Hotel Service Operations Management

WorkshopGuide

 Reminder….HOTS cycling finishes this week!!!
 Peer Evaluations are due (via SparkPlus on Turnitin) by 10am on Friday 20th October (i.e. end of Week 11).
 Peer evaluations to designed to moderate individual team members performance during the semester (HOTS decision making, contribution to the Financial Plan and overall participation).
 Failure to complete the Peer Evaluation on time will result in:
o a late penalty (10% per day and 100% after 5 days, as per standard Griffith policy, refer to the Course Profile).
o a delay in the release of HOTS Balanced Scorecard performance mark (10% weighting) to ALL TEAM MEMBERS.
 This week we will talk about the “Year 4 Business Plan” section of the HOTS report, i.e. SWOT, objectives, and strategies.
 workshop = in-person consultation for draft reports.
 Do not send drafts by email – only hard copy drafts will be reviewed in person during one of the many consultation opportunities that are available to students in Weeks 11-13.
HOTS Report:
SWOT analysis
 Strengths and Weaknesses:
o Internal factors, e.g. financial ratios, occupancy %, REVPAR, staff turnover, extra facilities, market image, etc. etc. (this is by no means an exhaustive list!!)
o You must include the STAR reportas either a strength or a weaknesses. Within the body of your report include the STAR report table.
o You MUST provide evidence of your claims (e.g. reference to financial information in appendices)
o Don’t rely on one sole comment from one customer saying they liked your restaurant as “evidence” that your restaurant is good. Remember you had 1000’s of customer come through your restaurant. One comment is not enough “proof”.
 Opportunities and Threats
o External factors and trends, e.g. more demand for eating out, unfilled customer needs in the market, new competitors, economic outlook, etc. etc. (again, this is by no means an exhaustive list)
o You MUST provide evidence of your claims (e.g. reference to HOTS market research or competitor status reports in appendices)
o There are more threats than just your competitors. If you cannot conceive of other threats than just your competitors, you will not get a high mark for this section.

Objectives
 These are broad goals or targets for your hotel to achieve in Year 4.
o Must be specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time-bound (SMART).
o Include at least 6 objectives and ensure they cover a good range of financial, organisational and market objectives.
o Remember, you cannot just go and “do” an objective, for example, you cannot just go and “do” a ROCE of 30%. The ROCE goal is your objective, the things that you “do” to achieve that objective are your strategies (i.e. they belong in the next section of the report).
o If you can just “do” an objective, it is not an objective, for example, extend the hotel by 50 rooms. That is a strategy, because you can just “do” it. Your objective might be to increase rooms revenue by 30% – one of the strategies to achieve that might be build another 50 rooms (but before you just go and copy this idea in to your report and claim it as yours, think about this – do you have the cash flow to pay for it and will the rooms be built in time to help you achieve the objective within the timeframe? Remember to make your objectives realistic and achievable).
o There should be an obvious (but implicit) connection between your SWOT and your objectives. For example, if you say that a weakness is poor cost control, then an objective could be to increase your profit (net income) percentage. You would then have strategies in the following section that also relate to this weakness/objective.
Strategies
 Areas to consider (but not limited to):
o Corporate/weekday Market (discuss each of the following: Product, promotion and sales, pricing and distribution, as relevant to the corporate market)
o Leisure/weekend Market (discuss each of the following: Product, promotion and sales, pricing and distribution, as relevant to the leisure market)
o Other market segments…(use a descriptive heading e.g., conference market) (discuss each of the following: Product, promotion and sales, pricing and distribution)
o Food and beverage
o Staffing and Service quality (Staffing: minimum discussion is pay, training and number of staff based on forecasts. Service quality: strategies to improve service quality providing specific steps)
o Physical property condition (current status, building and renovations planned)
 At a minimum, you must indicate the HOTS decisions you will make in the above areas, e.g.:
o High season/low season rates (specify the months and the $, we will assume that you do not know when the busy season is if you do not identify when it is)
o Your product, in terms of the quality of the tangible (guest comfort, refurbs and extra facilities) and intangible (service delivered by experienced and motivated employees with high morale) offering.
o Discounting strategies
o Distribution channels – choices, discounts, letting limits
o Advertising mediums for major products
o F&B menu type, supplier, meal price, liquor band
o Staff numbers, pay level and training adjusted as per business forecasts
o Refurbishment plans for Year 4 including any building or renovations planned.

 For better marks, you will need to include some independent thought and research (supported by APA referencing), and suggest some strategies that are not actually available in HOTS, for example:
o Are there new/untapped market segments you could attract with particular products and facilities?
o Could you improve on your human resource management strategies?
Are there sustainability initiatives that could improve on your triple-bottom line?

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