Travelodge was the first budget hotel brand to launch in the UK in 1985, when it opened on the A38, in Barton under Needlewood.
Since those early days, Travelodge has undergone a radical transformation, opening more than 500 hotels (over 37,000 rooms), and moving from being a roadside hotel chain to become one of the UK 's largest, fastest growing and most highly recognised budget hotel brands.
More than 16.5 million people stayed with Travelodge last year and 90% of reservations are currently made through Travelodge.co.uk which is the UK 's most visited hotel website, attracting over 1.1 million visits each week.
Travelodge is the smart choice for leisure and business travellers, consistently offering them great value hotels …show more content…
in locations where they want to stay.
More than 80% of Travelodge hotels are located in major city centres, towns and popular holiday hotspots. The Travelodge brand has a range of hotel designs including: purpose built hotels, grade ll listed buildings, office conversions, acquisitions of existing hotels and co-partnerships with leading pub companies, supermarkets and retailers.
In 2013, Travelodge will open a further 14 further hotels (1,742 rooms) at an investment of £141.5 million. The UK locations include four properties in London (Bethnal Green, Hounslow, Vauxhall and Walthamstow), Liverpool, Cambridge, Aylesbury, Southport, Kings Lynn, Sittingbourne, Manchester and Chertsey. The other hotel openings in 2013 are in Barcelona and Madrid, doubling Travelodge 's room stock in Spain to 700.
LO1
1.1
Tourism and hospitality industry can be placed in the national economy ,importance of tourism and hospitality increases from year to year.
The first definition of tourism, accepted worldwide, is by W. Hunziker so according to W.Huziker : "the sum of the phenomena and relationships arising from the travel and stay of non-residents, insofar as they do not lead to permanent residence and are not connected with any earning activity."
Even if the tourism it is based on supplying hospitality services , hospitality industry does not overlap with the tourism. Hospitality industry is not only hotels and restaurants according to WTO ' 'by the term of hospitality industry it is defined the totality of organizations, firms and institutions which offers as a main service accommodation and food service both for tourists and local population from that area ' '.
Hospitality industry is an umbrella concept for of a large category of providers of tourism services, including accommodation, catering facilities, casinos, catering, resorts and holiday clubs.
Hospitality industry is one of the sectors with the highest growth in the world economy.
It is expected that in the next decade to double its size, becoming increasingly diversified, knowing the trends and opening new and more career opportunities in totally new areas.
The hospitality industry is run by two twin engines - Travel and Tourism , and the world economy both sectors are in the face of without precedent growth.
According to World Travel and Tourism Council ' ' expansion is healthy, sustainable and continues: global industry is expected to double the size in the next ten years, travellers will spend over $ 5 billion every day ' '.
The demand for well-trained professionals is strong and growing at the international level.
This industry is not limited only to hotels and restaurants , in this industry can be included cruise companies, amusement parks, golf clubs, casinos, yacht clubs, airline catering, conference centres and any other business which aims to serve the customer and transforming the guest experience into one comfortable and happy.
The society needs and wants are changing so because of this the hospitality industry is changing. According to Thomas Maier ' ' The hospitality industry encompasses a wide range of business, each of which is dedicated to the service of people away from home. ' '
Hospitality scope is to provide services and facilities for some part of businesses. Hospitality industry nowadays is consider the main key for economical development with huge opportunities for jobs vacancies. Referring to the jobs vacancies the restaurants sector is on the biggest supplier of jobs opportunities and it is followed by pubs, bars and hotels. Restaurants are not only the biggest supplier of jobs but also produce the most income. In the next table it will be shown the economic performance for each sector.
The hospitality industry Restaurants
Hotels and related services
Contract catering and in house catering
Event management
1.8-2.4 million jobs
1.26 millions jobs
400,000 jobs
750,00 jobs
20,000 jobs
Table1.
According to the Table1.it can be seen that the Restaurants industry is the most powerful sector from the hospitality industry.
In Food and Drink sale sector the sales are the following : hotels ( nearly £7,000 millions sale) , restaurants (£ 8,000 millions sale), quick service ( £9,000 millions sale), pubs ( nearly £6,000 millions sale), leisure ( nearly £3,000 millions sale) business industry ( nearly £ 3,000 millions sale), healthcare ( nearly £1,000 millions sale), education ( nearly £ 1,500 millions sale).
Ownership and control
There are different types of enterprises such as Sole Trader in which the ownership is held by one owner and the control of business is held the same by one owner. Another type of enterprise is the Partnership where the ownership is spread to partners and the control of the business is held by them but can exist a senior partner and in this case can have more power in taking decisions.
The next type of enterprise is the company where the ownership is held by the shareholders and the control of the business is held by the directors and some managers which are paid and some of them can have more control than others.
The last type of enterprise is the franchise where the ownership is hold by the franchisee and the franchisee holds the licence and this licence is for a given period. The control of the business is held by the franchisee but should operate in framework set out by the franchisor.
In the hotel industry are used different types of ownership such as : franchise, privately owned and operated, leased and managed.
In the franchise type the hotel will have a lot of popularity because is buying the licence.
Globalization
Globalization is define by the quickly displacement ,across the borders, of people, information, technology and capital. Nowadays the hospitality industry and the hotel industry should apply different management techniques to survive and develop in the contemporary environment even if there is the risk to have a positive and negative impact in the future.
The hospitality industry is having a main role to gather together people from worldwide. According to Roger S Cline ' ' Most of hospitality businesses will need to think globally if they are to survive. Competition in the future will come from global entities with the advantages that globalization brings ' '.
1.2
Designed to give concrete form of functions and activities conduct of the organization, the organizational structure is primarily characterized by its specific character.
Visible and formal structure of the organization consists of people who are in jobs, grouped positions and offices placed in a vertical hierarchies or horizontal cooperation.
Structure is defined as all persons, organizational subdivisions and their relations so constituted and regulated to ensure organizational prerequisites necessary to achieve the set objectives.
The whole organizational structure presents two main parts:
a) Management structure or functional bringing together all the people, departments and relations between them, so constituted and organized as to ensure the economic, technical and control conditions required for full deployment and execution managerial processes.
b) Production or operational structure, which consists of all persons, departments or organizational relationships that ensure direct realization of products and / or services covered by the scope of activity of the organization.
Both sides of the organizational structure, however, are made of the same categories of primary components.
In the hotel sector it is required the presence of the following mandatory functions :
- Reception function necessary to formalize the identification of customer quality service and sales;
- Floor function on ensuring hygienic of the hotel;
- Maintenance function guaranteeing the proper functioning of the whole hotel.
Around accommodation service is organized the structured and subdivision of the departments of hotel sectors.
Managerial style used in the hotel organizations is the circular operation, through this organizational structure, the hotel manager is no longer on top, but is in the middle of the command chain and can radiate various levels balanced on its own working system results .
In restaurant organizations the general manager and economic manager in principle, work together in the sense that their functions are not strictly separated both take fundamental decision for the enterprise, they advise each other depending on the economic forecasts.
Maitre D is required to supervise and command the waiters. Leads the customers at the table and supervises how they are served. By him depends on the whole progress and good organization during a normal workday.
Waiters and barman their job is to serve the guest in a professional manner and to look after the customers. These are the positions that face directly with the customers. The other departments on the back house are the kitchen where are prepared the meals and the cleaning team which usually work after the closing time.
1.3
The concept of hospitality respectively providing generous and cordial customer service is the fundamental principle of industry. Hospitality is a subjective concept and the degree to which a customer believes that was treated with hospitality and generally depends on the financial success of the hotel or restaurant.
To experience a good customer satisfaction lots of associations and professional bodies appear in the UK. For instance it is need a lot of graduated personnel in the hospitality sector.
From the professional bodies that are present in the United Kingdom it can be mentioned :
British Hospitality Association (BHA) this professional body is representative for the hotels and restaurants. It is a national trade which have section of students , careers advice, news and trade information.
This professional body is divided as well and a sector of the British Hospitality Association is Institute of Hospitality this is an association representative for the managers in hospitality, tourism industries and leisure. On this association can be found lots of details about qualification and about job vacancies.
A part of the Institute of Hospitality is International Hotel & Restaurant Association( IHRA) this association is promoting the concerns of hotels and restaurants worldwide. There are lots of organizations which are helping ,protecting and promoting the job vacancies in the hospitality.
2.1
The demand for well-trained professionals is strong and is growing on the international level.
The hoteliers are saying that the shortage of qualified personnel in the hospitality industry companies raise problems in the condition that the demand for well-trained managers and employees is constantly growing.
Even though it is estimated that in the next ten years hotel market will still attract about 85,000 employees nationwide, perspectives of major employers in the industry do not seem too promising, most of them saying that the labour demand is more underrated in relation to their recruitment needs .
Managers from Marriot hotel strongly believe that ' 'fresh graduates are a good resource. School offers basic knowledge in the field, but are not 'fully operational ' engagement.. They need training regarding 5-star services and, especially, specific standards of our brand ' '.
Talking about managers in the hospitality industry is, moreover, very delicate, confirm the specialists in executive search market, which states that ' 'besides the lack of specialists, appears and lack of confidence in candidates ' '.
There is a great shortage of managers in this market, and this is not necessarily the big problem, but rather the fact that in general are less credible …show more content…
candidates.
In Great Britain on the market jobs were offered hundreds of jobs in the hospitality industry, in bars, restaurants and hotels in cities and tourist resorts.
The existence of an appropriate correlation between workforce employment and staffing needs of the company will highlight almost always a high quality recruitment activity.
According to hotelnewsnow.com ' ' The hospitality industry is facing a global shortage of qualified personnel is also one of the sectors of the economy with the highest staff turnover ' '.
Although most managers will not admit, in general they or management team is one of the main reasons why employees leave a company. It is said that people do not leave jobs they leave the bosses.
To have a happy and motivated team will not only help to retain talent in the company and reduce staff turnover, but it will lead to higher productivity.
Authenticity, professionalism and genuine concern for the happiness and welfare of clients are communicated by successful organizations is a clear competitive advantage.
In Great Britain are plenty of Colleges and Universities that are training students for the hospitality industry. The demands of qualified personnel in Great Britain is becoming bigger and bigger and some institutes are sending students to do practice to some of the hotels. There are some companies who are recruiting students and train them how to become a professional receptionist for instance. One of these companies and well known in London is Reception Academy which is teaching their students how to use Opera and how to become a 5 star hotel receptionist. This institute is having contracts with big hotels from London and on graduating day managers from London hotels are coming and recruiting receptionists.
2.2
Hospitality is the branch of the national economy which has the and objective to meet the needs of tourists during holidays or making the trip ,the need for accommodation and meal, and spending pleasant leisure by organizing the animation.
Front-office manager
With detailed knowledge of all offers and attitude, each worker will be recommending to the hotel clients benefits or simply to say hello before serving the customer, to listen and to sit at their disposal, making it to feel good and winning trust. But it is not enough for the front office manager to decide that the front desk staff must provide a hospitable treatment.
As a front office manager he is responsible for the completing the staff payroll if it is a small organization such as Barking Travelodge the manager is responsible for housekeeping section as well. The same in this small organization the manager is the one who 's doing the weekly banking and also the main responsibility is to develop plans for increasing the customer satisfaction.
It takes more, namely to develop a management program services, highlighting the company focus on customer satisfaction and enable achievement of financial objectives. Even if the manager does not have direct contact with the customer in service delivery, he is primarily responsible for quality and hospitality. He is the one who can develop norms, rules and plans development of hospitality in the subordinate staff; he also must ensure compliance. Manager checks whether employee effort in this direction is continuing and professional.
The main rules of behaviour include: greeting, physical posture and clothing, conversation, including phone, gesture.
All potential sellers in the hotel they must be properly motivated to assume verbal and non-verbal skills in this sense can be formulated and enforced clear rules.
However, workers must be helped to understand the need for their implementation and enforcement, as to assume consciously.
The use of mimics, gestures and body language represents a particular importance.
Inevitable conflicts in the organization must be a approached by managers and employees wisely. A customer who complains is not necessarily a satisfied customer. The causes of these complaints are diverse.
Complaints will appear as results of operations of this nature factors and causes, general, dissatisfaction and poor customer satisfaction. Starting from the idea that every employee is a potential seller, their behaviour should be based largely on certain skills necessary for resolving complaints.
When hotel employees must solve such problems dissatisfaction customers is important ,social skills are important and how they are presented to the client respectively their posture.
As a front office manager you need hospitality-related degree or diploma will always stand you in good stead and there are lots of vocational courses to choose from.
For instance an HND in the hospitality industry and some years of experience in the industry will be an advantage and will get you faster to the desirable career.
In Great Britain in order to get a job it is needed a National Vocational Qualifications.
The same rule is applied for Hospitality Industry. On these NVQ there is no age limit and these reflects your work experience. These NVQ can be completed in one year if it is a full time study and if it is a part time should take almost two years.
Other qualifications that are used in the hospitality industry are BTEC and OCR Nationals are made with different levels which are having different sizes and difficulty. These qualifications are helping the worker to learn different skills which are related to Hospitality Industry.
If the worker is choosing to do this type of course is great as is helping him a lot because is composed on theory and practice as well. These courses can be founded in Colleges on part time and full time bases.
Every level of qualification is having different requirements.
A well used process in Great Britain is the Apprenticeship. In this way the person who wants a career in hospitality can work with a paid contract and also can get a NVQ without studying full time. The Apprenticeship is composed by 3 levels. First level is named Apprenticeship and equivalent to NVQ level 2.The second one is Advanced apprenticeships and is equivalent with an NVQ level 3 and also includes an technical certificate. To reach to level 3 which is Higher Apprenticeships it needed to pass the previous two .This level is equivalent to NVQ level 4 and it also having a foundation degree. For instance people can be apprenticeship in a restaurant and in the meantime they get a NVQ.
To work in the managerial section in the Hospitality Industry it is needed a Higher National Certificate , Higher National Diploma or a Bachelor Degree. First two are higher qualifications and these qualification help to put in practice the skills and knowledge on the same time while the last one is more headed to gain knowledge.
LO3
3.1
In the Hotel industry and not only there are lots of laws , codes and regulations that must be followed. For instance if someone wants to open a hotel there are plenty of bureaucracy to be consider.
Even when is choose the name of the hotel must take in consideration the Business Name Act 1985 which ensure that the hotel name is not the same with the business name.
These acts and rules are applied in order to protect the customer and the personnel as well. In order to protect the customer it was developed in 1986 The Trade Description Act which is preventing the hotel from not providing a true description and reflection of the facilities.
On 29th of September 2011 the Tourism Minister John Penrose decided to reduce and simplify more than 60 regulation in order to make the life easier to the businesses. In his opinion there were some unnecessary regulations.
According to Tourism Minister John Penrose ' ' Rules and regulations grow like bindweed through industry and business, and nowhere is this more apparent than in the Hospitality, Food and Drink sectors. Wading through bumph, filling in pointless and repetitive forms is a spirit-sapping experience which too often chokes off enterprise and endeavour. The Red Tape Challenge has shone a spotlight on all this, and I am delighted with our progress” The Minister of business and enterprise Mark Prisk strongly believe that “It’s great news that more than 60 regulations in the hospitality, food and drink sector will be scrapped or simplified. This comes on top of the 160 retail regulations that will be reviewed, amended or abolished. It shows that the Red Tape Challenge is gaining momentum.”
Health and safety policies that apply to the hospitality sector are few and relate to food hygiene, and the smoking ban, which led, in some cases, the additional health and safety measures.
The employee rights general requires employers to assess risks and to ensure the safety and health of all employees at work.
The obligations and responsibilities of employers are to ensure the health and safety of employees at work, setting and specific methods to achieve the objectives.
For example, a chef is exposed to risks of burning, scalding, cutting, sliding, hot steam inhalation.
The employer has the obligation to draw up instructions for the use of work equipment used by each employee activities it performs.
Hospitality operators are facing increasingly stringent requirements regarding waste management.
Predominant organic wastes are the (waste and waste oils) and electronic waste, for which there are also specific regulations. Any restaurant or hotel that generates waste oil can not discharge into groundwater or ground, in drains or on the ground.
Domestic waste management involves a contract with a waste disposal company. In essence, the concept is simple and involves them in storage bins for each type of material (paper, plastic, glass, wood, metal).
Food business operators are required to ensure that persons who handle food are trained in food hygiene matters in proportion to their activity and that is ensured compliance with all requirements of the national legislation on training programs for staff.
A good hotel manager must be, first of all, passionate about craft. Is practically impossible to perform without the compatibility with the values of the
industry.
A hotel manager should be able to lead a team. The technical details are learned, but to work with people requires certain inborn qualities, or at least that can educate. A hotel manager has to know first how to smile. It is said that at the interview in the hospitality industry the candidate is preferred for attitude and will be trained to trade.
This is true for general managers as well.
Ideal hotel manager, in my opinion, is one that has gone down, going through several stages on both fronts: in the experience - career - work, and on the education (high school - college - filling station -graduate studies.
3.2
In the last decade there has been a strong development of the industry (hospitality, restaurants, hotels, function rooms, bars, pubs etc..
The hospitality industry is one of the most dynamic sectors of contemporary society with accentuated a role in globalization.
In the current period hospitality industry and bodies managers in this sector are not only facing the challenges of the economic crisis, but also the market changes, consumer behaviour and technological trends .
Following the current requirements of management and organization scientific economic entities, contemporary accounts is increasingly oriented towards forecasting calculations on resources, the resources of the economic entity, on how their training and financial results that blends with reflection of phenomena occurred. industry On the Great Britain market it is a strong competition. Hotels are aware that nowadays the image sell and to survive on the market are coming with different offers to attract the visitors A major impact on the image of London hospitality industry had the Olympics which was held on 2012.
For this event it was build like a small new town inside London. This event attracted 698,000 visitor from the hole world.
The current image of hospitality is still affected in a positive way by the 2012 Olympics. For instance low budgets hotel like Travelodge are still building new hotels around UK and on June 2014 they lunch the new TV advertise where they are promoting the new refurbished hotels with attractive prices.
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LO4
4.1
Recent years have witnessed a large number of technology companies that have invested and developed innovations to help hotels to improve customer service and to make it profitable. This trend, together with the increasing use of mobile devices and increasing offer self-service technologies in everyday life, confirms that the hospitality industry is at the forefront of a in customer service revolution .
A revolution in the aviation industry in which anyone flown in recent years will recognize immediately. Not long ago, users had to wait in long lines to register their luggage while company personnel manually enter data on their passport.
Thanks to new technology many travellers are now able to choose the place and to register their data before arriving at the airport. With the boarding ticket already removed from the printer or downloaded to the mobile phone can access directly on the plane.
This is a field in hotels where technology is rapidly developing. While many systems are still being tested or are in incipient, stages most customers will soon be able to make out all stages of the online check-in and enter directly into the room.
Guests with mobile devices will have access to all hotel services, from request room service or ask toothbrush that was forgotten, until the restaurant table reservation or to check the latest details of the conference. When the time comes to leave the hotel will go directly to pay for, thanks to electronic invoice sent to your mobile phone.
With the implementation of these new technologies staff can devote more time to customers, giving them indeed the service instead seen as "processors". The latest advances will provide the opportunity to offer a proactive service to ensure that guests enjoy their stay, earning their loyalty to respond to any needs.
This increase in the level of automation is also cost implications. Customers having control over their own stays will have more time to use it in the aspects of their work issues with higher added value.
4.2
Nowadays the big hotel chains are confronting with innovations and on the other hand the small hotel such as Travelodge in response to the customers needs are changing the services.UK hotel industry is strongly positive to the innovation and is finding new ways to improve the services for the customers.
Professor Shaw strongly believe that UK hotel sector can be a good example to the other service industries regarding the innovation. He also believes that innovation is the key of success nowadays and if a hotel or other business wants to survive on the market should take an action. Branded chains such as Travelodge which represents almost 12% from the London 's hotels implemented friendly environmental measures in this case they installed solar panels and also provided recycled materials.
These changes in the hotels may lead to development to a new marketing website or to installing a new PMS.
The impact of these innovations in the hospitality area leads to the chasing of the social networks of the customers feedback witch is vital for the companies.
The companies understood that customers and customers opinion are playing the main role on shaping the innovation.
The current researches show that hotels are looking to hire foreign managers as they are coming with new and innovated ideas which are having a great impact on the customer satisfaction.
References:
1. Chon,K. Maier,T (2010). Welcome to Hospitality an introduction. 3rd ed. United States : Delmar, Cengage Learning. 6.
2. Timothy, L. Lockeyer, G (2010). The international hotel industry sustainable management. New York: Routledge. 105.
3. Clayton, W. Powers, T (2008). Introduction to the Hospitality Industry. London: Wiley. 7-9.
4. . Baker,S.Bradley,P. Huyton,J (1994). Principles of Hotel Front Office Operations. Cassell P L C. 20.
5. University of Edinburgh. (2014). Hospitality and Events Management.Available: http://www.ed.ac.uk/schools-departments/careers/explore/occupations/hospitality-events/events-management. Last accessed 21/07/2014.
6.Department for Culture, Media & Sport and John Penrose MP. (2011).Government sets hospitality food and drink businesses free from regulation. Available: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/government-sets-hospitality-food-and-drink-businesses-free-from-regulation. Last accessed 26th July 2014.