Employee Involvement and Guest Experience in Hotels

This report puts focus on the factor of employee involvement within the hospitality and tourism sector. The involvement of the employees within the hospitality business is extremely crucial for the profitability and positive guest experience. This report primarily focuses on the definition of customer service, which is a growing factor of concern within the industry. In this report, a historical overview of the guest experience is discussed. This portion also describes the evolvement of services provided within the hotel business, which mostly benefits for the profitability of the business culture.

Running head: EMPLOYEE INVOLVEMENT AND GUEST EXPERIENCE IN HOTELS
Employee Involvement and Guest Experience in Hotels
Name of the Student
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1EMPLOYEE INVOLVEMENT AND GUEST EXPERIENCE IN HOTELS
Executive Summary
This report puts focus on the factor of employee involvement within the hospitality and tourism
sector. The involvement of the employees within the hospitality business is extremely crucial for
the profitability and positive guest experience. This report primarily focuses on the definition of
customer service, which is a growing factor of concern within the industry. In this report, a
historical overview of the guest experience is discussed. This portion also describes the
evolvement of services provided within the hotel business, which mostly benefits for the
profitability of the business culture. High quality of customer service within the hotel business
such as proper methods of greeting, engagement of employees with the customers, proper way of
listening to the queries of customers and resolving them in real-time are some major factors that
lead to satisfaction to customers. Satisfied customers would always provide a positive feedback
towards the hotel business. The report further puts major focus on the importance of employees
working within the sector that is in relation with the culture of service and empowerment of the
employees. Based on such kind of discussion, the consequences for the hotel business based on
not putting extra efforts towards the customers are described within the report. The discussion
supports the fact that poor form of delivery of service would lead to negative implications
towards the business. The report concludes by discussing the fact about the important factor for
the development of a proper guest experience and thus delivering proper business results within
the profit chain of the business.

2EMPLOYEE INVOLVEMENT AND GUEST EXPERIENCE IN HOTELS
Table of Contents
1. Introduction..................................................................................................................................2
2. Discussion....................................................................................................................................3
2.1 Definition of the Customer Service within Hospitality and Tourism Sector.........................3
2.2 Historical Overview and Evolvement of Guest Experience..................................................4
2.3 Importance of Employees......................................................................................................6
2.4 Consequences for not providing Good Quality of Service....................................................7
3. Conclusion...................................................................................................................................9
4. Recommendation.......................................................................................................................10
References......................................................................................................................................12

3EMPLOYEE INVOLVEMENT AND GUEST EXPERIENCE IN HOTELS
1. Introduction
Customer service is a crucial aspect of any industry. This kind of service is vital for any
business as customers are always considered as the primary concern for any business or service
industry. This report would put focus on the importance of customer or guest service within the
hospitality or tourism industry. A proper understanding of the various needs of the customers is
extremely essential for maintaining a healthy business relationship. This would also be helpful
for creating and inviting new guests within the industry (Law, Buhalis & Cobanoglu, 2014). The
services offered should be purely loyal and thus the hospitality industry should also develop
referrals for gathering and putting an impact for the future customers.
The perception of success within the tourism or hospitality industry would be determined
based on the amount of interactions of employees. They would adjust themselves to the
variances in personality of each guests and thus serve them in order to provide them high level of
satisfaction. An excellent customer service forms an essential part of the hotel business (Han &
Hyun, 2015). This is considered as the primary point of contact between the business
representative and the client. This is also considered as the primary opportunity to impress the
customers so that they make use of their services. Good form of customer services has been
considered as one of the important keys for the success within the business and particularly
within the hotel industry. In these kind of industries, the guests primarily look forward to staff
who would help in providing valuable services (Chathoth et al., 2016). In the hotel industry, the
guest primarily expect the staffs to provide such kind of services that would be comfortable and
relaxing to suit their needs.

4EMPLOYEE INVOLVEMENT AND GUEST EXPERIENCE IN HOTELS
This report would put further put focus on the ways in which the customer service has
evolved over the years. It would also describe the importance of customers within service
culture, empowerment and providing service based on profit chain.
2. Discussion
2.1 Definition of the Customer Service within Hospitality and Tourism Sector
Customer service is defined as the service, which is provided to each guests when they
arrive at a certain hotel. The kind of hospitality, which is been provided by the employees within
the sector should be high in order to create an impression in the mind of the customers. Customer
service forms an integral part within providing services to guests (Manhas & Tukamushaba,
2015). The successful form of execution of strategy based on providing an exclusive service to
customers would mainly depend on the ways in which the concerned employees and staff would
provide quality service.
The quality customer service within the hospitality and tourism industry can be defined
as an experience of feeling to be valued and heard within the industry. In some cases, this
component can be considered to be extremely critical based on which a particular guest would
prefer one hospitality provider over another (Ye et al., 2014). It is considered as a critical factor
within the success factor of tourism business. This kind of critical factor would mean as a factor
for satisfying the ever-increasing expectations of the customers and a way to achieve high
profitability within the business. In several research studies based within this sector, it has been
seen that the satisfaction of guests is mainly influenced by different service factors that includes
the attitude of employees and the order of services that is provided to the customers (Buhalis &
Amaranggana, 2015). It has also been found out that the greater form of satisfaction of client
would lead to a direct result in the generation of high revenues within the hospitality business.

5EMPLOYEE INVOLVEMENT AND GUEST EXPERIENCE IN HOTELS
The amount of high quality of service plays a major role than the location or price in making a
decision by the customers.
In order to provide the customers a high quality of service, a proper form of training
should be provided to the employees and staff within the hotel business. The concept of Total
Quality (TQ) is mainly defined as an opportunity within the hospitality business to integrate each
of the employees from different managerial levels to process a continuous form of learning
(Hudson & Hudson, 2017). This kind of imparting of leaning to each of the employees is
considered to be highly crucial for examining different kind of encounters. This would also
ensure greater point of interaction with guests based on identification of points for improvement,
if needed. The process of Total Quality Management (TQM) within the hospitality and tourism
business is defined as a process in which the expectations of service created by the entire team is
based on a collaborative approach between the employees and management (Roberts, Hall &
Morag, 2017). The different business involved within the industry should be able to commit
various research funds based on understanding of employees and their wants or needs. This
would help the organisation in understanding the ways of motivating employees, offering them
with good incentives, encouraging them and thus train them for delivering valued services to
customers.
2.2 Historical Overview and Evolvement of Guest Experience
The primary concept based on guest experience within the hospitality or tourism industry
are mainly derived from the craftsman economy in the 1800s. In this culture, different
individuals and manufacture groups had primarily competed to produce crafts and arts for
meeting with the demand of the public. In that era, different form of customized order were
mainly been taken based on each customer. The orders that were taken from customers were

6EMPLOYEE INVOLVEMENT AND GUEST EXPERIENCE IN HOTELS
used to be highly individualized (Mowforth & Munt, 2015). During the era, it had also been seen
that the service provided to customers were highly differing from the one which is produced in
recent times. The hotel business owners were mainly been motivated as the frontline employees
used to have a primary form of face-to-face interaction with the customers (Horner &
Swarbrooke, 2016). During that time, these business also had a vested form of interest based on
providing a good form of service to the customers and thus succeeding.
With the era based on production of masses had shown a massive growth in the early 20th
century, it had also been seen that it was becoming much more difficult to cater to the needs and
expectation of the customers (Sidali, Kastenholz & Bianchi, 2015). With the primary form of
explosion in the demand for goods and services during the Second World War, there have been a
significant form of reduction in the importance for providing customer service. In those
situations, the power of suppliers had mostly surpassed from that of consumers. The economic
growth in the 1990s had again shifted the power of suppliers (Gunn, 2014). Businesses had
become to be much more selective in choosing the appropriate customers to serve and they had
also had to think about the level of service that had to be provided to each customers.
In the recent times, the hotel business have primarily shifted from depending on
manufacturing to focus on providing with the best form of quality service to each customers. The
service economy have vastly developed and have also been driven by globalization, technology
and changing behaviour of customers (Komppula, 2014). With the rising competition in the
highly growing market, customer service is mostly valued and has thus become more important.
This is also primarily important during tough economic times. This is also important when
customers would make an increase for higher value of service than money and would be less
forgiving to mediocre service being provided. Despite the high importance of providing better

7EMPLOYEE INVOLVEMENT AND GUEST EXPERIENCE IN HOTELS
service to customers, the quality form of customer service has become a primary exception in the
recent times. It has been measured that during some demanding economic conditions, different
business primarily focus on cutting costs and acquire new customers. This would mainly put the
relationship with the customers to be at high risk (Sharpley & Telfer, 2015). Although customer
service is been considered as the major need within the hotel business, but in some cases it has
also been seen that the training of customer service is considered as a factor of cost rather than an
investment. It has also been seen that although companies recognize the prime importance of
customer service, they are not aware of delivering high quality and consistent mode of customer
service.
2.3 Importance of Employees
The employees who are employed for providing valuable and incredible service to
customers are also considered as a major factor within the hospitality business. The service
encounters are considered as the first and foremost experience that would be provided to the
customers (Vasquez, 2014). It would be helpful for following that the customers should derive
important form of social benefits that includes personal recognition, friendship and satisfactory
connections with the various service providers. The primary importance of frontline employees
within provisioning of customer service is that they are the primary factors within the
provisioning of services. An interactive mode of marketing would mainly occur whenever a
customer would interact within the organisational context (Nieves, Quintana & Osorio, 2014).
This could also occur when a particular service would be consumed and produced before the
customers.
From the perspective of customer, the most clear and vivid form of impression would
occur within the service or the service encountered by them. These encounters are highly

8EMPLOYEE INVOLVEMENT AND GUEST EXPERIENCE IN HOTELS
considered as they create a major kind of impression in the minds of the customers. In these most
clear encounters, the customers receive a major snapshot about the quality of service that is been
provided to them (Pan, 2015). The high quality of encounters with the customers mostly
contributes towards the overall satisfaction of the customer and provides them a willingly
attitude to perform another such business encounter with the concerned organisation.
The employees working within the hotel industry should be given a proper form of
training based on providing an exclusive service to the customers. They should be taught about
the techniques of greeting customers, complement them sincerely, call customers with a proper
signature, maintain eye-to-eye contact, listen to their queries and also make use of proper
vocabulary. These employees should also smile before the customers such as to generate a
positive vibe inside them during the time of entry or departure from the hotel (Baum, 2015). This
would ensure the customers about their importance within the hotel industry. The employees
should also appropriately touch customer during handshakes. They should also provide
customers a feeling that they are enjoying the company of them and thus promoting the diversity
of the hotel.
These frontline employees should also be consistently friendly, responsive, empathetic
and courteous towards the customers. These mostly require a high amount of emotional labour.
This term is generally defined about the physical or mental skills that would mainly be required
for the delivery of high quality of service (Zaitseva, Goncharova & Androsenko, 2016). In some
cases, it has also been seen that employees working within the hospitality industry have to
supress their personal feelings and still provide the best form of service to the customers. There
are some successful hospitality service provider companies who would select such people within
the industry who would be efficient in handling different levels of emotional stress (Thomas &

9EMPLOYEE INVOLVEMENT AND GUEST EXPERIENCE IN HOTELS
Wood, 2014). These employees would be further trained based on some necessary skills based
on coping up with the emotional labour that includes problem solving and listening skills.
2.4 Consequences for not providing Good Quality of Service
In the scenario of hotel business, it has been seen that the primary encounter of customers
is considered as a prime matter of concern. In different theories, it has been seen that with the
active form of engagement and cheerful behaviour of staff members would dramatically help in
improving the attitude of guests towards the business (Cook, Hsu & Marqua, 2014). A proud
staff would be able to deliver the excellent form of customer service and would also drive
towards the success of the business.
On the other hand, it has also been seen that an unsatisfactory customer service would
lead to serious negative implications for the business. A customer who would not be satisfied
with the provided service would not come back to avail the service and they would not
recommend their friends or family to avail services from the same hotel industry (Kim, 2014).
This would majorly affect the business sector of hotels as their revenue would decline further. A
customer might also get a dissatisfactory experience from the behaviour of the employee
concerned to provide the service to them. The customer might feel that they are not being valued
by the employees within the hotel business and thus they might complain against the concerned
employee. They might also leave a negative feedback for the employee, which might lead to
severe implications for the employee.
Each and every aspect of the business and service provided to the customers should be
structured in such a manner that would be able to suit their needs and provide a wonderful
experience to them. A smooth process of check-in would not mean much if the customer receives
a bad service during their duration of stay at the hotel (Al-Refaie, 2015). The best kind of

10EMPLOYEE INVOLVEMENT AND GUEST EXPERIENCE IN HOTELS
amenities served at the hotel would not be able to cope up to impress the customer if the staff
misbehaves with the customer at some point. It should be highly understood that customers
remember each and every aspect during their stay at the hotel. Gaining a high and positive
feedback from the customers ensure the smooth running of business processes. A customer
would always expect the best form of service being provided to them at each step. They would
always an expectation that their stay at the hotel remains to be extremely wonderful so that they
would cherish the memories after leaving the hotel premises. Providing the best form of
customer service to the guest would also help the industry to gain a positive feedback and thus
also promote their brand loyalty (Molina-Azorín et al., 2015). This would also ensure that they
would become a highly noticeable industry within the hotel business and that more customers
would plan for their stay at the hotel. A negative feedback from a few percentage of customers
would prove to enough to damage the entire reputation of the hotel industry. This would also
change the perceptions of other people and thus they might not be willing to accept the services
from that particular hotel. This would in turn lead to a loss of the business sector and create a
loss of annual revenue for the business.
3. Conclusion
From the above discussion, it could be concluded that customer service within the
hospitality and tourism sector is considered as to be an important factor within the business. The
hospitality and hotel business is considered as an ever-changing landscape. In the recent years,
this business sector has gained a highly competitive nature. It has become a hard factor for
different hoteliers and the hospitality industry to focus on the various works within the industry.
This business sector should think of curious strategies to provide the best form of customer
service to the customers during their stay at the hotel. Without putting a focus on providing a

11EMPLOYEE INVOLVEMENT AND GUEST EXPERIENCE IN HOTELS
fantastic customer experience, it would be fruitless on the growth of potential revenue for the
business. There can be several methods based on providing a valuable and efficient service to
customers.
This report focuses on the definition of customer service and the reasons for which this
industry is highly crucial. From the perspective of the hotel business, it could be considered that
the hotelier business does not sell their places to the customers for their stay at the place for a
certain period of time. Instead, the hotels sell experiences to the customers and thus this should
be considered as extremely vital for the growth of the business. This discussion in this report also
discusses about the history of the customer service industry for hotels and the ways in which the
concerned business has evolved over the years. With the evolvement of the tourism industry, the
major focus has also been shifted towards providing valuable services to customers in order to
gain a positive feedback from them. From the entire discussion, it could be concluded that the
hospitality and tourism industry is putting extreme focus towards providing efficient and high-
quality services for their customers. These customers have always been considered as the heart
of the hospitality and tourism industry. Thus, putting focus on nurturing the services and
improvising them would prove to be crucial for the sector, incur more customers to make use of
services and thus generating high revenues for the business.
4. Recommendation
From the conclusions drawn from the above discussion, it could be further recommended
that a high quality of service that would be provided to the customers should be the core
objective for the hotelier business. Some of the common and useful recommendations that could
be suggested for the hotel business are based on providing a seamless experience of opportunities
for the customers. The first and foremost factor that should be taken into account that the hotel

12EMPLOYEE INVOLVEMENT AND GUEST EXPERIENCE IN HOTELS
business should consider that their employees who are meant to serve the customers should be
highly valued. A happy employee would be able to take care of each kind of services that would
be provided to the employees. They should be provided be rewards, recognitions and timely
incentives in order to boost their mind. This would help in inculcating a positive form of work
culture for the employees.
On the other hand, the hotel industry should also consider the factors of providing
valuable services to the customers. These customers should be provided with exclusive and
additional services despite their needs. This would ensure that they are being valued by the hotel
sector. Customers always remember each and every aspect of service that is been served to them.
Hence, hotels should always be proactive in providing customers with the best possible kind of
service to them. Secondly, the employees concerned for the caring of customers should develop
several kind of personal skills that would be needed during serving of customers. They should
serve their customers with extreme loyalty and make them feel valued during their stay. The
employees should always listen to the concerns of the customers and should remain active to
cater to their needs. Based on providing these kind of valuable services, it would help the
business to gain success in the highly competitive market.

13EMPLOYEE INVOLVEMENT AND GUEST EXPERIENCE IN HOTELS
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