Kindness and Generosity are the virtues that revolve between host and guest. Hospitality means receiving a stranger into your home in ancient times. Providing food and shelter. Sometimes trading in goods and information. Considered equals temporary sharing under one roof.
Want to hire a phone answering service? Read the blog first before making a choice.
As more towns began to grow, visiting merchants were received daily. Providing housing and sustenance for them became lucrative. Hospitality then became a business.
As time goes by, technology gives birth to new services. The hospitality industry adapts to these changes making technologies of their own to keep up with the current trends.
Today, this service is no longer just for the rich and powerful. It caters to those who aspire for more and succeeded. The methods change but the goal remains the same, Customer Satisfaction.
Hospitality is a broad industry. It sums up a wide range of industries that provide services for leisure and experience. It also handles entertainment and pleasure. It caters to both local and international customers with disposable income.
Forbes Travel Guide is the go-to guidebook that reviews these establishments. The reviews are objective in criteria for both service and facility. The full customer experience.
Sectors
These are not just parts of the hospitality industry but its partners. They coexist with one another. Providing services of every kind in one complex system.
Many Hospitality Companies are a combination of these four:
Cruises focus on the tourism industry as the main goal. While offering the rest as well.
Casinos cover entertainment, accommodation, and food and drink.
Bars and Nightclubs include the beverage sector as well as entertainment.
Tourism and Travel Industry
The Tourism sector focuses more on activities for both business and leisure travelers.
This sector includes:
- Vehicle rentals
- Travel agents
- Tour operators
- Airlines
- Trains
Accommodation Industry
This branch handles temporary lodging for those who are traveling. They also cater to locals who want a different perspective on their daily lives.
This sector includes:
- Hotels
- Bread & Breakfasts (b&b)
- Hostels (dormitory-like rooms)
- Motels
- Vacation rentals
Airbnb Inc. provides homestay vacation rentals. The customers share lodging with the owner or host.
Food and Beverage Industry
As the name implies, this branch provides luxury through taste and sustenance. Delicacies and exquisite beverages are the core focus.
This sector includes:
- Restaurants
- Catering companies
- Coffee & Tea shops
Most sectors have this industry in their list of services. Resorts are a good example of this.
Entertainment and Recreation
Stimulation of the sight and mind, and experiencing the new is the focus of this branch.
This sector includes:
- Art museums
- Theme parks
- Theaters
- Spectator sports
- Gambling
Hospitality Surveys
Customer reviews have always been a big part of the industry. How businesses evolve is through the feedback collected. It is then organized and indexed for similarities. The business then proceeds to change and improve its services. To then better suit the majority of its clientele.
Most surveys are done in written form. Studies show that doing interviews have a better result.
People are social animals. They like to share their experience with their fellows. Spoken surveys connect the customer to the interviewee. The point of this is to make the customers reminisce.
Concentrating the survey on positive experiences. This reinforces the good impressions built in the customer's mind. Resulting in high chances of gaining repeat customers.
“Why” questions must be avoided. They will then question their experience. Clouding their judgment on what made them happy.
Customer feedback should be part of the service. This makes the customer feel that their consideration is important. It must be done in a way that does not hassle the customer.
Group interviews yield the most positive result. Their experiences are heightened with the reinforcement of their peers.
Call Center Outsourcing
The amount of work these hospitality businesses handle is immense. More so during peak seasons. An industry that provides a round-the-clock service requires a huge amount of manpower. Many business owners cannot afford or have enough space for such a large workforce.
Outsourcing calls and virtual tasks are the sensible avenues to use. The difference in time zones of Outsourcing companies facilitates a more flexible workload.
Access to experienced agents is its biggest selling point. Selected for efficiency in hospitality sales and customer expectations.
Call Centers also have multilingual agents. Made available for dealings with non-English speaking customers.
They also adapt to the businesses' ideals. Like the revenue management strategies and business philosophies.
Call Center for Hotels
The Front Office handles many tasks in the hotel industry. These include booking, customer inquiries, and answering calls. They are the first face that the customer interacts with.
It is no secret that customer service is a very stressful occupation. They have to juggle each customer's queries, orders, and sometimes anger.
Resulting in them committing many errors. More customers are then left feeling unsatisfied and unlikely to return.
A desk staff answering the phone while there is a waiting customer is one of these examples.
Hotel Call Centers offer the same value of service without its flaws. Outsourcing all calls and virtual transactions. The Front office is then left with optimizing person-to-person interaction.
Hotel management is also simplified with no overlapping tasks.
The Covid-19 Era and Bouncing Back
The emergence of the Covid-19 pandemic caused the expected international tourism to plummet. It fell by 80% in the year 2020. Travel restrictions, social distancing, lockdowns, and other government mandates were imposed. Making many businesses in the hospitality industry close down. They were non-essential during this period.
Today, international travel is possible. Tourists are flocking to the airport to do what they were planning for the past 2 years.
WTTC (World Travel and Tourism Council) is an organization based in London. They track the economic impact of Tourism and Travel in 185 countries. Their market figures record the contribution of the hospitality industry. It has reached 8 trillion USD contributions to the global economy in 2022. This is only 6.4% below pre-pandemic levels.
Here is an article on the Hospitality Global Market Report 2022. It has projections dating from 2021 - 2026.
Post Covid Customer Expectations
Trust is the currency in most businesses right now. Reassurance that they are safe in your care. Communication and transparency are what the clients want these days. This helps redefine the customer’s expectations. Making them understand the limitations.
Summary
he Hospitality Industry connects many businesses. They are establishments that focus on want, taste, feeling, and experience.
Outsourcing provides a way to cut costs but retains the value of service. Flexibility and efficiency make it the most needed partner in this digital age.
Hotel phone answering service help maintain the quality of the call and digital services of hotels. Hospitality service staff can then focus on face-to-face interaction. Creating a healthy hotel environment that caters round the clock.
The Pandemic changed our way of doing business. Our capacity to adapt has made living in this “New Normal'' possible.
The industry is now on the road to recovery. Occupancy rates are now climbing. The global market’s predictions are positive for the next 4 years.
Conclusion
Either calamity or the passing of time changes many things. What is constant is man’s curiosity. His desire to try the new. The need to want more. That is why “Hospitality” is an appropriate name for the industry. It means we welcome and celebrate these bases of human desires.
Plans for a Post-Covid world are now starting to take effect. Current employment statistics state that Hospitality jobs are now in need of plenty. The effort to renew customer confidence is the primary goal.
We should embrace new ways of doing business. Especially in the industry whose primary goal is to serve people.
Get Started with OBI Services!
