1.0 Introduction
Premier Inn Hotel is currently the biggest brand in the U.K hospitality sector. The vastness of the hotel is based on its more than 800 hotels with an approximated 72,000 rooms across various regions (Whitbread Website, 2021). Operations of Premier Inn Hotel have been concentrated on airports, suburbs, and uptown areas for strategic customer service delivery. According to history, the hotel was started as a Travel Inn before upgrading to the current brand. Over time, the hotel has improved its structural designs meeting the latest architectural hotel demands of clients. The hotel has majored in setting sustainability goals especially in environment conservation. In return, clients have been able to easily rest within the hotels’ various outlets experiencing a positive impact. Improved service delivery has met both the client and staff needs making the brand the largest hotel in the U.K. hotel details reveal improved customer satisfaction and limited staff turnover.
Also, Premier Inn Hotel operates in accordance with the stipulated laws and social regulations. Daily challenges associated with both internal and external factors have influenced the hotel operations either positively or negatively. Analysing the Premier Inn Hotel organizational structure, business environment, SWOT and PESTLE factors during COVID-19 have negatively impacted the business.
2.0 Premier Inn Hotel Organizational Structure
A tall organisation structure is one of the major organizational structures in Premier Inn Hotel. The structure has brought along with several benefits enabling the brand to remain top in demand within the hotel industry. Managers have been given the mandate to run each site while being supported by departmental heads and employees. Use of technology has enabled the hotel to have both legal and general service data easily accessible to every staff member. Effective use of the intranet has enabled top management officials to be readily available in handling employee challenges (Breznik et al., 2021). Work-related advice or help could be easily provided immediately an employee contacts appropriate level personnel. Such a model has been shared across every business owned and operated by Whitbread, the mother company of Premier Inn Hotel (Whitbread Website, 2021). Every department has a professional head who is experienced and qualified. Therefore, responsibilities are distributed in accordance with specialization and experience. The results as seen in tall structure models entail improved performance and results.
Besides, low level efficiency amongst employees has been easily obtained by Premier Inn Hotel. Communication in the tall organizational structure allows employees to solve a challenge before forwarding it to the appropriate managerial personnel. However, such a communication protocol does not quickly handle complex issues. Top managers are presumed to having the best experience and knowledge. A long chain of command is evident slowing down challenge solving time. Every department and Premier Inn Hotel having some administrative representative indicates a large number of personnel. Increased cost is applied to ensure the tall structure has been effectively rolled out within various sites of the hotel brand. The general manager has a large number of people to oversight increasing the workload. On the other hand, employees may take a long period of time to directly get involved with their top management.
3.0 Premier Inn Hotel Business Environment Analysis
The business environment involves every internal or external factor that has either indirect or direct impact on a business’ daily operations. A regional variation due to population, culture and U.K government regulations creates a difference in the involved factors. A list of the involved factors includes; cultural believes, politics, organizational structural management styles, amongst others.
3.1 SWOT Analysis
SWOT analysis entails an organizational study aimed at identifying weaknesses and strengths, together with existing and expected opportunities and threats. Below is the Premiere Inn Hotel SWOT Analysis aimed at regulating the COVID-19 negative impact on the daily operations of the hotel brand.
3.1.1 Strengths
The Premier Inn has several strengths including large numbers of numerous sites enabling customer satisfaction. A variety of services easily accessed online would enable customers to meet their financial needs especially under the financial struggles brought about by COVID-19(George, 2021) . Environmental friendly services would attract more clients with expectations of healthy environments limiting COVID-19 transmissions.
3.1.2 Weaknesses
The hotel does not enjoy a global presence like other international hotel chains. During COVID-19, people are increasingly using hotels due to the variety of services available missed at homes. Also, the hotel is having increased competition hence limited a return since movements of people under COVID-19 is restricted (George, 2021). People are sometimes left with localized options compared to their preference for the Premier Inn Hotel sites.
3.1.3 Opportunities
Premier Inn has three major opportunities. First, the brand has a variety of strategic mergers across different regions in Europe and the globe especially German and Ireland. Another opportunity is digital marketing by making good use of the advanced technology in Europe and other parts of the globe. Lastly is the opportunity to commercialise positive customer experience out of quality provided customer care in various sites. Increased returns under the COVID-19 pandemic are expected if the opportunities are well utilized.
3.1.4 Threats
Increased competition is coming up every day from hotels and private accommodation businesses like Airbnb. Competing hotels include; Padstow Townhouse, Bovey Castle, The St. Mawes Hotel, among others. The Premier Inn Hotel is having increased customer complaints through data breaching which is likely to negatively taint the hotel brand.
3.2 PESTLE Analysis
PESTEL Analysis entails an effective framework applied by organizations aimed at assessing external environment factors that include; environmental, legal, technological, political, social, and economic factors according to (Matovic, 2020).
3.2.1 Political Factors
The hospitality industry in the U.K greatly relies on legislations passed by the law makers in parliament. Taxes, competition, and immigration laws have a direct influence on the daily operations of the Premier Inn Hotel (Tan & Despotis, 2021). The current legislation that has hit most the hotel industry involves COVID-19 pandemic travel advisories. Many tourists and local residents have been discouraged from using the hotel facility through limited movement covid-19 regulations. Low taxes have enabled Premier Inn Hotel to sustain the negative covid-19 impact.
3.2.2 Economic Factors
Economic difficulties, a strong British Sterling Pound, COVID-19 lockdown and restrictions have limited Premier Inn Hotel bookings (Jones & Comfort, 2021). However, some tourists in need for high end hotels have managed to book in the hotel due to relaxed travel advisories currently by the U.K government. Visitors are still discouraged to spend in luxury hotels like Premier Inn Hotel due to the strong pound.
3.2.3 Social Factors
Socio-economic challenges currently in the U.K entail preference of people on private accommodations over hotels. Premier Inn Hotel has lost a number of clients to Airbnb (Löw & Lüth, 2021). In response, the hotel has met some of the client needs by adding more services. Expected services include; gyms, and massage parlors that have attracted more young people into the hotel.
3.2.4 Technological Factors
Advanced technology like the use of 5G has enabled Premier Inn Hotel to increase booking and other online customer services. Guests are experiencing online interactions increasing the hotels’ preference. On the other hand, data privacy is getting breached through hacking regularly exposing client private information to wrong entities (Bharwani & Mathews, 2021). High end clients have increased worries of their safety due to unsecure online hotel operations.
3.2.5 Legal Factors
Variations in the legal environment have brought about continued legal challenges in the Premier Inn Hotel daily operations. The common legal issue entails data breaching fines through the hotel’s online services. Clients have continually complained using the General Data Protection Regulation Act that protects U.K residents and visitors from data breach (Tammburri, 2020). On the other hand, the hotel has attracted visitors through its observance of the Gas Safety Act, Health and Safety Acts hence quality service delivery to its customers.
3.2.6 Environment Factors
Smart technology use by the Premier Inn Hotel has reduced the U.K pressure on available resources. Amongst the applied environmentally friendly factors entail energy-saving lights solar energy, and water-efficient showers (Giousmpasoglou & Hua, 2020). Many visitors have been attracted to the hotel due to eco-friendly energy use. Currently, it is the hotel experiencing global warming effects from other sources and not its operations.
4.0 Conclusion
In summary, the Premier Inn hotel is the largest brand in the U.K with more than 800 hotels. Increased numbers of hotel rooms has earned the hotel brand adequate branding across the U.K and other European regions. Increased competition and failure to have many sites globally is making the brand receive limited profits during the COVID-19 pandemic. An available opportunity entails providing a variety of services on existing hotel sites. The major threat is customer dissatisfaction especially on data breaching. Under the PESTLE analysis model, The Premier Inn Hotel has received tax exemptions due to COVID-19 pandemic. However, U.K government regulations restricted tourists and locals from movement limiting the hotel operations. A strong British Pound limited the number of tourists using the hotel services. Private demands for accommodation have driven away many hotel clients. Additional services like gym and massage parlor have attracted young clients to the hotel. Data breaching has cost the hotel government fines. Improved technology has facilitated online hotel services. Use of environment friendly energy sources has made the hotel more attractive to customers.
References
Bharwani, S. and Mathews, D., 2021. Techno-business strategies for enhancing guest experience in luxury hotels: a managerial perspective. Worldwide Hospitality and Tourism Themes. https://doi.org/10.1108/WHATT-09-2020-0121
Breznik, K., Law, K. and Gorenak, M., 2021. Hotel Branding Exposed: a Content Analysis of Related Organisational Values. Organizacija, 54(3), pp.180-191. http://10.0.9.174/orga-2021-0012
George, R., 2021. Tourism and Hospitality Marketing Principles. In Marketing Tourism and Hospitality (pp. 3-31). Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. DOI https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-64111-5_1
Giousmpasoglou, C. and Hua, T.T., 2020. The Use of Self-Service Technologies in Budget Hotels: The Case of Bournemouth. European Journal of Tourism, Hospitality and Recreation, 10(3), pp.251-261. https://doi.org/10.2478/ejthr-2020-0022
Jones, P. and Comfort, D., 2021. Modern Slavery Statements and Leading UK Hotel Companies. Athens Journal of Tourism, 8(3), pp.147-162. https://doi.org/10.30958/ajt.8-3-1
Löw, F. and Lüth, H., 2021. Quality Signals on Airbnb: A Hedonic Regression Approach (No. 189/2021). https://www.hsu-hh.de/fgvwl/forschung
Matovic, I.M., 2020. PESTEL Analysis of External Environment as a Success Factor of Startup Business. ConScienS, p.96. https://econpapers.repec.org/RePEc:smo:conswp:015im
Tamburri, D.A., 2020. Design principles for the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR): A formal concept analysis and its evaluation. Information Systems, 91, p.101469. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.is.2019.101469
Tan, Y. and Despotis, D., 2021. Investigation of efficiency in the UK hotel industry: A network data envelopment analysis approach. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJCHM-07-2020-0641
Whitbread PLC, 2021. About US https://www.whitbread.co.uk/about-us/our-brands/
write