Service Marketing for InterContinental Hotels: Flow Charts, Service Encounter and Managerial Implications

Running Head: SERVICE MARKETING 1
Service Marketing

SERVICE MARKETING 2
Introduction
Generally, a service organization performs the functions and operations by creating and
managing its front and back stage departments which assist it to offer services by knowing about
the needs and expectations of customers (Lovelock and Patterson, 2015). The major objective of
this essay is to discuss about different aspects of hospitality management. For this essay, the
chosen service organization is InterContinental Hotels. InterContinental Hotel is British
hospitality organization that is headquartered in Buckinghamshire. This is a hotel group that
offers hotel services in more than 100 nations. It has approximately 5,431 hotels all over the
world. There are various brands under this hotel group like Crowne Plaza, Candlewood Suites,
Holiday Inn, Even Hotels, Hotel Indigo, Kimpton Hotels and Resorts, Staybridge Suites and
Hualuxe (InterContinental Hotels & Resorts, 2018). It offers different hospitality services
ranging from luxury spa breaks to gourmet dining for its guests and couples. This essay includes
the flow chart diagrams for the back stage and front stage divisions of this service industry
organization i.e. InterContinental Hotel. Moreover, it will describe the significance of service
encounter and experience of guests. At the end, the essay will explain the managerial
implications at different stages of flow charts.
Flow Charts
Flowchart is a diagrammatic presentation which showcases how an organization starts its
operations and activities to attain its pre-determined goals. A service organization creates flow
charts by looking at the needs and demands of guests and visitors. InterContinental Hotel is one
of the largest hotel groups that have its operations in various countries. As of the year 2012, this
group has over 5400 hotels from which 4433 are run under franchise agreements and 907 are
managed by group as separately owned. It is founded in the year 2003 and current chairman of
this hospitality group is Christopher Marshall (InterContinental Hotels & Resorts, 2018). This
essay includes the flow charts of back and front stage services of InterContinental Hotels. These
flow charts assist the hotel to attain its corporate and business objectives.
These flow charts are given below:

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Front Stage Flow Chart
A hospitality organization uses front stage flow chart to manage the services and information as
per international level and to fulfill the expectations and needs of guests at all the locations in the
world. The major aspects of front office roles of an organization primarily emphasizes on
creating focus on interaction with customers and collection of organization’s details from
customers (Wood, 2015). Moreover, it can be stated that operations of front stage emphasize on
the communication process with the back office division of service organization to provide the
adequate information. It will make its back office operations smoother.
In addition to this, it can be noted that front office flow chart of InterContinental Hotel includes
different steps such as interaction with visitors or guests, making booking and reservations for
rooms, services in waiting area, check-in process and related formalities, management of rooms
and waiting area and check out formalities etc. All of these processes form the front stage flow
chart of InterContinental Hotel. The hotel has various people to supervise all the functions and
operations of the hotel. They ensure that guests do not confront any issue in availing their
hospitality services. Front office staff of this hotel performs all the roles and responsibilities in an
effective manner so that they can provide an excellent experience of their stay at hotels of
InterContinental Hospitality Group (Gunarathne, 2014). The front desk flow chart of
InterContinental Hotel Group indicates that it is creating its decisions based on the data of guests
and visitors that is given by reception staff. It leads the back office employees to perform their
tasks and improve the delivery of service and meet the service encounter.