Principles of Sustainable Operations

Question: Discuss about the Principles of Sustainable Operations. Answer: Introduction: Stay Together hotel chain consists of ten hotels which includes Sydney Boutique Hotel, APX Darling Harbour, Devere Hotel, Arts Hotel, Abey Hotel, Sydney Harbour Bed and Breakfast, Song Hotel Sydney, Hotel Bondi and Vulvcan Hotel. Recently, all these ten hotels are starting a business in a combined way in order to gain competitive advantage in the market as the market is full of tough competitors and this particular hotel chain will provide the lowest price accommodation to the customers. There are various types of services and various kinds of accommodation the Stay Together hotel chain is trying to provide to their customer starting from low price accommodation to luxurious suites. Hotels.com is the website from where the customers will be able to book the rooms in the Stay Together hotels at cheap prices and the rates will only differ during the peak seasons. The customers will also be able to book the hotel rooms from the mobile application of Stay Together hotel and there are som e decisions which has been finalized by the senior management for the better performance of the hotels which includes loyalty schemes to the customers, exclusive restaurant charges, rebates on choosing of a particular airline and also corporate social responsibility which will include donating 1% of the bill to the charity. As there is very much competition in the Australian Hotel Industry, due to the lower prices that are offered by various hotels to attract the customers (Ladhari, 2009). Ten hotels, the names of which are mentioned above have come together in order to form a joint hotel business which will cater throughout the world and will provide their services to the customers. The key for providing the services to the customers and some decisions has been finalized, which will include the following things as mentioned below: Customer Loyalty Scheme: Customer Loyalty is very significant for any kind of business and with the help of the customer loyalty schemes, the businesses are able to develop satisfaction among the customers and retain customers of the organization (Han and Ryu, 2009). Hotel industry is one industry for which the customer loyalty schemes are very significant and with the help of the customer loyalty schemes, hotel industry can retain their customers which makes the customers to book the hotel rooms again and again when they visit the place as discounts are provided to the customers and also the customers feel safe and secure as a good and cordial relation is maintained with them (Dominici and Guzzo, 2010). The customer loyalty scheme will also be introduced in the Stay Together hotel chain and with the help of the customer loyalty scheme; the hotel will be able to provide attractive discounts to the customers and also other facilities that can also be provided to the customers. With the help of the customer database, Stay Together will be able to keep the record of the customers who visits the hotel for more than once in a year and the discounts on booking of the customers can be provided with the help of the booking application to the customers. The discount can be provided on the final bill and also the customers can be offered with free pickups from the airport or railway station. Under the loyalty scheme to the customers, the booking of the hotels in cheap prices can be provided to the customers and also they can be offered with free stays for one or two nights on their birthdays or on some special occasions like their anniversary or so on (Gee et al., 2008). Under the loyalty sche me to the customers, they can also be allowed to keep their car parked in the parking space of the hotel room for free of cost. The choice privilege can also be allowed for the customers who are loyal towards the Stay Together hotel chain and the loyal customers will have the priority to book the hotel rooms according to their choice and preference before the normal customers of the hotel. Stay Together hotel chain can also provide discounts to the customers who are visiting the major cities of the world and by providing discounts to the customers they can attract a lot of customers as the hotel rooms in the major cities are very costly and the customers always looks for accommodation in the cheap hotel rooms. By this way, they can provide a tough competition to their competitors in the market and can also provide a tough competition to the chained hotel businesses that are there in the country since a long time (Xie and Chen, 2014). The loyal customers of the Stay Together hotel can also be provided with free site seeing facilities for the loyalty they show towards the hotels and thus the hotel chain will be able to gain loyalty of the customers and also competitive advantage in the market. Free Breakfast and dinner: The planning of the Stay Together hotels will be done in such a way that the customers will be served with free breakfast and dinner as per their choice of foods and also as per availability. The breakfast will be served to the customers and the menu will include various items such as sandwiches, salads, soups and so on in the food section while the beverage section will include tea, hot chocolate, milk, coffee and so on. This will all be served at the hotels of Stay Together which includes a kitchen in order to earn an extra dollar per customers and so that the hotel is able to make profit form this activity. But there will also be some restaurant facility in the hotels of Stay Together which will be designed as exclusive and the customer have to pay extra money for the purpose of having a dinner or breakfast at those restaurants. With the help of the term Free breakfast and dinner more number of customers will be attracted towards the Stay Together hotel chain and they can be satisfied with the help of serving quality foods. Also maintenance of hygiene in the restaurants is significant for the purpose of serving the customers with good quality food (Ryu and Han, 2010). When the customers will hear that Stay Together is providing the customers with free breakfast and dinner the customers will be automatically be attracted towards the restaurant and this will help the hotel chain to earn an extra dollar per customers for the purpose of providing them with free foods which can be included with the hotel billing. Including the charges of the breakfast and dinner in the charges of the hotel room will somewhat compel the customers to have breakfast and dinner from the hotel this will allow the hotel to earn extra money. The customers in the present world are attracted towards ignoring the hotel restaurants and goin g out for a walk while completing dinner or breakfast from outside the hotel. This particular scheme introduced by Stay Together hotel will compel the customers to spend an extra dollar for their foods and will also increase the revenue of the hotel. The scheme for providing rebates to the customers of the organization is also a strategy to keep the customers attracted towards the organization and this particular scheme will help the organization to gain the customer loyalty (Legrand et al., 2016). Customer loyalty is an important thing which helps the organization to maximize their revenue. Revenue maximization is significant for any kind of businesses and maximizing the revenue will help Stay Together to earn competitive advantage over the same businesses of the industry. Rebate in the simplest form in the hotel industry is refund that is provided to the customers for the purpose of using a specific service. So, with the help of the partnership with the Qantas Airways of Australia, Stay Together hotel chain can launch this rebate program where the customers will be offered free meals for the purpose of travelling through Qantas Airways. Stay Together hotel will also be able to provide the customers with free night stay for the customers that are arriving with the help of Qantas Airway at night and free stay during the day time for those customers travelling during the day time and the charges will be taken from the next morning in case of night arrival and charges will be taken from night time if the arrival is during the day time. The customers for the purpose of saving costs will take benefit of this scheme introduced by Stay Together and they will be able to chose either they receive free meals for one day from hotel or receive free of cost stay fo r a night or day. For the purpose of receiving discounts and free stays under this scheme, the customers will also be able to show the tickets related to the airline they are travelling and if the airline is Qantas Airways, the customers will be provided with rebates. The Stay Together can also make a bond with the Qantas Airways for the purpose of rebate as it will increase the customers of the Qantas Airways as well. So, 10-15% of the ticket fare per customers who are staying in Stay Together Hotels under this particular scheme can be charged from the Qantas Airways by Stay Together hotel chain. Thus, Stay Together will be able to increase the satisfaction of the customers and this scheme will help to increase the customers to get free meals and free stay. This scheme will also help the hotel chain to strengthen the partnership with Qantas Airways. Corporate Social Responsibility: Every business of all kinds works in the society and the society helps the businesses to run in a free style. Society is one of the main stakeholders to the organization, contributing to the free running of the business. So, for the purpose of free running of the business in the society, the business too has some responsibility towards the business. Some businesses donate towards the charity while some businesses maintain the cleanliness of the environment under the activities of corporate social responsibility (Lindgreen and Swaen, 2010). Also, some budget needs to be allocated for the purpose of corporate social responsibility in order to give back to the society in which they are conducting their business. The CSR activities of the hotels consist of improvement of the environment in which they are operating and also donating money to the poor people of the society. It can also include towards building up of dustbins in the area where they are operating in order to reduce the pollution or it can include optimum utilization of the resources for the purpose of saving the resources that are limited in nature. The businesses can also help the society by implementing hospitality activities in the society where the hotel is located. Among the corporate social activity of Stay Together hotel chain, the hotel can think of providing donations to the charity. As the hotel will be present in many countries of the world, they can get a high profit on the billing done by them and the decisions from the senior managers have been taken to donate the money in the charity by contributing 1% of the total amount that will be earned from the customers billing. In a year, there will be many customers that will visit Stay Together and the billing amounted to them, 1% of it will be provided to the NSW Wildlife Information Rescue and Education Service, which is a charity located in Australia. The donation to the charity will help the organization to conduct their business in the environment freely and will also keep the society satisfied with the help of donations that they are making to NSW Wildlife Information Rescue and Education Service. This particular charity mainly focuses on to save the endangered species of animals and f ocuses on the life of animals and saves the animals from exploitation (Wires.org.au, 2017). Thus corporate social responsibility towards the environment can help Stay Together to conduct their business in the world and will also gain the customer trust for the purpose of donations towards the charity. Conclusion: From the discussion above, in the conclusion of the assignment it can be said that due to the increasing amount of competition in the hotel industry, partnership in the form of running a hotel chain is profitable for the organizations and Stay Together Hotel Chain can help themselves by running the hotel chain with the help of various decisions that has been mentioned above. References: Wires.org.au. (2017).WIRES Australian Wildlife Rescue Organisation. [online] Available at: https://www.wires.org.au/ [Accessed 8 May 2017]. Ladhari, R., 2009. Service quality, emotional satisfaction, and behavioural intentions: A study in the hotel industry. Managing Service Quality: An International Journal, 19(3), pp.308-331. Han, H. and Ryu, K., 2009. The roles of the physical environment, price perception, and customer satisfaction in determining customer loyalty in the restaurant industry. Journal of Hospitality Tourism Research, 33(4), pp.487-510. Dominici, G. and Guzzo, R., 2010. 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