Importance of Culture in International Hospitality Industry:

Social Structure:

Effects of Culture on Hospitality Industry:

Education:

Language:

Economics:

Interests and Values: HR manager has to realize tha

Consumer Behavior:

Job Description:

Policies and Procedures: 

Inductions Process:

It is accordingly an objective of the invention to provide an event planning and management system and method that overcomes the disadvantages of traditional event planning methods by providing: hybrid management; integrated venue, food, entertainment, and transportation booking; dynamic contracting; and integrated payment.

1. Organizer Searches for Vendors; 2. Organizer compares and selects Vendors; 3. Organizer Selects one of the available Packages or creates/builds a package; 4. Organizer Provides information about event and makes a BOOKING REQUEST; 5. Vendor provides final quote and confirms availability, Or Vendors Re ask for additional information and repeats all of the above; 6. Organizer compares proposals received from other vendors contacted in same way; 7. Organizer confirms one of these and makes deposit to confirm booking Or ask for additional information and repeats all the above again. The option in step 3 of creating or building a package based on lists of specific items (such as dishes or menu items) offered by the vendor, rather than merely selecting between a limited number of available packages, offers a particularly attractive and powerful event planning tool that is unlike anything currently available.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a system according to a preferred embodiment of the invention. FIGS. 2-33 are screen shots illustrating the manner in which vendors are enabled to customize offerings to clients. FIGS. 34-47 are flowcharts summarizing vendor and customer side processes for implementing the invention. FIG. 48 is a screen shot of a menu creating page that enables a customer to create custom catering packages by selecting individual menu items.

To send a Booking Request for any service, a few details about the event and venue are required like

Among the search results, they can click on any of the links available to view the venue profile which has details like

Upon obtaining the search results, the customer can click on any of the links available to view the catering company profile, which has details like:

To send a Booking Request for any service a few details about the event and food preferences are required such as:

Upon receiving the search results, the customer can click on any of the links available to view the entertainer profile, which has details like:

To send a Booking Request for any service a few details about the event and venue are required such as:

To send an entertainer Booking Request, some additional details may be required such as:

After receiving the search results, the customer can click on any of the links available to view the Limo profile which has details like

As indicated above, to send a Booking Request for any service a few details about the event and venue are required such as:

In addition, to send a Limo Booking request, some additional details that may be required include:

Step One of Three

Step Two of Three

Step Two of Three

behavior refers to employees taking actions to address clients' needs; and expertise relates to the knowledge of employees about the service.

IT applications help hotels to deliver services faster (Chathoth, 2007). Tangible relates to the physical evidence of the service; which, in the case of IT, can be impacted by updated technologies

Fig. 4. Customer service through IT.

“Companies and organizations in virtually every industry employ customer-satisfaction measures for the straightforward reason that satisfied customers are essential for a successful business”

Fig. 5. Commercialization through IT.

A total of 30 interviews were carried out and all were tape-recorded with the permission of the respondents.

All the global paths (Fig. 1) were confirmed by the interviewees and no new ones were found, since all the mentioned options regarding the use of IT fitted adequately into the constructs.

What was found were other options inside one of the global paths (commercialization) and some new relationships between the constructs, as will be explained at the end of this section.

The front office managers and hotel directors agreed that the routine task automation that IT generated was an opportunity to focus on client interaction. Contact employees could dedicate more time to understanding clients' needs, to explaining hotel facilities and services, and to recognizing loyal clients.

As hotels commercialize their offers in a larger number of channels, greater flexibility is demanded from IT to allow for new options to be created.

Fig. 6. Detailed proposal about IT impact on organizational performance in hotels.

Hotel managers should not directly rely upon the type of IT (e.g., online check-in, smart TV, presence sensors); instead, they should analyze the extent to which a specific IT product or service (with all its configurations, and possibilities) is capable of improving the operational productivity, personnel productivity, customer service, and income generation paths.

If a hotel competes on price or emphasizes a cost control approach, the operational and employee productivity paths will be more important than customer service. Alternatively, hotels that try to stand out in terms of service quality will assign more importance to the customer service route and to some of the factors of the commercialization path (e.g., client satisfaction measures and client behavior knowledge).

This research presents some limitations.