Building and maintaining customer relationships is important for business. Thus, the unique business model gives the guest a different experience every time they visit the establishment thus enticing them for many more visits.The promotional strategies for the hotel are mainly ecofriendly, through stream media via social media platforms, travel magazines, biodegradable paper flyers, third party booking such as Trivago, booking.com among others. With an understanding of the market segment through proper industrial analysis the organization has been able to reach out to the customer through the appropriate promotional mediums like partnering with golf tournaments and social clubs such as the lions club to be able to directly interact with the target market.
- Hospitality Trends
With a growing trend in green hospitality, the organization has embraced environmentally friendly practices such as printing advertising on ecofriendly paper that will not harm the environment as well as stream media. The use of technology to improve service such as quick check-in and check-out, food and beverage service where a guest can order from anywhere in the hotel, will enable our organization to gain competitive advantage. Recently, advertisements on social media such as twitter, snapchat among others have proven important for business as all market segments have access to social media in the modern world. Push and pull advertisements such as pop screens in search engines is a common trend that we shall embrace in our promotion to create worldwide awareness and popularity. Communication enables an organization to create awareness for product and services, build perceptions, attitudes and more importantly capture the market share. As a market challenger, incorporating different means of promotion is very important to create awareness. An integral part of communication is feedback from the stakeholders. Employee and customer feedback through surveys, complaints boxes around the establishments are some of the ways to enhance the communication between stakeholders. Close monitoring of all social media platforms for customer ratings and reviews will also be part of the feedback handling system.
- The Passage is divided into five major departments: Front office; Food & Beverage; Marketing; HR and Finance.
The front office department handles issues directly related to customers including housekeeping, customer service and amenities. The hotel carries a mission of educating guests, therefore, Front Office department staff are responsible for delivering a presentation for guests at appointed time. The Food & Beverage department looks after the gourmet including room service for customers. Marketing department is given the responsibilities to build public awareness and promotion. The HR department looks after employees. Financial department oversees the ledger.
Room Division, Food & Beverage, Sales & Marketing, Human Resource and Finance are all supervised by Assistant Managers, Managers and The General Manager as an overseer.To be more exact, Room Division Manager is responsible for executive housekeeping (housekeeping, the public area, maintenance & repair as well as laundry), system management (hardware and software) and front office management (concierge, security, reservation, phone and Internet as well as the receptionist). Food & Beverage Director supervises Food and Beverage Manager (room service, bar and beverage, restaurants and coffee shops) and Executive Chef. Sales & Marketing Manager is responsible for sales and public relations. Human Resource Manager is mainly responsible for recruitment, welfare and safety, training and development as well as consultation. Financial manager is mostly responsible for procurement, accountant and night audit.As a company we have contingency plans available to accommodate the product life cycle and ensure we are evolving with the change in trends.
Every floor of rooms is based on a specific cultural theme. The first floor is best characterized by Asia. The second floor is all about The America’s. The third floor showcases Europe. The fourth floor displays everything African. The fifth floor’s theme is Oceania. The sixth floor is Singapore and Antarctica (these rooms are luxurious penthouses with perfect views of the city).
More specifically, each room embraces a particular culture. In other words, every room is decorated according to the cultural theme (cultural artefacts and relevant information such as the country’s most profound historical information, eye catching to our guests).
The restaurants in this hotel offer a wide variety of food, which means a range of cuisine should be provided and the name of each item on the menu must be designed creatively. In order to attract more customers, sample menus are available as well. Descriptions on each menu are written professionally in different languages for the guests to understand what the meal comprises of. Moreover, all guests have complimentary themed sweets/snacks in their rooms. For instance, the Indian themed room has complimentary Indian desserts for the guests.
“Apart from standard customer services that are common in every hotel, The Passage also offers one-on-one housekeeping management service, i.e., a specific employee manages a particular room – this person is responsible for explaining the theme of the room and how the room works to the customer – this type of detailed and tailored guidance would be highly valued by customers.”
