opinion about something he does to boost self esteem may reflect as confusion or lack of class or taste. This strengthens the emperor’s new clothes syndrome and the age old question of who will bell the cat. This is because most of the positive feedback of customers will have a hint of something they would have wanted done differently but brushed aside as unimportant in view of the luxurious splendor that characterized the entire stay. There is a diplomatic relationship between luxury hotel management and wealth guests and this may affect the degree of candour in the exchange of comments. A host who takes pains to please is hard to criticize even if they do not meet your exact specifications. This gray area remains the cushion of mutual respect between host and guest and underlies the assertion that you don’t need to be perfect, just perfect your effort. Conclusions The world's best providers of customer service are serious about customer service excellence and use it as a strategic measure to differentiate their brand from the brands of competitors. Excellence involves engaging the teams of staff members and involving these teams and individuals in continually improving the service offering of the hotel, which the Japanese call Kaizen. Without staff members fully participating and also buying in to the strategic differentiation efforts of the hotel there will be glaring instances of incompetence and glitches that the guest will not fail to notice. The hotel staff, as individuals and in their teams is the most important customer of the hotel, and as internal customer their concerns, comments, observations and indeed personal problems must occupy the resourceful efforts of the human resources management full time. Recommendations and Implementation Plans It is the basic recommendation of this report that when a brand strives to be a superlative luxury offering it has to walk the talk, by delivering on its service offerings. Salary levels must attract the best candidates from the beginning and aimed at staff retention (1, 3, 4 and 8). The continuous improvement process is essential to maintain competitive advantage. Staff members are the moment of truth encounter with all guests in spite of all the written standards and values, if staff members are not in line with the organizational expectations the cognitive dissonance will be felt by guests to the detriment of the hotel. Appraisal of staff performance is aimed at correcting problems and improving performance in a learning organization. The Dorchester, as well as other 5 star luxury hotels does deserve the label of luxury, and this service promise is made to all guests of all backgrounds. The hypothesis that luxury hotels offer value for money is likely very correct and differentiated service delivery to a niche market of affluent guests is a real marketable prospect for luxury hotels. End Notes 1. Ömer Torlak, Cevahir Uzkurt, Müjdat Özmen. (2010). Dimensions of service quality in grocery retailing: a case from Turkey. Management Research Review 33 Vol. 5 (pp. 413 - 422) 2. Budeva, Desislava. (2010). Cross-cultural differences in evaluating product characteristics: motion pictures. Management Research Review Vol 33 (5), pp. 423 - 436 3. Insala. (2007). Performance Management Research Review of Best Practices. Retrieved 2nd January, 2010 from http://www.insala.com/Articles/performance-management-software/performance-management-research-review-of-best-practices.asp 4. Lawler, E. E. (2008 a). The four pillars of managing performance. Talent Management, Vol 4 (5), pp. 30-32. 5. Lawler, E. E. (2008 b). Talent: Making People Your Competitive Advantage. Jossey-Bass, Vol 304 7. Lewis, Oscar and Carroll Hall. (1949). Bonanza Inn. America First Luxury Hotel. New York: Alfred A. Knopf 8. Stanley, Louis T. (1991). Sixty years of luxury: the Dorchester. London: Pearl & Dean 9. Brace, Matthew. (2008). Hotel heaven: confessions of a luxury hotel addict. London: Old Street Publishers 10. The Dorchester. (2010). London. Retrieved 2nd January, 2010 from http://www.thedorchester.com/london 11. Kumar, R. (2005). Research Methodology: A step by step guide for beginners. London: SAGE Publications 12. Lawler, E. E. and Worley, C. G. (2006). Built to Change: How to Achieve Sustained Organizational Effectiveness. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. 13. Lawler, E. E. (2003). Treat People Right! How Organizations and Employees Can Create a Win/Win Relationship to Achieve High Performance at All Levels. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. 14. Olsen, M., and Zhao, J. (2008). Handbook of Hospitality Project Management. In" International Encyclopedia of Hospitality Management, Second Edition 15. Obembe, D. (2010). Understanding Individual Action: When Employees Contravene Management Directives to Foster Knowledge Sharing. Management Research Review, Vol 33(6), pp. 656-666. BIBLIOGRAPHY Brace, Matthew. (2008). Hotel heaven: confessions of a luxury hotel addict. London: Old Street Publishers Budeva, Desislava. (2010). Cross-cultural differences in evaluating product characteristics: Motion pictures. Management Research Review Vol 33 (5), pp. 423 – 436 Insala. (2007). Performance Management Research Review of Best Practices. Retrieved 2nd January, 2010 from http://www.insala.com/Articles/performance-management-software/performance-management-research-review-of-best-practices.asp Kumar, R. (2005). Research Methodology: A step by step guide for beginners. London: SAGE Publications Lawler, E. E. (2003). Treat People Right! How Organizations and Employees Can Create a Win/Win Relationship to Achieve High Performance at All Levels. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Lawler, E. E. and Worley, C. G. (2006). Built to Change: How to Achieve Sustained Organizational Effectiveness. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Lawler, E. E. (2008 a). The four pillars of managing performance. Talent Management, Vol 4 (5), pp. 30- 32. Lawler, E. E. (2008 b). Talent: Making People Your Competitive Advantage. Jossey-Bass, Vol 304 Lewis, Oscar and Carroll Hall. (1949). Bonanza Inn. America First Luxury Hotel. New York: Alfred A. Knopf Obembe, D. (2010). Understanding Individual Action: When Employees Contravene Management Directives to Foster Knowledge Sharing. Management Research Review, Vol 33(6), pp. 656-666. Olsen, M., and Zhao, J. (2008). Handbook of Hospitality Project Management. In" International Encyclopedia of Hospitality Management, Second Edition Ömer Torlak, Cevahir Uzkurt, Müjdat Özmen. (2010). Dimensions of service quality in grocery Retailing: a case from Turkey. Management Research Review 33 Vol. 5 (pp. 413 - 422) Stanley, Louis T. (1991). Sixty years of luxury: the Dorchester. London: Pearl & Dean The Dorchester. (2010). London. Retrieved 2nd January, 2010 from http://www.thedorchester.com/london WORD COUNT: 5476 Read More