Overview of Hospitality Industry (part-1)

When term hospitality industry is mentioned, what come into most people’s minds are the hotel and restaurants, and their services only. But did you know that there are more than just the hotels and the services? In fact the hospitality industry is very wide in scope. To make you understand better, this industry is the same one which is concerned of the shelter and food given to you, any other place you enter to eat, drink or shelter, away from home. This means that offering of food, and shelter, away from home constitutes a part of the hospitality industry.

There are lots of institutes out there which offers these kinds of services, some of which mare big and small, depending on the capital and demand of what is being offered. Casinos, private clubs and resorts are some of the few examples of such institutions which ensure that you get the services you want in terms of food, a drink, place to sleep or relax and other added services.

Hotel management is also a branch in the hospitality industry, which concerns itself with the well being of the customers, who are looking for such services as food and shelter. Of course with more than one person, you expect the demands to differ as well as the tastes and preferences. For the hotel to ensure that it keeps its customers satisfied, they have to identify what the customer’s wants and how they can satisfy those customers’ expectations, and if possible exceed those demands, the functions of hotel management.

Hotel management is also very broad as it constitutes all activities of the hotel, running. Starting from the marketing of the hotel and the services it offers, the staff who are operating in the hotel, identifying what the customers’ needs, ensuring that there is all that is required to make foods and drinks that are in line with customers’ demands, making sure that the customer is comfortable, maintaining the personal hygiene and carrying out of different styles of surface makes this task wide in scope too.

Hospitality industry and hotel management:

Both have one thing in common, they ensures that everyone who gets their services is satisfied. However, for this to happen, the administration must be well implemented to ensure that everything is running in order and according to the expectations. Here are some of the hotel management levels;

Top Hotel Management:

Is headed by top management, where sometimes the hotel owners may be found here. These managers give the corporate decisions regarding the conduct and operations of the hotel, and the reasons why the hotel is existing (mission). They also have a role to allocate resources needed by the hotel to conduct its normal operations. Structuring of the hotel, in terms of location and design may also be the functions of these managers. In short, they are involved in higher level of decision making, before forwarding the same to lower managers.

Middle Level Hotel Management:

They receive directions from the top management. Their work is to interpret the corporate missions and break them into objectives that are in line with the mission. They also have a role to ensure that they break them into strategies which can easily be implemented. They act as a link between those in ground and the top management of the hotel

Functional Level Hotel Management:

These are the managers on the ground. They interact with every personnel in the hotel to ensure that everything is running as expected. These managers are the ones involved in ensuring that the hotel has the right skilled staff, the right number of staff and every working progress in the hotel is monitored by the functional mangers. In case anything goes wrong, the first question goes to the functional manager. Breaking down can give you sales and marketing managers, HR managers, kitchen managers among other types of managers, each according to the filed specifically assigned to him or her.

Every manager regardless of the class here is involved in the hotel management, and may also work other functions which are meant for the junior managers. Most of the top management have reached there through a progression over time. In most cases, they start from the functions level and keeps on upgrading as time and experience proves them to be so. As you will discover later on the next article, managers are not necessarily fixed on these positions; you may find one manger only who’s responsible for all the administration of the hotel.