Hotel project management

SUMMARY

Kerrison Park Hotel in London, is a Part of Kerrison Travel group. GGTA, a French business conglomerate has recently purchased. The hotel is operating at a loss unlike other Kerrison Park hotels across the European mainland. The author will explain here how a project management approach will help the hotel to make changes to turn the loss making situation around. The Author has explained to the management of Kerrison Park Hotel the meaning of Project Management, the process involved in it, the tools and techniques used in it and the benefits of using a Project management approach in developing of the improvement opportunities. The Author has identified all the improvement opportunities of Kerrison Park Hotel, London, and done a detailed SWOT analysis which has given an insight to the problem and improvement areas along with the company’s strengths and weaknesses.

According to Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK), Project is defined as a temporary endeavour undertaken to create a unique product or a service.

The act of managing, controlling, coordinating, directing, etc is called management.

Project Management is the application of knowledge, skills, tools and techniques to project activities in order to meet stakeholder’s needs and expectations from a project. Projects need to be performed and delivered under certain constraints. Traditionally these constraints have been listed as ‘scope’, ‘time’ and ‘cost’ (Burke, 2003).

PROCESS OF PROJECT MANAGEMENT:

1. Agree precise specification for the project.
2. Plan the project – time, team, activities, resources, and financials.
3. Communicate the project plan to your project team.
4. Agree and delegate project actions.
5. Manage, motivate, inform, encourage, enable the project team.
6. Check, measure, review project progress; adjust project plans, and inform the project team and others.
7. Complete project; review and report on project performance; give praise and thanks to the project team.

SWOT Analysis is a strategic planning method used to evaluate the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats involved in a project or in a business venture.

After explaining all this the author has given recommendations as to how to develop those improvement opportunities identified in SWOT.

INTRODUCTION

Case Study Background:

This case study refers to Kerrison Park Hotel in London, a Part of Kerrison Travel group. GGTA, a French business conglomerate has recently purchased this hotel as a part of a financial package that also involved the takeover of three aircrafts and routes serving Amsterdam, Brussels, Frankfurt, London, Paris, Oslo. The hotel is situated 25km from Heathrow Airport and is well connected by public bus and Underground. The hotel is operating at a loss unlike other Kerrison Park hotels across the European mainland. The author has been given the role of a project manager to use his project management skills and investigate the hotel’s SWOT analysis and make a proper project plan to retain business and turn this loss making situation around.

Aims and Objectives:

• Define the benefits of the Kerrison Park Hotel, London of adopting a Project Management approach towards the development of the improvement opportunities.
• Identifying these improvement opportunities within the hotel, recommend a project plan that should be tackled within the next 18 months.

Research Methodology:

The author has used a lot of secondary resources to research and collect data related to case material like books, websites, etc.. Initially all about Project Management is explained along with some techniques and their importance. Then a detailed SWOT analysis is done for the Kerrison Park Hotel, London. On the basis of this SWOT analysis a Project Plan is prepares and recommendations are given. There is no primary research undertaken for this report.

MAIN BODY

Kerrison Park Hotel in London, is a Part of Kerrison Travel group. GGTA, a French business conglomerate has recently purchased this hotel as a part of a financial package that also involved the takeover of three aircrafts and routes serving Amsterdam, Brussels, Frankfurt, London, Paris and Oslo. The hotel is operating at a loss unlike other Kerrison Park hotels across the European mainland. The author will explain here how a project management approach will help the hotel to make changes to turn the loss making situation around.

According to Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK), Project is defined as a temporary endeavour undertaken to create a unique product or a service.

The act of managing, controlling, coordinating, directing, etc is called management.

Project Management is the application of knowledge, skills, tools and techniques to project activities in order to meet stakeholder’s needs and expectations from a project (Burke, 2001).

Projects are executed and achieved under scope, time and cost constraints. These constraints when combined together form the Project Management Triangle. As these constraints are linked together therefore, the triangle would be affected if either of the constraints is changed. The advanced enhancement of scope, time and cost produces a fourth constraint called Quality.

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‘Scope’ describes what must be done to produce the end result of the project, ‘Time’ constraint specifies the available time to meet the project and ‘Cost’ refers to the total amount available for the project completion.

The main purpose of Project Management is to offer the appropriate tools and techniques that initiate the team to work towards the achievement of these constraints.

Time

The time required can be estimated through Work Breakdown Structure where each task is separately broken down into the time required to complete each task contributing to the completion of each component.

Cost

The cost constraint is estimated on variables like resource costs, labour rates, material rates, risk management, Earned value management, plant, equipment, cost escalation, indirect costs, and profit.

Scope

Scope describes the actual project to be accomplished and the end result. Quality of the actual output product is one of the major components of scope. The quality of the project is determined on the actual amount inputted towards the individual tasks.

(URL: http://www.businesspme.com/uk/articles/rh/62/The-traditional-triple-constraints.html)

PROJECT LIFE CYCLE:

Project Management Life Cycle comprises four phases

Initiation involves starting up the project, by documenting a business case, feasibility study, terms of reference, appointing the team and setting up a Project Office.

Planning involves setting out the roadmap for the project by creating the following plans: project plan, resource plan, financial plan, quality plan, acceptance plan and communications plan.

Execution involves building the deliverables and controlling the project delivery, scope, costs, quality, risks and issues.

Closure involves winding-down the project by releasing staff, handing over deliverables to the customer and completing a post implementation review (URL: http://www.mpmm.com/project-management-methodology.php).

PROCESS OF PROJECT MANAGEMENT:

1. Agree precise specification for the project: Often called the project ‘terms of reference’, the project specification should be an accurate description of what the project aims to achieve, and the criteria and flexibilities involved, its parameters, scope, range, outputs, sources, participants, budgets and timescales
2. Plan the project – time, team, activities, resources, financials: Plan the various stages and activities of the project. A useful tip is to work backwards from the end aim, identifying all the things that need to be put in place and done, in reverse order.
3. Communicate the project plan to your project team: This serves two purposes: it informs people what’s happening, and it obtains essential support, agreement and commitment. If your project is complex and involves a team, then you should involve the team in the planning process to maximise buy-in, ownership, and thereby accountability.
4. Agree and delegate project actions: Activities need to be very clearly described, including all relevant parameters, timescales, costs, and deliverables in a plan. This plan will then be published to all team members and the tasks will be issued to all on the basis of their capability of their own forward planning
5. Manage, motivate, inform, encourage, and enable the project team: Manage the team and activities by meeting, communicating, supporting, and helping with decisions. Your role here is to enable and translate. Face to face meetings, when you can bring team members together, are generally the best way to avoid issues and relationships becoming personalised and emotional. Communicate progress and successes regularly to everyone. Give the people in your team the plaudits. Conversely – you must take the blame for anything that goes wrong – never dump on anyone in your team
6. Check, measure, review project progress; adjust project plans, and inform the project team and others: Check the progress of activities against the plan. Review performance regularly and at the stipulated review points, and confirm the validity and relevance of the remainder of the plan. Adjust the plan if necessary in light of performance, changing circumstances, and new information, but remain on track and within the original terms of reference.
7. Complete project; review and report on project performance; give praise and thanks to the project team: At the end of your successful project hold a review with the team. Ensure you understand what happened and why. Reflect on any failures and mistakes positively, objectively, and without allocating personal blame. Reflect on successes gratefully and realistically.

TOOLS OF PROJECT MANAGEMENT:

1. PERT: The Program Evaluation and Review Technique is a model for project management designed to analyze and represent the tasks involved in completing a given project.
2. A Gantt chart is a type of bar chart that illustrates a project schedule. Gantt charts illustrate the start and finish dates of the terminal elements and summary elements of a project. Terminal elements and summary elements comprise the work breakdown structure of the project. Some Gantt charts also show the dependency (i.e, precedence network) relationships between activities.
3. A work breakdown structure or WBS is a tree structure, that permits summing of subordinate costs for tasks, materials, etc., into their successively higher level “parent” tasks, materials, etc. It is a fundamental tool commonly used in project management
4. The Critical Path Method, abbreviated CPM, or critical path analysis, is a mathematically based algorithm for scheduling a set of project activities. It is an important tool for effective project management.
5. A Run chart, also known as a run-sequence plot is a graph that displays observed data in a time sequence. Often, the data displayed represent some aspect of the output or performance of a manufacturing or other business process.

IMPORTANCE AND BENEFIT OF PROJECT MANAGEMENT APPROACH TO KERRISON PARK HOTEL, LONDON:

1. Develops Exponential Effectiveness: In most organizations, people work on cross-functional teams to complete projects. When people from different departments know and understand a common Project Management process to get their work done, they can start to work together without having to design how they are going to do it.
2. Empowers Individuals and Team Leaders: When there is a common, simple approach for Project Management and the correct tools are available throughout the enterprise, people are empowered to reach their goals, together and individually.
3. Creates Institutional Memory: Industry standard Project Management practices require a critical project closeout phase that collects lessons learned and gives your organization powerful historical knowledge from across the enterprise.
4. Realizes Return on Innovation: An easy-to-use Project Management methodology gives organizations a framework that makes it achievable for people to move from vision to action with a comprehensive project plan that supports their objectives.
5. Turns Information into Insight: You capture best practices and know what is and isn’t working in your organization, giving you a competitive advantage by turning information into insight.

SWOT Analysis is a strategic planning method used to evaluate the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats involved in a project or in a business venture. It involves specifying the objective of the business venture or project and identifying the internal and external factors that are favourable and unfavourable to achieving that objective.

Here we need to do the SWOT analysis of the Kerrison Park Hotel, London which will help us further to make a Project Plan to make recommendations as to what changes are required by this Hotel to run successfully.

Strengths:

• The Hotel has a very good location as it is just 25 Km from Heathrow and is well connected by Bus and Underground.
• Hotel owns a large reception area out of which a part can be used for other purposes.
• A large full functioning kitchen builds up the backbone of the hotel
• Hotel has 150 rooms. All rooms have ensuite facilities, tea and coffee facilities, satellite TV, Air-conditioner and mini-bar which shows it provides all the facilities which a normal 4star hotel should have.
• The double rooms have adjoining lounges.
• The hotel provides an elaborate English and Continental Breakfast which is considered to be the main meal of the day.
• Hotel owns a Big Conference and a banqueting suite with a separate bar and four syndicate rooms.
• The Hotel gets a regular business from the parent company’s aircrew and passengers.
• The Hotel also possesses a successful In-house Laundry which also has a contract for company’s airline uniforms which ensures fixed revenue.

Weaknesses:

• The hotel is suffering from a low occupancy rate of 45% as compared to other hotels in the city with 65% on a typical day.
• It has an inappropriate and a weak marketing strategy as the hotel principally relied on tour operators who use the hotel seasonally and local corporate business, gained through minimal advertising.
• The computer systems on the front of the house have become obsolete and needs to be upgraded to be in sync with the parent company’s airline reservation system.
• Many of the Hotel’s facilities were not marketed successfully because of poor coordination and irregularity within sales and marketing departments.
• Lack of security of cleaning stores and linen on floors and their distribution.
• Lack of regular preventive maintenance of rooms and corridors. Internal painting, re-grouting of tiles, etc. needs attention.
• Restaurant is not big enough with 90 covers to handle major rush hours during peak season. Lunch time business is poor. Garden side of the restaurant which can be used a n additional room in quite weekends was not publicised properly. The staff seems to be lacking the sales and service orientation.
• The department heads are given the responsibility for recruiting and training of staff members rather than a proper Human Resource Management system which leads to inconsistencies in approach and quality.
• Gymnasium is not well equipped and there is no swimming pool facility provided by the hotel. There is no health bar either where a guest could refresh himself after a workout.

Opportunities:

• Since the Hotel has a good location, it can easily pull up the chartered tourism. Students and Backpackers use London as a base for visiting other parts of the country who can be wooed by attractive discounts and offers.
• Large reception area gives the opportunity to use a part of it for some other purposes for eg. Extending Coffee Shop.
• Laundry Business can be improved by recruiting more skilled staff and sign up more contracts on revised prices with airlines.
• Hiring more experienced staff and training the existing one will help in upselling in all F&B areas.
• Coffee Shop is more popular than the restaurant and the bar and is also doing well, so the covers can be increased and it can be livened up for young clientele.
• There is a good opportunity to start a new buffet style menu in the restaurant after convincing the Head Chef of its advantages.
• Hiring more efficient and professional Sales and Marketing Team will help the Hotel to boost up its sales volume.
• The Human Resource Department have a lot of knowledge and experience of working in different cultures which makes it easy for the hotel to understand its staff better and provide them efficient training through proper communication and practice.

Threats:

• The airlines are in doubt as to continue with the laundry contract with the hotel due to the high prices offered as compared to other competitor laundries.
• The F&B staffs have a low skill level; and therefore it leaves the guest into a bad impression of staff lacking service orientation and hotel’s poor standards.
• Inappropriate Security systems might lead to loss by theft. Storage of food is disorganized and sometimes no stock rotation is done which can be very dangerous and also lead to wastage.
• Competition in terms of prices and facility given by other hotels is leading to lower occupancy rate which is not good at all for the hotel.
• There is no Job satisfaction due to which motivation is lacking in staff.

RECOMMENDATIONS

After completing this detailed SWOT analysis the author is clear about Hotel’s situation inside out. Now the author would like to give recommendations for how to overcome the problems and weak areas of the hotel in a Project Management approach.

Following are the areas and the changes that need to be done in them:

1. Reception: Since the front of the house systems are obsolete and 12 years old, they require an upgrading to cope up with the expected increase in the business and interface with the parent company’s airline reservation system which will create ease of work and efficiency for the reception staff. Changing the system will also require hardcore training to the staff who are habitual of using the old system. This whole process will take about 3 months to come into existence.
2. Accommodation Operations: Author would suggest to turn 20 twin rooms into double rooms which will help the reception to give out more options to the customers. Secondly 10 suites should replace either of the rooms for fulfilling special needs of the guests like honeymoon couples. This operation will take around 4-6 months.
3. In House Laundry: The Laundry has shown a return on investment recently and is running successfully. It is suggested to add up more storage space and recruit more efficient staff. The hotel also needs to take into consideration the prices of the laundry as they are too high compared to competitors due to which it might lose its present contracts. Prices needs to be lowered down. This will take about 2 months.
4. Housekeeping and maintenance: To Control the security of the cleaning stores and linen, the author suggests to put up security alarms and CCTV Cameras in all important areas where undesignated staff isn’t allowed. The storage areas should be moved away from back door entry to avoid loss. The rooms need to undergo minor maintenance like internal painting, re-grouting of tiling, replacing shower curtains, etc. Carpeting on first and second floor corridor will be replaced and reinstated as soon as possible. This will take approximately 6-8 months to complete.
5. Food and Beverage: The covers in the restaurant should be increased to at least 120 to cope up with busy hours. The idea of introducing buffet style of menu is very appropriate. The F&B manager must convince the head chef about the advantages of buffet style menu for eg, it will save labour force and the guest would get a choice of wider variety of food. Various schemes like ‘Sunday English Roast Lunch’ or ‘Happy Hours’ should be introduced which will attract local clientele and families. This operation will take around 1 month to come into existence as there are no major physical changes taking place here.
6. Since the Coffee Shop is very popular and generally remains busy it is suggested to liven and pep it up in sync with the young and modern customers with some exciting decor, video games, darts, etc.. which will attract more people. We have the advantage of having coffee shop next to the large reception area. So it can be extended using a part of the reception area and covers will be increased from 50 to 70. Professional English speaking and permanent staff must be hired for the coffee shop as it will lead to good service and better guest satisfaction. The Coffee Shop menu should be renewed. This will take around 3 months to complete.
7. Bar staff needs to be trained to be multi-skilled so that they can help in other areas when busy. A fool-proof method of controlling and counting sales should be introduced. A versatile drink list should be developed. Night porter facility should be provided to fulfil the needs of late night residents. This will again take around 1 month to come into existence.
8. Gymnasium: It is suggested to install modern and state of the art machinery in the gym. At least 2 trainers should be employed. A proper changing room with modular fittings should be constructed with sauna, spa and a small swimming pool should be built up. Swimming pool will be a great attraction for the in house guests and local residents. The gym kitchen should be refurbished and spruced up and used as a sports bar offering health food and beverages.the Gymnasium and swimming pool will take a long time say around 12 months so should be started well in advance.
9. Goods Delivery and Storage: Food storage in the main cold room must be organised using the FIFO (first in first out) system and keeping HACCP (hazard and critical control points) into consideration. Delegation of responsibility to the heads of the departments and supervisors is of utmost importance for all the storage areas as to keep a control on food storage, rotation, inventory keeping, etc.. The responsibility of the keys should also be delegated to either Head chef or F&B manager. A proper inventory management system must be installed to analyse the sales level appropriately. This process will take 2 months.
10. Management and staffing: a lot of emphasis needs to be put on the training and development of the staff as most of the staff is unskilled and unprofessional. A detailed training and development programme needs to be developed. The recruitment responsibility needs to be taken solely by the HR department in coordination with the Heads of the Departments to select only eligible staff. All the lousy and unskilled staff must be replaced by the professional ones. Work incentives and motivational schemes needs to be introduced to ensure job satisfaction and improved performance. Training and Development is an ongoing process so time cannot be calculated here. Replacing staff will not take more than 1 month.
11. Sales and Marketing: First of all a strong, experienced and highly skilled marketing team needs to be hired as the previous one could not prove itself. Then coordination between Sales and Marketing needs to be built up by proper communication and regular meetings. All the facilities of the hotel must be advertised on websites, buses, trains, etc., showing attractive pictures of the hotel rooms, coffee shop, and gymnasium and highlighting the new facilities added. Promotion should be done at trade fares. Hotel must tie up with major tour operators. To increase the sales volume the hotel needs to revise its rack rate in accordance to competitors and give more discounts and attractive offers. Students and Backpackers can be wooed by good discounted rates and offers if they make the bookings in advance which will help hotel to increase its occupancy rate. The marketing team should also promote the in house laundry and get more orders from airlines to make additional revenue.
12. Time Management: There are a lot of tasks to be done here. If we calculate the total time it will be more than 18 months, whereas we only have 18 months to get things done. So we need to manage our tasks in a timely order where two or more tasks can be done in a particular time side by side. The next important thing which we need to consider is that in what sequence the tasks will be accomplished. The activities should be put in such an order that they do not become a hindrance for one another and the hotel’s routine operations. The time that will be saved will indirectly save our costs as well.

CONCLUSION

The purpose of the report was to define to the hotel the benefits of adopting a project management approach towards development of improvement opportunities. Then these improvement opportunities were to be identified within the hotel and recommendations were to be given that prioritise and justify the projects that should be tackled within 18 months. The author would like to conclude that these purposes were solved by explaining in detail about the Project management, its process, tools and techniques. A detailed SWOT analysis is done to justify all the changes and improvement to be done in the hotel. Then the author has given recommendations for all that is to be done to retain the business and make profits. This will help the Kerrison Park Hotel to become a successful running Hotel in the city.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

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