Maintaining standards in the Hotel Management Industry

The hospitality industry has been under continuous change due to two factors: competition and guest demands.

• Today, an average traveller or guest is aware of the facilities provided at hotels at a competitive price. Budget hotels are in spring, whereas luxury hotels maintain their quotient

• With the increase in corporate travel, travel companies are looking at budget hotels, where one gets bed and breakfast at a competitive rate

• Hotel bookings are also not carried out through travel agents, sales and marketing personnel but rather, through online travel and tourism websites. Online facilities enable a traveller to find their choice of hotel easily, as hotel pricing is compared online, and reviews make it easy for guest to select hotels

• Today, guests have easy access to review hotel services and rate each hotel as per the services provided. Thus, self serviced hotels with no frills are the need of today
• The hotel industry in India is very competitive and guest demands are changing.
• Guests today want to try local cuisine, as compared to earlier days where International cuisine was in demand. The number of foreign tourists has decreased in metro cities, and is limited to travel destinations. Thus, international cuisine is slowly losing importance, while at the same time, there is a lack of professionals in hotels specializing in local cuisine
• Indian industry is people-based instead of process-based. We are moving towards that but it will take another decade until we have self-serviced hotels. A lack of technology is seen
• The question is -- Will the Indian market accept the change from fully serviced to self serviced hotels.
• Lack of technology and standardisation in hotels are interrelated.
• Technology is used mainly to promote, review and sell at competitive pricing. Indian hotels have a long way to go to creating hotels where everything from check-in to check-out is automated
• Records maintained in smaller hotels are still non-digitized, and the lack of technology in hotels increases the required manpower but reduces perfection
• Technology elevates a guest's experience. In today's tech-driven world, technology and people can work hand in hand to provide a memorable experience for guests
• Most top hotel chains are still trying different ways to achieve standardization, especially in the food production department. Trying to serve a standard taste of a particular dish throughout the entire hotel chain, all over the country or the world, is a challenge

• Employees in the Indian hotel industry are not as well-rewarded in terms of payment and perks as offered by other industries. Thus, we see a movement of young hospitality professionals with two to three years of experience moving to other countries offering better living conditions and rewards

• Hotel management institutes need to plan short-term skill based courses to enable students to master job oriented skills and move ahead with the required qualification

• Students normally undergo industrial training in the second year or during the tenure of the course. This is when they should be empowered with more, higher skills, rather than making them do basic work which they have already mastered in college

• Indian hotels must make an effort to work along with hotel management institutes to train students, right from level 1, in order to empower them with the skill sets required by a particular company, especially when it comes to the organisation culture and USP traits

• Hotels can do a semi campus recruitment drive in the second year of academics, make a choice of candidates, and further train them towards the end of third year for specific skills