Hospitality Operations Management at Fairmont Banff Springs (Research Paper Sample)

Hospitality Operations Management at Fairmont Banff Springs
[Name of the student]
[Name of the institution]
Executive Summary
This assignment is based on the hospitality operations management of the hotel industry. Fairmont Banff Springs is taken to demonstrate the hospitality operations. This assignment highlights the hospitality products and services, factors affecting Hospitality Operations and comparing customer profile to know the customer demand. Product development and consumer preferences analysis is necessary to sustain a business. This assignment highlights the Product Development in Hospitality Operations along with the customer choice and perceptions. Moreover, merchandising techniques are also discussed. Pricing is a prominent factor is hospitality business and different pricing tactics are opted by hotels. Hospitality operations must be thoroughly analyzed to know the factor affecting revenue and profitability of hotel.
Table of Contents TOC \o "1-3" \h \z \u Executive Summary PAGEREF _Toc412983464 \h ii1.Operational and Economic Characteristics PAGEREF _Toc412983465 \h 11.1 Nature of hospitality products and services PAGEREF _Toc412983466 \h 11.1.1 Food and Beverages PAGEREF _Toc412983467 \h 11.1.2 Room Division PAGEREF _Toc412983468 \h 41.1.3 Tangible and Intangible Elements PAGEREF _Toc412983469 \h 61.2 Factors affecting Hospitality Operations PAGEREF _Toc412983470 \h 61.2.1 Seasonality and Demand PAGEREF _Toc412983471 \h 61.2.2 Accommodation Trends PAGEREF _Toc412983472 \h 71.2.3 Eating and Drinking Patterns PAGEREF _Toc412983473 \h 71.2.4 Economic and Pricing Factors PAGEREF _Toc412983474 \h 71.2.5 Political Factors PAGEREF _Toc412983475 \h 71.2.6 Cultural Factors PAGEREF _Toc412983476 \h 81.3 Comparison of Customer Profiles PAGEREF _Toc412983477 \h 82. Product Development PAGEREF _Toc412983478 \h 82.1 Product Development in Hospitality Operations PAGEREF _Toc412983479 \h 82.1.1 Idea Generation PAGEREF _Toc412983480 \h 82.1.2 Market Research PAGEREF _Toc412983481 \h 92.1.3 Development PAGEREF _Toc412983482 \h 92.1.4 Testing PAGEREF _Toc412983483 \h 92.1.5 Analysis PAGEREF _Toc412983484 \h 92.1.6 Introduction PAGEREF _Toc412983485 \h 92.2 Customer Perception of Products and Services PAGEREF _Toc412983486 \h 102.2.1 Brand Image PAGEREF _Toc412983487 \h 102.2.2 Disabled Access PAGEREF _Toc412983488 \h 102.2.3 Location PAGEREF _Toc412983489 \h 102.2.4 Standardization PAGEREF _Toc412983490 \h 102.2.5 Style of Service PAGEREF _Toc412983491 \h 102.3 Opportunities and Constraints PAGEREF _Toc412983492 \h 102.3.1 Corporate Social Responsibility PAGEREF _Toc412983493 \h 102.3.2 Technological Advancements PAGEREF _Toc412983494 \h 112.4 Merchandising Opportunities PAGEREF _Toc412983495 \h 112.4.1 Online Booking PAGEREF _Toc412983496 \h 112.4.2 Brochureware PAGEREF _Toc412983497 \h 112.4.3 Data Warehousing-Individual Tracking PAGEREF _Toc412983498 \h 122.4.4 Cross-Selling PAGEREF _Toc412983499 \h 123. Pricing and Profitability PAGEREF _Toc412983500 \h 123.1 Pricing PAGEREF _Toc412983501 \h 123.1.1 Cost-based Pricing PAGEREF _Toc412983502 \h 123.1.2 Breakeven Analysis PAGEREF _Toc412983503 \h 123.1.3 Demand Based Pricing PAGEREF _Toc412983504 \h 123.1.4 Competitive Pricing PAGEREF _Toc412983505 \h 133.2 Factors affecting Revenue Generation and Profitability PAGEREF _Toc412983506 \h 134. Analysis and Appraisal PAGEREF _Toc412983507 \h 134.1 Appraisal Techniques PAGEREF _Toc412983508 \h 134.1.1 Valuation Method using Quantitative Analysis PAGEREF _Toc412983509 \h 134.1.2 Valuation Method using Qualitative Analysis PAGEREF _Toc412983510 \h 144.2 Effectiveness of Appraisal Techniques PAGEREF _Toc412983511 \h 144.3 Business Analysis, Evaluation and Planning PAGEREF _Toc412983512 \h 144.3.1 SWOT Analysis PAGEREF _Toc412983513 \h 144.3.2 PESTEL Analysis PAGEREF _Toc412983514 \h 144.3.3 Opportunity/Investment Analysis PAGEREF _Toc412983515 \h 14References PAGEREF _Toc412983516 \h 15
1 Operational and Economic Characteristics
This assignment is based on the Fairmont Banff Springs hotel located in Canada. It is four star hotel operated under the ownership of Fairmont Hotels and Resorts.
1.1 Nature of hospitality products and services
1.1.1 Food and Beverages
The Fairmont Banff Spring’s food and beverage departments cater to the internal and external customers’ needs and focuses on the following areas:
Kitchens
Fairmont Banff Spring has multiple kitchens for the preparation and storage of food. There are different kitchens for catering to different needs of breakfast, lunch, brunch and dinner. The kitchen staff is responsible for producing quality food having high quality standards for the right number of people using efficient staff, equipment and materials (Mackenzie and Chan, 2009). Kitchens at Fairmont Banff Spring have separate areas of banqueting kitchen, production kitchen, food preparation kitchen, baking kitchen, grilling kitchen and À la carte kitchen (The Fairmont Banff Springs, 2014).
Restaurants
Fairmont Banff Spring has restaurants that serve prepared food to customers. Customers eat within the premises of these restaurants, however, delivery services are also given by these restaurants. Every restaurant has different venues, diverse cuisine, and different service. It covers simple food served at low prices to expensive serving of food with wines in a modest lunching setting. There are different restaurants for different events and they are opened at different times in a day. For instance, lunch and dinner may be served in same restaurant in a formal setting and breakfast may be served in a different restaurant in a simple setting (Mackenzie and Chan, 2009).
Banqueting
Banquet is a service of food at a certain time and place to a specific numbers of guests at a prefixed price. It is for formal occasions such as wedding ceremonies, anniversaries, gala dinners, conferences, meetings and business dinners/lunches (Mackenzie and Chan, 2009).
At Fairmont Banff Spring, there are different rooms for wedding receptions which accommodates wide styles for ceremonies. The sales and service manager outlines the rooms for banquet services as rooms’ availability changes throughout the year. The wedding reception rooms having following features:
* Complete interior setup including chairs, tables, linen napkins, table linen, silverware and white china
* Tables for cake, guest book and gifts
* Raised head table
Fairmont Banff Spring hosts social events and offers best services under the expert planners and give best food and beverages with sincere hospitality. It offers elegant venues for birthdays, fundraising events, company gala, etc. It offers a majestic rocky mountain location with talented culinary team and hospitalized staff. Following are the banquet rooms at Fairmont Banff Spring:
* Mount Stephen Hall
* The Cascade Ballroom
* The Alhambra Ballroom (The Fairmont Banff Springs, 2014)
Stewarding
Stewarding at Fairmont Banff Spring comes under the responsibility of chief steward who looks after the back-of-house cleanliness, glassware cleanliness, cutlery cleanliness, china cleanliness, maintaining chemical stock inventory, pots and pans washing, other kitchen stuff washing, dishwashing machines maintenance, and controlling pests for the prevention of cross-contamination and bacteria spreading.
In-Room service
Fairmont Banff Spring provides in-room services to its customers that allow guests to order room delivery food and drinks. It efficiently provide this services by delivering fresh food on time to avoid the complaints of "cold food" and "late delivery" and it forecasts the busy times during a week to plan out for future services.
Equipment and Supplies (Recycling)
The kitchen team keeps improving the operations sustainability by using the Styrofoam containers to pack the lunches of tour groups. All the food scrap is taken by the hotel to offsite for its further processing by the town. Dining rooms use china when possible for the table settings for complying with the quality standard of Diamond Ratings. It orders organically produced flowers for decoration of events. It offers bottled water when requested by customers and collects those bottles and recycles them. Furthermore, disposable cups along with water jugs are provided to spas. It purchase green cleaning products from Ecolab and toilet papers containing recycling content is placed in guests rooms. In every guest room, there are blue boxes that are for recyclables. The backhouse staff collects sorts and consolidates the recyclables which is picked-up for further process. It uses organic fertilizer supplies on the golf area as wildlife feeds on grass (Diener et al., 2008).
1.1.2 Room Division
There are three two of rooms at Fairmont Banff Spring: Guest Rooms and Suites and Specialty Rooms; which are further categorized into various divisions highlighted by The Fairmont Banff Springs (2014).
Guest Rooms
* Fairmont Room: This room is ideal for the couples locating towards a woodland view and courtyard view having a 200 square feet room.
* Fairmont Mountain Room: This room is ideal for the couples locating towards spray valley, bow valley and tunnel mountains view having a 200 square feet room.
* Deluxe Room: It is a spacious room elegantly designed for the guests offering a woodland and courtyard view along with traditional services and quality amenities. It is 300 square feet room.
* Deluxe Mountain Room: It is a spacious room elegantly designed for the couples or family offering a spray valley, bow valley and Tunnel Mountains view along with traditional services and quality amenities. It is 300 square feet room.
* Stanley Thompson (D) Room: This room is designed for comfortable and modern stay for the families and guests who have a long stay and seeks for comfortable living space. This room ...