Hotel Industry Why the Hotel

Hotel Industry

Why the Hotel Industry is a Positive Career Choice Today

The hotel and hospitality industry today has progressed to the point of having common processes, systems, and measurements in place to successfully manage and excel at each guest's experience over time. Far from merely having a good price and location for a hotel, today's state-of-the-art websites and extensive use of analytics and business intelligence software are making the task of identifying the most critical factors to excelling at serving the most profitable guests a reality.

Measuring service quality and being able to defend pricing strategies is the first major trend that the hospitality industry today is continually working through to find a profitable solution for. The use of the SERVQUAL measure of service quality and satisfaction for example (Crotts, Pan, Raschid, 21) quantifies those factors that most and least delight guests staying at a hotel. This is invaluable analysis and can assist hospitality managers in defining processes, systems and workflows that can further sustain customer satisfaction over the long-term. The future of hospitality will be managed more by those who can make quick use of this data to also define their pricing strategies by location or property as well. "When times are good, the hotel wants to raise prices as high as possible without losing customers," said Bill Carroll, a senior lecturer at Cornell University's School of Hotel Administration yet "When times are bad, hotels need to cut prices, but only enough to stimulate demand," he said (Lee, et.al.).

The reliance on price alone, despite the exceptional depth of websites that offer pricing comparisons including Kayak.com will eventually give way to highly personalized service, initially created over the Internet using guided selling Web-based applications (Muto, 2). Integrating guided selling and the ability to create a personalized, in-person experience will be another catalyst of growth in the industry. This aspect of competition over the Web will also favor those in the industry who have exceptional abilities in creating unique experiences for their guests (Muto, 3). According to Mr. Rock Conley CEO of Joie de Vivre, "Price is important but unlike a rental car, there are other important determining factors about what is the right hotel for you," he says. Travelers "sleep with the product and shower with the product." What this dynamic speaks to then from the standpoint of the future of the hospitality industry is that the ability to create exceptional experiences for guests while also ensuring that price is secondary to quality and experience is critical. Only when this specific set of conditions are created can individuals as leaders in this industry transform it by offering exceptional experiences, tailored to the needs of each guest, without sacrificing overall quality. The need for this innate creativity in the industry is critically important, and presents a unique and challenging growth path for those embarking on a career today. Being able to meld together the experiences within a hotel, tailored to the specific needs of each guest, while at the same time capitalizing on the innate strengths of the hotel to deliver on its commitments will lead to guests becoming loyal over time. Ultimately the profitability of the hospitality industry is directly linked to how effective hospitality leaders and managers are in making this connection of experiences and measured performance over time.

The second major trend in the hospitality industry today is the growing reliance on business analytics software applications to better understand, anticipate and respond to customers' concerns (McKnight, 31). The use of business analytics software including predictive analytics that Harrah's has developed an expertise with example is a case in point (McKnight, 30). The ability to find the most profitable customer segments and tailor specific messaging, service offers, and coupons to them is keeping Harrah's profitable despite the recession that is going on right now. This filed of business analytics and predictive intelligence is one that continues to grow rapidly with the need for analysts, managers, directors and vice presidents to continually manage the large amount of data captured and used for creating strategies. In this area specifically there is the opportunity for anyone entering this industry to make a reputation for themselves based on creativity and intelligence. This is perhaps one of the most promising areas of the entire industry due to its proving to be recession-resilient over the last two years.