Challenges and Recommendations for Hotel Accommodation Management in Australia

This report discusses the challenges faced by the hotel accommodation sector in Australia, including difficulty in attracting and retaining staff, increasing operating costs, and policy and regulation issues. It also explores the impact of Airbnb and provides recommendations to overcome these challenges, such as using cloud-based reporting tools and centralised database management systems.

Running Head: HOTEL ACCOMODATION MANAGEMENT 0
hotel accomodation management
JULY 25, 2018

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Contents
Introduction..............................................................................................................................2
Industry Overview....................................................................................................................2
Identification of the issues in the Accommodation sector.........................................................3
Airbnb as a platform in the emerging Accommodation Sector.................................................5
Recommendations....................................................................................................................5
Conclusion................................................................................................................................6
References...........................................................................................................................7

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Introduction
Accommodation sector in every country plays a major role in the customer management and
satisfaction of any industry. Accommodation refers to providing convenience or catering to
the needs and expectations of customers. The need may relate to the lodging, food, or the
travelling space related services. It is defined as a place to live, work or stay especially during
vacations. The nature of hospitality industry is complex, and it includes various sectors such
as accommodation, food, and beverage. The other services included are the gaming,
entertainment, and recreation facilities of the individuals, and tourism services. Therefore, the
report describes the accommodation sector of Australia and the current challenges or the
problems faced (Soeg Jobs, 2018).
Industry Overview
The Australian accommodation sector is given high importance and accommodation is an
absolutely broad sector of the hospitality industry. It ranges from bed and breakfast enterprise
and the hotels to the other facilities such as lodging. The accommodation sector includes the
services from other segments of the hospitality industry; they are Lodging, suites, and resorts.
Food and beverage, travel and tourism, and the entertainment industry that further includes
bars, nightclubs and others. The hospitality industry also includes the convention centres
where people can gather in large number for seminars, and similar other things. With respect
to the country Australia, it can be stated that the accommodation association of Australia is
100% member-owned, non-profit organisation. The outlook for the Australia’s
accommodation sector is strong which reflects both, the increase in demand for the rooms, in
the domestic and the international markets and the low levels of supply (AHS advisory,
2018).

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The Australian accommodation sector comprises of around 4,300 hotels, motels, guesthouses,
and serviced apartments, with over 2, 25,000 rooms. The majority of these properties are
small, and the hospitality industry of Australia is growing over years rapidly. Despite the
growth the hospitality industry faced some challenges or issues. The individuals from
different countries shifts to work and gain experience in the Australian’s hospitality industry.
As the Australian’s hospitality, industry is quick-paced and dynamic in terms of the
workplace and the culture. This keeps the individuals and the employees to consistently and
continually improve themselves as per the trends in the industry. In the coming years, the
industry is expecting a rise in terms of vacancies and employment opportunities (Clarke,
2016).
Identification of the issues in the Accommodation sector
The hospitality industry is the critical area of the Australian economy. Apart from giving
livelihood to more than 300,000 individuals over the country. The hotels purchase privately
supplied products, local sporting and communities’ organisations, and others. There are
various issues and challenges identified in the Australian’s industry. Amongst those issues,
the top 3 issues observed are difficulty in attracting or hiring and then retaining staff in the
industry for the longer time period, increasing operating costs and other expenses. In
addition, there are some policy and regulation issues faced by the industry (Cheng, 2016).
The issues observed related to the labour shortage for the fulfilment of the positions, also they
reported the skill deficiencies, which influenced the productivity, and the competitiveness of
the sector. Including the requirements of the other staff, the industry noticed the main issue
related to the unavailability of the highly skilled chef, cooks, and the cleaners. One of the
major issues in the hospitality industry observed is the high growth of the industry, which led
to the increase in competition. The increasing competition in the sector led to the revenue loss

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in their hospitality business. The other challenges relate to the problems in finding and
keeping valued customers. Preventing the massive food waste is another challenge that the
hotels are facing. Therefore, it requires a proper stock management plan (Australian Hotels
Association, 2018).
Airbnb as a platform in the emerging Accommodation Sector
Airbnb is a platform a company which is based in San-Francisco, operating the hospitality
services and the online marketplace for the people, who want to rent out or lease short-term
lodging facilities. These include the holiday cottages, apartments, hotel rooms, hostel beds,
and many others. However, networked businesses such as Airbnb, as a recent factor has
rapidly growing as a strong competitor in the hospitality sector; that has some considerable
consequences on the tourism and tourist destinations. It is considered as a part of the ‘sharing
economy’. The speed, number and the adoption of the technological innovations has grown
exponentially. Airbnb has been offering the listings in about 191 countries, and the total
number of listings count for about 4 million. Airbnb has been revolutionizing and
significantly impacting the hotel industry by making the lodging and the hotel rates in check
(Hoisington, 2018). Also, the company contributes in making the rooms available at the times
when there is the condition of unavailability and the benefit to the travellers (Kenney and
Zysman,2016).
The most common factor that hinders the businesses according to the requirements of
the restaurateurs, cafe, and bar owners is their operating costs. Hospitality industry or the
accommodation services reported other challenges such as constructions costs, technology, or
the changes in demographics and their impact on travel trends and the capital availability. Job
stress refers to the reactions of the employees towards the challenges in the environment at
the workplace. This was likely the result of the increasing pressure on the individuals or
employees to perform better; leading to the pertinent issues in the industry. The issue that

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relates to the workforce in these industries is the lack of holidays, which states that there were
provided fewer public holidays. The high cost of wages on the event of public holidays,
serves as a major disincentive for them. In addition, the industry at Australia reported the
presence of illegal accommodation faced by the hotels, due to the increase in number of
residential apartments (Assaf and Agbola, 2014).
Recommendations
As per the observed changes and trends in the hospitality industry or the accommodation
sector in Australia, many problems have been observed. The issues need to be resolved as
they affect the productivity and growth of the sector in the long-term. Therefore, the problem
such as staff variation can be resolved with the help of maintaining the cloud-based reporting
tools or system. These will help in giving the information for effectively maintaining and
monitoring the budgets and the transactions. In addition, for the management of the data that
gets overloaded sometimes, the management teams can use centralised platform or the
database management system.
Conclusion
To conclude the above discussion over the accommodation sector, Australia has accounted as
the rapidly growing economy in this sector. Despite the growth and opportunities, there are
certain challenges and issues, which affected the competitive success of the industry in the
future. The major reported issues were the difficulties arising in hiring the prospective
candidates for the industry, also attracting, and retaining the skilled personnel. Therefore, the
services provided needs to be improved to maintain the customers leading to increase in
revenues and profits in the long-run.

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References
AHS advisory (2018) A brief overview of the Australian Hospitality Sector. [online]
Available from: http://www.ahsadvisory.com.au/articles/australia-hospitality-sector-
overview/ [Accessed 25/07/18].
Assaf, G. A. and Agbola, F. W. (2014) Efficiency Analysis of the Australian Accommodation
Industry. United States: SAGE Publications.
Australian Hotels Association (2018) Top 3 Federal Issues for AHA State & Territory
branches. [online] Available from: http://aha.org.au/state-territory-branch-issues/ [Accessed
25/07/18].
Cheng, M. (2016) Sharing economy: A review and agenda for future research. International
Journal of Hospitality Management, 57, pp. 60-70.
Clarke, R. (2016) Time to address key issues facing the Australian hotel industry: attracting
and growing quality staff. [online] Available from:
https://www.accomnews.com.au/2016/05/time-to-address-a-key-issues-facing-the-australian-
hotel-industry-attracting-and-growing-quality-staff/ [Accessed 25/07/18].
Hoisington, A. (2018) 4 Hotel accounting challenges and solutions. [online] Available from:
https://www.hotelmanagement.net/property-management/4-challenges-and-solutions-to-
hotel-accounting [Accessed 25/07/18].
Kenney, M. and Zysman, J. (2016) The rise of the platform economy. Issues in Science and
Technology, 32(3), p. 61.
Soeg Jobs (2018) What are the different sectors of the Hospitality Industry. [online]
Available from: https://www.soegjobs.com/2016/09/07/different-sectors-hospitality-industry/
[Accessed 25/07/18].
Weber, K., Bradley, G. L., and Sparks, B. (2017) Stressor effects of negative online reviews
on anger and burnout in the restaurant industry. International Journal of Contemporary
Hospitality Management, 29(11), pp. 2847-2866.