PDH301 Feasibility Study: Planning and Designing Hospitality Venues

This report presents a feasibility study of hospitality venue planning, focusing on two restaurants in New South Wales: Thai Pothong and Zahli. The study assesses factors such as location, interior design, menu diversity, and customer service. Thai Pothong's additional attractions, like a mini-gift center, and its focus on Thai staff are highlighted. Both restaurants are evaluated based on their ability to attract customers and maintain a competitive market position. The report concludes that effective planning, encompassing location, ambience, staff, and menu diversity, is crucial for success in the hospitality industry.

Running head: PDH301
Planning and Designing Hospitality Venues: Assessment 1
Name of the Student
Name of University
Author’s note

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Executive Summary
Hospitality Venue Planning is a determining factor in hospitality market like cuisines and
restaurants. In this report, the author has collected data in the domain of different factors of
venue planning in hospitality industry from two restaurants in New South Wales. The selected
restaurants include Thai Pothong and Zahli. The analysis of the hospitality venue planning
features highlighted that additional attraction helps to increase customer foot fall as in case of
Thai Pothong with their mini-gift centre. Venue or the location must also be selected based on
the selected target audience. The taste of the food, the service from the staffs and the interior
decor also holds prime importance towards increasing the overall sales of the business.

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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
Statement supporting implementation of feasibility studies............................................................3
Venue: 1...........................................................................................................................................3
Basic Information........................................................................................................................3
Detailed Description....................................................................................................................4
Venue: 2...........................................................................................................................................6
Detailed description.....................................................................................................................6
Summary of the main findings........................................................................................................7
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................8
References........................................................................................................................................9

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Introduction
Hospitality Venue Planning is an important aspect in hospitality business and market
(Boella & Goss-Turner, 2013). According to Boella and Goss-Turner (2013), proper planning of
the hospitality venue based on the location, ambience and staffs help to increase the overall
customer turn over. In order to analyse hospitality venue planning, this report will scrutinise two
restaurants located in New South Wales. The report will initiate with the statement supporting
implementation of the feasibility of studies followed by detailed description of two selected
venues and comparative analysis of two venus based on their features and planning strategy.
Statement supporting implementation of feasibility studies
The study is feasible as the author will go manually in both of the restaurants and will
provide a detailed report of its interior design, diversity in menu planning, services offered and
the behaviour of the staffs. Since both the restaurant is located in and around Sydney, the overall
process of survey became more convenient for the author.
Venue: 1
Basic Information
Business name: Thai Pothong
Location: It has multiple outlets, one in New Town (King street), another one in Marrickville and
a ThaiwaysTakeway in New Town Station.
Target Market: The main target market are the customers who love Thai food or Asian food and
customers boarding the stations and are in hurry and relies and fast take away food.

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Average customer spend: 26.22 dollars per head.
Hours of operation:
Sunday
12:00 PM - 3:00 PM
5:30 PM - 10:00 PM
Monday to Thursday
12:00 PM - 3:00 PM
6:00 PM - 10:30 PM
Friday and Saturday
12:00 PM - 3:00 PM
6:00 PM - 11:00 PM
Peak hours: During evening
Detailed Description
Thai Pothong is an iconic, 2 decade old restaurant. It is located in New Town Sydney and
is on top list of preference for the Thai food lovers since its inception. At present they have
expanded their branch in New Town station (Takeaway shop known as Thai Ways) and
MarrickVille. The main strength of this Thai restaurant is its impeccable Thai service, soothing
ambience and finger licking delights. The name of restaurant has spiritual reference as Thai
Pothong means Golden Pho Leaf and “Pho” is the tree under which Lord Buddha got

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enlightened. It was established on 1996 and it is cherished by the customers for its Thai
ambience provided in the heart of Australia. Its main position market is its location and its menu.
In the domain of customer, it can be said that the main consumers of Thai food are the Asians.
According to News Australia (2016) $38.8 billion tourism boom in Australia due to the high
footfall of the Asian tourists and alongside there are Asians who are working in Australian and
Asian students. These Asian groups of population are the main target market for Thai Pothong.
According to Australian Bureau of Statistics (2016) as per the census of 2016, more than 50% of
the inhabitants of Australia and born overseas and majority of them are from Asia and the
number is more than the Europeans. Thus the selection of the Thai menu for the target
population which has high infiltration of Asians is definitely profitable. Moreover, the restaurant
is located in the New Town is Sydney which is the central business district which has an active
night life and is the Shoppers head to King Street’s Indie bookshops and thrift stores (Destination
NSW, 2018). This place is infiltrated by the students of University of Sydney and other working
class and thus Thai Pothong receives high footfall during the evening. The interiors of the
restaurant is also very attractive with statues of Lord Buddha standing with a blessing posture is
located at numerous position on the restaurant floor and the ceiling is beautifully decorated with
lanterns. Menu is another attraction of this restaurant as they have monthly special menu, vegan
menu, kids menus, desserts, wine and drinks. Kinds menu is smoothing unique which makes this
restaurant popular among the parents of young children. The entire carpet area covers seat over
350 guests, including 2 new function rooms, seating up to 60 guests. It also has small gift corner
within the restaurant stocked with affordable handcrafted gift from Thailand (Thai Pothong,
2018). The kid’s menu, gift store within the restaurant and attractive décor uplift the overall
customer service experience. They also serve complimentary desserts for anniversary which

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increases the level of customer satisfaction (Hennig-Thurau & Hansen, 2013). The staffs of the
restaurants are also very friendly, and they are mostly from Thai origin and thus they are good
when asked to select the perfect combination of food or while asked to explain the taste are
cooking process of any food (Thai Pothong, 2018).
Venue: 2
Business name: Zahli
Location: Surry Hill in Sydney New South Wales
Target Market: The main target market is the customers who love Lebanese food or people who
are interested in trying out new cuisine apart from Australian food. It also specialises in
Mediterranean and other Middle Eastern dishes.
Average customer: 12.53$ to 45.93$
Hours of operation: 11 am to 10 pm from Sunday to Thursday and 11 am to 11 pm on Saturday
and Friday.
Detailed description
Zahli is a famous Lebanese restaurant in Sydney, New South Wales. The term Zahli is
derived from a beautiful location in Lebanon where river Bardouni flows from Mount Sannie.
The mission and vision of this Lebanese hospital is deliver finger licking Lebanese food under an
intoxicating back-drop of Middle East. Their main attraction apart from Lebanese food includes
Mediterranean, Middle East, Vegetarian, vegan, Halal and Gluten Free. Thus the restaurant has
options for people from different religious background. Since, the main food attraction of Zahli
is Lebanese food, it can be ascertained that a significant portion of the target customers are

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Lebanese. According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, 193,633 people are Middle-East born
in Australia and this accounts for 4.4% of the overseas population. Out of this Middle-East
population residing in Australia, 40% are from Lebanese origin. According to the ABC News
Australia (2016), Lebanese cuisines are principle attraction among the Australian populations.
Zahli is located in the Surry hill, which is houses some of the famous night clubs and pubs in
Sydney so the crowd dropping at Surry hills is versatile and mainly young starts who loves to
experiment with their food (Cha et al., 2014). They also host events and parties and thus they are
popular among the corporate sectors too. They also provide combination of classic deserts and
missed grilled chicken which are the principal attraction of the restaurants. The interiors of the
restaurant is decorated under monochrome colours (black and white) with the wall only
displaying colourful wall hanging in the form of plates. The galls walls and open beer counter
give restaurant a corporate look (Zahli, 2016). As per the feedbacks given by the visitors, the
employees or the staffs of Zahli are friendly and is known for their welcoming tone which they
use to greet their customers.
Summary of the main findings
Both Thai Pothong and Zahli score high in terms of location as they are located in the
epicentre of the city which houses pubs, malls, and other corporate sectors. The summary of the
findings highlighted that Thai Pothong has their additional attraction like the mini-gift centre in
comparison to Zahli. According to Mihailović (2017), having an additional attraction in any form
of business, provides a unique exposure which helps to attract more and more customers. Having
a gift centre under restaurant set-up is something new in the cuisine market and that might help
Thai Pothong to score high in comparison to Zahli. Thai Pothong mainly appoints people from
Thai origin as their mainly service staffs. According to Martin (2014), inclusion of any particular

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cultural community might decrease the overall cultural diversity of the workforce which in turn
leads to the reduction of the workplace productivity. However, Boella and Goss-Turner (2013)
are of the opinion that having cultural strong workforce in hospitality industry is beneficial for
raising customer satisfaction and retention. When customers visit restaurants serving any
particular class of food, they might require assistance while ordering food and this assistance if
best accomplished from an individual who belongs to that particular culture. Boella and Goss-
Turner (2013) highlighted that an individual having in-depth knowledge about types and form of
cuisine can also be helpful in educating customers about particulars dishes however, such
specialised recruitment might increase the cost of company. The ambience of both the restaurants
is unique. According to Boella and Goss-Turner (2013) internal ambience also holds prominence
in increasing customer attraction. The easy take ways provided by Thai Pothing makes it popular
among the young adults or the working population thus increasing their customer strength.
Conclusion
Thus from the above discussion it can be concluded that under in effective planning for
hospitality venue in case or restaurants in order to promote a profitable success several factors
might be taken under consideration. The first factor includes the place or the location followed
by the internal ambience, the nature of the staffs and the taste of the food along with diversity in
the menu. The other paradigms which collided with the hospitality planning include additional
perks provided by to the customers along with the finger licking delicacies. In case of Thai
Pothong, they offer mini-gift centre along with their sit and dine options thus making them score
high in comparison to Zahli.

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References
ABC News. (2016). Lebanese couple migrated from poverty and brought new cuisine to an
Australian country town. Access date: 3rd October 2018. Retrieved from:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-09-05/lebanese-food-brings-migration-success/
7810100
Australian Bureau of Statistics (2016). Census. Access date: 3rd October 2018. Retrieved from:
http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/Lookup/3416.0Main+Features42008
Australian Bureau of Statistics (2016).Census. Access date: 26th September 2018. Retrieved
from: http://www.abs.gov.au/census
Boella, M., & Goss-Turner, S. (2013). Human resource management in the hospitality industry:
A guide to best practice. Routledge.
Cha, E., Kim, K. H., Lerner, H. M., Dawkins, C. R., Bello, M. K., Umpierrez, G., & Dunbar, S.
B. (2014). Health literacy, self-efficacy, food label use, and diet in young
adults. American journal of health behavior, 38(3), 331-339.
Destination NSW.(2018). Sydney New Town. Access date: 26th September 2018. Retrieved from:
https://www.sydney.com/destinations/sydney/inner-sydney/newtown
Hennig-Thurau, T., & Hansen, U. (Eds.). (2013). Relationship marketing: Gaining competitive
advantage through customer satisfaction and customer retention. Springer Science &
Business Media.
Martin, G. C. (2014). The effects of cultural diversity in the workplace. Journal of Diversity
Management (Online), 9(2), 89

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Mihailović, B. (2017). Marketing services the hotel and resturant. Ekonomika, 63(1), 19-30.
News Australia.(2016). Asian visitors fuel $38.8 billion tourism boom in Australia. Access date:
26th September 2018. Retrieved from:
https://www.news.com.au/travel/travel-updates/asian-visitors-fuel-388-billion-tourism-
boom-in-australia/news-story/da804cfa485e47b2fa7944eb9ada312a
Thai Pothong (2018).Thai Pothong Story. Access date: 26th September 2018. Retrieved from:
http://www.thaipothong.com.au/newtown/about
Zahli. (2016). ZAHLI, the Best Lebanese Restaurant in Sydney. Access date: 3rd October 2018.
Retrieved from: http://www.zahlirestaurant.com/about-us/