Critical Review of Management Challenges in Hotel Business, June 2020

This essay provides a critical review of management-related challenges confronting the hotel business, using a case study of 'The Case of the Moroccan Guest'. It assesses the management and leadership skills required to address operational issues and appraises the initiatives taken to establish an effective operational model. The essay emphasizes the importance of communication, interpersonal skills, and motivational skills in addressing operational discrepancies. It also reviews contemporary management practices, such as outsourcing, alliances, and flexibility, highlighting their impact on customer-related issues. The essay discusses the HERO model and its focus on employee well-being and organizational outcomes. The analysis includes examples from Taj Hotels, Ginger Hotels, and ITC Hotels, illustrating how various management practices affect guest satisfaction and operational efficiency. The student assignment examines the application of these management principles in the context of the hospitality industry.

INSTITUTE OF HOTEL MANAGEMENT-
AURANGABAD
Essay
A critical review of management related challenges confronting hotel business, A case study of
'The case of the Moroccan guest'.
Pratik Tendulkar (1875307)
Management of Hospitality Organization for Hotel Management (BII 2048)
“Submitted in fulfilment of the requirement for B.A. (Hons) in Hotel Management”
UNIVERSITY OF HUDDERSFIELD
UNITED KINGDOM
June 2020

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A critical review of management related challenges confronting hotel business, a case
study of 'The case of the Moroccan guest
1) Assess the management and leadership skills required to address the operation related
issues and appraise the initiatives taken to establish an effective operational model.
Answer: - The general manager of a hotel must balance several different responsibilities and
duties. Most successful hotel managers have a certain skill set that helps them pull together
all the necessary attributes that make them successful. The most crucial skills that every
hotel manager should have include excellent communication, interpersonal skills, oriented
to detail, operational knowledge, leadership, team building, financial skills and flexibility
Hotel managers are responsible for maintaining the safety of their buildings, solving
problems between employees or guests, staying up-to-date on changes in procedure, keeping
up with industry journals and so much more Organizational influencers are the component
that clout multiple variables that are act as forces behind the rise of operational issues or
guest satisfaction. For any hospitality enterprise to succeed in achieving guest satisfaction,
the organization requires strong leadership that is competent in handling all kinds of
circumstances. The organization is faced with all kinds of operational challenges on a
routine basis and the management is expected to have the qualitative abilities to handle them
in an efficient manner these skills are divided into “cognitive skills” that are required for
processing information, “Interpersonal skills” that are required for effective communication
and “strategic skills” for developing effective plans (Mumford, Campion & Morgenson,
2007).
But it is first imperative to understand the effect behavior of individual or groups can have
on the organizational factors that lead to the issues.
Organizational influencers are the component that clout multiple variables that are act as
forces behind the rise of operational issues or guest satisfaction. These influential factors are
in turn a product of the behavior of individuals serving a guest to the whole group running a
department. A healthy and positive behaviour from the ground up till the top-level
management can greatly affect the organizational factors through the creation of Positive
Organizational Behaviour. The paradigm is effective in creating a positive trend in the
organization’s work performance as it creates a value through positive business model
which puts focus on personnel prosperity and the work performance can be increased in a
sustained manner without burning out the employees and putting mental and physical
pressure (Hansen & Wernerfelt, 1989) (Manuti & Giancaspro, 2019).
Management needs to have the competency of identifying and rectifying elements that

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might hinder the daily activities. These issues can be drop in efficiency of the employee,
unawareness of the procedures and protocols and many more. Taj hotels for example has
taken the initiative of conducting town hall on monthly basis which focuses on creating a
positive work environment through celebrating associate’s birthdays, recognising and
rewarding the efforts taken by them to improve guest satisfaction and ensure guests and
colleague’s safety. This initiative motivates employees to work better through recognition.
conducting sessions where they are taught and assessed about procedures and practices,
interaction and discussion about the problems faced by the hotel. The negative reviews
given by the guests are also agenda of the meeting where the negative comments are
discussed to make people aware about it and prevent such events from happening again.
This practice makes the team aware of the places
where the operations were not up to the mark and it encourages employees to find the issue
and fix it. But the effort seems to be most successful in bringing the head of the hotel i.e. the
GM on the same platform as other employees where he can speak up directly to the staff
about his views and opinions on matters and where the employees also get an opportunity to
reach out to them about issues and methods of solving them which brings the organization
together.
The HERO model in a way highlights the way behaviour affects the organizational factors
as it highlights the three sects, “healthy resources and practices” that covers the employees’
success in obtaining their professional goals in addition to learning and development which
checks the box for trained personnel and professionalism, which prevents the personnel
from making procedural mistakes due to lack of skill and knowledge. “healthy employees”
refers to the trust, positive state of minds in and within the employees and departments
which leads to the work commitment, healthy communication, resilience and sense of pride
for the organization (Lozano, 2008) (Xiong & King, 2019). The final “healthy
organizational outcomes” sheds light on productivity of employees through higher ROI and
levels of guest satisfaction (Zainal Abidin, Arendt & Strohbehn, 2013). The Hero or Healthy
and Resilient Organization model not only focused on performance and profitability but also
on physical well-being (Salanova, Llorens, Cifre & Martinez, 2012)
The above discussion sheds light on the most important leadership and managerial skills
required that are relationship building that are required to foster strong relations to maintain
strong communication and understanding between the employees and with the guests,
communication skills to spread the message clearly and effectively for the employees to

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understand and react and motivational skills to come up with the ways to successfully keep
the level of the workforce’s motivation high. These three skills are the most crucial skills
that can benefit in addressing operational discrepancies as the outcome of these three
practices influences a number of other factors that can cause the processes to disrupt. As it
was learned in the case of Panam Hotel, the management lacked skills to combat operational
issues as the management failed to communicate with the departments about the guests’
arrival of the guests and the SOPs to be followed while handling him and his wishes. They
failed to confirm that was he going to stay alone or was someone accompanying him,
breaching the steps of taking any reservation, they failed to take the identification of the
person accompanying him. Then the management failed to brief the controller about the
rules of guest privacy and the requirements of Mr. Suddan which led to breach of guest
privacy and security and at the end the operator failed to inform the occupant of the room
about the call and directly connected the call to his room (Clarke, Rig & Mayo, 2019). This
case study thus highlighted many issues
faced by any organization like lack of communication, training and awareness. If the
management would have had the skills, they would have spotted the problem and would
have rectified them before all of this happened and could have saved themselves from a
mountain of mess.
2) Review the contemporary management practices to prevent views on customer related

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issues and provide valid justification.
Answer: - To understand and review the practices adopted by managers in the contemporary
world, first it has to be understood what is management practices and their importance.
Management practices can be thought of as the innovations and frameworks brought in by
executives in power with the aim of increasing the output or efficiency of the corporation
through minimum input in terms of efforts and resources and maximum engagement time
during working hours (Lipman, 2013) (Luenendonk, 2017).
Since the economic disruption of 2008, more and more organizations have resorted towards
applying a mix between employing full time staff for the core operations and outsourcing the
secondary jobs on contract or contracting personnel to oblige with during periods of increased
demand and workload (Yang & Horak, 2019). This practice has proven effective for the
administrations to focus on the core duties or aims of the entity as they exclusively have to deal
with the main tasks of providing the guest with the best accommodation services when looked in
the context of hospitality business. The main payoff of this practice is reduction in costs where
the benefit is passed on to the consumer. A perfect example is the IHCL’s Ginger brand of hotels
that focuses on providing star-level accommodation with basic frills to the guests for highly
competitive rates as the hotel focuses on the providing the accommodation and F&B services are
outsourced to contractors. Another such practice in the modern highly competitive global
business environment in co-operation between competitors, when sharing the same consideration
of maximum penetration while keeping the costs in hand, companies have formed alliances to
serve the public while sharing the costs and profits incurred in the process(Simatupang &
Sridharan, 2002) (Soosay, Hylabd & Ferrer, 2008). Such alliances can be found everywhere,
airlines share the employees at airports to reduce costs and increase efficiency and global
alliances like Star alliance allows the airlines to serve a wide range of market without deploying
huge amounts of money, ITC hotels markets its flagship hotels like ITC Maurya and ITC Grand
Chola under the Marriott’s “The Luxury Collection” brand which enables them to reach global
markets with a far more recognized brand with a larger footprint (ITC, 2016).
Flexibility is another trait practiced by organizations to mould into the cultural environment of
the employees as well as the customers, some organizations are trying to adapt practice of
organizational flexibility. An argument laid down by Matusik & Hill (1998) highlighted the
possibility of flexibility being perceived in two contexts, the first one sought development of
learning and employment opportunity through incorporation of decision-making measures
between employees and employers, a trait McGregor found in group Y people (Kopelman,

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Prottas & Davis, 2005) to arrive at the best consensus with the aim of job security in the
background. The other approach designated as the “low-road” puts emphasis on obtaining the
flexibility through cost cutting measures by outsourcing maximum work or hiring labour based
on contingency. These two types of flexibility models are dubbed as functional flexibility and
numerical flexibility.
The hotel industry has heavily relied on the numerical flexibility model, due to the nature of tight
margins and highly fluctuating demands. In countries like the Russia and United Kingdom the
managers have regularly practiced hiring part-time, casual and immigrant workers based on
requirements to meet with the demand. Even in India, especially in medium to small properties
this practice is frequent due to the low number of employees required to operate the properties on
regular basis. Whereas larger properties have the flexibility to shuffle internal employees as the
size of operations allow the accommodation of larger labour pool and they only have to rely on
external staff during huge events requiring complete dedication towards the job. Contingency
based workers are also cost effective as the companies have less compliance to meet and they are
only paid for the duration of work rather than while being idle on the permanent payroll
(Kabalina, Zelenova & Reshetnikova, 2019).
These practices can have varied issues from the customers as can be complicated to rectify due to
their external nature. Like when contracting restaurant to an outside operator, the hotel might get
a steady stream of income from rent, but the quality of food and service standards get out of the
hotel management’s control. The contractor might focus on profit and deliver sub-par levels of
service and food which may not be satisfactory to the customer, when looked in the case of
Ginger, the customers who know the brand comes under IHCL but might be unaware of the fact
that F&B operations are outsourced, might be disappointed if they experience was not as
expected. International tourists booking a room with ITC hotels through Marriott might expect
the experience they get in Marriott branded hotels and might not like the style and service
distinction of ITC even though it might be better than the whole industry for the simple reason
that they were not aware that that Marriott and ITC are competitors and thus distinct themselves
through their service and style. A similar issue might be faced by the guest when they interact
with or are served by an part-time personnel during any event or visit to the hotel, if the level of
professionalism and skill is not up to the hotel’s mark a seasoned guest who has being associated
with the brand for a long time or travels frequently might easily notice the difference thus
affecting their experience (Knox & Walsh, 2005).

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3) Examine the measures to be taken to balance the management practices and guest
privacy applying organizational behavior theories of relevance.
Answer: Guest privacy is a part of the wider organizational privacy, and in the modern day do
digitalization and globalization, managing privacy has become even more critical. Privacy
management is about the creation of an organization wide behavior of viewing security as a
responsibility that requires attentiveness pushing responsibility towards the stakeholders. It is
not only about not meddling with the space of the guest during their stay, but also ensuring their
private data such as IDs and credit card details are safe with us and their information is not just
handed out to anyone asking for it as if anything leaks from within the organization due to
negligence or security breach the image of the company is tarnished permanently and questions
are raised about the practices and procedures (Pfleeger, Trope & Palmer, 2007). Thus, it is not
only a legal obligation laid down by the legislators but also a social responsibility towards the
patrons and the hospitality industry is one of the most vulnerable industry along with banking
industry due to its nature of handling personal information of millions of travellers daily.
The case study reflected the least of the harms that could be inflicted to the guest and the hotel
itself if the guest’s personal information is shared without their consent. The whole problem
was started from the top management itself, the operator was not provided with the prescribed
procedures and briefing and neither was the hotel management competent in in sharing the
message throughout the organization regarding his instruction of handling his calls.
Nevertheless, the operator should have been aware of informing the guest about the call and
taking their permission to forward it (Clarke, Rig & Mayo, 2019). This made the hotel liable for
breach of privacy and opened the gates for a lawsuit. One other place where the hotel failed to
enforce the privacy and security rules were when it failed to take the identification of Mr.
Morocco’s companion. This fault made the hotel a party in personal matters of the guest which
any property should avoid at all costs until it affects them directly.
A consistent guest to a lodging property may avoid a few stages since employees realize they
come frequently, go through loads of cash and are given official benefits. This case study flags
the requirement for hoteliers to survey security measures month to month with representatives,
while giving guests exceptional services that don't pose an attack to guest security. Hotels are a
home away from home, as such visitor security issues ought to be of worry to inn operators.
Guest security in the hospitality business has been getting huge amount of consideration from
specialists everywhere throughout the world yet there is still a lot to do so as to help the
industry to receive the accepted procedures that can augment benefit while ensuring their

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privacy rights
There are several practices that a manager can adopt in order to ensure better and smooth
functioning of the organisational processes. In the past decades tourism has experienced
continuous growth and has managed to become one of the world’s largest and fastest growing
industry, overcoming all others. However, such growth often comes with unsustainable
consumption practices that endanger the ecosystems of the world. Global issues such as climate
change, global warming, poverty and various types of pollution and resource depletion have
become contemporary hot topics. (Trang, Lee, & Heesup, 2019).
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, is a motivational theory of management, comprising of a five
tier model of human needs. Often depicted as hierarchical levels within a pyramid. Needs lower
down in the hierarchy must be satisfied before individuals can attend to needs higher up in the
pyramid. From the bottom of pecking order, upwards the needs are as follows; physiological,
safety, belonging or affiliation, self-esteem and at the very top is self-actualisation. (Mcleod,
2020). McGregor theory of X and Y: In the 1960s, social psychologist, Douglas McGregor,
developed two contrasting theories that explained how managers beliefs about what motivates
their employees can affect their management style. He labelled these as the following; theory X
and theory Y. these theories continue to be important and relevant as latest as today. If you
believe that your employees dislike their work, and have little determination so as to complete a
given task or chore, then according to McGregor, we as an employer or a management leader
would apply authoritarian style of management with respect to the particular individual. This
style of management is a hands on process which guarantees a fruitful result and helps achieve
organisational goals and pre-set objectives. It usually involves micro managing people’s work
so as to ensure that it gets done properly. McGregor called this theory of X. On the other hand,
if an employee or an individual has keen interest in his work, and takes pride in their works
along with seeing it as a challenge, then the employer or the manager should apply a
Participative type or style of management. Managers who use such style of management has
complete trust in his employee or team member’s performance and determination. McGregor
called this theory of his, theory Y. (Theory X and Theory Y: Understanding People's
Motivation, 2015).
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