CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1
BACKGROUND
TO THE STUDY
The hospitality industry is a broad category of
field within the service industry that includes lodging, restaurants, event
planning, theme parks, transportation, cruise line, and additional fields
within the tourism industry. The hospitality industry is a several billion
dollar industry that mostly depends on the availability of leisure time and
disposable income. A hospitality unit such as a restaurant, hotel, or even an
amusement park consists of multiple groups such as facility maintenance, direct
operations (servers, house keepers, porters, kitchen workers, bartenders etc),
management, marketing and human resources.
The Oxford Advance Learner Dictionary (1995) defined
Hospitality as the reception and entertainment of guests, visitors or strangers
with liberty and goodwill.
The Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
(1995) defined Hospitality as friendly behaviour towards visitors.
The
Hospitality industry can be broadly defined as the collection of business
providing accommodation and or food and beverages to people who are away from
home.
The hospitality industry is a service industry which
provides food, drink and accommodation to meet the needs of the domestic and
international leisure and tourism.
Hospitality industry is a major employer.
Hospitality industry includes service sector work like tourism and food
service. It suffers from more economic fluctuations compared to its peer
industries.
The hospitality industry is a major service sector
in the world economy. The industry encompasses an extensive variety of service
industries that include food service, tourism and hotels.
Hospitality industry can be empirically divided into
two parts: entertainment areas like clubs and bars, and accommodation.
Accommodation takes the form of public houses, resorts, inn, campgrounds,
hotels, hostels, serviced apartments, and motels. The clubs and bars category
include restaurants, fast foods and night clubs.
The hospitality industry also includes tourism
support commercial activities like airline cabin staff and travel agents.
Travel technology like applied information technology (IT) and its workers in
hospitality industry, travel and tourism are included in the hospitality
industry. Corporate entertainment is also a very thriving activity amongst
corporation.
A hotel is an establishment that renders lodging in
Lieu of payment. This lodging is usually given in exchange for a specified
predetermined amount of money. Modern hotel rooms come equipped with climate
control and attached bathrooms. Higher end hotels offer guests internet
connectivity within rooms and also throughout the premises. A combination of
meals and accommodation comes as a package in most hospitality establishments.
Hotels are usually managed by professionally qualified managers. Junior workers
usually maintain the hotel. Functions like cooking is usually done by
professionally trained chefs.
Hospitality industries are characterized by a large
number of employees. Both white collar employees and blue collar workers may
find gainful employment. Entry level jobs usually require no formal education.
Professionals in the hospitality sector are usually qualified with trade
certificates and college degrees. Many hospitality schools offer specialized
courses of study in one particular aspect of the industry.
The hospitality industry is rather unique among the
major industries of the country in that it is comprised of a great variety of
skilled and unskilled occupations, many common only to the industry and others
related to various outside trades and professions including chefs, managers,
plumbers, carpenters, porters, book keepers, secretaries, engineers, sales
people, printers, telephone operators, elevator operators, upholsters,
painters, bell hops, accountants, cashiers, assistant waiters, electricians,
foreign language interpreters, security people, public relations specialists
and scores of other occupation.
In recent years the term hospitality has become
increasingly popular as an all embracing nomenclature for a large grouping of
organizations including hotels. As a collective term, the hospitality industry
can be taken to include hotels, motels,
guest houses, bed and breakfast; farm houses, holiday parks, restaurants, fast
food outlets, cafes, departmental store catering; public houses, clubs;
industrial catering, institutional catering and the related area of tourism and
leisure.
1.2
STATEMENT
OF THE PROBLEM
Hospitality industry is associated with some
problems which are listed below
·
Cost of construction
·
Climatic change
·
Technology and
demographics
·
Travel permit
·
Wage levels
·
Recruiting and
retaining skilled labour
·
Lack of importance
given to training and satisfaction.
1.3
SIGNIFICANCE
OF THE STUDY
The economy of any nation is affected by the food
served in both homes and in the eating establishments of the country. It is the
primary responsibility of the hospitality industry to provide food for people
of all ages, in all walks of life, at all times of the day or night, and in
every situation. The caterer should not only identify the people’s hospitality
needs, but should also ensure that customers get necessary services required.
The hospitality industry plays a very significant
role in the following areas:
·
Provision
of food and drinks: One of the importances
of the hospitality industry is the provision of food and drinks. This is done
mostly in the hotels and restaurants.
Most hotels provide breakfasts,
lunches, teas, drinks and snacks and banquets.Hotels ranges from the palatial, first class luxury hotels to
small hotels owned and run as family business.
Restaurants will vary with the kind
of meals they serve. While some will serve all types of meals, others will
either serve lunch and dinner or lunch and tea. Banquet will also be part of
the restaurant operations. There are exclusive top class restaurants and small
roadside ‘bukar’ and cafeterias. Also, some restaurants are popular for some specialty
foods e.g. Mr. Biggs, French Café etc.
·
Job
Creation: Another importance attached to the
hospitality is in the areas of job opportunities. Many jobs are created in the
hospitality industry. This includes both skilled jobs as well as semi skilled
jobs.
As earlier mentioned, there are
different sectors that make up the hospitality industry. These various sectors
are hotels, restaurants, fast food shops, take away shops, welfare catering,
outdoor catering, school meal serve etc. These various outlets provide job as
opportunities in the areas of managers, administrative staff, security
personnel, maintenance staff etc. This has helped in the overall development of
the Nigerian economy.
·
Revenue
Generation: Revenue generation has been an
importance contribution to the Nigerian economy. The government generates huge
amount of revenue from the activities of the various sectors that make up the
hospitality industry. Revenue is generated in the form of company tax,
registration fees, monthly/quarterly subscription; Value Added Tax (VAT) among
others.
·
Increase
Tourism Participation
1.4 SCOPE AND LIMITATION
Hospitality industry is divided into two
types of catering establishment which include the following:
–
commercial catering
–
welfare catering
Commercial Catering: This
may be defined as the operation in which profitability is the primary concern.
Such outlets exist not only in private ownership but also in the publicly owned
sector of the economy.
This research work will be limited to
the commercial catering.
It could have been given a wider coverage but due to the time and financial constraint.
1.5 AIM AND OBJECTIVES
The objectives of the
study are to:
·
Assess the various
economic contributions that the hospitality industry makes to the wider
economy.
·
Provide scenario
analysis of the potential future contribution of the hospitality economy under
a range of different assumptions
·
Spell out the
importance of hospitality industry to government (incase of tax)
·
Analyse the importance
of hospitality industry to practitioners and travellers.
·
Enhance their awareness
of the growing importance of the tourism and hospitality industry to our
society, nation and the world.
1.6
DEFINITIONS
OF TERMS
White collar employees:
A person who performs professional, managerial, or administrative work.
Blue collar employees:
A worker whose job requires manual labour.
Tourism:
the commercial organization of holidays and services for tourists.
Leisure: Time
spent not working.
Restaurant:
A place where people pay to eat meals cooked on the premises.
Cafeteria:
A self service restaurant.
Motel:
A roadside hotel for motorists.
Hotel:
An establishment providing rooms and meals for travelers and tourists.
Guest house:
A private house offering accommodation to paying guest.
Take away:
A restaurant or shop selling cooked food to be eaten elsewhere.
Waiter/waitress:
A person whose job is to serve customers in a restaurant.
Cruise ships:
A voyage on a ship taken as a holiday.
Tavern:
An inn or pub
Pub:
A building licensed to serve alcoholic drinks.
Souvenir:
A thing kept as a reminder of a person, place, or event.
G D P:
Gross Domestic Product.