Chapter 7: Latest Trends & Development

As of today, more and more travelers seek to go places that are fresh and explore areas where others may be unfamiliar with. Big cities are well developed and some may even lost their authenticity feel to them. This might be the reason why travelers seek less develop areas to visit to get the real feel to it. This gives the ideas to hotels to expand into these remote areas and attract more travelers to stay in their hotel.

The hotels want to promote awareness in other parts of the world besides the already well-known places. This is good for people who would like to travel and have a comfortable place to stay while enduring less developed parts of the world. According to Remote lands, Inc., their goal is to “create highly-personalized, ultra luxe holidays” and are “continuing its expansion into Central Asia this week”. Also there have been backpackers who visit these areas and stated, “It’s one of Asia’s great undiscovered destinations.” The country has great potential and so much to offer which includes “ flowing rivers and majestic mountain ranges, as well as a varied range of activities including horseback riding, and trekking." But not much people know about these remote areas therefore promoting and expanding of hotels will attract visitors to come see these fascinating undiscovered areas of the world. 

http://discountedhotelrooms.org/remote-lands-expands-into-the-unexplored-countries-of-kazakhstan-and-kyrgyzstan/ 

Chapter 4&5: Food and Beverage Operations

The functions and responsibilities of F&B

• serves food and drink
• provide customers with satisfying dining experience
• generate the most part of revenue
• responsible for the efficient and effective operation of different departments.

Also,

• Training and motivating
• Budgeting and Cost control
• Identifying trends in dining habits
• Ensuring the food and drinks quality and quantity

Kitchen - Chef

• control the food quality
• ensure the food safety and hygiene
• control the cost of inventory

Restaurant - Restaurant Manager 

• maintain quality standard
• ensure customers' satisfaction 
• hire and manage staffs
• oversee the daily operation

Bars

• provide quality drinks
• properly serve drinks/wine
• assist wine/drinks selection
• supervise the ordering and storage of drinks

Steward

• cleaning
• pest control
• maintain inventory control

Chapter 10: New leisure trends

Wellness Tourism

Wellness Tourism is “travel associated with the pursuit of maintaining or enhancing one's personal wellbeing.".

Wellness Tourism is “travel associated with the pursuit of maintaining or enhancing one's personal wellbeing.” - See more at: http://www.sri.com/blog/wellness-tourism-growth-opportunity-worldwide#sthash.vOcNDmYj.dpuf

Wellness Tourism is “travel associated with the pursuit of maintaining or enhancing one's personal wellbeing.” - See more at: http://www.sri.com/blog/wellness-tourism-growth-opportunity-worldwide#sthash.vOcNDmYj.dpuf

Wellness Tourism is “travel associated with the pursuit of maintaining or enhancing one's personal wellbeing.” - See more at: http://www.sri.com/blog/wellness-tourism-growth-opportunity-worldwide#sthash.vOcNDmYj.dpuf

Wellness Tourism is “travel associated with the pursuit of maintaining or enhancing one's personal wellbeing.” - See more at: http://www.sri.com/blog/wellness-tourism-growth-opportunity-worldwide#sthash.vOcNDmYj.dpuf

Wellness Tourism is “travel associated with the pursuit of maintaining or enhancing one's personal wellbeing.” - See more at: http://www.sri.com/blog/wellness-tourism-growth-opportunity-worldwide#sthash.vOcNDmYj.dpuf

Wellness Tourism is “travel associated with the pursuit of maintaining or enhancing one's personal wellbeing.” - See more at: http://www.sri.com/blog/wellness-tourism-growth-opportunity-worldwide#sthash.vOcNDmYj.dpuf

Wellness Tourism is “travel associated with the pursuit of maintaining or enhancing one's personal wellbeing.” - See more at: http://www.sri.com/blog/wellness-tourism-growth-opportunity-worldwide#sthash.vOcNDmYj.dpuf

 Many tourists plan their travels specifically for wellness activities such as visiting spas, health resorts, baths and springs, yoga retreats, national parks, gyms and fitness centers, and even specialty restaurants. People are trying to relax and participate in leisure activities in a healthier way. This is an emerging market and the customer segment becomes larger in the recent two years. That is a market having the size like ecotourism and culinary tourism, but bigger than sports tourism and medical tourism.


Source: http://www.sri.com/blog/wellness-tourism-growth-opportunity-worldwide

Ecotourism

Nowadays, ecotourism has been becoming more popular in Hong Kong. Since the establishment of Hong Kong Geopark and the arouse sense of environment protection, it boost up the development of eco-tourism. People are more willing to go to countryside as their leisure activites. There are some tour guided by the local experts in Hong Kong. They provide visits to islands and country parks like Lantau and Sai Kung to discover some special nature spots.Recently, some association are trying to develop night safari in Hong Kong.

Source:http://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/article/1157266/eco-tours-show-visitors-natural-hot-spots-hong-kong

Many tourists plan their travels specifically for wellness activities—visiting spas, health resorts, baths and springs, but also yoga retreats, national parks, gyms and fitness centers, and even specialty restaurants. - See more at: http://www.sri.com/blog/wellness-tourism-growth-opportunity-worldwide#sthash.vOcNDmYj.dpuf

Many tourists plan their travels specifically for wellness activities—visiting spas, health resorts, baths and springs, but also yoga retreats, national parks, gyms and fitness centers, and even specialty restaurants. - See more at: http://www.sri.com/blog/wellness-tourism-growth-opportunity-worldwide#sthash.vOcNDmYj.dpuf

Chapter 10: Clubs

Clubs

A club, by definition, is an association of two or more people united by a common interest or goal. There are different kinds of clubs; service clubs for voluntary or charitable activities, clubs where people with the same hobbies and interests gather, and clubs for social, political, and religious activities. We will explore some of these in this post.

Golf Clubs

People who enjoy playing golf regularly will want to become members of a local golf course. In addition to gathering with other golf players, members can save money by paying a membership fee that allows unlimited golf.

An example of this is the Stonebridge Golf Club in Ottawa, Canada. It is located right in the middle of the Stonebridge neighbourhood where many wealthy people in the city live. The membership fees offered are as follow:

	Membership Fee	Stonebridge Resident
Adult 5-Day	HK$14,000	HK$12,500
Adult 7-Day	HK$17,500	HK$15,700
Intermediate (23-29 years old)	HK$12,500	HK$11,300
Student (19-22 years old)	HK$8,400	HK$7,500

Besides hosting tournaments year round, golf courses also have facilities and venues to host weddings, bridal showers, bachelor parties, and other special occasions.

University Clubs

Each university boasts a variety of clubs for students to join, but one that truly reaches a global level is AIESEC. It is the world's largest student-run organization. Students become members after going through an interview process and being selected. They are then placed in a portfolio that best suits them and become active members of the club. There are 100,000 members worldwide in over 2,400 universities. There is a small fee to pay to help fund the chapter.

Another club is DECA, whose purpose is to prepare emerging leaders and entrepreneurs in marketing, finance, hospitality, and management. Members compete against other schools in case competitions that are held yearly. 

Chpater 10: An example of recreation in Hong Kong: Hong Kong Wetland Park

Hong Kong Wetland Park

Hong Kong Wetland Park, classified as government-sponsored recreation, was found in New Territories in 1998. There are two main aims of the park, ranging from educating and raising citizens’ awareness of environmental protection, to attracting local and foreign tourists to promote the green of Hong Kong. Since everyone is welcomed to have a visit there, the park becomes their own garden for escaping from their busy life.

The following will discuss the daily operation, revenue and future plan of the park,

Daily Operation:

With “Hong Kong Wetland Park Special Area Order” coming to effect, the park has become the latest special areas of Hong Kong that is used to develop ecological mitigation for wildlife. The park is opened in the whole week, except the Tuesday if it is not a public holiday. In the weekend, there are even some volunteers who introduce the park to the visitors. Regarding the servicescape, there are five exhibition galleries, including ‘What are Wetlands?’, ‘Living Wetlands’, ‘Human Culture’, Viewing Gallery’ and ‘Wetland Challenge’. By introducing and educating visitors about wetland ecology in different gallery, it aims to emphasize the importance of wetland ecology to human being, which in turn encourages them to contribute more to the environment.

Revenue:

Different clients will be charged at different prices. Generally, adults are charged at HKD30, toddlers, students and the elderly are charged at HKD15. There is even a discount offered to the group which member are more than 10 persons, or people who buy the annual ticket. Since the revenue of park mostly comes from entrance fee, which is not enough to cover the expense, the government provides sponsor to maintain its daily operation. The park also outsources inner food service to Cafe de Coral so as to reduce the cost of running a food service.

Future development:

As an international tourist attraction of Hong Kong, Wetland Park will continuously focus on adding local features into education and recreation. For example, through some exhibitions and events cooperated with other organizations, visitors can have a great experience with the wildlife. Then, the public awareness of wildlife conservation will be raised. What’s more, the park will also keep integrating in protecting and offering a better living environment to those wild animals which are rare in Hong Kong. By doing so, it can build up a good word of mouth in the society as well as develop more attractive points to every visitors. 

Reference:

http://www.discoverhongkong.com/us/see-do/great-outdoors/nature-parks/hong-kong-wetland-park.jsp

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hong_Kong_Wetland_Park

http://www.wetlandpark.gov.hk/en/exhibition/index.asp

Chapter 2: Franchasing of Hotel Business

One of the example is:
Accor

In June 2014,Accor exceeded 1,400 franchised hotels, confirming the accelerated worldwide franchise development .

This preliminary step gives the franchise developer an overview of project. Further exchanges between you and the franchise development team will enable them to determine whether your hotel is suitable for one of their brand’s networks. Next, the contract is drawn up. Lastly, our dedicated teams of high-qualified professionals will accompany the new hotel throughout the period between the signature of the contract and the opening of your hotel under an Accor brand to ensure a smooth, stress-free transition

Source: http://www.accor.com/en/franchise-and-management/our-contracts/franchise-agreement.html

Intercontinental Hotel Group 

For Franchising,This is the largest part of their business: 4,001 hotels operate under franchise agreements.
They offer personalized support and training initiatives to fine tune the hotel for peak performance through programs like their Revenue Management which uses calibrated forecasting tools to optimize reservation pricing for hotel.
For Managing, they manage 722 hotels worldwide. They own 9* hotels worldwide (less than 1% of portfolio).
Source:
http://www.ihgbusinesssource.com/
http://development.ihg.com/development-contracts


Starwood Hotels


There are Franchising operation and management service. They provide support in different procedures. For example, Starwood's centralized procurement services program - voluntary for our franchise licensees - generates significant savings across all brands. Through multi-scale partnerships and proprietary technology, Starwood leverages its global strength to lower the cost of goods while implementing efficient inventory management and buying practices.For the training after franchising, they give employees the framework to deliver on the brand promise, providing an experience that turns first-time guests into loyal customers. Comprehensive training for associates provides a clear understanding of the behaviors and skills necessary to deliver the brand promise, while manager training focuses on leading and building a branded guest service culture.

Source:http://development.starwoodhotels.com/development_opportunities/franchised

Chapter 2: Latest Trends & Development

In the 21st century, the hospitality industry is drastically changing now more so than ever. Demand for hospitality is increasing as people travel freely around the world. Therefore the hospitality industry need to find ways to learn and improve their management approaches to better understand what needs to be provided for guest satisfaction. Globalization is taking over the world as the last two decades technology has made it easier for people to travel the world, communicate efficiently, and do business internationally. 

Technology

 

One of the top trends in the industry is technology. Recently, one of the top leading brands in the world has decided to invest in new technology for the hotel industry – Apple. It has been released that in the near future, guests can unlock their hotel door rooms with just their smartphone. This means that technology will be an even bigger impact and taking over the hospitality industry.

Source: http://stayntouch.com/apples-officially-embracing-hotel-apps/

Being environmentally friendly

Another popular trend with consumers is being environmentally friendly. Many hotels are now "going green" and supporting sustainability to appeal to the eco-conscious consumer. They are doing this by making environment improvements to its structure to minimize its impact on the environment and following the practices of green living in order to be certified "green" by an independent third-party.

The Park Hyderabad in Hyderabad, India is just one of many examples of hotels promoting eco-friendliness. The Hyderabad has a stunning exterior that maximizes natural sunlight to reduce electricity consumption. In addition to that, there is a culture of green transportation, as the hotel promotes bicycling and electric cars.

Another example of this is the Six Senses Hotel in Con Dao, Vietnam.

Building materials from sustainable resources were used, and combined with a design of the building that maximizes air flow, the hotel is conserving energy by reducing the need of turning on the air conditioning. Staff is also very involved in social responsibility by committing to reduce carbon footprint.

Source: http://mashable.com/2013/04/21/eco-friendly-hotels/