Hospitality Communication Challenges

Communication Challenges in Hospitality Industry

As a service industry, communication is one of the most important aspects that determines the level of service and the effectiveness of the daily operation. Communication is not only internal between departments within hospitality operation but also is a way for frontline employees to project a positive image to their customers. In my industry, departments constantly work together to ensure every detail and aspects of a high standard level of service. Fast paced working environment requires quick and reliable communication. However, my company often faces many challenges; miscommunication and communication breakdown directly affect guests’ satisfaction. An effective communication model could

During the process, noise is influences from any external physical noises or sender/receiver who fail to send/receive the message (Ivancevich et al., 2014). Multitasking is a skill or ability that an employee could perform multiple tasks at the same time. In my experience, this skill is obligated in the hospitality industry for both frontline employees, and back of the house (BOH) employees including housekeeping department, kitchen, and engineer department. However, the multitasking, fast paced job often creates noise that influences the effectiveness of a message. A receiver could either receive too many messages to handle them all, or he/she is distracted by overwhelming ongoing tasks. For a big volume, high capacity hotel, daily guests’ requests is in the hundreds, if not thousands. The communication process between departments from frontline employees to BOH employees could create a high noise level to distort an indented message. The working environment is physically noisy, and employees are too busy multitasking to effectively receive a new message. Miscommunications are common and could interrupt the operation

Communication does not only happen between departments, but also between customers and the organization. From many years working in the industry, returned guests are bread and butter, and the biggest source of revenue in many organizations. The customer relationship is an important factor that retains loyal customers for a predictable revenue. Guest communication is not solely a face-to-face conversation from hotel employees, but also communication processes prior, and after a guest’s stay, including appreciation email, customized offers, and promotional offers. In order to strengthen a relationship with guests, hospitality operation must learn their guests by gathering and mining data from many sources. The most effective way of guest profiling could be done during guest’s stay. Communication between employees and guests contain useful data for future marketing materials. However, the process of guest profiling requires extra effort from employees, and a good information technology (IT) system to record, save, and organize all guest’s information, and