Critical Analysis of Alternative Hospitality Paradigms

Running head: HOSPITALITY ESSAY
HOSPITALITY ESSAY
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Author Note

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Critical analysis essay topic: You are required to present a critical analysis of alternative
hospitality paradigms and their impact on future construct development and practical
implications.
Introduction
The hospitality business environment can be understood to be highly dynamic in nature
and in line of this, it has to be understood that there are several factors lying in their business
environment which will lead to several changes in the overall functioning of the industry.
Although these factors are largely present to bring about an overall welfare of the industry and to
make it at par with the different industries and their growth rate, many of these advancements
and the alternative paradigms have brought about effective changes in the industry and its overall
operations (Alegre & Berbegal-Mirabent, 2016). Over the past two decades, there have been
several changes in the ownership and the management of the hotel due to the growth as well as
the development of an online reservation system and the proliferations of alternative lodging
possibilities which are available to the guests and hence have been successfully able to alter the
overall hospitality landscape, thereby bringing new complexity to the industry. One example of
this, can be stated to be the fact that, two decades back, the Marriott Hotel was owned as well as
managed by the Marriott, but currently this is not the case and many of the hotels under the
brand name are managed by a company which is franchised with the name of Marriott and
managed by another company. Additionally, earlier, the simple system to book a room with a
hotel was to call the reservation center and use the local travel agency to book a room, however,
this is not the case today and there are several online reservations available online like the
Expedia, Travelocity as well as Kayak which have been acting as strong intermediaries and have
replaced the age old consumer travel agencies option (Ariza-Montes et al., 2017). Moreover, it

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is not just the hotel options which have changed but also the stay in options which have
undergone a considerable change. This means that, the different Mergers and acquisitions have
continued to multiply and grow. Moreover, the different hotels are now trying to alter their
overall operations by adding the Millennials preferences and tilting their operations towards new
hotel designs which have resulted in the development of hotels like Hilton’s True and
InterContinental’s EVEN (Ammachathram & Anderson, 2018). Hence, it can be mentioned that
the main aim of the essay is to highlight and critically analyse the paradigms of the alternative
hospitality and assess their impact on the future construct development as well as practical
implications. This will be done by presenting a discussion on the new paradigms which will be
then followed by the critical analysis on the same.
Discussion
According to Seraphin, Pilato & Bellia (2017) the travel patterns of the different travelers
have also changed considerably. In line of this, it can be mentioned that China has become the
largest exporter of the tourists around the globe and this has been totaling almost 100 million
outbound travelers which then represents almost one in ten tourists who are travelling at a
particular point of time (Zervas, Proserpio & Byers, 2015). Moreover, there also lies certain
changes and ambiguities regarding policies and travel allowances for the hospitality industry and
thereby requires those at the front to anticipate as well as respond to the particular fallout. Hence,
earlier where the simple procedure of management and running the overall operations was
considered to be enough, leadership has become the utmost important skill which will allow the
managers and the owners to deal with the different changes which take place effectively (Rather,
& Sharma, 2016). Although, change is sometimes viewed with a negative connotation, it can be

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useful for the hotel as it often tends to present the opportunities to take up new ideas and
ventures such as the possibility of taking the advantage of the changing demographics, new
technologies, the new markets among others. However, the primary concern is the dilemma
which is raised by the change which lies to address the competitors, the emergence of crisis
along with the lack of skilled labor. Although the nature of the change which is bound to take
place in the industry can be stated to be quite wide and cannot be captured within the scope of
the essay, in the following section certain, identified paradigms shall be identified and discussed.
The primary changes which have made a considerable impact on the hospitality industry and the
practical operations can be stated to be as follows:
The changing Guest Behavior and Expectations
As the business environment has become highly competitive in nature, it becomes
considerably important to note that the overall expectations of the guests have changed
dramatically and that, this has led to a further impact on the overall profitability of the firms as
present in the hospitality industry. The different guests as present continue to vote with their
wallets through their purchases which allows them to ensure that they are successfully able to
keep a track of the different operations of the hospitality industry as present. According to Sigala
and Gretzel (2017), the immediate accessibility through the use of internet, the mobile obsession
, the contradictory preferences of the different guests and the personalized experiences as
demanded by them form some of the challenges that are thrown on the hospitality industry by the
different guests as present. According to Rauch et al. ,(2016), currently the different guests are
less interested in the quick sell or the low price sale which was earlier very popular in the
different industries, they are largely concerned with the building of a long term relationship with
the hotel owners and are largely focused towards the experience which is provided by the hotels