Hospitality Industry Trends and Challenges

This assignment delves into the contemporary hospitality industry, examining emerging trends, challenges, and key drivers of customer satisfaction. It explores topics like sustainability practices, online reviews, labor issues, and the influence of technology on service delivery. The analysis aims to shed light on the evolving landscape of the hospitality sector and its future prospects.

Running head: CONTEMPORARY HOSPITALITY INDUSTRY
Contemporary Hospitality Industry
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author note

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Table of Contents
Introduction....................................................................................................................................2
Task 1............................................................................................................................................2
Task 2............................................................................................................................................4
Task 3............................................................................................................................................7
Task 4............................................................................................................................................9
References and bibliography.......................................................................................................13

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Introduction
Premier Inn is one of UK’s largest hotel chain brand, containing more than 68,000 rooms
and 760 hotels under them. The hotel has their operations in a wide variety of locations that
includes city centers, airports and suburbs. They get tough competition from famous brands like
Travelodge and Ibis hotels. The hotel was established in the year 1987 as Travel Inn by
Whitbread. After buying Premier Lodge in 2004, Whitbread merged Travel Inn with it for forming
the present business under the name of Premier Travel Inn, later shortened to Premier Inn. It is
the primary major budget hotel chain from UK to have invested in prime-time television
advertising. Offering quality accommodation at easily affordable prices, the hotel chain is
constantly ranked as UK’s Best Value Hotel Chain by YouGov. By the end of 2020 they have
aimed at increasing their room count to 85,000. With operations in areas like Germany and
Middle East, they have more hotels in their pipeline. Premier Inn focuses and prides majorly on
providing quality and comfort. Irrespective of the reason of stay, be it business or leisure, they
would always focus on providing a warm welcome by their friendly teams. They have a separate
bar and restaurant, offering a broad selection of meals and full English and continental
breakfasts. Premier Inn is great value for both kids and adults, with their spacious and well-
connected rooms. Great Ormond Street is a proud charity partner of the Whitbread Hotels and
Restaurants (Whitbread.co.uk 2017).
Task 1
a. Hospitality is the approach by means of which the service provider attends to their
customers. It is also one of the most significant factor that differentiates between the
diverse service suppliers. The industry is one big umbrella under which many small sub-
sectors such as restaurants, hotels, transportations, etc. exists. All of these subsectors
offer services like travelling, accommodation, food, etc. to their customers and attempt

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satisfying all their needs (Walker 2016). A customer chooses the hotel or the airlines that
would be providing the best service in terms of hospitality as that is the single thing that
makes their travel comfortable. Hospitality has turned into an industry that runs at both
small scale and large scale (Schuckert, Liu and Law 2015). Small families run BnB
hostels at different tourist destinations and the big organizations run hotels. The goal of
both these hotels is of providing comfort to the travelers and also making them feel
good. Hospitality industry varies from localized and regionalized industries to
multinational companies and influences the travel and tourism in a major way. The
scope and scale of the industry is associated with the range of restaurants and hotels
that offer different services and facilities to the tourists staying in that specific area. It is
vital for both hospitality and travel and tourism industry for making sure that both tangible
and intangible services are considered. In terms of employment also this industry has
turned out into one of the biggest industries that is accommodating large number of
people (Riley 2014). Recently when the world faced a financial crisis, the hospitality
industry also got affected and in turn saw a down fall. The threat of the financial
disturbances in countries such as US, or in countries facing political instability, like in
Europe or the Middle East, or slow growth countries in Asia, has influenced several
industries all across the globe. Because of that the hospitality industry has faced a lot of
pressure from this uncertainty in the global economy. The management structure of
different hospitality industry globally is a complex procedure and different countries are
working hard for forming this industry. The market is diverse and contains different forms
of ownership like direct ownership, franchise system and contracts (Hsu, Kaufmann and
Srinivasan 2017). There is a wide scope for hospitality industry that is easily exploitable.
b. The role of the hospitality industry is examinable in different ways and different types of
service such as public, commercial or industrial. The services of this industry is diverse
from that of other industries, as majority of the importance is put on services. It is

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because service is the only that people are offered unlike other industries where tangible
goods are offered to the customers. Tourism and hospitality is going hand in hand as
effective hospitality is the only approach for achieving success in the industry. There are
different variations in the hospitality industry such as transportation, food and beverages,
lodging and several others that can be offered to the customers. All the elements that
come in the purview of hospitality are associated with one another, which is why for
meeting the needs of the customers and satisfying them it is vital for covering all the
aspects in the industry (Bowie et al. 2016). One more crucial point for providing a lot of
importance is that tourism industry do not offer any kind of tangible goods to their
customers that they can see or feel. The one thing that is offered to the customer is
experience that they remember, carry all over the world and then pass on to other
people even (Torres, Fu and Lehto 2014). It is important that the hospitality industry
makes sure that the service they provide must be of superior quality so that everyone
feels comfortable and plans visiting again. Therefore, when any guest comes in a hotel,
the staff has only the responsibility of handing over the keys to them. It is even
associated with the staff being helpful, forthcoming and friendly for assisting the
customers and helping them acquire the best of experience. At the end, it is hospitality’s
role of increasing the repetition of the visits of their guests. It could only be seen when
the staff service is brilliant and the customers themselves wish coming back and staying
at the same hotel. At the time of travelling at unknown places, people not just look for
good prices and facilities offered by the hotel - they look for best customer service and
for this the hotel needs no promotion of their services aggressively (Torres and Kline
2013).

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Task 2
a. The British hospitality industry is an area for employment growth, which has a projected
growth of continuity into the 21st century too. It is a diverse sector and in the recent
decades has seen the development of an increased range of extremely segmented
products and services (Boella and Goss-Turner 2013). Inside any country, the travel and
tourism industry is the most aggressive and employment intensive. The travel and
hospitality business is the biggest employer in the world and the employment numbers
are rising with each passing day in leaps and bounds. People enter this industry with an
objective and are taking their career within it very seriously. There are still several
countries that are devoid of proper platforms where the people can get an option of
learning suitable skills for their career in this industry (Jones et al. 2016). Irrespective of
the fact that it is one of the largest employers in the world and contributing a lot for the
economy of all the countries and the global economy too, the career growth inside it is
not that much lucrative for the people. Moreover, there are not much good colleges also
where the people actually can acquire and learn some skills and get good amount of
proper training for it. Majority of the time in most of the countries, this profession has
been taken up randomly and people acquire most of the skills that are required for this
on the job. There is a need in the industry for a lot of skilled workers though, as this
industry is revolving around services and satisfaction of customer needs. People who
have chosen to work in this industry asks for a lot of patience with the people and they
must also have the capability of understanding and handling different range of human
nature. The industry asks for large number of people as in this hospitality business there
are a lot of small jobs that cannot be managed by just one individual and a lot of people
are required for different job roles (Boella 2017). In the British hospitality industry, the
most largely reported skill scarcity across all sub sectors is that of mostly chefs and that
is acknowledged as being an issue that transcends all national boundaries. Majority of

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the employers across the sector even complained regarding the issues in recruitment of
proper candidates for part-time staff, general operative-level jobs and management jobs.
The big hotels had faced issues at all occupational levels, especially in tight labor
markets, in which it was found necessary of recruiting comparatively unskilled staff from
other areas or overseas and providing incentives like accommodation (Legrand, Sloan
and Chen 2016.).
b. The staff who are recruited in the hospitality business must have different types of skills
and must be multi-talented. The following figure shows the staff structure inside the
travel and tourism industry:
Image 1. Hotel Departmental Structure
It is required that the manager has at least done his or her graduation and also post-
graduation and the people with the right skills with at least more than eight to ten years of
experience must be chosen for this job. For the managerial levels, graduation and masters are

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important, along with having a basic idea about the overall industry at large. Team leaders must
at least have done their graduation and they must be having experience of three years in the
industry (Rao 2014). The employees who are at the lower levels of the line can be either fresher
or have little amount of experience and that person must have completed the basic education
like graduation. The hotel managers need to be able to take care of all the operations in the
hotel for providing a quality experience to their guests. The food service staff needs to have
basic high school education and training regarding their field. The staff must have knowledge on
proper serving techniques, policies of the establishment and sanitation procedures. The
housekeeping staff are required having skills to keep the guest accommodations clean. Their
additional training happens mostly on the job. Other than the general hotel staff, there are travel
agents too, who help the customers plan their trips, transportation, entertainment and book
lodging. These agents must have proper skills so that they can provide advice on destinations
and entertainment, and travel plans before any trip. These agents work with hotels, resorts,
cruise lines or tours for offering special discounts and promotions their customers and
evaluating the quality of the restaurants, hotels and resorts for gathering information for their
customers. These positions simply require a high school education, but with some basic training
at least (Pizam 2016).
Task 3
a. The following few recent developments have been seen taking place recently and that is
even influencing the hospitality industry in different operational areas:
Sustainable development: One of the major issues these days are sustainable
development and going green. In all the industries there is the pressure of adopting practices
that are associated with sustainable development. Even inside the travel and tourism industry
the organizations have started to look for options that are green and is needed by the world.
Several people have come up with options such as environment friendly hotels and lodges.

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Majority of the hospitality business has taken up the challenge of green movement. The basic
cornerstone of any sustainable hospitality business, that is actually what it needs to be, is
covered by three main points – people, profit and planet. Today each of the hospitality business
needs considering these three main options that would help them become economically
successful and valuable for both the society and the environment (Gustavo 2013).
Labor cost issues: Until a few years back the labor expense was one of the biggest
expense that each hospitality business had to bear. Today, this expense is still there, with some
added expenses. Therefore, any issue or trend that prevails and effects labor cost needs to be
taken care of with complete seriousness. It also counts in the dimensions of time, expense and
efforts spent on it and the labor costs. The expenditure carried out for hotels is the biggest
expense that can be seen for any kind of hospitality business. Regardless of the introduction of
so many modern technologies and modern tools, the importance of human resource can be
replaced by nothing or nobody in this industry. Even though management of labor costs and
employee expenses, it is also important that the hotels understand the importance of employees
in this business. The employees of the hotels are the ones who are directly dealing with the
guests and leaving an imprint of the hotel in the minds of the visitors. Therefore, this problem
must be dealt with very delicately (Pearlman and Schaffer 2013).
Multicultural issues: The latest trend inside this industry and many other industries too that
they are feeling a need of going global, including Premier Inn. Since this latest trend is fast
growing, there is a requirement of understanding the culture of the different countries and even
recruiting people from different backgrounds who would be useful in bringing the two cultures
together.
Higher education: The hospitality business has seen substantial growth and that has posed
various challenges for the education system. This has made it necessary for including in the

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syllabus various curriculums that are related to the industry. This has posed a challenge for the
education industry and they need to take it seriously as that is one of the most growing and
emerging markets in the world.
b. Inside any business, image of it holds a very important place for its success. In case of
the hospitality industry, it can only sustain in the market when its image in the market is
quite good and popular. Premier Inn is one of UK’s largest hotel chain brand, containing
more than 68,000 rooms and 760 hotels under them. The hotel has their operations in a
wide variety of locations that includes city centers, airports and suburbs. It is the primary
major budget hotel chain from UK to have invested in prime-time television advertising.
Offering quality accommodation at easily affordable prices, the hotel chain is constantly
ranked as UK’s Best Value Hotel Chain by YouGov. Premier Inn is great value for both
kids and adults, with their spacious and well-connected rooms. Great Ormond Street is a
proud charity partner of the Whitbread Hotels and Restaurants, mother concern of
Premier Inn. In UK, Premier Inn is considered as being the best in business. It has taken
them a lot of efforts and hard work for building this kind of image that has continued for
so many years. They even are famous for their employee training and services that they
provide to the customers. Premier Inn has always believed in the provision of experience
to their customers, something that would stay in their mind always. For any hotel, their
image is everything for them and that is the ground based on which people build their
hotels and their businesses grow. Premier Inn has made sure that they have maintained
their image always by means of providing their customers with the best services and at
the best locations where people would love to go (Premierinn.com 2017).
Task 4
a. In the last 20 years huge changes have been seen inside the hospitality sector, as
people have started spending more money on leisure travels and holidays. Inside the

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hospitality industry, the competition has become fierce and all the organizations are
coming up with something that is fresh, innovative and interesting every single, which
has managed to catch the attention of all the people (Radojevic, Stanisic and Stanic
2015). The industry has been facing a lot of different emerging trend that are discussed
elaborately below:
 The core and the most important customers inside the hospitality business right now are
the millennial who have reached the age of young adulthood back in the year 2000.
Many of the organizations in these sectors from the categories of hotels, airlines, travel
and tourism have been benefitted from this.
 One more trend that is wanted by every business to achieve for succeeding inside this
industry is speed and precision. The hotel businesses and other businesses inside this
segment are all very positive and stays connected with everyone with the help of social
media platforms.
 There is a possibility that customer service would be turning even more aggressive than
it already is in recent time. There are different levels of customer service, starting from
the very basic, expected, and desired and a new term that is going round in the industry,
WOW. There is a need of the services to get improved and people have started
expecting so much from the hotel industry at present.
 Leadership is a very important aspect of the hospitality industry which is constantly
changing with the moving world. Forming a connection with the customers has turned
out to be quite vital and proper leadership is necessary for forming this kind of
connection.
 The visits and expectations from such large numbers of international visitors for a varied
range of reasons have increased a lot. All across the world, people are traveling in so
many countries for varied reasons and hospitality business benefit hugely because of
this reason.

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 Social media has spread across the globe like wildfire. People are on social media
nowadays at all times. Marketing principles are taking the place of conventional
advertising and marketing. The latest mantra of the hospitality business has become that
brands must now act like publishers and engage themselves in customer engagement
and possible market in the industry.
b. One of the most predicted developments and trends in the hospitality industry is the
employment of advanced technologies in places where the guests would be required
using their fingerprints or any other form of biometrics for performing any kind of hotel
operations at any time inside the hotel (Frydman and Phelps 2013). The guests would
be using this new process for implementing inside check-ins, check-outs and carrying
out any other forms of services inside the hotel. This would be helpful in monitoring the
guests inside the hotel and therefore making sure that the security processes are good
enough for making sure the guests are not in any kind of unsafe zone is very important.
The use of this system would be reducing the burden of having to waste time by thinking
the way many guests would be served when everyone seems being in a hurry. The
reduction of the burden would be duly motivating the workers for working even harder,
thus making sure there are an increased number of guests. The development that can
be carried out in the future in this industry would be regarding guest handling in which
fast and precise ways must be employed. The customer service is deemed the most
important element when predictions regarding future trends are made in the respect of
the hospitality sector (Law, Buhalis and Cobanoglu 2014). In addition to technology, one
more important trend is real time marketing and provision of materials in a constant way
that can be considered as a significant scenario inside the hospitality industry. For
making predictions related to future trends in the food and beverage management, there
has been lots of discussions regarding the changing of the clean labels to the clear
labels (Frydman and Phelps 2013). Additional importance is provided in the context of

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consistent attention regarding home cooking for creating efficiency in respect of the
customers. Among the present generation, new fusion foods and innovative continental
dishes are turning out to be quite popular among the present generation. Customers are
becoming more health conscious and avoiding the use of healthy oils and artificial
emulsifiers (Lee et al. 2014).

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References and bibliography
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A guide to best practice. Routledge.
Boella, M.J., 2017. Human resource management in the hotel and catering industry. Taylor &
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Bowie, D., Buttle, F., Brookes, M. and Mariussen, A., 2016. Hospitality marketing. Taylor &
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Cheng, S. and Wong, A., 2015. Professionalism: A contemporary interpretation in hospitality
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Frydman, R. and Phelps, E.S. eds., 2013. Rethinking expectations: The way forward for
macroeconomics. Princeton University Press.
Gustavo, N., 2013. Marketing management trends in tourism and hospitality industry: Facing the
21st century environment. International Journal of Marketing Studies, 5(3), p.13.
Hsu, L., Kaufmann, P. and Srinivasan, S., 2017. How Do Franchise Ownership Structure and
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