What Can a Spa Do for Your Hotel? (Reading article D)

Hotel branding companies such as Starwood have added spa brands to their portfolio and we've got hotel brands like Six Senses which have a spa as a core element of the offer.
In the 1980s, every hotel seemed to feel the need to add waterbeds, faxes and a mini-bar into the bedrooms and in the 1990s every hotelier felt obligated to add a fitness room, outsource food and beverage, implement branded breakfasts and later internet connectivity and game joysticks. In this decade, we've seen a headlong rush to add flat screen TVs and free WiFi - and now spas. As the historic examples illustrate, sometimes such fashionable elements of product or service become embedded in the core expectation of guests and remain permanent features in brand standards. But some trendy items prove an expensive side show in the long term. Are spas here to stay as a core element of hotels or are they a passing fad?
Some recent assignments have allowed us to research the matter and to form some tentative conclusions. Adding a spa typically represents a very considerable capital expense and usually considerably more per square meter than the investment in an equivalent space devoted to bedrooms. The treatments that are sought are subject to quite rapid change as fashions come and go making the requirement to frequently change and refashion the treatment rooms. This is a business that needs a large capital injection up front and the ability and willingness to inject further capital fairly frequently.
At the same time, the service that is being offered is very labour intensive. There is typically a one-on-one relationship between the customer and the treatment provider and with service being offered seven days a week for ten hours a day or more; the staffing cost implications are considerable. The spa business can be characterised as one that has both a high capital and high operating cost.
So the first question that needs to be asked is whether adding a spa to the hotel will better enable the hotelier and the brand to add to the lifetime value of existing guests and segments and/or significantly attract new segments either from competitor hotels or competitor locations? We believe that this can only be answered by robust research.
Our experience is that there is a lot of 'noise' but actually not a great deal of valid research findings available in the public domain. There is no shortcut and a serious investor needs to commit time and energy to researching the specific market under analysis. While in many situations the spa will serve the in-house population, there will be examples where the spa can be a tool to serve the local business and/or residential population better. For both the internal and external populations, adopting a well-known brand for the spa may be an important element in attracting and reassuring the market.
There is no template but it seems that the core income stream will be from treatments. Setting the price of a one-hour treatment at the level that the market will bear and using the same yield management techniques (fencing rates, volume discounts, packaging, advance purchase discounting, etc.) as are employed elsewhere in the hotel to sell hotel rooms (and on the golf course to sell golf rounds) should ensure that revenue is maximised for each of the one-hour slots available for sale in each treatment room each day.
Membership income may not be the largest income stream but it will be important to have a large enough membership to offset the peaks and troughs of hotel occupancy, yet a small enough membership so that hotel guests can be offered and they can take up packages that include spa elements. Membership income is usually made up of two elements - an initial signing on fee and an annual fee. Local demographics and other factors will determine the rate of churn in membership and the signing-on fee can be a significant element of long-term value.
Our findings suggest that when the investor injects the right amount of capital recognising the revenue that can be earned and the profit generated, a spa in a hotel can indeed contribute to long-term value. The savvy investor will avoid developing spas that are too large, too expensive, in the wrong hotel business or the wrong town, with the wrong number of treatment rooms or offering the wrong treatments, unbranded or not operated professionally, with inadequate regard to health and safety legislation.

Article Source:
http://www.bestmanagementarticles.com
http://hotel-management.bestmanagementarticles.com

Hotels: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly (reading article B)

 

With millions of hotels around the world, the hotel industry is certainly very competitive. There are hotels charging thousands of pounds per person, per night - catering purely for the rich, famous and lavish. Yet on the complete opposite end dof the spectrum, there are 100% eco friendly hotels, built towering up in trees, relying on nature to provide everything needed. All sorts of hotels can be hugely successful in their own right, constantly booked up and praised by all.
However for every successful hotel, there are many more unsure, unsuccessful and failing hotels, struggling on day by day, praying for something to come along and magically turn them around. Speaking to anyone around the world with a bit of traveling experience will undoubtedly have a few amusing anecdotes or terrifying tales about previous encounters with hotels from hell.
Unfortunately for the smaller, independent hotel, it is very easy to get sucked into vicious cycles where customers are be put off by dreary and drab decor and slightly run down exteriors. Yet due to the lack of custom, owners are skeptical or nervous about taking out risky loans in order to carry out refurbishments. It is all too easy to become a monotonous place to stay, lacking in character which resembles hotels commonly found at motorway service stations.
What can be done for a hotel wanting to inject a new lease of life into its veins? Well a fresh pair of eyes is a good start, many minor things that could be easily fixed yet create bad first impressions can be highlighted and rectified. Secondly a spring clean will show off your hotel in its best light. Thirdly upping staff moral can create a world of difference, smiling, chirpy staff will reflect in customers, making life easier for everyone.
A super hero like, hotel consultant, character that travels the world, finding the worst hotels and turning them around would make fantastic television. Gordon Ramsey has done it with restaurants; Dragons Den has done it with businesses and now a hotel development extraordinaire needs to be born. Imagine a hotel such as the fictional Fawlty Towers being assessed by an experienced, world renowned, professional hotel consultant. It would definitely be an eye opening, insightful yet extremely amusing situation.
Until a super consultant comes along, all hotel owners should take a step back, just for a second, to identify its own strengths and weaknesses. Think about how to make the customer thrilled rather than just satisfied. Motivate staff with incentives to provide the best quality service around. Any hotel around the world could benefit from an external review being honestly critical, clearly highlighting potential downfalls that the hotel could be aware of, or blissfully unaware.

Article Source:
http://www.bestmanagementarticles.com
http://hotel-management.bestmanagementarticles.com

Top Advice on Starting a Bed and Breakfast (reading article A)

 

There's an exciting new "down-home" kind of business springing up among homeowners all across the country. It's called Bed and Breakfast.
Basically, this is a transplant of European Hospitality, adapted and refined to the American way of doing things. To foreign visitors, it's the comfort and hospitality of home - staying overnight "with people of the land" and enjoying a hearty breakfast - without the traditional gaudiness and plastic feelings visitors get from most big cities in the United States. To U.S. citizens, it is a welcome alternative to the same old hotel/motel circuit,
Now, all it takes is a spare bedroom, a good cook and an outgoing personality. Prices per night range from a low of $25 to $100 or more.
If you have an extra bedroom, a large home, or extra space in your farm house, you have the necessary beginnings to start making extra income as a Bed and Break fast Inn. One of the beautiful aspects of this idea is that so long as you're hosting "over night visitors" on a small scale, no licenses will be required. It's always best, however, to check with your local authorities just to be sure.
Naturally, your "visitors" will expect a clean, neat and comfortable home. So assuming that your home meets these prerequisites, and you have a spare bedroom, simply "doll it up" a bit. Make sure it's painted brightly, there's an outside window, lots of room, closet space and bureau, and perhaps a small writing desk, and a large comfortable bed, or twin beds.
Most foreign visitors will expect and appreciate a "quick tour" of the interesting sights in your area. However, as your particular popularity as a B & B Host grows, you'll find that a lot of American tourists and business people on the road will begin availing themselves of your hospitality. Certainly with these people, it won't always be necessary to give the "Red Carpet" visitors' treatment.
This brings us to the basic appeal of a Bed and Breakfast Inn. Travellers seem to be looking for, and appreciate a quiet "home-style" place to stay. Generally, they enjoy visiting with the people off the superhighway and want to get away from the sterilized atmosphere and sameness of hotels and motels.
Most people will either write to you ahead of time, inquiring about the possibilities of staying at your home while in your town or city. This means a bit of advertising on your part, or listing your availability with a B & B broker. Some people will check the local telephone listings and the newspaper advertisements when they arrive in a strange town. And some people will just be driving across the country, come to a town or city they think is interesting, and start driving through the residential areas looking for Bed and Breakfast Inns.
Now, suppose you're organized and ready to receive your first customers. You greet them as host or hostess and offer to assist them in getting situated in the room or rooms you have for them. If they'd like to take a drive around your area and see the points of interest, you do that. And then in the morning, serve them a big, delicious breakfast.
You'll probably find that foreign visitors will want to stay several days. With most people of this country who are just travelling through your area, it'll be a one-night stopover. Whatever, if they want to sleep comfortably through the night, eat breakfast in the morning and be on their way, so be it. If they want to sit around after breakfast and plan an itinerary for a complete visit of your area, your assistance and help will be greatly appreciated. (Remember those recommendations)!
That's it! The complete how and why of this tremendously profitable business that's becoming more and more popular. It's called Bed & Breakfast, and it's very definitely a low investment idea. And you can parlay it into a very interesting and comfort able income producing business - all from the comforts of your own home!

Article Source:
http://www.bestmanagementarticles.com
http://hotel-management.bestmanagementarticles.com

Private Catering - Brief Business Techniques (Reading article C)

The catering is becoming a great business in these days. The main advantage of catering business is the requirement of capital for this business is quite low. In fact if you have a good chef with you then you can rent the catering equipments and appoint some people to join you in daily payment business initially. Later you can have a stable catering set-up including the manpower and the equipments for your business. In short the catering is of two types viz. the event catering and the mobile catering. Event catering includes the catering for some special events such as wedding catering, catering party and dinner party catering etc. So now let us discuss a little about the business of catering.
While you are in the catering business, then the most important thing is to plan the business strategies carefully. Finding clients is also an important part of this business. You can have the clients through the classified advertisements or through your personal contacts. First of all you should learn the ways to be modest with your customers. Because the modesty you can have some more orders through the contacts of the client. After that you should listen the requirements of your client carefully. Now you have to organize a little more than the requirement of your customer. Some times the event catering includes the catering orders for the breakfast catering, lunch and the dinner - all three. These types of orders are always profitable. So you should deal these types of orders with immense care.
Now, before going through the factors like menu or food, it is very much important to look through some other factors. First of all, you have to organize the fresh drinking water to be used in cooking and drinking purpose of the guests. Secondly, the related equipments are very much essential too. Equipments include the food containers, dishes, spoons, glasses, and napkins etc. You should look for the good quality dining tables too. You can have collaboration with any good catering service equipment supplier for this purpose. After organizing all these, appoint some people and divide the responsibilities on them. Some will help the chef while some will be involved in serving and cleaning. Positively appoint a catering guide while your employees are serving the food.
The let us come to the major part of the private catering service business that is the catering menu. It is always better to leave the responsibility of selecting the menu to the client. While he is selecting the menu you can explain the pros and cons of a particular menu. You can suggest any other menu instead of any particular menu selected by the client with the particular reason. Now, you should suggest the menu that most people like. For an example, when a client wants to go for the Italian menu you should suggest him to include pizza in the list of menu as most of the people like it.
Lastly, you should have a good chef with you and you should try your level best to hold him with your company. Along with the mobile catering and event catering, the future of private catering and the buffet catering are seemed to be bright too.

Article Source:
http://www.bestmanagementarticles.com
http://hotel-management.bestmanagementarticles.com

English for Hotel Student and Worker

Do you work in the hotel industry?

Do you teach English to people in the hotel industry?

If so, then this article will give you what you need.

English for hotel student and worker provides basic English training for employees of the hotel industry who wish to improve their English skills. The lessons in English for hotel student and worker are function based and contain common expressions for the various functions that are likely to be encountered by hotel employees. Sample dialogues are also included that students may use as models.

For English teachers, English for hotel student and worker also provide activities, games, discussion topics, work sheets, and role play situations can can be used within the class room to provide additional practice for students in using the language.

 

I hope may improve the English language skills of persons desiring to provide improved services to hotel guests, to enhance the persons employability, and just maybe increase their income stream by increasing the size of their tips.

Clicking on an item from the menu below will take you to the English module you need for practicing.

• Bill Settlement
• Comparisons
• Complaints
• Compliments
• Days and Time
• Describing Jobs
• Directions
• Giving Instructions
• Greetings
• Help and Advice
• Hotel Facilities
• Opinions
• Permission
• Requests
• Say That Again
• Telephone Use

7 Easiest Ways How to Speak Fluent English

Do you or your students have problem on how to speak fluent English?

Most students who learn English deal with problem on how to speak fluent English. But it is actually easy if you know how to speak fluent English. Here we have 7 easiest ways how to speak fluent English.   

Way 1: Always Study and Review Phrases, Not Individual Words

Never study a single, individual word. Never.
When you find a new word, always write down The Phrase it is in. Always. 
When you review, always review all of the phrase,.. not the word.
Collect phrases. 
Your speaking and grammar will improve 4-5 times faster. Always write the
complete phrase.
Never again study a single word. Never write a single word in your notebook,
Learn Phrases Only.Phrases are GROUPS of words that naturally go
together. 

Way 2: Don't Study Grammar

  Stop studying grammar.
  Stop studying grammar. 
Right now. Stop. Put away your grammar books and textbooks. Grammar rules
teach you to think about English, you want to speak automatically-- without
thinking! 
So Rule 2 is: Don't Study Grammar!

 

Way 3: The Most Important Rule-- Listen First

  Listening, listening, listening. 
You must listen to UNDERSTANDABLE English. You must listen to
English EVERYDAY. Don't read textbooks. Listen to English. 
Its simple. That is the key to your English success. Stop reading textbooks.
Start listening everyday.
**Learn With Your Ears, Not Your Eyes
In most schools, you learn English with your eyes. You read textbooks. You
study grammar rules. 
Spend most of your study time listening- that is the key to great speaking.

Way 4: Slow, Deep Learning Is Best

The secret to speaking easily is to learn every word & phrase DEEPLY. 
Its not enough to know a definition. Its not enough to remember for a test.
You must put the word deep into your brain.
To speak English easily, you must repeat each lesson many times. 
You must learn English deeply. 
  Learn deeply, speak easily.
  Learn deeply, speak easily.
How do you learn deeply? Easy-- just repeat all lessons or listening many
times. For example, if you have an audio book, listen to the first chapter 30
times before you go to the second chapter. You could listen to the first
chapter 3 times each day, for 10 days.

 

Way 5: Use Point Of View Mini-Stories

I call these stories "Point Of View Mini-Stories". They are the most powerful
way to learn and use English grammar automatically. 
  Use Point of View Stories for Automatic Grammar
  Use Point of View Stories for Automatic Grammar
You must learn grammar by listening to real English. The best way is to
listen to the same story... told in different times (points of view): Past,
Perfect, Present, Future. 
How do you do this? Easy! Find a story or article in the present tense. 
Then ask your native speaker tutor to write it again in the Past, with Perfect
tenses, and in the Future. Finally, ask him to read and record these stories
for you. 
Then you can listen to stories with many different kinds of grammar. You
don't need to know the grammar rules. Just listen to the Point of View
stories and you will improve grammar automatically! 

Way 6: Only Use Real English Lessons & Materials

You learn real English if you want to understand native speakers and speak
easily. Use real magazines, audio articles, TV shows, movies, radio talk
shows, and audio books. 
  Learn Real English, Not Textbook English
  Learn Real English, Not Textbook English
To learn real English, you must listen to English that native speakers listen
to. You must watch what they watch. You must read what they read.
  Listen only to real English
  Listen only to real English
  Listen only to real English
How do you learn Real English? It's easy. Stop using textbooks. Instead,
listen only to real English movies, TV shows, audio books, audio articles,
stories, and talk radio shows. Use real English materials. 

 

Way 7: Listen and Answer, not Listen and Repeat

  Use Listen & Answer Mini-Story Lessons
  Use Listen & Answer Mini-Story Lessons
In each Mini-Story Lesson, a speaker tells a short simple story. He also asks
a lot of easy questions. Every time you hear a question, you pause and
answer it. 
You learn to answer questions quickly-- without thinking. Your English
becomes automatic. 
How can you use Listen & Answer Stories? Easy! Find a native speaker tutor.
Ask him to use this method: Ask him to tell a story... and to constantly ask
you easy questions about it. This will teach you to think quickly in
English!
You can also find Listen & Answer lessons. They will teach you to think
quickly in English.

English for SMK Cor Jesu Malang

SMK Cor Jesu Malang is one of the out standing education institutions in Indonesia providing professional, skillful and well dedicated practitioners in hotel accommodation and culinary business. Therefore, English as the mean of communication is highly required to be mastered and developed by both students and teachers. In order to meet the increasing demand of Hospitality industries on professional and well command in English workers, SMK Cor Jesu provides the students with integrated English learning combining classroom activities and self learning materials through this blog on hotel and restaurant practices. Hence, It is expected that by providing this blog for students, they will have such a comprehensive understanding and skill in English especially hotel accommodation and culinary business. Meanwhile, the English teachers, is now applying Howard Gardner Multiple Intelligences Theory in class room activities to achieve new phase of teaching style in meeting students ways of learning. We, the teachers, are still improving our teaching method by using all means necessary includes multimedia devices to make English lesson become more interactive and fun. After all, we still far from satisfying, hence we really need support, critics, and suggestion to develop our English teaching method. thank you.
Chandra JP