Creating Innovative Hospitality Experience with Physical Evidence and People Strategies

The paper discusses the role of physical evidence and people strategies in creating a memorable and unique hospitality experience. It explains the servicescape model and how it helps in identifying the customer's expected service quality. The paper also talks about the use of drones in the hospitality industry and how it contributes to creating a unique experience. It concludes with the importance of ethical considerations in the hospitality industry.

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Hospitality Experience
The industry of hospitality is a broad category of fields within the service industry that comprises
the lodging, theme parks, transportation, hotel, restaurants and many others. The rise in the
technology is bringing the changes in the hospitality industry as technology is used by these
hotels, resorts and restaurants for creating the better customer experience. The aim of the paper is
to create an innovative hospitality experience by involving two of the strategies out of the
Physical environment, people and process. Along with this, the role of two strategies has been
discussed in creating memorable and unique hospitality experience. The strategies that have been
selected for this paper include physical evidence and people.
Physical evidence is any material object that plays a vital role in enhancing the experience of the
customers. This strategy is considered as a point of the difference to a customer’s hospitality
experience (Hudson and Hudson, 2017). The strategic role of the physical evidence involves the
facility exterior, facility interior and other tangibles. Physical evidence contributes to create an
experience memorable and unique for the customers.

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(Source: Balaji, 2018)
The above-given image reflects the elements of the physical evidence that contribute in
generating the effective experience in the environment.
Servicescape model
This is the model is developed by the Mary J.Bitner which is a more comprehensive of the SOR
model. The dimension of the model includes environmental, holistic, internal and the behaviour
which directly influences the experience of the customer. The model of the servicescape reflect
the overall effect on the perceived service quality and has the greater importance in the
identifying the customer's expected service quality that can influence the evaluation of the
intangible dimension of the intangible dimension of the service quality.
(Source: Hanks and Line, 2018)

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This model helps the hospitality company in understanding the gap between the perceived
service and expected service of the customers in relation to the infrastructure and environment of
the place. This means that the gaps in terms of the physical evidence services will be easily
analysed (Risitano, Sorrentino and Quintano, 2017). The physical environment has a major
influence on the experience of the customers in different service settings. The tools of the
physical evidence contribute to create the experience unique and memorable which include
Ambiance, layout, branding and others. Ambience includes the physical appearance of the place.
For example; Restaurant ambience includes the sitting plan, reception area, and the surroundings.
On the other hand, the layout includes the selection of the place with this branding include
reputation of a restaurant in the market, packaging of food and others.
People strategy includes the customers and staff that are present in the hospitality and leads to
the unique and memorable experience. Employee satisfaction and customer satisfaction are
closely linked with the hospitality experience (Kandampully, Zhang and Jaakkola, 2018). In the
scientific language, the strategy is associated with the boundary spanning which is a term that
describes individual with the innovative system that mainly includes who have or adopt the role
of linking the internal networks of the organisation with the external sources of information. In
the hospitality industry, the people deal with the different issues due to the boundary spanner
roles. Though, there are some solutions that can remove such kinds of conflicts faced by the
customer and employees in the hospitality industry while delivering the unique and memorable
experience to the customers.
The boundary scanner is one of the effective ways which used by the hospitality companies to
gather the effective information related to the preference and needs of the people in the present
market. This information gets to collaborate with the internal factors which are essential because

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this is the only way through which industry can meet the needs of customers. In the hospitality
industry, the employees contribute in delivering the effective and memorable customer
experience (Yoo and Jeong, 2017). The employees are the first and foremost contact point for the
customers due to whom they get to know about the preference of the customers which help them
to fulfil the needs and to offer them value-added services which will make their experience
unique and memorable for a long time. The employees are able to offer such sort of services
when they are motivated and satisfied with their work profile which they are performing in the
hotel. This is the reason due to which the hotels and restaurants that are involved in the
hospitality industry perform the different highly effective talent management practices which are
must for the customer-centric culture and improve the customer service. The hotels should
perform the employee empowerment in which after forming the meaningful customer service
values, the high manager can empower the employees to deliver the services in such a way that it
adds value to the experience of the customers.
One of the innovative experiences in the hospitality industry is an effective way to define the
strategy of the Physical environment and People. This is considered as an example which is used
to explain the use of the Physical environment and People for creating the memorable and unique
experience within the industry. In the current era, this has been found the advancement in the
technology is on a hike which is promoting the hospitality companies to make use of it (Ali,
Amin and Cobanoglu, 2016). Flying drones waiters in the market of Australia became the
memorable, unique and innovative experience for the customers. Greenwood Hotel has tried
using the drone’s waiter from the kitchen to table with drinks and plates of food on board.
Though, the drones are not able to eliminate the human waiters because the government
normally restricted the drones coming within 20m of people outdoors in line with the Civil

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Aviation Safety Authority (Harris, 2015). These laws are implacable on both the outdoor and
Indore flying of drones in the hotel of Australia.
(Source: Harris, 2015)
The above image reflects the drone which is carrying the food to deliver it at the respective
place. The guest who visited the place found it unique due to which they recorded the videos and
images. The service through drones was one of the memorable experiences for a few customers
as the hotel has organised the ambience and layout ineffective manner (Flynn, 2016). This
experience shows the use of the two major strategies which include Physical environment and
people.
The hotels that are at the indoor and outdoor area can make the use of drones but to some extent.
Along with this, there is a need for the physical environment that allows the drones to perform
the operations effectively. The ambience and layout of the hotels matter a lot for starting with the
service of drones. Along with the people, the strategy is also important for maintaining the

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service of drones in the hotel. The employees of the hotel are updated with the technology due to
which they are able to operate the drones in an effective manner because it is hard for them to
manage the drones effectively.
The overall elements attract the customers towards the hotel as they can get the fast delivery of
the food. Travellers who visit the place from different countries get unique and memorable
experience which can be recorded by them in video or through images. The hotel staff can make
use of the drones for drone-generated images to develop aerial sitemaps that help the existing or
new guest to navigate the sprawling grounds (Imgram Micro, 2018). Along with this, the use of
the drones ensures the security of the guest and their bags which is a matter of concern for most
of the people. In addition to this, the hotel was able to manage the delight experience with the
use of the servicescape model and boundary scanner. This is found that most of the customers in
the market want to see innovative things at the place they visit which is possible with the help of
technology. This expectation of the customer is met with the use of drones. The information
from the external sources related to the dealer and operator of drones helped the hotel to perform
the activities in an effective manner.
In the business, it is essential for the companies to follow the ethical obligations. There are major
theories of ethics which are required to be followed by the company in the hospitality industry. It
includes Individualism; this theory defines as the personal benefit to be the most essential factor
while making the decision. In the hospitality industry, most of the companies are willing to earn
more and more profit. On the other hand, the Utilitarianism theory of ethics includes the
maximization of the happiness for all the stakeholders (Broad, 2014). The hospitality industry
should always work for the benefit of all the stakeholders. These ethical theories are required to
be considered by the managers and owners of the company while making the choices for the

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decision. They need to consider their motive for the welfare of the entire stakeholder. This shows
that ethical consideration can influence the choices of owners and managers.
In the above-given example, it is very clear that the hotel was unable to consider the
Utilitarianism theory of the ethics. Though, on the other hand, they have considered the
Individualism theory of ethics. In the end, this can be said that the hospitality industry works
with the motive to offer the effective customer experience to the customers. Though, for this,
they need to implement the strategies which include physical evidence, people and process. The
arguments are present with an innovative experience.

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References
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emotions, satisfaction, and price acceptance: an empirical analysis in the Chinese hospitality
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Broad, C.D. (2014) Five types of ethical theory. New York: Routledge.
Flynn, S. (2016) How Drones Are Changing Tourism Marketing [Online]. Available from:
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Hanks, L. and Line, N.D. (2018) The restaurant social servicescape: Establishing a nomological
framework. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 74, pp.13-21.
Harris, A. (2015) Drone waiters set to be trialled in Sydney after success in Asia and UK
[Online]. Available from: https://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/nsw/drone-waiters-set-to-be-
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d74334a1a6053a3744622ac36338b6be [Accessed on 4th September 2018]
Hudson, S. and Hudson, L. (2017) Marketing for tourism, hospitality & events: a global &
digital approach. UK: Sage.

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