What You Need To Know
Hospitality and tourism: what exactly are they and why are they such important industries? As the world continues to globalize and peoples interest in traveling increases, hospitality comes into play. Hospitality is to ensure that all the needs of travelers are well accommodated. If you are interested in a career in hospitality or tourism, consider getting a diploma in hospitality management.
The Main Sectors Of Hospitality
So what does the hospitality scene look like today? Well, there are four big areas to look at:
1. Travel and tourism.
This consists of providing or ensuring that there is proper transportation for the travelers – be it on planes, ferries, trains, and so on.
2. Lodging
Whenever someone travels, there has to be accommodation. As such, this area ranges from luxury palaces to camping grounds and even hostels for travelers on a budget.
3. Food and Beverage
This is the biggest sector of hospitality. This includes different services such as delivering food, snacks, and drinks to travelers either immediately or for future purposes.
4. Recreation
This area is mainly all about entertainment, relaxing and having fun. This includes places such as spas or even amusement parks.
Industry Growth
As mentioned earlier, the hospitality industry is growing at a rapid rate. This is mainly because of the following reasons:
1. Affordable airline services
Over the years, the cost of traveling by air has reduced quite a bit. Budget airlines have been introduced allowing more people to travel.
2. Booming global economy
When the economy is doing well, it implies that its people are also able to afford or treat themselves to a little retreat be it overseas or domestic.
3. Business travel is also included
For some people, there is a need to travel from one country or state to another for work. For example, in countries such as India and China, there is a huge jump in terms of business travel. This is especially so since the pace of economic growth in these two countries is happening at a rapid pace.
Challenges Of The Industry
Like every other industry, the hospitality industry has its own challenges to face. Here are some examples:
Climate change
As the world begins to become more environmentally aware and conscious, it has given rise to a new type of tourism called, green tourism. Not to mention, the act of traveling has caused a lot of climate issues. Therefore, not only does the hospitality industry have to cater to peoples new demands, but they also are unable to predict what problems will happen.
Technology
As big technology companies such as Facebook and Google continue to grow and develop, they are threatening the hotel brands that already exist. This is because these bigger companies are better equipped with information and technology to create a market that is more attractive to the target group than the ones now. As such, if companies are incapable of finding their niche area, they are bound to be taken over by technology companies who have the capital to do better than them.
Industry consolidation
The targeted acquisition of companies is something that will happen to smaller companies as bigger portfolios would be interested in expanding and branding their hotel operation. The benefit of this would be that there will be an increase in value through cross-organization synergies. However, the problems that come together with it include having to ensure that the management between the various departments and hotels in other countries are all in sync. With so many places to look after, it increases the difficulty to maintain its standard.
So what does the future of the hospitality industry look like?
As mentioned earlier, technology is advancing rapidly. As such, almost everything has gone online. This even includes travel agents. One example would be the well-recognized company, Expedia. It is a growing brand that targets brand agnostic customers. This is done through more relevant offers in the local area as well as brainstorming content strategies that are attractive. Online travel agents also have to be adaptable to the changes. As time continues to pass, people will be more inclined to use a virtual personal assistant – i.e Amazons Alexa or Apples Siri. As such, there are many things that hoteliers have to look out for and learn in order to continue to be successful in the future.
Next would be accommodation. Not everything is turning to hotels nowadays. This is mostly a result of the expansion of Airbnb. Airbnb is dedicated to providing people from various backgrounds the opportunity to live in a place at a price that is more suited to their needs. This includes huge and beautiful mansions to affordable two-room apartments.
With so much happening digitally, the hospitality business is changing in that direction as well. Companies have to recognize the power of new technology and look for ways to add them to their packages being offered to their clients. One of the biggest issues that hoteliers face is that they do not put themselves out much online. This reduces their online visibility. Additionally, their brand recognition is not high either. With the presence of online travel agents, it becomes hard to differentiate the various hotel brands thus making it even more competitive.
Lastly, the newer generation and younger peoples way of traveling is different from the generations before. Millennials represent two billion people in the entire world. As such, hotels have to start attracting them. In order to intrigue these groups of people, hotel chains have come up with brand designs to appeal to them. This is done through the reduction of guest room size and placing more importance on having common areas. These groups of people are also becoming more environmentally conscious. As such, they are attracted to hotel brands that demonstrate an environmentally friendly area as it would help them feel like they are doing more to help the planet.
Conclusion
In conclusion, there are many changes happening within the hospitality industry and by the looks of it, it is not going to stay stagnant anytime soon. As such, companies should keep up with the trends and learn how to make full use of the newest technology available to them to help push them forward.