The Mercure Sydney – An Overview

Discuss about the use of home theme by the different hotels.

The hotel which approached the consultancy is the Mercure Sydney. The Mercure Sydney is located at the heart of (Sydney 2018). The location of the hotel gives an added advantage of exploring various places from the hotel. The hotel is suitable for all kinds of people, be it for the people who is travelling for work or to spend a weekend. The hotel has a well furnished gymnasium an also has a roof top swimming pool. There are five hundred and seventeen rooms available in the hotel. The attractions in Australia such as the Sydney Opera house, The Rocks, Sydney harbor bridge and all such tourist attractions are located near the hotel. The behavior of the staff is also good which makes the stay even more comfortable and homely. Trains, buses and all means of transport are available to create better customer experience in terms of transportation and travelling. .

Many of the hotels use the ‘home’ theme for providing a better experience for the customers. The coziness remains the main factor for the customer (Jones, Hillier and Comfort 2016). The room may provide luxury, it may technology based and provides all the necessities but nothing can be a better experience to have a homely feeling away from home. The home theme can be applied so that the customers do not feel any difficulty in adjusting to the environment of the new place.

Hotel Industry In Australia:

The Mercure Sydney is one of the finest hotels in Australia. The hotel industry in Australia is a booming industry. With a large number of hotels being constructed with regards to the increasing number of tourists in Australia the industry is expected to be highly competitive and highly profitable as well  . The hotels in Australia have increased by a huge number in the recent years. The country has a large number of visitors coming in and it is soon to cross the number of tourist attraction in the other countries. The hotels are built near the market and near the airports to provide the customers  facilities of transport and other basic necessities. The last time the increase in the number of the hotels took place is during the Sydney Olympics. The main aspect that helps the hotels in keeping the loyalty of the customers intact is the hospitality. Even a hotel, which is not very well furnished, attractive or designed it can pull a large number of customers due to its hospitality. Good behavior with the customer, taking care of the basic necessities, interacting with the customer are some of the basic factors of hospitality that helps in gaining the trust of the customers. The hospitality is the first priority of many of the customers. The hotels are nowadays looking forward to provide a good hospitality by giving the customers a home like experience (Leung, Bai and Stahura 2015). The hotels are incorporating the home theme in order to attract more customers. Hospitality and home go hand in hand. The Mercure Sydney should look forward to do the same. The report puts forward the ways how the home theme is implemented by the hotels.

Why the Home Theme is Important for Hotels

Need of Home theme by Hotels:

The hotels face a problem of satisfying the needs of the customers. Creating a theme similar to that of home will help the customers in having  a level of comfort. Many of the hotels even after having well decorated and having the disposal of technology face the problem of getting negative reviews with regards to the services. As a result the hotels are planning to implement the hotel theme. As a result, of which the customers will not be having much complaints since a theme depicting the home of customer will be put up. The home like theme may include having elements that are generally present in the home of the person. The traditional hotel such structure should be done away with.

Staying away from home is not an easy task. Getting a home like experience is even more difficult task. People always prefer opting for a hotel, which are home like rather than a one, which is more attractive. A person who is travelling for a meeting and is opting for a hotel to stay will definitely look for a home like experience, which can improve work efficiency. The person after coming back from the meeting or office will look forward for a home like atmosphere, which will help the person to relax and have a less stressed feeling. Providing a home like experience would mean having in store a music player with the songs that is preferred by the user. The movies preferred by the customer can also be provided to the person. A proper television should be present with the channels preferred by the customers. All these will help in making the stay of the customer more comfortable and soothing. A person visiting an unknown place for the first time will definitely feel home sick or may be feel fish out of water. Having a home like atmosphere will be a boon to make the person feel at home. A well behaved and co- operative house staff will also help in making the person feel comfortable. The house staff may interact with the customers regarding the interests and dislikes of the customers (Belarmino et al. 2017). This will be an indirect process of knowing the likes of the customer to make him provide a better experience. Moreover, having a person, whom one can talk to always feels homelike and comfortable.

Increased Competition and Profitability in the Australian Hotel Industry

Implementation of the Theme:        

A home like feeling is being connected to the person close to someone even after being far away. The Mercure Sydney hotel may provide the facility of getting in touch with the family member and relatives of its customers. The hotel should provide a facility of twenty -four hour call facility to its customers so that the customers can speak to anyone when feeling down. Providing a video calling facility is a boon (Edwards, Securus Technologies Inc. 2015). Nowadays, all the hotels provide good net connection. Nowadays, video calling facility is being provided so that one can connect and feel near to the family members. The Mercure Sydney may also look forward to providing such facility. The installation of the facility can be a new implementation to attract more people as it will provide a chance to speak with anyone at any point of time. This is another factor coming under the home theme. Since the evolution of the idea the people are more likely to stay at places that provide the home like experience rather than a more furnished hotel.

Having a home like theme does not only mean designing the room like the home of a person. It basically means giving the person comfort that is felt at home. Even the person is from a different country the person should feel at home. The main theme of the home can be felt when a person feels secure even while away from home.  Providing security to a person is a major area, which will ensure that the hotel attracts enough customers. Hotels are opted by people either for relaxation or by business people who travel for the meetings. The home like theme will help the people who travel for work in getting a home like environment and will help in focus in the work. The various basic instruments such as a table, pens, pencil should be available in the room. Hence, the person who is working does not have to face any difficulties while getting these basic facilities. Enough facilities should be available so that the meeting can be held at the room itself.

The home like theme can be used by the various hotels in order to attract more customers and to expand the business. The home like theme is a good initiative in providing a good experience to the various people (Lu et al. 2015). Many of the hotels after implementing the home theme have increased the profit. At the same time, there are certain risks that are involved while using the home theme. The home theme implementation is tough to satisfy as creating a home is not very easy. Satisfying the requirement of the people is not easy as just creating a home like ambience is not a tough task. As a result it might end up losing some of the customers and the customers might provide negative reviews regarding the hotel. While creating a home like structure, a large amount of investments is needed as a number of items have to be included. These can increase the investment beyond the budget. To make the profit the hotel has to charge high amount from the people. However, many people do not opt for a costly hotel. This will reduce the profit of the hotel. A large amount is also wasted in order to reach the people stating that the hotel is implementing the home theme. 

Hospitality is Key to Customer Satisfaction

Target Audience:

The target audience should be selected in a wise manner. If the target audience is not selected properly then the theme of home will not work. The home theme will attract those customers, who are homesick. There are people who can afford to pay more just to have the experience of home. Thus, the target should be made in an appropriate manner (Kim and Padmanabhan  2016). The people who opt to stay in the hotel and have visited for work then that person would be looking for a home like experience since a home like experience provides mental peace, which is responsible for increasing the work efficiency of the person. Targeting an audience for whom homesickness is not a factor will not help in the profit of the hotel. Many of the hotels has used the home theme as a marketing tool to increase the customer intake. The home theme has been implemented by many of the hotels to attract more customers. The homesickness of the people has been taken advantage of. The needs of the people should be noted from before in order to provide the room that is closest to the needs of the people should be provided. The theme of the hotel would include the home like ambience. The room should put a positive impression on the mind of the person. If a person is booking a hotel online then there should be a option present for filling up the description of the home of the person. The room then should be designed according to the description. The other option may to be to ask the person to upload a few pictures of the rooms of the home. In case any advanced booking is not done, then the hotel room that matches the requirement best can be allotted to the person. The experience of having a home like in a different country or in different state is what attracts so many people for the home theme.

Conclusion:

From the above report it can be concluded that the implementation of the home theme can be implemented by the Mercure Sydney can also implement the theory of home theme in order to increase its profit and to attract more customers. Many of the hotels have already implemented the theme and have been successful in increasing the profit. Keeping the drawbacks in mind the hotel should implement the theme gradually. With the rise in the number of tourists coming into Australia a proper implementation of the home theme can help the Mercure Sydney to earn good profit.

The drawbacks have to be kept in mind while implementing the home theme. There is a large amount of investment involved in the implementation of the theme. Therefore, the implementation should not be done all at once. Rather the implementation should take place gradually according to the needs of the customers. The best way to overcome the drawbacks is to apply the theme according to the needs of the customers rather than having a predefined theme set up. On the other hand, there should be rooms present, which are in accord to the traditional form of the normal hotels. Only the customers who need home themed rooms and need the ambience of home should be provided with it. The gradual implementation will help in reducing any form of losses that may be encountered due to the failure of the home theme.

References:

Belarmino, A., Whalen, E., Koh, Y. and Bowen, J.T., 2017. Comparing guests’ key attributes of peer-to-peer accommodations and hotels: mixed-methods approach. Current Issues in Tourism, pp.1-7.

Edwards, A.C., Securus Technologies Inc, 2015. On-demand video communication for controlled-environment facility residents. U.S. Patent 8,929,525.

Jones, P., Hillier, D. and Comfort, D., 2016. Sustainability in the hospitality industry: Some personal reflections on corporate challenges and research agendas. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, 28(1), pp.36-67.

Kim, E.D.J. and Padmanabhan, K., Sysomos LP, 2016. Systems and Methods for Identifying a Target Audience in a Social Data Network. U.S. Patent Application 14/848,985.

Leung, X.Y., Bai, B. and Stahura, K.A., 2015. The marketing effectiveness of social media in the hotel industry: A comparison of Facebook and Twitter. Journal of Hospitality & Tourism Research, 39(2), pp.147-169.

Lu, C., Berchoux, C., Marek, M.W. and Chen, B., 2015. Service quality and customer satisfaction: qualitative research implications for luxury hotels. International Journal of Culture, Tourism and Hospitality Research, 9(2), pp.168-182.

Sydney, M. , 2018. Mercure Sydney | Hotel In Sydney CBD. [online] Mercuresydney.com.au. Available at: https://www.mercuresydney.com.au/ [Accessed 31 Jan. 2018]