The History of Britannia Hotel

The Britannia Hotel is a hotel establishment that was founded in the year 1976 in the United Kingdom. Initially, it was a country house and later on renovated to a 100 bedroom hotel in the same year that it was founded (Jim White, 2013). Further expansion has continued over the years. For instance, in the year 1981, it was expanded into a derelict listed building with a total number of 255 bedrooms in central Manchester. Being the second purchase, there are 52 hotels in the United Kingdom up to date. Offerings by the hotel include bars, restaurants, and nightclubs as well as WIFI access in the hotel rooms (White, 2012).

Currently, it is the United Kingdom’s largest national and independent hotel group boasting of 35 properties with a total of 7,000 rooms (David Bowie, 2007). It has been quite successful ever since its inception having been nominated for many hotel awards and won two awards: in 2011 it won the category of ‘Most Group-Friendly hotel chain or group’ in the Group travel awards and also two years later in 2013.

I was part of a group that performed a case study on the Britannia Hotel establishment, and we made quite a number findings based on the survey. Before the case study, we formed a group of five people. This group was formed on a random basis and not on the grounds of any particular skills or talents individually. We unanimously picked a team leader due to her background in leadership and the fact that she had been involved in some case studies earlier. From that point on, we spent quite some time planning the tasks to assign to the members and the collection of information relevant to the Britannia Hotel case study. Tuckman’s theory suggests that during this point which is referred to as, storming, the relationships that have been developed by team members may break and in rare occasions, never recover (ANDREWS, 2017). The team leader took complete charge at this stage and helped offer facilitative leadership, to help in the sorting of the ideas and task assignment.

This according to Tuckman’s theory was necessary as it provided space for the group to deliberate and assigned roles to the members. This would help have a clear vision of the past events.

Despite the Britannia hotel being one of the most mature hotel establishments, many problems affect the service delivery and most importantly, the customers of the hotel (White, 2012). They include:

•    Poor food hygiene.
•    Lack of staff training.
•    A bad attitude by the staff.
•    Improper management.
•    Lack of a proper method for customer complaints.

Issues Affecting Britannia Hotel

To name a few of others concerns. However, the hotel has methods used to manage customer expectation that include: use of feedback forms and questionnaires for the complaints, a presence of a help desk, very well trained and professional staff and the presence of officials among others.

During the case study, we found out the issues that have been of significant effect to the general performance of the hotel. The customer service experience being a key piece of the puzzle as most of the customers would rather visit other hotels with better standards in favour of the Britannia hotels. This would also have the guests giving bad reviews to their family and friends too. On the other hand, a good customer experience is a gem and would have the customers visiting the hotel another time and also be agents of recommendations to their family and friends (Martin Information, 2002).

At this juncture, which according to the Tuckman’s theory is named the Norming phase. The other team members valued each team member’s contribution to the issues presented concerning Britannia hotel were from all team members. With the main point being customer service, I found out that another key concern was the level of food hygiene. Food is core in any restaurant or hotel facility that offers food, drink or both. Over the recent years, the complaints by the customer base over the issue were not addressed due to weak grievance airing system. The final solution to this problem would be to improve the hygiene of the food.

With regards to the same issue, we found out that according to a consumer association called Which, which in 2013 and 2014, Britannia Hotels scored low in customer satisfaction out of all the hotels in the United Kingdom with 33% in 2014 (ANDREWS, 2017). The improvement in the food hygiene would thus also boost the experience and have customers satisfied. This, in turn, would mean good reviews which would be helpful to potential clients.

The team leader’s main focus at this point was on organizing and also helping the members to focus on their tasks solely and at times contributes to the findings relating to the study. This was very useful in propelling the group towards accomplishing the goal which was to identify the key concerns and offer solutions to the same.

The employment of a proper complaint system proves to be fruitful as any problem directly affecting the customers would be put to the light and therefore the hotel management act on them. Customer feedback is the main factor in the growth of any business (Jim White, 2013). Questionnaires and feedback forms help in gathering information about service. This solution proves to be more efficient in cases where the customers are more introverted and do not vocally air their grievances. The storming phase according to the Tuckman’s theory has the risk of the team suffering complacency and in cases the drive that was very strong during the other phases (White, 2012).

Solutions to Britannia Hotel Issues

Through the study, another major challenge that was discovered was the massive I.T reliance during the business. The Britannia Hotels team handling the I.T department has to from time to time make new purchases of infrastructure that include: personal computers and printers. During the history of the hotel establishment, the information technology has been quite unstructured with each personnel being required to buy a computer after a job has been assigned to the service desk of the hotel. This entails a long and tedious process. The solution to this problem has however been curbed by the introduction of a new technology known as KnowledgeBus IT Edition. That is an online apparatus that offers advice to purchases of equipment on prices and stock available. Using the technology, the Buyers provide an array of products required and what the technology does is check and make comparisons on item prices, specifications among others which is an easy mode to shop for all the equipment needed. The user can discover the margins that the seller proposes. Another advantage is that they can receive notifications on a daily basis on the listings of products and stocking and the price fluctuation within the given online and physical stores.

The KnowledgeBus I.T edition technology is also helpful in the following ways:

•    Keep track of the price variations in the market.
•    Be updated on any developments occurring in the market.
•    Monitor market trends to be able to predict future prices and stock
•    Compare margins and prices in different shops selling the equipment.

Our team was also able to identify some of the significant benefits befitting the use of the technology in the Britannia Hotels. According to the staff at the I.T department of the hotels, the introduction of the technology has been useful. It helps in cost effectiveness as it can help cut the costs and also saves time which is a major factor (ANDREWS, 2017). It contributes to achieving value on every equipment purchased. The efficiency that is achieved is important as the hotel management can now be concerned with other tasks that are more on strategy and help to shift focus on more useful factors that affect the hotel. The value for money has been used to develop other areas of the hotel, and this sees growth.

Learning and using the technology is also very easy and provides a very user-friendly interface to the user (White, 2012). Any staff that would be put in a position to purchase I.T equipment for the hotel would be in a secure position to do so without any challenge resulting from the ease and efficiency of the employed technology.

Technology hence plays a significant role in the development and the solution of some of the problems facing the hotel. Our group was hence able to identify problems in the case study and also provide solutions to the problems. Some of the solutions, however, are already in place and helping to drive the Britannia Hotels forward (Press, 2013). At this point, performance phase according to Tuckman’s theory was complete and satisfactory.

References

Andrews (2017) Sales & Mktg:a Tb For Hospitality IndNew York City: Tata McGraw-Hill Education.

David Bowie, F.B. (2007) Hospitality Marketing, Abingdon: Routledge.

Jim White, A.M. (2013) Manchester United, London: Rough Guides.

Martin Information, L. (2002) Guide to Hotel Brands in the UK: Incorporating Fitness, Golf and Casino Operations, Bethesd: Martin Information.

Press, I.C.I. (2013) Caterer & Hotelkeeper, Volume 186, Issues 3783-3786, New York: Cornell University.

White, K. (2012) Moon Living Abroad in London, Avalon Travel.