HOS801 Environmental Impact In Marriott Hotels Australia Assessment Answer

Answer :

HOS801 – Strategic Management in Tourism and Hospitality

Assessment Three – Individual Report

Topic: Lack of sustainable policies to reduce Environmental impact in Marriott Hotels Australia

Executive Summary

In the present time, the tourism and hospitality industry is facing a number of management issues that need to be addressed using fundamental policies. Based on the identified issues in the previous assignment, an attempt has been made to determine the most optimal and competitive business strategy that would help Marriott Hotel Australia thrive in the competitive market and maintain ways of sustainability. For this project report, a strategic improvement plan has been developed that would help cater to the issues currently experienced by Marriott Hotel Australia. Early in 2017, the hotel adopted the best global reporting practice, the Global Reporting Initiatives that identified the environmental, economic and social issues. For recommendation, the company needs to strategically hire leaders and entrepreneurs in their organization to help manage team orientation of the staff members.

Introduction

As the newly appointed CEO of Marriott Hotel Australia, it is necessary to research and analyse the existing strategies incorporated by the hotel to remain sustainable and gain competitive advantage. Focused and critical thinking skills are necessary to develop the strategic recommendations that would help build the business stronger for the next 12 months. In the present time, the tourism and hospitality industry is facing a number of management issues, that needs to be addressed using fundamental policies. One of the most difficult tasks in the planning process is to identify the underlying strategic issues within the organizational periscope (Moutinho& Vargas-Sanchez, 2018). Based on the identified issues in the previous assignment, an attempt has been made to determine the most optimal and competitive business strategy that would help Marriott Hotel Australia thrive in the competitive market and maintain ways of sustainability. On the basis of the key findings of this report, conclusions and recommendations will de draw that would support corporate governance and organizational structure of the hotel. 

Findings

As stated earlier, the tourism and hospitality industry is currently facing a lot of management issues that might affect the values, stakeholders, service and structural policies of the organisation. For this project report, a strategic improvement plan has been developed that would help cater to the issues currently experienced by Marriott Hotel Australia. It is the lack of sustainable policies that are affecting the organization the most, and as the newly appointed CEO, it is necessary to figure out strategic development processes and deal with the challenges experienced by the hotel. The detailed findings of the Marriott Hotel Australia and its present strategic plan have been evaluated in the following sections.

Strategic Development

Marriott Hotel Australia is one of the leading business organizations in the tourism and hospitality industry of Australia and has been trying to implement strategic development in its organizational structure since 2017. Early in 2017, the hotel adopted the best global reporting practice, the Global Reporting Initiatives that help to identify the environmental, economic and social issues. However, the company is not making any significant progress in their environmental issues due to inefficient sustainable policies (Pulido-Fernández, Andrades-Caldito& Sánchez-Rivero, 2015). However, as one of 51 companies mandated to report to National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting Scheme (NGERS), the company is investing billions of dollars to use and apply renewable energy sources. Apart from the environmental aspects, the hotel is also making progress in the strategic development of customer satisfaction and sustainable programs. It is also necessary to make progress inconvenience and cost override to create a culture of strategic development in the organization.

Internal and External Environments

The internal environments of the organization include a micro analysis of its business operation criteria and value chain. It is necessary to develop a value chain, so the customers are able to get a certain value that is higher the cost of activities, thus providing a profit margin for the hotel. The internal and external environment analysis of Marriott Hotel Australia is as follows.

Internal Analysis (Micro Analysis)

Quality Service: The primary focus of the Marriott Hotel Australia is to provide high-quality services to the customers so that they can get a good value for money and satisfied with the service.

Efficient Staff and their Training: It is the responsibility of the hotel to hire staff members who are able to treat the customers in the most hospitable manner. For this reason, it is necessary to recruit efficient staff and train them so that they are able to deliver the necessary services.

Customer Needs and Satisfaction: Each customer has their own unique taste and preference, which should be met by the organization at all costs. For this reason, the Marriott Hotel Australia is aiming to provide a very personal and tailor-made arrangement that would cater to all the specific customer needs and demands.

Brand Building and Marketing: Marketing is also a crucial factor that contributes to customer satisfaction. Marriott Hotel Australia also needs to focus on pricing and advertisement policies that would help them build a strong and reputable image among customers.

Apart from these internal environment factors, there are certain subsidiary factors as well that helps to achieve the micro factors. Infrastructure is one such criterion that helps to provide enticing and attractive services to customers. Human resource management is yet another factor that the hotel should focus on in order to manage its efficient service from staff members. As customers might have varying demands, the hotel needs specialised services to fulfil their needs accordingly (Baum, 2016). Finally, marketing research is yet another tool that should be used by Marriott Hotel in order to better understand the market trends and provide services that have a long-lasting impact on the minds of customers.

External Analysis (Macro Analysis)

Analysing the external factors is equally important to develop better strategies for countering the management issues faced by the tourism and hospitality industry. This can be better understood with the help of PESTEL Analysis which is provided below.

Political Factors: These include the legal regulations implemented by the Australian government in the tourism industry. As the government is offering subsidies to promote the tourism industry, it is quite beneficial for Marriott Hotel Australia.

Economic Factors: Australia has a stable GDP growth and is one of the most popular tourist destinations that contribute to the country's economy. This also beneficial for the Marriott Hotel and is further enhanced due to the increasing purchasing power of the local customers.

Social Factors: The social and cultural attributes of a country is crucial to the growth of its tourism industry (Stalcup, Deale & Todd, 2014). As Australia encourages a growing trend and demand for new food and drink, the tourism industry and Marriott Hotel can benefit from it.

Technological Factors: Australia has a strong technological infrastructure that helps to provide advanced technological services to the customers of the tourism industry. Moreover, technology makes services more convenient for customers and staff members.

Environmental Factors: This one area where Australia is suffering a lot. The great barrier reef is under threat due to the warming of ocean and climate change. Moreover, the extreme use of non-renewable energy sources has a drastic effect on the environment. Marriott Hotel needs to switch to green energy sources to develop a sustainable system.

Legal Factors: The legislative rules in Australia are very much in favour of the tourism industry. However, the recent limitations in the use of energy sources might force the hotel to look for alternative energy sources for a sustainable future.

Development Strategy at Corporate, Business and Functional Level

There are three levels of strategy that Marriott Hotel Australia needs to focus on to build a sustainable future has been described below.

Strategy at Corporate Level: This is the overall strategy that provides a generalised functionality to the organization. Based on the core business objectives, corporate strategies can be determined by company management. In the case of Marriott Hotel Australia, the company will be operating in the tourism and hospitality industry. As the goal of the hotel is to provide the best quality of customer services and implement a sustainable source of energy, the corporate strategy of the company should be to focus on environmental strategy and recruit staff members who are able to offer the most hospitable services to the customers (Liu & Chou, 2016).

Strategy at Business Level: The business-level strategy is determined by the marketing trends in which the organization operates and delivery of the planned tactics to maintain their competitive advantage. Marriott Hotel is planning to fulfil social, economic and environmental objectives and for this reason, they should try to promote their green energy tourism and resource conservation to the customers. Due to their eco-friendly approach, there is a higher chance that customers are more attracted and prefer to stay loyal to the organization.

Strategy at Functional Level: This is the most important level of strategy that offers the day to day tactics used by organizations to achieve their goals and objectives. Everyday actions, the relationship between business units and monitoring of goals are all included in this level of strategy. In context to Marriott Hotel, implementing green practices like linen reuse programs and water conservation fixtures would help the company achieve a sustainable future. However, the company should also focus on cost override and convenience practices to ensure a better functional strategy.

Competitive Advantage and Sustainability

There are multiple ways a hotel operating in the tourism and hospitality industry can develop their competitive advantage and long-term sustainability. One of the major ways to gain a competitive advantage is to identify the unique features and advantages of the competitor (Evans, 2016). Marriott Hotel can analyse the strategies used by other hotels to develop their own strategies based on market demand and trends. In addition to this, it is necessary to build a strong relationship with customers through feedback. The hotel can use a feedback process from customers at the end of their stay to make them feel special and improve their quality of services. Using a green energy source and promoting green tourism would certainly work in favour of the organization and also ensure their environmental sustainability (Yoon & Chen, 2017). Using state-of-the-art technology for the convenience of guests and staff members would also allow the organization to serve the customers better and keep their workers efficient. Based on the present situation and managerial issues of Marriott Hotel Australia, it is absolutely crucial that company work on future environmental sustainability maintain a competitive edge in the tourism market.

Impact of International Strategic Alliances, Mergers and Acquisitions

International strategic alliances, mergers and acquisitions all have a heavy impact in the tourism industry and are generally done for the purpose of growth and sustainability. The brand acquisition is one of the most prominent outcomes from a hotel's thirst to grow rapidly in a competitive market. Acquisitions help to eliminate competition from the market by taking over smaller business and pooling in their customers with it. The acquisition of Starwood Hotels by Marriott is one of the largest mergers in the hospitality industry around the world. Often times, when a company is too large to acquire, two equivalent companies merge together to compete with the other hotels (Wu et al., 2014). This provides them with a competitive advantage over them due to pooling of customers, lowering of service prices and better profit margin. It is similar in the case of international strategic alliances when two big hotels from different countries form a common enterprise that is able to provide service on both countries and mutually benefit each other (Penco&Profumo, 2019). As Marriott acquired Starwood Hotels, it has eliminated a strong competitor while growing significantly than other competitors. It is in favour of Marriott to merge with other companies outside the tourism industry like energy companies that would help them switch to renewable green energy sources, which would be good for their brand image. This would, in return, increase their market value and attract more customers.

Strategic Implementation and Importance of Entrepreneurship and Leadership

Leadership and entrepreneurship can play a significant role in an organization and especially in the hospitality industry. Marriott Hotel Australia can incorporate the strategic implementation of leadership and entrepreneurship in their organization to develop and improve several areas. Some of the areas that can be improved through implementing leadership and entrepreneurship in the Marriott Hotel are described below. 

Team-Orientation: In order to maintain efficient service from staff members, high levels of team orientation is required. Entrepreneurs and leaders have a behavioural trait that allows them to organize and manage their subordinates in a systematic manner and extract the highest potential of work from them (Yeh &Trejos, 2015). For this reason, Marriott Hotel should focus on implementing leadership values strategically in the organization.

Adaptability: Leaders are easily adaptable complex and critical situations which help them to stay calm and provide the most innovative solutions to problems. Moreover, their flexibility also helps them organize tasks based on the requirement at the moment. Marriott Hotel requires such flexible leaders to deal with their environmental, economic and social issues.

Passionate: Leaders and entrepreneurs are very passionate about what they do and can also instil the same attitude in their subordinates. The quality of service becomes high if the staff members are passionate about their actions and how they treat customers. For this reason, the hotel should strategically implement leaders in its operational structure for better results.

Corporate Governance, Controls and Organizational Structure

There are certain areas where Marriott Hotel Australia can focus on to further implement their strategic policies and resolve the management issues that it is currently facing. These areas have been listed below.

Corporate Governance: The relationship between the company management with its shareholders, stakeholders and board is termed as corporate governance. It is through corporate governance the company achieves its objectives and monitor its performance. In the case of Marriott Hotel, the company needs to align its management issues with the goals of corporate governance to derive the most potential benefits (Zach,2016). The internal and external control of corporate governance is what Marriott Hotel requires at the moment to develop and implement strategies for environmental sustainability.

Organizational Structure: Each country has its own set of organizational structure based on which the companies in that country operate. Australia has a free-market policy that allows the owners to take control of their own actions and the state very rarely interferes in business matters. Marriott Hotel Australia can utilize this freedom to make changes in their operational actions and deal with the current management and environmental issues.

Conclusion

It is evident from the findings of the project report that there are several areas where Marriott Hotel Australia can make significant improvements to maintain a competitive edge in the tourism industry. The strategic development based on internal and external environment analysis is essential to deal with the current issues that the organisation is experiencing. Environmental sustainability, along with economic stability are the major areas that should be improved. It is within the hotel's best interest to reduce its carbon footprint and incorporate an energy-efficient structure for a more sustainable goal. Based on the findings and identified areas of improvement solutions can be provided, which has listed in the recommendations section. It is through sustainable policies the company would be able to reduce their environmental impact that the entire tourism and hospitality industry is suffering from.

Recommendations

There are several recommendations that Marriott Hotel Australia can implement in their organization at a corporate, business and functional level. Some of the major recommendations have been listed below.

• The company can merge or form a strategic alliance with an energy organization which would help them switch to green energy and develop an environmentally sustainable system.
• Promoting their brand image as a green energy hotel and encouraging green tourism would help build its strong brand image, which would attract more customers.
• The company can also strategically implement leaders and entrepreneurs in their organization to help manage team orientation of the staff members (Tribe, 2016). In order to provide high-quality services to staff members, it is crucial to motivate employees and staff of the hotel.
• Hiring efficient staff and arranging for their training would also increase their quality of customer service and attract and retain more customers.
• Marriott Hotel Australia can also opt for a change management process so that the environmental, economic and social issues can be better dealt with.