Hotel Management Strategy
Strategy
“Strategy is the pattern of objectives, purposes, or goals and the major policies and plans for achieving these goals, stated in such a way to define what business the company is in or is to be in and the kind of company it is or is to be” (Kenneth Andrews, 1980).
Management Strategies Affecting Hotel's Bottom Line
The environmental movement is not new to the hotel industry. The major hotel chains have adopted environmental programs, including corporate-wide targets to reduce energy use, water use, waste generation, and more recently greenhouse gas emissions. Federal, State, and utility resource efficiency programs target hotels and other commercial buildings to reduce electricity consumption. Many independent hotels have put in place customer-focused initiatives such as towel and linen reuse programs. The major motivation for the industry is cost controls in the face of rising utility rates. Utilities account for 5-15% of total operating costs for hotels, and cost-effective environmental management strategies can cut property-wide consumption up to 30% without major investments in physical plant, and up to 75% in targeted use areas.
However, most hoteliers have stopped short in their environmental programs with the misconception that guests equate quality with excess and that technologies guests will rebel against the poor quality lighting of compact fluorescent bulbs or low flow rates of efficient shower heads.