TH70097E – Strategic Practice in Luxury Hospitality Management

Assignment Task

Introduction

Welcome to the module Strategic Practice for Luxury Hospitality Management. On the following pages you will find useful information regarding the module, assessments and learning resources. Further information can be found on the Blackboard module site, accessible via the UWL student portal. This module has been carefully designed to fit the demands of level 7. The content and assessment of the module considers nationally agreed assumptions about where you should be as a level 7 student. These are based in the following context:

As a level 7 student, we will expect you to be able to:

Operates in abstract and unpredictably complex learning, work or practice contexts, requiring selection and application of advanced and specialist techniques and information sources., and

Acts autonomously to make strategic decisions and develops appropriate practice guidelines, taking responsibility for outcomes in abstract and unpredictably complex contexts.

Module summary content and aims

The module aims to develop the students’ critical understanding of the commercial and strategic management in luxury hospitality organisations. This module addresses the unique opportunities and challenges that the food and luxury hospitality industries face when designing a customer experience This module will first consider the potential strategic directions that organisations could adopt to ensure revenue and profit generating capabilities in an increasing competitive and commercial world. This will include models of ownership, investment and asset management as well as revenue management. The module goes on to explore how managers go about ‘doing’ strategy in organisations. It considers the actions and behaviours of individuals at middle and senior management levels, and how these contribute towards the practice of strategizing. It achieves this by looking at theoretical concepts such as socio-materiality, sensemaking, and the use of metaphor in shaping different strategic approaches. The content of the module is as follows:

• Hospitality asset management
• Models of ownership and development (managed, franchised, owned, sale and lease-back, mergers and acquisitions)
• Revenue and distribution management
• Commercial functions of a luxury hospitality organisation
• Strategy As Practice and the application of social theory
• Strategic Leadership in the 21st Century
• Participation in the strategy making process
• The inevitability of change and how to lead it 6
• Sensemaking, sensegiving and the role of middle management
• Socio-materiality: the use of objects and artefact
• Strategic episodes and the use of metaphor

Assessment brief – formative assessments and learning outcomes

Both assessments must be submitted to Turnitin. You will find a link to the Turnitin assignment from the ‘Assessments’ area of the Blackboard course menu. You will need to ensure that your assessment is uploaded as a single document and in the correct format (e.g. a Word document or PDF – the acceptable file formats are displayed on screen when you come to submit via Turnitin). Turnitin generates an originality report, and you are encouraged to make use of this facility as a support tool to help you ensure the source material in your assignment is correctly referenced before final submission. You will be able to submit revised drafts of your work up until the assignment due date. Only the final version will be marked by your tutor. At the due date and time, no further submissions or changes are possible. Whatever is in the Turnitin inbox at this time will be regarded as your final submission. If you receive an agreed extension or Mitigating Circumstances, and have also submitted draft work, please contact your tutor to unlock your submission entry. For guidance on online submission of assignments, including how to submit and how to access online feedback, please refer to the UWL Blackboard student-help pages at:

Group Presentation

This assignment assesses learning outcomes 1 and 2. You have been requested to act as a consultant in order to recommend the implementation of new revenue management practices in a presentation to the management team. Your presentation will be to an audience comprising of the group owners and general managers from each hotel who are not familiar with the ins and outs of revenue management and are very interested to learn more. The presentation should cover the following:

• An assessment of the current approach of the hotel group in terms of distribution and pricing in relation to current industry practice
• Explain the benefits of adopting formal revenue management procedures for the London properties. Ensure you cover aspects of pricing, forecasting, and segmentation.
• Asset management approaches for the possible purchase of the hotel in Paris. - Your assessment of the advantages of the hotels joining a ‘soft brand’ to grow the company over the long term.
• What recommendations would you give to ensure that the hotels are maximising their revenue opportunities?
• Recommendations for short-term actions to help prepare for the company’s growth strategy and long-term actions for their international expansion including the appointment of an asset manager.

The Presentation:

Failure by any student to participate in the presentation will result in that student failing the assessment so please ensure you are available. As this is an academic exercise, please reference your slides and provide a full reference list in the Harvard convention. Please ensure all group members are in business attire.

Case study

The Regal Hotel Group is a 5-star central London independent hotel group with 318 rooms across three properties. The buildings, while usable at a five-star standard, could be described as “tired” and in need of some investment. The owners wish to use this opportunity to take stock of the business and decide on a new strategy as they start to look to expand. You have been requested to act as a 9 consultant in order to recommend the implementation of new revenue management practices. The hotels have the following room types and rack rates:

The hotels have mainly corporate customers Monday to Thursday and leisure customers on weekends. They currently use Booking.com as an online travel agent with the remainder of the bookings coming directly on each hotel’s individual website or via business travel agents for corporate customers. Each hotel independently uses the Opera property management system.

To date, there has not been any formal revenue management team with this task being carried out by each hotel’s respective reservation manager and sales manager. The owners would like to improve the performance of the group and develop plans for growing the business, both through more effective use of their existing property portfolio and longer term through more hotels. They are considering the purchase of a hotel in Paris to add to their portfolio.

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