2012年11月28日星期三

Gaming Entertainment

Social impact of Gaming Entertainment

POSITIVE

1. Better infrastructure

When constructing the gambling sites, its related infrastructures have to be upgraded in an attempt to facilitate visitors.

2. Better social welfares

Tax income from gambling can be used to alleviate the living standard of the impoverishment or enhance the public services so that every citizen can benefit from it. Other than government, the operators of gambling centers always donate their revenue for charity use which helps those needles.

3. Entertainment

Gambling without addiction is kinda an entertainment for people. Players can stay away from their stress for a while, restore the pressure and refresh their mind.

4. Popularity among the world

Once the place using Gambling hotel as the main attraction point for tourists, the first impression over that place would be their gambling hotel industry like Las Vegas and Macau. When people think about gambling, these two places will probably come out from their mindset first. In this way, the gambling hotel industry helps building the countries’ popularity.

2012年11月7日星期三

Recreation, Theme Parks, and Clubs

Different types of clubs

Country Club

This type of club is a private club and often with a closed membership. It is usually located in city outskirts or rural areas and typically offers a wide range of recreational sports, for example, golf, swimming or tennis. Country club will usually provide hospitality to members and guests such as restaurant and bar, or even suitable accommodations for host-catered events like wedding. One of the example in Hong Kong is The Clearwater Bay Golf & Country Club.

2012年11月3日星期六

Managed Service

Managed services operate on a non-profit-oriented basis.

The Unique features of services included:

1. Challenge to please guest and client

Guests are the people that dine in your restaurant. Clients are the individuals or organizations that provide a place to some expert company for food service operations. Take City University of Hong Kong as an example, its canteen is operated by Shing Hin Catering Group. In this case, Guests are people dine there; client is City University of Hong Kong. Schools, hospitals, Elderly care center and Business and industry are always the client of the on-site food service.

Other examples: Maxim’s

2012年10月23日星期二

Restaurant Operations

An Interesting topic of restaurant operations: Suggestive selling

In this session, we would like to introduce suggestive selling, a kind of sales technique that applies in restaurant operation. It is a potent weapon to increase food and beverage sales. Many industries also love to use suggestive selling as it is useful and effective.

Actually, suggestive selling is implemented by sales staff to boost more revenue to a sale that has already taken place, by suggesting some better and useful products or services to the customer. In restaurant operations, servers would introduce du jour menus or other special cuisine or beverage to customers and invite them to select.

It seems that suggestive selling is a kind of easy stuff. But it would easily become over-aggressive. Here are some tips for a success suggestive selling.

Understand the customer's needs.
Do not directly suggest anything that first comes to your mind, as this would create a negative impact on the customer's mind. We should try to suggest something relevant.

Avoid using words describing negativity such as don't, not, cannot.
Find some positive words to substitute which would not change the meaning but could serve the purpose of expressing thoughts.

Keep in mind that you have to always be price-sensitive.
Treat each sale differently according to customers’ own situation as their purchasing power and wants varies.

Remember not to interrupt the customer while he is buying something that he already wants. Suggest what you want when the customer finishes buying things. Such an interruption might create an element of doubt in the customer’s mind, that the staff is suggesting things only to increase the sales and they have no concern for the customers’ needs.

By performing suggestive selling, customer satisfaction can be added. When the staff suggested some good product or service, and if the customer finds it is useful and worthy, he/she will be willing to pay for it. Even if the customer does find it useful but not affordable, he/she will still appreciate the personal attention towards him/her. Therefore, customer satisfaction is achieved in both the sale and non-sale events. In result, suggestive selling can help to increase customer retention. Here is a short video abour suggestive selling in restaurant.

Forecasting & Food Cost Control Process

To know how much foods you will need to order is vital. Order too much food and the company risk losing food because food has spoiled or expired.

Sales and purchases forecast:

Existing business calculation with the sense of realistically expects is useful in projecting sales. The budget projections help to forecast sales and costs. Restaurant can always project sales by the management’s expected guest covers in a given time period with calculating the average restaurant check and table turnover. Not only does it helps the management design the labour shift and purchases, but also future sales volume.

Performing wield management can examines demand for meals over a period of a few years and determines the demand each night. Based on past statistic, the management can predict the following sales weekly, monthly or even seasonally. For example, seat occupancy on Friday or public holiday often greater than other weekdays and thus more sales will be generated. Looks at how sales might vary for the days for the days of the week or reviews sales data from the same period of the year prior, restaurants can better anticipate sales and purchases shifts.

In addition, the management is able to do sales forecast by identifying and monitoring repeat customers and chart their pattern of visits and they can get their customers’ retention statistics. By knowing this, the management can project the level of material usage and sales.

Trends Research also help. Restaurant can project their potential sales by trend data to. For example, search this industry pocket and gather sales information on other restaurants of his planned type in similar communities then use to forecast the sales.

Applying the limited cyclical menus is one of the possible ways. Limited the types of dishes can help the restaurant control its purchases and usage of raw materials. The restaurant can use the over-ordered or unused materials for the meals tomorrow or after a week.

The purchasing forecast can also depends on par stock level. Count the products on hand helps making the purchase orders. Consider the records of sales and materials used, company may avoid over ordering of materials.

Food Cost Control Process:

After forecasting, the restaurant goes to purchasing.

Food cost control is to ensure that costs are neither more nor less than they ought to be.

Purchasing - Identify the product specification of items that are going to use in preparing meals. Make order based on past records, products on hand and the yield analysis. Doing the product testing before and after making orders. For examples their texture, composition, quality, flavor etc.

Choosing the methods of buying. The restaurant has to think about whether to place their orders by email, on phone or brought in open market.
Receiving - To ensure the quantity, quality and price are exactly as ordered. Especially for the perishable commodities as the quality is not constant over a period of time.

Storing
The company has to consider the place and time for keeping the materials. Make sure there is no inventory kept in the production area. Performing stock taking over a period of time see if the quality is good and quantity of foods matches with the records. Using the FIFO system for food storage.

Issuing - Items should only be issued from the stores with authorization.

Production
The company has to decide the number of meals have to be produced and the cost per meal. The kitchen manager checks the head line cook’s order, which will bring the preparation area up to the par stock for preparation item and the work is done prior to service time.

Make sure your cooks do know how to make good use of materials to avoid end up in the trash. Also ensure the menu items are properly prepared otherwise they will not be able to be served, and will be thrown out.
Service - Set a policy for guests serving. Training staff to make sure they understand the proper ordering procedure and perform as instructed in real life. As servers are salespeople, they are expected to give suggestive selling.
Sales - Sales controls provide internal control measures in the food sales through use of guest checks, scatter sheets, guest services solutions and POS system. It’s important to ensure the increase in the quantity of food prepared is matched by a corresponding increase in cash received.
Food cost - system of accounts for restaurant shows the whole performance of the restaurant.

Performing budgeting to define fixed costs and variable costs. Find out those variables that will fluctuate with the volume of sales and calculate the variances between budgets and actual expenses see if any improvement has to be made.

Calculating operating ratios to check out the food cost percentage, contribution margin, labor cost percentage, prime cost and beverage cost percentage. Also count the value of inventories accurately so that the food cost percentage will not be overstated.

Restaurant Operation Trends

Ø Increased use of smartphone apps

As many people get used to the use of smartphone apps, restaurant operators try to make use of them to operate their businesses. For example, McDonald’s cooperates with the smartphone app- WeChat to offer eCoupon is a recent real life example. Below is a custom made mobile apps demonstation.

Ø Technologies

Restaurateurs start using iPads or other tablet computers to display menus. It creates a WOW effect on customers. iPad menus can show customers the actual product of cuisines to attract customers. Besides, iPad menus can solve the problem that some names of cuisines cannot be understood easily.

References

FOOD COST CONTROL

http://tygroupa.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/chapter-29-food-cost-control.pdf

Trends

http://netfinancials.blogspot.hk/2010/06/new-trends-impacting-restaurant.html

http://restaurant.org/research/forecast/

http://www.emenu-international.com/ipadmenu/

Suggestive selling techniques

http://www.buzzle.com/articles/suggestive-selling-techniques.html

2012年10月17日星期三

Restaurant Business

Successful Restaurants

A successful restaurant business is a big topic in hospitality management. It seems that it is an easy and routine job but it needs systematic operating philosophy in order to be success. In this topic, we would like to explore more on local style restaurant – Food Stall Noodles.
Here is a video introduce Food Stall Noodles.

Food Stall Noodles or Cart Noodles are found in Hong Kong around 1950s, as there are many Chinese immigrants moved to Hong Kong because of the civil unrest in mainland. Majority of them have low purchasing power. So they became hawkers and selling fish balls with noodles in a small wooden cart. It became popular among low income group people as the price is cheap and the production process is simple and fast. Also, because of the poor hygienic environment, there was a new alternative term - Filthy Noodle.

2012年10月9日星期二

Food & Beverage Operations

Functions of F&B Operations

Food & Beverage Operations is an important pat in hospitality industry. It is more complicated than just operating a restaurant in hotel. Basically, F&B department must offer, at least, breakfast, lunch and dinner on a daily basis, and it must offer these meals in a manner that is in keeping with the quality of the hotel.

In addition, an effective F&B department may offer multiple, additional restaurant operations, twenty-four-hour room service, banquet operations, and a wide range of other food/beverage alternatives, including snack bars, coffee break, and meal services as part of convention/meeting operations, take-out and off-site catering, and vending and alcoholic beverage outlets in lounges, show bars, and lobby areas. All these kinds of service aim to offer different kinds of food and beverage which can satisfy different needs of customers.

Also, an effective F&B operation needs to contain strong backup departments like kitchen and stewarding. Providing efficient and planned preparation of all operating equipment could help maintaining good quality of F&B operation. It could enhance the effectiveness and efficiency of F&B service. If this department could not perform in right manner, it will greatly affect the daily operation.

Finally, the ultimate goal of all these function and department in Food and Beverage Operations is not just satisfying customers’ needs only but to satisfy customers’ desires and exceed their expectation.

2012年10月6日星期六

Rooms Division Operations

Front Desk

Ø Greet visitors

Ø Check in and check out rooms for customers

Ø Process guest arrivals and departures

Ø Provide information about the hotel’s other services or local information to guests

Ø Interact with other staff in order to have a completely understanding about the hotel’s current situation

Ø Maintains a working knowledge of all guest services, promotions and programs

Ø Handling complaints, settling disputes and resolving grievances and conflicts with customers

Reservation Department

The Reservation Department plays a vital role in forming positive perceptions of the Hotel and company amongst potential clients as well as reinforcing Hotel’s high standards and existing clients.

Ø Accept and process all reservations and requests

Ø Control room and rate availability

Ø Operate and update the guest history

Ø Maximize room sales through effective use of rate controls, upselling and yield management

Ø Speaking to local travel agents to arrange discount hotel offers for improved booking levels

Ø Keep accurate records of bookings on the hotel reservation system

Ø Forecast likely revenue streams

Cashier

Ø Processing cash, debit card and credit card transactions for guests

Ø Maintain related records and files regarding financial transactions that take place at the front desk

Ø Answer guest inquiries regarding fees and services

Ø Responsible for preparing and submitting daily bank deposits

Ø Guarantee the security of the safes or safe-deposit boxes

Concierge

Ø Provides information, advice, guidance and assistance to hotel guests

Ø Being both the first and last point of contact with guests

Ø Able to understand their individual requirements in order to best serve them, within reason

Housekeeping

Ø Ensure the cleanliness, maintenance and the appeal of lodging

Ø Training of its personnel

Ø Requisition and control of the necessary supplies and equipment

Ø Cost control and keepingreports. E.g. cost and amount of cleaning stuffs

Ø Purchasing for exclusive items for special occasions

Ø Handling small complaints

Laundry

Ø Ensurethe proper cleaning, drying and ironing of linens and garments (sorting, washing, drying and folding operation)

Ø Repair minor damage of linens and garments

Ø Ensure the proper function of laundry machines

Hotel Yield Management

Yield management is to allocates the right type of room to the right guest at the right price. Therefore, same type of hotel room could be sold in different prices even in the same time. Hotels use this system in order to best maximize the return. The demand for hotel inventory fluctuates according to the season. During holidays, the demand for hotel rooms increase, hotels can increase the room price to generate more profits. On the other hand, hotels need to impose inventory control when the holidays pass. For example by offering discount during low demand season, where the hotel room will likely not been reserved. Also, hotels can implement market segmentation which means repackage its basic inventory into different products. For example, some empty rooms can be repackaged into luxury room to attract rich customers. Hotels can also use purchase restriction, length of stay requirements, non-refundable deposits and requiring fees for changing or canceling rooms.

Here are some hotel rate plans to achieve yield management which can be maximize profit.

Complimentary rate- Free for room rate but still charge for other consummation such as food and beverages.

Contract rate- contract with someone in discount room rate

Corporate rate- rate for business companies

Day rate – rate for less than overnight stay

Group rate- rate for group

Net rate- Net Fares and Travel Agent rate. Only for travel wholesale consolidators(may be the cheapest rate)

Rack rate / Walk-in rate- rate for anyone who walk in to ask the price(usually is the highest rate)

Extra person- charge for additional person in one hotel room

Per person- rate charge per person rather than per room

Service charge- ++ plus plus

Trade discount

Value added tax (VAT)

Weekly rate- lower rate for stay on one week or more

Hotels also adjust room rates per season or even two months to facing different demand.(high price in peak season, low in cool season).

Trends about Rooms Division Operations

Nowadays, the operating rooms divisions in hotels are quite similar to the traditional one. However, there are still some trends on operating rooms divisions. And we summarized them as the following:

1. More about customer-oriented.

Hotels would develop full-scale service to satisfy customers’ needs. For example in Four Seasons Hotel, there is a department of Kids which is offering recreational activities especially for them. It shows that hotels nowadays are not just care about the adults but also their children.

2. More free individual travelers.

It’s because of many countries or regions have modified their policies. Take Hong Kong as an example, she implemented Individual Visit Scheme on 2003 to allow Mainland China travelers to visit Hong Kong and Macau individually. Therefore, they might be more walk-in guests who may need more attentions from hotel staff.

3. Pickier hotel guests.

Since many people have more travel experience, they become knowledgeable on choosing hotels

4. Less business travelers.

Due to advanced technology, many companies would like to cut cost on business travel expenditure; they would prefer the use of video conference to have meetings with business partners overseas

From the above trends, we think hotels might focus on developing entertainment and providing employee training courses to provide a better accommodation service to the guests. In other words, hotels might improve their physical facilities to fit the guests’ needs. And they will also train their employees to be knowledgeable to build a long term relationship with guests in order to build customer loyalty.