Hospitality Essay

Description:

Each student will choose a hotel or resort and write a 4-6 page double spaced report on the facilities management implications that might be considered with this specific business. Please confirm your selection with the instructor before writing your assignment.

The paper is expected to discuss the facilities management implications that might impact the operations, maintenance or service of the hotel or resort. The discussion should identify the issues as well as present the types of impact that you might expect or consider with each issue.  In this discussion you could take several approaches, which could include how best to address a maintenance issue or limitation, or discuss best practices for that specific issue.

Students are welcome to use hotels which they have worked at, or are familiar with.

The minimum material from our text which is expected to be covered is Chapters 1-7. The paper will be expected to consider at least 3 different considerations for your chosen hotel or business. The paper is expected, as a minimum, to consider 2 sources for each consideration.  Sources can include: peer reviewed academic journals in this field, trade publications, and credible news media articles.  If you are unsure of whether a source should be considered, please contact me in advance of completion of the paper.

Consider and discuss how any of these would impact: maintenance of building, service related impacts from a staff or guest perspective, impacts on costs, impacts on sustainability/green, or any other facilities related impact.

Examples of these could include (examples of each will be discussed in classes 1 and 2):

• Age of property
• Location of property
• Style and services offered by the property
• Height of building
• Size of property
• Amenities & services offered by the property
• Unique features of the property and how that would impact facilities.

Sample Format 

–          Introduction     

o   Provide an introduction to the hotel or resort property including any relevant property information.   The sample provided in class identified the unique location of the hotel, and several introductory elements to the hotel that would be spoken to later in the report. The sample report introduction was nearly one page long, about 2-3 paragraphs.

–          Facility Issue/Consideration  #1

o   The sample report highlighted the isolated location of the resort, the seasonality of the location, and the impact on transportation to the area as a result of the isolated location. The consideration also had discussion about other hotels which had this same characteristic and how the other hotel dealt with that facility challenge.

–          Facility Issue #2

o   The second topic addressed the lack of available employees as an operating challenge for this hotel. The hotel is located in a very small town that has limited housing and is highly seasonal becoming very popular in the tourist summer season. Strategies on how to address this were discussed with comparable properties being used as references. The paper also discussed technology advances which might assist with this aspect of HR planning and operations.

–          Facility Issues #3

o   The third consideration that was discussed was the facility location itself, which being an oceanfront hotel presents both positive and negative facility challenges. The positive results would be how the hotel can use the beautiful ocean views within their operations now and in to the future, and the negative impacts would be discussion around the impacts of being oceanfront and the weather impact of a location like this.

–          Conclusion

o   Conclusion summarized the discussion above in approximately page

–          References

o   References can include:

• Other properties with similar attributes
• Trade publications,
• Trip Advisor and other review sites.
• Hotel website
• Text Book
• Class Slides
• RRU library and scholarly publications.