Posted: October 14th, 2021

The International Hospitality Industry Perspectives

The International Hospitality Industry Perspectives

Q1 The latest technologies that are used in the hospitality services

i) Tech lodges– these locations provide level one and two in-house technological support providers. They are used to display various devices and applications, providing users with hands-on familiarity with IT innovations. Customers mostly benefit from this technology due to improved services and experiences.

ii) Integrated Guest Applications– this is a computer application that creates a guest platform that helps deliver successful information to the customers and receives applications and bookings from the guests. This application helps both the hotel and the guests. It reduces the cost of production for the hotels and makes it easy for the guests to locate and make bookings.

iii) Location-based services– This is another recent technology in the hospitality industry that uses software utilizing geographical data to provide services to users. It helps to locate nearby restaurants and other hospitality service providers around them.

iv) Going touchless– this is where the hotels enable the customers to use their phones to undertake most of the self-services such as check-ins etc. this technology helps the hotels by reducing their cost of production and guests interacting with unsafe surfaces that can transmit germs and affect the customers base of the company.

Q2. Evaluation of the competitive environment of companies using Porter’s five-force model. A case study of Marriott International company.

Porter’s five-force models include: –

i) Newmarket entries- In any market with high profitability, new market entrants will be attracted, which will, in turn, reduce market profitability. The only safeguard to the already existing firms is to make sure there are very strong and durable market entry barriers.

With the continuous increase in tourism and traveling activities, there is a steady increase in the number of new companies coming up in the hospitality sector. Marriott, one of the top lodging providers, is not excepted to the possibility of new firms with the same products targeting the same market.

ii) Threat of substitute products– availability of similar products in the market often leads to the increase of target customers taking the alternative product from another company that offers the same. When the prices are increased, the target customers tend to switch to a similar product offered by another rival company. In the case of lodging products which are offered by Marriott International, there are similar products from companies like the Hilton hotels and Carlson Companies, among others, which are ever-ready substitutes to Marriott products.

iii) Market suppliers– in this force, critical assessment is done based on the influence on prices as a result of the activities of the market suppliers. The determining factors include the actual number of suppliers of the market’s essential inputs, unique products, and services. The effect of the bargaining power of the suppliers is that it lowers the lodging products’ profitability. Marriott International also requires raw materials from suppliers to keep up with the demand for lodging products in the market. Thus, the company, in response to this, settled for building a good supply chain with a lot of suppliers, which will help reduce the effect on the pricing of its products  

iv) The power of buyers- A force that assesses the ability of buyers to lower the prices of the products offered in the market. This demand for more by the buyers and pay fewer puts pressure on Marriott international, affecting profitability. When the customers are small and have power, the result leads to many offers and discounts.

v) Competitive Rivalries-Market attractiveness is often affected by similar operational companies. Companies that offer undifferentiated products pose competition in the market because they target the same customers. In the case of Marriott International, some other hospitality companies with branches and outlets worldwide create competition for the products that are provided by the company. Some stiff competitors include the Hilton hotels and the American Cruise Lines, which are top-rated and have market dominance.