Introduction to the Hospitality Industry-

Aim of the unit:

The aim of this subject is to develop students understanding and expertise in the efficient and effective management of hotel service operations. Students will be provided with practical management skills within an applied context (focusing specifically on food and beverage services) together with the overall theoretical knowledge required to manage a hotel.

The Learning Outcomes for this unit are:

On completing this subject, students will be able to:

a. Undertake and reflect critically upon food and beverage management functions;

b. Appraise the key characteristics and complexities of the hospitality industry;

c. Assess the interdependencies between the hospitality, event, tourism and travel sectors;

d. Critically reflect upon the key skills and resources needed and applied in hotel food and beverage operations;

e. Critically analyse and utilise the various ownership/management models of the international accommodation sector;

f. Evaluate a hotel with regard to its markets, service levels and staffing;

g. Evaluate the changing nature of environmental, social, technological; and legal trends, influencing hotel operations;

h. Apply the principles of sustainability to food and beverage operations

Assessment - Learning Portfolio

The major assessment for this subject is a Learning Portfolio.

A portfolio is an organised collection of student work designed to represent students' efforts and academic achievements over a period of time, in this case over a period of one term.

The main purpose of this portfolio is for you to reflect upon what you have achieved and learnt throughout the term in this unit. Reflecting on your experiences will in turn give you the ability to articulate the skills developed during your time.

Every week you will be given questions, tasks, discussion topics, or exercises that guide your reflection, focusing on the topics that have been covered that week. Additionally you are asked to reflect on your learning as you complete the exercises, case studies, or research activities.

The aim of reflection is to develop an action cycle where reflection leads to improvement and / or insight.

Your portfolio for each week should address the following cycle:

• Record the answers, thoughts, ideas, and insights that have come from the lecture, exercises, case studies or research activities you have been given each week.
• Reflect upon the content you have recorded and your personal experiences. Reflection involves thinking about and interpreting the experience. Reflecting involves thinking about the values, beliefs and assumptions you are writing about. The reflection aims to show the development of your ideas over time.
• Analyse your own learning in and for self-development in a reflective way. This may involve: Analysis of experience or content; Integration of experience with theory; demonstration of improved awareness and self-development.

Reflective thinking is:

• Presenting an academic position based on prior experience and current learning and defending that argument with research.
• A form of personal response to experiences, situations, events or new information (from class and research), a 'processing' phase where thinking and learning takes place'.
• Starts with you. Before you can begin to assess the words and ideas of others (research), you need to pause and identify and examine your own thoughts.
• Involves revisiting your prior experience and knowledge of the topic you are exploring and considering how and why you think the way you do.
• Recognise and clarify the important connections between what you already know and what you are learning.
• A way of helping you to become an active, aware and critical learner, supporting your arguments with evidence.

Reflective writing is not:

• just conveying information, instruction or argument
• pure description
• straightforward decision or judgment (e.g. about whether something is right or wrong, good or bad)
• simple problem-solving
• a summary of course notes
• a standard university essay

Presentation Guidelines - as a minimum the portfolio should include:

• Executive Summary/or/Introduction
• Table of Contents
• Topic titles and content clearly defined by headings and sub-headings under each topic
• Reference List/Bibliography

Learning Portfolio Part A-

After reading the Heskett, Jones, Loveman, Sasser, & Schlesinger (2008) article "Putting the service-profit chain to work" and watching the Joseph Pine TED talk "The experience economy" analsye how these concepts are imperative for any hospitality manager to use in order to gain and maintain competitive advantage.

In your answer you must:

1. Discuss the intersection of hospitality, service and customer experience as a major challenge to Hotel Managers

2. Provide examples to support the practical application of these concepts

3. Evaluate how a manager would assess the effectiveness of these concepts

2,500 words

Service Profit Chain:  https://hbr.org/2008/07/putting-the-service-profit-chain-to-work

The Service Economy: https://www.ted.com/talks/joseph_pine_on_what_consumers_want?language=en