49NL Year 0 Creativity assignment

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The ‘Next Normal’ Plan (a.k.a. ‘no-normal’)

In your business assignment 1.0, you must take many strategic decisions. Well, in this creativity assignment, you are going to formulate a ‘Next Normal’ plan for the next 12 months.

The aftermath left by Corona caused many challenges across industries. One thing one cannot argue is the impact on the Hospitality industry and its lingering effect. From economics, science, food and drink, travel, business to wellness, customer’ behavior keeps evolving and so does market demand which is on the rise. This also includes the workforce. i.e., labor demands leading to shortages and higher staff turnover remains a concern.

On the upside, most hotels have successfully advanced towards being socially and environmentally conscious while sensitive to the ecological impact on their customers’ experiences. In fact, the main dominant trend is that being eco-friendly is no longer a niche.
So, how will your hotel then move forward?

Situation

The Emerald Forest offered a vast variety of hospitality services. But now that you are given the opportunity to develop and establish a brand-new hotel concept as part of the Emerald Forest Group and portfolio. This pose challenging business questions and sound managerial decisions. These are not necessarily limited to the following:

· How does this “Next Normal” affect your hospitality product? How will demand be different? How will supply – the products and services you offer, and those of your competitors?
· How are you going to make sure your staffing is OK – both in terms of quantity and quality?
· Is there any way you can turn your ideas and plans into a USP? Are these in line with current developments and trends in the market?

Goal

Define the Next Normal plan for your hotel, in line with your strategy and service level.

Task, deliverable

Check the internet, listen to the industry and other sources for best practices (how are other hotel operators moving forward with evolving changes?) Develop a plan that best suits your hotel and create an informational memo for all employees in the hotel.

• Present what your management team considers most relevant under this New Normal characteristics, and most inspiring best practices you are able to find.
• Based on this, present the three top ‘action items’ of your plan.
• Write a short (max 1 page) information memo to all employees. What does it mean for them? What do they need to know?

Assessed elements

• How well does the plan show the team’s own and original interpretation of the ‘Next Normal’, and how it is going to impact their hotel?
• Is the plan aligned with the new strategy for the property?
• Is the plan likely to be understood and get the buy-in of the employees?
• Are ethics and international cultural differences taken into consideration?

Handing in

Hand in your material by uploading it in the right folder in the Capstone Course in LMS

• Be careful to write your own material: plagiarism check
• Be in time!

Potential sources of information

• CBRE Hotels - https://www.cbrehotels.com/research-and-reports/
• HVS Global hospitality service - https://www.hvs.com/insights/
• Hotel News Now - https://www.costar.com/news/section/hospitality
• STR - https://str.com/data-insights
• eHotelier - https://insights.ehotelier.com/insights/2022/01/13/digital-transformation-strategies-for-hospitality/
• Financial Times / Wall Street Journal / Conde Nast Travel

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Emerald Forest Hotel offering an emerald hotel experience! | Run your own hotel in this management simulation.