Imperial Palace: A Home Away From Home

As you may have found in assignment 2, it is becoming clear that hotel companies are increasingly using the concept of'home'as a way to design, develop, market and indeed deliver, the hospitality

You have been employed as a consultant by a hotel or tourist company to prepare a report on the ways that commercial (and other types of) accommodation providers are making use of home to market their 'offering’.

You have also been tasked with suggesting ways your organisation might make use of these concepts and

• What concepts of home are being used and why? Examples?
• Create an organisation – you will need to give background (it can be a real one!).
• What types of recommendations and why?

Imperial Palace - What sets them apart

Home is a place of comfort, safety and a sense of belonging. It is human nature to find a place of belonging and being distinguish. The report explains the company Imperial Palace and how it stands out from the rest of the hotel businesses that exists. The report explains what makes Imperial Palace’s employees feel as if they were in their home. It is none about making the workplace feel like a person is alienated. It is known that once a person gets the feeling of comfort then their production would also increase. The report explains the factors related to the connection when a tourist visits a new place and stays in a hotel, what are the elements the client can expect and what are the service that the hotel can provide. The report further looks into the facts that is required to create a home experience for the tourist so that the person has a sense of belonging, as this is the most important element that the clients look for other than the hospitality, the food, the ambience and others.

Imperial Palace is a hotel company based in Austrlia that serves its customers with consumer electronics and video games. The business is headquartered in Sydney and it is also it is also one of the largest hotels in terms of capitalization of market (Kypri 2016). The company is also known to be one of the best franchises to exist in Sydney. However it is not only the end results of the company that makes Imperial Palace stand out from the rest. One of the main overlooked factors of the company is the benefits and the security that is provided to its employees. It is because of which the business is able to generate a huge revenue every year. They also possess a very small workforce. As of the year 2017, the total number of employees was little more than 500 employees. As this is a hotel company, the employees dedicate themselves for the customer service they get. They management always interacts with the tourist those stay and their jobs are based on creativity and innovation.

The business itself targets the international audience as well as the national audience. As a company always keep a through track of what their audience wants. With that in mind, the company looks to innovate their service with clean and quality service. The company also makes many high –profile-marketing campaigns to promote themselves. Their service are not only popular in Japan but in the United States as well. The Imperial Palace is situated in more than 3 countries (Huda, Haque and Khan 2014). This would in turn define the company’s position as a brand. It is because of that, the company provided much special service to its customers that is rare in other hotels (Hay 2017). The hotels have special amenities like full ac, miniature golf course, swimming pools, Jacuzzi, king sized beds and many more (Turner and Guilding, 2014). The management always sits down with their employees to make joint decisions. For example, most of the slogans of the company such as “Quality first” and the popular “Come over for a while” are all taglines that were voted by the employees of the company. It is due to the high rose of such transnational hotels, people can visit a different country and do not have to worry about a good place to stay (Penn et al. 2017). From a business perspective, they can maintain a great degree of responsiveness in the local market that would maintain the facilities.

Factors that make a hotel feel like home

Home is a sense of belonging and comfort. This concept is based on place-identity and place-attachment. It is when people can identify and attach themselves in a place completely to a point when they do not feel alienated anymore. With this concept in place, the idea of a space becomes a place.  Many emotional distinctions come into place whenever it is difficult to quantify (Agyemang-Duah et al. 2014). There are people those who see the concept of home differently. Some people view it as a place and to some, it is a state of mind. However in hotels, it is the tourists who come from their homes to stay in another place. This hotel acts as their second home for a temporary amount of time. These luxury properties act as a home for the tourists who are far away from their own home (AlBattat, Som and Helalat 2014). The commercial establishments would provide lodging, meals and customer services. Hotels such as the Imperial Palace assures uniform type standard throughout the same country’s non-chain hotels. During tours, the tourists engage in visiting destinations that experience recreational and leisure activities (Assaf and Agbola, 2014). This would also involve factors like accommodation, leisure and food.  Hotels act as temporary home for the tourists who visit a new place or revisit an old place again. The more people feel connected to the hotels as if it were their own home, the better it is for the hotels to visits more customers. There is also the sense of togetherness in hotels is a major factor. Once a tourist visits a new place and find friendly staff along with the other tourists who have came to stay, then they would refer to more people to share their good experience. More than what is actually important than the service is the connection that the tourists feel with the hotel. There can be many kind of connection such as nostalgia or good behavior, the ambience and many more. It is all about an impact that is made on the tourist, that would make them happy enough for a revisit. With its with superior service, the hotels are able to create long-term relation with their clients and other stakeholders. Service quality is the main factor that would lead to loyalty and sustainable development. The satisfaction of the clients determines consumer loyalty and creates a service that would offer the factor of desire. When the management follows the principles behind corporate and social responsibility, it highlights the aspects of the consumers need.

The importance of service quality in hotels

For the Imperial Palace, customer service and quality service is extremely important. Being addressed as one of the best transnational hotels available at Sydney. The Imperial Palace has its branches in New Zealand as well (Kensbock et al. 2014). It is not only that the company applies marketing orientations to the clients to earn profit along with making a name for their brand, also what the business focuses is making the clients feel as if they are home. Much research has also proved that the client satisfaction and the quality of service are the key main factors for creating brand loyalty. This determines the satisfaction as well because loyalty is connected to it (Quilter 2015). The relation between the quality of the accommodation of the hotel and the guest satisfaction are related to the promotion of the business as it would determine how much the client is happy and would therefore recommend others to visit. It should also be noted that the investment is made to create major efforts that would possibly be irrelevant to the qualitative and the quantitative factors. In attempts of shedding light on the issue, this would be interrelated to service quality (Kensbock et al. 2016). The service quality is the key factor that would enable a company to achieve sustainable advantage competitively. In hotel industries these are very much applicable as these elements actually determine the future of the business.  Tangibility can be referred as an element of service that would determine the appearance and the staff. With that said, many scales are applied to determine the attributes of the factors involved that would reassess a given situation before it is fully implemented. Intangibility also acts as a major factor towards the aspects of the relation between the staff and the clients who would need a significant effect both positively and negatively. The significance of the components that are tangible is equally less for the services that have high share of tangibility (Pike and Bianchi 2016). There are molecular models that are applicable for hotel companies. Hotel business like the Imperial Palace has both the tangible and the intangible factors in it. It would determine the products as a mixed type (Manoharan, Gross & Sardeshmukh, 2014). The hotel also gives the overview that they would be following the attributes whenever making a decision about the right choice. The cleanliness of the accommodation, event the security involved from the various staff of the hotels also make a major role. The members of the programmers based on patrons are influenced by the locations and the service received overall.   

Creating a comfortable environment for guests

The Imperial Palace take the feedback of the customers as a tool to improve their business. As the business defines its core value by providing great quality framework in making many kinds of decisions that would be in favor of them as well as the customers. This would create an idea that would apply in the family by contrasting all the common traits to the people involved and admire in others.  One of the things from the perspective of the business is the top priority of the service. Food is an important value here (McPhail et al. 2015). Providing quality food at the hotel is Imperial Palace’s first step in getting the trust of the customers. Once the food is excellent, most tourists do not go out to look for restaurants when they visit from abroad. The service is important as the tourists or the guests would always look into the factor how they are being treated (Knox 2016). Once they get proper service and behavior from the staff and the mangers, it is certain that the business gets to keep those customers for long time. In terms of décor, that too makes a positive impression for the tourists. Factors like lighting, music, furniture, colors play a vital role towards aesthetics. Once the business has a good ambience to it, it is normal that the tourists would like to stay longer. The lobbies and the rooms should be decorative and clean enough to make the tourists feel like they belong there. As the Imperial Palace is very much concerned with the hygiene and health of the hotel, it is certain that the business does not have any similar issues. The local community involved should also be friendly to the tourists and the clients. The local community is a key factor in contrast to the psychology of the community as it provided the home feeling to the clients (Patiar et al. 2017). Entertainment is also required for the tourists as they would get bored after a certain time. This is specially applicable when the tourists are from abroad countries and they do not mix well with the foreign culture. Some of them like to stay behind in the hotels and they would look for source of entertainment (Mizrachi 2014). As the Imperial Palace has many source of entertainment like pool table, swimming pool, Jacuzzi, miniature golf course and many more. To some clients or tourists, technology is necessary, which is why the entire hotel is Wi-Fi based as internet is one of the most important requirements of daily lives. Other than that, the hotel has full HD televisions in every room and all basic technological needs of daily lives. Existing companies always look for the ex-factor that would make the tourists choose their hotel over others. There is always promotion involved, regarding how the business would present their services (Chou 2014). When a tourist visits a new place, they would look for the best hotel available which would make them feel as if they are home. The behavior of the staff and the presentation of the hotel are the two main factors involved. Other than that, there is hygiene and quality food and of course the element of entertainment. The goal of the hotels is to make the tourists feel as if they are home which would give them a good experience and gain their trust overtime.        

Entertainment and amenities for tourists

Conclusion

Therefore, from the above discussion it can be concluded that the hotel Imperial Palace is focuses on the needs of the customers they serve. Not only from the perspective of their business but the hotel also works from the perspective of a community. Home is a place of attachment and comfort, the hotel thinks from the perspective of the customers to know exactly what to give when a person has visited somewhere new and wants a place to stay with all the necessities involved. The Imperial palace gives a feeling of support and security to make the customers feel safe. There are people who would visit a new country and they would obviously be doubtful with every step of the journey.

References

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