Impacts of Globalisation in the Hotel Industry

Recent years, people tend to go for vacation, trying to get themselves away from the hustle and bustle of life as well as escaping from reality. Usually, the vacation spots they travel around the world are far from their home. Most of them end up choosing hotels as they need a place to stay, sleep, and eat (UK Essays, 2016).

This is where the hospitality industry comes into play (Frink, 2009); therefore, hotels can be seen almost everywhere. Since more and more people travel around the world, globalisation has become a significant driver of the hotel industry. According to Erin O’Neill (2018), the term ‘globalisation’ refers to a trend towards a more integrated global economic system, it is a continuous process in a business that crosses into the economic, political, legal, technological, and cultural spheres.

In the 21st century, to keep up with the rising levels of globalisation in the hotel industry, there’s a need to know not only the positive but also the negative impacts of the globalisation of the changing environment in which they operate. This essay emphasizes both positive and negative impacts of globalisation in the hotel industry and explain how to rectify the negative impacts.

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First of all, let’s talk about the positive impacts of globalisation in the hotel industry. The very first positive impact will be exposure to different cultures. Erin O’Neill (2018) states that the travel prices has directly impacted by the globalisation of trade and the economy. Greater competition makes pricing more competitive and contributes to the low-cost carrier model in the aviation sector.

People can now fly around the world at reasonable prices as low-cost carrier models are providing cheap services to reduce costs. This has made it easier for travellers to experience new cultures and has made it increasingly essential for professionals in hospitality to understand and cater to different people.

Peoples from all over the world regarding different cultures are visiting other countries. The hotel staffs must understand the culture of different countries as they have more opportunities to provide the best service to these guests. Thus, they get to learn more about the different cultures of their guests, especially the managers, as they often mingle with people from all walks of life (“Impacts of Globalisation,” 2013).

This has enhanced their knowledge inadvertently. Another positive impact is a larger market. Due to globalisation, the customer base has increased exceedingly (“Impacts of Globalisation,” 2013). Nowadays, there are several reasons for people to travel; whether it is for business, holidays, health, et cetera. As a result, this has expanded the market for the hotel industry, with its main income originating from international tourists.

In addition, technology advancement is another positive impact due to globalisation. To appeal as many guests as possible, hotel organizations must keep up with advancing technology. They need to upgrade and make further improvement constantly in both their products and services, getting an edge in the competition. For instance, the Singapore Flyer is using the express and latest technology in the hotels, which satisfied their guests (“Impacts of Globalisation,” 2013).

Another example would be the hotel room keys that have undergone revolutionary changes due to technological advances, with the next phase of development has turned them into data for use on guests’ mobile phone. The next positive impact is about creativity. There are always new ideas coming up to constantly improve technology in order to satisfy the guests. Moreover, increase in job opportunity is another positive impact.

With the increasing number of tourists coming into our country, more hotels and people are needed in the hotel industry to serve and cater to their needs. Therefore, there are a lot more jobs available for people within the hotel industry with the advent of globalisation. An example would be the Book of Toyota. When opening in Japan, it made 2000 direct and indirect job opportunities (“Impacts of Globalisation,” 2013).

Thence, globalisation helps to create more job opportunities. Furthermore, globalisation boosts the economy of a country. By having guests to come in and spend money, it acts as a multiplier effect, and as a result, foreign exchange increases. It brings a huge economic growth by having globalisation to help pump in money into the country (“The Impacts of Globalisation”, n.d.).

Although globalisation brings many positive impacts in the hotel industry, it also brings negative impacts at the same time. Here, I will explain a few negative impacts of globalisation in the hotel industry. The very first negative impact is the language barrier. As globalisation in hotel industry continuously develops, people from different countries can be employed as the hotel staff. In fact, hiring people from other countries as the hotel employee can be cheaper compared to hiring the locals. However, sometimes they may face problems communicating with the guests due to the language barrier.

As a result, guests tend to get annoyed and irritated. So, globalisation can lead to a language barrier. Some may even end up with miscommunication as they meet people with different cultures and languages that they are not familiar with. This leads into the next negative impact which is cultural barriers. As there are always guests who have different cultures, we should always make sure that we do not offend them.

For example, we know a Muslim do not eat pork, so we must make sure that they are not served by food which contains pork. We should always remember: “What acceptable by one culture may be frowned upon by another” (“Impacts of Globalisation,” 2013). Also, seasonal employment act as another negative impact. In every peak season, there are lots of jobs available but whenever peak seasons end, jobs disappear as tourists go back.

This creates unemployment and poverty in places that are heavily dependent on tourism. Goa in India can be an example of this. The locals in Goa can only get their income during peak season, which is December to February and April to July. In other months, they have no business so people there have no jobs and income (“Impacts of Globalisation,” 2013).

Another negative impact would be the increase in the crime rate. As a country is getting more and more tourists, crimes issues such as pickpocketing, raping, hustling, smuggling happen (“Impacts of Globalisation,” 2013). On top of crime rates, visitors who come to our country and spread their bad habits like drug using or selling, promiscuous actions to the local youth can also be worrying.

On the other hand, globalisation can bring negative impact to developing countries. These countries tend to lose out tourists because they are unable to compete with the lack of technology. They cannot keep up with technology advancement (“Impacts of Globalisation,” 2013). For example, a land with beautiful natural attraction, Africa.

Even though Africa has lots of natural attractions, it does not have enough infrastructure and advanced technology yet to attract most of the tourists (“The Impacts of Globalisation”, n.d.). The conditions must be improved to increase the flow; otherwise, tourists can choose from a wide variety of oceans. Another negative impact is the events and disasters occurring in other countries. Our country may be affected when an event or disaster happened in other countries.

For instance, fewer people want to spend money due to the financial crisis; people tend not to travel to a certain country if there is an increase in terrorism (“Impacts of Globalisation,” 2013). Next, small hotels are being extinct. Many small hotels are not having the lavish and luxurious facilities. The owners are facing difficulties as big hotel groups are coming from India. Big hotels owners tend to give higher salary and opportunities to employees which will take away the employees in small hotels (“Impacts of Globalisation,” 2013).

Thus, small hotels are slowly being extinct. Last but not least, globalisation harms the ecosystem. We can see garbage everywhere, wildlife being harmed or killed, more and more green areas are removed. Consequently, people get sick; wild animals face the crisis of extinction and global warming happens.

As we can see, globalisation can bring a lot of negative impacts. So, what can we do to rectify these negative impacts? To solve problems caused by the language barrier, we should make sure all hotel staffs to be trained efficiently in language. As for the cultural barrier, a hotel should do deep research about the location first before starting their business. Research on religion, cuisines, and standard of living should be done to avoid offending guests (“Impacts of Globalisation,” 2013).

Besides, whenever any events or disaster happened in any country, the neighbouring countries should always try their best to help. For instance, India helps Japan by sending food packages when huge destruction took place because of earthquake and tsunami (“Impacts of Globalisation,” 2013). Moreover, as the world keeps changing, every industry should be modernized with advanced technology to avoid facing heavy loss.

Developing countries should try their best to attract foreign business while developed countries should help these countries in getting modern technology to make them successful (“The Impacts of Globalisation”, n.d.). Dealing with bad habits, every individual should put an end to them.

Furthermore, small hotels can try merging with a big or brand hotel group to increase their business and compete in the market (“The Impacts of Globalisation”, n.d.). In order to minimize the impacts to ecosystem, hotels can incorporate energy saving technologies, renewable energy supply, recycling, save water, purchase product in a bulk and so on (Lawson, 2017).

In conclusion, globalisation has become a key issue for hotel industry in this era as the level of globalisation is constantly increasing. Hotel industries need to have awareness to both the positive and negative impacts of globalisation to keep up with the rising levels of globalisation.

Meanwhile, they should try their best to rectify those negative impacts to maintain their guests’ loyalty and business. Hotel companies must learn various types of management methods to further develop and survive under the highly uncertain environmental conditions. We must note that only those who are able to plan and change for uncertainty at the same time ready to react to global issues with speed and resolution will be success in return.

They can predict, identify and solve problems in the context of their organizational goals and the complex society which has been globalized day by day. Normally, successful hoteliers can only get their hotel’s name well-known and admired by going through those hard times.

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