Comprehensive Report: Contemporary Hospitality Industry Overview

This report provides a comprehensive overview of the contemporary hospitality industry, exploring various business types such as accommodation, restaurants, and event planning, and their contributions to local, national, and international economies. It analyzes the operational and functional departments within the industry, highlighting their interrelationships and importance. The report uses the Lanesborough Hotel as a case study to examine the roles and responsibilities of functional specialists, including front and back-office management. Furthermore, it identifies skill gaps within the Lanesborough's front office and back-office departments, discussing their impact on the business and suggesting strategies to address these deficiencies. The report emphasizes the significance of customer relationship management, value creation, and partnerships in fostering industry growth, and it concludes with recommendations for skill development and improvement within the hospitality sector.

THE CONTEMPORARY
HOSPITALITY INDUSTRY

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
TASK 1............................................................................................................................................3
Different types of business within hospitality industry...............................................................3
Range of operational and functional departments.......................................................................4
Contribution of local, national and international economies.......................................................5
Different roles and responsibilities of functional specialists.......................................................6
Skill gap within Front office department and back-office management of the Lanesborough
hotel.............................................................................................................................................7
Impact of skills gap on business and suggestions........................................................................7
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................8
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................9

INTRODUCTION
Hospitality industry is the broad category of businesses in which includes lodging, food
and drinks services, event planning, pubs, theme parks, hotels and bars etc. This sector is mainly
focused on customer’s satisfaction and offering specific experience to them. However,
hospitality department is the major source of economy that supports to improve GDP rate of
country. To understand role of hospitality industry has an example of Lanesborough. In this
report will discuss about different types of businesses with hospitality industry and the diverse
products which are offered to the customer. It includes wide range of operational and functional
department with the Lanesborough. It is founded in 1991 and located in London, UK.
TASK 1
Different types of business within hospitality industry
The term hospitality industry is basically referred for the service industry that basically
deals with the accommodation, entertainment and food and drink industry. This collectively
signifies that all those industries where the customer is basically served in a hospitable
environment that is warm and friendly (Torres, van Niekerk and Orlowski, 2017). There are a
variety of hospitality sectors that can be included in this industry and these can be classified as
following:
 Accommodation: The accommodation industry involves those brands or companies that
are offering only the accommodation related services i.e. they give a place solely to live
without any add- ons like food etc. Brands like Air- Bnb, Oyo Rooms, Zostel etc. are
giving services in this area only.
 Restaurants, Pubs and Bars: These are those industry which only provide food and
drinks related services without any accommodation facilities (Boella and Goss-Turner,
2019). Here the customer visits the place for few hours and then leaves. McDonalds for
instance falls under the category of restaurants.
 Event and Membership Clubs: These kinds of industries are usually involved in the
hosting of different events and meetings for the selective set of audience and usually
involves some entertainment related activities or fulfilling cultural motives.
There are many other hospitality sectors such as different brands and businesses who
basically operate in this manner such as tourisms sector. This is a very different concept of
business but s categorised under the hospitality industry only as this industry is also mainly about
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serving people and includes accommodation as well other food and service related aspects
(Ozturk, 2016).
The contribution of the entire hospitality industry in the economic growth of the nation is
paramount as this is the major source of revenue generation and also leads to contribution in the
GDP of an economy.
However, the entire hospitality industry also affects the manner in which the economy
operates i.e. it increases the revenue generation thus improving the overall living standards of the
people but it also positively impacts the overall employment generation as it is comparatively
easier to obtain job in this industry as it is easy to train an individual. However the indirect
impact that this industry might have is that the industry is easy to penetrate where anyone with a
potential skill set or some paramount amount of knowledge can easily enter this industry (Bavik,
2016). Therefore it helps in fostering the skill development and increases the chances of overall
employment generation. The major products and services that included can be termed as the food
and drinks, accommodations, the conduction of events or also club members events etc.
Range of operational and functional departments
The operational department in the hospitality industry basically includes those which help
in completion of the different activities that are necessary for the completion of the different
tasks and the overall process. The housekeeping department, front office etc. are included in this.
The functional department on the other hand includes those who are formulated in order to fulfil
different nature of activities that are to be performed (Ali, Amin and Cobanoglu, 2016). The
Marketing, HR department etc, will be included in this.
The interrelationship between both of these can be understood by the fact that the
integration between the different departments help in better achievement of the overall purposes
for instance the front office department presents the data related to the number of customers that
visited and the finance department can use this data for trend prediction in the overall industry.
It improves communication and integration as well because the HR department can
clearly indicate the number of guests i.e. customers that are expected to visit the organisation and
the Housekeeping department gears up for the customers where the overall time and the different
resources that will be required are arranged accordingly.
The third aspect that determines their interrelationship is the overall facilitation in the
tasks where if the front office department is giving the different details and data related to the
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visitors then the R&D department of the organisation can understand the reasons behind such
behaviour (Daif and Elsayed, 2019). Further this data can be used by the marketing department
for the campaigns that are being developed and the overall targeting of the target customers and
the services that are being offered.
Therefore collectively it can be ascertained that both the aspects of the industry are
interlinked very closely and can help the organisation in excelling very quickly if the integration
and interrelationship is strong between functional and operational departments.
Contribution of local, national and international economies
The different factors contribute in the development of the hospitality industry at all the
three levels i.e. local, national and international level (Torres, van Niekerk, M. and Orlowski,
2017). The different factors that lead to growth of the industry at all the three levels are:
 Partnerships and deals: The kind of deals and partnerships into which an hotel is
entering is the critical aspect in the attainment of the overall growth where if the
organisation is forming relationships with those who have already developed better
goodwill and have excelled will add to the overall position and growth at international,
national and local level.
 Value Creation: It is extremely important to offer something of value in exchange of the
money that is being charged from customers so that they feel satisfied that they have
gained something in return of the overall experience that they had (Jones, Hillier and
Comfort, 2016). When the value generation is intensive then it automatically creates a
loyal and satisfied customer base acting as the major growth factor for organisations.
 Customer relationship Management: The customer relationship management is another
important aspect where it is necessary to ensure that the customers are always satisfied
and their needs are met. This integrates growth irrespective of the level at which
organisations operate.
The expansion of the different hotel chains and identities has increasingly been facilitated by
the growth in the technological assistance as well where different mediums are used to lure the
customers to the organisation (Boella and Goss-Turner, 2019). On the international level, the use
of licensing and franchising agreements have been fostered where the brands names that have
already established their goodwill and position in the international market are able to increase
their overall growth and target market through these techniques.
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Different roles and responsibilities of functional specialists
There are various functional specialists like front office managers, back office
management and supervisory etc. who plays different type of responsibilities in the hospitality
industry.
Front office department
Front office department is the main department of hospitality industry because it is initial
point of contact of hotel’s guest (O'brien, 2019). Front office department is majorly responsible
to assure that guests of hotel are welcomed in professional manner and friendly manner then they
assign room as per guest booking, staff member of front office department also resolves all
issues and complaints and provides them information for which they seek.
Back-office management
Back-office is the main part of the hotel that provides personal supports and
administration when hotels’ guest faces any issues. The back-office includes settlements,
clearance, record maintenance, IT services, accounting and regulatory compliance etc. perform
different roles and responsibilities and supports front office department to in increasing
customers’ experience. in addition, hotel’s back office managers supervisehousekeeping staff
mainly which is one of the most essential function of the hotel. Manager of back-office sets to
comply with long-term financial information. However back-office does not directly
communicate with guests (Barhate, 2016).
Food production department
This department is also known as kitchen department that is mainly responsible for the
preparation of food items. Manager of the food department ensures that food takes place in
hygienic environment and all rules related to food safety are strictly followed while preparing
food for guests.
These all are main functional and operational department of Hotel which supports to gain
it’s objectives and runs business smoothly. Lanesborough is London-based hotel that offers
accommodation, parking and food & beverage services to the customer. Front office department,
food production department, back-office management etc. are performed different roles and
responsibilities within hotel and works together in influencing customer’s experience within
hotel.
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Skill gap within Front office department and back-office management of the Lanesborough hotel
Skill gap can be defined as the when individuals or employees are performing their roleswithin
company or hotel have not certain skill, knowledge and capabilities to deal numerous tasks of
company which can booster growth and success of business. Currently Lanesborough is facing
skills gap issue in it’s staff members who are perming their responsibilities under front office and
back office department (Madera and et.al., 2017). So, customers do not get desirable services
which they need. It denotes that individuals do not have effective interpersonal skills that causes
unable to establish good relationship with customers and their issues as well. Due to poor
interpersonal skills leads less understating have resulted brings dissatisfaction among the guest
and decline sales revenue of the company. There are some members of team who does not have
ability to communicate with team members and works with them that have led ineffective
cooperation and coordination employees towards to achieve common goals.There have less
productive of employees in front office and back office that have increased pressure on fewer
staff members as well as reduced quality of services which offer to the end customer. Due to
ineffective management and poor working environment have led less turnover of staff so
Lanesborough must recruit new applicants for the certain posts on daily basis (Repenning,
Kieffer and Astor, 2017).
Impact of skills gap on business and suggestions
Extensive availability of skill gap and limited workforce have impacted on
Lanesborough’s business activity adversely such as customers or peopleare not preferred to
choose those hotels which delivers poor facilities or less quality services. High availability of
skill gap in staff members have enhanced work pressure, decreases service quality that can be
used to fulfil needs and desires of the customer. There are various competitors of Lanesborough
who have ability to recruit talented and skilled staff of the company because they have already
captured large market share and profitability. So, manager of the Lanesborough requires to
understand the skill gap to identify relevant challenges and problems which are faced by staff
while offering services. Lanesborough conducts skills and development program that helps to
improve existing skills, potentials and knowledge in individuals for delivering qualitative
services to the guest (McGuinness, Pouliakas and Redmond, 2017). Apart from this
Lanesborough must use skill audit approach that helps to determine strengths and weaknesses in
individuals own by own. With the skills audit approach manager of the hotel can give rank
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individuals through performance ranking scale. This performance ranking scale also supports
individuals or employees to over come their weaknesses and improves their capabilities. Thus,
Lanesborough can overcome skill gap in individuals and maintains their wellbeing. To attract
highly skilled and talented staff can introduce attractive incentives and employment policies
which automatically helps to retain exist staff members. With the incentive strategy
companyenables to gain short-term and long-term goals from their competitive by fulfilling
needs and desires of customers, that brings satisfaction level and encourages them to buy again
hotel services.
CONCLUSION
It has been concluded different type of hospitality sectors and classified based on the
accommodation, restaurant, theme parks, membership clubs and others in the report. It has
provided understanding about significance of relationship between hospitality and travel and
tourism sector. Different type of organizational structure like operational department, functional
department and others which keeps interrelationship to each other in the hospitality industry has
been summarized in this report. Wide range of different operational roles and their skills gaps
within hospitality industry can be concluded in this report.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Ali, F., Amin, M. and Cobanoglu, C., 2016. An integrated model of service experience,
emotions, satisfaction, and price acceptance: an empirical analysis in the Chinese
hospitality industry. Journal of Hospitality Marketing & Management. 25(4). pp.449-475.
Barhate, B., 2016. Perception of Software Employees towards Human Resource Development
Roles, Functions, and Professionals.
Bavik, A., 2016. Developing a new hospitality industry organizational culture
scale. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 58, pp.44-55.
Boella, M.J. and Goss-Turner, S., 2019. Human resource management in the hospitality
industry: A guide to best practice. Routledge.
Daif, R. and Elsayed, K., 2019. Viral Marketing Impact on Tourism and Hospitality
Industry. International Journal of Research in Tourism and Hospitality (IJRTH). 5(3).
pp.34-41.
Jones, P., Hillier, D. and Comfort, D., 2016. Sustainability in the hospitality
industry. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management.
Madera, J.M and et.al., 2017. Strategic human resources management research in hospitality and
tourism. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management.
McGuinness, S., Pouliakas, K. and Redmond, P., 2017. How useful is the concept of skills
mismatch?.
O'brien, J., 2019. Category management in purchasing: a strategic approach to maximize
business profitability. Kogan Page Publishers.
Ozturk, A.B., 2016. Customer acceptance of cashless payment systems in the hospitality
industry. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management.
Repenning, N.P., Kieffer, D. and Astor, T., 2017. The most underrated skill in management. MIT
Sloan Management Review.
Torres, E.N., van Niekerk, M. and Orlowski, M., 2017. Customer and employee incivility and its
causal effects in the hospitality industry. Journal of Hospitality Marketing &
Management. 26(1). pp.48-66.
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