Strategic Hotel Management MBA

Strategic Hotel Management
Student:
Professor:
Course title:
Date:
Strategic Hotel Management
Executive Summary
The selected hotel for this report is Hilton Baltimore Hotel, a five-star hotel situated in the City of Baltimore, Maryland. Customers to this hotel largely include government employees, families, tourists, as well as business travelers. In the coming year, the most important threats for Hilton Baltimore Hotel include the following many strong competitors; changes in the preferences and tastes of customers; substitute products; threat of new entrants into Baltimore’s hospitality industry; and low economic growth of Maryland State. The most significant opportunities include offering new services; adopting new technology by enhancing online activities to better serve customers and cut costs; and to embrace innovative customer service using smartphone application. The priorities for the coming year are (i) adopt new technologies and launch the use of smartphone; (ii) expand product offering; and (iii) offer new unique services. It is recommended that the management of Hilton Baltimore Hotel should execute each of the 3 priorities sequentially.

Table of Contents
 TOC \o "1-3" \h \z \u  HYPERLINK \l "_Toc414387035"
Strategic Hotel Management  PAGEREF _Toc414387035 \h
2
 HYPERLINK \l "_Toc414387036"
Executive Summary  PAGEREF _Toc414387036 \h
2
 HYPERLINK \l "_Toc414387037"
1.0 Introduction  PAGEREF _Toc414387037 \h
4
 HYPERLINK \l "_Toc414387038"
1.1 Overview of Hilton Baltimore Hotel in Baltimore, Maryland  PAGEREF _Toc414387038 \h
4
 HYPERLINK \l "_Toc414387039"
2.0 Most significant threats in the coming year  PAGEREF _Toc414387039 \h
5
 HYPERLINK \l "_Toc414387040"
3.0 Most significant opportunities in the coming year  PAGEREF _Toc414387040 \h
5
 HYPERLINK \l "_Toc414387041"
4.0 Impact of threats on everyday management of hotel practices of Hilton Baltimore hotel  PAGEREF _Toc414387041 \h
6
 HYPERLINK \l "_Toc414387042"
4.1 Many strong competitors  PAGEREF _Toc414387042 \h
6
 HYPERLINK \l "_Toc414387043"
4.2 Changes in Tastes and Preferences of Customers  PAGEREF _Toc414387043 \h
6
 HYPERLINK \l "_Toc414387044"
4.3 Substitute Products  PAGEREF _Toc414387044 \h
7
 HYPERLINK \l "_Toc414387045"
4.4 Threat of New Entrants  PAGEREF _Toc414387045 \h
8
 HYPERLINK \l "_Toc414387046"
4.5 Slow economic growth of Maryland State  PAGEREF _Toc414387046 \h
8
 HYPERLINK \l "_Toc414387047"
5.0 Impact of opportunities on day-to-day management of hotel practices of Hilton Baltimore Hotel  PAGEREF _Toc414387047 \h
8
 HYPERLINK \l "_Toc414387048"
5.1 New Unique Services  PAGEREF _Toc414387048 \h
8
 HYPERLINK \l "_Toc414387049"
5.2 Adopt new technology  PAGEREF _Toc414387049 \h
9
 HYPERLINK \l "_Toc414387050"
5.3 Innovative customer service using smartphone application  PAGEREF _Toc414387050 \h
9
 HYPERLINK \l "_Toc414387051"
5.4 Expand product offering  PAGEREF _Toc414387051 \h
10
 HYPERLINK \l "_Toc414387052"
6.0 Priorities for Hilton Baltimore Hotel in Maryland in the coming year  PAGEREF _Toc414387052 \h
10
 HYPERLINK \l "_Toc414387053"
6.1 First Priority: Adopt new technologies and launch the use of smartphone  PAGEREF _Toc414387053 \h
10
 HYPERLINK \l "_Toc414387054"
6.2 Second Priority: expand product offering  PAGEREF _Toc414387054 \h
10
 HYPERLINK \l "_Toc414387055"
6.3 Third Priority: offer unique services  PAGEREF _Toc414387055 \h
11
 HYPERLINK \l "_Toc414387056"
7.0 Conclusion  PAGEREF _Toc414387056 \h
11
 HYPERLINK \l "_Toc414387057"
8.0 Recommendations  PAGEREF _Toc414387057 \h
11
 HYPERLINK \l "_Toc414387058"
9.0 Reference  PAGEREF _Toc414387058 \h
11

1.0 Introduction
The chosen hotel for this report is Hilton Baltimore Hotel, a five star hotel. This report provides an exhaustive discussion of the most important threats and opportunities that face Hilton Baltimore Hotel in the coming year. A listing of these threats and opportunities is provided as well as the justification as to why they are important. Moreover, this report provides an analysis of the impact of the identified threats and opportunities on the day-to-day management of hotel practices of this hotel. The impact is discussed on the food and beverage, human resource management, marketing, organization, finance, operations, as well as general management. Lastly, basing on the analysis, the priorities for Hilton Baltimore Hotel in the coming year are identified taking into account their cost and revenue impact.
1.1 Overview of Hilton Baltimore Hotel in Baltimore, Maryland
Hilton Baltimore Hotel is an AAA Three Diamond hotel located in the city of Baltimore, the largest city in the state of Maryland. It is situated in the Inner Harbor district, which is a prime cultural and business area in the city of Baltimore, Maryland (Thadani & Mobar 2014). Visitors can enjoy state-of-the-art accommodation only 15 minutes from Baltimore Washington International Airport (Hilton Baltimore 2015). Hilton Baltimore Hotel has built a reputation for high quality foods, as well as accommodation and conference facilities. The hotel has more than 60,000 square feet of flexible meeting space as well as two ballrooms at the hotel’s Baltimore Convention Center (Hilton Baltimore 2015). Hilton Baltimore also offers various amenities such as sauna, fitness center, heated indoor lap pool and whirlpool (Hilton Baltimore 2015).
Customers to this hotel mainly include government employees, families, tourists, and business people/business travelers. In this family-friendly hotel, airy and bright guest rooms feature WIFI, wired internet access, and LCD HDTVs as well as large workstations. Executive rooms offer a private Concierge as well as access to the Executive Lounge (Hilton Baltimore 2015). The suites of Hilton Baltimore Hotel feature balconies with stunning sights of Oriole Park at Camden Yards. This hotel has over 150 rooms which are in three categories: suites, guest rooms, and accessible rooms (Padilla-Meléndez & Garrido-Moreno 2014).
2.0 Most significant threats in the coming year
In the coming year, the most important threats for Hilton Baltimore Hotel include the following: (i) many strong competitors such as Marriott Hotel and Four Seasons Hotel. (ii) Changes in the preferences and tastes of customers since they may demand low-cost, cheap hotel services in the coming year (Rutherford 2011). (iii) Substitute products such as video-conferencing, since business travelers – key customers for this hotel’s conference facilities – may decide to use video-conferencing to hold their meetings and not use the hotel’s meeting facilities. (iv) Threat of new entrants into Baltimore’s hospitality industry. (v) Slow economic growth of Maryland State, which may reduce the demand for hotel and conferences services (Ricca 2014).
These threats are important since they can reduce the demand for Hilton Baltimore Hotel’s services and products in the coming year, reduce the number of customers, force the hotel to reduce costs/prices, and in so doing negatively affect the hotel’s revenue and profitability (Åžentürk 2012).
3.0Most significant opportunities in the coming year
In the coming year, the most significant opportunities that Hilton Baltimore Hotel faces include the following: (i) offering new services such as laundry and dry-cleaning services, outside catering, as well as health and wellness services (Castle 2015). (ii) Adopt new technology by enhancing online activities to better serve customers and cut costs. (iii) Going green as this will reduce various operational costs, for instance costs of water and energy. (iv) Embrace innovative customer service using smartphone application (Hong 2010).
These opportunities are important since if Hilton Baltimore Hotel effectively exploits them, it will be able to achieve increased customer loyalty, reduced costs, and improved customer service (Rutherford 2011). All these will boost the hotel’s financial bottom line in the coming year as they will lead to increased revenue and profits, and will give this hotel an edge over its competitors in Baltimore, Maryland (Isenstadt & Detlefsen 2014).
4.0 Impact of threats on everyday management of hotel practices of Hilton Baltimore hotel
The threats have a major impact on the everyday management of hotel practices of Hilton Baltimore Hotel. Each of the identified threat has the potential to negatively affect the hotel’s profitability. In order to weaken the impact brought by the threats, the hotel’s management will need to fully exploit the opportunities in the coming year (Isenstadt & Detlefsen 2014).
4.1 Many strong competitors
There are several major hotels in Baltimore City, Maryland, that pose a serious threat to Hilton Baltimore Hotel in the coming year. Most of these competitors are well-established hotels that provide services of almost the same quality as Hilton Baltimore. Noteworthy competitors include Sheraton Inner Habor Hotel, which is also a family hotel in the city of Baltimore; Brookshire Suites Inner Habor; Marriott Hotel Baltimore; Hotel Monaco Baltimore; and Hyatt Regency Baltimore. Cheaper hotels in the Baltimore area also pose a major threat in the coming year, and these include Inn Inner Harbor; Four Seasons Baltimore; Starwood Hotels; Chic Baltimore Inn; and Fairfield Inn & Suites Baltimore. In essence, intense competition in the coming year may lower Hilton Baltimore Hotel’s profits since competitors may entice customers away from Hilton Baltimore (Padilla-Meléndez & Garrido-Moreno 2014).
The management of Hilton Baltimore Hotel may counter this threat by increasing its marketing and advertising activities as this will increase market awareness of its services and products. The hotel can intensify its marketing activities in the following mediums: television and radio, outdoor advertising, internet advertising for instance through e-mail marketing, sponsorships, as well as marketing on social media on websites like LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook (Enz, Peiró-Signes & Segarra-Oña 2014).
4.2 Changes in Tastes and Preferences of Customers
At present, Hilton Baltimore Hotel, being a 5-star hotel, is a highly expensive hotel relative to other hotels such as 4-star, 3-star, and 2-star hotels in Baltimore, Maryland. In the coming year, the preferences and tastes of customers may change to demand low-cost hotel services. In essence, customers may prefer 2-star and 3-star hotels which are much cheaper than 5-star hotels. If customers’ tastes and preferences change and they choose other hotels over this one, Hilton Baltimore Hotel may be affected considerably due to reduced clientele.
Hilton Baltimore Hotel may counter this threat through increased marketing activities on various mediums. Since changes in tastes and preferences may be as a...