Travel, Tourism and Hospitality Operations Management

Aims

To develop the student’s:

1. Theoretical grasp of the principles of operational management, and ability to apply these principles to professional practice in service sector organisations.

Programme Content and Learning Objectives

After completing the programme the student should be able to:

1. Apply the principles of managerial behaviour and effectiveness to a range of service sector scenarios and to analyse the correlation between managerial style, effectiveness and strategy within differing organisational contexts.
2. Apply the theories of team development and group dynamics to relevant aspects of manpower planning within the service sector (e.g. job design, organisation structure design)
3. Investigate the factors which influence organisational change and apply management techniques (such as ‘PEST’ analysis) in order to recognise the opportunities and threats presented by change situations. Critically analyse and apply change management and ‘organisation development’ models to differing service sector contexts.
4. Apply the principles involved in managerial decision making and effective problem solving by defining and analysing issues, developing solutions through a range of formal and informal techniques, addressing their outcomes and being able to select, implement and measure results from such decisions.
5. Appraise purchasing and resource control systems available in the service sector through understanding the role of the purchasing function and purchasing decisions, recommend and implement control procedures appropriate to the various material resources required by different types and sizes of organisation.
6. Determine appropriate management intervention and control techniques at key stages of the customer service encounter to include quality monitoring, feedback, follow-up and response methods. Design suitable personal sales strategies and techniques for use at key stages in the customer service cycle in differing service sector contexts.
7. Explore the role and outcomes of quality control through the various techniques and methods appropriate to the provision of service within the industry and understand the various quality systems that exist for the implementation of quality management e.g. TQM, ISO 9000 and IIP.
8. Understand and critically analyse the key principles of demand forecasting, pricing and inventory control as they relate to various sectors of the service industries. Apply specific yield management techniques (such as variance/displacement analysis and certain ‘market based’ pricing approaches) to relevant scenarios within the travel, tourism and hospitality sectors. To review and critically compare the principal features of various computerised yield management programs available to service sector operations.