Hotel le Grand Pavois: Applying Cultural Theories for Guest Service

This report explores the application of various cultural theories in hotel management, emphasizing the importance of cultural intelligence and sensitivity for hotel employees. It highlights the relevance of Hofstede's cultural dimensions in understanding and managing cultural differences between hotel staff and guests, specifically focusing on Hotel le Grand Pavois in France and its interactions with Turkish guests. The report suggests strategies for the hotel to adapt its policies and practices to better cater to the cultural norms and preferences of diverse guests, including adjustments in front office, housekeeping, food service, and maintenance departments. By implementing these strategies, the hotel aims to improve guest satisfaction, foster better communication, and reduce cultural imbalances, ultimately enhancing its reputation and service quality. The report concludes that a culturally intelligent and sensitive approach is crucial for attracting a global clientele and ensuring the success of the hotel.

Hotel management

Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................1
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................3
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................4
APPENDICE....................................................................................................................................5

INTRODUCTION
Hotel management is an activity of hospitality industry that includes developing and
managing operations of a hotel. This consists of distributing finance, provide customer service,
management of staff, promotion and more. Hotel industry deals with different types of people
from various cultures on daily basis, thus it is essential for employees of a hotel to have great
perspective and understanding of cultural intelligence as well as sensitivity. This report covers
importance of various cultural theories that are essential for hotel employees when they engage
with hotel guest (Chung, 2020). It highlights several hotel functions and there requirement to
adapt with guests' certain cultural norms.
MAIN BODY
Cultural awareness and sensitivity are two major things every hotel personnels and guest
needs to understand before engaging with each other. Understanding of various cultures, their
differences and similarities provides a structure to hotel to create policies and maintain customer
satisfaction. Theory of Hofstede cultural dimensions is a tool for inter cultural communication
that shows impact of community's culture on values of its associates and how these values
transform their personality.
The hotel in France has the culture of treating people with respect and value their guests
beliefs. They believes good food is the key to attract guests as well as puts great value to both
style and sophistication. Staff of hotel works on individualism concept where the power as well
as control remains only with the superior authority. Hotel le Grand Pavois follows culture of
masculinity and prefers to employ men over women. People of France are generally very kind
and greets everyone with a warm hello.
Turkish people follows a diverse culture that is a combination of Roman and Islamic
cultures. The guests from Turkey are very expressive, emotional and loud in nature. Their
religions, beliefs, food preference and values are very much different from people of France.
(Uğurlu, 2020). Culture of Turkish people is that they believe in collectivisms and equality
which is why they are family oriented. Most people in Turkey follows Islam, for that reason they
treats women respectfully and provides equal rights to them.
Hotel le Grand Pavois in France is facing many problems serving to guests of Turkey
due to the cultural differences between guests and their employees. Hence it creates situation of
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miscommunication and bad customer experience which leads to negative image of hotel.
Cultural differences can be reduce by applying Hofstede model in workplace of hotel and these
highlights the relationship of values with behaviour. Theory of Hofstede states focuses on four
dimensions which are as follows:
Power Distance- This tool states that individuals who are not powerful as compare to
others believes that dispersion of power is unequal. It is the extent by which firms accept power
derivatives. Hotel le Grand Pavois managers can adopt small power distance in their hotel
policies which outlays that authority have to be decentralised, management style have to be
participative, supervisory employees who are conscious about their rights (Hemsworth, 2021).
Uncertainty Avoidance- This is a stage by which the associates of a specific society are
able to cope with uncertainties of future without any stress. Hotel le Grand Pavois management
can follow strong uncertainty avoidance where staff understands the tendency to avert risks of
cultural differences by writing rules and clearly portrayed structures (Viegas, 2020).
Individualism vs Collectivism- It is the extent by which personnels are disposed towards
others in group. Hotel le Grand Pavois management have to adopt low individualism and high
collectivism culture which insists on developing behaviours as per social norms to maintain
harmony in staff and sharing of resources to enhance collective interest. Increased involvement
in staff members of hotel will result in hostility and reduce indifferences among them.
Masculinity and Femininity- It studies the distribution of emotional role of between
genders that can create major issues in societies and culture. Hotel le Grand Pavois managers can
adopt high gender equalitarian to create equal and more opportunities for staff members as well
as to treat every guest with respect irrespective of their gender.
Indulgence vs Restraint- This dimension aims on the happiness of both employees and
guests. Hotel le Grand Pavois management can practice indulgence at workplace to provide
gratification to human elements so to indulge them in enjoyment. By reducing the quality of
restraint, the managers of hotel can flow gratification which will reduce cultural differences
(Vives, Jacob and Payeras, 2018).
Short term vs Long term Orientation- Short term focuses on delivering success in short
term by emphasising on present rather than future. Long term aims on future success and
postpones short term success to attain long term objectives. Hotel le Grand Pavois managers can
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follow short term orientation to cater the current guests as best as possible and can strive to
improve services in long term by reducing cultural imbalances.
Cross cultural communication is essential to encourage team working and it also
maximise flexibility of organization when they interact with others. Understanding cultures of
guests and their preferences ensures great employee performances, customer satisfaction and
engagement between them. Hotel le Grand Pavois have various departments that are concerned
and responsible for different roles like front office department, housekeeping department, food
service department, maintenance department and more. Improvements in these departments can
increase guests satisfaction and retention by knowing their cultural norms and requirements.
Front office department of Hotel le Grand Pavois is the first place that engage with guests, hence
the management needs to allocate this responsibility to someone who has great communication
skills and who understands values and beliefs of different culture. The employee at front desk
have to be polite in nature so guests does not feel like a outsider. Role of housekeeping
department of Hotel le Grand Pavois is to maintain the hygiene of rooms and to provide guests
with everything they want. Management needs to understand that people from different cultures
may require things in certain ways, thus housekeeping department must keep everything ready
that guests may require. Turkish people are family oriented people and who puts major
importance on the safety as well as hygiene of their kids. Housekeeping staff can make sure no
things are placed in rooms that can cause harm to their children. Another function of Hotel le
Grand Pavois is providing tasty and healthy foods to its guests. Managers of hotel must employ
people in this department who understands various cultural tastes as well as preferences and who
knows how to cook food that guest will like. Food and beverage department plays a very
important role in maximising customer satisfaction as a guest always remember the quality of
food hotel provide that will further help in hotel's goodwill (Wang, 2021). This department can
adapt various changes in their operations like timely preparation of food, quantity of spices
according to guests desires, asking for any special recommendations or allergy issues from
guests and reviewing about the services provided. In this way, Hotel le Grand Pavois
management can ensure quality service delivery to Turkish guests to reduce cultural imbalance
of both countries. They can also ask guests about their likes and dislikes of foods to prepare it the
way they like. Next department is maintenance which is responsible to maintain hotel's premises
and its related activities. Maintenance staff of Hotel le Grand Pavois can adapt to several norms
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like continuously checking hotel's electricity points, refrigerators, switch boards and other things
so guests from turkey wont have to face any sort of trouble.
CONCLUSION
From the information discussed above it has been concluded that employees of a hotel are
an important part in its success. Hotel's management can strive to attract more people from all
over the world by providing cultural intelligence and sensitivity to their staff. Creating culture
balance and cater to different needs of guests is essential for hotel to build its goodwill.
Management of hotel comprises of various department where people from diverse backgrounds
work together to provide best services to guests hailing from different cultures.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journal:
Chung, K.C., 2020. Green marketing orientation: Achieving sustainable development in green
hotel management. Journal of Hospitality Marketing & Management. 29(6). pp.722-738.
Hemsworth, K., 2021, May. Hotel Management Curricular Internships–Students’ Perspective.
In ICTR 2021 4th International Conference on Tourism Research (p. 269). Academic
Conferences International.
Uğurlu, K., 2020. Integrated Marketing Approach in Hotel Management. In The Emerald
Handbook of ICT in Tourism and Hospitality. Emerald Publishing Limited.
Viegas, M.A., 2020. Climate-Friendly Hotels and the Promotion of Sustainability in Tourist
Destinations: A Study in Algarve From Hotel Management Perspectives. In Handbook of
Research on Resident and Tourist Perspectives on Travel Destinations (pp. 24-40). IGI
Global.
Vives, A., Jacob, M. and Payeras, M., 2018. Revenue management and price optimization
techniques in the hotel sector: A critical literature review. Tourism economics. 24(6).
pp.720-752.
Wang, Y., 2021, May. The Path to the Training Model of Hotel Management Professionals in
Universities. In 2021 2nd International Conference on Computers, Information
Processing and Advanced Education (pp. 949-952).
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APPENDICE
The Do's and Don'ts which act as briefing document to staff in hotel
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Do's Don'ts
 Employees of Hotel le Grand Pavois
should greet Turkish guests with a
simple hello.
 Staff of Hotel le Grand Pavois needs to
be adaptable so they can understand
Turkish culture and their guests values.
 Staff of Hotel le Grand Pavois should
favour familiarity as Turkish guests are
family oriented people.
 They should respect and value Turkish
guests equal irrespective of their
culture, beliefs or gender.
 Always guides Turkish guests about
hotel direction as they might face
difficulty in reading instructions.
 Hotel staff should work in collectivism
when serving to Turkish guests.
 Food staff should have a good
understanding of spices and food of
Turkish culture.
 Hotel management of Hotel le Grand
Pavois should employ more women
staff to reduce the gender equality
barrier.
 Staff of Hotel le Grand Pavois should
not hug or shake hand with Turkish
guests.
 Staff of Hotel le Grand Pavois should
not engage in any discrimination
activities with Turkish guests.
 Staff should not permit access to any
strangers other than enrolled guests.
 Staff should not ask irrelevant
questions to guests about Turkey or its
people.
 Staff should not take part in any
discussion related to politics or
religions with Turkish guests as it
might hurt their sentiments.
 Employees should not smoke or
consume alcohol in hotel premises as
these practises are against Turkish
people culture.
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