University Essay: Global Environment of Hospitality Industry Analysis

This essay examines the global environment of the hospitality industry, focusing on the impact of globalization, economic growth, and technological advancements. It analyzes the influence of changing consumer leisure patterns, the evolution of communication strategies, and the effects of destination image on the hotel industry. The essay discusses the rise of adventure travel, budget accommodations, and the increasing importance of online platforms and reviews. It highlights the significance of effective communication, social media, and visual marketing in attracting customers. The paper concludes by emphasizing the need for hotels to improve service quality, adapt to changing consumer preferences, and utilize visuals effectively to remain competitive. The essay references several sources to support its arguments and provides a comprehensive overview of the challenges and opportunities within the global hospitality landscape.

Running head: GLOBAL ENVIRONMENT OF HOSPITALITY INDUSTRY
Global Environment of Hospitality Industry
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
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1GLOBAL ENVIRONMENT OF HOSPITALITY INDUSTRY
Introduction
Globalization has influenced all the sectors of the economies across the world, and
hospitality industry is no exception. Similar to any other industry, the dynamics the global hotel
industry has been evolving too. there has been structural shift in the hotel industry caused due to
several factors, such as, changes in the economic, geo-political, socio-cultural and demographic
aspects, combined with rapidly changing technology and disruptions, changing consumer
behavior and increasing market competition (Butters and Hubbard 2019). In the past decade, the
number of travelers has grown significantly, not only for leisure travel, but also for business
purpose. Increase in disposable income of people, increased knowledge about travel destinations
due to easily affordable and accessible devices and internet and highly advanced technology for
checking and booking accommodations all across the world have been influencing the consumer
choices about their stay during vacations or business trips and that has led to increasing
competition in the hotel industry (Kolau Blog 2018). Along with these, changes have been
observed in communication approaches and importance of images of the destinations in
influencing the consumers’ preference and performance of the hotel industry. Thus, the purpose
of this paper is to highlight the influence of the factors, like, changes in the leisure pattern of
the consumers, different approaches to communication and various effects of image on
destinations for global populations to assess the impact on the global hotel industry. It will also
discuss potential measures to mitigate the negative impacts and utilize the positive effects of
these factors to achieve further growth of the global hotel industry.
Discussion
Economic growth and technological advancement have contributed significantly in
growth of tourism industry in the past decade. Through internet, people have access to more

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detailed information about not only the travel destinations all over the world, but also about the
tourism activities, their prices and the accommodation and food facilities. These caused
significant changes in the leisure pattern of the travelers. For example, there is a considerable
rise in the number of adventure seeking travelers, who prefer hiking, trekking, participating in
adventure sports, like, surfing, rafting, scuba diving, paragliding, parasailing, jet-skiing, skating,
mountaineering, and so on (Rantala, Rokenes and Valkonen 2018). Many travelers prefer
backpacking and travel on a low budget. Thus, the global hotel industry has evolved to cater to
not only the high budget travelers, but also for the low budget travelers. There are many
dormitories for low budget backpackers, and low priced motels with only basic amenities and
very basic breakfast options. At the same time, many hotels and resorts now provide packages
for adventure sports along with accommodation for the convenience of the leisure travelers.
Moreover, globalization has led to massive global expansion of the businesses and that has
caused increase in the number of business travelers (Revfine.com 2020). Many business travelers
prefer to combine their business trips with some leisure travel, which has also increased the
growth opportunities for the hotels that are located near any popular tourism destination as well
as the major business hubs, like, New York City, San Francisco, Dubai, London, Paris, Tokyo,
Sydney, Melbourne, Rome, Zurich and many more (Zhang, Seo and Ahn 2019). On one hand,
changes in consumer leisure pattern has increased the growth opportunities for the hotels, and on
the other hand, this has increased competition level massively.
Communication is a very essential factor of success in the hospitality industry. Effective
communication in the service industry helps in establishing a good relationship with the
customers (SiteMinder 2018). Similarly, in the hotel industry, the approaches to communication
has become different based on the advanced technology. Consumers can communicate through

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email, chats, social media account, and many booking platforms and review forums, such as, trip
advisor, hotels.com, yelp etc. (Phillips et al. 2017), apart from the conventional telephonic and
face-to-face communication. Hence, the hotel industry has to be quite alert about the consumer’s
feedback as that can have both positive and negative impact on the business growth (Wang et al.
2018). While chatbots are now being used for customer service, the hotel industry is now heavily
focusing on the social media and consumer discussion and review forums to improve their
product and services (Berezan, Yoo and Christodoulidou 2016).
Thirdly, images are extremely helpful in influencing consumer choices when it comes to
travel. The internet has enabled the global tourism and hospitality industry to showcase their
assets to the travelers and attract more travelers through visuals of the tourist attractions. This is
a very useful marketing strategy. The online booking platforms like hotels.com, Expedia,
booking.com etc. provide information about list of hotels in the desired location, along with the
price and consumers can book as per their budget (Mariani and Borghi 2018). However, the
images of the lodges play a significant role in attracting consumers, especially, in case of lower
budget hotels. At the same time, these platforms also provide user reviews and photos, which are
more realistic for the potential consumers (Social Tables 2019). Hence, the hotels not only have
to be ethical and honest about their information and images of the destination, but they also have
to be aware about their services as negative customer feedback can have damaging effect on their
business.
Conclusion
From the above discussion, it can be said that all the above mentioned factors can have
both positive and negative impacts on the growth of the hotel industry. All the effects are highly

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dependent on the quality of products and services provided by the hotels. As there is increasing
competition from low budget hotels, the other market players must improve quality and prices of
the offerings to attract more leisure travelers and also should improve their packages for business
plus leisure vacationers. This would help to increase their competitiveness in the market.
Secondly, service quality is the foremost priority for the hotels and therefore, the hotels should
establish effective relationship with the customers to get their feedback and suggestions from
various communication medium and improve their product and services accordingly for getting a
positive feedback in future. Lastly, the hotels should utilize the power of visuals for attracting
customers across the globe by enlisting their facilities in the online booking platforms as part of
marketing technique, but at the same time, they should put up real images so that the customers
do not feel skeptical about the trusting the business.

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References
Berezan, O., Yoo, M. and Christodoulidou, N., 2016. The impact of communication channels on
communication style and information quality for hotel loyalty programs. Journal of Hospitality
and Tourism Technology.
Kolau Blog, 2018. Marketing For Hotels: 4 Strategies To Attract Customers. [online] Kolau
Blog. Available at: <http://blog.kolau.com/marketing-hotels-strategies-attract-customers/>
[Accessed 6 April 2020].
Mariani, M.M. and Borghi, M., 2018. Effects of the Booking. com rating system: Bringing hotel
class into the picture. Tourism Management, 66, pp.47-52.
Phillips, P., Barnes, S., Zigan, K. and Schegg, R., 2017. Understanding the impact of online
reviews on hotel performance: an empirical analysis. Journal of Travel Research, 56(2), pp.235-
249.
Revfine.com, 2020. Hotel Marketing: The Latest Trends In The Hotel Industry For 2020.
[online] Revfine.com. Available at: <https://www.revfine.com/hotel-marketing/> [Accessed 6
April 2020].
SiteMinder, 2018. How You Can Improve Communication With Your Hotel Guests. [online]
SiteMinder. Available at:
<https://www.siteminder.com/r/trends-advice/hotel-management/speaking-same-language-
guests-communication-hotel/> [Accessed 6 April 2020].

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Social Tables, 2019. Unexpected Hotel Marketing Ideas To Win Business. [online] Social Tables.
Available at: <https://www.socialtables.com/blog/hotel-sales/hotel-marketing-ideas/> [Accessed
6 April 2020].
Wang, J., Wang, S., Xue, H., Wang, Y. and Li, J., 2018. Green image and consumers’ word-of-
mouth intention in the green hotel industry: The moderating effect of Millennials. Journal of
Cleaner Production, 181, pp.426-436.
Zhang, T., Seo, S. and Ahn, J.A., 2019. Why hotel guests go mobile? Examining motives of
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