Country Club is a four star property In the Castellated hills, the hotel Is made up of 120 bedrooms, 3 large function rooms, 10 conference rooms, 2 restaurants and a Country Club. La Moon offers It’s customers the opportunity to book leisure breaks, weddings. Conferences, small or large functions, to dine or even to become a member of the Country Club. For the purpose of this study I will be looking at the revenue and reservations department and how the hotel manages relationships with customers booking bedrooms and also how they find new customers.
Below I have conducted a analysis to show the environment that La Moon Hotel currently operates within the hospitality industry and what affects their positioning against competitors. POLITICAL Political stably Is the key to success In most Industries but especially the hospitality Industry as hotels, Like La Moon have to cope with situations throughout the province and even worldwide at times. The political factors can affect the amount of visitors Northern Ireland receives from both tourists and the business traveler.
The current political situation in Northern Ireland can be very delicate and this has affected La Moon first hand, visitors are concerned for their safety when traveling. At present La Moon’s reservations department have been affected directly by the political instability in Northern Ireland and have found how difficult it is reassure potential customers that staying at La Moon does not present a risk to their safety. When looking deeper Into the situation It was decided that It may be best to ‘qualify out’ and loose the business because In this situation there Is not a lot that La Moon can control.
The economical factors affecting La Moon can be broken down into macro-economical ND micro-economical. One of the macro-economical factors that can affect La Moon are events organized for the nation, for example in 2014 the Girl Cyclical visited Northern which resulted in hotels throughout the province being occupied and most fully booked. Some other economical factors that might affect La Moon are potential changes In taxation, the economic growth predicted and even weather problems.
All these factors can change how customers choose to spend their money, especially during a time of economic down turn. And businesses have been greatly affected and La Moon was not immune from this. La Moon’s approach to reaching new customers and even at times current customers was purely price related and this was due to how customers and businesses were choosing to spend their money, and most were choosing not to spend. However Northern Ireland has benefited from national events and these have been a great boost to La Moon with bedrooms filling months in advance of the event.
A small factor that affects the hospitality industry is weather problems, although this does not have a positive outcome for all parties it can for hotels as customers may require extra accommodation that creates an opportunity for the customer relationship to develop. SOCIAL A lot of the social factors affecting La Moon include the evolving trends in the consumer lifestyle, the demographic variables and even the impact of role models in consumer decision-making. For example La Moon currently have a contract with the National Trust where groups stay with the hotel whilst visiting the Trust’s local properties.
For these customers particular La Moon must concentrate on ‘being green’ and preserving nature. La Moon are greatly affected by social factors when trying to find new customers and even maintaining their relationship with current customers, we have found that leisure guests often increase during festive seasons, ‘e Christmas, Easter etc and business guests decrease. The social factors must be taken into account and greatly considered as each consumer’s lifestyle varies and not all can be catered for at once.
This is an area where La Moon tends to fail, as they are keen to be everything to everybody, which is impossible. TECHNOLOGICAL In the past few years we have seen a lot of changes with the technical infrastructure of the hospitality industry, from catering equipment to booking systems. Such taters as the use of energy and reduction in cost have lead the way for innovation in the industry and are matters which La Moon must be aware of and continually revisiting. Furthermore it has never been easier to book a hotel room or find a better room rate.
The Internet and advances of the Internet have shown how simple it is for anyone to book a room and additionally the introduction of social media such as twitter, Backbone and trip advisor. La Moon struggle to keep up to date with the technological advances within the hospitality industry and therefore fail to benefit from the ease of communication this creates. There are now countless methods to contact new customers, to converse with current customers and to re-connect with lost customers which can be highly beneficial to any company but this can also affect the operational costs.
However if a company, La Moon, concentrates on the operational costs of the technological factors it ENVIRONMENTAL As a functioning hotel, and like most others, La Moon contributes a considerable amount of carbons emissions with harmful implications to the environment which consumers often dislike. However La Moon does face tight regulations that will inevitably increase the operational costs for the company. The environmental factors have not proved to affect La Moon, however we do strive to lower carbon emissions, to offer energy efficiency, to be environmentally friendly and to continually renew policies that make La Moon a ‘green’ company.
This is not always important to customers and may not affect the relationship between business and customers, however La Moon still consider their carbon footprint to be an important matter. LEGAL The legal factors that affect hotels such as La Moon include food safety ratings, consumer rights and laws and also a good standard of health and safety practice within the hotel. If one of these matters were to be comprised then the hotel can put their reputation at risk and this could have lasting results.
La Moon takes the above legal factors very seriously and have appointed a health and safety manager within the business to avoid the risk of their reputation being tarnished. La Moon are also keen to ensure that their kitchen facilities are faultless and ensure that the 5 star hygiene rating is not compromised. From the PESTLE analysis we can see that there can be many factors that can influence a consumers decision to stay with La Moon, for example if a report of food poisoning or some trouble in the city centre.
