Business Development Plan: Sunny Hostel in Malta - Reflection

This business development plan reflection report details the formulation of a business venture, Sunny Hostel, an affordable hostel in Malta targeting tourists and students with low budgets. It covers the identification of the business idea, selection of the business concept through market analysis, and the conduct of a feasibility analysis encompassing service, industry, organizational, and financial aspects. The report further discusses the formulation of the business plan, emphasizing the service delivery process, risk assessment and mitigation, and critical success factors. It concludes with insights on ensuring the profitability of the hostel while addressing potential challenges in the competitive Maltese hospitality market. Desklib provides access to similar past papers and solved assignments for students.

Running head: BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT PLAN
Business Development Plan: Reflection Report
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author’s Note:

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Table of Contents
1.0 Introduction..........................................................................................................................2
2.0 Identification of the Business Idea.......................................................................................2
3.0 Selection of the Business Concept.......................................................................................3
4.0 Conduct of Feasibility Analysis...........................................................................................4
5.0 Formulation of Business Plan..............................................................................................5
6.0 Conclusion............................................................................................................................6
7.0 References............................................................................................................................8

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1.0 Introduction
As opined by McKeever (2016), an important aspect of the modern business world is
the fact that it offers different business opportunities to the different entrepreneurs for the
establishment of new business ventures. Tyagi et al. (2015) are of the viewpoint that the
process of formation of a business venture is a complex one and there are various factors that
the entrepreneurs need to take into account for the formulation of an effective business plan.
In this regard, it needs to be said that some of the most important factors that the
entrepreneurs need to need to take into account for the formulation of an effective business
plan are identification of the right kind of business opportunities or ideas, formulation of the
concept statement, business model, risk assessment and others (Ward 2016). These are
important because of the fact that the overall growth prospects as well as the effectiveness of
the business plan that have been formulated depends greatly on the above-mentioned factors.
In this reflective report, I will discuss about the formulation of my own business plan, that is,
Sunny Hostel, an affordable hostel in Malta for tourists and students with low budgets and its
related aspects.
2.0 Identification of the Business Idea
Volker and Phillips (2018) have articulated the viewpoint that one of the most
important job roles of the modern entrepreneurs is to thoroughly analyse the business market
and thereby identify the kind of business opportunities which are likely to offer the maximum
rewards. I would like to say in this context that I began the formulation of my business plan
through the usage of the method of entrepreneurial opportunity identification. More
importantly, at the very beginning I was not sure regarding the kind of business venture that I
wanted to formulate although I was really interested in the hospitality industry because of the
high growth rate of the concerned industry. It was at this point of time that a family friend of

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mine who had just visited the nation of Malta complained about the lodging problem that he
had faced in the concerned nation. In this context, I would say that my friend visited the
nation of Malta for academic research and had a very low budget and because of the scarcity
of affordable lodging facilities available in the concerned nation he had to face a substantial
amount of problems. This incident really interested me and thereby I began to research about
the hospitality industry of Malta over the internet and to my great surprise found that
although the nation of Malta had in the recent times emerged as one of the most important
tourist destinations of the world yet there was not adequate hospitality or lodging facilities
available to the tourists. As a matter of fact, I found that the hotels, lodges and others present
in the concerned nation followed a premium pricing policy and this adversely affected the
tourists and the students who had low budgets and visited the nation for a short span of time
for academic research and other similar purposes. This situation in the nation of Malta
interested me significantly and thereby I decided to formulate my business plan to capitalise
on this business opportunity presented by the hospitality industry of Malta.
3.0 Selection of the Business Concept
Hayter, Lubynsky and Maroulis (2017) are of the viewpoint that the entity of business
concept offers the general information about a business venture like the products or services
it would, the target market on which it intends to focus on, the value proposition of the
services or products offered by it and others. I would like to say that for the formulation of
the business concept of my intended business venture, namely, Sunny Hostel, I thoroughly
analysed the hospitality industry of Malta through the usage of different kinds of secondary
sources like newspaper articles, industry reports, peer-reviewed articles and others so as to
gain a working idea about the hospitality industry of Malta. This in turn helped in the
effective formulation of the different aspects of the business concepts of my intended
business venture. For example, at the time of the formulation of the business idea I had

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already outlined the customer base or target market on which I would be focusing on and
thereby I tried to design the services that Sunny Hostel would offer on the basis of the needs
or the requirements of this particular target market. In this regard, I would say that I found
that some of the most important needs of the tourists and students with low budgets are
affordable lodging services, social interaction with the different guests who are staying in the
lodge or hotel, effective interior design and ambience within the hotel and lodges,
entertainment facilities and others. Thus, I integrated these services or facilities within the
framework of the hospitality services my Sunny Hostel would offer to them and these as a
matter of fact formed the value proposition or the unique selling proposition of the services
that the Sunny Hostel would offer to the guests. These are important because of the fact that
there are very few hotels or lodges in Malta that offer these kinds of facilities or services to
the guests or the customers. These in short are some of the most important aspects of the
business concept that I formulated on the basis of the analysis of the hospitality industry of
Malta through the usage of different secondary sources and also the first-hand information
that I got from my family friendly who had just visited Malta.
4.0 Conduct of Feasibility Analysis
Barrow, Barrow and Brown (2015) have articulated the viewpoint that the construct
of feasibility analysis is an important entity that the entrepreneurs are required to follow to
assess whether the business idea that they have formulated would a profitability or that matter
a feasible one within the business market or not. As opined by Ferreras-Garcia, Hernández-
Lara and Serradell-López (2019) for the effective analysis of the feasibility of a business
venture within a given business market, the entrepreneurs are required to conduct different
kinds of feasibility analysis like service or product feasibility, industry or market feasibility,
organisational feasibility, financial feasibility and others. In this regard, I would like to say
that for analysing the feasibility of my business idea I took the help of all the above-

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mentioned kinds of feasibility analysis. For example, the service feasibility analysis afforded
me the insight that there are very few hotels or lodges in Malta which offer the kind of
services that Sunny Hostel intends to offer and also the large demand for these kinds of
hospitality services is likely to support the business idea in an adequate manner. On the other
hand, I found that although there exists a high level of business competition within the
hospitality industry of Malta yet because of the premium pricing policy followed by the
majority of the hotels and the lodges there is an unexplored market of affordable lodging
services that the Sunny Hostel can exploit for attaining a higher level of growth. In addition
to these, the results of the organisational feasibility clearly reveal that the organisational
resources for exploiting the niche market of affordable lodging services although a significant
amount of work needs to be done for the effective development of the organisational
resources, management expertise level and others. Lastly, the results of the financial
feasibility analysis also reveal that the hostel under discussion here had the right of financial
resources to become a profitable hostel in the nation of Malta.
I would like to say that the Sunny Hostel should not get its expectations or ambitions
very high at the initial phases of its business in the nation of Malta. This can be explained on
the basis of the fact that as a new-start up hostel in Malta it is likely to face different kinds of
problems like intense competition, difficulty in getting suppliers because they generally like
to cater to the needs of already established hotels or lodges, the customer or the guest flow is
likely to be very low and others. However, I am hoping that through the effective usage of
different strategies like cost leadership, product diversification, digital marketing strategies
and others it is likely that in the longer-run the concerned hostel would be able to become a
profitable one in Malta.

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5.0 Formulation of Business Plan
As opined by Bhadury et al. (2017), the effectiveness as well as efficiency of the
business ventures established by the entrepreneurs greatly depends on the efficiency of the
business plan that they have formulated for their business venture. Kusumaningrum and
Hidayat (2016) are of the viewpoint that there are various factors that the entrepreneurs need
to take into account for the effective formulation of their business plan like the service
delivery process, the likely risks that their venture is going to face, measures or tactics for the
mitigation of these identified risks, critical success factors and others. In this regard, it needs
to be said that the aspect of effective service delivery system is important from the
perspective of the hospitality sector because of the fact that the prospects of the hotels or the
lodges greatly depends on the kind of services that they offer to the customers or the guests
and also the resultant experience of the guests (Cirer-Costa 2017). Thus, I have taken extra
care so as to ensure the fact that there would be effective coordination between the backstage
and onstage activities so as to deliver high quality services to the guests or the customers. In
addition to this, I have also tried to find out the major risks that Sunny Hostel is likely to face
in the nation of Malta on the score of their business operations like financial risks, employee
risk, work health and safety risk, market risk and others. Furthermore, for the effective
mitigation of these risks that Sunny Hostel is likely to face some risk mitigation measures and
also contingency plans have also been suggested on the basis of the likely impact as well as
probability of these risks. Lastly, I also have also outlined the different critical success factors
which are needed for the attainment of the goals as well as objectives that I have selected for
the concerned business venture in Malta. I would like to say in this regard that the primary
objective of these activities was to ensure the profitability of the concerned hostel in the
nation of Malta while reducing the negative effects of the business environment in which the
concerned hostel would be operational.

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6.0 Conclusion
To conclude, the creation of a business plan is a complex process and the
entrepreneurs are required to take into account different factors for the effective formulation
of the same. In this regard, it needs to be said that some of the most important aspects that the
entrepreneurs need to take into account for the creation of an effective business plan are
identification of adequate or suitable business opportunities presented by the business market,
designing the different aspects of the business concept, conducting feasibility analysis to
check the possibility of establishment of the business venture in the business market and
others. In addition to these, the entrepreneurs are also required to effectively identify the risks
that the business venture they are about to establish is likely to face in the concerned business
market and also devise adequate mitigation and contingency strategies or measures for the
mitigation of the same. Furthermore, the service delivery system used by the business
ventures is also important because of the fact that the entity of guest experience and also the
quality of services which are being offered to the guests or the customers greatly depends on
the service delivery system used by the business ventures. These aspects of the process of
business development plan have been taken into account for the formulation of the business
venture, namely, Sunny Hostel which will offer affordable lodging services to the tourists and
students in the nation of Malta.

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7.0 References
Barrow, C., Barrow, P. and Brown, R., 2015. The business plan workbook: A practical guide
to new venture creation and development. Kogan Page Publishers.
Bhadury, P., Chambliss, J., Huet, H., Keith, B., Taylor, L. and Westerling, K., 2017. Case
Studies and Business Plan Development Workshop on Strategies for Creating a Program for
Paid Student Internships/Assistantships in the Digital Humanities.
Cirer-Costa, J.C., 2017. Turbulence in Mediterranean tourism. Tourism management
perspectives, 22, pp.27-33.
Ferreras-Garcia, R., Hernández-Lara, A.B. and Serradell-López, E., 2019. Entrepreneurial
competences in a higher education business plan course. Education+ Training.
Hayter, C.S., Lubynsky, R. and Maroulis, S., 2017. Who is the academic entrepreneur? The
role of graduate students in the development of university spinoffs. The Journal of
Technology Transfer, 42(6), pp.1237-1254.
Kusumaningrum, I. and Hidayat, H., 2016. Learning Outcomes in Vocational Education: A
Business Plan Development by Production-Based Learning Model Approach. International
Journal of Environmental and Science Education, 11(18), pp.11917-11930.
McKeever, M., 2016. How to write a business plan. Nolo.
Tyagi, S., Choudhary, A., Cai, X. and Yang, K., 2015. Value stream mapping to reduce the
lead-time of a product development process. International Journal of Production
Economics, 160, pp.202-212.
Volker, J. and Phillips, M., 2018. Six Points: A Plan for Success. Journal of Management
Policy and Practice, 19(1).

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Ward, J., 2016. Keeping the family business healthy: How to plan for continuing growth,
profitability, and family leadership. Springer.