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The report on HGE401: Hotel and the Guest Experience,in terms of consumer behavior and technological infusion

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HGE401: Hotel and the Guest Experience

Executive Summary

This business report concentrates on displaying the current global market of hospitality industry with the giant companies in competition. It elaborates how the online marketplace for hospitality service of Airbnb is attaining more consumers and how it has become a tough rival for the hotel chain businesses like Hyatt and Marriott Internationals.

The report points to the crucial factors of business culture, consumer behavior, consumer satisfaction and consumer service and also how they are significantly related to each other for better consumer experience. In this process, various approaches discussed here demonstrate the ways of development in the consumer service, followed by recommendations that the hotel corporations can adopt for professional improvement in the concerned industry.

Background

Throughout the service industry, especially in the hospitality and tourism sector, Guest Experiences is one of the topics considered as well as studied in several documents. With the concept of hospitality, the sector has continued to change over hundreds of years and technology has advanced, including online networking as well as transport. Hospitality never again intends to offer only the vital requirements to clients who are still far from home, as well as the remarkable experience they can share with their friends, families and associates (Bharwani & Jauhari, 2017, p. 166). The vital objective of the following assignment is to know about the participation of guests in the situation of accommodation and to take a gander in countless specific views and recognitions about the experience of administration that clients create in correlation with associated perspectives.

The assignment also reflects that Airbnb's rise has made lifestyle hotels a wild challenge; the development of technology that saturates the life of people; and the rise of socio-generational tourists worldwide. For instance, along these lifestyle hotel chains, Hyatt and Marriott need to find optional methods to achieve tourist satisfaction, commitment as well as casual contentment. Essentially, the assignment also illustrates the dimensions, significance, main components of customer administration and tourist interactions as well as the strategy to making beneficial and pleasant experiences for customers staying within these hotels.

Comprehending the concept and professional development of tourism, hospitality, and events industry

During the time of late nineties, numerous amount of sociological labors are conducted in development of concepts and traits for defining professionalism. Although the characteristics of each concepts shows discrepancy on detail, however, the central elements generally consists of following concepts such as: owning a exceptional  proficiency in accordance with the structure of knowledge associated with technology; proficiency is authenticated  by the experts and professionals, structured as proficient organization (Gebbels, Pantelidis & Goss-Turner, 2019); the proficiency and knowledge is executed only for public concentration; competent ethical behavior is governed by only the professional group; And the company's prize for this compassionate understanding and skills implementation is elevated  social status and generally elevated earnings. According to the statement of Cheng & Wong (2015), the hospitality industry such as Hyatt and Marriott International generally follows such conceptual approaches. The potential characteristics are as such : long-term education or preparation; code of conduct ; association/organization; nature ; selfless activity ; body of understanding; customer-oriented; certified ; prestigious ; skills checked ; pre-employed ; elevated  revenue.

Dunning (2019), has  stated that the most important alternative for instructional interference can be the creation of professionalism, which can be executed  to make sure that the outcomes are making effective and beneficial impacts. The most essential key concepts situated with tourism and hospitality industry are altruism, possession of code of ethics, and a body of knowledge along with expertise skill-set (Dunning, 2019). The altruism is defined by certain personal that has belief in the orientation of service. This is also considered as considerable “Soft skill” highly demanded by employers.

The next dimension as described by Gebbels, Pantelidis & Goss-Turner (2019), is known as code of ethics, it has been considered as the most essential concept in the hospitality and tourism industry. It is referred as a value development protocol, consists of several principals that guides the decisions making process and certain occasion of the conduct of a particular entity to generate appreciable outcomes. In order to compete against the Airbnb it is essential for the lifestyle hotel organizations such as Hyatt and Marriott International to develop effective and efficient code of ethics.

The third conceptual factors is regarded as the body of knowledge, it is entirely based on the requirements of an particular entity to be trained and developed for designated profession and execute actions from their acquired knowledge. This aspect of knowledge within the workplace is essential for any kind of initiative of learning (Pizam & Tasci, 2019). The link between understanding and implementation can overcome the issue of whether the information acquired is industry-specific. Hospitality expertise is regarded a "Hard" ability collection for the workers of the industry.

As per the statement of Pizam & Tasci (2019), the final concept in the dimension of professionalism consists of professional skills and expertise, the significance of skill expertise is intertwined between the soft and hard skill sets. It is generally associated with technical and physical excretion and relationship management. As per the viewpoint of Rahimi & Kozak (2017), the hard skills are easiest to comprehend and determine the excellence of the proficiency. 

Thus, in order to compete against the rising competitor such as Airbnb, Hyatt and Marriott international needs to adopt some essential professionalism concepts such as hiring future stakeholders, perfecting communication system, improving interaction efficiency and developing relationship with consumers (Cheng & Wong, 2015). The status of proper customer service and appreciable accommodation will help to enhance the business efficiency and profitability.

Critical evaluation of how altering developments in consumer behavior affect customer service

A consumer behavior is an entirely recognized physiological operation with the customer's emotions. In this operation, the customer starts to perceive the need for the service and then discovers a manner or mechanism to explain these demands; decides on the service seeking decisions such as whether or not the customer should wait for a particular service and then confirms the information (Sipe & Testa, 2018, p. 181). The service seeker may also write down an assessment and then execute the reservation agreement for the service. Based on the behavior of the customers of today’s world, Marriott has increased their consumer-centric attitude of service and started utilizing the dynamic ads and data on online platforms, which in recent future may help the hotel corporation to take over its biggest rival.On the other hand, the recent approach of Hyatt to look at social business instead of social media for evolving the customer service on the basis of their feedback is also a great step by the hotel corporation. The customer behavior changes automatically impact the service that the lifestyle hotel brands like Hyatt and Marriott will provide. With the scarcest shift in the industry, the climate and model, the service can alter drastically along these lines.

In order to tackle the fierce competition from Airbnb's, Hyatt and Marriott must analyze the consumer behavior in detail and change the service with regard to the personal preference of the consumer.  Thus, the lifestyle hotel brand must access the following aspects:

I. Service based on Routine Customer Behavior: Within the hospitality industry there are certain customers that seek the service at a regular basis (Oskam & Boswijk, 2016, p. 27). These are the type of clients that prefer the same type of service on regular intervals. Any modifications in the service provided for this audience may not be welcomed. For example, Hyatt and Marriott must ensure that their regular customers are being given the same quality of service over time, to ensure that they remain brand loyal.

II. Service based on Extensive Decision making Customer Behavior: For luxury oriented customers, the lifestyle hotel brands must do extensive research work for providing the best service to that specific group (Collier et al., 2015, p. 709). In order to obtain the best positive feedback from this group, the lifestyle hotels like Hyatt and Marriott should provide the most adequate rooms with perfect environment along with all the necessary client services and amenities for fulfilling the needs and requirements of the service users in the best possible manner. 

III. Service based on Consumer’s Cultural Behaviors: It is important for every organization within the hospitality industry, to be subjective over the cultural preference of the customers. A service provided to one set of customers can be culturally inappropriate for other set of customers. Culture requires to be scrutinized because it is a significant variable which affects the conduct of consumers (Cleveland et al., 2016, p. 1096). Thus, short-listing the service on the cultural preference is vital for the sustainability of the hotel chains.

Examining the relationship between culture, experience with customers and business experience

The culture of a business plays has a huge role to play in the retention of its consumer. For every business entity to deliver consistent positive experience to customers, it needs to build a strong business culture. A substandard business culture is never capable of continuing the customer satisfaction, even if it does not intend to treat their consumers in a bad manner. Many aspects of a business in hospitality industry are covered by its culture which mostly revolves round the core identity, values and objectives of a business. The attitudes, feelings and behaviors of each and every person working and related to the business organisation are encompassed by the business culture (Ionel, 2016, p. 188). It basically works as a reflection of the ways of communication and interaction amongst people and overall, as an entire ecosystem of a business. If a company is investing tons of money but not paying enough attention towards the business culture, it can never build an appropriate, long-lasting, satisfactory and profitable customer culture.

In the hospitality industry, Airbnb has set an example of tremendously effective customer relationship. If examined properly, it can be observed that the success behind such level of positive consumer experience is the outcome of their well-established company culture in a great extent. This is the reason that the company has attained such a huge success in few years of their initiation in the sector of hotels and hospitality. As the founder of the company, Brian Chesky believes that culture of a business is a shared action in association with passion; the company believes that it requires less corporate procedure in company if it contains stronger culture. According to Oskam & Boswijk (2016), having a customer centric business attitude, employee satisfaction for better customer service, gathering customer feedbacks, measuring the success of every step, maintaining the business reputation, loyalty towards customers are some of the most successful approaches of establishing and maintaining the business and consumer culture which is followed by the successful companies like Airbnb. Customers of any industry has a sense of understanding if a company holds a good culture for consumer service or not, and if they do not feel the satisfaction initially or feel satisfied with the products or services of another brand, the business loses a good amount of existing and probable customers (Nazarian, Atkinson & Foroudi, 2017, p. 25). This hospitality giant is giving a tough competition to the globally renowned chain businesses of lifestyle hotels including Hyatt and Marriott. The business culture in Hyatt concentrates on its six characteristics of innovation, co-caring, teamwork, consumer-focused service, multicultural presence and personal growth, while in the foundation of culture in Marriott is based on the employee satisfaction for better consumer service, innovative modifications and highly integrated actions. Due to the excellent services of Airbnb, the first thing for these hotel corporations is to consider investigating and evaluating the efficient customer culture of the former one to understand what modifications are crucial for customer retention.

Analyzing the impacts of dissatisfactory consumer experience

According to the study of Pizam & Tasci, (2019), the quality of the provided services and accommodations in the hospitality department makes significant impact on the behavior perspectives of consumers. According to the study buyers increases the consistency of their service usage in presence of positive experience with the service providers. While, the majority of customers generally stops using the provided services if they are confronted with some experiences that are negative or unappreciable.

As per the research of Rahimi & Kozak (2017), customers with negative experience usually share their criticism with acquaintances and friends or colleagues. According to several conducted research surveys,  it has found out that respondents with negative experience is more likely to share their criticism and stories compared to that with positive and promotional stories. The criticisms also tend get more highlighted are noticed in digital platforms such as social media or blogs as well.

Thus, it has been identified that the more numbers of people usually prefers to share and circulate their negative experience in internet compare to the people who make effort to write promotional positive reviews. Nevertheless, this makes significant impact on the buying decisions of people and clearly degrades the brand identity as well as jeopardizes the brand recognition. The presence of dissatisfactory experience within the contemporary service users can increase negativity towards the service providers; it can initiate an immense amount of criticism and negativity against the service provider organization. Another tendency to be assessed is the belief that the growing variety of clients is today (Ting et al., 2017). Different demographic clients may have varying views of hospitality, influencing their internet feedback,  in that prospect, a more precise knowledge of the most important motivators leading to customer satisfaction and discontent with hotels in each demographic client will, therefore, provide useful data in knowing customer behavior and requirements.

In context of Hyatt and Marriott International the following study emphasizes the significance of providing each and every client with coherent, outstanding delivery of services. While some companies are inclined to promote consumers who invest more and store more frequently, any individual with whom the organization communicate may affect other prospective clients (Pizam & Tasci, 2019). As digital media advertising has become excessively essential, the private online notoriety has become harder to maintain. Taking ownership of their clients and cultivating beneficial internet interactions with faithful consumers is crucial for company holders of Hyatt and Marriott International.

Evaluate a variety of approaches that hotels can adopt to enhance the experience of their customers

A portion of the attributes and exercises of a competitive hotel business are the best possible introduction and consistent optimization of valuable benefits that exceed customer requirements in all senses of the word, including pre-booking and post-stay administration. Hotel selection ends up with one of the major themes of the discourse: the ranges of hospitality services, quality, reliability as well as cost are fundamental (Cheng et al., 2016, p. 102). Since there are countless lifestyle hotels on the market that provide equal or comparison service with respect to Airbnb, it is important not only to check-in, but also to maintain the customer in the specific hotel for the lengthy-term.

In this regard, hotel companies such as Hyatt and Marriott can assess, for instance, the efficacy of methodologies for improving customer experience such as:

I. Benchmarking: Benchmarking enables lifestyle hotels to benefit from various industry competitors and to understand what keeps their competitors fixated. Sometimes, some lifestyle hotels may not reveal their competitors' secrets in order to stay profitable. The hotel company, however, does not include sensitive information. As a result, most lifestyle hotels are willing to share their prosperity's insider information (Ozturk et al., 2016, p. 1353). In any event, hotel creativity is the main thing that helps some hospitality channels succeed in contrasting with others.

II. Personalized Experience: Consumers are gradually leaning towards self-management by receiving assistance from a representative of the organisation. Cordiality organizations need an Omni-channel scheme for encouraging personalization on a scale (Bharwani & Jauhari, 2017, p. 166). Brands that seek to inject elements of engagement, customization and legitimacy into such channels, such as smartphones, exercise places, wearable apps, over the internet and on land, are likely to pay marks that do not, generating more revenue through steadfastness, meaningful studies, personal likes and deals, as well as casual suggestions. 

III. Rapid Delivery of Service: Consumers would never ever prefer to stay at a halt. It is an evolving thought fueled to some extent by the early multiplication of smartphones along with the internet. In this regard, it can very well be assumed that consumers anticipate that organizations should deliver sound administration and deliver dependably at any of those contact points throughout the customer service in a rapid fashion (Oskam & Boswijk, 2016, p. 27). In this way the conveyance time of the service is kept at an apex priority.

IV. Technological Use: Consumers expect hospitality services to be increasingly complicated. This, as well, is being driven by advances in innovation and the administration visitors get from organizations in different enterprises. Today's gadgets are smarter as well as progressively capable of enabling modern communication between hotel employees and visitors (Cheng et al., 2016, p. 102). Thus, appropriate use of technology is vital.

Recommendations

In the process of taking a business to the international level and gaining and maintaining customer retention, the company must fulfill all the digital and social requirements as well as necessities of the consumers. The purchasers of the modern world hold high expectations for the products and services that they buy and consume, and they mostly stay loyal to those products and services based on the overall experience (Ristova & Dimitrov, 2019, p. 150).

Similar to any other industry, the hotel and hospitality industry has also been disrupted by the technology and digital transformation of the services. The world today is rapidly proceeding towards digitization in each and every service sector, as this is making it easier for the businesses to participate on the global market. Airbnb is considered to be the pioneer in understanding and implementing this digital urgency in business in the hospitality sector. From searching for a desired hotel in budget to online payment, from face-recognition check-ins to mobile integration, the industry is running literally on the digital platform. Digital transformation in this industry is one of the key reasons in the success of this company which is the prime recommendation for any business entity to follow if they target for a huge consumer base. The company focuses on the improvement of behind-the-scene procedures which is a quite critical act to perform to deliver the personal service in a satisfactory level, where digital operation and social norms have great roles to play. Brands like Marriott and Hyatt should follow this approach to give Airbnb a tough competition, just as Marriott did with introducing virtual tours and facial recognitions (Revfine.com, 2019).

Apart from that, the globally operated volunteerism, where the employees are treated with enough care and salary, using extra spaces from locals for accommodating travelers and creating a ‘home away from home’ are some of the strategies of Airbnb to fulfill social responsibilities which are highly recommended for any business in hospitality industry for long-lasting consumer service. Moreover, analyzing the market for understanding the customer requirements is one of the foremost activities for a business to perform. Ristova & Dimitrov (2019) have also stated that the very fundamental feature of a lifestyle hotel service is to be aware of the needs of their consumers. Evaluating the customer behavior, upgrading the service and collecting their reviews to improve and expand their business are some of the key points of focus for all the organizations in the concerned sector these days.

Conclusion

It can be concluded in the end that the entire hotel and hospitality industry has been experiencing a great modification lately, in terms of consumer behavior, technological infusion, professional development, business culture to customer service and so on. The reference of Airbnb throughout the report shows the crucial things and approaches to adopt in enhancing the satisfactory customer base, and in this process, impact of dissatisfactory experience of consumers helps to understand the points of modification. A brief recommendation has also been included on the type of commitments that can fulfill the digital, social and customer needs.

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