ASSESSMENT TITLE:

Case Study:        The Ambassador Hotel and The Berkeley Hotel.

Learning Outcomes Covered:

LO1: Critically evaluate the function and services provided by the Rooms Division, facilities and security departments in a range of hospitality businesses.
LO2: Determine the key operational issues affecting the performance of front office and housekeeping areas of any hospitality business.
LO5: Critically examine the role of revenue, yield and cost management strategies within hospitality operations.

Maximum word length:          2500 words.

Assignment Submission Guidance:

Students should provide a completed assignment cover sheet with all essential details. This assignment should be submitted in electronic format via college systems on or before the submission deadline. The e-submission system will not allow late submissions.

Assignment Aim

This is a group case study analysis and students will form a group of 4-5 students then discuss the case study in their tutorials (with tutor intervention to support the work). Students are required to produce a written report of no more than 2,500 words for the individual report writing and to ensure that all students equally contribute to the case study
analysis.

Assignment Scenario

Case Study: The Ambassador Hotel & The Berkeley Hotel
Source: Peter Jones & Andrew Lockwood, (2014) Hospitality Operations

Read the following case study and answer all the questions that follow in the report.

The Ambassador has 250 bedrooms and is a Four Star hotel appealing mainly to the business and conference market. Occupancy levels can vary considerably from week-to-week and day-to-day these are difficult to predict exactly.

The Head Housekeeper has worked at the hotel for 10 years and has been in his present job for five years. He has no vocational qualifications and has never worked in any other department. The aspects of his work that he likes the most are looking after his staff and dealing with staff problems. He is less confident about the budgeting, control and
paperwork aspects of his job.

All the chamber staff work full time. They are expected to clean 16 rooms each day and are paid per room. A supervisor, who is responsible for returning rooms to reception, checks each room. If the hotel is full or one or two chamber staff ring in sick, supervisors have to clean rooms. On the other hand, if occupancy levels are lower than forecast and the department is overstaffed, the Head Housekeeper will try to meet the staffing budget by encouraging staff to take holidays or go on training courses. At these times, chamber staff may only be required to clean 14 rooms, but even though this means losing money the staff don’t seem to mind as they find it extremely tiring to clean all 16 rooms.

It is difficult to attract and retain chamber staff because the hotel is situated close to an airport where much better paid cleaning jobs are available. Staff working in other areas of the hotel are unwilling to help out if the department is short-staffed, and in any case, would not be sufficiently trained to do so, as it takes approximately one month to fully train chamber staff to be able to clean to the required standards of this hotel.

The Berkeley is in the same hotel chain as the Ambassador. It is slightly smaller with 220 bedrooms but has a similar market profile. The Head Housekeeper, who is in her mid-20s, has vocational qualifications and an ambition to become a general manager in the near future.
Only eight of the chamber staff in the hotel are full time. The rest are part time and are guaranteed two days of work a week, but have agreed to wait by the phone on the other days they are recorded as available until 10am in case they are required. Labour turnover is low. Staff and supervisors do not mind changing jobs. Opportunities are provided for those interested in moving to other jobs in the hotel to provide variety and to improve their long-term job prospects.
As an experiment, the chamber staff have been given more control and responsibility for their work. They now check their own rooms against the prescribed standard and advise reception when ready. The full time chamber staff have been allocated a block of rooms on a particular floor as their rooms. Supervisors now carry out rigorous inspections against a detailed checklist on a random sample basis. The current success rate is well over 90 per cent.
These two hotel examples show different approaches to flexibility of employment, enabling the Berkeley to match more closely the patterns of hotel demand but also the increasing empowerment of the housekeeping assistants in the latter case. This also introduces a change in the role and potentially the number of the floor housekeepers, whose previous role in control has been replaced with scheduling and support.

Assignment Questions
You must answer all the following questions in your report:

Questions:

a) Identify the differences in management style between the two Head Housekeepers, citing the advantages and disadvantages for each of the two cases. Which approach do you feel is the most robust style of management, and why? (20% of marks)

b) The Head Housekeeper of the Berkeley is asked to attend an internal conference where other head housekeepers will be present including that of the Ambassador. He has been asked to give a presentation entitled “Housekeeping good practice at the Berkeley”. Prepare some speaker notes that she can use to make the presentation. (20% of marks)

c) Following the presentation by the Head Housekeeper from the Berkeley, the Head Housekeeper of the Ambassador has decided to review his operations and practices at the Ambassador. Suggest ways that he could staff his department differently for the next week using the following percentage occupancy predictions:

• Monday 90%
• Tuesday 85%
• Wednesday 95%
• Thursday 92%
• Friday 55%
• Saturday 70%
• Sunday 60%                                                                                                                                   (20% of marks)

d) Critically discuss the difference between Yield Management and Revenue Management, and explain how these can be applied to the two hotels in the case study. What assumptions do you need to make? (20% of marks)

Note that 10% of the marks will be allocated for report style and presentation including spelling, grammar and punctuation.

Note that 10% of the marks will be allocated for a reflective statement that considers team cohesion and individual contribution to the group report i.e. how well the group worked together and the lessons learned that can be taken forward to future assignments.

Assignment Format Guidance

You are advised to use the following format:

Title page – The details of the module, student name(s) and ID number(s).

Contents page – Should be provided with page numbers.

Introduction – The background, the context and the aim of the report. Starts on Page 1.

Sections – As many as necessary in line with the tasks required of you.

Summary and Conclusion – Overall findings of the investigation: the overall picture that has emerged and the implications for the module. For this assignment you should include an agreed reflective statement to show the contribution from each of the group members.

References – Identification of literature and other sources used and referred to in the text. Ensure that all references are quoted at the end of any quotations, definitions and web-sourced materials. Submission of a report without references will not be allowed.

Word count – All tasks should be completed within a limit of 2,500 words plus or minus 10%. Words in tables, diagrams and appendices including your reference list do not count. You should note that there may be penalties for assignments which are over length.