Investigation Report: Operational, HR, Financial, Product in Tourism

This report provides an in-depth analysis of crucial management issues within the tourism and hospitality industry. It examines operational challenges like sales department inefficiencies and labor shortages, highlighting the impact of overbooking and part-time staffing on service quality and employee turnover. The report also addresses human resource issues such as high employee turnover, inadequate training, and employee theft, emphasizing the importance of proper training and inventory management. Financial issues discussed include data management complexities, challenges with enterprise resource planning, and the need for scalable, affordable solutions. Furthermore, the report explores product and market-related challenges, such as food waste, increased competition, and the need for promotional campaigns to attract and retain customers. The analysis is supported by recent scholarly publications and provides a comprehensive overview of the current landscape, offering insights into the complexities and potential solutions for effective management in the tourism and hospitality sector.

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Tourism and Hospitality Management
Name of the Student
Nam of the University
Author Note

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Operational Issues
Management is not only about planning, it is also about identifying the issues addressing
during the operations. In the tourism and hospitality industry, there are lots of challenges which
must be fulfilled for smooth development. One of the most common issues is the issue in the
sales department. It is not only the duty of the front office but also the marketing and sales
department to manage the sales (Baum et al. 2016). The issues in the sales department occur
mainly in the transfer of booking information from the reservation to the receptionist. It usually
happens due to overbooking, long waiting and others.
Another issue in the tourism and hospitality industry is the shortage of skill and labor. It
is primarily due to the part –time job base of the staffs who struggle with the long working hours,
unsocial working time, and excessive pressure (Brown, Thomasand Bosselman2015). Hence, it
becomes difficult to manage the schedule with the part –time working. Sometimes, it leads to the
turnover of the employees. With the shortage of skills and labor, there is gap in the services too
and customer dissatisfaction generates from here.
The Human Resource Issues
In the tourism and hospitality industry, high employee turnover rates often lead to poorly
trained staffs composition. When a hotel faces short-term solution to high turnover rates, there is
a tendency to hire new people and engage them into service instead of training them properly. It
might provide short-term solution to the organization and resolve the staff shortage issue, but
ultimately affects the business indirectly (Ling, Liuand Wu2017). An employee without proper
training distorts the business reputation unknowingly. It can also disturb the customer

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satisfaction and cause needless hazards and frustration in the workplace. Hence, it is a serious
issue in this industry which must be taken into considerations.
Another major issue in the human resource is the problem of theft in the tourism and
hospitality industry. The staffs in a hotel have open access to the products of the company. In a
restaurant, the items are such as alcohol, food, decorating objects and money too (Santhanam et
al. 2018). A dishonest employee can easily steal the items. Hence, it is important to check
regularly the inventory levels having monitored the behaviors of the employees ensuring that the
business is not suffering from the employee theft. The employee theft can leave greater impact
on the profits of the organization and the financial stability too.
The Financial Issues
In the hospitality and tourism industry, most of the hotels can access he STR reports, the
data sets, the guest satisfaction surveys and financial data from multiple properties. Since this
particular industry claims to have data, the major challenge is how that data can be best
deciphered to determine the story being told (Zaitseva, Goncharovaand Androsenko2016). A
centralized platform can make this easier to use the operational management. An overload of the
data can even dismiss the efficiencies of the analytical tools and business –intelligence
Another challenge comes with the Enterprise Resource Planning. Every hotel/restaurant
tries to build a separate enterprise back-office system in order to manage the accounting and
financial aspects. The challenge comes with the implementation of scalable solutions which are
affordable too and free from extra expenses.
The products and market related issues

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In the hospitality and tourism industry, product means the food and other luxury services
it offers to the potential customers. Since this is a vast industry, there are ample of competitors in
the market serving similar products to the customers. A tourism and hospitality firm tries hard to
stay preferred in the market by serving the best quality food/service. However, there are
instances of people wasting food and the restaurant is throwing out food. Customers are often
found to be ordering more food than they can consume and ultimately waste them. Since the
culinary habits of people and their attitudes ebb and flow, it might also cause the loss of revenues
(Shamim et al. 2017). The entire system can be disturbed if there is a single mistake in the
quality and standard of food. The hospitality firms can stop the loss and waste by the stock
management system.
Another major issue in the hospitality and tourism industry related to product and market
is the increased competition. The more the competition grows, the more the firm’s ability to
attract the customers is tested. The completion in the market makes the hospitality organizations
try hard to retain the potential customers (Jones, Hillier. and Comfort2016). Maximum
managers, owners and staff surveys suggest that they have faced such issues. Hence, the best
way to avoid this challenge is to introduce the promotional campaigns, the food delivery services
and others.

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References
Baum, T., Cheung, C., Kong, H., Kralj, A., Mooney, S., Ramachandran, S., Dropulić Ružić, M.
and Siow, M., 2016. Sustainability and the tourism and hospitality workforce: A thematic
analysis. Sustainability, 8(8), p.809.
Brown, E.A., Thomas, N.J. and Bosselman, R.H., 2015. Are they leaving or staying: A
qualitative analysis of turnover issues for Generation Y hospitality employees with a hospitality
education. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 46, pp.130-137.
Jones, P., Hillier, D. and Comfort, D., 2016. Sustainability in the hospitality industry: Some
personal reflections on corporate challenges and research agendas. International Journal of
Contemporary Hospitality Management, 28(1), pp.36-67.
Ladkin, A. and Buhalis, D., 2016. Online and social media recruitment: Hospitality employer
and prospective employee considerations. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality
Management, 28(2), pp.327-345.
Ling, Q., Liu, F. and Wu, X., 2017. Servant versus authentic leadership: Assessing effectiveness
in China’s hospitality industry. Cornell Hospitality Quarterly, 58(1), pp.53-68.
Santhanam, N., Kamalanabhan, T.J., Dyaram, L. and Ziegler, H., 2018. Examining the
moderating effects of organizational identification between human resource practices and
employee turnover intentions in Indian hospitality industry. GSTF Journal on Business Review
(GBR), 4(1).
Shamim, S., Cang, S., Yu, H. and Li, Y., 2017. Examining the feasibilities of Industry 4.0 for the
hospitality sector with the lens of management practice. Energies, 10(4), p.499.

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Zaitseva, N.A., Goncharova, I.V. and Androsenko, M.E., 2016. Necessity of changes in the
system of hospitality industry and tourism training in terms of import substitution. International
Journal of Economics and Financial Issues, 6(1), pp.288-293.