Resort Management Dr Sunil kumar.pptx

Resort Management is the comprehensive and strategic oversight of all operations within a resort property, aimed at delivering exceptional guest experiences and maximizing profitability. It involves the efficient coordination of various departments, including accommodations, food and beverage, recreational facilities, guest services, and administration.

A successful resort management team ensures that all aspects of the resort are functioning seamlessly to create a welcoming and enjoyable environment for guests. This includes maintaining the highest standards of customer service, implementing effective marketing and sales strategies, managing reservations and bookings, coordinating housekeeping and maintenance services, and overseeing financial operations.

Resort managers are responsible for setting the overall vision and direction of the property, developing strategic plans to attract and retain guests, and ensuring that the resort meets or exceeds guest expectations. They work closely with department heads and staff to provide ongoing training and guidance, fostering a culture of exceptional service and professionalism.

In addition to guest satisfaction, resort management also focuses on financial performance. Managers are responsible for budgeting, cost control, and revenue management to optimize profitability. They analyze market trends, monitor competitors, and make informed decisions to drive revenue growth and operational efficiency.

Resort management also involves maintaining and enhancing the resort's physical infrastructure, including buildings, landscapes, and amenities. This includes regular maintenance, renovations, and upgrades to ensure a visually appealing and well-maintained property.

Furthermore, resort managers must stay abreast of industry trends, technological advancements, and evolving guest preferences. They leverage this knowledge to implement innovative practices, adopt sustainable initiatives, and deliver unique experiences that set their resort apart from competitors.

1. Resort Management Dr Sunil kumar

2. Introduction- Resort Any place having a unique feature can be developed and promoted as a resort. Resorts in itself is a destination. According to Markouic , “Tourist Resorts are places which attract large number of tourists and tourism endows with special characteristics so that direct and indirect impacts produced by tourism play a significant role in its existence of development”. According to Oxford Dictionary, “Resort means last expedient of a person”. Expression last expedient has emerged from the fact that in earlier days, people went to visit holiest cities and other places in their last phase of life. But nowadays due to increased availability of leisure and disposable income this concept has changed and as a result various types of resorts have come into existence. Moreover, the misconception that resorts are meant for rich and famous does not hold ground any more. It has been removed with the use of extensive publicity. Dr Sunil kumar 2

3. TYPES OF RESORTS Generally, resorts are classified on the basis of the needs they are serving or benefits they are deriving for their customers, i.e., needs and benefits they are created for. By and large they are located away from the crowded tourist destination, offering peace and isolation to tourists in natural surroundings. Resorts can be categorised on the basis of their facilities and services that they shall be offering the guests, viz.: 1) Integrated Resorts, 2) Town Resorts, and 3) Retreat Resorts. Dr Sunil kumar 3

4. 1) Integrated Resorts: Integrated resorts include holiday sites which offer every possible facility, service and amenities developed in a planned manner for the exclusive use of tourists. Integrated resorts may vary in size from one resort to another or several resorts and other type of accommodation units, offering numerous rooms. Typically they are self-contained including various tourist facilities and services of a commercial centre or commercial facilities, recreation sport facilities, sometimes cultural facilities and also conference centre or a major meeting facility in the resort. Dr Sunil kumar 4

5. Contd … Some of the integrated resorts contain a wide range of accommodation from various types of cottages, self-catering apartments, town houses and villas. Self-catering units may be linked by second location houses/homes or will be available for short-term range to the guests or visitors. In this type of resorts, configuration can vary from intensive high-density development with tall building to medium or low-density profit types. However, main considerations are given to open spacing, landscaping and: other important issues in the resorts. Dr Sunil kumar 5

6. 2) Town Resorts: A town resort combines the usual land users and activities of the town community that is economically focused on resort activity and contains resorts, hotels and other type of accommodation units and tourist facilities and services. This type of resort is also typically oriented to a specific attraction feature such as snow skiing, a beach lake or marine recreation, spas facilities etc. There are ideal locations for designing and developing skiing, beach and spas in town resorts. Beach resort towns like Goa are very popular and spas resort towns in south India, more particularly in Kerala, Tamil Nadu, etc. The hill stations, developed at the time of Britishers, too are very popular and some of them are considered as town resorts or have nearby resorts. Dr Sunil kumar 6

7. 3) Retreat Resorts: These resorts, though a form of integrated resorts, have gained more popularity than any other type of resort or accommodation not only in India but also abroad. This category of resort is new in India. Therefore apart from India other countries also have started working on this new concept following its successful operations in Caribbean and Pacific islands. The retreat resorts operates at small scale, i.e., 25 to 50 rooms but they offer a high quality of services like resorts located in remote areas such as small islands and in the mountains. Dr Sunil kumar 7

8. Contd … The only access may be by boat or by small airplanes or by narrow building roads. Retreat resorts cater to guests who wish a quite isolated vacation environment but usually with some recreation activity available. Remote hunting fishing lodges often function as retreat resorts because of their specialised character and often, high determination and operational cost. Retreat resorts require careful feasibility analysis before they are developed and selective marketing after the development. Some of these resorts are under consideration in India as well at places which are far from the habitations and cities. These can be planned at places like islands of Andaman and Nicobar and Lakshwadeep , remote hilly areas, etc. Dr Sunil kumar 8

9. Categories of Tourist Resorts Generally the resorts tend to be perfect on their part of entertaining the tourists. As the resorts tend to be the best in serving visitors in every manner they are categorized on the basis of their services and nature. Hence the resort categories can be considered as follows: 1) National Attractions a) Holiday Centres – Having good scenery, and Summer/winter resorts. Dr Sunil kumar 9

10. b) Sports Centres – As Winter sports, Beach sports, Water sports, and Aero sports. c) Health Centres – Spas, Health farms, Mineral springs, and Therapeutic purposes (for curing). Dr Sunil kumar 10

11. 2) Special Historic and Cultural Centres Places known for historically important monuments and other special features. a) Centres of outstanding tradition and cultural attractions, and b) Places of religious significance. Dr Sunil kumar 11

12. 3) Other Sectors a) Man made attraction – Fun & Food village, Essel World, b) Centres of education, folk museums, art centres and research centres, c) Centre of economic importance, places of economic interest, fares, exhibitions and technical centres of business interests, d) Centres of scientific importance, e) Capital attractions – Administrative centres – Political convention places, and f) Mixed centres – Recreation, Business conferences and conventions. The World Tourism Organisation has given specific instructions for resort development. Dr Sunil kumar 12

13. Characteristics of Resort Management 1. Visitor Market:   No matter how different resorts are from each other, they all seek to satisfy guests who have three fundamental needs: 1. Desire for a change of pace, getting away from the familiar. 2. Desire to satisfy recreational interests while being entertained and stimulated 3. Desire to travel to interesting and attractive places. Dr Sunil kumar 13

14. 2. Facilities: The average length of stay at a resort is longer than hotel, the facilities are different. Rooms are larger, more closet space is needed Large amount of lands are required for recreational activities Guests are looking to participate in a variety of activities as part of their total resort experience. Dr Sunil kumar 14

15. 3. Location: Guests are attracted to many resorts because of their remote location Many guests travel considerable distances “ get away from it all” or to enjoy an area of natural beauty The properties must be self-contained Support services such as laundry and maintenance must be provided Transportation must be provided for employees or shuttle services to and from the airport to be provided for the guests. Dr Sunil kumar 15

16. Dr Sunil kumar 16 4. Recreation: Most resorts specialize in one recreational type such as beach activities, skiing and tennis Must have year-round attractions   5. Seasonality: commercial hotels are year-round, while many resorts are seasonal

17. Dr Sunil kumar 17 6. Personnel Attitude: - Resort guests have extremely high expectations of service - They expect to be pampered - With great pressure on employees to perform at a high level.

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25. GROWTH TREND OF INDIAN RESORT MARKET In the growing tourism market of the 1980s, tourist resorts proliferated in a disorganised manner. New markets of first generation tourists/guests took advantage of the short jet flight and low prices to escape the uncertainties of the climate for their annual holidays. Newer destinations were added to operators’ programmes and new resorts were built to cater their demand. This led to the rapid development of previously untouched coastline in places like Goa, Kerala, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu etc. These coastlines were characterised with “high density, low -grade holiday townships, and were lacking not only visual attraction but also basic services”. This growth, primarily was fuelled by the low price as commented on earlier. In the short term the price war benefited the tourists and holidayers but the reduction in profitability affected the resortiers as well as the hoteliers and tour operators. As long as the tourists kept coming, there was no perceived problem, except in the minds of a sensitive elite who were not the target market of resorts. This attitude also helps to explain for you the lack of product differentiation strategies in designing and developing of these resorts during the period of growth. Dr Sunil kumar 25

26. The Changing Scene in the 1990s In recent years, tourist movement towards the resorts has shown a considerable growth in the accommodation industry. The growth rate by 1998 was 15% which over the last three years has grown to 20%. Globally, resort business is worth US$ 9 billion but in India it is Rs.200 crore industry. This upswing growth trend is due to the entry of global players like Royal Resorts, Le Meridience , Marriot and many more to hold to this list. Reasons for it’s Success in Present Scenario Resorts work very successfully as 1ong as the guests’ prime concern is relaxation and recreation in a climate among people whom they feel comfortable. The very artificiality of the resort enhances the sense of the holiday as a break from the real world. The familiar symbols in a warmer/cooler climate create a relaxed mood in which the normal social inhibitions are suspended. The function of the resort in this holiday experience is primarily to provide leisure at prices based on lower wage costs and favourable exchange rates. It also gives the holiday an exotic background often experienced as superficially as that of a themed bar or restaurant at Error! These are not defined as tangible in the form of souvenirs of the local or national stereotyped symbols – famous buildings, wildlife or local customs – which bear little relation to the content of the holiday. Often they are not relevant to the particular region of location of the resorts as the wooden articles (Kerala), etc. The souvenirs and gifts help to give the guest/tourist status on his return to home from the resort which is at a exotic place. Dr Sunil kumar 26

27. Changing Perceptions and Expectations With increased competition from upcoming destinations and the greater sophistication of the tourist, differentiation of the resort product has been recognised to be essential. It is also being realised that the quality of the product, which can be seen as gap between expectation and perception of tourists, has fallen. This is due to three basic factors: • Lack of refurbishment: First there is the lack of refurbishment of the accommodation as previously mentioned, and also of the infrastructure of the resort itself. When the resorts were built with their en -suite bathrooms, balconies and extended meal times, they seemed luxurious in comparison with holiday accommodation in the domestic market. These facilities are now taken for granted and the general standard of furnishing, decor and fittings has not kept pace with the guests’/tourists’ own standards at home, barring a few sophisticated new resorts. The attractions and entertainment standards cannot be compared with tourist complexes like Essel World. Dr Sunil kumar 27

28. Environmental awareness: Secondly, there has been an environmental awareness. This, however, does not mean that the average beach resort guest/tourist is a dedicated ecologist looking for sustainable tourism. In reality, stories in the popular media have made the average resort tourist aware of the threat of pollution and disease in beach resorts of poor standards, of hygiene and fire safety in holiday resorts and so the names of the popular resorts have become associated with overcrowding, over development – half-resorts, noisy and dusty construction sites. • Lager louts: Thirdly, the price war years have produced a phenomenon known as the 'Lager lout'. Encouraged by cheap discounted fares and holiday packages targeted at the teen and twenty markets, large number of youngsters flock the big resorts with their all night disco bars. The resorts have gained reputation for drunkenness, noise and fights, exaggerated, they would argue, by sensational coverage in the media. Its effects have reflected in deterring the family market for such resorts, inspite of their best locations and products. For all these reasons the established resorts, although retaining a price advantage, were no longer perceived as value for money compared to their newer competitors. Dr Sunil kumar 28

29. • Out of fashion: The concept of the adoption curve is relevant here. New products, such as destinations, are first bought by a relatively smaller group of ‘innovators’ who are attracted by the idea of trying something new and different. These people set the trend or fashion, which is copied first by ‘early adopters’, then by the majority and lately by the ‘laggards ’ who only adopt the most tried and commonplace products. It is clear that the beach resorts have ceased to attract the innovators and allo -centric tourists. You should, therefore, worry more about the fact that in the tourist industry majority of the mid- to psycho-centric tourists are becoming dissatisfied and ready to move on to attractive options. Moving on: The tourist and the tour operator can move on to newer, more distant destinations, switchover to other types of holiday or revert to domestic tourism. The established resorts remain. Tourism which is mostly responsible for the employment in some of the states than any other industry like Garhwal and Kumaun in Uttaranchal, Jammu and Kashmir in northern region, Goa on western coast and eastern region states like Meghalaya, Assam, Manipur, Tripura, Nagaland, Mizoram and Arunanchal Pradesh, is as much a mono-culture as any Third World cash-crop, and communities which depend on it are just as vulnerable to fluctuations in world demand Dr Sunil kumar 29

30. Lessons learnt over years for developing resorts: It might seem easy in hindsight to prescribe lessons for newly developing resorts to avoid the mistake of the past but the pressures that led to thosemistakes still exist. But still a few useful guidelines for you can be there to avoid over dependence on particular markets, or on tourism at the expense of other industries and agriculture. Tourism can also be a successful mean of bringing prosperity to India and remains an attractive model for other communities in need of foreign exchange for development. You should never lose control of the distribution channel. More particularly any individual resort cannot penetrate international markets effectively without the aid of intermediaries in the target countries. As it has been a best way to sell a holiday resort in a foreign as well as domestic market is to make sure it is in a tour operator’s brochure or website. You must maintain and enhance the quality of the resort facilities. This, of course, requires investment since this is a price-led low-profit-margin industry, which can be difficult to generate on purely commercial grounds. It also requires development controls which in its early years of development could be difficult to impose from political point of view. As a newer resort, you could save expense and problems in the long term by balancing the desire to grab the benefits of tourism with the need to control some of the most obvious environmental consequences from the beginning of the project itself. An optimist would argue that the growing environmental awareness in the major tourism-originating nation, like India, makes this task easier than it was for the resorts which developed in the 1980s and in the early 1990s. Dr Sunil kumar 30

31. POTENTIAL SUPPLY RESOURCES FOR TOURIST RESORTS Everything, which has a possession in this world, can be a source of supply and so has the development of resorts. This can be applicable to hills, beaches, plains, desert, towns, villages, etc. These areas tend to abide the nature for tourism in a way that the tourism formalises in a better manner. These sources are the constituents of the tourism without which no activity directly or indirectly related to tourism are at all possible. As you know by now that the hills, beaches, plains all have their own importance in the aspects of the tourism related activities. For instance, hills have their own importance in designing tourism products where the tourists forbid for the nature's beauty and love. It has its own ambience in the tourist market and holds the glory for its beauty, purity and calmness. These mountains have stood past for several years, and have given us a lot more like rain, unique flora and fauna (which are not found any where in the world), unique people with unique culture who reside on these mountains and much more. Because of its purity and aesthetic value the visitors have always been attracted towards it whether be it for any sort of knowledge or for any adventurous activities. Dr Sunil kumar 31

32. India, as we know has a vast diversity in nature, in terms of landscapes, beautiful valleys, beaches, mountains, forests, ghats , etc. India is very distinctive in its seasonal factor as it has all the perspective seasons that are found on as summer, winter, autumn and spring. Each activity related to tourism confers recreation, pleasure and satisfaction to the tourist who is willing to go for tourism activity in India. On the other hand resort concept has taken the tourism industry by a storm. Dr Sunil kumar 32

33. Resort as a whole has a lot to serve in a country like India where a tourist needs to have only courage and ability for going for any type of activities related to tourism. The potentiality of resorts is very promising as it has started a new domain in the tourism industry .It has given a completely a new meaning to the accommodation sector as well as to the accommodation units in terms of accommodating the guests or the tourists entirely in a different and new manner. Resorts nowadays are becoming so popular that the people have started visiting such places where they find good and prosperous moods of life. They tend to spend their holidays there and try to accommodate themselves with the environment of the particular resort. As we know that sources. Of supply for a resort can be differentiated in terms of its geographical situation that is at what part of the earth it is situated, at what height, with what physiographic conditions and acquires what facilities and services. Similarly the resorts tend to be at distant places where one enjoys every bit of it. Dr Sunil kumar 33

34. Reasons for Failure Areas having potential fail aesthetically and financially, for which areas which bound to have something or the other from the tourism point of view fall drastically in their market ratings. It is because of the following main reasons: • Lack of market research: A resort or other tourist facility cannot survive without a market. Many facilities have been built with little or no thought given to market feasibility. Established resorts fail because of changing tastes, obsolescence, changes in transportation, new competition and poor management. • Lack of area planning: Tourist facilities that have not been controlled or planned carefully can become part of an unappealing jingle of buildings. Each facility owner is forced to erect a larger sign and to forego landscaping or other amenities in order to compete. No body profits, least of all the traveller. • Lack of sufficient long-range funding: The planning which is done to meet the demand in the market shuffles around funds, which happens to be the foremost part for implementing the planned ideas. This is where the things go wrong and all the process slashes down. Fund is an element which is required to deal with the market and when it lags behind everything collapses. • The problem in tourist destination development lies in determining what groups or markets will want to visit the resort and providing those things that will prove enjoyable to them. • Other determining factors are the expectations of the resident population and government policies and restrictions. • The expectations of the visitor largely determine the design and components of the resort. • Other determining factors are the expectations of the resident population and government policies and restrictions. Dr Sunil kumar 34