Company Visit: L'hotel
Company Background
What is your dream hotel? How to define an ideal hotel? L’hotel Group, one of the members of Chinachem Group, is a contemporary lifestyle hospitality group that owns and manages four hotels and two serviced apartments (L’hotel Management Company Ltd., 2015). Spreading around Hong Kong, the four luxurious hotels provide a superior and affordable facilities as well as the services, like swimming pools, high quality restaurants to guests and tourists.
We are very fortunate to visit one of the hotels in L’hotel Group. L’HOTEL ISLAND SOUTH, which located in Southern District on Hong Kong Island (Near the Ocean Park) is the first Geopark in Hong Kong. In additions to the 432 guestrooms, the hotel offers a stylish restaurant and bar, outdoor swimming pools and a gym to its customers. Let take a look of our visit and enjoy it!
Reference:
L’hotel Management Company Ltd. (2015). Corporate brochure. Retrieved April 1, 2016
from: http://www.lhotelgroup.com/CMSPages/GetAzureFile.aspxpath=~\l_hotel\media
\images\group\about-us\l-hotel-group-corporate-brochure%E5%A6%82%E5%BF%83
%E9%85%92%E5%BA%97%E9%9B%86%E5%9C%98%E5%B0%8F%E5%86%8A%E5%
AD%90-(nov-2015).pdf&hash=61683da18830f919c8e2727e713f21714b0674a322217791
7cac79b83f4dab63&ext=.pdf
Visit
Conference Room
The welcoming section to our students and the introduction of L’hotel and the staff in different division.
L’hotel displayed our program name in different area at the electronic board.
Front Desk
The front desk located in the lobby. We can investigate the real check-in and check-out process there.
The manager introduced the local tour of Geo-park, he said that they will hold different local tours in every weekend for guests who are interested.
Lobby Café
The environment in lobby is wonderful that the sunshine can light up the area. This can attract and provide good atmosphere for the guest.
Café and Restaurant
Then, we went to the café. The entrance is attractive for us because the atmosphere is good for fining or even just chatting in afternoon.
Once we go in to the restaurant, we can find the menu on that day immediately. It is very convenient for guest to see whether the dishes
are acceptable for them.
Here is the entrance are of the restaurant. The light surrounded that let me feel that we are going to tunnel.
The light and the table setting is creating a relaxing and comfy atmosphere to their guests.
37th Floor
This a standard suite room, cost around $6900 per night.
The bed is extra king size bed.
Swimming Pool and Gym Room
The gym equipment is quite sufficient for guest to use.
The in house fitness trainer is presenting his job duty and the manager is presenting why the hotel will build up the gym for guest to use.
Presentation
After the hotel guide tour, we came back to the conference room. The room division manager is presenting the hotel to us.
The HR management is introducing about L'hotel organization structure and the employment criteria to us. We found that lots of classmates are interested about the hotel industry.
Case Question
Q1 How many rooms can be made up on average per day? How long does it take to prepare a standard guest room on average?
In hotel industry, the revenue relies on the room charge, so that the room made up rate per day is the key index to estimate the performance. In L’hotel Island South, one housekeeper needs to make up around 16 rooms per day. Depends on the situation, the average time used to prepare the standard guest room after the guest checked-out is around 16 minutes. 5-10 minutes used to clean the room, which the guest is still reside. The L’hotel provides different training for the housekeeper to enhance their performance and cleaning speed to fulfill the peak session requirement
Q2 How can L‘hotel differentiate itself from other hotels of similar positioning in terms of operations, service offerings and the number of headcounts?
The services provided in L’hotel Island South is one of the important factors to differentiate itself. Located near the Ocean Park, the hotel can attract the tourists who want to visits the Ocean Park. For example, the hotel offers a 2-day vacation package to Ocean Park, which including the ocean park tickets as well as the hotel accommodation. Besides, Nelson Poon, the room division manager of L’hotel Island South, mentioned that they want to create a favorable customer perception on their services and facilities. In 2014, the hotel has been awarded to the World Luxury Hotel Awards 2014 in recognizing their world class facilities and service excellence provided to guests (L’hotel Island South, 2014).
Reference:
L’hotel Island South (2014). Luxury Serviced Apartments Country Winner (Hong Kong)
World Luxury Hotel Awards. Retrieved April 1, 2016 fromhttp://www.lhotelgroup.c
om/CMSPages/GetAzureFile.aspx?path=~\l_hotel\media\images\lis\awards\2014-12-2
9-world-luxury-hotel-awards2014_eng.pdf&hash=8799e505320b4733322b1490f982b
397fec3b6b9ce02a43f2c10ee32daecdca7&ext=.pdf
Q3 Does the rapid growth of the hotel online booking platforms such as Agoda, Expedia pose challenges or opportunities to your hotel? What would you do to deal with these challenges or opportunities?
Since the hotel agent like Agoda, Expedia are popular nowadays, people will book the hotel room through hotel agent base on the discount rate and convenience. The room division manager deems the hotel agent as an opportunity for them to promote their hotel. He mentions that the hotel occupancy rate is increased after they advertised on the hotel agent website. However, the room rate in hotel agent is 10-20% cheaper compare to direct booking in hotel website as well as the hotel need to provide commission to the hotel agent. This plan is a kind of double-edged sword. To deal with the problem, the hotel provides package such as restaurant voucher and free packing, also hotel promotes other membership scheme for the guest with direct booking through hotel website. Therefore, they have implemented different plan to deal with this issue.
Q4 How do you position yourself since there are many hotels in Hong Kong?
To deal with the keen competition in hotel industry, L’hotel has three competitive advantages to position themselves. First, the location is near Ocean Park. Some of the tourists or local guests might select L’hotel due to the short travel distance, so that they could save some time when going to Ocean Park. Second, L’hotel provides a bigger room for their guests with comfortable and laid-back vibe compared to those hotels in downtown. Third, they position themselves as an affordable luxury because the price per night is reasonable, also, they offer various facilities and services within the hotel. For example, gym room with gym officer, 24/7 on-call doctor consultation, TESLA – electric vehicle charging and more.
Q5 Are there any additional charges for the 24-hour medical assistance and baby-sitting service?
L'hotel keen on providing a variety of services in its hotel so that customers could have a pleasant experience staying there. Babysitting is one of the premium services that provide a full day baby care for its family customer. They charges $80 HKD per hour for babysitting service, whereas customer have to take at least 4 service hours in order to get the service. For medical service, L'hotel provides 24 hours medical consultation services. Doctors could provide on-site diagnosis if it is necessary. The service charge is more than $2000 HKD per time, while the medicine or treatment fees are not yet included.
Q6 How many cars and drivers are available to provide the hotel-airport limousine transfer service? Are they outsourced? If there are over-booked, what is your solution?
Similar to other hotel, L’hotel provides free of charge shuttle bus service for its customers. What’s more, they provide premium limousine service between airport to south Island. While customers have to pay extra charges if they need limousine service. In L'hotel, all limousine transfer services are outsourced to third party. The outsourcing strategy help their group lower the capital investment by reducing the number of limousines owned, car maintenance fees as well as the salary for experienced drivers. Whenever limousines are overbooked, limousine service provider will arrange another possible vehicle for L’hotel’s customers. However, overbooking are unusual in limousine service industry.
Q7 What would you do to maintain your business when facing the decreasing numbers of overnight staying tourists?
In fact, L’hotel perceives the number of overnight staying tourists has dropped, especially tourists from Mainland China. Also, some of them would like to stay in different hotel so they might stay for two days in average. To deal with these challenges, L’hotel is committed to promote their competitive advantage to differentiate themselves in the hotel industry. For example, the size of hotel room, the relaxing environment with a broad range of facilities and superior services. L’hotel is now collaborating with Geopark to promote the eco-tourism in Hong Kong. The lobby and selected rooms are decorated with geopark theme. Also, geopark menu is available in the hotel for tourists who interested in guided tours to review. (Hong Kong Geopark, 2016)
Reference:
Hong Kong UNESCO Global Geopark. (2016). Geopark Hotel.
Retrieved from: http://www.geopark.gov.hk/en_s4b.htm
Q8 What technologies do you adopt to maintain the sustainability of the hotel?
L’hotel is dedicated to maintain the environmental sustainability within the hotel. To reduce the paper use, they replace with screens and electronic devices. For example, guests can read the catalog and information via the television in the room or their application available in mobile devices instead of the physical one. Moreover, all the rooms are installed light motion sensor at the door entrance and LED lights to save electricity.
Q9 Why does L’hotel join the VIVVA membership scheme? How would L’hotel attract more people to join the membership?
The Vivva membership scheme has employed in L’ Hotel because it can act as a loyalty programme to encourage repeat customers. As mentioned from the L’HOTEL ISLAND SOUTH, their repeat customers has increased thanks to the scheme. In the programme, customer can earn the Vivva dollars from their spending in L’ Hotel Group, like hotel accommodation, food & beverage, etc (L’hotel Management Company Ltd., 2015). Assume that the customer spend one dollars for the hotel services, he or she can get one Vivva Dollars. Those of the Vivva Dollars can convert to some rewards, such as Dinning eVoucher, Room eVoucher from the hotels. The redemption is the incentive and attractive point to visit the hotel again.
Reference:
L’hotel Management Company Ltd. (2015). CORPORATE BROCHURE. Retrieved April 1, 2016
from http://www.lhotelgroup.com/CMSPages/GetAzureFile.aspxpath=~\l_hotel\media\i
mages\group\about-us\l-hotel-group-corporate-brochure%E5%A6%82%E5%BF%83%E9
%85%92%E5%BA%97%E9%9B%86%E5%9C%98%E5%B0%8F%E5%86%8A%E5%AD%9
0-(nov2015).pdf&hash=61683da18830f919c8e2727e713f21714b0674a3222177917cac79b
83f4dab63&ext=.pdf
Q10 How do you manage the front office staff schedule? Are there any potential problems / risks to hire part-time staff?
According to the human resources manager of L’hotel, they recruit temporary workers mainly because of Food & Beverage Department’s operation needs. Most of the time, Food & Beverage Department needs part-time workers serving in restaurant. It takes the advantage of the flexibility of part-time workers. At the same time, when compared to employ a full-time worker, it reduces benefits provided for part-time worker, such as MPF, insurance and holiday. In order to manage front office staff, they have deployed a system to manage the personnel data and schedule employees’ working hours. While they also use a model similar to M/M/r queuing model to calculate how many temporary workers will they need.
The most challenging work for hiring part-time staff would be part-time worker shortage. Since workload in hotel’s restaurant is generally high, it causes the turnover rate of part-time employees maintains in a high level. Furthermore, people nowadays enjoy to be a causal labor, which means they would only work whenever they want. It makes hiring part-time workers much more challenging than before. Therefore, L’hotel needs to use a higher wage as an incentive to attract part-time workers. Beside, “no show” worker could be a risk for managing part-time worker, as it might affect restaurant operation and service quality. So, developing a reliable hiring network could be helpful to immediately fill up the vacancy created by “no show” employee.
Reflection
Hotel and tourism industry is one of the economy cores in Hong Kong. We can find lot of Hotel around us, but what is the factor that our hotel industry can be developed in advance and famous in the world. After the visit in L’Hotel Island South, we investigate the reason and understand the overall operation procedure.
In the room division, we found that the staffs need to cooperate with each other, like the front desk with the housekeeping staff, so that the check-in process and room cleaning process can be cooperated well. In the L’Hotel Island South, the room division manager, Mr. Nelson Ng, shows the general hotel operation procedure to us. We investigated that their staff work together synchronously. Once the guest checkout in the front desk, they staff will contact the housekeeper immediately to clean the room for the next coming guest. It is very impressive for us.
Hotel as a people oriented business, they need to consider from the customer perspective. In customer perspective, we take the good room environment for granted. In view of the hotel, L’Hotel spent much of the efforts on their room living environment, like the using wood floor to match with the natural environment. Besides, L’Hotel also provides connected room for family use to take care their children. Those of the practices lead we understand that L’Hotel really put the guest at the first priority.
Furthermore, we understand that hotel is not only the place for guest to live, but also is the place for guest to have entertainment. L’hotel Island South shows different parts of facilities to us, for example, swimming pool, gym room, fine dinning restaurant and also the local tour to Hong Kong famous site. We realize that a business should provide diversify business segment to enhance their competitive edge and distinguish from other competitor.
Last but not least, we sincerely thank for L’Hotel providing an opportunity for us to learn and investigate more about hotel industry, and also thanks for giving an invitation to us to work there.
