Hospitality Service - Innovations That Can Lead to Greater Customer Satisfaction - Assignment Example

Name : xxxxxxxxxxx Institution : xxxxxxxxxxx Course : xxxxxxxxxx Title : Short Answers Tutor : xxxxxxxxxxx @2010 Introduction Hospitality is defined as the relationship between host and guest or the practice or act or being hospitable. Hospitality requires the guest to have a feeling that the host is hospitable through the services offered and by meeting the needs and expectations of hosts. This implies that the host has the freedom to choose whichever service pleases him or her and the host is supposed to offer the service in a generous way. Question 1 Hospitality curriculum Through vocational action, students are limited to the position of potential managers and the development of curriculum entails the attainment of particular vocational knowledge and skills and personal transferable skills for effectiveness at work. A reflective liberal curriculum helps students in critical evaluation and understanding of tourism society. Liberal action encourages reflection on every tourism practice within a wider world. Reflective vocational curriculum emphasizes on evaluation, reflection, modification, and reflection of tourism industry knowledge and skills. Individuals are endorsed to stand back from their acts so that they might be subjected to decisive review in the kind of reflection on action (Mahony & Morrison, 2003). Question2 Etymology of hospitality Hospitality emerged from similar hypothetical Indo European root, ghosti meaning, guest, or stranger meaning someone with whom an individual has reciprocal tasks of hospitality. The word ghosti also cam form Latin root hostis meaning army, or enemy and where the Latin root hostia meaning host, or sacrifice originated. Ancient tourists were treated with fear and suspicion because they have different cultural beliefs and values from those held by the hosts. The hosts felt that their beliefs and values could be undermined. They also felt that the guests needed special treatments which the hosts found hard to fulfill. Question 3 Hospitality and sexual activity Hotels around the globe execute a wide range of functions, mainly the provision of beverage, accommodation, and food but they also engage a special position in romance, adventure, and sex. Sex spaces have been closely connected with hospitality industry since the emergence of hospitality. Hospitable sex places or brothels are one of ancient segments in the commercial hospitality industry. According to (Go), 1990, in the contemporary society, sexual activity is usually perceived in a cautious and fairly sordid context. Several hotel managers get themselves using time in either identifying or expelling prostitutes or, in other instances, getting them for guests. This act is indicates the borders of liberalism whereby hotel managers allow the inescapability of prostitution while treating them with bad disguise contempt. However there is an important and greatly expanding hotel segment that offers a formalized, commercial framework for sexual activity in an atmosphere that tries to maximize the function of a hotel as a liminal space. Kevin (2005) argues that liminal spaces offer moments of space, freedom and flee from the everyday drudge of social responsibilities and functions as borderlands amid the known and the unknown, the extraordinary, and the ordinary where desire and dream go hand in hand with anxiety, danger, and risk. While hotels are subject to regulations and laws that direct the livings of consumers, they are also sites of vagueness where guests can vanish and where social standards can be flouted and challenged. Sexual activity with hotels is thrilling and usually accompanied by a sense of risk and for this reason, hotels engage this function and why love hotels engage a special position in the spectrum of modern hospitality products. Taiwanese have developed over time since its foundation and a wide range of locations and services it provides for its reflective of the expanding liberal outlook towards sexual engagement in the nation. In Taiwan love hotels offer a place for prostitution and also sexually related activities. Compensated dating is a common practice whereby male guests give luxury gifts or money to attractive females in exchange for companionship and probably sexual favors. The development of motels resulted from an upgrading in physical environment, embracing the initiation of a variety of in-room sexual facilities and foreign decorations. This multi-functionality of contemporary motels attracts both travelers and consumers who merely need to relax. The expansion in the popularity of sex motels in Taiwan is due to liberalisation of sexual attitudes among the general population. Individuals no longer consider the need of being embarrassed or secretive about sexual activity and movies and TV programmes engage more sexual content. As the traditionally conservative outlooks towards sex has transformed, individuals have started to talk about sex issues more openly and it has turned out as a regular and almost recreational activity. The Taiwanese motels engage an attractive place in social imagination of sex, adventure, and romance. This hospitality industry has expanded and matured to the position of a precipice of accommodation, beverage, and food implying that these commodities are no longer adequate to guarantee competitive advantage in the experience economy. Love motels appear to be generating an inauthentic experience, with the rooms offering gratifying sexual desires and caprices. Other than catering for sordid peccadilloes or darkest innermost aspirations, love motels also offer an authentically escapist action which effectively surpasses authentic experience into a realistic fantastic experience which permits individuals to go into and explore their desires. The sex hotel notion, via completely occupying with the experience economy lays down numerous dimensions of commercial hospitality industry as discrete events, through permitting people to indulge their personal fantasy experience. There is a probability that the sex motel product can add an exciting and new dimension to an advancing industry throughout the globe. However, particular attitudes might not permit the creation of such a segment in spite of its perceptible financial attraction. Because sexual outlooks are already liberal in certain regions, the requirement for a remote room to occupy in sexual action may not be needed. When considering the core of experience economy, it’s clear that the products it offers acts as a vehicle for consumers to infer their personal agenda. In the case of sex hotels this might be the capability to pursue personal fantasies without boundaries or restrictions (Byrne, & Hennshall, 2002). Question 4 Defining and understanding hospitality Attempts to define commercial hospitality have tended to center on the defining and clustering of groups within the industrial activity. However, in recent years this discussion has been aroused by the work of Morrison and Lashley who present a variety of diverse perceptions of hospitality from the commercial views to the philosophical views. They explored the hospitality concept in three areas social, commercial, and private environments. As Lashley states, hospitality needs the guest to have the feeling that the host is hospitable via feelings of generosity, a wish to satisfy and an authentic regard for the guest as an individual (Hemmington, 2007). It is unlucky that in spite of having recognized the weaknesses of existing descriptions of hospitality, and offered an alternative three areas of approach, Morrison and Lasley do not explore the inferences of hospitality in the private and social domain for the practice of hospitality within the commercial domain. Looking at hospitality in Laskleys View results into the consideration of notions like whether friendliness, generosity and the guest-host relationship, experience and entertainment should be given freely. However, Laskleys definition of hospitality highlights numerous interesting tension amid commercial hospitability and hospitableness with the most apparent being the tension amid generosity and economics of business. This tension raises the query of if real hospitability can be offered within a commercial context. Laskley views hospitability as essentially a relation based on guests and hosts and that it is this guest host relationship that is the main discerning characteristic of hospitality from which other dimensions originate. The concept of guests and hosts is essentially diverse to that of customers and managers and is much more culturally and socially defined. The taboos and expectations of domestic hospitality have rules like not complaining and these rules are at dissent with the commercial customer-manager relationship. The aims of the guest host relationship are necessary as they give the guest a sense of belonging in a foreign land. However, the aims of hospitality and guest host relationship lead to the consideration of kindness and economic relationships in the commercial hospitality environments. The managers, hosts, and customers feel that the need to control costs and create financial returns is the economic actuality of hospitality industry, but it does not apply to hospitality in social environments. This results to numerous tensions when industries try to provide a real sense of hospitality, for instance, the overt practice of portion regulation which presents an impression of meanness. These activities are antithesis of real hospitality and in fact, several hospitality industries permit these financial controls in order to dominate guest experience at an area where they appear unfriendly and parsimonious. Recognizing that hospitality businesses need to make financial returns, the challenge is that of distancing the gust experience from essential internal financial controls, and redesigning or removing unnecessary controls. Question 5 Impact of globalization on food consumption patterns The current trends in globalization suggest that goods, people, information and assets will move across and within national boundaries at an increased rate. Globalization entails trade liberalization and expanding flows of technology and capital nation borders and international labor migrations. For the nutrition community, the freer movement of food, information and finances occurring in the globe provides opportunities and also poses immense challenges and fresh risks. According to Hein, (2004), new information affirms that the world nutrition situation is improving due to differentiation in food consumption. However another debate is that the nutritional status is deterioriating especially in regions of Africa. Hunger, in combination with reduced intake of main significant micronutrients, remains prevalent in spite of the declining global food prices. Another debate is that globalization has led changes in consumption food patterns, generating better nutrition among some populations and new nutritional problems and linked nutritional diseases amongst others. Due to its magnitude and complexity, foods are flowing more rapidly and are produced, processed, handled and packaged in numerous complex ways, using a wide range of techniques. This has led to differentiation in consumption patterns in numerous countries because a single food source form a developing or developed country can be utilized in more than 100 diverse products and consumed in different countries. Traditional diets which are rich in grain and fiber have been replaced with diets with grater consumption of oils, animal fats, and sugars, leading to the emergence of obesity, overweight and the associated chronic illnesses. Question 6 Attributes of a hotel manager A hotel manager makes sure that the guests are comfortable and enjoy their stay in the hotel. A manager needs organizational skills and total commitment in building a staff that functions in accordance to achieve their goals. This needs both a friendly atmosphere of the manager toward the guests and a surrounding of good will and liberty amongst the staff involved in serving guests. A good manager should be adaptable to change. A good manager views change as healthy since it motivates the staff to go far beyond what they normally do. He should also be able to cope with the diversity of the guests along with their needs. A great manager should have future vision and see their firm’s position, market share and their competitive advantage in the future. He must see himself in the future of the company, employees, and customers. Hemust be able to develop a plan and a goal and recruit, manage and train the staff towards quality service delivery to the guests. Question 7 Service encounter as a performance Service encounter is when a customer interacts with a product or service for the first time. Hospitality industry relies on establishing positive guest experiences. Solomon (2004) argues that a central component of accomplishing this objective is to get an understanding of the significance of the period when a guest comes into contact with the industry and particularly the service personnel. These points of contacts are regularly referred to as moments of truth and functions as occurrences where customers assess whether the industry meets their anticipations. Given the great level of person to person interaction and regularly the absence exchange of concrete goods, service encounter is therefore a vital element of service quality. There are three main entities involved in service encounter who structure the result of the counter; the employees who enacts firm’s policies, service firm, which lays down guidelines and policies and the customer, who searches to gratify a variety of wants and needs. The hotel managers must manage the entire performance of the service encounter and contribute several positive peak performances. They must be mindful of average quality of encounters the hotel guest has with numerous staff for check in process and also make sure that unexpected extras, for, instance can result to distinguished peak performances from the point of view of the customer. Question 8 Culture and customer service Culture reflects the norms and values of a society or groups and has an impact on hospitality consumption and customer service of the industry. Guests purchase hospitality services of goods both for cultural reasons and for physiological reasons, usually expresses in form of symbolism. Culture influences the particular products different services guests purchase and the structure of consumption and personal decision making. Barrows, ( 2003) argues that when guests choose hospitality services they expect to attain three things which are greatly dictated by their cultures; services that have function, services that have form and services that have meaning. Therefore, guests from different cultures have different expectations and ideals of quality customer service in the hospitality industry. For instance, guests who want to spend annual holiday on cruise ship in Caribbean expect this holiday to execute a function, to refresh them and to offer the experiences they don’t usually have. Alistair (2002) argues that they will have expectations on the type of holiday and since cruising is linked with several meals, lively dusk entertainment and programmed activities, provision of these services implies quality customer service. Nevertheless, the guests will also be seeking a meaning via this holiday. Since cruising portrays symbolism conventional connected with elements like social class and luxury, the guests expect the hosts to recognize and provide their needs. Question 9 Hospitality as a feminized practice Hospitable receptionists are supposed to be warm, generous, kind, attractive, and nurturing and these qualities are regarded as typically feminine. The term receptionist is a feminized noun and this illustrates that the character of receptionist job is greatly gendered as it reflects domestic labour offered by females in family setting. Being a receptionist entails display of female qualities and undertaking a female role and also looking naturally female particularly in the manner that attracts men’s attention. Guerrier and Adib demonstrate that receptionist job can be constructed as women’s task because it needs considerable quantity of emotional labor. The physical presentation and appearance of a female receptionist is significant; she must be sexually attractive, friendly, and helpful (Gorier, & Adlib, 2003). Some employers endorse femininity as an asset of the hospitality industry. For instance, the Sri Lankan airlines used to utilize an advertisement which stated that when a firm is a business, the business of the customers is pleasure. This implies that hospitality industry should undertake business that pleases the guest and meets their needs and expectations. The Sri Lankan airline incorporated the feminist qualities in the processes for training, rewarding, and recruiting server. The receptionists are required to be presentable and attractive and therefore this company employed young females and dressed them in uniforms in order to highlight their attractive looks in commonplace. Question 10 Innovations that can lead to greater customer satisfaction in food and beverage service The hospitability industry should look beyond customer service in order to increase customer satisfaction. Guests are becoming more distinguishing and are demanding better value for the money they spend. Nowadays, consumers do not go into restaurants to simply buy a meal but they rather want to purchase an experience, which is the dining experience. Therefore the hospitability industry must increase food quality and professional level of service since they are the primary expectations of the dining experience. What contributes to a memorable meal is usually the result of feeling evoked in customer whereas they dine. Whereas the food and beverage sectors spend large amounts of time and money attempting to improve procedures that can ensure expertise, these attempts might not be effective in providing the experience or enjoyment that dinners want. In order to embrace hospitality concept in the food and beverage sector the hosts should welcome the chance to extend graciousness, warmth, and consideration to guests and treat them like they have been invented to our homes and providing a sustaining and pleasant environment. Therefore, the management should create a culture of professional hospitability through service training and endorsing staff to appreciate the essence of hospitability. Apart from developing a culture of professional hospitality, the hosts must recognize from the considerable diversity between hospitality and service. Managers along with their service staff must understand their role is that of the host. Other than thinking of service, hotel managers are required to think of hospitality and instead of viewing consumers as customers as customers, they should view them as guests. Restaurant staffs do not act as servers but as hosts. Additionally, other than serving the guests, hosts must seek to please and develop outstanding experiences for the guests. Attaining a host mindset entails concerted commitment and effort by every stakeholder to develop a hospitality culture that will nurture hospitable values and constantly reinforce hospitable behavior. Therefore, the industry must completely embrace the hospitality essence in its organizational culture and climate. Organisations are required to treat their businesses as if they were an extension of their own homes and their workers as part of their family. Professional hospitability needs people who are at the helm to be gracious, hospitable, open minded, optimistic and well groomed with an infectious outlook that may influence and shape the behavior of other individuals within the organization. This will in turn foster culture where individuals are committed to embrace hospitality in the manner they feel, perceive and think towards the guests. Human kinds are likely to treat others in the manner they are treated and this implies that the type of hospitality to be given to the guests has to be in accordance to every staff member and a hospitality culture can only thrive this way. More importantly, this climate and culture would be the foundation for the organization to effectively, attract, hire, and maintain great workers. Conclusion Hospitality entails the relationship between the host and guest whereby the host is supposed to meet the needs and expectations of the guest. Service encounter is also a significant theme in hospitality and therefore the hosts are supposed to give the guests positive experience which in turn leads to quality customer satisfaction. It can therefore be concluded that the managers are supposed to manage the whole performance of service encounter create positive experiences and peak performances. 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Solomon, M, 2004, The service encounter: managing customer and employee interaction , McGraw-Hill New York. Hein, W, 2004, Global environment change, globalization and food systems, Routledge, London. Guerrier, Y, & Adib, A, 2003, The interlocking of gender with nationality, race, ethnicity and class, Harper and Row, New York. Read More