FUNDAMENTALS OF TOURISM AND HOSPITALITY

This course will help you explore how to expand your skills in communication and business management. You will learn how to verbally communicate with guests, employees and business partners while welcoming them, being on the telephone, selling items to them, negotiating or providing feedback. You will also explore non-verbal communication skills.

Who is this course for?

The course is intended for anyone working in tourism and hospitality and anyone interested in the topic.

What will you learn?

You will learn how to demonstrate verbal and non-verbal communication skills
You will learn how to apply a structured approach to organizing a tourism and hospitality business
You will learn how to manage the creation of an outstanding guest experience
You will learn how to select suitable revenue management techniques for your business

Keywords: Sustainability, tourism, management, hospitality, business

Verbal Communication in Tourism and Hospitality Management

Lesson 1: Introduction: Welcoming guests

What’s the first thing you do when receiving visitors? Welcome them — the most basic, but nevertheless very meaningful, gesture.

In tourism and hotel businesses, that’s what you do all the time — make visitors feel welcome and help them have a great experience. In tourism, this is a central task. But as a manager, there is of course much more to do. Why not join hotel manager Amy in her daily tasks and learn what it really means to be a manager?

CASE SCENARIO

My name is Amy. I’m the hotel manager for Andaz Singapore. The main goal of the hotel manager is to give your guests an unforgettable holiday experience. You want them to feel welcomed and special, because I always think happy employees, happy guests. Open friendly gestures and body language, and a well-groomed appearance make a big difference. But even a friendly attitude is not enough. Let’s take a look behind the scenes.

For the hotel to run well and successfully, real teamwork is required. Agreements have to be made between the different departments to determine how many guests are in the hotel, how many are eating in the restaurants. The ultimate goal is to ensure a smooth operation so our guests can have a good experience. This will require a good organisation. Organisational chart is important to keep an overview so everybody knows what they need to do. As the manager, it is my job to monitor all these processes. This require empathy and certain skills.

It is my job to make sure that my staff knows what to do, and implement their behaviour correctly. Sometimes that means to have difficult conversations, and their success is also my success. So it is my job to make sure that they know they are trained to deliver the service and the standards that our brand live up to.

Of course, as a manager you take care of so much more. And you may need to be responsible on finding or hiring new employees, setting prices for products, and keep track on the competitors. Ultimately, well-coordinated staff and satisfied guests mean higher profits and good reviews. If we’re honest, this makes working really enjoyable.

You have seen how Amy welcomed her guests. Her body language was open and friendly. So, when greeting guests, there are a few things to keep in mind:

Always stand; smile, introduce yourself and your establishment, a friendly gesture

Following these four points will leave a great impression on your international visitors.

Telephone etiquette: Often, however, your first point of contact with customers and business partners will be over the phone. Despite all the social media frenzy and gazillions of emails popping up each day, a simple phone call is still the means of choice for quick and easy communication between businesses, employees and customers.

Here are the most essential Dos and Don’ts when communicating via the phone in a business environment:

Dos:

Answer before four rings
Speak clearly
Immediately introduce yourself
Use proper language
Actively listen & take notes
Say what’s going to happen

Don’ts

Interrupt customers
Allow yourself to be interrupted by colleagues
Use speakerphone function without asking permission

Talking to customers and business partners on the phone is not only great for discussing details or clarifying issues, it is also great for selling. If someone is inquiring about the size of your standard hotel rooms, you can take the opportunity to tell them about the luxury of your upscale rooms.

Lesson 2: Selling hotel and tourism services

Have you ever tried selling something to someone?

In hotel and tourism businesses, being able to sell your services well is a great skill. It’s what drives your business. Let’s go over the basics that will help you to get from being good to being great.

You must know your product well and be convinced of its quality

Customers can have a thousand questions before booking your hotel and they can also sense whether or not you like what you sell.

Never think you are bothering your customers

If you have a good service to sell, people will want to buy it. What you offer is the opportunity to satisfy your customers’ needs. Don’t be shy.

There is a solution to every problem

For some, your services might be perfect. For others, however, you might need to adjust your offer and try harder to meet their expectations. Sometimes, the solution might be to not sell to them at all. You can’t always win — but you can always try.

Close the deal

Take time to chat with your clients, explain in detail what it is you have to offer and answer each and every question. However, in the end, you need to make an effort to actually pin them down: “Can I place this booking for you?” “When would you like to come?” “For which dates can I reserve…?” are good lines to use.

Selling hospitality and tourism services

Interested first-time customers cannot try your services before they purchase. If they commit to taking your safari tour, they will do so without knowing for sure what is going to happen. That takes trust. What you have to sell is an experience. An idea, something intangible.

Therefore, you need to become good at verbally describing what it is you have to offer. Make your customer understand how they will feel when experiencing your services. When describing, mix facts, feelings and anecdotes. In the end, always try to ‘close the deal’.

Practice with the following scenarios: Imagine you’d like to sell a stay at a wilderness lodge and a dinner for two in your restaurant.

Scenario 1: Selling hotel accommodation

Possibly, you could say things like:

“Our superior rooms are very spacious, quiet, offer a queen-size bed and have a great view over the plains. They face westwards and you can see the sunset from your room. In the early morning, you can sometimes see a few wild (…fill in your local wild animals) from your terrace. There are little (local birds) that like to come and visit you.

And by the way, it’s not far to the pool at all. Just a three-minute stroll through our park.

At what time were you planning on staying with us? You might want to consider placing a booking right now. August is a very busy month for us.”

Scenario 2: Selling a restaurant booking

Say things like:

“The restaurant is cozy and has a traditional fireplace in the middle. Oh! And Chef Duane is the best! I recommend you try his … (fill in your chef’s favorite dish).

We have a few nice wines to go along with this, too. The pinotage from South Africa is our favorite, by the way. The menu is mostly seasonal and local, but also has a few creative highlights, like … (fill in what is perhaps special or uncommon about your menu). Once a week we have a special you might enjoy: (explain your special menu).

We usually open at 6 p.m., but we are often booked out quickly. Would you like me to book a table for you in a quiet corner?

Lesson 3: Negotiating with customers

Everyone loves a bargain. ‘50% Special Discount’ and you’re in, right?

From a customer’s perspective, that’s great. From a business perspective, it’s dangerous. You can’t just adjust your prices until customers’ wishes are met. Otherwise, we’d all be shopping for free.

In hotel or tourism businesses, many customers like to ask for a discount on something or even a freebie from time to time. Imagine this:

I’d really like to book your tour next Friday, but it’s a little expensive. Is there any chance you can give me a better price? I’m booking for four people, you know.

Customer

How would you deal with a situation like this? What do you think would be the best and the worst way to respond? Could there be a middle way?

Worst Way: You just give in. “Certainly. How about a 10% discount? Would that work for you?”

What you have just done is simply given away money.

Maybe tomorrow another customer will call to book the same tour on the same day and is willing to pay the full price. You won’t be able to sell it to him because you’ve already sold it at a discount. Customers are smart. They learn quickly. Next time they call, they will expect to get a discounted price again.

Middle Way: You offer a lower price, but ask for something in return from your customer.

“Oh, I see. Well, if you can be flexible on the dates, then I can offer a discount on our Monday tour. It’s not yet booked out”

Or: “I could offer you a small discount if we don’t have to pick you up and drop you off back at the lodge.”

In either case: you don’t just give in, you offer a discount that is a convenient solution for your business too.

Best Way: You hold your ground and convince the customer of the value you have to offer.

“I fully understand your situation. But we are the best tour operator and we have our prices. In fact you are booking much more than just the tour. We provide pick-up and drop-off services as well as a full picnic for lunch. Our guides are fully qualified and really know the best spots around the park. We are usually very busy on Fridays, so I recommend you book as soon as possible.”

Well done. You’ve pointed out your strengths and you’ve created a sense of urgency for placing that booking.

Lesson 4: Providing feedback

No business will always run smoothly

That’s a universal rule. Why? Because we are all human with our own individual ideas, thoughts, strengths and weaknesses. So, from time to time, things can go haywire if we don’t follow the rules. This is especially true in the hotel and tourism businesses, because everything depends on the people working there. It’s a people business.

We all make mistakes — there is nothing we can do about that.

But, what can we control?

In order to learn from our mistakes and avoid repeating them, we need to receive or provide feedback.

Do you like being told what you’ve done wrong? Surely not. It is therefore wise to follow a few rules when providing feedback.

Rules for giving feedback

Have a look at these golden rules.

Rule 1: Provide feedback regularly, not just once

A lot of feedback can be overwhelming for people and they can dismiss it as exaggerated. Regular feedback helps people to work on individual issues.

Rule 2: Be specific

Don’t spread rumours or exaggerate. Refrain from value judgements and interpretations. Just stick to the facts.

Rule 3: Feedback is individual

Don’t speak for others. Let the person know what there is to be said from your own point of view. Use “I think…” and not “We think…”.

Rule 4: Be considerate

You are speaking to a colleague who has feelings and there may be reasons why things went wrong. Be gentle in the way you provide feedback and don’t insult anyone.

Rule 5: Feedback is useful

Just telling someone that things didn’t work out well is easy, but rarely useful. Let your team know how things can move forward, instead of just blaming people.

Rule 6: The sooner, the better

Provide feedback as soon as possible. If you wait, people will perhaps have forgotten what happened. Make sure you are not angry or upset when providing feedback. Take a moment to compose yourself and think about what you would like to say to the employee.

Rule 7: Good feedback is like a praise sandwich

That’s right: 3 layers. Start with a positive note of praise, then constructively explain what went wrong and what the effects were, and end on another positive note. This will ensure that people are more accepting of their mistakes and will take your feedback on board.

Rule 8: Choose a safe space

This has nothing to do with how you say things, but where. Always choose a quiet place away from everyone else. You don’t want the entire team listening. The employee will feel more relaxed and ready to talk openly about why things didn’t work out.

Examples

Each card has poor feedback. Click each card to flip and reveal better feedback:

❌ “Last year, everything went badly. The communication in the team was bad. The printer was out of order. And on top of this, I couldn’t concentrate because it was too loud.”

✔ “During the last project, I felt that I had to always ask for information twice. Could we implement a weekly check-in for all those involved in the next project?”

❌ “I heard that the presentation was terrible. It was too short and totally useless. No one understood anything.”

✔️“I found the presentation of the new company strategy too short. At least for me, there are still a lot of unanswered questions. Would anyone else find a follow-up helpful?”

❌ “Everyone thinks that our weekly meeting is long and boring.”

✔️ “I feel that our last weekly meeting was too long. Was it the same for anyone else?”

❌ “The quality of your work is pathetic. You really need to up your game!”

✔️ “In our last three projects, there were a lot of mistakes that were overlooked. I’d really appreciate if you paid a bit more attention to quality.”

❌ “Listen, you really need to improve your meeting scheduling. They never work well, because you don’t send out agendas beforehand. You really need to work on this.”

✔️ “I think your work has improved lately. Unfortunately, there are a few things you need to work on. Could you try to always send agendas before our meetings next month? By the way, I do appreciate how you are always taking notes.”

Non-verbal communication in a Tourism and Hospitality Environment

Lesson 1: Netiquette and active listening

Netiquette

With the rise of emails and social media, written online communication has become more important than ever. There are different written communication styles depending on who you are writing to.

Here are a few things you should bear in mind when writing emails or other electronic messages. We call this set of 8 rules ‘netiquette’ – a combination of internet and etiquette.

Do unto others as you would have others do unto you.

Remember, your written words are read by real people, all deserving of respectful communication. Before you press “send” or “submit,” ask yourself, “Would I be okay with this if someone had written it to me?”

Look good online

You won’t be judged by how you look. However, you will be judged by the quality of your writing so keep the following in mind: always check for spelling and grammar errors; know what you’re talking about and state it clearly; be pleasant and polite; always proofread your messages before sending them.

Clear subject line

Use something short and easy to understand. People often decide whether to open an email or not based on the subject line. Good examples are “Today’s meeting at 3pm postponed” or “Invoice for your stay at Zebra Lodge”.

Choose your recipients wisely

Think twice before you hit that ‘reply all’ button. No one appreciates unnecessary emails.

Include a signature block

At the end of your emails there should be a neat little block with your full name, position, address and phone details. This is important information for your correspondents and makes your email look far more legit.

Use professional salutations

“Yo!” or “Hi!” is okay when writing to your friends, but for clients, use “Dear (name), …” Close your email with “Sincerely, …” or “Kind regards, …”

Be cautious with humour

Cracking a joke is always fun. But jokes depend on the social context they are said in. When writing formal emails, stay away from them. Even if you know the person you are writing to, you cannot be certain that they will actually understand your written humour. Be safe — just stick to the ‘boring’ facts.

Reply on time

Some emails might be more urgent than others. But you shouldn’t wait longer than 24 to 48 hours to reply. Even if you can’t answer immediately, let your correspondent know that you are working on it.

Active listening

Speaking about communication: listening is just as important as speaking and writing is. In fact, many people underestimate what it takes to listen properly.

Listening implies that you are actually interested in the person that is talking to you and that you want to engage in a meaningful conversation. Moreover, ‘active listening’ means that you are trying your very best to be an excellent listener — someone people want to talk to because they feel that you are interested in what they have to say.

Active listening at work is particularly important if you are in a supervisory position or interact with colleagues. Active listening allows you to understand problems and collaborate with others to develop solutions. It also reflects your patience, a valuable skill in any workplace.

How to become a good active listener

Step 1: Be attentive

Always be attentive and avoid distraction. Show that you are really focused on the person you are talking to. Turn towards them, make eye contact and nod from time to time.

Step 2: Don’t be judgemental

Don’t be judgemental, even if someone tells you things that you find odd or don’t agree with. You never know, perhaps there is a good reason for what happened.

Step 3: Be patient

Always let people tell their story. Be patient, never interrupt or finish sentences for someone.

Step 4: Ask clarifying questions

Ask clarifying questions throughout the conversation and try to summarise what has been said in your own words. This way you respond to the person you’re talking to, showing that you actually understood what they told you.

Take a sheet of paper and make your own Top 10 list of the verbal and non-verbal communication rules that you would like to embrace more in future. Revisit the lessons above for details and then practice.

Lesson 2: Establishing a confident appearance

Being confident is great. If you are confident, people trust you more. It’s almost as if you are radiating some form of energy that people find attractive.

But how to get there? Does it start with a certain attitude? Or perhaps with a physical appearance?

How to appear confident

Here are 4 easy things you can do to establish a confident appearance:

1. Stand tall: Stand tall, shoulders back.

2. Make eye contact Make eye contact and smile. People around you will notice and think that you are not shy or insecure.

3. Don’t fidget Keep your hands visible and don’t fiddle with a pen, key chain or other item.

4. Shake hands firmly It is more likely when meeting your boss, colleagues or business partners.

A weak handshake does not inspire confidence.

In general, a confident appearance is always useful around guests or customers. Especially if you are trying to sell something or if you have to handle a guest complaint.

Being around guests

Every aspect of your appearance, demeanor and language reflects on who you are and who you work for.

Hygiene: This is so important. Before your shifts, wash your hands, brush your teeth, take a shower/bath, use soap, clip your fingernails, wear tidy clothes and clean shoes.

Appearance: Simple, clean and nice. Most employers will tell you what to wear or even provide a uniform. Make sure that you don’t have a strong odour. For example, food you may have eaten, deodorant or perfume.

You can practice this very well at home and with your friends. Next time you meet up with someone, practice being confident.

Creating a customer experience

Lesson 1: Understanding the hospitality and tourism service and experience

Value of hospitality services

What is the ‘value’ of staying at an upscale hotel? Of course, you want a good night’s sleep and potentially some food and a drink, but that’s not why you go to a decent hotel.

You’re there for the overall service and experience. You want that feeling of treating yourself and perhaps others to something special — a particular moment that you will want to tell your family and friends about later on.

Let’s consider tourism for a minute.

Why do people voluntarily leave the comfort of their own homes and go through the hassle of sitting in busses, trains, airplanes and waiting lounges for long hours, eating food they are unfamiliar with, living out of suitcases, spending lots of money while doing so, just to look at some random stretch of land far away from home for a few days?

The reasons are varied and very personal. Which of the following are possible ideas?

Challenging ourselves
Being curious
Learning new things
Exploring foreign cultures
Meeting new people
Changing perspectives
Experiencing ourselves outside of our comfort zone
Relaxing and rejuvenating in an environment more suitable than where we usually live
Celebrating special events
…or just getting away from it all for some time.

Indeed they are all possible ideas.

Can you think of other reasons? Have you ever travelled? And if so, why? How did that experience go for you?

Essentially, all the reasons above need three basic elements in order for ‘tourism’ to take place:

some form of transport
a place to eat and/or sleep
things to do or see

Of these elements, the places where you stay overnight, have a meal and/or drink are referred to as hospitality, comprising restaurants, bars, food stalls, lodges, resorts and hotels. Hospitality is therefore an essential part of the overall tourism experience.

If you work in tourism or hospitality, you are the person making it happen for those travellers. You are the ‘manager’ of their experience. Whatever you do, those tourists will have some form of experience. But, at best, they go home with only great experiences that they enjoy thinking back on and share with their families.

Lesson 2: Creating memorable experiences

Story time

A perfect ‘customer experience’ or rather ‘guest experience’ is like listening to someone telling you a gripping story around the campfire. You feel as if you were actually part of the story.

The very same counts for hotel and tourism experiences. Guests want to become a part of the ‘story’.

If you run a hospitality or tourism company, or if you are an employee of one, think about the ‘story’ you are selling. There are surely plenty of stories to share with visitors.

Sit down and try writing it up. If your restaurant, hotel, lodge or tour operator business were to feature in a novel, what role would it play? How would the people in it behave? What would they say?

In order to ‘manage’ this story-telling, you need to agree with all employees on the one story that you would like your customers to become part of.

Let’s try it

How would you write a short story for a 30-room nature lodge that answers this question:

“What is the hospitality story that we offer to our guests?”

This vision could be the start of your own business. It will be the guiding light of what you want to offer. Two different approaches are given below. What do you think about them?

Story 1: Our 30-room lodge in …(your destination) serves excellent food three times a day, offers a pool and daily guided tours to the local nature reserve. We are competitively priced and offer perfect value for money. Our guests are always welcomed and we try our utmost to cater to all their needs.

Story 2: Stay at the green heart of … (your destination). Experience the calm breeze over the mountains and the warmth of our sun. Explore the hundreds of little adventures around you and come home at night to a warming campfire. Treat yourself to local delicacies and enjoy the company of our local staff. Share food and stories with the people around you, or enjoy the African night sky from the privacy of your own balcony. Come and stay with friends.

Which of the stories above provides a good managed experience?

Story 1 Story 1 is a poor example because it focuses most on what you have to offer by stating a lot of facts. It doesn’t create any feeling or emotion on what it means to stay with you.

Story 2 Yes, story 2 is a good example because it tells a little story and tries to make guests feel like they were at your place. It focuses on what they can experience, rather than on describing in detail the facts of what you have to offer.

Lesson 3: Planning guest service operations

Now that you’ve ‘told a story’, what do you need to turn this imaginative experience into reality? You’ve got to plan.

Planning a business is just a different phrase for ‘taking a structured approach to making it happen’.

Customer journey

In the hospitality and tourism businesses, it is helpful to consider the customer journey when planning in a structured fashion. It poses the following questions:

1. What steps does someone wishing to stay at your hotel go through?

2. What is our role as hotel employees in those steps?

3. How can we impact our guests’ experiences throughout those steps?

Lesson 4: Making sure your guests are delighted

You might be thinking: This whole ‘making memorable experiences’ thing is easy. I am pretty good at making people have a good time.

This might be true but your customers might not always share your enthusiasm. Or, perhaps not everyone in your team does an amazing job at looking after your guests all the time.

It’s a fact of life — things go wrong.

What can you do about that? Any ideas? There are two things to consider:

1. How to respond immediately when your customer’s experience goes wrong

2. How to continuously check that your customer’s experience is going in the right direction

Immediate response

The first question tackles your ‘firefighting’ capabilities. Let’s have a look at a scenario of how to respond when your customers’ experience goes wrong right here and now:

Imagine you work as a supervisor in a restaurant and one of your waiters accidentally spills beer over a guest’s jacket. Look at the three possibilities for a response.

1. In the restaurant you immediately turn to the waiter and scold him for his mistake. You tell him that he will be fired, if this happens again and that he should pay more attention to what he is doing. Then you ask him to look after the guest and clean up the mess.

2. You tell the waiter to quickly grab a cloth and mop to clean up. Then you apologise to the guest, telling him how sorry you were and that this waiter is young and inexperienced and that you will consider whether you’ll keep him on for much longer. The rest you leave up to the waiter, because he’s obviously the culprit.

3. You look after the guest first, asking him what you can do to help him. That might include taking his jacket to the dry cleaners. Meanwhile, you ask the waiter to quickly fetch a bucket with clean water and a cloth to wipe down the table. After the jacket and table are cleaned, you apologise to the guest and invite him as well as his partner to a drink or dessert on the house. After the shift, you talk to the waiter and find out why this happened and cooperatively figure out what can be done so that this doesn’t happen again.

How would you respond?

1. Not the best choice. Telling your employees off in such a way is bad. They will feel ashamed and your guests might not enjoy having to listen to this.

2. Not such a good idea. Always look after the guest first. It’s also not nice to speak badly about your employees in front of guests.

3. That’s certainly a very good way to respond. You take on responsibility, involve the waiter in fixing the problem and apologise to the guest.

Check customer experience

The second question requires a little more thought.

Put yourself in the shoes of a restaurant supervisor and write up a list of things that you could do to continuously check whether your guests are happy about their experience. How can you keep ‘a finger on the pulse’ without needing to be present all the time? And what are the advantages or disadvantages of each idea?

Best practices

Throughout the Dinner Service: Throughout the dinner service, check occasionally how things are going with every table in your restaurant. For example, you can ask how they like the food and if the wine pairs well with the dish? A nice thing to do, but you actually need to listen as well. But don’t overdo it — too much intrusion is not welcome.

Ask about the customer’s experience when you present the bill to the guest at the end of the evening. It’s a standard question that most guests expect to hear so you may not learn a lot from this.

Regularly: Regularly check online restaurant rating websites for guest feedback. Definitely a must these days. Make sure to always respond in a friendly manner to any comment, good or bad. There is a lot to be learned here.

Make a habit of inviting an especially loyal customer for a drink of his or her choice in return for a feedback chat. Do this once a week, always with a different customer. Think of it as an ‘in-depth interview’ about their experiences. Take notes. You will learn a lot and your guests will feel very appreciated. The only downside is that very loyal customers are fans of your establishment anyway.

Occasionally/ Once a month: Once a month (or more frequently even) ask guests to fill in a short questionnaire where they rate their satisfaction with your service and make comments on what works well and what doesn’t work so well. This is structured but a little impersonal.

If you follow these so-called ‘service recovery procedures’ and constantly keep an eye on customer satisfaction, you will be able to respond quickly to problems — thus creating happy customers.

This lesson looked at restaurant examples. If you work for another kind of business, think of examples that suit your environment.

Organizing a hotel or tourism business

Lesson 1: Know what you are fighting for. Creating a business mission

What is the strongest driver of top-notch employee performance? What does it take to make everyone give 100% every day?

High salaries
Fancy store design
A friendly atmosphere
Friendships among co-workers
A nice boss
A feeling that your job has a purpose
A well-organised workspace

There are many things that can drive people to work hard and enjoy doing so. We are all individuals and are motivated by different things. Of the list above, all factors can be motivating. But it is the feeling that your job has a genuine purpose that is most important.

That feeling will drive you to continuously perform at your best and enjoy the process.

In other words: you got to know what you are fighting for.

Mission statement

Well-run companies therefore create a ‘mission statement’ — a short statement that captures why they exist and what they want to achieve.

This is a great tool to communicate to all employees (…and future candidates). It is what your company is all about and makes sure that everyone involved follows the same call, the same principle, the same concept of what your business wants to achieve.

A good mission statement answers the following questions:

What is our company trying to achieve?
How does this make our customers happy?

Examples

Here are three different real examples from well known hotel groups:

HILTON HOTEL

“To be the most hospitable company in the world – by creating heartfelt experiences for guests, meaningful opportunities for team members, high value for owners and a positive impact in our communities.”

SRITZ-CARLTON HOTEL

“Provide genuine care and exceptional products and services resulting in profit leadership.”

SCANDIC HOTELS

“Our mission is to create great hotel experiences for many people. We believe a great hotel experience is so much more than just a nice room, bed, breakfast or dinner. It’s a friendly smile, an inviting atmosphere, genuine service and the little something extra: it’s the total experience we create for our guests.”

Test your knowledge

Rank the following mission statements for a nature-based tour operator according to how inspiring and well-worded you think they are.

A: Our mission is to be the most profitable tour operator in Africa. We are trying to achieve this by offering tours with only the newest jeeps, best guides and most exciting tours. We offer 20 guided tours in five African countries.

B: We offer the best tours in Africa to luxury customers at the cheapest price. Our services are the best you can choose, well-run and without a doubt the most interesting on the continent.

C: To offer excellent nature-based tour services, always providing unforgettable experience with unique travel packages to our clients. Fostering sustainability and safeguarding local culture is at the heart of our work.

Rank the mission statements above as top-middle- bottom.

Feedback on Statement A Definitely not a good idea to base your mission statement on being “the most profitable” one.

Feedback on Statement B The worst mission statement, because it promises what cannot be kept: ‘luxury customers’ and ‘cheapest prices’ don’t go together well.

Feedback on Statement C You can see the greater idea here. A note on local culture and sustainability will likely resonate with customers as well as employees.

There is no one way to write a great mission statement. But keep in mind that it needs to provide purpose to employees and customers in a few sentences.

Lesson 2: Who does what and why? ‘FOH-BOH’ organization

What’s the best organization of a restaurant?

Everyone does everything depending on what’s needed, or
some people cook while others serve and others look after the bar?

Yes, the latter works best. But why? Because there are dedicated roles and responsibilities. This creates a work environment like a finely tuned machine where lots of little gear wheels run smoothly to create a powerful momentum.

When creating a new service business, or assessing an existing one, it is valuable to keep in mind how these ‘gear wheels’ should be organised:

As the name implies, some tourism and hospitality jobs are at the front-end of your business, meaning directly interacting with customers — others ‘run the engine room’, so to speak. They perform the back-of-house jobs that are necessary for the front-end employees to do theirs.

There is also a third kind of job: the managerial job. In a hotel this could be the Hotel Manager, the Restaurant Manager or the Front Desk Manager. They inhabit both worlds, FOH and BOH, because they need to be able to organise all the departments.

Lesson 3: Creating an ‘orga chart’

Organisational Charts, usually referred to as ‘Orga Charts’, are the Mission Statement’s internal counterpart. An orga chart essentially answers three questions:

Organisational Charts

Organisational Charts, usually referred to as ‘Orga Charts’, are the Mission Statement’s internal counterpart. An orga chart essentially answers three questions:

1. What jobs and departments do we have? (how can we make our mission statement a reality?)

2. Who is responsible for whom? (what is our chain of command?)

3. How many people work where? (what is our FOH-BOH structure?)

An organisation chart is often an actual table that hangs on a wall in one of your offices so that all employees can better understand how the company is structured. Have a look at the following 2 examples:

Note how it is clear who is in charge of what and whom. There is a clear hierarchy in place so that everyone knows who is responsible for what and who follows who. You can also see how many employees are staffing each position.

Create an orga chart for your own company or the one that you might like to have in the future.

Lesson 4: Planning for staffing needs

Let’s consider the following scenario:

You are running a restaurant and need to figure out how many waiters you actually need.

What do you think you need to consider?

How many waiters do you need per day?

How many meal periods do you run? Just dinner? Or perhaps breakfast, lunch and dinner? How many guests can you seat during each period? Think of how busy you usually are? How elaborate or difficult is your guest service?

In a high-class restaurant, you need roughly one waiter for every 10 guests. In a more casual easy-going restaurant, you might only need 1 waiter for every 20 guests.

Let’s just say that every day you need to have 6 waiters available.

How many waiters do you need to employ?

How many waiters do you need to employ so that, year-round, you have 5 waiters on the floor every day?

But your waiters will want to have a day off every once in a while. They might fall sick, take their annual leave or your country might have some public holidays. There are plenty of reasons why employees might not legitimately show up for work.

Make sure you always have the right amount of employees available

Here is a little formula that can help you take all of this into consideration in order to know how many waiters you have to hire. The numbers below are examples for a restaurant operating every day of the year in South Africa.

Step 1: Days of restaurant operation

What is the total days of restaurant operation? 365

Step 2: Total available work days

Public holidays + Annual leave days + Weekends + Average sick leave
365 – (12 + 21 + 104 + 5) = 223 total available work days.

In essence, every employee will only be available 223 days per year. However, your restaurant operates 365 days. What do you do? Employ more waiters? But how many?

Step 3: Staffing factor

Divide 365 by 223 = 1.64 That’s your ‘staffing factor’.

Meaning: If you need 5 waiters in your restaurant every day, you will need to employ 5 x 1.64 = 8.2 in total. Obviously, you will not employ 0.2 employees, so perhaps you might need to have 8 full-time employees and hire a few part-time waiters for whenever you need them.

Check your knowledge

Take out your calculator and try this yourself:

You take over a restaurant that currently operates 26 weeks a year, April through to the end of September, employs a kitchen team of five and one restaurant supervisor.

You are now tasked with hiring enough waiters for the restaurant so that each day you have eight waiters available.

Employment laws constitute that employees have a right to 1.5 days of paid leave per month and work only five days a week.

During the period of operation, there are four public holidays.

The restaurant owner tells you that in the past waiters were sick no more than one day every other month on average. He also mentions that the restaurant is doing very well and that he expects business to increase in future.

How many waiters do you need to hire?

12, 22, 8 or 15?

Creating job descriptions

Last, but certainly not least, you’ll need to consider how to go about hiring people. A prerequisite for this is a well-designed job description. Crafting a compelling job description is essential in order to attract the most qualified candidates for the job.

A job description commonly has the following sections:

Job title
Job summary
Responsibilities and duties
Qualifications and skills
Salary and benefits

Create a job description for a job that you’d like to have one day. Perhaps do a little online research about what type of hard and soft skills and prior experience is usually required.

Pricing your tourism and hospitality services

Lesson 1: Setting a price: Show me the money

Let’s say you want to establish a little business in your village or city — perhaps a small food stall that sells snacks to people passing by on their way home from work? You would have a small menu, a few snacks that you can easily prepare and a few bottled drinks.

How would you set the price for your snacks and drinks?

What do you think should be your two most important considerations?

Setting a price at the right point is one of the most crucial decisions a business can take. Do you know why? Take a guess: true or false?

Don’t overprice but also don’t undersell

A price is far more than just the money someone has to give up to acquire what you have to sell. But how can you go about finding the right ‘price point’, that ‘sweet spot’ where you don’t overprice but you also don’t undersell.

Therefore, two key questions need to be answered:

What are my costs for providing this?
At what price are my competitors selling what to whom?

Costs and investment

Bear in mind that there is a difference between a ‘cost’ and an ‘investment’. Essentially you need to cover both, but the approach is different.

Costs The costs are what you have to pay from the moment you actually start operating. When you calculate prices, you definitely need to be able to cover all your costs.

Investment The investment is what you have to put in in order to establish the business (e.g., buy kitchen equipment, cutlery, tables, chairs, etc.). You can start paying back whatever the initial investment was from the profit. Perhaps you’ll need to pay this back to a bank or to some family members who gave you a loan.

Example costs

What types of costs would a small restaurant have?

Cost of food ingredients, cost of beverages
Salaries and wages for employees
Costs of cleaning table cloth or napkins, costs for other items you regularly use, such as paper napkins, candles, take-away cups, cleaning detergents, etc.
Rent (in case you don’t own the building), utilities (that’s gas, water and electricity), garbage disposal fees
Additional services, such as paying a pest controller once a year, repair and maintenance of your building and equipment
Marketing costs, such as printing signs, menus, flyers, posters or running a website, telecommunication costs
Income tax, value-added tax

Lesson 2: Who pays what? Applying pricing strategies

Who pays what?

So far, you have assessed your costs to get a baseline understanding of how much you need to avoid going bankrupt.

You have checked out the competition to see what customers are used to paying.

Pricing strategies

Consider these little tricks and hints that you can apply to generate a bit more cash!

Pay now — pay less Offer a discount, perhaps just a small percentage, to customers willing to pre-pay for your services. That way, you will have their cash and they will be less likely to cancel their booking.

It’s cheaper by the dozen The more customers are willing to buy from you, the more money you make. Incentivise this by offering a discount for large orders. A guided tour for 10 people might be just as much work for you as a tour for 5. Why not give a little discount to people booking for more than 5 participants at the same time?

Once-in-a-lifetime experience You have something very special to offer? For example, you are the only tour company offering night-time guided tours. So, charge more than you think you should. A high price also tells the customer that this must be very special. Make money out of your uniqueness.

A + B pricing For some services, you have to buy another service in order to fully enjoy it. For example, companies offering sky diving will charge you extra to take a video of the jump. So, if customers want a video, they have to pay the company to take it for them. Be careful not to charge for every extra though. Customers will think you don’t offer value for money.

Luring them in Also called a ‘sales promotion’. Take one of your services and price it very competitively to make it look like a good bargain. This way you can lure customers in and, once they are with you, you can try introducing them to your additional products and services.

Buy 5, get 1 for free Loyal customers like to be acknowledged. In order to increase customer loyalty, you offer a discount or even a freebie for every fifth or tenth (or whatever else you think works) purchase. This works well for cheaper items such as coffees or lunches, and also for hotel room bookings.

Flexible pricing strategies

You want to make sure that you sell as many rooms, guided tours, etc, as possible every day. This has resulted in companies closely watching demand and applying ‘flexible pricing strategies’. Prices can help to control demand.

High customer demand = high prices (Logic: people want it now? Let them pay for it.)
Low customer demand = low prices (Logic: people stay away? Attract them with a great bargain.)

Applied correctly, both concepts will help you to never ‘run dry’ of customers in low demand times and make a good profit in high demand times.

Think of examples of high and low demand times in the tourism and hospitality industry. Compare your ideas to these five factors:

Day of the week

In restaurants and hotels weekdays are very often different from weekends. The typical restaurant evenings are Thursday through to Saturday.

For hotels it depends on what you are. City hotels are usually busy during weekdays, because of business travellers, whereas resorts and lodges might be busier on the weekend.

For restaurants and bars, this could even be broken down to ‘hour of the day’. A bar’s happy hour is a good example.

Season

Tourism often works according to a certain seasonality. Some places are busier in summer, others more in winter, again others have particular months in which they attract most tourists. That greatly depends on weather patterns, by the way.

Special events

Large-scale international happenings will drive up demand for tourism and hospitality.

Examples are major music concerts, international shows, international meetings or even events like the 2010 FIFA World Soccer Championship in South Africa.

Crises

These will most likely drive down demand from most tourists for some time. Examples are armed conflicts, terrorist attacks, natural hazards or outbreak of diseases.

Public holidays

Every country has a range of public holidays, such as Worker’s Day, Easter, Christmas, Independence Day and so forth. Often they result in people taking breaks, enjoying a week of vacation or simply celebrating by taking time off, resulting in high demand from locals for restaurants and hotels.

Many businesses don’t consider this at all. Stand out from the crowd and analyse demand and you’ll be ahead of the game.

Lesson 3: Checking out the competition

What will your customers care about?

‘Can I afford your prices and do I consider them good value for money for what I get?’

But how can you integrate this customer perspective into your pricing?

You could go and cook for a few people, tell them what you’d want to charge and see whether they find this a fair deal or not.

A far better way, though not without pitfalls, is to check out your potential competition. Basically any business you’ll be setting up or are currently working for has or will have competition. Checking out competing businesses has two major advantages:

Understanding how other businesses go about pricing Obviously they incur costs too and, most likely, they will need to pay back some form of loan as well. Therefore, their prices will likely represent a price point that enables a business to cover all these costs.

Get a feel for what prices work for your (potential) customers If those competitors have been around for a while, they must be doing fine. That means customers go for their products and accept their price levels.

You could just check out the other restaurants in town and analyse their price levels. But, is it that simple? Certainly not. First, you have to sit down and decide on who’s actually worthy of being analysed as a competitor? We call this ‘creating your competitive set’.

Here are the ‘3P’ criteria you need to think about when looking for suitable competitors. I’m using a restaurant situation as an example — similar thoughts would apply to other businesses too.

3P means Product, Pricing, Proximity

Let’s practise

Put together a competitive set for the business you are working for or would like to work for in the future. You can use this table to guide your analysis: