Revenue Management, HR, and Legal Compliance: Thomas Cook

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of revenue management, human resource practices, and legal considerations within the hospitality industry, specifically using the Thomas Cook Group as a case study. The report is divided into three parts, the first of which covers the principles of revenue management, including market segmentation, demand forecasting, and pricing strategies. It also explores the application of revenue management tools like property management systems and booking engines, alongside a discussion of financial statements and budgeting. Part two focuses on the human resource life cycle, detailing recruitment, development, and retention strategies, as well as performance management plans. The final part addresses the legal and ethical considerations, including employment and contract law, that organizations in the travel and tourism industry must adhere to. The report underscores the importance of strategic talent management and the impact of HR processes on business performance, offering recommendations for improvement. The financial performance of Thomas Cook Group is also analysed based on the statements and reports.

004 The Hospitality Business
Toolkit

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
PART - 1..........................................................................................................................................1
Concept of revenue management and principles of revenue management..................................1
Application of revenue management tools..................................................................................2
Impact of differentiated pricing strategies on revenue management...........................................2
Different types of financial statements and reporting mechanism for organization....................3
Significance and value of budgets for controlling business performance and identifying
variances......................................................................................................................................3
PART - 2..........................................................................................................................................4
Human resource life cycle and various stages of the HR life cycle and their importance in
retaining and developing talent....................................................................................................4
Performance management plan for travel and tourism job role...................................................5
Importance of HR life cycle in relation to strategic talent management and overcoming issues
of staff retention...........................................................................................................................6
Recommendations on how HR processes and documents can be improved for effective
planning........................................................................................................................................6
PART - 3..........................................................................................................................................6
Legislations that organizations in travel and tourism industry must adhered..............................6
Employment and contract law has potential impact on business decision making in travel and
tourism industry...........................................................................................................................6
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................9

INTRODUCTION
Hospitality business refers to the broad group of customers services which are highly
focused on customer satisfaction. This includes travel and tourism industry. The business of
travel and tourism is the practice of accommodating, attracting and entertaining tourists in order
to attain profitability.
The Project report is based on Thomas Cook Group. This is founded in the year 1841. It
serves hospitality and tourism services to its clients. Therefore, headquarters are situated in
London, England in United Kingdom.
Assignment is divided in three parts first will cover the key principles of revenue
management for travel and tourism industry. Furthermore, it explains how to manage budgets
and maintain statistics. Part two is going to highlight human resource's life cycle with context to
travel and tourism industry. Lastly, report will assess potential impact of the legal and ethical
considerations.
PART - 1
Concept of revenue management and principles of revenue management
Revenue management consists of application of analytics that determine consumers
demand in order to optimize product availableness and price to exploit revenue growth. It aims at
providing the best services to tourist.
Principles of revenue management
 Market segmentation - Thomas Cook group do market segmentation of their hotels by
identifying the factors such as length of stay, total revenue per tourist or per room, days
of weeks stays and booking lead timing.
 Historical demand and booking patterns - Cook group do analysis of tourist demand and
do deep research on booking patterns of consumers (Lalicic, 2018).
 Demand forecasting - For purpose of revenue management the demand forecasting used
as an analytical tool by company.
 Pricing and stock list management - Thomas Cook group is engaged in the practice of
storing, ordering, trailing and controlling inventories.
 Overbooking - At the time of overbooking the company goes through cancellation
procedure.
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 Informations systems - The use of informations systems in hotels premises makes work
easier and helps to manage revenue.
Application of revenue management tools
Various tools are used by Thomas cook group to enhance their profitability are as
follows-
 Property management system - This tool makes workflow easier in Thomas Cook group.
It simplifies Reception work that leads towards perfect guest experience (Wengel,
McIntosh and Cockburn-Wootten, 2019). This offers the best connections with tourist.
 Booking engine - Thomas Cook group facilitates international reservations to their clients
through booking engines (4 key tools for the Revenue Management department, 2018).
This alleviate tourists to do online payments without intervention of any human. This also
helps in currency conversations and translation.
 Rate shopper - This paves attention towards prices of competitors. It helps to compare
prices in real time through various reservations channels.
 Chanel manager - This efficiently manages the stock on all reservations channels in
Thomas cook industry. This helps in managing online prices through a single system
which modifies in real time.
Impact of differentiated pricing strategies on revenue management
This refers to charging different prices from various customers for particular services in
travel and tourism industry which is hospitality. Various pricing strategies used by Thomas Cook
group on revenue management are as follows -
 Requiring certain customers characteristics - This pricing strategy is consisted of using
various factors such as geographic and demographic location (Mihindukulasooriya,
Priyatna and Rico, 2018). It is also based on age or affiliation such as for an instant the
hotel rooms prices for AARP members are lower in Thomas Cook Group who aged
above 50 years.
 Bundled discounting and volume buying - The tourist get discount if they book more than
one hotel room. It is popular in Thomas Cook group at the time of vacations and
holidays. Season bundling is popularism among tourists who are coming to spend their
time with families at peak seasons. They are facilitated with volume buying.
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Different types of financial statements and reporting mechanism for organization
Thomas Cook group prepares financial statement as there reporting mechanism. This
includes following -
Financial Reporting - It includes preparation of cash flow, income statement and balance sheet
 Cash flow statement - It shows the total number of cash inflow and outflows in Thomas
Cook group. It defines various sources and amounts of cash (Cao, and Wang, 2017).
 Income statement - This is prepared by accrual and amortization concept of accounting.
This should be match up with the cash flow statement of company.
 Balance Sheet - The assets and liabilities sides is matched with the one another. This
helps to indicate the Thomas cook group offsetting liabilities and total number of
accounts receivable.
Operating Reporting - This reports facilitates management with information. It helps Thomas
Cook Group to analysis its current and planned financial outcomes (Three Types of Reports – every
Travel Company Needs. 2016). It helps in cutting out the looses and faulty procedure within the
travel and tourism industry. It gives real time information.
Business intelligence Reporting - This helps to give management of Thomas Cook group a
much border perspective. It consists of metrics and measurement, engagement dashboards and
Intuitive transparency.
Significance and value of budgets for controlling business performance and identifying variances
Budgeting helps in setting standard performance in Thomas Cook Group. It facilitates the
business organization to do strategic planning in order to obtain desired results. The importance
of budgeting in company is as follows -
 It helps to control the cost of enterprises. It ensures adequate amount of finance for future
projects.
 Budgeting ensurers that business practices should meet with the objectives of Thomas
Cook group.
 This helps to estimate revenues, expenditure and restricts unwanted spending.
 It facilitates strategic allocation of money.
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Financial statements and reports for organization within the travel and tourism industry
The cash flow statement shows the total number of cash inflow and outflows in Thomas
Cook group. This introduces various sources and amounts of cash. The Income statement of
Thomas Cook group is prepared by accrual and amortisation concept of accounting. This should
be match up with the cash flow statement of company (Tungate, 2017). At the time of preparing
the balance Sheet of Thomas cook group they ensure that assets and liabilities sides is matched
with the one another. This helps to indicate the Thomas cook group offsetting liabilities and total
number of accounts receivable.
Business performance based on financial statements reports for the travel and tourism industry
The total revenue of Thomas Cook Group are accounted as £250 million in financial year
2018. Gross margin is recorded as 20.4%. Profits after tax is £163 million whereas earning per
share is 0.3. Segmental revenue of £10,913 million that does not include £1,329 million of
internal revenue, which results in Group revenue of £9,584 million. Thus, the Segmental
customers of 31.0 million does not include 9.1 million of internal customers, resulting in Group
customers of 22.0 million.
PART - 2
Human resource life cycle and various stages of the HR life cycle and their importance in
retaining and developing talent
The human resource life cycle showcase the life cycle model of HR department in
Thomas Cook Group. It consists of five stages namely, Recruitment, development, On-boarding,
separation and retention.
Recruitment - In this HR department of Thomas cook group focuses on recruiting the best talent
through inviting applications by giving advertisement in newspapers, magazines and online
website for vacant job role in the company. They conduct interview rounds and testes for hiring
the appropriate candidate for a particular job role (Katou and Katsouli, 2017). For attracting the
top talent they give benefits packages to their candidates.
Education - They make new recruited candidate well versed with the company's culture, values
and polices. There work is to give training to employees in order to delegate role and
responsibilities in Thomas Cook Group.
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Motivation - The managers of Thomas Cook group motivates their employees to perform at
optimal level. They offer them better compensation, fringe benefits and bonuses. This leads to
increase employees morale in the organization.
Evaluation - This stage consists of measuring the employee's performance by evaluating it. The
managers of Thomas Cook Group give feedback to their employees on regular basis. It focuses
on improving the performance.
Celebration - It is the opportunity to reenergize the staffs and employees in Thomas Cook
group. This is away of appreciation through which employees are encouraged and perform ever
better in next time.
Performance management plan for travel and tourism job role
Plan for travel and tourism as a job role of Tourism manager.
Issues Detailed
outcomes
Detailed actions Time Evaluation
Major issue is
employees
retention
The employees
and staff are
dissatisfied with
their jobs.
The rewards are
given to
employees as a
way of
appreciation such
as fringe benefits,
bonuses and
salary increment
on timely.
This is done
within the time
duration of 1
month.
It is evaluated
that through
giving rewards
and compensation
to employees in
Thomas Cook
industry they are
feeling satisfied.
Lack of
knowledge
among staff
The staff and
employees are not
well versed with
their duties and
responsibilities in
Thomas cook
group.
As a tourism
manager,
For providing
familiarity with
their job role the
training session is
conducted.
This is done with
the allotted time
period of 3
months.
The overall
efficiency of
employees are
improved.
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Importance of HR life cycle in relation to strategic talent management and overcoming issues of
staff retention
There is importance of HR life cycle in Thomas Cook industry to strategic talent
management in order to overcome the issues of employees retention in the company. The life
cycle of HR includes recruitment which helps to attract the top talent. Through keeping
employees motivated the company drives towards profitability (Ireland, 2017). The coverage of
critical roles within the organization is done on continuous basis as to run business operations
smoothly. This help to increase the employee's performance through identifying the best suitable
job role for them.
Recommendations on how HR processes and documents can be improved for effective planning
The HR processes and documents can be improved through adopting these strategies -
 They need to continuous monitoring and evaluation of employees performance in
Thomas Cook group as do further improvements in faulty procedures.
 They need to improve their communication skills in order to give training to their
employees in the best possible manner and as to make employees familiar with the work
culture. To make them well versed with their roles and responsibilities in Thomas cook
group.
PART - 3
Legislations that organizations in travel and tourism industry must adhered
The Thomas Cook Group is bound to follow the Employment and contract law. The UK
government has introduced new polices. The company is bind by the Tourism Act 1969. This act
aims at coordinating all the organization of tourism sector to adopt same polices and procedures.
This act also put emphasis on promoting the development of Tourism sector (Kvasniy, 2017).
The company has to follow various constitutions and administration laws. The proper licensing is
being mandatory for travel and tourism industry.
Employment and contract law has potential impact on business decision making in travel and
tourism industry
Employment rights Act 1996 has potential impact on Thomas Cook group. This act
covers all the rights of employees at the work place. The company is bound to give their
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employees a flexible working hours in travel and tourism industry where the employees has
rights that they don't work more than 48 hours a week. The employees are facilitated with the
familiar environmental conditions. The contract law consists of proper disclosure of employees
terms and conditions that they must adhere while doing job. While offering the job role to
employees this is rights of employees that organization polices and procedures must disclosed
properly.
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CONCLUSION
It has been concluded from above project report that the principles of revenue
management and its application in a specific sector such as hospitality in Thomas cook group
consist of Market segmentation, Historical demand and booking pattern and demand forecasting.
It has been summarised that various tools are used by Thomas cook group to enhance their
profitability such as Property management system, Booking engine and Rate shopper. It has also
determined that HR life cycle is consists of recruitment, education and motivation.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Cao, M. and Wang, J., 2017, December. A Review of Environmental Interpretation Research in
the West in the Past Decade. In 3rd International Conference on Economics,
Management, Law and Education (EMLE 2017). Atlantis Press.
Ireland, T. N., 2017. Golf Tourism Marketing.
Katou, A. A. and Katsouli, E. F., 2017. Empirical evidence on convergence of travel and tourism
competitiveness and global competitiveness across the BRIC countries. In Opportunities
and Challenges for Tourism and Hospitality in the BRIC Nations. (pp. 1-14). IGI
Global.
Kvasniy, L. G., 2017. The study of the functional components of economic security of
enterprises in the sphere of tourist services of the region Pricarpatia. International
Journal of Innovative Technologies in Economy.(2 (8)).
Lalicic, L., 2018. Open innovation platforms in tourism: how do stakeholders engage and reach
consensus?. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management. 30(6).
pp.2517-2536.
Mihindukulasooriya, N., Priyatna, F. and Rico, M., 2018, June. Publishing Tourism Statistics as
Linked Data a Case Study of Sri Lanka. In International Conference on Web
Engineering. (pp. 193-201). Springer, Cham.
Tungate, M., 2017. The Escape Industry: How Iconic and Innovative Brands Built the Travel
Business. Kogan Page Publishers.
Wengel, Y., McIntosh, A. and Cockburn-Wootten, C., 2019. Co-creating knowledge in tourism
research using the Ketso method. Tourism Recreation Research. pp.1-12.
Online
4 key tools for the Revenue Management department. 2018 [Online]. Available through :
<https://www.yieldplanet.com/4-key-tools-for-the-revenue-management/>.
Three Types of Reports – every Travel Company Needs. 2016 [Online]. Available through :
<http://www.dcsplus.net/blog/three-types-of-reports-every-travel-company-needs>.
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