Book Review from Dave Kennedy

IMPROVING PERFORMANCE, BOOSTING PROFITS
A guide to best practice in the tourism, hospitality and leisure industry.
J. Logie and M. Quest 2004
Published by the Best Practice Forum

This is the distilation of virtually every management training course I’ve ever been on, trying to convince mangers and directors that they should listen to their staff and involve them in the decision making process, no arguments there it is definitely a good idea, but it never seems to happen in practice.

It has some facts but mainly quotes from un-named sources (things like Hotel Receptionist, Devon) which worries me, with the notable exception of quotes from Claridge’s, London.It covers what it calls the nine steps to boost productivity, which areLeading from the front, Communicating internally, Communicating externally, Setting standards, Retraining staff, Adding value, Planning and controlling the business, Measuring and evaluating performance, and Networking – and entering into partnerships.

It does point people towards the Tourist Board for getting help and advice, and to various professional trade organisations, which you would have thought was obvious, but if they have put it in a book I guess it isn’t.The section on adding value, makes a case for standing out from the crowd, and creating unique selling points, that would then have the potential to increase customer spend, playing the eco card has been done to achieve this before with hotels and resorts, some I’ve been to have been excellent, however I feel you would need see the evidence of it being really eco-friendly, rather than it being a profit bandwagon.

Most of this is common sense, and it is short on real evidence based data, but it makes sense and would be useful to most industries not just hospitality etc.

David Kennedy