22-06-2013, 04:54 PM
HOTEL MAINTENANCE MANAGEMENT
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ABSTRACT
Purpose
The purpose is to identify responsibility of owners and operators for maintenance of assets, fixtures and fittings, to identify maintenance management strategies adopted for the efficient operation of hotels and to find out difficulties faced by operators in implementing these strategies.
Methodology
Four interviews provided supplementary data for the main data collection phase involving administration of 64 questionnaires to hotel operators and maintenance managers.
Findings
The hotel owner and operator have individual and joint responsibility for asset maintenance. Outsourcing is a maintenance strategy used to minimise operating costs, an important factor that guides this decision is time constraint required to deliver work. In house maintenance it is also influenced by the strategic value of the service and the availability of the resource in the market. In maintenance practice an important challenge is maintaining energy efficiency because of the increasing electronic equipment and high volume of lights
Introduction
Generally, hotels are complex and costly when it comes to maintenance with various uses of spaces that have different schedules and uses for guest rooms‟ restaurants, health club, swimming pool, retail store and each has a functional engineering system required for its maintenance. Maintenance therefore has to be done throughout the year, requiring competent staff to undertake building services, operation and maintenance, supplemented by outsourced contractors. (Chan et al 2001; 2003). In the hospitality industry the maintenance of the engineering systems is important despite its complex processes as its effectiveness will directly affect the quality of hotel service, food, and beverage which have direct and significant effect on guests‟ impression of the hotel. (Chan et al 2001)
As such, the development of a suitable maintenance strategy is gaining publicity, greater reliance is placed on it to keep high system availability and achieve acceptable environmental conditions for the occupants (Chan et al 2001). Powell and Watson (2006) confirmed that most hotel rooms are accommodation led because most revenue comes from sales of these rooms. Of the three core consumer products in the hotel, accommodation, food and beverage, accommodation standard significantly affect the customer satisfaction and inclination to return.
Objectives
The realization of this aim of seeking maintenance management tools requires the pursuit of the following objectives:
To identify emerging trends in the field of maintenance management in four and five star hotels in Stockholm
To analyse change management procedures accompanying the acquisition and installation of fixtures.
To identify factors that determine the adoption of outsourcing and in-house maintenance strategies
To find out challenges faced by hotel operators whilst implementing strategies to attain efficiency.
To make recommendations for the way forward for hotel operators in general.
Summary/Conclusion
The objective of this study was to identify current maintenance trends and strategies in hotels and to find out factors that influence hotel operators in choosing them as well as difficulties faced by operators in the implementation of these strategies. It was also to identify changes in acquisition of fixtures and fittings because of emerging technological changes.
The result from this study has shown that it is the responsibility of owners to maintain the physical building structure, whilst operators handle fixtures and equipments however environmental responsibility are jointly maintained. In performing these responsibilities they both consider the interest and opinion of employees, customers and other associates very well. Furthermore this study revealed that cost of maintenance is often financed by owners and operators through yearly budget allocation.
Furthermore the results makes clear the underlying practice of outsourcing in hotel maintenance, which helps operators to better manage their hotels and be successful. The study also revealed that painting, electrical, plumbing, janitorial and engineering services are all partly or fully outsourced except air conditioning services which are usually only handled as an in house service because of the strategic value of this service to the hotel activity. Preventive maintenance was also identified as the main technique adopted to save cost and it is achieved by team work and through employee questionnaires, customer questionnaires, inspection and training.