Hospitality Provisions

Composition of the hospitality industry

Travelodge Hotels limited is one of the largest privately owned companies which are operating in hospitality industry throughout UK. The hospitality firm is ‘Travelodge’ and is the second largest in terms of budget hotel sector. Moreover, it is the third largest hotel chain in UK in terms of number of bedrooms. Therefore, it can be easily understood through the size of these firms about the type of services that aredelivered by it. Number of visitors arrives at this hotel in lieu of pursuing the best quality services and accommodation facilities (Guillet and Mattila, 2010). However, Travelodge is aimed at becoming the largest hotel chain in London. However, the firm is well known for great value and their simple, spacious and luxurious bedrooms. Numerous locations have been established by Travelodge in the UK which assist travelers in visiting the nearest place. Most especially, locating hotel near airport provides the best facility to travelers to take rest before an early morning start.

Moreover, along with 5 star hotels in different areas of London, the management authorities have managed to locate 3 star hotels near every airport of UK (Koenig, 2001). The only thing required by people to do is early booking before visiting the hotel. This will help the firm in managing facilities of travelers as early as possible. On the other hand, restaurant chain in the same firm add great value to the hotel because it is the basic requirement for every hotel chain to keep a restaurant linked with it (Lockwood, 2007). The best way to attract more number of customers at hotel is to offer them the facilities of restaurant as well. However, there are numerous kinds of services which can be delivered by the restaurant like breakfast, lunch, dinner, beer, fast food and many other facilities which are suitable for the children also. In the current scenario, Taco Bell is the chosen restaurant chain which provides number of facilities to the visitors on daily basis. The major role played by this restaurant chain is to attract more visitors in order to acquire maximum marginal revenue in quick time period.

In this context, it can be said that if these two sectors, that is, hotel and restaurant chain gets merged together, they can create and grab great plenty of opportunities for themselves through attracting large number of customers (Madanoglu, Karadag andUpneja, 2009).Linking of these two sectors can add a great value to the customers. Extraordinary facilities that are available in restaurants can easily catch the attention of visitors to enjoy both facilities, that is, food and beverage in restaurant and accommodation facility in the hotel firm. Though merging a restaurant chain and hotel firm requires huge capital but the benefits that are likely to be derived from such an acquisition can be outstanding and advantageous for both the sectors (Williams, 2002).In the modern era, for attracting huge number of customers towards hotels, management of the firm are making number of efforts but acquiring a small restaurant or pub is one of the best ways to generate marginal revenue in the safest manner. Furthermore, acquisition of small restaurant change in base or top floor of the hotel chain is also an ideal thing. It is because number of customers likes to spend their time or enjoy moment by sitting over a place like restaurant (Beals and Denton, 2005).

Travel and tourism sector

The role of hospitality industry does not get over with managing facilities inside the firm only. But the main role of these organizations is also to look over the transportation or traveling facilities as well. Therefore, it becomes necessary for Travelodge to avail travelling facilities to the visitors because it one of the largest problems which is faced by travelers while roaming abroad. Making available the travelling facility is an ideal thing to attract the attention of maximum number of travelers. Not only for the travelers but hospitality sector can also hold facility of arranging conferences and meetings related to business class.In context of travelling facilities, Travelodge should focus more on disabled people as they require highly skilled and qualitative services while staying outside their own nation, state or city (Chatfield and Chatfield, 2003). Medical facilities should be made available at every hotel chain so that customers or travelers at the time of emergency can get instant access to the doctor. Moreover, older people are also needed to be taken care of. It is because numbers of aged people in UK are more and most of them are likely to get assistance from the hospitality sector. In this context, Travelodge should understand basic needs and requirements of aged or older people to provide them the best available service as possible.

Furthermore, people have differences in their needs and requirements, so it is the duty as well as responsibility of hospitality industry to regularly access their growing needs and expectations from the firm. With consistent changes in environmental issues, problems in personal lives of people have also been increased (Warin, Diamant andPfenning, 2010). Some of them are like mobility impairments, visual impairments, hearing impairments, speech impairments, mental impairments and hidden or elderly impairments. These are some of the physical as well as mental disabilities which are present in visitors. Considering all these issues, hospitality management has to make changes in their facilities.

In order to capture the attraction of visitors, Travelodge Ltd. is required to develop its outside as well as internal areas which include:

• For disabled people, the parking space should be safely designed.
• Drop –off areas for motor vehicles so that people enter through the front entrance.
• Door handles should be smooth and easy to assess.
• Automatic opening of gates whenever visitors or guests arrive at the front door.
• There should be clear signs and easily understandable pictograms.
• Instruction in lifts is required to have clear visualization of every floor in the screen.
• There should be wide space in doors, passages, corridors and space between dining tables so that, guests can move easily (Dearlove, Bialous and Glantz, 2002).
• Regarding bathrooms and toilets, there should be supportable handrails everywhere beside toilets, bathrooms and wash basins.
• Shower should have wheels and floor of bathrooms should be non-slippery.

Moreover, there are some general facilities which can be observed in each and every hospitality firm such as sufficient lighting facilities where customers do not have to face reflections.Guestrooms are required to have non-allergic bedding and cleaning materials. No-smoking zones and glass doors as well as windows should contain warning instructions written on them.

In context of traveling facilities, Travelodge should provide accessible railway stations, platforms, airports, ferry ports and waiting areas. Firm should provide safe and secure systems in order to fix wheelchairs in the passenger vehicles. Customers need to have knowledge of accessible arrival and departure stops (Huntley and Barnes-Reid, 2003). Moreover, on-board and off-board information should be made available for travelers so that they can assess the hotel in an easy way. Staff members should be trained in an adequate manner in order to serve customers in the most appropriate manner.

Accommodation services of Travelodge include:

• Choice of customers on selection of mattress that whether they require soft or hard mattress (Ransley and Ingram, 2012).
• Electric beds and automatic bed risers are also some common facilities that should be provided to travelers.
• Travelers are required to be provided with remote controls for windows, lighting and Television.
• Wardrobe should include pull-down coat hangers.
• In bathrooms, shower chairs or wall-mounted seating should be made available for customers, especially for aged people.
• Toilet seat risers for handicapped or old people should be provided (Grady andOhlin, 2009).
• A cooling fan must be provided to customers who do not need much cool temperature.

Interrelationship between hospitality and travel and tourism

Hospitality and travel and tourism firms are always interconnected with each other. However, the main purpose of all of them is to attract as much travelers as possible towards organization. When these two industries merge together, it creates a huge impact on travelling sector. However, this interrelationship is not limited to a certain point but it has a great scope which assists the travelers to move from one place to another. The role of hospitality industry is underpinning in many types of travel and tourism areas such as:

Business travel: - It refers to travelling of business class people who needs to travel from one place to another on frequent basis as it is always being a difficult task to move country to country on regular basis (Whitehouse, 2001). Therefore, hospitality sector come in the light as they focus on needs and requirements of business people. Sound travelling system is required by them to get a comfortable journey (Whitelaw and et. al., 2009).

Aviation: - Aviation industry also needs to get in touch with hospitality firms because they have permanent travelers that are booked over long time period. Such type of customers needed to be retained and this can be possible only through integrating with each other.

Conference and exhibitions: - Business organizations often conduct conferences and exhibitions at far places. This awakes the hospitality industry like Travelodge to make arrangements for the future plan of actions. Organizing conferences is a major task and in order to win the attraction of business class people, it is very essential to develop and design the workplace in such a way that can impress them towards the firm (Pitt-Rivers, 2012).

Visitor’s attraction: - Winning the attraction of visitors is one of the primary objectives of Travelodge. In this context, it can be said that the cited firm needs to make attractive influence of the firm through decent outlook and outstanding services. By organizing conferences and exhibitions, they can get good chance to attract more number of visitors.

Integration

Integration refers to put together or incorporate the activities of one another. It helps business organizations to make efforts simultaneously. Another major benefit of integration process is that, hospitality firms do not have to outsource their employees but in fact they can produce the services in-house. This helps the firm to make profitability in long-run. Moreover, through such integration, hospitality as well as travel and tourism companies can increase the global presence and market share (Lafosse, 2008). Basically, there are two types of integrations such as:

Vertical integration:

It is an integration wherein a business organization buys another firm in the distribution chain and then enters into a merger agreement where both the organizations agree to merge operations of each other and share their profitability as well. In the current scenario, hospitality as well as travel and tourism firm merge together in order to increase the profitability through lower cost of operating.
However, forward vertical integration indicates that the situation when a hospitality firm gets merged with another company along with the distribution chain. One of the best examples of forward verticalintegration is when Travelodge decides to buy a traveling agency in order to increase its market share in other markets. In many cases, it has been seen that Travelodge often make agreements with travel agents to provide special rooms and luxurious facilities that bring more number of clients to the firm (Buultjens and Howard, 2001).

On the other hand, backward vertical integration refers to the case when a business organization or hospitality firm purchases one of the suppliers in order to make adequate use of its inputs for acquiring maximum benefits for the firm. In this context, it can be said that a tour operator or a travelling agency can acquire or buy an aviation or a hotel firm because both these are the suppliers of services and provide good amount of benefits to the firm. Last but not the least; lateral integration requires a merger of two integrated organizations which can be directly related with the products and services of organization (Jayawardena, 2003).

Horizontal integration:

Horizontal integration is a very crucial aspect for those business firms which desire to enlarge their customer base. Not only that but, large business firm like Travelodge can horizontally integrate with another company in order to improve the economies of scale and most especially for maximizing the profitability.However, this type of integration is only possible when the business organizations, hospitality and travel and tourism firms are at the same stage of distribution chain.

Moreover, horizontal integration can be complementary in nature rather than competitive. In this context of horizontal integration, most of the firms of aviation industry work closely with hotel chains like Travelodge and many other major hotelsin for enjoying the merging benefits without involving in any kind of risks (Cairncross and Buultjens, 2006). In fact, airline industry makes contact with Travelodge in order to gather and collect the information for scheduling their flight timings in such a way that suits with the accommodation availability in hotel. But practically, it is not possible every time for the hospitality firm due to frequent changes in their operations.In order to avoid the disappointment of travelers, Travelodge and other organizationswill arrange facilities for their customers to book their rooms in advance so that they would not have to face difficulties and can get rooms easily that are available upon their arrival at hotel.

Impacts of integration within hospitality industries

Due to integration of hospitality as well as travel and tourism industry, number of impacts can be seen over the firms. Travelodge, while integrating with travel and tourism sector can get impacted in number of ways (Miller and Hickling, 2006). Moreover, economy also gets impacted due to such integration.Some of the effects of integration of these two aforesaid sectorshave been explained through the help of following points:

Economies of scale and market share: - The first and foremost impact can be seen over economic scale of the firm as because of integration, operating costs get reduced to much greater extent and as a result, profitabilityof Travelodge get increases. In this context, it can be said that if a tour operator acquires a hotel chain like Travelodge, the cost of investment rises very high. But as a matter of fact, high investment results in the higher rate of return. Similarly, investing high in integrating with tourism sector by Travelodge can prove to ve very advantageous in the form of good rate of return (Medlik, 2012). In this context, the integration process allows the tour operator or tourism firm to reduce its dependency over other accommodation service providers because most of the operations can be taken care of within the constraints of firm itself.

Another impact can be seen on the reputation of hotel. In other words, the more will be reputation of hotel; more tourism firms will invest in industry. Therefore, it becomes necessary for Travelodge to improve or enhance its reputation in order to gain the profitability over long time period. More importantly, the operating cost of firm will be reduced. The tour operators are likely here to reduce the package costs in order to provide benefits to the customers. The only thing that is required by Travelodge is to make right strategies at the right place so that market share will be increased and profitability will be maximized (Gitonga, 2014). The major benefit of outcome of horizontal integration is that Travelodge can increase its existing client base. On the other hand, through the help of vertical integration, the cited firm can gain advantage of entering in new market and gaining new client base.

Standardization: - It is a very complex as well as time consuming process. Most especially in a business organization like Travelodge, it becomes very difficult to acquire standardization as it involves number of variables. However, automated process can most certainly be standardized as it is extensively difficult to standardize human resources of the firm. For example, KFC is a globalised brand which has its own standardized processes. In whichever KFC branch a customer visits, he or she finds that operations are almost similar in nature.In context of food zone, the quality, preparation process, efficiency and time duration is also standardized (Andrews, 2010). Though standardization is possible in Travelodge but still it is up to the limited extent. For example, the way of speaking to customers over telephone can be standardized. But the major problem is variability as there are numerous departments in Travelodge which are operated by different personnel. So, it becomes difficult to acquire the standardization in their role because they have to deal with the different situations every time.

Few major organizations: - As mentioned earlier, integration is not possible in small firms. It can only be done in large organizations which have adequate amount of budget. Therefore, few major firms can only integrate with other companies.

Quality: - It cannot be guaranteed that quality will get improved through integrating with the other firm (McDonald and Hopkin, 2003). It is because; all these things depend on the human element of firm. In simple words, if a hotel like Travelodge is taken over by another firm, it does not mean that the new acquirer will improve the quality of services or operations.Actually, the major reason behind this is that employees that are working with the new boss may not find the new ways of operating business to befeasible and as a result, they would deny to work. This creates even more chance of risks. Therefore, it is very crucial for the management of each and every firm to manage and undertake employees on the basis of their own ideas and suggestions because this can improve the quality of firm as well. Manager must give due consideration to the views and opinions of employees because they are the only ones who are in direct contact with customers and they have high knowledge about customer’s needs and demand from Travelodge (Lashley and Morrison, 2013). However, hotels within same kind of hotel chain can also face such type of problem in spite of their agenda to render the high quality of service to customers all the time.

Be Able To Plan The Development Of Hospitality Businesses

Planning development for hospitality management includes three factors which have been explained below:

Development

The first step includes the concept of development. In other words, the hospitality firm, Travelodge needs to understand the required areas where they have to make improvements or development. However, this step is followed by another very crucial step of market research as it is the most important step to be followed by developing business organization. Through proper market research, Travelodge can identify the key or competent and backward areas which are required to get improved (PancaroÄŸlu, 2013). Observing techniques of other firms help to understand the difference between ways of working. The third step involves target market of the firm. In this context, Travelodge is a hospitality business firm. It needs to focus on travelers all around the world but its customers are UK based so it can be understood that the target market of Travelodge is the entire audience of UK. Location is another step which indicates a place where Travelodge should locate it’s another branch so that maximum number of customers can be attracted in a quick manner (Houtenville andKalargyrou, 2012).

Most probably, it should select the locations that are nearby airports because most of the travelers like to visit the nearest place to their destination place. Moreover, selecting location near a station is best suitable to gain maximum number of travelers in the firm. The next is related to funding of capital for the development of organization. As development requires good amount of capital to be invested for developing the backward areas of firm, therefore, it is essential for it to maintain the financial position before investing (Ariffin and Maghzi, 2012). The last step includes products and services which are to be provided to the travelers. There are numerous services which are expected by customers from the firm but from the organizational point of view, continuous research on expectancies of customers is very important.Menu and licensing are two of the best examples of product and service category of the firm.

Design: - The design of Travelodge hotel should be attractive and fully of decent in nature. Moreover, the culture of firm should meet the expectations of customers. Therefore, the culture of organization is required to be set according to the culture and traditions of customers so that they can feel happy and would be impressed with the firm. Furthermore, the interior as well as exterior look of the firm should be designed properly which should match the expectations of customers (Lucas, 2004). The flow of customers should be managed properly so that no single person has to wait for a long time. For example, check-ins and check-out by front office staff should be quick enough which do not let the customers to wait for a long time. Individual needs and expectations of customers should be met properly by the firm.

Operation: - The operational activities of firm include staffing by functional areas and specialist qualifications (Clark and et.al., 2003). Staff members of Travelodge should be trained according to their functional areas. Some issues related to staffing that occur in different seasons should be managed properly. Travelodge should be compliance with laws and legislations, should also focus on promotional activities and pricing policies.

Conclusion

With the help of above report, it has been concluded that hospitality industries play a great role in providing the services to customers. Integration between hospitality and travel and tourism companies is also of great importance as it links every company with each other. It also provides huge profitability to the firm in terms of increased customers and market share as well. The present report explains the impact of integration on Travelodge with other industries and its implication plan and policies of the firm as well.

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References

• Buultjens, J. and Howard, D., 2001. Labour flexibility in the hospitality industry: questioning the relevance of deregulation.International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management.
• Cairncross, G. and Buultjens, J., 2006. Enterprise Bargaining Under the Workplace RelationsAct 1996 in Construction.and Hospitality Small Businesses: A Comparative Study.Journal of Industrial Relations.
• Chatfield, H. K. and Chatfield, R. E., 2003. Bond Yields In The Hospitality Industry.The Journal of Hospitality Financial Management.
• Clark, J. and et. al., 2003.Business-to-Business Relationships.and Sport: Using Sponsorship as a Critical Sales Event.International Journal of Sports Marketing & Sponsorship.
• Dearlove, J. V., Bialous, S. A. and Glantz, S. A., 2002. Tobacco industry manipulation of the hospitality industry to maintain smoking in public places.Tobacco control.
• Gitonga, D. N., 2014.An investigation of factors influencing employee retention in the hospitality industry: A survey of Hotels and lodges in Laikipia East District.

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