Exploring the Hospitality Industry: Businesses and Operations

This report provides a comprehensive overview of the hospitality industry, encompassing various business types such as accommodation and food service. It explores the services offered, including lodging, dining, and event catering, and examines the industry's growth and importance. The report uses Marriott International as a case study, detailing its organizational structure, functional departments (HR, security, IT, finance), and operational departments (front desk). It highlights Marriott's core values, services, and its hierarchical structure, emphasizing the importance of efficient operations and customer service within the competitive hospitality landscape. The report also discusses the diverse range of services offered by Marriott, from event planning to special packages and its approach to maintaining a multicultural work environment to better serve its customers. The report concludes with a discussion of Marriott's commitment to innovation and its focus on employee well-being and customer satisfaction.

Hospitality

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
TASK ..............................................................................................................................................1
P1. Explore different types of business within the hospitality industry and divers product or
services they offer...................................................................................................................1
P2. Examine a range of operational and functional departments within a chosen hospitrality
business...................................................................................................................................4
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................6
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................1

INTRODUCTION
Hospitality sector refers to a group of companies that work toward providing services to
travellers related to food, accommodation, transportation and many more. It include industries
such as food & beverages, hotel, travel & tourism and event catering. Marriott is an American
international diversified hospitality company which manage a group of hotel around the world
(Candea and Da Col, 2012). It offer its services in around 130 countries and manages more than
6700 properties worldwide. It was founded by J. Willard & Alice Marriott and have the
experience of more than 90 years in hospitality sector. Marriott was the first company which
started offering guests to book their services online through MARSHA from any part of the
world. This report describes about scope as well as diversification of hospitality industry and
product or services offered by them. Further it describe about the organisational structure used as
well as operational and functional department present in Marriott hotel .
TASK
P1. Explore different types of business within the hospitality industry and divers product or
services they offer
Hospitality industry is consists of group of industries or companies that work toward
catering the traveller's need in a holistic manner by providing them food, shelter and other
services. It includes sectors like hotel and food service industry. Hospitality industry is one of the
fastest growing sector as with the inception of globalisation, demand for travelling among people
for pleasure, leisure or business purpose is rapidly increasing. This results in increase in the
competition among different companies and institutions to provide better services to customers
which support toward development of hospitality industry.
Hospitality sector is also consider as one of the major factors that help in promoting the
flow of foreign currency which strengthen the economy of country (Cook, Hsu and Marqua,
2014). Hospitality sector is a service industry which offer products like food and beverages etc.
which are tangible in nature. Apart from this it also provide services such as room offerings,
dining, travelling, events, entertainment, food services and many more that are intangible in
nature. Following points describe about the scope within hospitality sector:
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Accommodation sector:- It can be defined as a service that are make available to
customer related to arrangements of rooms where travellers can reside for some time.
Accommodation is one of the most diversified sector and its subdivision is explained below:
Hotel:-
This industry is responsible for providing services such as meal, lodging and other guest
services to clients. Main role of players in hotel industry is to accommodating travellers on
commercial basis by customarily furnishing the rooms for peoples that are away from their home
(Jones, Hillier and Comfort, 2016). Hotels industry perform several functions such as place of
assembly, decorative showcase, political headquarters, vacation spots, business exchange spot
etc. Hotel offers product such as food and beverages which is tangible in nature and some
intangible services such as leisure, amenities, fitness centre, indoor pool, well featured room,
concierge services, laundry services etc. It is a diversified sector as it includes various types of
business which are as given below:
 One star:-These hotel are one which are independent and offer limited as well as same
quality amenities. These hotels are small to medium size with limited services.
 Two star:- These hotels are located near affordable locations and are convenient to
public transportation. Furniture and furnishing facilities are good but basic.
 Three star:- These hotels include more specious accommodation which consists of well
decorated and appointed rooms. These hotels are featured with medium sized restaurants
which offer breakfast to dinner services.
 Four star:- Hotel provide services that are above average and rooms are well furnished.
Restaurant dinning are available and include more than one choice.
 Five star:- It provide high level of accommodation and quality services to clients .
Room are well furnished and stylish, quality linens and charges are relatively higher
 Holiday homes and other stay accommodations:- These are the kind of hotel which
offer rooms or houses for specific period of time on rent to people who came to spend
their holidays over a location away from their home.
Food service sector:
Catering or food service industry include those businesses, companies or institutions that
are responsible for processing, cooking or delivering the meals either on regular basis or
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occasionally (Medlik, 2012). It offer tangible products such as variety of food, snacks and drinks
as well as intangible services such as waiter services, buffet service etc.
Diversity:- Food service industry is one of the fastest growing sector and included
number of business that are involve in providing food related services. Following points describe
about the diversity of food service sector:
Restaurants:- It refers to the business which cook and serve food as well as drinks to its
customer with a proper sitting arrangements. Restaurant is one of the most diversified business
and includes several categories which are different in term of their services that range from fast
food to fine dining. Following points describe about the diversified businesses involve in food
services industry:
 Event catering and food service contractor:- This includes institutions or companies
that take order and cook or deliver food either for any occasion or on regular basis to
schools and business houses.
 Fine dine restaurants:- It refers to those restaurants that offer dinners in an elegant
atmosphere which is generally upscale and provide high quality services. Chef in fine
dine restaurants are professional trained and is lit bit expensive as compare to casual
restaurants.
 Quick services restaurants:- It is also known as fast food restaurants which are engaged
in offering food that requires less time to process and cooked. These restaurants offer fast
food cuisines and has minimum table servicing option at their premises.
 Public houses and bars:- These are kind of restaurants that offer alcoholic and non-
alcoholic beverages to its customers.
 Take away food shops:- These are the kind of restaurants or shop which deals in selling
hot cooked food that a customer eat at somewhere else.
 Unlicensed restaurants and cafes:- These are refers to subclass restaurants that provide
food services to customers. It has seating arrangements which provide meals for
consumptions along with non-alcoholic drinks at their premises.
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P2. Examine a range of operational and functional departments within a chosen hospitrality
business
Marriott International Inc. is one of the well known American multinational diversified
hospitality company which manages and franchise a broad range of hotels and lodging facilities.
It was founded by J. Willard Marriott and is headquartered in Bethesda, Maryland in
Washington, D.C. Marriott International is largest hotel chain of world which has more than
6700 properties across 130 countries (Marriott International - Corporate Overview, 2018). It was
the first hotel which provide option of online reservations to its customer worldwide through
MARSHA(Marriott's automatic Reservation System for Hotel accommodation). Company is
known for its culture which keep people first by taking care of them and putting well-being of
individuals above all is cultural inheritance. Marriott hotel work over three pillars related to
well-being that are feel good about oneself, workplace and company's role in society (Thakran
and Verma, 2013).
Marriott group of hotel are always tries to bring some new or creative method to serve
customers and providing opportunities for associates. It started as a nine-seat A&W root beer
stand which is now known as top employer with superior business operations. It operates
business over five core value. It includes put people first, embrace changes, pursue excellence,
act with integrity and serve the world. It provide variety of services such as :
 Events:- It includes event planners that help in plan and organising an event for special
occasions that are social events such as wedding, sports, anniversaries etc. and meetings
such as conferencing, business meetings etc.
 Special and package offered:- it includes various packages related to booking of rooms
and other services. It provide altered service packages according to the requirement of
customers like weekend packages, government & military package, senior travelling
package etc.
Apart from this organisational structure of Marriott hotel also consider as one of the
crucial factor that support company in achieve high growth and competitive advantage at
marketplace. Organisational structure follower by Marriott hotel located in Regents Park London
is Hierarchical structure. It refers to the structure that includes different level of authorities and
vertical chain of command between superior and subordinates within an organisation. The
highest level of authority is stay at the top of pyramid which take decision for whole
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organisations. In Marriott hotel orders flow from top level down to next level and information
flow from bottom to top. Decisions and strategies are formulated by the top management and is
followed by the employees (Verma, Stock and McCarthy, 2012). This help in keeping
formalization of activities where employees of Marriott hotel work according to the rules and
regulations formed by top authorities. Another benefit of following this structure is maintaining
specialisations means jobs and activities are divided into departments according to the skills and
abilities of employees. This division of work help in performing tasks effectively and support
organisation to maintain control over their performance. Marriott hotel divides its organisation in
into functional and operational units which includes following departments:
Functional department:- It refers to a department that group the activities or processes
on the basis of need, skills and area of expertise in different functional areas. Followi9ng are the
types of functional department: Human Resource department:- This department is consider as main functional unit of an
organisation as it is responsible for hiring, firing, remuneration of employees. Apart from
this it is also responsible for training & development as well as ensuring welfare of
people at work. HR department of Marriott hotel always focuses recruiting high skilled
employees and which belongs to different culture. Main aim behind creating multicultural
environment is to develop a knowledge about different culture that further support in
serving customers according to their culture and values.
 Security:- Primary function of security unit includes patrolling, monitoring surveillance
equipments and investigating that the employees, guests and property of hotel is safe and
secure (Wang, Tsai and Tsai, 2014). Marriott hotel is more focused toward maintaining
high skilled security workforce that ensures the security of customers as well as hotel by
keep tracking the visitors over CCTV and checking the stuff which they bring to hotels.
 IT and maintenance:- This department is responsible for ensuring that all the technical
related operations should be performed in a well and maintained manner. IT department
of Marriott hotel manage its website so that reservation done by customer can be
maintained effectively so that services can be delivered on time. It also manage the online
promotional activities over social media by regularly updating and improving its
webpage to attract customer.
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 Finance department:- Main role of this unit is to maintain and mange the fund that a
company have as well as it earn from its practices. Finance department of Marriott hotel
formulate their budget plan by estimating the amount required to perform operations by
each department. This help hotel in minimizing the chance of delay due to timely
unavailability of fund.
Operational department:- This department is responsible for administrating the
business practices for creating high level of efficiency or performance within an organisation to
make them achieve greater success in marketplace. Following are the types of operational
departments: Front desk services :- The front office department is one of the most visible part of hotel
where staff members welcome the guests, help them in registration, carry their luggage,
provide them keys, solve queries related to hotel activities or policies etc. Therefore, front
office employees and department are consider as the nerve centre of hotel. Marriott hotel
recruit employees for front desk that have high interpersonal and communicational skills
as they are the face of hotel which represents culture. Employees of Marriott hotel are
responsible to handle booking of client online as well as offline, answering the call,
solving their queries etc.
 Housekeeping:- This unit is responsible for immaculate care and maintaining the hotel
rooms and public spaces as environment and ambience of hotel help in attracting as well
as retaining clients for longer duration (Kandampully, Zhang and Bilgihan, 2015).
Housekeeping employees of Marriott hotel always work toward providing a better and
comfortable experience to their client by keeping their rooms, bed and other areas clean
& hygienic.
 Food and Beverages:- It is responsible for the management of food items, beverages and
alcohol so that orders given by customers can be deliver on time. Food and beverages
department in Marriott hotel ensure the quality of food must be superior for satisfying
customers. In addition to this it also ensure that food related services provided by them
must comply with standard provided by regulatory authority.
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CONCLUSION
From the above given report it can be concluded that hospitality industry is one of the
fastest growing sector which contribute toward the development and growth of a country.
Hospitality industry consists of several sectors that work toward providing better customers
services and reducing the difference among geographical region by providing transportation and
travel services. This make it easier for people to move from one place to another in less possible
time.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Candea, M. and Da Col, G., 2012. The return to hospitality. Journal of the Royal
Anthropological Institute. 18. pp.S1-S19.
Cook, R. A., Hsu, C. H. and Marqua, J. J., 2014. Tourism: the business of hospitality and travel.
Boston, MA: Pearson.
Jones, P., Hillier, D. and Comfort, D., 2016. Sustainability in the hospitality industry: Some
personal reflections on corporate challenges and research agendas. International
Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management. 28(1). pp.36-67.
Kandampully, J., Zhang, T. and Bilgihan, A., 2015. Customer loyalty: a review and future
directions with a special focus on the hospitality industry. International Journal of
Contemporary Hospitality Management. 27(3). pp.379-414.
Medlik, S., 2012. Dictionary of travel, tourism and hospitality. Routledge.
Molz, J. G., 2012. CouchSurfing and network hospitality:'It's not just about the furniture'.
Hospitality & Society. 1(3). pp.215-225.
Neuhofer, B., Buhalis, D. and Ladkin, A., 2015. Smart technologies for personalized
experiences: a case study in the hospitality domain. Electronic Markets. 25(3). pp.243-
254.
Thakran, K. and Verma, R., 2013. The emergence of hybrid online distribution channels in
travel, tourism and hospitality. Cornell Hospitality Quarterly. 54(3). pp.240-247.
Verma, R., Stock, D. and McCarthy, L., 2012. Customer preferences for online, social media,
and mobile innovations in the hospitality industry. Cornell Hospitality Quarterly. 53(3).
pp.183-186.
Wang, C. J., Tsai, H. T. and Tsai, M. T., 2014. Linking transformational leadership and
employee creativity in the hospitality industry: The influences of creative role identity,
creative self-efficacy, and job complexity. Tourism Management. 40. pp.79-89.
Online
Event Industry. 2018. [Online] Available through<https://bizfluent.com/info-11383977-event-
industry.html>./
Marriott International - Corporate Overview. 2018. [Online] Available
through<https://www.marriott.com/about/corporate-overview.mi>./