The internship takes place at Mövenpick Hotel Lausanne, a four-star hotel located in Lausanne – the capital of canton Vaud in Switzerland. The hotel features 337 rooms and suites, 18 meeting rooms, 2 dining outlets, a bar, a fitness area and a sauna. The Mövenpick Hotel Lausanne is often used by business clients stays due to having well-standardized processes across all departments, which corporates find convenient. Moreover, with its prime location by Lake Geneva, Mövenpick Hotel Lausanne is also a popular choice amongst leisure-seeking tourists. The role during the internship is Front Office Trainee in the Front Office department, which mainly focuses on maintaining the customer lifecycle, starting from the moment customers enter the hotel until they check out. That included, but was not limited to, welcoming new guests and keeping positive marketing, which directly impacts revenues as a result of cross-selling other services, for example, the concierge services. Thus, to succeed as a Front Office Trainee, it is essential to cooperate with all teams. A focus is on maintaining appropriate communication with Housekeeping, ensuring that the guests are satisfied – the key to success during peak periods. Besides, I also took additional responsibilities during the Shift Leader’s absences. The internship takes place for five months, from March until the end of July.
Throughout the internship, I did notice several operational weaknesses of Mövenpick Hotel Lausanne. It first came as a surprise since the property is managed by a large company, Accor, or before with Mövenpick Hotels and Resorts. One of the first things I noticed was how the staff reacts to customers feedback, which they approach from a conservative aspect instead of taking it from a more relationship basis. Besides, they do not give enough effort to incorporate the feedback either. This was very surprising, especially when considering that most of the staff had a hospitality background. One of the reasons could be that the human resources department focuses solely on standardizing processes. This often leads to staff ignoring empathy for its customers and removing the human interaction from the lifecycle. For instance, out of all available rooms at Mövenpick Hotel Lausanne, half of them are in an old condition and are yet to be renovated to the state that the other half is at this stage. The renovation is in the backlog and scheduled to be complete by the end of the year. Unfortunately, customers complain about how old the rooms look but do not receive the feedback they should have. In return for the complaints, the customers receive a simple apology. The employees then fill out a standardized form, which is passed onto the management for information and does not act as a factor in decision making. The customer feedback is ineffective as the management takes no action. To minimise the risk of dissatisfied or frustrated customers, it would be advisable to notify the guests of their rooms before their stay. This would allow them to make an informed decision to either request a change, switch or upgrade to a better one. This would ensure a comfortable and up-to-need stay. Furthermore, the staff could communicate with their customers so that they would know that someone feels their pain and cares about them. The staff needs to understand that standardized processes are used for internal purposes only. Guests should never be exposed to this fact, but they know they are unique to Mövenpick Hotel Lausanne. They should never know that the team has made a mistake. It is essential to see through the escalations before they happen, leading to implementing tactical solutions in advance. As a result, the guests would become manageable. Communication between the hotel and the customers is the most crucial aspect of managing the customer relationship. Knowing the customers is the key to the success of any hotel.
Likewise, the training procedures can be improved. Training for interns and apprentices is often done on the job. This is an excellent idea as it allows them to adapt to real situations and absorb more information. Unfortunately, the people who train them are not experienced supervisors or managers, leading to a poor cadence. Moreover, a training booklet could help. However, the existing one does not have a good structure, which contains almost 100 pages, which could be synthesized into a few dozen. The internal processes tend to change unexpectedly and often based on the hotel’s operation, meaning that the booklet is out of date, which confuses the new staff during the times when they want to self-develop on a day to day basis. I was repeatedly put into those situations. For example, the process of following up on the no show reservations was not known to me until almost the end of the internship. It was not part of the original booklet, neither a part of any best guide checklist nor the staff who trained me ever adhered to that process during my training. Currently, the factor that saves the front office department’s operation is the hospitality education of the interns and the apprentices. It is because of their ability to adapt, cope with pressure, and go beyond their routine responsibilities to find innovative solutions to complex problems. The new and inexperienced staff is often able to think outside the box. This is because they do not see things in the same way as the experienced staff, who are often hamstrung by the convention method. The proposed solution to improve the strategy of the hotel’s operation is to cooperate with the human resources department to plan future recruitment that focuses on a long-term ratio between permanent staff and temporary contractors. In addition, it is essential to create proper training instead of using out-of-date processes.
To fulfil the requirements for the Bachelor of Business Administration in International Hospitality Management program, it is mandatory to complete successfully practical internships. Experiences such as this one at Mövenpick Hotel Lausanne exposed me to a very demanding environment which I enjoyed. It helped me understand why hospitality depends a lot on how experienced the staff is and why hospitality education plays a vital role in the industry. The pace becomes faster each day. The human resources show little promise to innovation or change due to their non-hospitality background. Despite being experienced in the industry, operating any business is never easy. It cannot be centrally managed as it requires cross-departmental interaction, communication and cooperation. I understood that the relationship between academic theory and practical, hands-on experience is necessary based on my internship. My time at Mövenpick Hotel Lausanne showed me in which direction I want my career to go and the goals and what I need to do to achieve them. I have received much good feedback, which will take time for me to incorporate so that in the future, I can instantly add value to my next experience.
31.07.2019
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