Tourist Resort Management Report: Packages, Challenges and Solutions

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of tourist resort management, encompassing various types of resorts such as ski, spa, beach, and golf resorts. It delves into their key features, operational requirements, and potential challenges, including issues related to staff training, customer bookings, and brand image. The report explores different resort packages designed to meet sales objectives and maximize profitability, offering recommendations for package development based on market research conducted at Low Wood Bay Resort & Spa. Furthermore, it examines customer needs and wants, emphasizing the importance of developing resort packages that align with guest requirements. The report also evaluates diverse approaches organizations implement for effective management, assessing their impact on organizational performance and highlighting methods to enhance company profitability.

Tourist Resort Management
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Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
TASK 1............................................................................................................................................3
1.1 The different kinds of resorts and key features within tourism sector.............................3
1.2 Operational requirement and potential issues for management of resort in special area.5
1.3 Operational requirement ranges of resort and their strategies helps in order to minimize
the challenges and issues........................................................................................................6
1.4 Potential issues and challenges to be managed by the range of resorts in tourism sector.6
TASK 2............................................................................................................................................8
2.1 Various resort packages in order to fulfil the sales objectives.........................................8
2.2 The overall packages and their implications on business...............................................10
2.3 Recommendations on resort packages aimed to maximise profitability of the business11
TASK 3..........................................................................................................................................11
Explain the customer needs and wants and developing resort package plan in order to fulfil the
guest requirements.........................................................................................................................11
3.1 Conduct market research into a specific resort location and determine the needs of a
chosen target market.............................................................................................................11
3.2 Examine the requirements of customers on that basis resort packages helps to maximise
business profitability............................................................................................................18
3.3 Evaluate resorts developing packaging which are important from selling point of view.18
TASK 4..........................................................................................................................................18
4.1 Examine & investigate assorted approaches that organisation implement effectively. 18
4.1 Evaluate the various methods which impact organisation performance........................21
4.2 Describe briefly all the methods which resort are investigated and implemented in order
to enhancing profitability of company. ...............................................................................21
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................21
References......................................................................................................................................22
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INTRODUCTION
A resort is a place which provides various kinds of facilities to guest such lodging, food,
drinks, entertainment, shopping and sports on their premises (Pagliarin, 2017). However, there
are different kinds of operational nature and faces of the resorts. Discussing them and various
factors related to them form the outline of this report. This report consists of various types of
resorts, their features and packages. It also includes issues and challenges faced by them.
Recommendations are made to address those issues. In addition, market research has been
conducted and business plan has been prepared for the chosen resort. Resort chosen for this
report is Low Wood Bay Resort & Spa. It is situated in Windermere, UK and offers restaurant,
lounge, free Wifi, health club, spa, water sports and many other facilities .
TASK 1
1.1 The different kinds of resorts and key features within tourism sector
Resorts are commercial establishment that provide different kinds of facilities and array
of amenities. Below mentioned are various kinds of resorts, their highlighted features, issues
faced and recommendatory solutions:
Ski resorts: This kind of resorts are developed for skiing, snowboarding and other winter
sports. They usually exists near ski areas i.e. mountain areas with pistes or where ski lift system
exists. There are various kinds of ski resorts – freestyle, snowboarding, off-piste, telemark, cross-
country, etc. which offered variety of services like self-catered services, catered chalet packages,
etc. For example, Weardale Ski Resort. They offer various services like wet rooms, ski
equipments, etc. Major issue that the business faces is global warming which has impacted its
operational time and now resort is not able to open in summer. Since, they had to reduce
operational time, they had to increase their prices for different camps that they offer, which
reduces customer footfall (Viken, 2016). Resort has to develop different priced and service
packages so that they can attract customers back. Additionally, marketing strategies must be
revamped as well as advanced technologies must be taken help of to enhance customer
experience.
Spa resort-: These resorts offers spa services as primary or speciality. For example, Low
Wood Bay Resort & Spa. They are providing various indoor and outdoor thermal spa facilities
like massage, facials, body treatments, salt glows, body wraps and also services such as steam,
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sauna, fitness facility, and swimming pool as well as various kind spa treatment like mineral-rich
mud therapy, regular spa classes, yoga session, heath related education, personal trainer and
many others. They are subjected to various licenses and regulatory check ups by authorities so
they need to well maintain all health and safety measures all the time. Their main issue is
availability of multiple rivals both from other spa resorts and other hotels which offer Spa
facilities as well as ensuring that their treatment does not prove harmful to someone's health.
They have re-designed their promotional strategies to tell customers about their competitive
advantages over rivals. Also, professionals are hired to give services. Additionally, test checks
must be done on body to check if the treatment is safe for customers in accordance with their spa
history and medical history (Rutelione, Hopenienė and Žalimienė, 2018).
Beach resort-: These kinds of resorts are located in the coastal areas near beaches. For
example, Little Haven Hotel at the gateway of River Tyne, South Sheilds. It provides all kind
facility to customers that other luxury hotels offer like wi-fi, swimming pool, AI rooms, etc. but
charge high price as it is situated at premium location and offers picturesque interiors. It also
offers club, evening entertainment, beach sports, etc. Biggest issue faced by the resort is
changing needs and preferences of customers which puts additional burden over the management
and employees of the resorts so that it does not lag behind in competition. To manage this, resort
has developed generalised and customized packages of services through which customers if
needed, can specify services which they want to enjoy. Additionally, it can interact with
customers through feedback and online reviews to know more about what they expect.
Golf resort-: These are usually those resorts which are situated in golf course or those
hotels which offer golf sport facilities. For example, The Gleneagles resort, Scotland. It offers
multiple services like luxurious guest rooms, outdoor activities, leisure activities, restaurant,
bars, spa, etc. It is a premium location however, faces multiple challenges related to resort
management such high price of maintaining golf course, licenses, coaches, etc. but most
important are water issues. Golf course requires lots of water to maintain which makes it difficult
to conserve a scarce resource. Resort uses treated waste water to maintain golf course and
encourages water wastage minimisation. Additionally, it needs to develop innovative techniques
to maintain golf court or use techniques like dripping technique, shower technique, etc.
(Gössling, 2015) Also, its membership is high priced and to increase its customer footfall, it
needs to introduce affordable packages.
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1.2 Operational requirement and potential issues for management of resort in special area.
Below mentioned are the few operational requirement of resorts and the potential issues
faced in managing them.
Training of staff members -
Operational requirements - Operational requirement is that employees must be properly
trained in the services that they need to provide. For example, front desk and housekeeping staff
must be trained in proving customer services with empathy and politeness. There are other
specialised jobs which requires specially skilled people like lifeguards, sports instructors, etc.
Potential issues – Resorts often see turnover at lower and middle level of staffing which
arises need for frequent trainings. Also, trends in the services changes frequently. All this
increases training costs and overall cost of the organisation related to employees (De la Peña and
et.al., 2019).
Customer bookings
Operational requirement -This includes presenting multiple options to customers so that
they can make bookings at the resort. They must be provided direct bookings on call, at website,
through intermediaries like TripAdvisor, Expedia, etc. To maintain competition, various
promotional strategies need to be designed, offers and discounts must be provided, etc.
Potential issues – Sometimes, network is down and phone calls and internet services are
unavailable. This results in customer loss. Also, resorts offers varied and customised packages
along with promotional offers and discounts. Frequenting them, updating them and keeping up
with them is a separate function in itself and lag in it, creates operational issues.
Building of brand image
Operational requirement – All the operations directed towards marketing and customer
services help in building brand image. They must also have in place risk management strategies,
safety audit, etc. so that operational efficiency must be ensured (Eide, Fuglsang and Sundbo,
2017).
Potential issues – Customer behaviour and expectations changes which increases cost of
the resorts to adopt and adapt. Also, maintaining operational efficiencies while regularly
reviewing risks strategies as well as audit requirements not only add to functions but also add
cost.
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1.3 Operational requirement ranges of resort and their strategies helps in order to minimize the
challenges and issues.
Every business operations involves multiple processes and face different challenges
during them. Resorts operations include requirements related to infrastructure management, staff
management, product and services management, etc. Below mentioned are the operational
strategies that help in facing various challenges such as seasonal change, environmental change,
social, health and safety measures, control of substances hazardous, etc.
 Resorts must plan and adopt policies for infrastructure management that should be in
sustainability with nature and local communities (Fesenmaier and Xiang, 2016). For
example, ski resorts and beach resorts are situated on ecologically sensitive areas and all
the activities that take place there must be properly dealt in a sensitive manner like for
construction, loud music, waste generations, etc. Advanced technologies must be adopted
so that minimal sound pollution and least construction and other wastes generate.
Recycling and reuse must be promoted.
 Resorts must hire qualified staff for skilled jobs and unskilled or semi-skilled. All the
staff must be given proper training and appraisal so that they are able to give best
experience to customers. For example, success of Spa resorts depend more on their
skilled staff than any other type of resort.
 Optimising cost management must be the aim of product and service management.
Resorts can optimise cost by improving effectiveness and efficiency in front office jobs
like housekeeping and CRM as they are directly related to customer service and in back
office jobs such as inventory management, logistics management. Zero waste generation
must be aimed (Aragon-Correa, Martin-Tapia and de la Torre-Ruiz, 2015). Also,
marketing policies must be creative that attract customers to visit resort once and
customer services should be so effective that they visit repeatedly and also suggest others.
1.4 Potential issues and challenges to be managed by the range of resorts in tourism sector.
Each kind of resort type have their specialised as well as general challenges which have to
be managed by their management. They face general challenges related to employee
management, customer satisfaction, product and service development, etc. for which they must
do employee engagement - hire and train specialist employees, services management, improvise
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marketing strategies, conducting multiple audits, etc. Few specific challenges faced by them are
below mentioned:
Ski Resorts
Challenges – They face both natural and man-made challenges. Natural challenges
include avalanche, snowstorms, etc. while man-made challenges include maintaining ski range,
management of walkways, etc. (Fodness, 2017)
Recommendation – Indoor and artificial ski ranges can be developed. AI can be used to
create virtual experiences and also, will add new feature to the resorts. New features will attract
more customers.
Beach Resorts
Challenges – Developing such packages of services that provide differentiated value and
enjoyment to different groups of customers. Also, they must ensure that they operate in
sustainability with coastal environment and local community that lives near coast.
Recommendation – Opportunities to customise their own packages can be provided to
customers as well as resorts can do market survey to know what new developments are
happening in market all over the world and what customers want and these packages can then be
used. Sustainability in operations needs to be taken care so as to not disturb either coastal
environment or local communities at the time of mass footfall.
Golf Resorts
Challenges – They faces challenges like maintaining golf course, availability of trained
staff, license management, water conservation issues, habitat displacement, etc. (Papageorgiou,
2016)
Recommendation – Professionals must be hired to manage golf court and train people.
Advanced techniques like dripping and turf techniques can be used to maintain golf court with
least usage of water.
Spa Resorts
Challenges – Biggest challenge that they face are related to management of spa facilities.
Resorts have mineral and thermal spa facilities and various treatments are provided with them.
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Providing professional services which do not possess health risks for anyone is challenging.
Moreover, safety of both equipment and environment is important as they are subject to various
legal regulations and authoritative inspections.
Recommendation – Only qualified must be hired and given proper professional training.
Customers must be pre-asked their health risks so that no health hazard arises later. As well as
regular safety audit must be conducted and a proper risk management plan must be in place so
that neither issue arriver at inspections nor in customer service quality (Edgell Sr, 2019).
TASK 2
2.1 Various resort packages in order to fulfil the sales objectives.
Packages of the resorts are in accordance with few factors such as nature of resort, location
that they are at and the facilities that they offer like spa, wi-fi, technologically advanced rooms,
sporting facilities like indoor and outdoor games, swimming pool, bar, restaurant, dine-in, etc. Its
purpose is to help customers decide the services they wish to avail and employees to know what
services they have to provide to customers. Usually hotels and resorts classify their packages for
two types of customers: B2B packages – These packages are for business organisations and their employees.
These are usually booked for services like conferences, corporate meetings, corporate
get-away, etc.
 B2C packages – These packages are offered to general public visiting the place for
leisure and tourism purposes. Customers choose packages according to the services that
they wish to avail according to their budget and choice (Weir, 2017).
Low Wood Bay resorts and spa has packages for both types of businesses. They offers varied
packages and service to customers like regular room packages, sports packages and various kinds
of spa packages which is the USP of this resort. Various kinds of packages that other types of
resorts offers are:
Premium packages-: These are the highest priced packages of the resorts therefore, are
aimed at high income customers. Main aim of these packages are to provide best services
available to customers.
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Moderate packages-: These packages offers all the basic services room services and dine-
in services to the customers and includes the options to customise the services. Prices vary
accordingly. These are usually aimed at upper middle class customers.
Economic package-: These are very basic packages which includes only basic services
that are customised. They are provided at nominal charges and mainly target those customers
which are either from lower middle income.
E-solution for packages - For customers - It includes booking packages online whether at resort website or various
intermediary website like TripAdvisor, Trip.com, Expedia, etc. They offer several
advantages like choosing out of multiple options based on prices, reviews, facilities,
photos, videos, etc., customisation of services, booking from the website which offers
least price and best customer services, online payment, etc.
 For Resorts – They are able to attract larger and more diverse customers. They are able
to interact with their customers online, understand their needs and offer them better
services so that they can improve their customer footfall and profitability (Coccossis and
Mexa, 2017).
Some resort specific packages include:
Packages for beach resorts - Holiday packages – These are the packages that are offered on holidays such as
Christmas, new year, Easter, etc. and includes special parties, offers, services along with
basic services.
 Regular packages – These are the regular days packages offered and prices varies
according to demand and room occupancy. They include all the services offered and
customised (Gössling, 2015).
For example, Little Haven Hotel is constructed at the coast of beautiful little haven beach
and offers beautiful boardwalk restaurant. It offers regular packages according to room types
which includes ocean view, family rooms, suites, etc. They have 62 rooms and get break-even at
the occupancy of 60%. Their USP is their special party packages on Christmas and new year that
gives the feeling of having a party on the deck at the beach.
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Packages for the Spa resorts -
They offers varied services like steam, sauna, fitness facilities, health-related educational
exercises, etc. and packages vary according to the service they offer. For example, Low Wood
Bay Resorts & Spa is able to attain break-even with 65% occupancy with people booking only
day spa packages for it has to incur extra cost of managing health and wellness quality of spa
facilities. It offers packages for indoor and outdoor thermal facilities, few of which are below
mentioned: Spa & Dine Spa day package – These include three hours packages for indoor and
outdoor thermal spa facilities with afternoon. The prices range from £65-75 per person.
 Thermal journey with mud – This includes thermal journey for 3 hours in which person
is covered in natural and mineral-rich dead sea mud in a steamed room. It is available at
£60 per person.
Packages for the Ski resorts - Winter skiing package – These packages include those packages which are offered on
natural ski landscapes to kids, families, groups, couples, etc. and the prices vary
according to services they avail (Timothy and Boyd, 2015).
 Summer skiing package – They are either artificially developed landscapes or artificially
managed landscapes in summers when there is no snow therefore, these are more costly.
Again, packages are developed for different groups and prices vary as per services
availed.
For example, Weardale Ski resorts offers packages for high income customers. They
charge higher margin to maintain operations and keep their variable costs as low as possible.
Therefore, they are able to manage break-even at 35% occupancy. They allow customisation of
the services to reduce costs further. They charge prices at £48 per person for adults (18 plus),
£10 for intermediate age range (10-17) and £5 for kids under 10.
2.2 The overall packages and their implications on business
Resorts prepare such diverse packages both with variety of prices and facilities with an
aim to target customers of all income ranges. Nature and price of packages directly impact
revenue and profitability of the businesses. They vary packages according to boom period and
lean phase (Inkson and Minnaert, 2018). They follow social media to gauge customer needs and
change their business and marketing strategies accordingly with an established sales target.
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Packages are designed in such a way that least cost is incurred to the company and maximum
benefit is provided to customers so that they prefer Low Wood over their rivals always and
spread positive word-of-mouth for them.
2.3 Recommendations on resort packages aimed to maximise profitability of the business
All the packaging, promotion and businesses are aimed at developing brand image of the
resort and attracting various types of customers (Sotiriadis, 2017). Few recommendations to
optimise packages aimed at maximising profitability of the Low Wood Bay Resorts & Spa are
mentioned below:
 Resort need to minimise their cost to improve profitability therefore, they should create
only basic pack which does not have much of variable cost and for the rest should allow
customisation or offer customised packages so that minimum cost can be ensured.
 Automation in processes can be increased as even though initial cost of automation can
be high, its help in cost cutting later in the processes which helps in increasing profit in
future. These AI processes can be highlighted in packages, it helps in increasing package
price which further improves profit margins.
 Resort shall market their packages properly with the help of traditional sources like
advertisements and innovative like social media campaigns. They can also organise
various parties, festivals and events on-board that will help in increasing their popularity
and improving their attractiveness in the eyes of customers.
TASK 3
Explain the customer needs and wants and developing resort package plan in
order to fulfil the guest requirements.
3.1 Conduct market research into a specific resort location and determine the needs of a chosen
target market
Different types of market research available to understand consumer needs:
It is important for an organisation to understand customer requirements as it helps in the
attainment of business goals and objectives by extracting the needs and wants of the people in
the given market . In order to understand the needs of consumer company need to perform the
following types of market researches :
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 Questionnaire: In this random questions related to goods or service provided by the
company is been asked by selecting a random group of people and the results is been
noted down and the needful action is been taken regarding it, by the management of an
organisation (Aro and et. al., 2018).
 Online Survey: This type of surveys can be found while browsing any site online, In this
a small feedback form is been offered to the viewer about any product or service, General
questions are mentioned about its quality, price, potion size etc. Taking feedback: It is one of the important part for every business firm to get the
acknowledgement for it's work, It can be conducted in two types verbally and written.
Generally it is offered after delivering of any product or services seeking information
about it's quality.
Research methods and techniques used to collect information about consumer needs &
preferences:
In order to collect information about the customer requirements and preferences, Low
Wood Bay Resort & Spa make use of secondary method of data collection as it requires less time
and money. In addition to this, the company also conduct online survey that is filled by consumer
at the time of opening its website. Moreover, it help Low Wood Bay Resort & Spa to know
about customer requirement which is fulfil by them in order to gain trust and loyalty of customer.
Tools considered for competitor analysis
Low Wood Bay Resort & Spa uses porter's five force model for competitor analysis. It is
a strategic tool that help an organisation to know about the level of competition prevailing at
marketplace. In addition to this, it involve five competitive forces that is threat of substitute,
threat of new entrants, competitive rivalry, bargaining power of buyer and suppliers. With the
help of this, Low Wood Bay Resort & Spa is able to know about its competition in market and
develop effective strategies in order to attain competitive advantage at marketplace.
Need of chosen target market: The target market of Low Wood Bay Resort & Spa is
people who belong from the age group of 20 to 40 years. In addition to this, it focus on middle
and high class people who prefer to spent time and money for spent vacations in resort. For this,
the resort provide different packages to the customers along with its different services that is
entertainment, sports, room customisation and so on. It is determine that in the present time
period, the requirements of customer is changed as they prefer customisation and personalisation
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