Bab 1 Hospitality Industry

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HOSPITALITY INDUSTRY
What is the meaning of HOSPITALITY ?
There is no one single and simple definition to explain the term of hospitality in this stage.
Many people have tried to describe the hospitality industry in different ways. Some tried to
summarize the scope of the industry and its characteristics of involving both tangible and
intangible features in the service delivery process. Others attempted to describe the industry by
exploring the stakeholders involved, mutual benefits generated and the industry's impacts to the
society and economy.
Broadly speaking, Hospitality is the act of kindness in welcoming and looking after the
basic needs of customers or strangers, mainly in relation to food, drink and accommodation. A
contemporary explanation of Hospitality refers to the relationship process between a customer
and a host. When we talk about the “Hospitality Industry”, we are referring to the companies or
organizations which provide food and/or drink and/or accommodation to people who are “away
from home”. However, this definition of the “Hospitality Industry” only satisfies most situations.
Different from other sectors, the hospitality industry is unique in its nature which tends to
be service-oriented and has a strong emphasis on human exchange in the service delivery
processes.
Product - Service
Mix
Two - Way
Communication
Characteristics of
Relation Ship
Hospitality
Building
Industry
Diversity in
Culture
Labor Intensive
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1. Product-Service Mix
Think about your experience of being a customer in a restaurant or a customer in a
hotel. What else, apart from the food in restaurants and the facilities in hotel rooms,
do you think can make your hospitality experience more enjoyable and satisfied?
In the hospitality industry, customers rarely consume pure products but a mixture of
products and services. For example, one who dines in a restaurant will not only pay
for the food and drinks but the services provided by the servers. The bill has covered
both tangible and intangible experience.
Tangible features- for example, a steak as the main course, a glass of house wine, well
groomed service staff and decoration of the restaurant.
Intangible features- for example, a comfortable dining atmosphere or the friendly
attitude of staff.
A successful hospitality business does not only count on its products and services, but
also how they are delivered. The qualities of staff and the way they deliver the service
are often more important than the tangible products in making a hospitality experience
satisfactory or unsatisfactory. Hence, the two features can contribute to the total
experience in the service delivery process.
As products and other tangible features can be easily imitated by competitors,
hospitality operations which aimed for high-ended customers and ‘superior’ quality
gradually spend more and more resources in enhancing the service standard as a
strategy of differentiation.
2. Two-way Communication
In order to achieve service excellences in the hospitality industry, two-way communication
is one critical factor which requires the involvement and participation of both customers
and service staff in the service delivery process. Through interactions with customers, important
messages about their needs and expectations can be received by service staff for their
immediate actions to create customer satisfaction. Interactions between internal staff
or inter-departments is also critical since total experiences of customers in using any
Introduction to Hospitality 17 lodging or food and beverage services usually involve team work
and exchange of information within the organization.
3. Relationship Building
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The hospitality industry highly depends on repeated customers for survival. Building
long term relationship with customers can benefit the organizations for generating stable
revenues regardless of the instability of seasons and at the same time, developing brand
reputations through positive word-of-mouth of the repeated customers. In order to develop
brand loyalty,
different methods are currently applied by the lodging and food service sectors, such as
membership programmes which give privileges and incentives to frequent customers. However,
top management of organizations do believe that the informal ways of building “friendship”
between front-line staff and customers through high degree of personal attention and
customization can win the loyalty of customers in long run.
4. Diversity in Culture
As hospitality are closely related to tourism industry, it is not surprising that people
involved in this sector, no matter customers or staff are experiencing a diversity in culture
through interacting with others. Staff who work in a hospitality organization always have
interactions with customers from different regions, or to work and corporate with other
colleagues who may have different backgrounds or cultures. Due to their differences in religious
beliefs and values, some conflicts and misunderstandings can be easily occurred. Therefore, staff
should be
Mr. John Chan
Introduction to Hospitality 18 open-minded, and come up with solutions together in
resolving problems in their duties. For example:
From customers’ perspective, some of them abstain from meat due to their religious
beliefs or habit. Therefore, restaurants should provide vegetarian food as an option in
order to satisfy their needs.
From staff’s perspective, eating pork or any food products with pork as ingredient
should be avoided if some colleagues are Muslims in order to show respect to their
religious belief.
Such a cultural diversity implicates that local staff should generally understand
different cultures so flexible services can be provided to customers based on their national
cultures and harmony in cooperation with colleagues from different nationalities can be
achieved.
5. Labor Intensive
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Since the hospitality industry is service-oriented in its’ nature, it requires a

huge supply of labors to create a memorable experience for the customers. This
characteristic is especially true for those enterprises which target for high-ended
customers. For example, staff-to-guest ratios are high in fine dining restaurants and 5-star
hotels which aimed at providing one-on-one services to their customers. Although the
advancement in technology do contribute to the replacement of some simple tasks in the whole
service process, customers who concern the element of ‘care’ generally expect high degree of
human contacts and
personalized services in their consumption experiences. It explains why the industry is
always in high demand for labor and is willing to spent time and resources in training
and recruiting potential candidates to join the workforce of the hospitality industry.
Hospitality Management,
1. Tourism Management
2. Hotel management
3. Resort Management
4. Event Management
5. Convention management
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Since the hospitality industry is service-oriented in its’ nature, it requires a

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