Impact of Changing Consumer Preferences on Marriott Guest Services

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of guest service management at Marriott International. It begins with an overview of Marriott's background, services, and subsidiaries, emphasizing its position as a leading hospitality industry player. The report then delves into the company's quality management practices, highlighting its adoption of total quality management and continuous improvement techniques to ensure customer satisfaction. It examines how Marriott adapts to evolving consumer preferences, including technological changes, new regulations, and research and development strategies, and assesses the impact of these changes on guest service management. The report concludes by emphasizing the importance of guest services in the hospitality industry and how Marriott's proactive approach to quality and adaptation contributes to its success. The report also references various books and journals to support its findings and analysis.

Hospitality and Guest
Services

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................1
Overview of the Marriott International and its services..............................................................1
Quality management of Marriott.................................................................................................2
How hotel adapts to changing consumer preference...................................................................3
How these changes impacts on guest service management........................................................4
CONCLUSION ...............................................................................................................................5
REFERENCES ...............................................................................................................................6

INTRODUCTION
As the centre of front office activity, for coordinating the guest service front-most desk is
accountable. Typically providing the guest with informations and equipments includes in the
guest services. Taking care of customer is the heart of hospitality business which explore the
better quality of guest service and effective operations. For this project Marriott International is
taken which was founded in 1927 in United state. It is a leading diversified hospitality industry
in United Kingdom. The company provides food and beverages services to their customers for
increasing the customers loyalty and satisfaction. The key products of this company are hotels,
resorts and subsidiaries such as Starwood, Ritz Carlton and Le Meridien etc. Under this report
studied about the company background and their services. Also, discussed the quality
management by continuous improvement as well as adopts changes and its impacts on the
company.
MAIN BODY
Overview of the Marriott International and its services.
J. Willard Marriott and Alice Marriott are the founder of Marriott which is a leading
diversified hospitality industry in United Kingdom. This successful company is located in
Bethesda, United Sates. It came into existence in the year 1927 and are successfully meeting
emerging needs and wants of the customers over the years. As Marriott come under hospitality
industry it provides food and beverages services to their customers (Marriott International 2018).
Organization is serving it's quality services across the boundaries of the nation and are capable in
building loyal clients as compare to rivalry. It's key products are hotels and resorts as well as
subsidiaries are, Marriott, Le Meridien, Star-wood and Ritz Carlton. In intense competitive world
it is the world's largest travel company. Business administration is providing distinguish
visionary design and signature programming and services to their customers in order to bind
them for longer time duration. The portfolio designed by the company provide correct
information to client regarding right brand in right place across the globe. In the era of cut
throat competitive world this enterprise is succeeding because Marriott provide all necessary
resources to their staff members and motivate them to use them at optimum level. It drives
efficiency by maximizing huge revenue from the consumers as well as by cost saving tactics in
alignment with ownership.
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Quality management of Marriott.
QM is a structured approach to manage the overall organizations and focused on
improving the quality of outputs, goods and services through continual improvement of internal
practices. It also describe the management approach to long term success through the better
customer satisfaction (Astuti, Ginaya and Sadguna, 2018). Marriott being one of the large
international hotel with the good reputation of its quality services, it has adopted a holistic
approach of total quality management. This is to ensure that increasing customer coverage is
offered with the best service of superior quality. The hotel made extra efforts to ensure that hotel
is quipped with quality services that are consumer driven as well as mandate to achieve its goals
and objectives to ensure the customer satisfaction and happiness. This is achieved easily through
the application of total quality management as well as it improves the quality, effectiveness and
efficiency. For ensuring the adequate quality Marriott choose continuous improvement technique
for ongoing improvement of products, services as well as processes (Bharwani and Jauhari,
2017).
Continuous improvement is a method to make sure that the Marriott processes, practices
and methods are effective, efficient and accurate as possible. This should be done through four
steps such as plan, do, check and act. In plan stage identified the market opportunities and
formulate effective plan for change. Do step refers to the changes implement on a small scale for
improving the specific activity. After that use data to analyse the change results through check
process (Chaturvedi, 2017). At last, if changes are implemented successfully then enforced it on
large scale and regularly assess the actual outcomes.
It is beneficial for increasing the quality of products and services as well as improve
productivity of the company. Also, helps in minimising the cost, time and efforts for correcting
mistakes by gaining employees morale and satisfaction at a great extent for long term retention
of Marriott employees. For the continuous improvement a company needs to create or develop
the positive environment through choosing small manageable improvements, be open and
receptive feedback, conducting self assessments as well as work as a team (Chatzigeorgiou and
Simeli, 2017).
A philosophy of continuous quality improvement can helps in maintaining businesses to
adopting the changes, take competitive advantages by grabbing opportunities and avoid threats.
Marriott have its quality statement such as “achieving goal through company culture of skill and
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competence within the system of quality management in accordance with the principle of ISO
9001.” Overall quality management of Marriott hotels by focusing on some principles and
practices such as: proper utilisation of entire workforce, treating suppliers as a partners, establish
performance measurement, customer emphasised, commitment etc. Policies of Marriott
international are related to health and safety, environmental as well as quality policy (Chen,
2018).
A negative culture of the company impacts on the stakeholders mine at a large extent and
they do not accept changes as they believe in past experience. It may results in the failure
because of lack of support and commitments. Continuous improvement for improving and
managing the quality requires full contribution of every persons of a company (Edghiem and
Mouzughi, 2018). Also a company suffers from the losses and incurred more cost for preventing
the poor quality services in the company. Quality management is done through the continuous
improvement by maintaining the documentation in an appropriate manner as well as employees
training which helps in facing or handling the challenges.
How hotel adapts to changing consumer preference.
When Marriott completed its Star-wood hotels and resorts acquisitions it became the
world's largest hospitality company. The hospitality industry has faced several issues and
challenges in the recent past like shortage of labour and skills, technology and social media,
global emerging trends, lack of capital, evolving customer expectations etc. In recent years,
hoteliers and investors have been increasingly aware about the changes and impacts of social life
and environment on hotel operations and development (Gibson and Parkman, 2018). The
Marriott international has changed its work chopped out for keeping up with changing
technologies and customer demands. Some of the major changes are takes place by the company
that can be described below: Technological changes: As the technologies and internet become more familiar with the
society leads complexity in the operations of Marriott International so, a company moves
for third party operators and franchisees as well as do acquisitions for grabbing the
market opportunities (Kansakar, Munir and Shabani, 2019). New regulations: Employer was require to conduct regular evaluation to address and
analyse the particular risks. For resolving the problems a formal training program has
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adopts by the Marriott for extensive modification in current practices and policies to take
a competitive advantages. Research and development: Consumer preference are rapidly changes so Marriott
focused more on research and development strategy to identify the present market
conditions and try to cope up within the competitive world by grabbing opportunities
(Kennedy, 2018). New innovative and creative concepts: A company continuously emphasised on the
development of new innovative and creative concepts which helps in making difference
with their competitors. It is considered as continuous improvement for taking a
competitive advantages by providing superior quality and services (Ionel, 2016).
How these changes impacts on guest service management.
There are various things which impact customer experience through employee
engagement, online journey of customers, in store environment etc. Changes helps in handling
the complaints of guest by determining the customers, giving full attention, determined the
solution alternatives, finding the appropriate answer, taking corrective actions as well as
monitoring and control the action. If the guest is wrong in regards to the hotel policy must be
followed, be pleasant but explain the policy (Moreo, Green and O'Halloran, 2018). In addition,
hotel businesses is considered as a people oriented because employees of hotel have high contact
with its guests which leads in more stress. So, the changes helps in managing the stress of
workers in an effective manner and provide better solution that helps in positive interaction
between consumer and employees.
When Marriott continuously improved their processes, products and services by timely
developing some innovative services to satisfy the expectations of their customers which assist in
taking competitive advantages by facilitating better quality of services. Company adopts the
research and development strategy which impacts on the analysing and addressing market
situations and knowing the trends and opportunities that are required to know very first for
leading in the market (Naumov, 2019). This will helps in gaining maximum profit for the
company. Also, company formulates new rules and regulations to reduce the problems, issues
and challenges as well as provide effective training to their employees for handling them. Along
with this, company done self evaluation through constructive criticism regarding the company
culture, effective tools and methods for sharing expertise and knowledge. As well as monitors
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and shares information about changing socio-economic atmosphere and responds positively to
changes (Sipe and Testa, 2018).
There is a lot of excitement about new technology in customer service, support and
success but new technology come challenges too. It comes to learning for using and adopting
new technologies they are costly to implement for the Marriott International. New technologies
only serve to help customer-facing professionals to do their job effectively. changes are easily
accepted by their stakeholders puts positive impacts on the company's operations but continuous
improvement is must (Gibson and Parkman, 2018). For improving the quality of products,
services as well as processes, continuous improvement helps in taking competitive advantages
and lead the market by taking opportunities first and meet the customers expectations.
CONCLUSION
From the above report it has been concluded that guest service in hospitality industry is
important to ensure the customers satisfaction and meet the expectations of guest. It gives the
clear picture about the company and importance of guest service in the hospitality industry. Also,
superior quality of products, services as well as processes helps in taking competitive
advantages. Along with this a company adopts the changes according to the consumer
preferences and its impacts on the company. Use of technology in hospitality industry has helped
to speed-up the operations.
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REFERENCES
Books & Journals
Astuti, N. N. S., Ginaya, G. and Sadguna, I. G. A. J., 2018, October. A Hotel Front Desk
Receptionist and Catur Paramita Values: A Study of Implementing Local Wisdom in
Hospitality Industry. In 1st International Conference on Social Sciences (ICSS 2018).
Atlantis Press.
Bharwani, S. and Jauhari, V., 2017. An exploratory study of competencies required to cocreate
memorable customer experiences in the hospitality industry. In Hospitality Marketing
and Consumer Behavior (pp. 159-185). Apple Academic Press.
Chaturvedi, R. K., 2017. Mapping service quality in hospitality industry: A case through
SERVQUAL. Asian Journal of Management. 8(3). p.413.
Chatzigeorgiou, C. and Simeli, I., 2017. Perception of service quality in agrotourism
accommodations: Impact on guest loyalty and re-visit intentions.
Chen, X., 2018. Multidimensional study of hospitality and the host-guest paradigm in China.
International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management. 30(1). pp.495-513.
Edghiem, F. and Mouzughi, Y., 2018. Knowledge-advanced innovative behaviour: a hospitality
service perspective. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management.
30(1). pp.197-216.
Gibson, P. and Parkman, R., 2018. Cruise operations management: Hospitality perspectives.
Routledge.
Kansakar, P., Munir, A. and Shabani, N., 2019. Technology in the Hospitality Industry:
Prospects and Challenges. IEEE Consumer Electronics Magazine. 8(3). pp.60-65.
Kennedy, D., 2018. Get Your Hotel Operations Team Onboard The Tricycle of Guest Service.
Moreo, A., Green, A. J. and O'Halloran, R., 2018. What certifications are important in the
hospitality industry?. Journal of Human Resources in Hospitality & Tourism. 17(1).
pp.121-135.
Naumov, N., 2019. The impact of robots, artificial intelligence, and service automation on
service quality and service experience in hospitality. Robots, Artificial Intelligence, and
Service Automation in Travel, Tourism and Hospitality, Emerald Publishing Limited,
pp.123-133.
Sipe, L. J. and Testa, M. R., 2018. From satisfied to memorable: An empirical study of service
and experience dimensions on guest outcomes in the hospitality industry. Journal of
Hospitality Marketing & Management. 27(2). pp.178-195.
Gibson, P. and Parkman, R., 2018. Cruise operations management: Hospitality perspectives.
Routledge.
Ionel, M., 2016. Hospitality industry. Ovidius University Annals: Economic Sciences Series.
1(1). pp.187-191.
Online
Marriott International. 2018. [Online] Available through: <https://hotel-
development.marriott.com/>.
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