Hospitality Industry: Roles of Departments, Related Sectors, Career Options, Issues and Emerging Technology

This article discusses the roles of different departments in the hospitality industry, related sectors, career options, issues faced by the industry and emerging technologies. It also covers major hospitality industry associations, quality assurance schemes and new workplace practices.

Running head: HOSPITALITY INDUSTRY
HOSPITALITY INDUSTRY
Name of the student:
Name of the University:
Author's Note:

1HOSPITALITY INDUSTRY
Part A
Assessment of roles of departments:
Food and beverage department of the hotel mainly plays the most vital part where the
stuffs remain responsible for preparing tables for meal for the guests, take food orders from the
customers, serve drinks and food, clean up before and after food services servings in the hotel.
The front office of the hotels mainly performs the pre-registration or registration responsibilities
for the incoming guests in their hotels (Fang, Ye and Law2016). This particular department
performs the duties of the guests check in and out. Its tracts and reports room rates and status and
makes the room reservations. The food production chiefly involves in the food preparation
duties for the guests. The chefs in this department involve from purchasing the items to deciding
the menu. They supervise the kitchen and maintain the food quality, sanitation standard and
creating new signature dishes.
The house keeping section of the hotels is in charge of the comfort for the guests hence
the staffs of housekeeping make beds and change sheets in the guest rooms. The house keeping
stuffs are responsible to stock the rooms with coffee supplies, clean cups, towels and other
bathroom items. The gaming services serve the customers in the gambling establishments like
racetracks and casinos. This service attracts the customers more effectively than other facilities.
Banquets in the hotels are another attractive feature that make the hotels capable to arrange
conferences, business meetings and other celebrations (Business.qld.gov.au 2018).
Researching other sectors related to tourism:
Along with the hotels and resort which basically provide accommodation for the tourists
in a place, there are some other sectors related to tourism. Three most important sector are travel

2HOSPITALITY INDUSTRY
and tourism which is a part of transportation, recreation that supports the country to build
tourism and the food and beverages sector that plays one of the most important part in the
tourism business of a place.
The importance of transportation sector in the tourism industry is unavoidable as this
helps the countries to create more tourist spots, smoothens the process of communication thus
expand the tourism sector of the countries (Hung, Lee and Huang 2016). Due to development of
transportation, the international tourists are having choices to visit the distant lands in one hand
and the national tourists are being able to visit the places within their lands by different types of
vehicles. The tourism sector in current global situation therefore, is acknowledging the
importance of air, sea and land modes to be an essential of the operations and taking care for
availability for the support services such as fuel stations, motels, rest facilities and repair of the
vehicles (Eid 2015). Due to effective transportation facilities, the travel agencies who mainly
market the tourist spots, getting increasingly involved.
Food and beverage in the tourism industry is one of the most essential factors that
completes the overall experience of the destination. To Camisón et al. (2016) the recent tourists
are more informed, cultured and look for new experience in which their choice of food and
beverages plays important part. This sector offers the tourists a gateway into other cultures
though food preparation, eating environment and taste. Food tourism has covered a huge part in
the tourism industry of the places like western Europe and eastern Asia (Hung, Lee and Huang
2016). In addition to this, the wine routs of South Africa and California are creating new tourism
markets. A part of enjoyment of travel is trying out unaccustomed cuisines for which the travel
exhibitions are trying to market and providing ideal platforms for this food tourism.

3HOSPITALITY INDUSTRY
The concept of recreation in tourism is related with the pursuit of leisure activities during
the visit of a tourist spot. This is the reason why the tourist spots in the national parks,
mountainous regions and amusement sites are situated. This type of tourism can be either nature
centric tourism that largely depend upon the natural places for recreation or the adventure centric
tourism where the tourists mainly focus on the outdoor recreational activities. This is the reason
why there are two types of recreation and tourism activities in the places which include land
based and water-based recreation and tourism (Opentextbc.ca 2018). The mountain resorts
arrange for snow sports such as ski, heliskiing, riding off road recreational vehicles, hunting,
cycling, hiking, camping and wildlife viewing. In the water-based tourism, the resorts arrange for
scuba diving, sport fishing and paddle sports which attract the international tourists.
Career options in hospitality industry:
In the growing international tourism market, some very attractive career options as there
are numerous sections of tourism industry. This include hotel management, Casino Property
General Management, Regional Chef, Restaurant Management, Event Coordination, head
housekeeping, Chief Sommelier, Food and Beverage Direction and Catering Management
(Zaitseva, Goncharova and Androsenko 2016).
The working condition in the hospitality industry has both positive and negative aspects.
The positive aspects include wealth opportunities, tips and bonuses, opportunities for travel,
stability and growth and creative designations. The negative aspects include, long hours of
service, high standards and tight schedules. The employers in hospitality industry expects
competency as the customer satisfaction is mainly dependent on the services of the employees.
This allows the hotels to grow and gain competitive advantage.

4HOSPITALITY INDUSTRY
Major hospitality industry associations:
In different countries, there are different associations that take care of the tourism in that
country. The four major travel associations that operate in the international level are The U.S.
Travel Association, World Food Travel Association, The International Ecotourism Society and
International Hotel & Restaurant Association. In Australia there are various agencies that
function on different sections of tourism industry like food, beverage, lodging and sustainability
tourism. These include Australian Food and Grocery Council (AFGC), Restaurant and Catering
Queensland, Australian Tropical Foods Group, Australian Beverages Council (ABCL) and
Packaging Council of Australia (PCA). These associations operate in maintaining the perfect
standard of food and beverage in the restaurants and hotels. Australian Hotels Associations and
The Accommodation Association of Australia these associations ensure the national social,
economic, legislative and commercial environment so that they can secure the continuing
viability of the Australian hotels (Business.qld.gov.au 2018).
Emerging technology:
In tourism sector, the Augmented and Virtual Reality, Artificial Intelligence, Internet of
Things and Social Media Driven Marketing are affecting the nature of tourism and changing the
whole process starting from planning to completion of the tour (Murphy et al. 2018).
Current hospitality product:
With the change in the technological developments, the event tourism has been increased.
Therefore, the hotels and resorts have started to provide services perfectly matching products like
pre-booking over internet, Wi-Fi for conferences, pick and drop services, events and
entertainment packages.

5HOSPITALITY INDUSTRY
Quality assurance scheme:
In hospitality, the quality and food safety are important factor for which the quality
assurance scheme has been used. The customer service teams of the hotels report any complaints
relevant for the food safety based on which they bring changes to satisfy their customers
(Abukhalifeh and Som 2015).
New workplace practice:
In the hospitality industry, the employees are being trained to cater the needs of the health
and safety issues both for themselves as well as for the customers. New workplaces have become
more technology aided and skill oriented so that the tourists get exactly what they want.
Part B
Discussion on issues:
In the current context, the tourism industry of the world is facing mainly two types of
issues. Firstly, the hotels and other associated tourism organizations are responsible to maintain
sustainability through their activities by not hampering the natural elements of the environment
(Morton 2018). Secondly, with the increasing number of tourists each year both national as well
as international, the institutions are to enhance their abilities to meet all the demands in one hand
and survive in the high competition on the other (Jovicic 2014). There are issues related to both
natural as well as human made. For the perfect operation of the tourism industry in the world, the
social, political, environmental, technological and legal balance is the necessity which many of
the destinations do not get properly (Bbc.com 2018).
In order to restore the natural environment of the place as it was, the government of he
places have initiated to make legislative decisions so that cultural, social and environmental

6HOSPITALITY INDUSTRY
resources can be built and maintained properly so that the destination can have more high-quality
offerings (BW Businessworld. 2018). To Stone, Migacz and Wolf (2018), the association of
tourism industry of the destination are responding to the increased interests in the long-term
impacts of tourism in the global warming and climate change issues. in order to gain desired
sustainability, the tourism industry is facing needs for increased, regional and national leadership
in the strategic planning and tourism policies.
In order to meet the growing demands in the tourism industry, the need for skill and
knowledge have been pointed out. As the industry operates starting from the planning to the
successful completion of the tour, the issues like visa, passports fees and airline services are
seen. In addition to this, the threat of terrorism or sudden political conflict have affected the
global tourism for many destinations (Dw.com, D. 2018). Moreover, the industry faces issues of
natural or human-induced disasters and health issues in many places (Remeikis, Karp and
Hutchens 2018). This are the reasons why maintaining quality experiences as well as positive
balance at the tourist destinations have become really difficult in the global context.

7HOSPITALITY INDUSTRY
References:
Abukhalifeh, A.N. and Som, A.P.M., 2015. Service Quality, Customer Satisfactions and
Restaurants’ Performance Appraisal in Hotel Industry. Advances in Environmental Biology, 9(3),
pp.27-30.
Bbc.com 2018. Carbon impact of tourism 'eye-opening'. [online] BBC News. Available at:
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-44005013 [Accessed 18 Nov. 2018].
Business.qld.gov.au 2018. Food and beverage industry associations | Business Queensland.
[online] Business.qld.gov.au. Available at:
https://www.business.qld.gov.au/industries/hospitality-tourism-sport/food/industry-associations
[Accessed 17 Nov. 2018].
BW Businessworld. 2018. Traffic Congestion, Environmental Problems Hovering Over
Uttarakhand. [online] Available at: http://www.businessworld.in/article/Traffic-Congestion-
Environmental-Problems-Hovering-Over-Uttarakhand/11-07-2018-154542/ [Accessed 18 Nov.
2018].
Camisón, C., Puig‐Denia, A., Forés, B., Fabra, M.E., Muñoz, A. and Muñoz Martínez,
C.É.S.A.R., 2016. The importance of internal resources and capabilities and destination
resources to explain firm competitive position in the Spanish tourism industry. International
Journal of Tourism Research, 18(4), pp.341-356.
Dw.com, D. 2018. Australia's tourism industry is under threat | DW | 08.02.2018. [online]
DW.COM. Available at: https://www.dw.com/en/australias-tourism-industry-is-under-threat/a-
42499554 [Accessed 18 Nov. 2018].

8HOSPITALITY INDUSTRY
Eid, R., 2015. Integrating Muslim customer perceived value, satisfaction, loyalty and retention in
the tourism industry: An empirical study. International Journal of Tourism Research, 17(3),
pp.249-260.
Fang, B., Ye, Q. and Law, R., 2016. Effect of sharing economy on tourism industry
employment. Annals of Tourism Research, 57(3), pp.264-267.
Hung, W.L., Lee, Y.J. and Huang, P.H., 2016. Creative experiences, memorability and revisit
intention in creative tourism. Current Issues in Tourism, 19(8), pp.763-770.
Jovicic, D.Z., 2014. Key issues in the implementation of sustainable tourism. Current Issues in
Tourism, 17(4), pp.297-302.
Morton, A. 2018. Tourism is the Australian industry least prepared for climate change, report
says. [online] the Guardian. Available at:
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/feb/08/climate-change-tourism-is-australias-
least-prepared-industry-report-says [Accessed 18 Nov. 2018].
Murphy, K., Torres, E., Ingram, W. and Hutchinson, J., 2018. A review of high performance
work practices (HPWPs) literature and recommendations for future research in the hospitality
industry. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, 30(1), pp.365-388.
Opentextbc.ca 2018. Chapter 5. Recreation – Introduction to Tourism and Hospitality in BC.
[online] Opentextbc.ca. Available at: https://opentextbc.ca/introtourism/chapter/chapter-5-
recreation/ [Accessed 17 Nov. 2018].
Remeikis, A., Karp, P. and Hutchens, G. (2018). Senate passes motion calling for extension of
My Health Record opt-out period – as it happened. [online] the Guardian. Available at:

9HOSPITALITY INDUSTRY
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/live/2018/nov/12/morrison-polls-terrorism-politics-
live [Accessed 18 Nov. 2018].
Stone, M.J., Migacz, S. and Wolf, E., 2018. Beyond the journey: the lasting impact of culinary
tourism activities. Current Issues in Tourism, pp.1-6.
Zaitseva, N.A., Goncharova, I.V. and Androsenko, M.E., 2016. Necessity of changes in the
system of hospitality industry and tourism training in terms of import substitution. International
Journal of Economics and Financial Issues, 6(1), pp.288-293.