Report on Customer Experience and Risks: Holiday Inn Hotel

This report provides an in-depth analysis of customer experience within the hospitality industry, using Holiday Inn as a case study. It explores the crucial role customers play in shaping their hotel experiences, emphasizing the customer experience theory and the importance of customer journey mapping. The report highlights key determinants of customer satisfaction, such as cleanliness, customer service, relevant amenities, and staff etiquette, while also identifying potential risks associated with customer experience, including financial risks during off-seasons and risks tied to expansion and changes in management. The report emphasizes Holiday Inn's strategies to enhance customer satisfaction, including gathering feedback and adapting to cultural celebrations, while also discussing how companies can analyze customer data to improve services and mitigate weaknesses. Overall, the report underscores the importance of understanding and managing customer experience to ensure business success and customer loyalty within the hotel industry.

Understanding
Tourism, Hospitality
and Events
Experiences

Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................2
ASSESSMENT................................................................................................................................3
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................5
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................6

INTRODUCTION
Hospitality industry is a broad category and range of field which includes various service
industries like food and drinking service, hotel and stay services, travelling, tourism, theme
parks, transportation and much more. With the increase in globalisation, the travelling of people
also got increase. People move from one place to other for various reasons which may include
business, trading, tourism, any event like weddings and etc. During travelling people stay at
hotels and resorts which also comes into hospitality industry. For reference purpose this report
has taken an example of a hotel, Holiday inn. Holiday inn is the British owned company which
has the business of hotels. The company has a wide large chains with active 1173 hotels and over
214000 rentable rooms (Bharwani and Jauhari, 2013). The company was founded in the year
1952 by Kemmons Wilson.
This report discusses about role customers play in deciding about the experience they
have with hotel. The report also includes the factors which state the risk taken by a hotel
company to maximize the experience and satisfaction of customers.
ASSESSMENT
“The Customer is the central factor to creating an experience and is the main
determinant of elements incorporated in experience design”.
The success or failure of any company or industry is decided by the customer. If the
customer like that technology, product or service then that industry or company has the scope to
growth future (Boella and Goss-Turner, 2019). There is a theory called customer experience
theory. This theory refers to experience of customers which they have with a brand or company,
at all touch points. Touch points refers to the point at which customers interacts with the
company. This interaction can be through ads, any sort of campaign, customer review and the so
forth. CX, means customer design, seeks focus upon creating and generating an optimal
experience for the consumers or customers at all the touch points. The company or the brand
tries that at every point customers should receive a happy and satisfied experience about the
company. CX designers seldom use the customer journey map to take a comprehensive idea
about the thinking, perception and experience of customers (Brotherton, 2012). In the hospitality
business or say the holiday inn hotel also takes this idea. In this they try to get customers
experience which they has in their entire journey. It starts with the beginning for form where the
customer has heard about their company or hotels, the very first source for interaction or touch
point. And the end point would be after the customer has taken the experience of hotel service
and what is the experience with that. Did they satisfy? Is there anything which hotel has lacked
in behind? And the so forth. By mapping out the whole customer experience map company can
identify any kind of gap they may are facing with their customers.
Customers through their experience gives remarks and feedback which works as a great
help for the company (Kwon, Bae and Blum, 2013). For example if a customer in Holiday inn
complains about the cleanliness then the company or hotel manager will work upon it and comes
up with various measures which can improve and maintains the cleanliness into the hotel. And
another example can be of customer feedback filling form, in this the customers after they have
spend or availed the services makes to fill the customer feedback from. In the feedback form
customers write about the feedbacks or about suggestion which hotel should have into their into
their system or premises. Company always looks out for the methods and ways in which they can

grab the information about trends and preferences of customers so that from that information the
company can improve their system or process which only helps them in increasing the
satisfaction level of customers (Ong, 2012). Now the researchers take all the data and
information which helps them in the development of hospitality industries. Data can be of huge
use for any industry, from the data holiday inn top level management people can analyse the
growth and preferences into this particular industry. From such the company can plan for their
strategies and tactics about their future plans. From the customer experience many things can
detect, these things may include the strengths and weaknesses about the Hotel and these also lead
to the opportunities which they can grab in future for their growth and development. Strengths
works as a unique factor which makes the hotel different from other hotels (Pirani and Arafat,
2014). Whereas weakness provides the plot from which the company can improve themselves
and make them better from the competition. From analyses, the opportunities like collaboration,
diversification, expandation and so forth can be detected.
From customer experiences and feedbacks, Hotel Holiday inn can take out the ways in which
they can increase their Hotel Value. The satisfaction of customers would only get increase when
the hospitality which the customers receives from Hotel is humble and satisfying (Prud’homme
and Raymond, 2013). The Hotel brings out the way from which they provide more comfort and
satisfaction from their services. The services is all matters in this industry. More excellent the
services, more satisfy the customers will be. The Hotel always look for the ways in which hotel
can improve their quality. Holiday inn hotels take their customer experience and feedbacks very
seriously. For satisfying the customers they also comes up with various decorations according to
the festival running into the country. From this they show that they respect all the culture and
encourage the celebrations of all festivals. For example in India they decorate the hotel at
festivals such as Diwali, Holi, Raskha bandhan, deshera and many more. The hotel get decorate
accordingly.
That’s how the Hotel Hoilday inn makes sure about the experience about the customer
satisfaction by taking care of all the touch points which a customer may become interact with.
The company tries to make such experience good for the customer, be it an ad or mouth to mouth
recommendations. Because they know that these are the points where the company can either
build their reputation or can destroy their reputation (Radojevic, Stanisic and Stanic, 2015). It is
also said that first experience is the last experience, therefore company tries its very best that the
customer very first experience should be good while they interact through any point or medium.
Determinants of bad experiences and risks associated with customer experience.
There are many determinants which leads to bad experience into bad experience of customers.
Hotel Holiday inn keeps a close view on these factors because these factors really can lead to bad
portrait of hotel. These determinants are as follows:
Uncleanness: When it comes to hotel and residential rooms, cleanliness is the first factor which
comes into the minds of customers. If the Hotel rooms or premises are untidy then the mood of
customer will also be not happy which may leads to bad experience for the company. Clean and
tidy rooms and premises would lead to satisfied customers (Suh, West and Shin,2012). As in the
case with Hotel holiday inn, the hotel has the largest hotel chain which directly gives an image
that it would take a deep and keen interest into cleanliness. These things does contribute to the
success of a hotel much. They said in hotel industry cleanliness is a major thing which every
customer looks for.

Customer services: In hotel industry services play a major role in satisfying the customers. The
quality of services provided by the hotel decides for the experience which the customers has with
the hotel. If Hotel is concern with every problem of the guest and tries to resolve it then the
customers feel comfortable that there are people who concerns about their comfort and
experience. Customer service may include room services, luggage services, room cleanness,
laundry and iron services and the so forth. The customer gets satisfy when they see such
hospitality and humbleness. The employees and the workforce are the people which gives the
satisfaction to the guests. They handle all sort of concerns and tries to fulfil it. If the services
provided by the hotel is mediocre or very poor, then it hampers the experiences of customers.
Next time the customer would prefer different hotel and also he would not suggest that hotel to
anybody else. His touch point will be a bad experience that would create issue for hotel itself.
Relevant amenities: Relevant amenities may include wifi, parking, breakfast, dinner, food, drinks
and etc. The level for relevant amenities depends upon the type or star of hotel which it hotels.
For example the amenities such as TV, Parking, laundry, wifi, swimming pool, gym, spa and
much more is provided by them but these amenities may not get provided into a one or two start
hotel. As the star allotted to the hotel levels up, the amenities provided by the hotel increases.
The Hotel holiday inn comes in the category of five and seven star hotel, the amenities provided
by the hotel is very huge and a lot. But the amenities provided by the hotel should be at par or
more than the price paid by the customer. If the value which the customer get from the service is
not equal to the services then customer experience would be bad.
Staff etiquettes: The staff behaviour is of very much important for the good experience of
customers. Humble and helping nature of staff leads to happy and satisfied customers. The guests
feel very comfortable and happy by watching the humble and nice nature of employees or
workers. If the staff etiquettes are not humble or at the required level, then it would directly
affect the experience of customers. It would lead to bad experience which hampers the image of
hotel. Hotel Holiday inn only hires the trained staff and work force who has some kind of degree
or has done course in the hospitality business. These things play a major role in the experiences
have by the guests (Wang, 2013).
If any hotel make any change into its system or working, they have to go through risks
which is associated with the change. As in the case with Holiday inn hotels, the prices of the
hotels gets down because due to off seasons. The company has to determine all the associate risk
with it. If the hotel rooms price get down how the hotel will pay for their expenses, what should
be the services included in such price and much more. Holiday inn plans their prices high at the
time of festival to recover the amount which they have reduced at the time of off season. The
company also takes risk when it brings any change within the system or management. Any
change process may or may not get liked by the guests and customers. And if the change is not
liked by the customers then it would lead to bad experience which the hotel can recover back.
Hotel also takes risk when they tries to expand it at different place. Expansion into a different
place is a huge risk which a company takes. The amount of money invested is huge and the
return it gives back to the company is not at par then the company faced a huge loss. The amount
which it had put into the hotel considered as a waste. Expansion has its own risk, it has the risk
of whether the amount would ever get return back to investors or not. The place where the

Holiday inn hotel is opened, there the people appreciate it less or maybe they have more choices
available with them.
CONCLUSION
From the report discuss above, the factors which leads to bad experience of customers or
guest in a hotel industry has been discussed. There are many factors such as uncleanness, staff
etiquettes, customer services, relevant amenities and much more. The report also includes the
risks which a hotel takes in the process to make their guest happy and satisfied.

REFERENCES
Books and Journal
Bharwani, S. and Jauhari, V., 2013. An exploratory study of competencies required to co‐create
memorable customer experiences in the hospitality industry. International Journal of
Contemporary Hospitality Management.
Boella, M.J. and Goss-Turner, S., 2019. Human resource management in the hospitality
industry: A guide to best practice. Routledge.
Brotherton, B. ed., 2012. International hospitality industry. Routledge.
Kwon, J. M., Bae, J. I. S. and Blum, S.C., 2013. Mobile applications in the hospitality
industry. Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Technology.
Ong, B. S., 2012. The perceived influence of user reviews in the hospitality industry. Journal of
Hospitality Marketing & Management. 21(5). pp.463-485.
Pirani, S. I. and Arafat, H. A., 2014. Solid waste management in the hospitality industry: A
review. Journal of environmental management. 146. pp.320-336.
Prud’homme, B. and Raymond, L., 2013. Sustainable development practices in the hospitality
industry: An empirical study of their impact on customer satisfaction and
intentions.International Journal of Hospitality Management. 34. pp.116-126.
Radojevic, T., Stanisic, N. and Stanic, N., 2015. Ensuring positive feedback: Factors that
influence customer satisfaction in the contemporary hospitality industry. Tourism
Management. 51. pp.13-21.
Suh, E., West, J. J. and Shin, J., 2012. Important competency requirements for managers in the
hospitality industry. Journal of hospitality, leisure, sport & tourism education. 11(2).
pp.101-112.
Wang, Y. F., 2013. Constructing career competency model of hospitality industry employees for
career success.International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management.