Physical Facility Design and Maintenance

What is a hospitality facility?

A hospitality facility can be any type of location that provides hospitality services. These can range from hotels, restaurants, resorts, amusement parks, and others. Malls, movie theatres, and museums can be classified as types of hospitality facilities as well. Look around you, any place where you see people gathering together and receiving hospitality services is likely one type of hospitality facility or another.

What do different hospitality facilities look like?

Let’s take a look at some of the different types of hospitality facilities.Check out this ride at Wonderland:

http://www.break.com/usercontent/2008/2/Canada-s-Wonderland-Vortex-445670

Some hospitality facilities are different from others…

What roles do hospitality facilities have in our lives?

We can say that there are seven roles of hospitality facilities.

Role 1. Satisfying the guest

Hospitality facilities play a major role in guest satisfaction. As managers of these spaces we must ensure complete guest satisfaction by ensuring our facility’s overall ambiance, experience, and comfort is maximized to ensure guest satisfaction.

Major parts of the industry include:- Destination resorts- Theme restaurants- Casinos- Theme parks- Water attractions

Role 2. Manufacturing plant

The hospitality facility is a place that creates and delivers services. Some of these services include moving guests throughout the facility with elevators, food is provided with restaurants, and laundry services are provided.

Role 3. Facilities define the industry

One of the roles that hospitality facilities is that the actual buildings define the hospitality industry itself. Take McDonalds for instance, this company’s characteristics in architecture, signs, colours, and other trademarks creates an image that draws customers into the facility.

Role 4. Hospitality facilities occupy a space

While many other services today can be offered virtually, hospitality spaces still require occupying a physical space. Today the majority of growth in the industry is through the addition of facilities. This explains why restaurant franchises build additional stores rather than increasing sales at existing locations.

Role 5. Hospitality facilities provide a place for facilities management businesses.

Companies such as Aramark exist to provide services to hospitality facilities, such as food service, housekeeping, grounds, physical plant management. Hospitality facilities provide the location for these types of businesses to operate.

Role 6. Facilities provide a return on investment.

Hospitality Facilities are the location where the business generates a profit.

Role 7. Facility design determine the generation of property revenue.

The current design of your facility will determine the profit generated. The existing facility has little ability to change its current facilities without extensive capital investments (i.e. building additional table spaces, building a new entertainment complex.) Facility design plays a role in the industry because it determines how much money the location can generate before renovations are required.

Next week…

Next week we will continue to talk about hospitality facilities.

To prepare for next weeks class pick up a copy of the textbook.

Stipanuk, David M. Hospitality Facilities Management and Design, Third Edition. Lansing, Michigan: American Hotel & Lodging Educational Institute, 2006.

Complete the required reading for next week, Chapter 12: Lodging Planning and Design.