Resort Operations Management: A Case Study of Thomas Cook

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RESORT OPERATIONS
Resort Operations
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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................4
LO1: Task 1.....................................................................................................................................4
A. Investigation and analysis of different functions of the selected resort, including
coordination and handling of different tour operators and customer’s service operations with
managing legal and health issues (P1.1)......................................................................................4
B. Analysis of the resort management structure and functions of different tour operators with
their guest- services, along with different seasonal program (P1.2)............................................6
LO2: Task 2.....................................................................................................................................7
A. Identify the importance of effective quality system in resort operations, describing the ways
the selected resort apply this in managing different conflicts and legal issues (P2.1)................7
B. Analyse how the implementation of this effective quality system in the selected resort
provides a positive result in the resort operations (P2.2).............................................................8
LO3: Task 3.....................................................................................................................................9
A. Analyse the range of incidents, which may affect the health and safety of the customers and
staffs in the resort operations and evaluate how a measure can be implemented by the tour
operator to resolve the issue (P3.1 and 3.2).................................................................................9
B. Describe how these processes can be implemented (P3.3)...................................................10
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................11
References......................................................................................................................................14

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Introduction
Resort operations are included under the hospitality industry, which is considered as a fast
growing sector in the economy. In this sector, the major tasks are including the management of
the guest services and maintaining a proper relationship in between the host and guests.
However, in case of resort operations, some additional services can be included in this service,
which can differentiate the resort services from hotel management. Thus, it can be stated that a
resort operations can be regarded as a more expanded and successful execution of the hotel
industry, which elevate the capacities of a hotel. This study is focused on tee sort management of
Thomas Cook, which is a well-known organisation in UK, having specialized tour operators
along with resorts in the different locations (Tsui et al. 2012). This organisation is famous for the
making of tailor made holiday and luxury vacation for their clients. This study is based on the
resort of this hotel in Caribbean island. The management of resort operations in this organisation
is analyzed and described in this study mentioning the impacts of effective quality system in
their business activity.
LO1: Task 1
A. Investigation and analysis of different functions of the selected resort, including
coordination and handling of different tour operators and customer’s service operations
with managing legal and health issues (P1.1)
Thomas Cook is considered as one of the famous tour operating organisations, which have
performing their business over several years (Grad et al. 2012). Besides, the organisation is
serving different resort operations, along with the tour operations. The resort operations of this
organisation are classified in four broad categories, which are including different tasks associated
with the management of different tour operators, customer services, and managing legal issues.
These tasks can be described as follows:
Coordination among different suppliers to manage an integrated level of customer services
According to Goodwin (2011), the integrated level of customer service plays the most important
part of a tour-operating organisation. In case of Thomas Cook, the organisation is performing a

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coordinated service with the suppliers, which is helping them in managing customer services.
Another usefulness of this service is that it makes a balance service pattern within the
organisation, managing both production and supply. It helps in retaining the maximum customer
satisfaction in this sector, ensuring that both the customer and clients can get the promised
services. In this case, the feedbacks from potential clients, often the corporate needs are collected
and based on that, the demand of the organisation is evaluated (Brooker et al. 2014). After
evaluating this, this can be fulfilled and this may improve the customer services, which reflects
on the customer satisfaction rate.
Making of serviceable segments and ensuring proper delivery of services
Another activity performed within the sector is that it makes different segments within their
organisation according to their functions. This segmentation of the services helps the
organisation to analyse the requirements of the segment, which should be fulfilled. This is a key
step taken by Thomas Cook to manage their human resources, which is the most important asset
of them (Tsui et al. 2012). This segmentation of different serviceable sections of the organisation
helps in making specialized tasks within these sectors. The requirements of these sectors can be
evaluated by segmenting them according to the activity, which helps in recruitment process. The
recruitment of travel operators, tourist guides, advisors, staffs, employees for different sections,
resort staffs can be done perfectly by segmenting the serviceable disciplines of the organisation.
Handling of legal issues within the organisation
As opined by Walton (2011), the legal issues of the organisation should be mitigated effectively
in order to make an integrated service. In case of resort operations, the standards of the services
should be done properly to avoid the legal issues. In Thomas Cook, an emphasized attention is
performed to meet all the standards. It includes the services of the organisation, quality of
services, basic amenities and so on (Busby et al. 2012). However, successful handling of these is
done within the Thomas Cook, which helps in making an integrated and corporate level business
standard within their organisation. It also helps in establishing them as an eminent tour operator
within the world.
Ensuring proper health and safety within the organisation

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Health and safety issues within the organisation must be performed to maintain the human
resources. This includes the roper sanitation, food delivery, maintaining of living conditions and
so on. In Thomas Cook, this is effectively performed, as in a tour-operating organisation all of
these are making impacts on the customer services, and retention of reputation over others. As
mentioned by Baddeley et al. (2011), managing of these issues helps the organisation to support
their human resources effectively, which is the basic requirement of a tour-operating
organisation to support the business properly. In Thomas Cook, all of these issues are properly
resolved according to the health and safety act, and it is declared to all the employees working
for the resort operations.
B. Analysis of the resort management structure and functions of different tour operators
with their guest- services, along with different seasonal program (P1.2)
The structure of the resort management includes different bodies or disciplines of the above-
mentioned organisation, which are including in managing of the operations associated with tour
and travels. According to Busby et al. (2012), this structure is composed of different tour
operating services and the respected authorities, along with their guest services, specialist
services and so on. The complete structure of functions of this purpose is as follows:
 The management would sign up an agreement, which includes the proposed costs and he
services offered at this budget to the clients and guests (Smith et al. 2016). The
agreement should be kept as a record of the organisation for the mentioned period and
violation of this agreement can lead to legal issues to the organisation.
 This agreement should be passed in the external and internal audit, based on which the
overall functions of the organisation is developed (Walton, 2011).
 Based on this agreement, the operators are conducting the tour operations.
 In addition, the operator can also organize some educational activity, training to the tour
agents and respected persons to improve the work force of the team.
 The tour operators must convince and guide the customers to the resort, which can be
varied during some seasonal program (Bhatia, 2012).

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 The organisation can employ more staffs that can be performed by the collaborative
service of the tour operators and HR management, mainly during the seasonal occasions
to provide proper customer services.
LO2: Task 2
A. Identify the importance of effective quality system in resort operations, describing the
ways the selected resort apply this in managing different conflicts and legal issues (P2.1)
As opined by Bhatia (2012), the effective quality system within a hotel and resort industry is the
driving force to guide it towards the success. This plays the most vital role in running and
satisfying the resort operations within a tour organisation. This effective quality system helps the
organisation in organizing and managing different activities within a resort business. This helps
in performing the tasks with making least errors and making the system effectively running.
Smith et al. (2016) commented on the use of this effective quality system to manage a hassle free
operation system in order to resolve various issues associated with this. On the other hand, it may
make another impact on the maintenance of the quality and productivity of the organisation. It
can be considered as the consistent delivery of different services associated with the hotel and
resort management helping in meeting all the standards of the business and developing a
corporate standard within the organisation. As the customers are requiring the best quality of
services, while they are staying within a resort of an organisation, it is the responsibility of the
organisation to maintain these standards. This is rewarded with loyalty and referrals, the
organisation, must pay attention towards that (Brooker et al. 2014). This can be achieved by the
effective quality system, which is reflected by the efficient management of different tasks
associated with the business and effective management of the HR of the organisation.
According to Tsui et al. (2012), Thomas Cook is implementing effective quality system within
their organisation by implementing effective task force to maintain the class of the services and
standard. It has started in this organisation by hiring the efficient staffs and the proper team for
human resource management. Another important feature is to develop the effective quality
system within Thomas Cook, which implements a proper leadership within the organisation. This
not only manages different issues, rather it embraces all the staffs of the organisation. This can

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motivate the employees for their tasks, and helps in the retaining of the proper customer services.
The recruitment and hiring process in this organisation is another feature of implementing the
efficient quality system where the organisation only selects the specialized staffs, which are able
to manage tasks for specified discipline (Mason, 2015). Besides, they are providing a continuous
training to their employees, which help them in improving their services and managing the
customers effectively.
In addition, the effective teamwork is another component of this effective quality system, where
the employees of different disciplines are meeting together and serve a particular purpose
(Bhatia, 2012). In Thomas Cook, another important feature found towards the establishment of
effective quality system is including the members in the decision making process, which not only
provide a scope of gathering different information, rather help them in associating the employees
together. According to Gopal (2014), the principle way by which the effective quality system is
incorporated within Thomas Cook is that it performs an effective teamwork, including a proper
leadership.
B. Analyse how the implementation of this effective quality system in the selected resort
provides a positive result in the resort operations (P2.2)
As opined by Page (2014), the functioning of the efficient quality system within the Thomas
Cook helps the organisation in supporting different activities associated with the resort
operations. It embraces different employees, which helps the employees in engaging themselves
more in the customer services (Smith et al. 2016). All of these are reflected on the customer
satisfaction and the referrals to the resort. Besides, this effective quality system provides another
positive impact in the organisation, which is reflected by their positive customer employee
relationship. On the other hand, the integrated service pattern observed within the organisation is
a result of this effective quality system, which can be a result of the management of efficient
leadership and proper training of the staffs (Walton, 2014). The organisation is encouraging the
personal development of their employees, which is promoting their performance so that a
positive result for implementing effective quality system within the organisation could be
attained. All of these may reflect on their elevated level of performance and higher profitability
of the organisation in their resort operations.

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LO3: Task 3
A. Analyse the range of incidents, which may affect the health and safety of the customers
and staffs in the resort operations and evaluate how a measure can be implemented by the
tour operator to resolve the issue (P3.1 and 3.2)
From the case, it shows that as a trained tourism and travel administrative with many years of
good knowledge working as a resort-tour worker manager, it is intended to analyse the
operations of working in Thomas Cook to engage in selling and packaging of holidays to humid
islands like in Sri Lanka and Jamaica. The tour operations of Thomas Cook have been effective,
as it works well on the managerial practices in Indian Ocean Resorts and the Caribbean
(Sotiriadis, 2014). To identify the variety of incidents that affect safety and health of consumers,
there are certain processes, criteria and standards, which need to be followed within the resort for
managing it. According to Saarinen (2014), the natural incidents could affect tourist experience
and resort environment of Sri Lanka and Jamaica, as these are sea prone destinations. Some of
the examples for the Natural incidents may comprise of the 1988 Hurricane Gilbert and Tsunami.
It is that phase where transport incidents affect the environment of the resorts, which comprise of
Hijack, crashes, and the security issues at aviation in particular. Like for the aviation industry,
there is the lack of experiences in workers shortage, pilot, ground crew, and pilot that can create
the transportation issues (Rutty and Scott. 2014). Some of the key medical incidents may also
affect resort operations and the ongoing environment, which include Cholera, Malaria, and food
poisoning issues (Pattullo, 2005). For instance, SARS was an example of the medical incident
that values $10 billion for tourism business.
In destinations like the Hong Kong, the tourist onset has fallen by 58% while terrorism and the
political issues have made severe effect to the environment and operations of the resort. Some of
the examples for terrorism and political activities as the 1990 Iraq attacked Kuwait, large
terrorist attacks in India and the 9/11 attack in the US. Thus, it could be intended that
transportation and the accommodation issues could be important, and this could affect resort
surrounding variably (Hauser, 2014). Likewise, the report of the risk in offence in Jamaica shock
because of murder in Florida during 1993, and few escort trips reserved by business in Florida
were few examples of the main incidents.

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For Thomas Cook, being one of the independent tour operators all over UK has good operations
outside the country as well. It is the primary liability in dealing with these crises to plan at first.
Thomas Cook has to ensure that transportation and resort companies have effective arrangements
to deal with the point of crisis (Page et al. 2017). In that stage, cooperation should be well
maintained with all the confined authorities, which may develop the decision for crisis, being
faced by resorts. The work of the crisis management is effective, as it will cover losses for
vacancy, or the demand would be low for resorts. In that case, Thomas Cook has to manage
crisis with dedicated staffs, so that tour operators has to train staffs, and prepare resorts for time
in case of losses (Ali et al. 2014). The tour operator may keep the first aid and incident checklist
with representatives, which may be handled by tour manager. In that stage, they would hand a
precaution and checklist, which will help visitors with contact details of people and authorities to
be referred on the problems of incidents during tours. There could be diverse teams that are
developed by the partners, like Site response team, HR team, Joint emergency and operational
incident, and Incident management team (Page and Hall, 2014). Thus, in case the occurrence is
taking place, there needs to be a cut back in holidays and it should promote global brands to
present effective services to customers. Moreover, it is prioritized that mapping on key policies
for tour operators and resorts will help to develop, as it helps in adherence to key processes
towards policy development.
B. Describe how these processes can be implemented (P3.3)
According to Rutty and Scott (2014), some of the key procedures by tour operators have to obey
with guidelines of trade association and administration bodies. It is that stage where
Commonwealth and Foreign Officer will be having a role in that kind of incidents, where crisis
telephone number could be offered to report the extreme cases. This is where foreign officer may
recommend whether it may be secure to travel, or it is not. Besides, the staffs are being
maintained by the foreign officer that is trained extremely. Additionally, there are people in
team, like Press Officer, representative from British Red Cross and mechanical officer as well. In
that case, foreign officer may support fatalities in abroad while it is intended that support may be
given to families and friends residing in UK. As opined by Saarinen (2014), the monetary
support will be offered by foreign officer of Thomas Cook, and the help may not be offered to
people that are travelling against the recommendation made by the foreign officer. Thus, the

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ABTA (Association of British Travel Agent) expands the set of guidelines and link between the
members who are affected largely. As training is being informed by ABTA during crisis
management for key members involved, it has help out to handle crisis stage as well. Likewise,
the duty officers have to establish, so that they can officer good assistance for resort team, and
they could develop a link for resort team and UK (Pattullo, 2005). Some of the key processes
should also need to be handled during the stage of crisis.
As the quality system and the maintenance is a key attribute for the organisation, it is vital that
Thomas Cook, as the tour operator needs to attract more for the business outside UK. It could
certainly place effective service, and bring in loyalty for customers. For instance, in case of sea
shore and lakeside resort, the lifeguards and proper security must be employed, so that no major
incident may take place (Sotiriadis, 2014). It is important that local authority of Sir Lanka or
Jamaica needs to plan in order to work on the resort functions. Since Resort Operations are
tedious, and if not attended well, it may go against the UK employment laws. Likewise, as
incidents bound to take place, it is imperative that it could reflect on development and growth, so
that these resorts can find good profitability and revenue by associating new procedures to be
implemented well.
Conclusion
The study is evaluating the management of different resort operations, which are adapted by the
tour operators within their organisation. This study is focusing on the Thomas Cook, which is a
famous tour operating agency having their resort at Caribbean island. At first, different function
associated within the resort functions are described including coordinating and handling of the
different task force within the resort function. Later, the structure of management of different
activities within the resort is described. In the next task, the use of effective quality system
within the organisation is described and the way it is implemented within the organisation is
analyzed. In addition, the way it is making a positive impact on the organisation is also described
in this context. Lastly, the range of incidents influencing the health and safety issues of the
customers and staffs within organisation is identified, and the measure taken by the organisation
to resolve is evaluated.

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