Review of Recent Development in the Contemporary Hospitality Industry
Introduction
The paper will seek to provide a comprehensive understanding of the various changes affecting the contemporary hospitality industry. These include the analysis of the operational, managerial and legislative issues affecting hospitality industry. Compared to the other industries of the world economy, the hospitality industry has been one of the most growing industries accounting for around 30 per cent of the total global services. The amount of international tourist’s arrivals has increased by 5 per cent over the last 10 years. For instance, the hospitality sector has benefit from the globalization process that has lead to the reduction on the costs of travel (Buhalis and Crotts, 2013, p,123). The current trend in the hospitality has led to the provision of the diverse products and services including accommodating, banqueting, leisure and other services required by the customers. In terms of organizational structure, the operations areas include food preparation, accommodation units and other functional units such as finance, HR and research. Most importantly, the hospitality industry has developed professional bodies to support advancement in the industry including the Springboard UK. The professional bodies would seek to expand the knowledge and diversity of the employees to support improved expansion in the hospitality industry. Therefore, the contemporary hospitality industry is facing recent developments and trends that affect the performance and productivity of the hotels and restaurants.
An analysis of operational, managerial and legislative issues resulting from recent developments affecting the hospitality industry
Based on recent changes in the hospitality industry, it is important to analyze the main factors that affect the current hospitality industry including operational, managerial, and legislative factors.
Operational
The operations of the most hotels and restaurants form part of the recent developments in the hospitality. In order to offer quality services to the customers, the operations of the hotels must be improved. First, the industry has focused on establishing standard operating procedures that defines the nature of production operations. With the presence of the standard operating processes, the employees are able to work towards achieving the set targets and goals. In addition, the service needs and levels of productivity have also expanded towards providing development in the hospitality industry. In addition, most hotels and industry has introduced learning and development opportunities for their employees. The employees can be trained on the new skills and techniques to support the growth of the hotels in the current diversified hospitality industry (Han, Kim and Hyun, 2011, p.620). Flexible working program is another recent development in the contemporary hospitability industry. This provides the employees more suitable working environment to serve the employees better. The level of workplace flexibility helps to accommodate all forms of employees to the industry.
Another emerging issue in the operational aspects of the hospitality industry is the ooutsorucng services including finance and security. Most of the hotels and restaurants have sought to outsource security and finance personnel from consultancy firms. Outsourcing of the services has an advantage of reducing the costs of operations. However, outsourcing is blamed for the organizational lack of control over the employees. Finally, the trend in socio cultural issues and ecommerce has also led to significant development in the operations of the hotels and restaurants. For instance, the changing lifestyles demands for different operations in order to meet the requirements of the customers. The introduction of ecommerce has helped to customize and digitize operations in the hospitality industry (Brotherton, 2012, p.32). Such technological services are aimed at increasing efficiency and effectiveness to enhance performance and productivity.
Managerial
In terms of the management, the key players in the hospitality industry, international factors and the influence from the market forces among factors supports the development of the hospitability industry. The international aspects such globalization and formation of international hotels has led to the introduction of multinational hotels for provide the hotel and restaurants services. Thus, the multinational model of management involves some of the recent developments in the hospitality. For example, the Hilton hotels brand has expanded into the various countries across the world (Prud’homme and Raymond, 2013, p.123). The management models benefits from the economies of scale reducing the overall costs of production. The level of performance management and quality assurance and control has improved. Today, the hotels and restaurants have put up in place relevant performance measures to determine the productivity level of each employee. This is aimed at ensuring that the employees are focused on delivery quality hotels services to the customers.
Apart from quality assurance and control, the branding/ rebranding of the hotels are been crucial in transforming the nature of hotels and restaurants towards meeting the current markets needs. For example, the hotels and restaurants were forced to implement advanced technological systems that match the requirements of the diverse customers. Considering the diverse nature of the hospitality industry, the hotels receive visitors from different destinations across the world. Thus, it is crucial to educate the employees on the various foreign languages in improving service delivery. Other key issues include the implementation of food safety programs, security, and project management and enhanced relationships with the training providers. These discuss some of the expected recent managerial developments in support of the hospitality growth.
Legislative
The nature of the legislations and regulations has also changed affecting the entire hospitality industry. First, the recent national and European legislations have severely impacted on the productivity of the hospitality industry. Some of legislations restrict the amount of visitors to a certain country. This is important in the overall customer base of the hospitality industry. It is expected that the parliaments will make laws that will encourage more visitors into the country. Apart from all, there are regional and global regulations and legislations that might affect the developments of the sector (Chon et al., 2013, p.45). For instance, breaks of contagious diseases in a certain country faces global sanctions from visiting other countries. This adversely affects the inherent markets in improving the productivity and performance of the hotels and restaurants. Secondly, the introduction of specific legislations relating to the hospitality industry has also affected the development of the hospitality industry. These include the food safety regulations, minimum wage regulations and employment visas.
The minimum wage regulations indicate the minimum acceptable salaries and wages for employees. Some of the European nations have high minimum wage regulations that lead to the increased costs of operations and production in the sector. Thus, the hotels and restaurants must be ready to follow the set regulations in order to perform better. Other legislations and regulatory developments affecting the industry include the smoking, discrimination and protection of employees’ regulations. All the legislations are aimed at improving the nature of the inducer, but still impacts on the costs and ability of the business to operate smoothly. Therefore, it is important to note the key legislations affecting the industry before investing a particular country.
Other main issue affecting hospitality industry is the image. Image describes the popular perception surrounding the numerous restaurants in the industry. The aspects of the image include the changing customer focus, continuous quality improvement, and media exposure among other aspects. Therefore, the operational, managerial, legislative and the image factors are key issues affecting the development of the hospitability industry.
Justification of Predicted Future Trends and Developments in Hospitality Industry
There are exists predicted future trends and developments that affect the hospitality industry. These potential trends includes changes in food fashion trends, local and seasonal produce, eating trends, work patterns and balance, globalization, technology and its applications, and use of foreign language. These some of the expected future trends in the development of the hospitality industry across the world.
Eating Trends
Some of the factors that affect what people eats include the cultural, lifestyle, physiological and food trends. The cultural factors include the family relationships, friendship and the types of foods that are used during society functions to promote eating. The psychological factors include the people’s trends and preference including tastes, color and shape. While, the lifestyle factors explains how people express their identity in selection of foods. For instance, some people are pleasure oriented while others are nutrition oriented promoting safety and quality. Most importantly, there are expected food trends to that focuses on the freshness and convenience of the foods. For example, the customers are increasingly demanding for health and energy foods.
Branding
The operational and service standards rely on the ability of the hotels and restaurants to create an exceptional experience and strong image for its customers. The branding relies on the soft skills of the employees including ethics, discipline, and the level of training among others. The gap observed between the required industry needs and the overall training outcomes has affected the hospitality industry. The future trends of the branding efforts have seen a reduced gap between the management abilities within the industry. The hotels and restaurants are expected to take appropriate actions towards improving the quality of training as well as upgrading of its internal training capabilities.
Changing Demographics and Lifestyles
According to Chon et al. (2013, p.75), it is expected that the changing demographics will impacts on the level of travels in the hospitality industry. In the future, the increased globalization and its effects on travel will shift the demographics creating both opportunities and challenges in the industry. The ongoing changes in the demographics have significant implications on the hospitality industry. Thus, the hoteliers should develop a relevant strategy to deal with the dynamic needs and desires. The hoteliers must provide appropriate design and services to deal with the special needs of the aging customers as well as young customers who demands for improved design and technology. The emergence of the new lifestyles calls for the need to develop hospitality products that meets the tastes and preferences of the groups. For example, the hospitability industry should establish more hotels with new experiences.
The traditional model of standardizing hospitality brand relies on the current changes in the demography. The hoteliers must develop approaches to promote the guest experiences. Even though the aged persons will continue to hold a significant influence in the entire population, the young generations are also growing to hold senior managerial positions and influence in the society. The hospitality industry must understand the value and motivations of the customers to tailor the products and services the demographics’ needs and desires. As a result, the expected trends of the demographics offer adequate information to possess a key competitive advantage.
Technology
In spite of the growing awareness of the value of modern systems, most industries do not take advantage of the opportunity to enhance their revenues. Some have failed to obtain the required level of data implying the unacceptable legal consequences. In the hospitality industry, technology has been a significant factor in restricting wider implementation of relevant IT systems. It seeks to tackle the challenge of improving the restaurant and hotel systems’ ease of use to promote functionality in both the operational and guest areas. The issues develop a significant trend towards outwards outsourcing complex operation functions and security systems. The hospitality management programs have improved into well-integrated tools and systems to enhance the level of efficiency.
Technological advancement will expand the capabilities of individuals programs as well as improvements on the interface technologies. Such predicted technological trends would bring about relevant benefits to provide accurate and complete data for the operations and database of guests in the hotels and lodges (Sloan, Legrand and Chen, 2012, p.120). Another significant future trend of the technological systems includes the expansion of the professional systems management. The professional systems management includes the establishment of centralized revenue systems to allow qualified experts to offer more secure environment to the growth of the hospitality industry.
Impacts for the Predicted Trends and Developments in the Hospitality Industry
The predicted trends and developments have significant impacts on the hospitality industry. First, the estimated trends on the consumer expectations and behavior will improve the efficiency and impact on the environment. Through the expected innovation and development of competitive advantage, it is possible for the destinations to improve the operations and management of the hotels and restaurants. The changes are important in offering excellent opportunities through the sharing of ideas and consultation. The sustainability actions of the hoteliers are useful in improving the progress and development of the hospitality industry.
Secondly, the development of the sustainability actions among the hotels is an important effect towards improving the social prices and the contributions of the employees towards the success of the restaurants in the hospitality industry. It is expected that the sustainability actions will deliver support continuous improvements efforts in the hospitability industry. Thirdly, the labor relations structures would also be formalized among the international hotels in order to accommodate diverse customers. This would only be achieved by employing diverse employees at the organizational levels. Some of the international hotels would be expected to develop international agreements that support the need for improved labor relations and working conditions. In the future, the working conditions and diversity in the hospitality is expected to increase at the international level.
With the technological advancement in the hospital industry, it is expected that the level of education and training of the employees will diverse and advance in order to provide them with practical and relevant skills to meet both the business and the industry requirements. Even though there might be questions on what to be trained, there is a need to educate the employees on the current changes in the hospitality industry and make more manager oriented. For example, the vocational training programs are useful in offering personalized knowledge for the employees. It provides the ability of the employees to learn in order to match the continuous improvements programs in the current hospitability. The main advantage of expected additional training and education program is to improve the productivity of the employees, especially in small business. The growth of technology in the industry would be able to deal with the increased customer demands. Therefore, education and training would enhance the ability of the employees to manage information and leverage the competitiveness of the hotels and restaurants.
Based on the trends of the legislative factors in the hospitality industry, the government is also expected to recognize his role in integrating the hotels and restaurants to the marketing of the hospitality industry. For instance, for the countries to become attractive destinations for tourist or location for international meetings, the government will have to provide improved services including power, water utilities, airports and roads. These create better opportunities for developing the hotels, restaurant operations and other big events (Zaibaf, Taherikia and Fakharian, 2013, p.490). On the other hand, the hotels and restaurants are expected to increase the job opportunities reducing the current poverty levels across the world. The sector has a huge potential to creating jobs that could contribute to increased economic growth. Thus, there is expected increased government involvement towards boosting the hospitability industry. These include the improved statutory aspects such as security, safety, and sanitation among others. It is expected that there are would be more partnerships between the private and public sectors to support coordination and benefits to the hospitality industry.
Conclusion
In summary, the contemporary hospitality industry has seen some significant recent development factors. These include the changing demographics, globalization, technological changes and other key factors. Thus, the hoteliers are expected to development relevant programs and procedures to deal with the changing hospitability environment. Some of the key current hospitality developments include operational, managerial, and legislative trends. The predicted changes in the hospitality sector include the changing food trends, eating trends, changes in the demographics, technology, and globalization among others. The changes the food fashion considers the various factors including the cultural, lifestyle, physiological and food trends. Moreover, the predicted technological advancement will expand the capabilities of individuals programs as well as improvements on the interface technologies. The technological programs are crucial in enhancing the efficiency and effectiveness of the operational services in the hospitality industry. Apart from all, the development of the sustainability actions among the hotels is an important effect towards improving the social prices and the contributions of the employees towards the success of the restaurants in the hospitality industry. The trends of the legislative factors also influence the role of the government to integrate the requirements of the hotels and restaurants for improved marketing of the hospitality industry. For instance, for the countries to become attractive destinations for tourists, they must establish supportive legislations. As a result, the expected trends in the hospitality offer a clear spectrum of the expected effects from the new developments in the sector.
References List
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