The Economic Importance Of Hospitality Industry

The Economic Importance Of Hospitality Industry 
            The hospitality industry is growing very rapidly and contributing nearly 10 % of the world's GDP (Boella, 2000). In the last decades the hospitality industry has got much importance of vigorous process of expansion. Consequently the hospitality industry is expanding globally and promoting its growth in a changing multicultural environment. Hospitality is being built at regional, national and global levels. Internationally oriented hospitality industry with different companies competes also locally and regionally. A great number of indicators show the sign of economic growth predicted by the International Monetary Fund and this growth will be distributed unevenly in developing countries (6.4 %) and (2.2 %) in advanced nations. Hospitality industry constitutes many subsectors; hotels and restaurant is one of most source of economic growth.

Tourism and Hospitality
       The terms tourism and hospitality are co-related and grouped together as a single industry. However these both hospitality and tourism industries are viewed as two individual sectors. There exist overlapping between these two. Tourism is defined as the persons travel and goes for the places outside of their usual environment for less than one year to accomplish their business purpose and for leisure; they are not employed there on visiting places. Hospitality is the provision of the accommodations, venues, meals and drinks to those people who are out of their homes. People of UK enjoy these services and also other non-resident residents. Both of these industries cover the restaurants, accommodations, hotels and other exhibition activities. Tourism is not the subsector of the Hospitality merely a source of the tourist services. In this way we have made a clear difference between two overlapping industries (www.baha-uk.org). We carry on our subject further to complete the task of hospitality and its subsectors. Hospitality industry may include the following sectors.

• Licensed clubs
• Food shops
• Catering activities
• In-house catering
• Exhibition and fair organizer's activities
• Activities of conference organizers
• Other food services

These are the areas of the hospitality industry which provide the services in different ways. Hospitality is the focal point in those countries where tourism is the major export industry. Cross border flow of business people and capitals has flourished the hospitality industry. The hospitality is the main source of foreign currency exchange and largest employers to employ the workforce. Hospitality brings the different cultures together in global community. Countries suffering from trade balances look the hospitality and tourism to close the gap. Therefore the hospitality is a not concept but it is a driving force in the global market. Lifestyle and globalization of business is communicated in foreign languages and coping with different political and social systems. Hospitality companies require the globally think to survive and competing hospitality organizations work maturely in UK and U.S. The companies competing in all aspects of the hospitality industry will move across their national boundaries. The view that in future the global entities with advantages will compete due to globalization is in not acceptable.

Hotels are classified on the base of the season and services as we can distinguish between the Motel 6 and four season hotels. The Marriot Company is well established and covers the price and service levels and serves the extended stay and luxury vacation segment.

• Marriot hotels Resorts and Suits
• Courtyard by Marriot
• Spring Hill suits by Marriot
• Marriot Conference centers
• Marriot Vacation Club International
• Residence Inn by Marriot

Marriot operates and owns a luxury group of hotels as a segment of market.

The hotel chains grew after the Second World War and more greatly in the following two decades. The trend to rise beyond the national boundaries is due to pressure of growing hotel companies. These companies march to reach the critical point where the property is sufficient to satisfy the tourism and providing their needs. Hotel sub sector of hospitality may reach to a point where no other option for the customer is left. The hotel market which is set in America and their leadership may cast attention to potential for moving it into Asia/Pacific markets to compete the regional companies. These global Hospitality companies introduce the global brands and products to their customers. Large numbers of hotels have developed the single brands and products in a very uniform fashion in global market. It is also observed that tourists and travelers are in demand of unique local products from the hospitality industry. In response the global companies have tried in a way to reflect in a local design.

The hospitality sector (hotel and restaurant) are the essential components of this industry. Luxury hotels with other services like beds, breakfast, inns and also cover wide range of accommodation services. The International Hotel and Restaurant Association (IH&RA) has represented the hospitality industry at global level.

Hotel developments are important for the new opportunities of jobs and stimulate the local economies. Generally hotels provide the two types of the services: (i) accommodation and (ii) dining services. Customers of this industry include the foreign visitors, domestic households and institutional buyers. Competitive pricing, availability of services and extent free services are the main three factors which affect the lodging facilities and selection of hotels. In the past five years the visitors have been growing at the annual rate of 9%. Hotels are the main and popular source of accommodations for more than 50% of foreign visitors. Due to increased demand of accommodations the every segment of the hotel industry has been steady expanded. It is estimated that hospitality economy will be grown to 2.8 million jobs by 2015 in UK.

Hospitality and Hotels
We are interested to know about the business types of the business covered by the large resort hotels. Hotel provision comes into general context of hospitality with many dimensions providing the shelter and body comforts. Hotels and other establishment catered for those mobile people who go for their personal and work lives. It was recorded that total of nearly 700 million tourist have arrived at international level. This data shows the 241.5 million increases for the last ten years and annual growth rate approached at 4.9%. Most important region where tourist arrived was the Europe with 4.5% annual change in market growth less than the Middle East (10.7%), Eastern Asia and Africa with 6.6% growth and Western Asia (8.8%) (Brotherton, 2000). Availability of capital is very crucial and key drive for the hotel development and hotel companies. The main source for the hotel development comes from the personal support, loans, investing companies, stock and shares and governments.

Hospitality and Employment

        Hospitality is providing more than 10% employment in UK approximately to 2.5 million people. The hospitality business can be divided into two main categories. Firstly the hospitality business (clubs, bars, restaurants, hotels and contract catering), it accounted the two third of this industry. Secondly hospitality services like food outlets and hospitals and account one third of the industry. There are full time and part time employed persons in this sector of the hospitality. It is noted that employment depends upon the working conditions found in the industry as weekends, long hours and other flexibilities (Flynn et al, 2000).

• Catering
• Restaurant
• Accommodation
• Hotels
• Transport
• Visitor attractions
• Consumer
• Recreational facilities
• Government
• Intermediaries
• Miscellaneous Services

 Industrial sector of leisure and Hospitality

The above figure shows the major components of the leisure industry and consumers such as tourists or travelers are the focal point of this industry. Different size's organizations develop the international market with hundreds of leisure products. These organizations work locally as well as globally in public and commercial sectors. Large leisure product providing companies recognize their targeted customers and think about the things across national boundaries.

Global fast food chains are now common in Europe market for the global fast food chains. Due to development and openness of this growth in world has made rapid growth in their economies. The rapid growth of franchised fast foods at the McDonalds, Burger King and Pizza Hut have invited the youth of America and all around the world to see the culture.

Hospitality industry keeps the hotel business with different products, methods, and technology and less easy to analyze it. Hotel industry produces many products in varying sale markets of the world. It keeps close contacts with its customers who consume the products at the sale points.