Hotel Front Office Management, 3rd Edition

TRENDS THAT FOSTER GROWTH 21great deal of operations and development experience in the industry. He or she may alsopurchase a hotel property to balance an investment portfolio. As with any financial investment,the entrepreneur will seek a professional to manage and operate the establishment.The person chosen for this job must manage all aspects of the business—room,food and beverage, housekeeping, security, maintenance, parking, controller’s office, andmarketing and sales. All business decisions on expenditures must be coordinated with aprofit-and-loss statement and a balance sheet. Every sale of a guest room, every guestpurchase of food and beverage, occurs because the management of that property has beenable to market and manage the property effectively. The challenge of managing an independentproperty can be overwhelming. It can, however, also offer enormous satisfactionand financial independence.Trends That Foster GrowthFuture professionals in the hotel industry must be able to analyze who their customerswill be and why they will have customers. Marketing classes teach how to determine thebuyers of a particular product—who the potential guests of a particular hotel propertyare. Such courses show how to evaluate demographic data (size, density, distribution,vital statistics of a population, broken down into, for example, age, sex, martial status,and occupation categories) and psychographic data (emotional and motivational forcesthat affect a service or product) for potential markets.The second question—why there will be customers—is an important one. Studentswill explore this question many times during their career in the lodging industry. A managermust plan for profitable results. This plan must take into account the reasons whycustomers purchase a product—what trends will increase or decrease the need for hotelfacilities? Such factors include the growth of leisure time, the development of the “me/pleasure” concept, the increase in discretionary income, the trend toward smaller families,the changes in business travel, and the expansion of the travel experience. Other economicsand political trends—such as public liability, insurance costs, overbuilding, the valueof the U.S. dollar overseas, gasoline prices, safety from random danger while traveling,and legislation—affect commerce; labor and the airline industry also have an impact oncurrent sales as well as growth in the lodging industry.Leisure TimeThe trend toward increased leisure time—in the form of three-day weekends, paidvacations and personal days, a workweek of 40 hours or less, and early retirement—hasset the stage for the growth of the lodging industry. As more people have available leisuretime to explore new geographical areas, try new hobbies, sample different culinary trends,participate in sporting events, and just relax, the customer base of the hotel industryexpands.TLFeBOOK