This Fourth Edition helps readers develop the wide-ranging knowledge and analytical skills they need to succeed in today’s burgeoning and dynamic hotel industry.
This comprehensive volume encourages critical thinking by providing different points of view through contributions from sixty leading industry professionals and academics. Within a coherent theoretical structure, this updated edition enables readers to formulate their own ideas and solutions.
The vast majority of research articles and es-says in this book deal with one or more as-pects of what has been called the art andscience of modern hotel management.Itshould be noted that the word
modern
can beloaded with the potential of much misunder-standing.Hotels are changing and will con-tinue to change.As a result,the techniques of management of modern hotels must adapt tochanging circumstances.Subsequent sectionsof this book are designed to help the studentand practitioner discover information,meth-ods,and techniques for dealing with thesechanging circumstances .
among the country’s living patterns.Peopleand industry have moved from the so-calledrust belt to the sun belt.The hotel businesshas been active in reborn and reconstructedcentral cities.The explosion of technologyand information-based companies has con-centrated human endeavor in technologicalcorridors in California,Massachusetts,Wash-ington,Texas,and North Carolina,to name afew such places.It can be safely said thatwhere jobs are and major concentrations of economic activity occur,hotels will follow.Among other current and ongoing influ-encers of hotel design,construction,market-ing,and operation are the following.
Note:
This list is neither exhaustive nor exclusive
Like many other American businesses,hotelshave been affected by shifts in emphasis
Demographics
play a major role and willcontinue to be influential in the foresee-able future.As the baby boom generation
and its children mature,the population of the country will for many years be older,healthier,and better educated than previ-ous generations.These facts will presentnew challenges and opportunities to allbusiness managers.•
Technology
—in the form of computers,communication,personal devices,andlaborsaving mechanical equipment—hashad and will have a major effect on theway in which hotels are managed and op-erated.The speed with which informationis accumulated,stored,manipulated,andtransferred is such that today most travel-ers expect that the hotel rooms they rentwill allow them to be as productive asthey are in the office or at home.Increas-ingly,with portable computing,personaldata assistants (PDAs),wireless commu-nication,and virtually everything some-how connected to the Internet,hotelsmust provide services and access that al-low guests seamless transition from thebusiness,travel,or home environment tothat of the hotel.Increasingly,entertain-ment must be fused with communicationand productive processes.
